The Parable of Spiritual Growth (With Greg Laurie)

hey everybody thanks for watching our youtube channel we're constantly updating it with new content and never seen before content so if you want to get the latest from harvest hit the subscribe button [Music] [Music] [Music] well we're in matthew 13 today and the title of my message is the parable of spiritual growth you know as we enter a new year many of us have probably made some resolutions how many of you have made some new year's resolutions raise up your hand it's okay i won't mock you or anything like that's good good time to do it how many of you have already broken some of your new year's resolutions yeah that's that's usually the way it works out did you know that uh 30 of all resolutions are broken within the first week and what are some of the top resolutions i think you could guess uh people resolve to lose weight to exercise more to spend more time with their family to get out of debt but it's so easy to break these resolutions so i've come up with what i believe are some realistic resolutions for 2011. resolution number one i resolve to gain weight in the coming year no all the gluttons that's good yeah sorry i didn't mean to call you gluttons but um resolution number two i resolve to exercise less in the coming year and lastly i'm going to stop using the word password as my password so those are my modest resolutions i don't know what yours are but instead of making resolutions that are quickly broken maybe we ought to think about a re-commitment in the coming year and i can't think of a better thing to recommit yourself to do or for some a first-time commitment that would be to be closer to god in 2011 to grow stronger spiritually in this coming year i heard the story of a father who was talking with his daughter and her five-year-old friend kristen about birthdays well as it turns out christian's birthday was march 30th and the father's was march 27 and he said you know what kristen our birthdays are only three days apart she looked at him for a moment and said yeah but you grew much faster than i did why is it that some people seem to grow faster than others why do you see more spiritual growth in the lives of some followers of jesus and less in others well i think that question can be answered in the parable that is before us it's best known as the parable of the sower but i have chosen to call it the parable of spiritual growth because that is the theme of it and here's what we need to understand about what we're about to read if we do the things that jesus is going to identify for us we will grow spiritually or if we do not do these things that jesus will point out to us we will not grow spiritually so really the choice is up to us here's the bottom line everyone is either progressing or regressing spiritually you're either growing or you're drawing back you're gaining or you're losing ground as it has been said the christian life is like a grease pole you're either climbing or slipping what describes you and guess who it is up to as to whether or not i will grow spiritually it's really up to me say oh no greg it's up to god well that's true too we know that god wants us to grow in our faith we know that god wants us to deepen in our knowledge but he has also given us a free will so it is when i get my alignment with the will of god and start walking accordingly that spiritual growth is going to start taking place because listen if you don't want to you're not going to you'll have 101 reasons why you can't do it but really you'll find they're just excuses what is an excuse an excuse is a fancy lie or as one person defined it an excuse is a skin of a reason stuffed with a lie so you can say well the reason i didn't read my bible today was because of this and the reason we didn't go to church of this last any was because of that and the reason we don't pray is because of this other thing those are your excuses there are no reasons if you want to do it you'll do it you'll make time for what is important and really what is the bottom line that god is looking for in our lives he wants to see spiritual fruit in fact let's just read one verse from the parable that we'll read all of in a moment of matthew 13 23 jesus said he that receives seed on the good ground this is the final of four categories that we will look at in a moment the one on the good ground is the one that hears the word and understands it and indeed bears fruit and produces some 100 fold some 60 some 30. that's what's what it's all about being a fruitful christian a growing believer in fact that is why god put you here on this earth jesus said in john 15 you did not choose me but i chose and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain he also said herein is my father glorified that you bring forth much fruit paul also says in colossians 1 10 my prayer is that you'll live a life worthy of the lord and please him in every way bearing fruit in every good work so how are you doing in that regard are you bearing fruit are you growing spiritually let me put it another way are you satisfied with your spiritual life right now let me answer that for myself i am not satisfied with my spiritual life i feel there's a lot of growing i still need to do i feel there's a lot of things i still need to learn i feel there's a lot of changes that still need to happen in my life and some of you are thinking amen greg you do need that it's true i do and guess what so do you listen the enemy to growth is contentment let me explain that there is a place for being content as a christian but never content with where you're at spiritually you should always be wanting more wanting to learn more wanting to grow more don't settle with what you have thankful for that yes but moving forward to what is still ahead you know this is where people have a breakdown when it comes to a resolution maybe to lose weight or to get in better shape is they just give up ah you know i i can never do it i'm just gonna just accept who i am and where i'm at and i'm never going to be in better shape and i'm i'm never going to lose weight and i'll just accept things the way that they are well no that's not good enough you need to commit yourself to get through that and and meet that goal that you set those are good goals you know we should want to be in good shape physically because this body god is given to us is the temple of the spirit and we want to take good care of it so we can live long productive lives for the glory of god and so you know you keep raising that bar so to speak and the apostle paul after years of walking with the lord said look it's not as though i've already attained or i've reached perfection i'm pressing on i'm going to keep moving forward in other words paul was saying loose paraphrase i'm not satisfied with where i'm at i want to keep growing and progressing spiritually so we'll find out how to do that in the text before us and we're also going to answer the following questions and this and the next message question number one why is it that some people never respond to the gospel you know you tell them about jesus and it's like water off a duck's back it's like their hearts are encased in teflon it just doesn't connect and you don't understand it and they might be hostile and argumentative and say to you don't talk to me about your faith then again they might be sweet and pleasant about it but the end effect is still the same they don't want to hear about jesus christ why is that secondly why is it that someone could be radically converted or seemingly so and so into their new faith and then without warning just give up we've seen people like this it seems like they have had the most amazing conversion ever and then all of a sudden they just bail and walk away from it how could that happen were they converted if so do they lose their salvation is that even possible what's that all about then we'll also discover the secret of going forward spiritually having lasting fruit in our lives in a parable before us and by the way what is a parable a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning again it's an earthly story with a heavenly meaning it's an illustration jesus spoke often in parables guess what jesus never bored people i can't think of anything worse than listening to boring preaching you know some people the way they speak it's like watching paint dry it's just almost like torture and jesus engaged his audience and he spoke in the language they could understand and he illustrated it with things they were familiar with as he did with this story this was done outdoors as we'll read in a moment and no doubt in the distance there was a farmer out there sowing seed and he probably pointed to him and said uh a sower went out to sow seed and they would watch this man doing it as he told them this story that is filled with so much truth so let's read it now matthew 13 starting in verse 1. on the same day jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea and great multitudes were gathered together to him so he got into a boat and sat and the whole multitude stood on the shore then he spoke many things to them in parable saying behold a sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seed fell by the wayside and the birds came and devoured them some seed fell in stony places where they did not have much earth and they immediately sprang up but because they had no depth of earth that when the sun came out they were scorched they had no root and they withered away some fell among thorns and the thorns sprang up and choked them but others fell in good ground and yielded a crop some a hundred fold some sixty some thirty he that has ears to hear let him hear well okay that's a great parable but what does it mean well jesus explains it clearly now and he gives us insights not only into this parable but really to all the parables you need to understand the parable of the sower before you can understand the rest drop down to verse 18. therefore hear the parable of the sower when anyone anyone hears the word of the kingdom it does not understand it the wicked one that would be the devil snatches away what was sown in his heart this is the one that received seed by the wayside he either received the seed of stony places this is the one that hears the word and immediately receives it with joy but he has no root in himself and endures only for a while for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word he stumbles now he that receives seed among the thorns is the one who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful but he that receives seed on the good ground this is the one who hears the word and understands it and who also bears fruit and produces a hundred fold some 60 and some 30. we'll stop there all right well let's understand how they used to sow seed back in these days farming in the first century was far different than it is and the 21st we have sophisticated equipment uh a farmer can have a good sense of what a crop is going to look like we have irrigation and all the rest back in biblical times it was quite simple the way they sowed seed is they just have a sack with seed in it and the farmer or the sower would just walk and throw a seed in a relatively indiscriminate manner just pick the seed up out of his bag and throw it out the wind would pick it up and some of it would go on the road that people would walk on other seed would go on ground that was embedded with stones other seed would go on ground that would be infested with weeds and finally some would go on fertile receptive soil so that's sort of the picture jesus is giving now what is a seed a picture of well jesus explains it the seed is the word of god so in the same way we are called to go and spread the seed of the word of god out as far as we can and reach as many people as possible and we don't always know where it's going you know when our radio broadcast is heard it goes all around the world on any given day two to three million people listen to our radio broadcast a new beginning and we received letters from people in amazing places with incredible stories i just got a letter the other day from a guy who was a outlaw biker and how do you reach an outlaw biker and he heard our radio show and gave his life to jesus christ and now he is ministering to other outlaw bikers and he's actually been ordained as a pastor and is serving the lord just one of those people that was reached by the word of god and so we take the seed and we throw it out there we do that in the internet in other ways just reach as many people as we can that's our job paul said in first corinthians 3 my job was to plant the seed in your hearts and apollos another preacher watered it but it was god not we who made it grow the ones who do the planting and watering aren't important but god is important because he's the one that makes the seed grow the one who plants and the one who waters works as a team with the same purpose so we're a team we work together we may not even know each other but we're still effectively working as a team in other words you might go out and share your faith with someone so you just sowed the seed then a little bit later maybe a month or a year down the road they run into a person who lives a godly life and by the lifestyle of that believer they in effect watered the seed you so and then a little bit later maybe you bring them to church or someone else brings them to church and and i or someone else invites them to christ and they respond well really the one who reaps and the one who sows and the one who waters we're all secondary god's the one that did the conversion but he worked through us because we worked as a team and that's why we do what we do at harvest christian fellowship and in harvest ministries you know ever since our beginning 35 years ago we have always reached out to our community you might say that outreach is in our dna when we started in the 70s after our congregation began to grow we started holding meetings and various venues around town and then pretty much uh pretty soon out of state and and then when the 80s rolled around our radio program was just getting started and we would go and do these radio rallies and we had such tremendous response a response in some areas that we started two churches from those we planted a church in washington dc and also in new york city and both of those churches are doing well fast forward to the 90s that was the beginning of the harvest crusades of course and since they're beginning in 1990 we've been able to bring the gospel in person to over 4 million people and we have seen over 350 000 people make professions of faith to follow christ and so we're thankful for that but um god gets the glory for that but we have always been about evangelism and teaching because here's the great commission given to all christians it's to go into all the world and preach the gospel jesus says and making disciples teaching them to observe all things that i have commanded you so our goal our job if you will is to preach and teach so yes we go out and evangelize but we also disciple and teach and do that every week right here in our own church and god has blessed our church people come to visit us from all around uh the state from overseas uh a lot of people come from outside of our area for our sunday morning services and you know look at how god is taking care of us i mean we have one of the best worship teams on the planet you know this is just true now this isn't the battle of the bands i'm not saying our worship band's better than everybody else's but they are but no they are but uh actually you know it's i think the reason they're so great and we have so many worship groups that have developed now uh is because they get what their job is and you know worship is prayer set to song that's really what it is and so a worship leader is to lead us in prayer to lead us into god's presence but then they do it with such incredible musical expertise i mean you know if i could play guitar like hans i would play differently than hans this is hans doing a lead that's it if i were doing that lead i'd be going like this and doing this this this and then i would take it like this and then i would smash my guitar at the end of my performance because i would want you to know how hard i'm working to crank out those sounds han just plays you know probably just praying i don't know what he's doing but he does it well and everybody these guys work hard they practice they don't talk about that but they just get up here and do what they do for the glory of god the lord has blessed us with great teachers here as well to bring us the word of god every week and here's my belief it just isn't right to keep this to ourselves we've been blessed to be a blessing to others and so we started thinking about how we could reach others with our services here at church and so we started our first video campus and a word about video you know people don't like change and any time you change things some people will complain when we started out here 35 years ago our music was how shall i describe it kind of folky you know lots of acoustic guitars um which is great but we kind of got a little more electrified and changed and their people don't like their disowned okay yeah people don't like change you know i don't like this new song and i remember when we put in our video screens we don't like video screens video screens are wrong why i don't know they're just wrong unsigned yeah i remember one couple we're leaving the church because you put up video screens on the wall really it's amazing how people will react to these things but we've seen how with video we can reach more people so we started our first video campus guess who we started it up on the hill in the fellowship hall we set a screen up for overflow when we couldn't get him a seat in the sanctuary and we found that there were certain people that preferred going up to the fellowship palm watching it on a screen instead of being down here live and so when we extended and rebuilt our facilities we added our amphitheater outside but there's a bunch of people sitting there right now watching on the screen and they're there all year long in the blistering sun they're there drinking an ice drink and today they're drinking a hot latte but they're there you guys are there watching and uh they prefer many of them to sit out there and then we added another video venue up on the hill in the building we call the court and we can accommodate 12 to 1300 people up there who really like to watch it on the big screen so then we thought well could we do this off-site and we started two satellite campuses as they're called in east vale and also an orange crest and on any given sunday there'll be 600 people attending those and we've even had people say that they prefer going to a satellite church over a bean here in church because they hear the message on video they have live worship and it doesn't take him an hour to get in and out of the parking lot and by the way here's a little footnote for the first time ever we are live at our satellite site in orange crest right now so hello to all the people there in orange crest this is a live feed previously we would uh record this on dvd and run over there really fast and they'd show the dvd but now that's running by the way um i don't run that way either because that looks kind of weird you know but now they're getting a live feed as we're developing our technology a little bit more and so that brings us to orange county now you've heard us talk about a sister church in orange county and this has been in process for some time you need to understand that i've been doing bible studies in orange county for 25 years as i've been pastoring here i did calvary chapel of costa mesa a number of times over the years on monday nights i spoke at the grove theater for a time in anaheim and other places so this is not a new thing but about a year and a half ago we started a thursday night bible study down there and the lord has been blessing it and we have seen since we started sixteen hundred people come to christ and so we've seen a lot of lives change and uh people have been asking well hey would you ever start a sunday morning here too and my response has been well i'm kind of busy on sunday morning so i don't really see how we could do that but as we've been developing this video technology and we've seen how effective it can be we began to think is it possible to start something in orange county that runs simultaneously with riverside and we have decided the answer is yes and so we are launching our satellite campus or maybe i should say sister church uh in orange county in the first quarter of this year we have a property that we're building out right now and now the question that comes to people's minds is well greg how can you pastor two churches well listen it's one church multiple campuses i've always been able to do what i do because i have an excellent team of people helping me we have live worship teams wherever we are we have excellent pastors serving there and this is how we've always been able to do what we do and so now to the question i've heard ask a few times so are you leaving riverside here is the answer no i am not leaving riverside let me disappoint some because i don't know how you're asking it is it are you leaving riverside bye-bye or are you leaving you know i don't know how they're asking but irregardless of how you're asking i'm not leaving i'll probably die in this pulpit probably in the middle of a sermon that wouldn't be bad so you say well how does this work out logistically okay here's technically how we're going to do it in phase one i will speak here live first service and second service that's here now and then third service i will go to orange county and speak and we'll do a live video feed back here to riverside in our sanctuary it will be exactly like what the people in the courtyard and in the amphitheater in the courtyard at orange crest are experiencing right now it will be a live message via video coming to them so here's what it means it means our family is growing and it gives us greater opportunity let me say on a personal note this has been a burden on my heart for quite a long time now to do and after the lord called our son to heaven some changes happen in my life and one of those changes was a resolve to do what i've always felt led to do but for whatever reason haven't done yet and this is one of those things that i felt very led by the lord to do and he has confirmed it in many ways to us 600 people coming to faith isn't a bad confirmation but that's just one of the many confirmations so i appreciate your prayer and your support as we take what god has given us to a larger audience to reach as many people as we can because guess what folks jesus christ is coming back again and we want to reach the world that's our commission that's our commission not to sit around and have a holy huddle and a bless me club and it's all about me but rather saying lord we want to bless others as well so that comes brings us back to the parable of the sower the idea is to get this out to as many people as possible so jesus says he that has ears to hear let him hear in other words he's saying listen up the story is told of president franklin roosevelt who often endured long receiving lines at the white house and he complained that no one ever paid attention to what he was saying so one day he decided during the reception he would try and experiment to each person that walked by shaking his hand he murmured i murdered my grandmother this morning and so a long line passed by and the guests responded with phrases like oh wonderful to meet you mr president and oh i i appreciate you saying that and god bless you and everything that you i murdered my grandmother this morning that's wonderful mr president thank you so finally as a reception line was almost at an end the ambassador from bolivia walked by president roosevelt again said i murdered my grandmother this morning and the ambassador from bolivia said well she must have deserved it mr president so one guy listen so you know we can listen but not listen right are you listening see it's a tension with intention you ever watch a charlie brown christmas that's a great little show one of the very few you see at christmas that actually has a little bit of the gospel in it and i showed it to my granddaughters this year and they liked it so much we watched it a hundred times and so i i pretty much memorized all of it but the thing i like about a charlie brown christmas is the kids talk to each other but whenever there's an adult talking they sound like that why why why why they never say what why i think that's how we listen sometimes you know you sit in church and in your mind right now what i'm saying is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and furthermore blah blah blah blah and one other thing blah blah blah blah blah and in closing and your ears perk up oh good he's almost done so here's what jesus says if you have ears to hear listen to what i'm saying to you now these are very important things to pay attention to you decide what kind of soil your heart will be god doesn't decide you decide and the way you decide is how you hear the word of god you're hearing the word of god right now you determine how you will react so let's look at the first category highway hearers is what i'm calling them verse 19 when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart this is the one that received seed by the wayside it's not that they don't hear it it's that they choose to not believe it this would just speak of throwing seed on the asphalt there's nothing for it to take root in and this added detail the birds of the air come and eat it you know these birds they hang around in fast food restaurants and wait for you to drop a fry and they'd wash down and take off with it i remember years ago we went to sea world our son christopher was just a little boy then jonathan wasn't born yet so he paid the admission price and we walked in and there was this big tank at least then there was of the dolphins that you could feed feed the dolphins that's nice where the fish or you buy the fish okay so we buy the fish and i give him the christopher here feed the dolphin and he feeds a fish to the dolphin takes out another and out of nowhere a seagull swoops down grabs a fish out of his hand and flies off he's like dad single took my fish and he says like stupid seagulls and we kind of laughed about it and then we went to lunch and uh we were sitting there and he ordered chicken but he ordered actually just a whole chicken and he was almost done with it i'm not making this up a seagull swoops down grabs the chicken like carcass flies off with it it's just like that was the boldest seagull i'd ever seen and then i was thinking to myself is that even right i mean do seagulls have any morals what is it right to steal another bird and eat it isn't that cannibalism i think seagulls have no convictions whatsoever only a little better than a cat oh i just want to get your attention all the blackberry users are right now another ken insole all four of them blackberry do harvest that for blackberry okay so now christopher's really angry dad i hate seagulls so then we are leaving um sea world and he wants to feed the dolphins one last time so we buy some more fish again a seagull swoops down takes his fish and now as we're finally leaving the park we're outside now one final act of injustice it was a direct hit on christopher boom uh he's screaming i hate seagulls you know so in the parable of the sower birds are symbol a symbol of the devil not all birds are of course but these birds are this is the person that hears the word but their heart gets hard you know the easiest place to get a hardened heart you say a bar no hanging around godless people doing godless things no the easiest place to get a hardened heart is where you are right now now that won't make sense to some of you but this is a place to have your heart softened yeah it's that too but as i've said before the same sun that softens the wax hardens the clay and if you come in here today with an attitude where you're saying i don't want it i'm not hearing it your heart will get hard see the bible says he was often reproved hardened his heart and he will be cut off in that without remedy the idea is the person who gets a hard heart is the one who hears truth and rejects it a good illustration is pharaoh he saw miracle after miracle perform at the hand of moses and what do we read pharaoh hardened his heart pharaoh hardened his heart he saw a rod turn into a snake pharaoh hardens his heart the nile river turned to blood pharaoh hardens his heart plagues of lice and flies and frogs pharaoh hardens his heart and ultimately we read god hardened pharaoh's heart and some people are confused by that how is it that pharaoh hardened his heart then we read god hardened his heart the answer is both are true god waits for us to make our move and he will then confirm us in it pharaoh hardened his heart and god strengthened him in that decision even though it was wrong so you can get a hardened heart hearing the word of god don't let that happen to you it's all how you hear number two we have the rocky road here's that's what i'm calling them the rocky road here is verse 20. he that received this seat on stony places this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy yet he has no root in himself and endures only for a while and when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word immediately he stumbles in contrast to the hard-heartedness or indifference of the highway here we have those who seem to get it and respond wonderfully but soon it is revealed that they have no roots or depth now in israel today you have soil embedded with rocks everywhere you go in israel there are rocks and so this is a little seed that takes root and shoots up but because the rock impairs its uh growth and development and rooting it withers in the blazing sun who is this describing this is that person that seems to be converted and walks away from it and we've met people like this you know in contrast to the person that i already spoke of when you invite one of these people to church they respond you know you talk to that highway here you want to come to church oh no that's okay i want to come to church i want to come to a crusade no not even interested so you come to the second category you want to come to church yeah i'd like to check it out okay so you bring them and they hear a message and maybe at the end an invitation is given they don't walk forward they run forward and they come out i'm so excited about my new relationship with god and they go over to the bookstore and they buy the largest bible you've ever seen and they need a wagon to pull it around you know it's just huge and they're just talking about how good god is and and they start learning the worship songs and they sing louder than anyone else and raise their hands higher and they're so passionate and they pray the longest and you say that is one of the most amazing conversions i've ever seen and about a month goes by and they disappear so you call them up and say hey where were you i didn't see you at church i'm not into that anymore what do you mean you're not into that anymore i was just a fan of phase i i psyched myself into that it wasn't real what do you mean it wasn't real all that happening i don't believe that anymore so then you asked the question well were they converted and now are they have they lost their salvation i suggest to you they were never saved to begin with it's not about the emotion of a moment it's about the test of time if a person is a real christian they will continue on not flawlessly not perfectly and it's even possible for a person who is a christian to go astray for a time but if they're a real believer they will always come back but if they walk away and never return they were never a believer first john says they they started with us but they didn't continue with us and if they had been of us they would have stayed with us but because they weren't of us they didn't stay with us very loose paraphrase there but that's the gist of what john is saying and why is this well it may be that they built their faith on an emotional experience and there can be emotion in conversion not always i mean i don't know about you but when i asked the lord to come into my life i didn't have an emotional experience but emotions came later the bible certainly promises a peace that passes human understanding and a joy that's unspeakable but you can't build your life on emotion because emotions come and go you know sometimes if someone came out of a background of drugs or alcohol and they become a christian they might say amen i'm getting high on jesus now jesus is the ultimate high i'm always concerned about statements like that it's like really jesus isn't a drug okay jesus is the lord and he won't always be your ultimate high because for a person like that that thinks every day is going to be a big emotional rush they're going to be disappointed when they wake up some morning and feel nothing because god is saying it's time to grow up and start walking by faith and not by feeling because the bible says the just shall live by faith but some built their whole relationship with god on an emotional experience and when the emotions are not there they give up they built their life on the wrong foundation others are just impulsive there's plenty of impulsive people out there retailers depend on it you know when you're in the supermarket and you're checking out have you ever noticed all those little things for sale there in the line and there's a little bit of line kind of looking around and says i could use some gum and some batteries and some razor blades and what's this tabloid here saying this is horrible horrible you know you know you buy things you know it's all there they're hoping you'll make an impulse buy and there are people that have to have the latest whatever whatever the newest gadget is they have to have it whatever the newest style is they have to wear it and some people come that way to the christian vid oh this is cool i'll check this out for a while but it's on an impulse it's not real it's not lasting if you don't believe me walk through your neighborhood sometime and when people have the garage doors open like on a saturday look at how many exercise machines there are how many times have you seen someone in their garage on saturday working out zero what you really see are things hanging on exercise machines and the impulse of a moment probably in the beginning of a year i'm going to get into shape this year and by this thing and now they just hang stuff off of it it might have been the impulse of a moment but here's something very important that jesus says he tells us why these people fall away he says it's because of tribulation and persecution look at verse 21 when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word immediately he stumbles listen if you are a christian you will experience tribulation and persecution no passes here everybody will have them first there's tribulation and by the way this tribulation is not speaking of the normal hardships of life but those that come because of the word according to verse 21. see when you become a christian it's not going to be well received by many people now if you're in a christian family and everyone's been praying for you to get right with god and you come to christ there's going to be a victory shout they're going to be thrilled but if you come from any non-believing family that like i came from you're going to face opposition if you have friends that aren't believers they're going to think what happened to you jesus said you think that i came to bring peace no rather i tell you division a man's enemies will be those of his own household and when you believe in jesus it does cause friction among some people and that will produce tribulation now sometimes it's because we are lacking intact i will admit that after i became a christian i was not tactful with my mom you know my mom was a big drinker and into her party scene and i came on with my gospel guns blazing and told her to repent and not that there was anything wrong with that but i just was very abrupt and harsh and i should have eased into it a little bit more and sometimes christians can just be you know kind of lame about it you know a bunch of non-believers are sitting around and amen what a beautiful sunset look at that sunset and you the christian says this is the day the lord is me we will rejoice and be glad in it that's in the bible okay whatever or you have a good meal that was delicious man i love that burger love not the world neither the things that are in the world seen any good movies this weekend no i don't go to movies i fast and pray and i'm so full of love that's not necessary don't forget that jesus was called the friend of sinners as a matter of fact he was criticized for being friendly towards sinners we need to be friendly winsome and caring but not compromising don't misunderstand me you stand your ground but get persecuted for the right thing okay be persecuted for being righteous not for being obnoxious and far too often it's a latter instead of the former but if you are a follower of christ there will be tribulation and there will be persecution the bible says all that live godly in christ jesus will suffer persecution so if you're being persecuted in some way shape or form that's probably an indication you're living godly on the other hand if you're not being persecuted i would ask are you living a godly life you say well what does it mean to be persecuted literal definition of the word means to be chaste driven away in pursuit there's many ways that can happen sometimes you're just the brunt of the joke you're the person people make fun of you lose friendships you're ostracized and other times it can show itself in violent ways you're struck you're hit maybe fired from a job because of your faith and sometimes it can turn deadly and you can be martyred there are many people who have been martyred for their faith in jesus christ over the years of course and even in contemporary culture today there are people that have lost their lives because they because they follow jesus in fact if you become a christian in an islamic country it can be a very dangerous thing as we read in the newspapers many times with these attacks against churches like we recently saw in egypt and so yes persecution will come tribulation will come but here's one final reason why these people are excuse me the next to last i don't want to give you false hope the next to last reason maybe they built their faith on the wrong foundation they built their faith on the wrong foundation you know sometimes we build our faith on a church it's all about our church my church we become very passionate about our church and sometimes even get into a little bit of the my church is better than your church thing there's a lot of great churches here in this area we're just one we're not the church we're a church and we're all part of the church but we might say oh it's all or we get into our favorite preacher you know well i like this people well this preacher is better than bradford well my preacher is better than your two preachers put together and you know be even back in biblical times this is happening but back then they had apostles to throw around well i'm a paul some would say oh well i'm of apollos another would say well i'm a peter another would say the apostle says i'll just stop that we're of christ because here's the problem with that there's nothing wrong with liking to hear a certain person preach or enjoying a church that you're a part of that's great but don't build your foundation on that because guess what churches will disappoint you because they're run by people oh yeah the lord's in control but people are in the process and guess what people make mistakes and sometimes you misunderstand too and then preachers will let you down preachers will disappoint you sometimes people expect preachers to walk on water and people forget they have feet of clay like all of us and if you build your foundation on a church or on a preacher you can fall one day because maybe someday that preacher messes up and you say that's it i'm abandoning my faith because that preacher was a hypocrite really i didn't build my foundation on a preacher i built my foundation on christ and he will never let you down he will always sustain you but maybe this category of people built their foundation on the wrong thing you know people who say well the reason i'm not a christian is because you know my parents they claim to be christians and they got a divorce and so on really is that your excuse it has nothing to do with how good of a job or bad of a job your pants parents may have done it's all about you and god and when you stand before him one day he'll want to know what you did with jesus not as to whether or not everyone you knew who claimed to be a christian behaved as one and one final thing and we'll get into this more in our next message there are people that claim to be christians that aren't christians okay so just because someone says they're a christian doesn't mean they are and we'll point out how that's an effective ploy to mislead people in our next message last point and i mean at this time might be unbelief that's set in causing them to doubt god at the first emotional low it's not uncommon for a new christian to question their salvation one of the first things we do for new believers is give them assurance of salvation and we quote the word of god to them so they can know that they are saved irregardless of their feelings or whatever else and maybe you're a young believer and you've entertained doubt but sometimes even as you've known the lord for a while you might have doubts you know when crisis hits doubt may come how many of you have ever doubted raise your hand up how many of you have never doubted oh thank you dope oh you're doing sign language that's okay she was i thought she was raising and she's just saying what i just said greg's an idiot say that did you say it how did you do idiot that's idiot oh okay i was just saying it to him directly i did i do what did i say i i said i know nothing see you learn something new every time you come what was i saying my goodness that was like so off the reservation yeah doubt listen doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong it might be a sign he is thinking thinking things through so don't feel condemned if you've doubted feel human and call out to god i urge you to doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs and go back to the word of god that will sustain you through whatever crisis you are facing so we're done now and you've heard some things today you determine what kind of soul your heart will be is it going to be receptive fertile soil like the last category is it going to be soil that is embedded with weeds and other things that will choke out the word of god is it going to be soil with rocks that will repel the growth and the depth or is it going to be soil that's like stone it just repels the word it it just doesn't hear it at all you determine that by how you react and there might be some of you right now that aren't even sure if you're a christian maybe you'd say well you know i started with a christian but now as you've talked a little bit i realized that maybe i built my faith on an emotional experience or i built my faith on the wrong foundation a church a person or someone else's relationship with god or and i need to really become a christian now yeah that's right jesus who died on that cross and paid the price for your sins and rose again from the dead stands at the door of your life and he knocks and says if you hear his voice and open the door he will come in

Channel: Pastor Greg Laurie

Views: 32,652

Keywords: harvest, greg, laurie, Harvest Christian Fellowship, Greg Laurie Sermons, bible study for me, bible study, youtube sermons, greg laurie live, spiritual growth being your higher self, the parable of spiritual growth, parable of spiritual growth, spiritual growth in christian life, spiritual growth sermons, guided meditation for spiritual growth

Id: c7a4yScYISQ

Length: 50min 15sec (3015 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 09 2020