Pastor Jon Burgess
October 14, 2018 - W1841

How are you today? God has a word for you, but you may not want to hear it. You’ll see what I mean later...

When I smell bacon in the morning, it’s not hard for me to get out of bed; but most of the time, I’ll be tempted to hit the snooze button. However, if Cyndi gets up before I do and starts cooking bacon, I’m out of bed quicker than anything else! To me, bacon is the flavor of life! It makes everything better—put it on salad; the salad tastes better!

One morning, the smell of bacon brought me to the kitchen; Cyndi hands me (what I’m expecting to have the magical crunch of smoky smelling, hickory pepper bacon), it’s turkey bacon! It was something else, pretending to be bacon. It was a travesty, an insult to the institute of bacon. You can hide it, try to cover it with eggs, put toast around it, or even garnish it with fruit—but it’s still what it isn’t—it isn’t bacon!

So here’s the thing—the Gospel doesn’t need any help. It is the most powerful truth there is, the good news of Jesus Christ! But out of fear of offending people, some of us pastors cover it or pretend the Gospel is something else. And if we’re not careful, we can serve things and call it bacon, when it really is not. If we’re not careful, we can pretend to be serving the whole Gospel when really we’re holding out on it!

Today, I’m hoping to study Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, and fill in the holes of the Gospel that may have been left out. Some of us don’t actually want to hear the real Gospel; instead, we want it packaged up, pretending it to be the real Gospel. Jesus is not pretending that things will be easy once you come to know Christ. He says there is a spiritual battle for our souls and says in…

Matthew 13:3-6 NIV: “³ Then he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.’”

Life will be difficult. Everything around you will try to steal the seed of the good news of Jesus Christ from you, and inhibit you from the things that God wants to do in your life.That's the reason we are filling in the holes in our Gospel. I want to present you with the whole Gospel even though you may not want to hear it... 

1. The Whole Gospel: Faith Will Include Living Through The Hurt.

Matthew 13:20-21 NIV says, “²⁰ The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.” 

The surface of this soil is soft, and the person receives the Gospel and is enthusiastic and excited; but when you check back in a month or two, they’re hard to find. Below the soft soil are rocks, and the roots never went deep and did not work their way below the rocks. When the rocks of persecution and tribulation come—notice: it’s not if it comes, it’s when it comes --- the person withers. Our tendency is to grow up before we go deep; and branch out before we branch down.

Jesus wants us to understand that when you ask Christ into your heart, life will not always be easy. So He's digging the soil, and showing His disciples there are rocks beneath the surface. If your roots can't work its way below the bedrock, you will not be ready for the persecution and tribulation that comes.

Acknowledge your feelings, but let faith lead you through the feelings. When you're hitting the hard rock (the hard times), don't turn against the very One who can actually bring you through it.

Some pastors don’t like to talk about the hardness of life; they rather talk about the blessings! And we miss the part that blessings are often found during the hardest times. When we don’t give the whole Gospel, we are not preparing our people for the hurt that’s required to build strong roots. By giving half-truth, we don’t help them to grow—that’s the hole in our Gospel! I came across this passage in my devotions:

2 Chronicles 30:10-11 (NLT) says: “¹⁰ The runners went from town to town throughout Ephraim and Manasseh and as far as the territory of Zebulun. But most of the people just laughed at the runners and made fun of them. ¹¹ However, some people from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem.”

I was journaling on this scripture and thought, “I don’t like it when people don’t like me.” When someone hurts my feelings or rejects me, should that keep me from sharing Jesus? No matter what I endure, I want to keep running for God. 

One day I was sitting next to a guy named Shalom, and he began to tell me his story about living as a Christian in Pakistan, and I realized all my whining and moaning didn’t seem that bad. In fact, as we hear his story, hopefully, it will awaken our hearts and helps us to understand that the life of faith will include hurt. But if we can endure the hurt, we'll actually become instruments of healing to the world around us.

[Video with Shalom]

I was privileged to be able to attend a Catholic school called St. Patrick’s School and College. It’s one of the largest schools in Pakistan. Just outside the school are high walls and barbwires.

There was one person who always called and sent bomb threats and shouted—but school was always open. In 7^th grade, after school, we were headed to our van and, all of a sudden, we see three guys on a motorcycle. One of the guys gets off and starts shooting everywhere, blindly.

At that moment, I heard a voice or something just push me to move. Then we saw another van right next to us, and we ran underneath it to take cover. All we could hear were bullets ricocheting around us.

These incidents make my faith grow so much stronger, just knowing that God is listening. It’s a privilege and an honor to be able to worship so freely in America, without any restrictions. Whenever I worship, I give every ounce of myself to God.”

[End Video]

You don’t realize that you’ve been splashing around in a puddle of faith until you dive into the ocean of faith. You don’t realize depth until you get around it. When we take a look at the faith of so many others around the world outside of America, you realize how much deeper we can go. Most of us stop at the hurt, and ask God to make life easy. But I want you to be able to endure the greatest tribulation and persecution; and the only way you can do that is, if your roots grow deep—that no matter how hot the sun gets it cannot burn up the fruit of your life.

2. The Whole Gospel: Faith Will Include Giving Until It Hurts

Pastors tend to stray away from the message of giving because we don't want people to think that we're just here to ask for stuff. And yet, Jesus talks more about giving and finances as it relates to the kingdom of God than almost any other subject. And yet we stray away from it because there's been so many excesses and so many abuses, that we, as pastors, want to skirt over it. And the Lord convicted my heart and said, “Jon, this is how my people go deeper.” 

Psalms 1:1-3 (NLT) says: “¹Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.  ² But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. ³ They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do.”

How many want to prosper in all you do? If we want fruit, we must have roots. We must go deeper before we can go higher. We must go deeper into the Word and the Law of God.

I love this quote from Henri Nouwen (which I got from the John family): “People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it…Joy never denies the sadness, but transforms it to a fertile soil for more joy.”

What do I mean by digging deeper into God?

• Delight in God’s Law and Word

• Inhabit the ground God’s given you

• Give like tomorrow depends on it

First, delight in God’s Law and Word. The reason our faith fails us in hard times is because we delight in almost everything BUT God. Many Christians have stopped following and believing in God and giving Him their full attention. Jesus is asking us to choose Him to delight in above everything else. Luke10: 27 (NIV) says: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” So when we delight in the Law of God, we’re no longer consumed with whatever is popular; rather, we’re consumed with the timeless truths of God’s Word, and our roots grow deep into the things that matter the most.

Second, inhabit the ground that God has given you. If we inhabit the ground that we’ve been given (marriages, families, where we live, go to church) and dig your roots deep, instead of living with a consumer mentality (wanting the newest thing), we go for the deeper thing. The enemy would love to sow seeds of unrest and comparison in your heart so that we are living a Christianity that cannot last in the heat of the sun. Inhabit the ground that God has given you; you will see it bear fruit.

Third, give like tomorrow depends on it…because it does! I want to close with this story I heard from Albert John. He said there was a member of the church they attended in Pakistan that found out a bomber was coming with bombs attached to his vest, and he saw him walking towards the church that was filled with worshipers.

There was no time to warn everyone to leave the church, as the suicide bomber was on his way in to kill all the Christians worshiping in the church. A member of the church ran out and hugged the man; so that, when the bombs detonated, he took the full force and brunt of the explosion—he gave his life so others in the church could live!

So I asked myself, “Jon, do you love people that much? Do you know that Jesus loves you that much?” That depth of faith and that sacrificial love understand that hurt is a part of life. And there’s no better way to live than giving everything you’ve got. It causes me to want to dig deeper, and to make sure that every single person here knows that Jesus loves you THAT MUCH. Jesus hugged all of our sin, took it upon himself so that you and I could know eternal life.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. What are some of things that have made your soil harden?

2. How will you use praise and prayer to soften it again?

3. How will Psalms 1:1-3 make you take a step back and prioritize what you delight in?

4. How will you best inhabit the ground that God has given you?