Joyce Meyer - Parable Of The Sower (08/23/2019)
We're kicking off a new series called "Never Settle for Less Than the Best," based on the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4. So many of us get tired or confused and settle for far less than the full harvest God wants to give us—30-, 60-, or even 100-fold. Tonight we begin by looking at the wayside soil, where Satan steals the seed immediately, and the call is to stay alert, recognize the enemy's attacks, and move toward full commitment so we don't miss God's best.
Never Settle for Less Than God's Best
I'm going to start a series called "Never Settle for Less Than the Best." I think a lot of times we settle for less than the best that God has for us. We get weary, we get tired, we get confused, and so we don't press in and go for the 100-fold return that God has. This entire series is taken from the parable of the sower. I've been reading this more and more in the last year, and finding that when we slow down and really look at everything it says, it says some pretty amazing things.
The Parable of the Sower – Mark 4
So we're going to start in Mark chapter 4, beginning in verse 3. Father, we thank You for the Word. And I know that when the Word is preached, it does not return void. And so I thank You that it will produce a harvest and lives will be changed in Jesus' name. Can everybody agree with me and say amen? Amen.
All right. Now we're going to be reading a little bit here and I'll be making a few comments as we go. Mark chapter 4, verse 3. "Give attention to this." That's a pretty interesting statement right off the bat. You know, it's like, okay. Don't just read this. Pay attention. "Behold." That means look and see. "A sower went out to sow. And as he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path and birds came and ate it up."
The Seed Is Always the Same
"Other seed of the same kind." And I really want you to notice that it says, "of the same kind." Can you say that? "Of the same kind." "Other seed of the same kind fell on ground full of rocks where it had not much soil. And at once it sprang up because it had no depth. It had no depth of soil. And when the sun came up, it was scorched. And because it had no root, it withered away."
So we see another kind of soil. "Other seed of the same kind." See, there's nothing wrong with the seed. It's the ground that we can have a problem with if we're not careful. And the ground is the ground of our heart. It's where the Word is being sown. Tonight, we're going to get to know our hearts a little bit better. We're going to do a little bit of self-examination and look on the inside and make sure that maybe some things are not going haywire in our lives because we've got a problem with the ground of our heart. Amen.
The Four Types of Soil in Our Hearts
"Other seed of the same kind fell among thorns and thistles. And the thorns grew up and pressed together and utterly choked and suffocated it, and it yielded no grain." "And other seed of the same kind." I love that. "Of the same kind." "Of the same kind." God's always the same. If you're not feeling God's presence, He didn't move. It's us that maybe moved away in a different direction.
"And other seed of the same kind fell into good, well-adapted soil. And it brought forth grain, growing up and increasing, and yielded up to as much as thirty, sixty, and sometimes even a hundred-fold return." Now, I'm kind of a nosy person. And so I want to know, if the seed is always the same—I get the first three things. I get the seed by the wayside. I get the guy with no depth. I get the guy who's distracted by everything going on in the world. He can't pay attention to anything long enough to really grow.
Why 30, 60, or 100-Fold Return?
But I have a question about this Christian that's good soil—or this group of Christians that are good soil. Well-adapted soil. Same seed. Ten believers. All good soil. Why do some get 30-fold return? Why do some get 60-fold return? And why do some get 100-fold return? How many of you are a little nosy about that too and you'd like to know?
Well, I don't think I have all the answers, but I think I might be able to give a little bit of insight into some of this tonight. First of all, let's look at the four types of ground. There's the ground that receives absolutely nothing because Satan comes immediately and steals what was sown.
The Wayside Soil: Satan Steals the Seed
Now, I think that's actually the ground that we're going to look at tonight. In each of these sessions, we're going to look at one of these four types of ground. Tonight, we're going to talk about this first kind of ground—the kind of ground that hears the Word, the seed is sown, but absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. There's not even a beginning because Satan comes immediately to steal what was sown.
Well, maybe the person who heard the Word is not even aware that the devil is a problem in their life. You know, I went to church for years and years and years, and I just thought that the devil was some kind of a Halloween character that put on a red suit and carried a pitchfork around. I didn't even really realize that I had a real enemy, a real spiritual enemy.
Recognizing the Enemy's Attacks
I had been in church for years and had never been taught anything about spiritual warfare or that I had any authority over the enemy. So I was just letting the devil beat up on me all the time and didn't even know he was there. So that could be a problem for people if they heard the Word. But a lot of times people will hear the Word and then they'll have problems. And if they don't know where the problems are coming from, they'll blame God. Then they'll get mad at God, and then their heart gets hard, and then they can't grow and get what they're supposed to get from the Word.
Or let's just say that maybe somebody hears the Word. Maybe you come to a session like this and you hear the Word and you're, you know, you've got it. You heard it. You haven't had time to go out and meditate on it yet so it can really do anything in your life. But let's just say maybe you get out in the parking lot and you get mad about something. You're not getting out of the parking lot as soon as you'd like to, or somebody pulls out in front of you and you get angry. And so you get in strife. And just like that, the devil has stolen everything from you that God tried to put in your heart.
Any Progress Attracts Opposition
We have to realize that any time that we are in a position of making any progress at all in our life—now listen to me—any time that you are about to make any progress at all in your life, if you're about to do anything good that may improve your life or anything good that may improve somebody else's life, if you're about to learn more about God, get closer to God—Satan comes immediately to steal what was sown. And you will have to learn how to recognize his attacks and just say an anointed no.
The word "anointed," if you don't know what it means, means the power of the Holy Spirit is on you to not have to be under anything but to always be on top. You can say not just a no, but a no that's full of the power of God. "No. In Jesus' name, I will not stay angry. In Jesus' name, I will not bow down to that." We don't have to do that.
The Rocky Ground and Shallow Faith
The second kind of ground is one that's full of rocks. No depth. No depth. Tomorrow morning, we're going to talk about how we need depth. I recall many years ago when I was just struggling with everything in my Christian life. God told me that I was shallow. He said, "You're a shallow Christian." I didn't even know what that meant. But tomorrow morning, we'll talk about that.
Because there's a possibility that some of you, even though you love God and you're sincere, you may be shallow. You may be living out of your soul rather than living out of your spirit. That means you live out of your own mind, your own will, your own emotions, and you never get deep enough in God to go beyond what you want, think, and feel to find out very much about God. So that's going to be exciting.
Distractions That Choke the Word
Now, notice how these reactions are immediate. They're mental. They're emotional. They hear the Word. Something happens. They have a response. Nobody gives any thought. Nobody does any praying. And they just lose out. We have to learn how to live deeper.
Then there's the ground that cannot focus. And boy, I tell you, this is a problem in our society today. People that are distracted—they want a relationship with God. They want to grow in God. They want to overcome things. You obviously want that. You wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have stayed in the lines of traffic to come. You wouldn't come back tomorrow. You wouldn't go to church. You wouldn't read your Bible. You wouldn't do anything if you didn't want to grow.
Overcoming Distraction in a Busy World
So obviously we want to grow, but we all know that even if we try to pray, the devil will bombard us with distractions. We must learn how to focus. And we don't live in a society that really teaches us how to do that. Just having a cell phone and being interrupted 25, 30 times a day lets us know that it's a little bit difficult to focus.
Many of you will not be able to sit through this service tonight without checking your email and your Facebook 20 times to make sure you're not missing anything that's going on around the world. I wonder when we got so important. I really wonder when we got so important that we thought that the whole world had to be able to reach us at any moment, no matter where we're at, that they could not wait a few seconds. They must hear from us right now.
Learning to Focus on What Matters
And we must know everything that everybody that we know is doing so we can keep up with everything that's going on around the world. I think I've decided that I'm not really that important. I remember when you had to pull off to the side of the road and have a quarter to put in a payphone to make a phone call. And then I remember having a phone that was a party line and it was four people who shared the same phone number. Four people who shared the same line. We all had different numbers, but we shared the same line.
And I mean, you'd pick the phone up and somebody would be on it. Well, you didn't have a cow and think you had to get that person right now. You just waited. We need to understand that although many things that are convenient—I carry my cell phone around too—but I'm just telling you we're going to have to learn how to focus or we are going to miss a lot of what God has for us.
The Good Soil and Different Harvests
That's actually a very big prayer of mine right now. I'll say more about this when we get to that particular teaching, which will be tomorrow night. But we're distracted by pleasure. We're distracted by delight. The Bible says the distractions of the age, false glamour, all sorts of things, and the seed bears no fruit.
And then finally there is the good, well-adapted soil, which gets 30-, 60-, or 100-fold return. Well, a friend of mine said, yes, 30 is better than nothing, and I agree because some people aren't even getting that. But I want to tell you, I'm the type—if there's 100 available, then until the day I die, I'm going to be going for 100.
Refusing to Settle for Less
I may be able to enjoy 30 and thank God for it, but I'm not going to settle. I'm not going to settle. And I don't have to be frustrated. I don't have to be trying to make something happen that God is not making happen. But I'm going to keep my faith out there. "God, You can do as much in my life as You can do in anybody's life. And if You can do it for anybody, God, then You can do it for me."
Come on. If God can bless anybody, God can bless you. And a lot of you don't believe that—or you did believe it at one time, and you've gone through a difficult time, things have happened to you that you don't understand, and you've gotten confused, and maybe your heart has even gotten a little bit hard. And that's what we're going to talk about tonight.
Believing God Beyond Reason
Because we need to believe beyond reason. That's a statement that I want you to get a hold of tonight. We need to believe beyond reason. We don't have to understand everything that's going on in our life to continue believing God. I am so determined that I want to honor God with my faith in every situation, and no matter what happens to me, no matter what takes place in the world, no matter what takes place in my life that I don't understand, I pray that God would give me the grace to always be able to say, "I believe. I don't understand, but I believe. It doesn't seem fair, but I believe." Can we all say, "I believe"? I believe. Amen.
Are You Fully Committed?
Let me just ask you, are you fully committed? You know, there's committed, there's a little committed, there's 50% committed, there's almost fully committed, and then there's fully committed. And I think one of the things that I want to put before you tonight that I'd like you to make a decision about—and remember, I said I really want this weekend to be a lot about making decisions.
"I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; choose life that you and your descendants might live." God will never ask us to do anything—He will never ask us to give up anything—if it's not going to ultimately be the very best thing for us. You never have to be afraid to obey God in anything because He's never trying to take anything away from you. He's only trying to get you in a position where He can give you that 100-fold return that He wants to give you.
God Wants to Be Good to You
God is a good God, and He wants to be good to you. But apparently compromise can maybe keep us in the 30 or 60 or some of the things in between. But maybe if we get fully committed... And how many of you agree that sometimes takes a while in our life? We're not—oh, come on now, get those hands up there. We know that we don't just get saved and all of a sudden we're gung-ho, 100% laying everything on the altar for Jesus. It takes time, doesn't it?
I wonder how many people are in this building tonight that are mad at somebody? I love you, but if you are, you're not fully committed. Good, I got three people right up here in front that believe me. See, I can tell what you need by how you react when I say it.
Unforgiveness Blocks Full Commitment
I said, if you're in here tonight and you're mad at somebody, then if you'll be truthful with yourself—and only the truth will make us free. We can avoid and evade and run from and blame. None of that sets us free. Only the truth will make us free. Well, the truth is, maybe somebody didn't treat you right. Maybe they treated you really bad. And it probably wasn't fair. And maybe you have a reason to be mad.
But according to the Word of God, you have no right to be. Because if we have a right to be mad at the people who hurt us, then God has a right to be mad at us. And I have good news for you tonight: God is not mad at you. He's not mad at you. He's forgiven you a million times already, and He's ready to do it another million or two or three times before you go to heaven to be with Him. Amen?
Obedience and Full Surrender
There are people—you love God enough that you would come to this tonight. But if I said right now, how many of you know that God has told you to do something and you have not done it? Hands would go up all over the building. Well, that is not being fully committed. If you're not fully committed and you know you're not fully committed, then why don't you just choose tonight: "God, I don't know what it's going to take. I don't know how You're going to have to deal with me. I don't know how hard it's going to be. But I'm going to make a commitment to You tonight in my heart that I want from this night on to start growing toward full commitment to You. I want to be fully committed to You with everything in my life."
If you'd be willing to do that, it'll be a new chapter in the history of your walk with God. Fully committed.
No Gray Area – Definitely on God's Side
Well, let's look at a couple of scriptures. See if I can get you a little bit more excited. "He who is not with Me, definitely on My side," the Amplified Bible says. So what does it mean to say, "Well, God, I'm with You. I'm a believer"? He says then you are definitely on My side. Not vaguely, but definitely. You know what you believe, and nothing's going to get you off of what you believe. And you're not going to compromise, not for anybody.
If you're the only person that you know who wants to serve God and everybody rejects you because you're going to serve God, then you're going to serve God anyway because you are definitely on God's side. Not just when it's comfy. Not just when it's convenient. But you are definitely on God's side. "He who is not with Me, definitely on My side, is against Me." You see how black and white He is in this? No gray. You can't be sorta for God, kind of a believer.
God Despises Lukewarmness
Remember, you have to be definitely with Me. "And he who does not definitely gather with Me, for My side, scatters." I taught a message one time called "Get In, Get Out, or Get Run Over." And I think we need to get... And I really believe, honestly, that God so despises lukewarmness. You know why? Because it's deceptive. Lukewarmness is deceptive because we think we're okay. "Well, you know, I'm not as bad as everybody else. Maybe I'm not as good as I could be, but I'm okay."
Well, God never promised us okay. He didn't send Jesus to die for us so we could have okay. Let's go to Revelation 3:15-16. "I know your record of works and what you are doing." God knows what we're doing. Hello, friends and neighbors. God knows what we're doing. And apparently He keeps a record.
Revelation's Warning Against Lukewarm Faith
"You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot." Get in. Get out. "So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth." Ooh, that scripture is a little bit scary. I mean, it really is. It's like, who likes that scripture? But this is in the last book. You know, there's not even much time to correct this one and figure it out.
But this is like, here it is, Revelation. Get cold, get hot. We're down to the wire here. I'm coming. The devil's coming with a stronger attack. We're in the middle of a war. Are you going to be 100% for Me or are you going to be a compromiser and kind of half in and half out? We're going to make some decisions this weekend.
Preparing for Coming Challenges
There are some things coming still in the world that are going to be unpleasant. I don't know if it's going to be tomorrow or 50 years from now. But we cannot assume that there's not going to be more and more persecution against our faith. And I want to tell you something: we better be ready for it. We've got to be up and ready for it. We're too wimpy, too whiny. We've got to be ready. Ready, ready, ready.
So I believe that... Like I said, I don't have the whole answer. I'll probably be studying this for a long time. But if the seed is the same and the soil is all good, well-adapted soil, and some get 30-fold, some get 60, and some 100, then I'm just a digger. I want God to show me something about that if at all possible. And I'm not afraid to let Him tell me that maybe I'm off in some area.
Obedience Determines Your Harvest
Show me. Don't be afraid of truth. "God, show me." Don't just pray for God to show everybody else our problems. Ask God to show you your problems. You can't do anything about everybody else, but you get on God's side. You and Him partner in getting your life straightened out, and you're going to go fast forward quick. Amen?
And God will show you. If you begin to ask God, "What is the problem here?" God will show you. And that's part of the reason why we don't ask Him—because we're afraid He will show us, and then if we know it, we might have to change our ways a little bit.
So I believe that our level of obedience, our level of personal obedience to the Word and to God, certainly has something to do with the return that we receive from the Word that is sown in our life.
Be the Best You That God Called You to Be
I believe that God knows what people can handle. I don't think that everybody is going to have the same amount of everything, but everybody should have everything that God has assigned to them. Not everybody's going to have a ministry like this. Not everybody's called to this. Some people are called to be the best mother in the world, the best father in the world, the best businessman in the world. We all are called in different areas.
Don't ever try to be like somebody else. Don't ever be jealous of what somebody else has got. If they've got it, God's got to give them a grace to handle it. But be the best you that you can be. Have the best life that you can have. If you're going to be a great mom, don't be a 30-fold mom. Be a 100-fold mom. Be a 100-fold husband. Be a 100-fold wife.
Full Commitment in Every Area of Life
Don't have one foot in, one foot out: "I'm going to divorce him. I may stay. I'm going to divorce him. No, I'm going to stay. I'm not going to put up with this. Well, maybe I'll stay." Get committed. Get committed to your families. Get committed in your relationships. Get committed to a church somewhere. And that doesn't mean you have to stay there a hundred years, but if you're going to be there, be committed.
Don't go and then leave and gossip about the pastor. Don't go and find fault with everybody there. If you can't be happy there, then please leave because you're poisoning the place. Well, bless God, you know, if I was the pastor, I would... And I wouldn't... Well, you ain't.
Can I give you a piece of advice? Don't have an opinion where you have no responsibility. I'm just saying, get somewhere where you can be happy. Be committed. Be committed to your job. Get to work on time. Don't sit and play on the internet half the day and then act like when the boss comes in the room like you're working and think God's going to bless you for that. You won't even get a 30-fold return if you do that. You'll be somewhere down less than zero.
A Passionate Prayer for Full Commitment
Oh, I love you guys. I do. I want you to have the best that God can possibly give you. And I wouldn't try to feed you anything that God hasn't already made me eat in my own life. Amen?
Instead of asking God to make it so easy on us, maybe we need to say, "God, pour it on. Let's make it a little harder on me. Let's get this over with." I want to be fully committed, not lukewarm—red-hot, on fire, enthusiastic, full of zeal, full of passion for God.