This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day three of our look together through Matthew chapter 13. We've been
looking the last couple of days at the beginning of the parable of the sower and
three things that stop our growth. Today we're going to look at three growth
starters.

Jesus tells us in this parable also what we need to do that starts our growth.
He talks in this parable about good soil. He's talked about the thorny soil and
the shallow soil.

Now he talks about the good soil and I got to tell you I love good soil. I love
gardening. Once I got a truckload of dirt for my birthday and you might think my
family didn't love me very much but I loved it because good soil means good
flowers, means good vegetables.

And Jesus talks here about good soil. In verse 23 he says, "But the one who
received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and
understands it. He produces a crop yielding 160 or 30 times what was sown.

" In this one verse Jesus makes growth very simple. He says there's three steps
to growth in your life and you can't leave any one of them out. He says you got
to hear the word, you got to accept the word and then you have to produce a
crop.

Hear the word, accept the word, produce a crop. First you hear the word. You
want to set yourself up for real growth in your life.

We've alluded to this the last couple of days as we went through the things that
stop our growth. You have to decide to listen to what God has to say. Decide to
listen, to take it in.

Now that might mean you change something that you're doing so you can listen in
a better way. It might mean you need to start taking notes on sermons. You've
just been sitting back and listening but it really hasn't gotten in.

The truth is you double your power of listening just by taking notes. That's why
in our church we have notes every week because you double the power of listening
just by writing something down as you're listening. So if I want to catch it,
getting out a pen and writing it down can make a huge difference.

Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigator said thoughts disentangle themselves
when they pass through the lips and the fingertips. If I can say it, if I can
write it down, it helps me to start to think through how to do it. Decide to
listen.

It might be that you get involved in a small group, a small group Bible study.
You start to listen to God's word with other people. You make that commitment.

It might mean that you start to read Christian books. You may not have read a
book in a long time or you might be reading a lot of business books but when's
the last time you read a book that would build your faith? You say, "I don't
like to read.

" Well then listen. Listen to tapes. Get books on tape and listen to them while
you're in the car or you're out for a walk.

There's a lot of different ways to learn, to hear the word. One of the key ways
to hear the word we talked about a couple of days ago and that is a personal
daily quiet time. Just sitting down for 5, 10, 15 minutes at the beginning of
the day reading God's word, letting it speak to you, maybe writing down a prayer
of what it said to you.

You listen. Without listening you don't have anything to work with. It starts by
hearing the word.

But I've got to tell you something. Hearing is important but that can't be all
that you do. I don't know if you noticed as we've walked through these pictures
of the seed falling on the ground, every one of them started with hearing.

Some heard the word but it didn't penetrate. Some heard the word but it was on
shallow ground. Some heard the word but it got choked out.

You can't do it without hearing. You got to start with hearing. You can't just
base it on some truth that you've made up.

You need God's truth in your life. But then what do you do with what you've
heard? First you hear it well but then secondly you accept the word.

You hear the word then you accept the word. This word, he understands the word,
he accepts it. It literally means you take the word in to your life and this is
the key.

When you talk about how you and I grow, this is the key. Not sitting somewhere
and hearing the word with our ears but somehow translating that to a way that we
take it in. We accept it.

How do you do that? How do you accept God's word for your life? Understanding
doesn't mean you just comprehend the words.

It means that you commit to, you take action upon the meaning of those words for
your life. You take it in. If you see an apple sitting on a plate, you can
comprehend that it's an apple.

You could take out a camera and take a picture of that apple. You could actually
even get an easel and spend days painting that apple but you still haven't taken
it in. It's not until you take the simple action of picking up the apple and
taking a bite of it so that it adds nutrition to your life that you started to
take it in to your life.

You don't take it in to your life until you act upon it in your life. You accept
God's word by acting on God's word. Not by saying, "I believe it.

" That's a good thing but that's not how you accept it. Not by saying, "I agree
with it. " Good thing but that's not how you accept it.

You accept God's word by acting upon God's word. Now what is acting upon God's
word? In our 201 maturity class, we teach people the four things you have to do
to think through to act on God's word.

Every action is something that's personal, practical, possible, and provable.
It's personal. It's not something for somebody else to do.

It's something I need to do so it has to have the word "I" in it. I'm going to
do this. It's practical.

It's not just a thought, an ethereal thought. It's an action. So instead of
saying, "Nice words are a good thing to have," no, it has to be practical.

I need to speak in kinder ways. It also has to be possible. You could say, "I'm
never going to say an unkind thing again.

" The truth of the matter is, James says, "If you could be perfect in your
words, you would be perfect. " So that's probably not possible. So what is
possible?

I'm going to speak in kinder ways to my wife and my children. Start there. You
start with one person and provable.

In that case, it might be, "You know what? I'm going to set up a relationship
with them where I ask them at the end of the week, 'How am I doing? ' I ask them
at the end of next week, 'How am I doing?

Am I speaking with kinder words because I really want to work on this? '" You
accept God's Word by acting on God's Word. So you hear it, you accept it.

That is the key. But then you produce a crop. There is a harvest that comes from
God's Word.

As you hear God's Word, you begin to accept it in your life. Then you begin to
produce a crop in your life. There is a harvest that happens.

The problem for us is many times we accept God's Word and we want to see such
immediate results that if God doesn't show up for us in the next five minutes,
somehow we feel like He has disappointed us. But think about this in the picture
that Jesus is giving. He says it's like a harvest.

There's always time between when you plant the seed and you see the harvest. So
if you want to enjoy the harvest, there's a couple of things to remember. First
you have to be willing to wait for the harvest and second you have to be willing
to work with the harvest.

Now you can't create the harvest. Only God can create this growth in your life.
But in His creation of it, the truth is you do have to wait for it to come and
then work with it when it arrives.

Many of us, when we begin to speak in kinder ways to our family, for instance,
we expect them instantly to be more encouraging to us. But they got a lot of
years of unkind words. It takes time.

You wait. Many times you say, "I'm feeling this discouragement in my life. I'm
feeling far from God.

I'm going to have a quiet time today. " You have a quiet time and you don't feel
closer to God and you think, "What's wrong? " You have to wait for the harvest.

It takes time. Growth takes time. How does this spiritual growth thing in life
work when it comes to waiting and working?

I mean, do I have to work for it, go out and get it, or do I have to sit back
and wait for it to come to me? In one sense, the answer is yes. You have to do
both.

And depending on our personality, we're usually better at one or the other. Some
personalities, you want to go after everything. You're really good at that, but
it betrays you.

That personality betrays you when it's time to wait for God to grow you. And
others, they want to just sort of sit back, respond to life as it comes. You're
okay with waiting, but that betrays you when it's time to work.

God is bringing a harvest in your life and that means you've got to work at it,
at what you say, at what you do, at the ministry that you have. To decide to
grow is to be willing to wait and to be willing to work, to have both of those
things happening in our lives at once. Sometimes you're waiting, sometimes
you're working.

And I found in my life, when I want to be working, God says, "That's a good time
to wait. " And when I want to wait, God says, "Oh, guess what? I got some work
for you to do," because He's growing us.

You want to decide to grow? You hear His Word. Maybe for the first time, you
accept the fact that His Word is for you.

He's got a message for you today, something to live out. You accept His Word
personally by faith through prayer and then you produce a crop. You have the
faith to wait, the faith to commit to the work that He's giving you to do.

Let's pray for God's strength to do that right now. Our Father, we pray. We pray
for our own growth, that Lord, we do exactly what You've called us to do here,
Jesus.

Listen to Your Word. Take it into our lives on days we feel like it, on days we
don't feel like it. And then accept Your Word.

Do what it says. Act upon it in our lives. And then, Lord, as we're accepting
it, have faith that You're going to produce a crop.

But in that faith, have the strength to wait and the strength to work, the
strength to watch You grow us. Jesus, we need Your strength to do this. So I
pray that as we take Your Word into our lives, You would strengthen our faith in
ways that actually amaze us.

It amazes us so much that we realize it's not us that's doing it. It's You.
You're the one who's growing us to be more and more like You every day.

We pray that You would do this. In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to
look together at the simple truth about God's kingdom.