All right, we ready? How are y'all doing this morning? Doing good. Hey, I'm excited to see some of your responses to the most awe inspiring things that you've ever seen, but I wanna say good morning to all of you first, uh, also to all of our folks joining us from Grants Trail and online and Fenton, and of course Mid Rivers. I love you guys. So I'm, I'm Chris Nation. If we haven't met, uh, I'm usually up at our Mid Rivers campus, but I get to join you guys this morning and I have something that I think is pretty awe inspiring to introduce myself. So here's a picture of my family right here. So this is my wife, Katie. Yes. Right? You guys are with me. Okay. My boys, Blake and Jacob. They're 11 and seven, but Jacob would have, you know that he will be eight next week. He wanted me to make sure that I shared that with you. So, so what kind of responses do we have? I'm looking online right now, so I've got some real, a lot of folks are, are saying that the most awe inspiring thing for them is sunsets. So we've got a really romantic congregation. I love that. Um, how about this? October 10th, two, 2009 from Fenton, my wedding day. Come on. Well done. Points were scored. Uh, so let's see. Mountains in Switzerland. Grants Trail. Oh, oh my goodness. When little ones run into your arms. Well done. Well done everybody. Uh, how about this one? Uh, from Fenton, uh, wow. Watching all the baptizes walking into the water to get baptized. I think we have a photo of, uh, some of this, right? How about that, everybody? Two weeks ago, we got to watch 500 people declare that they're with Jesus. What a beautiful thing. A anybody. How about here? Mid Rivers, grand Canyon, and really, really blue water. I'm with you on the really blue water. Why not? Right? How about here? Anybody have anybody feeling bold this morning? Who's, who wants to share something? Awe inspiring with me. I see somebody way up here. What do you have, buddy? First funeral. What was it? First funeral. So, so being there with your family in a time like that, that's important to be there together with them, right? Anybody else? Got one? Yeah. Over here. Getting baptized with my daughter. Getting baptized with your daughter. That's right. Way to go. Way to go. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Well, I wanna share something that was pretty awe-inspiring. Uh, about 15 years ago now, my wife and I had the chance to go to San Francisco. Friends of ours were getting married, and we had a few days to Sightsee. You know how that goes, right? And we got to go to Mere Woods. Has anybody ever been to Mere Woods? You guys ever seen this place? So they have these giant redwood trees. We've got some pictures of 'em right here. Like, come on, join me right now. Right? This is a spiritual place to be. It's like one of those thin places where heaven meets earth. I'm telling you what many of these trees have been there 600 to 800 years. That's most of them. They're connected by this interconnected root system. And um, it's incredible because there's this river that runs through that nourishes and provides most of the water for these trees. It's called Redwood Creek. And it's interesting 'cause as I was reading more about it, I learned that most of the, the tallest, oldest trees that have been there the longest are the ones that are closest to the water. When I read that, it made me think about one of the most beautiful images in scripture that describes a life that's rooted in God and his life and in his love. It's what, it's what the Bible calls the blessed life or the blessed life, depending on how British we want to be right now. We read it in a couple different places in scripture that we're gonna see today, but one of them comes from Jeremiah chapter 17. I wanna read this now. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes for its leaves remain green. And it is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. That's the kind of life that I wanna live, a life that's trusting, a life that's rooted in such a way that I'm not, I'm not afraid, I'm not anxious, never ceasing to bear fruit, to, to express the love of God everywhere we go. That's the kind of life that we were all born for friends. That's what we were created for. And we're gonna talk about what that looks like today. But the question is, how do we experience it? And not only that, how do we make it last? How do we become like trees planted by water? I don't have three easy steps for you. I don't have a formula because let's be honest, life is way too complicated for that. But what we do have to look at today is an extraordinary teaching, a life shaping transformative teaching from Jesus himself. And my prayer is that it would transform us all today. So would you join me now in prayer? Father, this is all about you. We pray, God, that you would, uh, that you would sideline all the distractions, all the noise in life, everything else, God, that we would focus entirely on you. May you be the center of our lives, Lord, you are worthy of all of our affection, all of our adoration, all of our focus right now. And so, Jesus, we pray that you would draw us closer to you. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would just take over everything right now, and that we would, we would fix our eyes on you. Jesus, we love you. And it's in your name we pray, amen. If you have your Bibles, we're gonna be in the gospel of Mark chapter four, verse three. And if you don't, we're gonna have the words on the screen behind me. So now listen. Jesus says, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow, thus begins Jesus parable of the sower. A parable is a wisdom teaching. It's a, it's a short story with layers and layers of hidden amazing meaning to it. And Jesus parables are the very best ones because they're so packed with power. They're meant to engage your imagination and then have you apply it to your life. And it's practical wisdom that you're meant to gain from this parables are, are similar in some ways in my mind to Proverbs, another form of wisdom literature that we read in the Bible. And as I've been preparing for this message, I've been going through the book of Proverbs and trying to apply different sayings to my life. And in a similar way, just a simple short statement is meant to change your whole outlook on how you live your life. Like a lot of the proverbs are about how you use your tongue. And are you really taking time to think through what you're saying? Are your words filled with gentleness and grace or are they harsh? Are they rash? You see how that practically changes everything? Just one small statement. It's amazing because as we look at this parable, it's meant to completely change everything. You see, Proverbs chapter two says this about the search for that kind of wisdom that changes our life. It says, if you look for it as for silver, and you search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. So when you hear a parable like this one, or you hear a proverb, it's meant to change everything about your outlook. And you're meant to pay attention to understand exactly what's happening. Jesus has a whole crowd of people that have now come out to hear him teach. It's such a huge crowd, in fact, that he has to back up all the way and get inside of a boat. See, they're by the sea of Galilee, this lake, and he has to sit down so that all the people fill the shore in front of him. And it's from this place that Jesus now says, listen, You can imagine the sound waves bouncing off the water, echoing in their ears and in their hearts. You can imagine the silence, just like right now, as they're now wrapped around every word that Jesus says. And then Jesus offers one of the most ordinary everyday images for a first century audience. A sower went out to sow. He continues on, he says, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil. And immediately it sprang up since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched. And since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain growing up in increasing and yielding 30 fold and 60 fold and a hundred fold. And he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So justice Jesus began the parable by saying, listen. He concludes it by saying, did you, did you listen? Did you understand what I just told you? This is an incredibly important parable. It's, it's the very first parable that Jesus tells in the gospel of Mark. And it's one of only two that we're lending on more detail later, one of only two parables in all the gospels that Jesus explains in more detail. He goes on to interpret it, but later, not right away. The truth is, we don't know exactly what happened after Jesus told the parable that you just heard. We don't know if people scratched their heads. We don't have any record of anybody asking any follow-up or clarifying questions. We don't know if they left. What we do know is that a small group of people, way to go, guys, a small group of people, they hung around you asked, you wanted to know more about what was going on. And so this small group of people, it's a small crowd that included the disciples. They hung around. And Jesus said, do you understand? But at this point in the story, you might be wondering, well, what about everybody else? What about all those who presumably did turn away and go home and maybe left scratching their heads wondering what was that whole thing about thorns and rocks and everything else? I don't understand. The truth is we don't know the rest of all their individual stories. What we do know is that there were many who did yes, turn and walk away not understanding Jesus. Maybe they made assumptions about who he was. I mean, Jesus always, always lamented this. This broke Jesus' heart that people would turn away, even though he made it clear. He came to them saying, I've come that you might have life. See, everything that Jesus said, and everything that he did was for people to understand the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. He wasn't performing miracles or giving amazing teachings just to astound people for the sake of astounding them. Everything he said and did, including laying down his life for us and rising to new life, was to declare that he is the king. That he warrants all of our attention and our adoration. He is the Lord. But Jesus lamented this. He quotes Isaiah and he says that many people would come out and see him, but not really perceive him or understand him. Many people would hear his teaching, his teaching, but not understand it. And this breaks his heart. Every single time he's asking, will you lean in? Will you seek a seek after me? Like buried treasure? I think Jesus had Isaiah 43 19 in mind this whole time when he says, when, when God says, see, I am doing a new thing, now, it springs up. Do you not perceive it? So in Jesus, there's always this sincere invitation. He never turns anyone away. You notice that in this story. He doesn't turn anyone away, but he has all day for people's honest, humble questions. I love that Jesus is always honoring the fact that we all have questions in life. You guys have questions, right? You guys have it all figured out. No, but that's one of the things that I love about our church. See the kind of place that's always going to honor this humble quest for knowledge, for truth. See, we're never gonna turn away questions. Jesus didn't. So we're not going to either see every, every single one of us. We're trying to figure out all the different things. And many of us, if you're early on in this kind of, in this kind of spiritual journey, you might be asking big questions as to whether or not Jesus can be trusted. Keep leaning in right there. We are never gonna turn away. Your doubts, your questions, your fears, your hesitations. They're welcome here. You are welcome here. And one of the questions you might be asking right now is, okay, great, then what is this parable about? So Jesus goes on to explain it. Here we go first. Who is the sower? Well, it's interesting because Jesus makes it clear in another gospel that the sower is Jesus himself. The sower is God. And, and the sower could represent anybody who's spreading seed everywhere else, who is, uh, who is declaring the kingdom of God. But the important thing for us to see is that the sower represents the generosity of God. He is throwing this seed everywhere he goes. He's lining it up. He's throwing it everywhere. He's throwing it in every nook and cranny everywhere. Why? 'cause he wants to make sure no one turns away. He wants to absolutely make sure that everyone knows that they're invited. He wants to maximize the potential for growth, for response. And he doesn't want to take any chances. He has to make sure that you know that you're loved. So he surrounds you with this seed. Do you not perceive it? It's an extraordinary image. And a lot of people have tried to suggest that somehow this sower is being reckless or wasteful. I say far from it. He loves you too much. And so he surrounds you with all this seed. I love the way that Thomas Merton described this by, by saying this about the sower. He says, we must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation and seeks our good. His inscrutable love seeks our awakening. His love is inscrutable, which means it's like impossible for us to fathom or understand. And it's impossible for us to do that because it's so good, it's so generous, it's so lavish, it's so everywhere. Can you let that into your heart to believe that God is so good that he seeks your good in everything? See, that might be your hesitation this morning. I would encourage you to press in, because that's important to understand. It's essential to understand about the very nature of who God is. He loves you so much that he is all around you, and he's fretting that seed everywhere. So then what is the seed? Well, the seed is the word of God. Jesus says, the, this word of God is meant to, to sink down deep into your soul, the soil, and then produce fruit. But the problem is, that didn't happen everywhere. We read about four different places that this seed fell along the path. So let's get into the breakdown of these four different, these four different places. Um, it's interesting by the way, because rabbis in that time talked about, uh, having four different types of students or disciples. So they were the sponge. We know that guy, right? They, we have the, uh, the funnel. That's this guy, or they had the strainer or the sifter. Those are the four different types of students. I don't know which one you were in school. Uh, but I know that the really, really attentive ones among you, the sponges. You remember that the three different places, that the feet, that the, that the, uh, were culprits of taking up the seed were birds, rocks, and thorns. Those were the third three things, right? So we've got an image that shows the birds, rocks and thorns. Now, Jesus is gonna get into what each of these represent. So first, what's going on with these weird birds? Anybody wondering that? What's going on with these pesky things? Right? Uh, it's interesting because this was actually an image that was used for Satan in that time to try to understand how is it that certain seed doesn't grow? How come the crops don't grow? And so they understood Satan as this like unclean bird or crow. It's always a crow that comes in, scoops in and takes the seed off the ground so that it won't find deep soil. Jesus says, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. So Jesus takes this, this image of, of Satan like a bird, and he brilliantly adapts it to this parable about spiritual depth and spiritual growth. But you notice that Satan comes immediately. I want you to notice that word immediately. It comes up a lot in this parable. The question is, how does Satan do this? He does it quickly, deftly immediately. He does it so quickly that it's almost imperceptible, that he steals away our joy. He gets you over here and he says, just do whatever you want. No one will ever know he's been telling these lies since the very beginning. Because he cannot let you become what you are always destined to become. So just keep following this path of me, of self-satisfaction of all these different other kinds of lies. No one will ever know. Does he really think about you? Does he really know the hairs on your head? Does he really love you? I mean, really? What if he's holding out on you this whole time? And this is why, friends, we are called. We are demanded. We must capture every thought and hold it up and make it obedient to Christ that we must now stop him in his tracks and lift it up. Slow down. Don't let the immediacy of the enemy rob you of your joy. Hold it up to the light and consider what is true that you are so loved that he laid down his life for you. That you are filled with dignity and worth because he created you. He knows you by name. He has redeemed you. He has restored you. He does know every hair on your head, and he loves you so much. Did you know that God rejoices over you with singing? If you allow that into the depths of your soul, if you allow that to take root into your soil, it changes everything. Satan wants you to live life on autopilot, kind of in this mind numbing state where you don't really ever think about things. You just kind of go through the motions, and you're kind of unconscious desires. They follow everything. But God wants you to be a tree planted by water, nourished by the stream, continually fed by it, a life that is fully alive. That's what he wants for you. So no wonder Satan has to come immediately and take away the seed. So much so that you don't even believe it was there in the first place. But God wants you to know this. The love of God is a reality. It is the reality. It's not a theory, it's not a concept. It's not just some abstract idea. The love of God is like seed that's meant to find deep root in your soul and help you flourish. That's the reality. And the best thing that we can do to interrupt the lies of the enemy is slow down. I dunno about you. But I notice that when I have conversations with people about God, maybe if you're wrestling with the very concept of God, the best thing we can do is slow down. There doesn't have to be pressure coercion anything else. I mean, they lead the dance. You just have the conversation and you look at them with such love and kindness and joy because you know that there is seed all around us. And if we slow down, that goes for me too. Well, then I have a better chance of being aware of it. That's the reality of life. And so I hope that we'll have more and more conversations like that based on the reality of God. Not a concept. The French philosopher Simone Vey once wrote, the danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, meaning God, but lest by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry in this parable. There is no doubt that God has spread his seed everywhere. The question is, has it taken root? So now we see that Satan is this pesky bird that's trying to steal away our joy. He is the first culprit. And now we move on to the second one, rocky ground. Jesus says, these are folks who hear the word of God immediately. They receive it with joy. There's that word again. But since they don't have deep roots, they don't last long, they fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God's word. The problem is the soil isn't deep enough. In Luke's account. Jesus adds that there wasn't enough moisture there. So they weren't like trees planted by water. What's the point? There are no shortcuts to the deep life. You cannot microwave spiritual growth. The first time I thought about that, I was like, ah, that's kind of a bummer, right? You want these things to happen more quickly, don't we? I mean, we're human. We want that. But over time, as you learn the character of God, the goodness of God, you love the fact that you take your time and you're immersed in his goodness. You know why? 'cause God is creating a cathedral out of your life, not some shed. He wants great, amazing things for you and things that last. That's what you were built for. That's what you were made for. This, this, uh, idea of of wanting instant gratification and immediate results, though it made me think about a video that I saw several years ago, uh, that went viral. It's an, it's an interview with the author and thinker, Simon Sinek. So I want you guys to watch this and then we'll come back. Now you add in the sense of impatience, right? They've grown up in a world of instant gratification. You wanna buy something, you go on Amazon, it arrives the next day. You wanna watch a movie, log on and watch a movie. You don't check movie times. You wanna watch a TV show binge. You don't even have to wait week to week to week, right? I know people who skip seasons just so they can binge at the end of the season, right? Instant gratification. You wanna go on a date? You don't even have to learn how to be like, Hey, you don't even have to learn and practice that skill. You don't have to be the uncomfortable. And what says says yes when you mean no and says no, when you mean no. But yes, when you, you don't have to swipe right. Bang, I'm a stud, right? You don't even have to learn the social coping mechanisms, right? Everything you want, you can have instantaneously everything you want instant gratification, except job satisfaction and strength of relationships. There ain't no app for that. They are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy processes. Hmm. Now, to be clear, this desire for instant gratification affects every single generation. This is an ancient reality. Um, what I, I take sinek to be saying here is that delayed gratification is always associated with deep gratification. Um, and I think you can apply this advice that he's giving about job satisfaction and relationships to our spiritual lives. Um, he's just describing something ancient. He's describing rocky ground. He goes on later in that interview, if you watch it to, to lament that if we continue on this path of expecting instant results without deep lasting roots will become a people that never experience true joy, true lasting, abiding joy. And I think this is a concern that Jesus shares all the time. In fact, he says in John 10, 10, I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. This is what we were made for to have that kind of overflowing life. But we won't have it if we insist on instant gratification. And we bypass having deep roots. If I can be honest with you, as a, as a pastor who walks with people through really difficult seasons, one of my biggest concerns, and one of, and at the same time, one of my biggest hopes for people is that you would establish deep roots. Because 'cause tragedy strikes, hard things happen. Grief and loss hit us all. And the question is, in those times, will we be rooted in the one who is proven, his character and his goodness? Time and time again? It takes time to learn the ways of God, to experience his spirit, to be reassured by him when you need him the most, when life doesn't make any sense, what will we clinging to? So my prayer is that he would become like an anchor for us. So now we've looked at birds and we've looked at rocks. And now Jesus tells us about the problem with thorns. He says they are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things, enter in and choke the word. And it proves unfruitful. The word cares. Here is the Greek word mna. And it comes from a root that means distracted or divided. I'm not gonna get a show of hands here for who all is good at multitasking. Who's good at multitasking? You guys all look, look up right from your phones, right? How good are you at singletasking at being where your feet are at, talking with the precious, beloved person that you're talking with? I have one of these, this darn thing. And there are way too many times in my life where my beautiful wife will say something to me, and I'll have to physically set this down and ask her, sweetheart, what did you say? And every single time that happens, I hate it. She should never have to do that internally. I just heard the biggest amen in the room for at least half of you. We don't wanna live that life on autopilot, distracted, divided. We want to be fully attentive, fully alive. Remember, that's the life that God has for us. A life that's fully conscious, fully aware, not distracted or taken away. This is the problem with thorns. Now, am I gonna say that we all just need to take our phones and like punt them into the ocean or something? Yes. No, I'm not. I'm not. But we need to learn that these things can become IDs. We need to use technology to limit technology. So you can set limits on your phone for how many minutes you might do something. We need to watch our screen time. We all know that. We've heard that before. But it's so important because of how it relates to these thorns, these things that distract us and divide us. Jesus goes on to talk about the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things. And the point here isn't for Jesus to say money is evil, but he's saying that the obsession with it, that leads to a life of greed. The attachment to it that is. And so we heard last week about the rich young ruler who is presented with the option to follow Jesus, to become his disciple or, or to continue to preserve his great wealth. And that's what he chose. Nothing can deliver what our souls need except God himself. This is the life. This is the deep life that you were intended for. And I want us to be a people of depth, of people, of deep soil rooted in the love and life of God. And I've got amazing news for you guys. 'cause I've got two people I'm gonna bring up right now who embody that in a beautiful way. So Ian Pryor and Miguel Brown, would you guys come on up here? I'm gonna move this so we can get this back over here. Now, uh, Miguel Brown is one of our pastoral residents. He's a good friend of mine. You guys sit Yeah. Here and here. And, uh, he often hangs out at our Grants Trail campus with students there. He's an amazing guy. We've gotten to know each other, talking about scripture quite a bit. Yeah. Uh, over the last several months. So, uh, Ian Pryor, uh, is my cousin by the way. He helps the height factor in our family, uh, which I'm grateful for. Um, but Ian is on staff with our worship team. Yeah. And he's an amazing guy. And what I wanted to do right now is ask these two guys, um, to read the parable of the sower. So that's what I did. And then I just wanted you guys to tell me what did you see and how do you apply it to your life today? So Ian, let's, let's start with you. What, what did you see and what would you share with everybody? Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I love the points you made about phone usage, uh, what we've been talking about a little bit. And the point I wanna make is that social media and phones are not the enemy. That's not what we're saying, right? We're not here. It's not another service where we're just gonna rebuke social media as if it's like Satan himself. Uh, that's not what we're here to do. If you feel led to delete social media, put the phone down for a little bit. I personally think that's great, but I'm on social media. Yeah. I'm on TikTok. I'm on Instagram. There's healthy ways to engage with it. And I've actually seen fruit from it. You know, people sharing their stories, sharing the message of Jesus. Uh, we just have to be intentional about what we consume, how much time we spend there. But Chris, whenever I read the Parable of the sower, my heart immediately grabbed onto the rocky soil. Um, because I think it's so prevalent. I think culture has created something that I like to call aesthetic Christianity. Uh, simply put is just when we as a culture are more concerned with the outward appearance of Christianity than actual deeply rooted communion with God. Um, and we see it, I've been guilty of it at times. I think that people receive the word with joy, right? They seemingly progress at an accelerated pace. Uh, and it looks externally amazing. You know, the, the Bible studies with lattes, the, uh, the Jesus loves you shirts, the Christian tattoos, which are not inherently bad things, but it becomes a problem when we lack deep roots. Um, truthfully, you cannot rush spiritual maturity. Uh, we are losing out on the genuine revelation of who Jesus is. Uh, we're not realizing our own brokenness and our own need for a savior, but we're just trying to subscribe to culture. You can't rush spiritual maturity. You can't rush formation, and you can't rush intimacy with God. I have been there. I've tried, uh, and I've learned that it's about daily surrender. Yeah. Daily time in Jesus's presence. And I think that's where we sometimes get it wrong. Y'all hear that? Wow. You can't rush intimacy with God. You can't rush spiritual growth. These things in a lot of ways are, are found when we seek after him, like buried treasure, right? When we root ourselves deeply in him, that slow, beautiful process of his word getting inside of us. And one of the ways we do that is through the study of scripture, through this devotion to scripture. And you talked about formation and different, sometimes people will talk about spiritual disciplines, right? The different ways in which we practice this. One of the things that I love most about this guy right here is, boy, do you love scripture? Yeah. And we've talked about not just studying scripture, but the practice of memorizing scripture, which I don't know how many of you guys have ever done that before. But something that Miguel that came out, and he wouldn't have told me this if I didn't draw it out of him. Uh, but I learned that, that this is a devotional practice for you memorizing scripture and specifically memorizing the Psalms. So, uh, this isn't about, look at Miguel, by the way. This is honestly, I'm sharing this with you because it inspired me and I think it would inspire a lot of us. But you've memorized 34 Psalms at this point. Yeah. And, um, we're gonna hear a little bit of that in a second. Um, but can you tell us, like, how did that begin? How did you begin on this process of memorizing scripture? Yeah, I had an Old Testament professor who, um, he just laid out a few different, like practices, spiritual practices that we, um, that the church sometimes has always really always been doing. And he, uh, just kinda asked us, how are you growing deeper roots? And um, I was like, oh, okay, I'll, I'll try memorizing a little bit of the psalms. I've never really done that. Yeah. And as I started, I just gave the feedback of this has been good for me. Like this is, um, it's not just about knowing the verses I, I was like, it, it kind of got into my head and now, but like I've watched it kind of trickle down into my heart. And, um, what, what I loved about the psalm specifically was the story doesn't end whenever the ink runs out on the page. It's really about, now I know the psalm, so I can, I can pray, I can, there's been times I can cry. And it changes your prayer life entirely. It does. And you, you told me a story about one of your classmates heard that you, you started, you decided on your own that you just wanted to start on this path. And he heard about it. What happened with, with him? He just told me, I have a bad memory. I didn't think this would be something I'd wanna do, but I heard it was helpful. So it just, I thought I'd try it out. And I just started memorizing Psalm 27 and every day I would just recite it. And it, it's kind of changed my life. Like to the point where my wife walked up to me and said like, I've noticed you're more gentle. I What's that? What, what's different? I changed, God has changed, uh, his marriage, honestly. And it's like, do you, do you trust the spirit to use a few simple words to change? Love that just your whole marriage. I love that we could have small group right here, couldn't we? Uh, you guys want, these guys are gonna be hanging out after service down front. So we'll keep chatting about this. I wish we had more time, honestly, but before we kind of wrap up, what I thought would be a really important thing for us to do is, Miguel, I'm gonna ask you to recite Psalm one. And just as we heard Jesus kind of call everybody's attention to it, listen now to the word of God. Bus is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seats of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted by streams of water and yields its fruit in season. And its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sins in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Hmm, convicting. Thank you buddy. Thank you guys so much. All right. These guys will be down front after service. Okay? So come hang out. All right, thank you guys so much. So we've heard about birds, we've heard about rocks, we've heard about thorns. What's interesting to me is that most interpreters when they look at this parable and they examine it, they're trying to figure out what are the different groups of people that Jesus is describing. Those who are, uh, succumbed to the birds, rocks and thorns. But there's another interpretation that really resonates with my heart. And it was shared with me, uh, through a friend of mine named Bob. Now Bob attends our Mid Rivers campus. He's a good friend of mine. And we were hanging out in the lobby and we were talking about the parable of the sower. And I asked him, Bob, what do you make about the parable of the sower? And in typical Bob fashion, he sent me an email the next day that was two pages long. And this is what, this is what he said. I think I am all the different types of soil he writes. He points out that the sower graciously throws the seed everywhere. It's ow all the grace and love of God. It's not, it's not wasted, not one bit of it. The point is that Jesus wants us to have deep, rich soil so that we might have a deep, rich life. But I love that Bob says, on any given day, at any given moment, I am all the different types of soil. Isn't that the reality of life? You catch me at a different time. Am I really paying attention? Am I living with awareness and gratitude in my life? That God's love is all around me? That the seeds are everywhere? That's what I think Bob is having us see, listen, Jesus says, so he is warned us all the threats to this life that he has in store for us. But here is what you were made for, to be the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30 fold and 60 fold and a hundred fold. Your job is just to be soil. But when God's word takes root deeply in your life, when you surrender everything to Jesus, you allow him to be in control. He's the Lord. He's the one that tells you what to do. When the Holy Spirit takes over your life, fruit begins to grow that you can't even imagine. You can't calculate it. You couldn't even describe it. You know why? 'cause he's the one who's producing it. It's not your effort. It's not your different programs for anything else. It's God himself taking root in your life. It's all the grace of God. It's why Jesus says in John 15, five, I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them will bear much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing. So as we leave here today, my prayer is that we would be like trees planted by water. That the word of God would find deep soil in our hearts and souls, that neither birds nor rocks nor thorns would steal the joy that we were made for. And so finally, with this in mind, I'd love to ask you to stand, and if you would open up your hands in a posture of receiving, I would love to pray a prayer for you, an ancient prayer from Paul's letter to the Ephesians over you. And so now listen, For this reason, I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. And I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the lord's holy people to grasp how wide and how long and how high, and how deep is the love of Christ. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. And so now to him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power, which is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.