0:07 Good to be with you all again. Uh I just want to share a few things the Lord's put on my heart from Mark chapter 4. So if you turn with me in Mark chapter 4, this has been on my heart um especially as I've examined how the Lord wants to speak to me more 0:24 clearly every single day. We've we've heard very strongly even today and it's important that this message that we hear or any message that we hear takes root in our heart and doesn't just stimulate us in the moment but it actually takes 0:40 root. So if you turn me to Mark chapter 4 and uh we'll start in verse 24 and challenge yourself as you're listening to this whether you've taken this command seriously. He was saying to them, "Take care what you listen to. 1:00 By your standard of measure, it will be measured to you and more will be given to you besides." And that really hit me as I was reading this passage today. What am I listening to? What am I really taking the Lord's command to take care of what I am 1:13 listening to? I think all of us can examine ourselves to say that we've been casual about what we listen to. Whether it be gossip from another brother or sister or from a colleague in the workplace, idol talk, 1:31 politics, an opinion of politics, news. These are the things that will distract us from the voice of God. Take care of what you listen to. And Jesus used this example to say according to your measure more will be given to you. And the explanation was of 1:50 the parable of the sewer which we read about earlier. And there were examples of ones who are bringing forth fruit 30fold, 60fold, and 100fold. And this is what the what God was saying what Jesus was saying to them. By your standard measure, it will be 2:07 measured to you. Which means if you are not careful with what you listen to and you're not taking the word you hear and it's getting distracted by other things that you hear, maybe you'll only be a 30% Christian. And some of you may be comfortable being 2:20 a 30% Christian. But it starts with how we listen. And the more the Lord wants to give us, the more we're able to put aside the distractions, the more he can grow us to 60% to 100%. So, if you turn a page over to the beginning of this parable, Mark chapter 2:37 4 verse 5, there's a couple of warnings here that I wanted to point out. In Mark 4:5, Jesus tells the parables and talks about seed that fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil and it immediately sprang up because it had no 2:51 depth of soil. Brothers and sisters, be careful if you hear a word today or you hear a word on a Sunday and you find yourself immediately springing up. That sounds like a good thing. Jesus is warning you that there's actually something dangerous about being 3:10 stimulated and having a feeling of immediately springing up. And the explanation of that is in verse 16 of the same chapter where he says, "In a similar way, the ones on whom the seed were sewn on the rocky place were the 3:23 ones who hear the word immediately receiving it with joy." Is it a good thing to receive the word of God that you hear from this pulpit with joy? It may not be a good thing if you do not have a firm root in yourself. That's the next verse. They do 3:39 not have a firm root in theelves in themselves but are only temporary. And this is a dangerous thing. Do not measure your spiritual growth by enjoying the word of the Lord that you receive by just receiving good words. Are you obeying the command to take care 3:56 of what else you're listening to? What else are you listening to that is distracting? that is choking out that word. Are you temporary? Are you just receiving with joy, but you don't have a firm root that's taking root in 4:09 listening to these words that we've heard? Is it not bringing about repentance? And this is what Jesus said in the same chapter. It's amazing to see this chapter where Jesus talks so much about how we listen to his word. 4:23 This is what he says in the in his explanation of why he decided to describe this to the to the disciples. Verse 11, he was saying the disciples came to him to him and said, "Explain to us this parable." And he was saying 4:39 verse 11, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those who are on the outside, they get everything in parables. So that while seeing, verse 12, they may see and not perceive. While hearing they 4:52 may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven. So what is the purpose of listening? What is the purpose of listening to a word that we hear today? It's not just that we hear it, we get stimulated with joy. Otherwise, we're 5:07 just like that crowd that receives it in parables. The purpose of listening is that we come back to God and say, "Lord, this word must be targeted for me. It must be targeted for me. It's not for somebody else. It's not just to 5:17 stimulate me and to bring joy into my life. The word you're speaking to me from the pulpit, from the midweek group that you're speaking to me every morning must be something that does what? That causes me to understand what's the 5:30 proof of understanding that I will return and repent and be forgiven. Brothers and sisters, if the word you're hearing today just stimulates you, but does not drive you personally to repentance, if you're saying in your 5:44 heart, "Oh, I'm glad this other person is hearing this word. Let me forward this message to this other brother and sister. Let me forward this word of encouragement that the Lord said, "Let me take this word and share it in the 5:53 midweek group because I think this person will really be encouraged by that." No, it must be a word of repentance. It must be a word that leads you to repentance in some area. Not necessarily literally, but the spirit of 6:07 the word that you receive must lead you to repentance in some area. And that's the way I believe the Lord says if you take care in the way you listen if the words you hear drive you to repentance according to your measure more will be 6:22 given 30fold can become 60fold 60fold can become 100fold. What is the picture of what is the secret to a 100fold Christian? It is this continuous repentance based on what the Lord is speaking to them. It's not just receiving the word with joy. We heard 6:38 about John the Baptist. It says that Herod used to love listening to John the Baptist. He took joy in listening to good words. That didn't bring any repentance in his life. We don't want to follow that example. We want to follow 6:48 examples. The crowds enjoyed. They said they they were amazed at the way Jesus spoke with authority, but it didn't bring repentance in in them. Only the disciples came back for repentance. And then if you look further in this 7:02 chapter, Jesus talks about the parable of the seed. It's an often lost parable because it's sometimes mistaken with the parable of the sewer. But the parable of the seed is in verse 20 starts in verse 26. And he says the kingdom of God is like a 7:19 man who casts seed upon the soil and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day and the seed sprouts and grows. How he how he himself does not know. They say they say this about child development that if your child 7:37 gets a lot of sleep, their brain develops and in fact their body grows. When we were doing a doctor's physical for one of our kids, they said one of the secrets for their growth was actually how much they sleep for their 7:50 physical growth. Do you know that's also a secret to our spiritual growth? This is what this verse says. You go to sleep and in the morning something's grown and you don't know how. Supernaturally it's grown. But what is 8:03 the secret to that? The psalist says in Psalm 119, I anticipate the night watches and I meditate on your word at night. What is it that is on your mind when you lay down on your pillow? What 8:22 is coming to your mind? Thoughts of how you going to plan the work day for tomorrow? How you going to execute a plan on your own without consulting with the Holy Spirit? how you're going to respond to your boss, how you're going 8:33 to take care of this situation, some worry, what somebody else said to you during the day that's bothering you, some something that has to be taken care of in the home, some situation, some relationship situation, how you're going to respond 8:45 to that person, worries, the desires for other things, your your bank account. The word of God says, anticipate the night watches. Don't be scrolling those reels of social media or mindless brain rotting things 9:03 that are on your phone. Anticipate the night watches so you may meditate on his word so that you may listen carefully to what he has to speak to you that might drive you to repentance. Late at night what you heard from earlier in the day 9:16 and then overnight you wake up the next morning. The Bible says in Isaiah 50:4, the Lord has given us the year of a disciple. He wakens He awakens us up every morning. It's not your alarm that wakes you up every morning. It's not 9:30 your kids or your parents that wake you up every morning. It's the Lord that awakens you up every morning. Not just to for you to say thank you for giving me another day of life, but it says in Isaiah 5:4, he awakens you to listen 9:44 with the year of a disciple. What is the year of a disciple? That's what these disciples did in Mark chapter 4. They came back and they said, "Explain it to us. We want to repent this word. We want to listen to what you have to speak to us. 9:58 We want to listen and we want that word. We want to take care in the way we listen. We want the word we hear from you every morning. That reflection to bring about repentance." Maybe you don't even have the time to pick up your 10:10 Bible at that moment, but don't miss out on listening to the word of the Lord. And this is how the Lord can cause spiritual sleep, spiritual growth even while you're asleep. The Bible says that he gives to his beloved even that in 10:24 their sleep. What does that mean? He's causing spiritual growth in your sleep because you've been anticipating the night watches, meditating on his word and you've been awake. He's been awakening you again to listen to his 10:34 word to listen his to his voice to tune out the other things that would try to distract you. And and that word must drive us to repentance. And Jesus goes on to say it goes on to say about Jesus in verse 30 verse 34 he says he did not speak to his disciples 10:53 when verse 33 he says many such parables you spreading the word to the to the crowd sort of as far as they were able to hear it but he did not speak to them without a parable. And even when we hear words today we might say oh that doesn't 11:05 apply to us that could be like a parable. But he was explaining verse 34. He was explaining everything privately to his own disciples. That must be the heart of a disciple is that I go back to God and say, "Lord, explain to me what I heard 11:19 today. I don't know if it applies to me, but explain to me, point out where in my heart it is applicable to me." Maybe it wasn't the literal words that I heard, but it's a spirit of something. I remember when I heard a word from my 11:33 dad last year that initially I I responded to say, "Oh, that's probably a word for somebody else." And I I sort of like deflected it and I said, "Okay, it's not relevant to me." And then a couple weeks later, he spoke the same 11:46 word, but this time I had come with a heart that was prepared to say, "Lord, I want every word that I hear from the pulpit today to be targeted at me." And it was the exact same word, but this time the Lord pointed out something in 11:58 me. He pointed out I think my dad was speaking about greed and materialism and he pointed out an area in my life where there was a little bit of the love of money in the way I was taking advantage of someone in a situation in a very 12:10 subtle way and it brought me to repentance and I praise the Lord that I did not have the attitude of saying oh he's speaking about somebody else he's speaking about a situation uh that is very specific to this person I can tell 12:24 no it has to be specific to me it has to be targeted to me and I want to go back to the Lord and say explain everything to me Lord privately explain to me this is the mark of a disciple I'll share one last uh passage from John chapter 12 12:41 you turn there to see how Jesus practiced listening to the father's voice with his disciples around him John chapter Verse 27, 13:00 Jesus was praying about a trial he was going through. Obviously, we know he was talking about him having to give up his life for us. And he says, "Now my soul has become troubled and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. For 13:11 this purpose, I came to this hour." So, you can see Jesus wrestling with this trial as many of us are wrestling with trials today. But Jesus said, he was able to say, "Father, glorify your name." And then a voice came out from heaven, "I have both 13:26 glorified it and will glorify it again." This is the word of the Lord for us today. When we're wrestling with a trial, when we're wrestling with a difficult situation, may we hear the voice of the Lord as we're casting our 13:37 burden on him and as we're praying for even deliverance for the trial. The Lord is saying, "That's secondary. I want if you listen to my voice, my voice is saying I want to glorify my name in your situation and then we'll talk about 13:52 whether you get delivered from this trial or this uh sickness or this situation at work. But I want to glorify my name in your trial and not only that tomorrow or next month there's going to be a new trial. I'm going to glorify my 14:03 name again. That was the promise. The promise that as I will glorify my name in this situation and again sometime in the future I'm glorifi I'm going to glorify my name again. But here again, verse 29, we see a crowd of people. 14:15 Again, this is a picture of the crowd and the disciples. The crowd of the people who stood by and heard it was saying that it had thundered. Imagine the voice of God coming down so clearly and saying, "I'm going to glorify your name. Glorify my name in 14:29 your trial." But you don't hear it and you hear thunder. The crowd is there distracted by other things they're hearing. distracted by the news, distracted by politics, distracted by gossip, distracted by conversation in 14:41 the workplace, and they're not seeing, not hearing the voice of the Lord that says, "I'm going to glorify my name." Because they're distracted by the other comparing themselves to another person's situation, and they just hear thunder. 14:53 And others said, "Oh, it's a voice of an angel." But we know the disciple John wrote this book. So, obviously, he heard it. He heard that voice. And the disciple must hear that voice that the Lord is speaking that says I will 15:08 glorify my I will glorify my name in your trial. It's the same thing when Jesus got baptized. We heard about that when Jesus got baptized. We can think of baptism as a picture of us participating in the death of Jesus our self-will, our 15:22 life dying and being resurrected into new life when with with Christ. That's a symbolic thing that we do when we get baptized. But every day in a way we're getting baptized in some way or the other where our flesh is being crucified 15:38 where our self-will is being put to death. We're having to say no to our own will and being resurrected to new newness of life. And what did Jesus hear when he came out of his baptism? What did the disciples hear who were 15:49 able to document it in Matthew chapter 3? It says, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." And today when you are being baptized in your situation where the the Lord is allowing you to be put to death to be crucified so that you 16:08 may be resurrected to newness of life to the life of Christ in in you. Don't miss out on hearing the amazing voice of our heavenly father saying, "You are my beloved son. And if you will participate with me, if 16:25 you will allow me to resurrect newness of life in you through this situation, you will be my beloved son and you will continue to grow and you will I will be well pleased with you. You are my beloved son and I am well pleased with 16:42 you. This is the voice that we must tune into and listen to. So brothers and sisters, obey the command to take care how we listen so we may hear this pure, still clear voice of the Lord that is speaking to us amidst our situation. 17:02 Amen. >> Good morning, brothers and sisters. is a great joy to be here in RLCF and I'm very grateful for this fellowship. Um I've I think I visited this church um maybe for 15 plus years at least as long as Santos has been here and it's 17:18 just a great joy to see how much the church here is an impact to you might think it's just in your small part of Colorado but the messages here that are spoken are often a tremendous blessing to us. um when we hear them um through 17:36 the daily devotional some of the messages I hear. So, thank you for your faithfulness and um I want to give glory to God to that. One of the things we heard today that has really gripped me from an early age was um we can all it's 17:50 in 1 Corinthians 1 27 you you read this verse which is important for us to remember in the context of our Christian walk. God has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wives. And God has chosen the weak things of this 18:04 world to shame the things which are strong. And that's the opposite of the world system. In the world, everybody that is smart is is given more glory. People who are strong are respected more. You're taught in school survival 18:22 of the fittest. And one of the things that was really gripped me from the early days of the church forming in our home was the messages I heard like the one we heard today that the poor in spirit are the ones who will have the 18:35 kingdom of God. Matthew 5:3. It's amazing to me that the first beatitude is about the poor in spirit. It's not to say that the rich people of the world cannot be also poor in spirit. But the likelihood is when we've sought to find 18:50 our identity in something that is of this world, riches, health, happiness, um we don't seek God and poor in spirit. And we heard today and I'm very grateful to many examples certainly my parents and others who've shown me that in CFC 19:07 churches that poor in spirit is the most important. And when we um you you may meet people in the world who are famous um or people who the world respects as as big in their eyes, but to find then when you come to a church that the poor 19:26 and spirit are the only ones that are eternally going to be the ones that matter. And ask yourself when we get to heaven, um who are those brothers and sisters that we're going to be spending our life with? Do we find great joy in having 19:40 that fellowship with them? now on this earth otherwise we will be lonely in heaven where we get to heaven uh we've not sought to find that fellowship and it's something that we can also teach our children um um this week and in the 19:54 last few weeks I've been sharing with one of our children this story that I'll share with you it's about a very famous man in the 1600s named Bla1 Pascal uh and today a lot of the world is trying to do the same thing that they were 20:08 doing then which is how do you get smarter artificial intelligence is all about trying to get smarter. And this was somebody a man who didn't live very long. He lived only for 39 years old. He was one of the greatest mathematicians 20:19 and for the lot of his life he was lonely. Um he had a sickness and um but he found emptiness in that and at age 32 he had an a almost like a soul-like conversion. Um partially because of his health and other issues. Uh I'll just 20:35 read a little bit of the story that what transformed to him on the night of November 23rd 1654 between 10:30 and night and midnight. He experienced in Pascal an intense revelation where he felt an encounter with God and he this 20:53 is a person who was an atheist um and he saw the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob um rather than the God of philosophers and scholars and overcome with weeping and joy he recorded the spiritual breakout in a piece of parchment that 21:09 included the following words. Fire, joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. Jesus Christ. He serve he sewed this sewed this parchment into the lining of his coat, transferring it into every time he changed his clothes, he would put that 21:23 parchment and it was only found after he was death. He only lived 39. So this happened when he was 32. And seven years later, he died of cancer and so on. He didn't live very long. And um I was telling one of my children one 21:38 of the most famous statements that he said that has stuck with me um because when we see need in our lives and we can also see need potentially in our children. This is a good line to share with them. There's a god-shaped hole. 21:53 Actually he says the word vacuum. Vacuum is more than a hole. It's a hole with nothing in it in the heart of every person which can only be satisfied by the creator God the creator made known through Jesus Christ. And when um 22:11 when we see that in our children and they're going through some point of pain or need, it's a really good opportunity to say that nothing on this earth will ever fill that hole except Jesus Christ. And we can then turn them to give their 22:28 heart to Jesus, maybe be baptized. And then as we get older, for those who have already given our heart to Lord Jesus, we have plenty of times where we will come to the same recognition. Lord, everything that this world has to offer 22:42 is going to leave a hole. And the only thing if you read Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11, I'm going to read from the amplified. Eccles Ecclesiastes 3:1 from the amplified. He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. 22:58 He has also planted eternity, a sense of divine purpose in the human heart. A mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy except God. Yet man cannot find out, comprehend, grasp what God has done, his overall plan from the 23:15 beginning to the end. And I pray that that first biatitude could be true for all of us brothers and sisters. As we get older, we'll realize that God has chosen the foolish uh people of this world to confound the wise. He's chosen the people who are 23:34 weak to confine those who are strong. And the only thing we can find then it's not because just they were poor or because they were weak because they found their strength in Jesus. And I would like to close on the verse 23:48 of that song that brother Santoshin led this morning which really um has been a song that I've heard and every time I hear it it's gripped me. In times like this we need a savior. In times like these we need an anchor. Be very sure very sure 24:07 your anchor holds and grips the solid rock. In times like these we need the Bible. In times like these. Oh be not idle. Be very sure your anchor holds and grips the Lord. This rock is Jesus. He is the one. The rock is Jesus. He's the 24:23 only one. Be very sure. Be very sure. Your anchor holds and grips the solid rock. Amen.
