Flee From Idolatry

O Father, O Lord, hear our prayer. Thank you. Thank you for that song, Jimmothy.

Hear our prayer, gracious Father. Be merciful to us. I've just a few announcements and then Brother Jeremy's going to come and lead us and share with us whatever he has for us.

Today, we have, after the service, a fellowship meal. And if I get this right, well, correct me if I get it wrong, it's going to be at your place, correct, Jeremy? OK. And instead, we typically have it here.

It's going to change. It's going to be over at the King place right after the service. Everyone's welcome to be there for that fellowship meal today after the service.

Wednesday night, we have prayer here at 7.15, prayer meeting. Also, the youth are invited to our place tomorrow evening. We have some things to talk about, time of socializing, maybe some time of worship.

We'll see how things go. 6.45 tomorrow evening at the Herzler House. And then next Sunday, we have back here at 10 o'clock.

Everyone's welcome. So I guess that'll be the first one, a new year coming up. Any other announcements? Maybe there's something else that I missed.

Feel free to speak up and share if there is. OK. Well, let me see if Brother Jeremy can come forward.

I don't see him now. Oh, there he is. You want to come on forward? And let's all stand together, if you could all stand, and we'll join together in prayer.

Let's pray. Dear Father, we sang that song. Merciful Father, hear our prayer.

And we want to just echo that, Lord. We want to ask you to come and join us. Come and help us join you in your program, Lord.

Father, what do you see among us now? What do you want to address among us, Lord? What is your will for us today, Lord? We want to hear your voice. I just pray, Lord, for my brother Jeremy as he shares. I pray that you take control of his mind, control of his voice, his lips.

Pray that you take control of each one of our hearts. Thank you for your word. Thank you for what we've already heard today.

Thank you for the songs that we've sung, the commitments we've made. Lord, if for some reason we don't mean them, I pray that you would change our hearts to mean them. I pray that you would just guide and direct us through today.

Lord, we just rejoice as this is what's known as the celebration of Jesus' birth. We just want to thank you, Lord, for sending your son to this earth so many years ago. And this world has never been the same.

And so, Lord, we just pray that you would make us not be the same either as we think about this and give you thanks for it and allow Jesus to change us. So, Lord, just bless my brother, Jeremy, as he shares what you've laid on his heart. And bless each one as we listen.

In Jesus' name, amen. You can be seated. God bless you, brother.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning.

That was a hearty good morning. Well, you know, we all have different styles of preaching. And for me, it's so hard to get a message that, you know, like, oh, it's a special day.

Right? It's Christmas. We have to have a Christmas message. Or it's Father's Day.

We have a Father. I just can't do that. That's not my style.

So if you want to schedule me, don't ever schedule me on a day to preach some canned, like, the day. I have to preach. My style of preaching always seems to be what I'm going through, what the Lord's teaching me.

And so I was up late last night. And then early this morning, just, I don't know if you've ever had this happen, if you've ever preached before. But you just start begging the Lord to give you that message, and it's not coming.

And you think you might know, but you really want it to be from the Lord. And I went to, my wife always comes in about bedtime. She says, just go to bed.

It'll come to you in the morning. And that's a scary thought. That's a scary feeling.

You know, when you know the next morning you're going to have 50 people waiting for you to speak, and you don't want to just be rambling about nothing, you know? So anyway, but the Lord, I believe, gave me a message. It's what I thought it would be, but sometimes I get this fear and trepidation. Like, they've heard this so many times.

I can't keep preaching the same message. But, you know, as we go around, and it's this time of year, it's Christmas time, and, you know, it's shocking. We go into stores, and we hear songs, you know? It's kind of a shocking thought to walk into the Dollar Tree and hear, like, Jesus, and the name Jesus being over the speakers, and the little Lord Jesus, you know, lay down his sweet head, and songs about him being the King and the Lord.

And, you know, we think of Wise Men, and we think of manger scenes, and we think of hot cocoa, and music, and Christmas hymns, and all these great feelings and memories come into our hearts, being children. And, you know, the world wants to admire Jesus. They all want to look at little baby Jesus and say, you know, he's such a cute little thing.

But yet, here we sit 2,000 years later. Can you turn this down just a little bit, Trevor? We sit 2,000 years later, and we're all calling ourselves Christians. We're calling ourselves followers of Jesus, disciples of Jesus.

And what does that really mean? What does that really mean? You know, the world wants to admire Jesus. They want to call him this great guy, this great guy that taught such some neat things. But we are claiming something far greater.

We sit here this morning claiming to be disciples. We claim, we're sitting here claiming to be followers of Jesus. And Jesus was not just a cute little baby.

In fact, Jesus said some pretty hard things. I wrote some things down this morning as I was meditating on this. Jesus said, unless you deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow him, you cannot be my disciple.

You know, that's a song that doesn't want to get played in the Dollar Tree. Jesus said, if a man keep my sayings or if he obey my teachings, he will never see death. Jesus said that no man can serve two masters for either he will love the one or he will hate the one and love the other or he will hold to the one and despise the other.

And then he goes on and says, you cannot serve God and Mammon. Mammon was a God, a Syrian God of wealth. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Jesus said, if you continue in my word. I was shocked by that this week as I was reading in John. It said, the Pharisees believed.

They believed in him, you know, in so many. Maybe we go out and give a tract to somebody and they say, oh, I want to believe in Jesus. That's great.

And then Jesus turned around and said to him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples. If you continue, if you continue daily doing the things I say. We want to admire Jesus, we want to be true followers of Jesus.

But do we really want to be true followers of Jesus? Jesus said, whoever he be of you that forsake, if not all that he has, cannot be my disciple. He says, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Have you ever thought about that? You know, we have this general love of God, that God so loved the world, but then Jesus told his only disciples, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

He even told them, you are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. Jesus has some pretty high callings. You know, as I sat there and was thinking about it, I had somebody recently talking about, why am I an Anabaptist? Why do I associate with all you lovely people in this room today? And you know, we go to Camp Atkins and we spend time, why am I here? You know, I've been in, I was raised in a Baptist church.

They studied the scriptures, they knew the Bible. From there I went to a Bible, well, we went to a little home church. Then we went to a Bible missionary church, which is a holiness church.

They believe in the second work of grace and that all of us should have some work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and be freed from sin. I visited Pentecostal churches during that time. Man, that was loud.

They all, I mean, you think we can get excited. They had the children running down the sides of the aisles and back up the other side singing and the pastor came up and talked to me and my brother-in-law was so loud. He was this far and I could barely hear him.

Loud service. I visited churches that were kind of associated with Bethel. I know some of you have heard of those.

I mean, I saw things where people were running through prayer, what do they call them? People would stand and put their hands and they'd run through these prayer tunnels and people would pray over them as they went through and all the stuff. I've been in, what about missionary lines? All of these churches have their focus, right? Growing up, we focused on, in the Baptist church, we focused on the Bible and which version was right and study to show thyself approved unto God and we would rightly divide the word. And you'd go to another church and their focus is holiness.

We need to have a second work of the Holy Spirit and that seems to be their focus. The other day, some of us young, some of, I'm throwing myself in with you guys. We're watching Church of God restoration and these guys are playing coats but they're getting excited and screaming out and even while the preacher is like, they're standing up, amen, brother, preaching it and all this stuff.

Why am I here at the end of the day? Why do I associate with you fine people? Is it because you're all nice and I just came here and thought, man, you guys are friendly. I should move to Oregon from Washington. Is that why? Is it because you wear head coverings? Is it because you wear certain dresses? Why am I here today, honestly? I would honestly tell you why I am here among you people.

Though studying the Bible is a very important topic. Holiness is a very important topic. Speaking in tongues, some wanna make that their topic or healing, very important topics.

But the one thing that holds me here is because I can get up and say something like, if you do not forgive people their sins, Jesus, God will not forgive you your sins and nobody will think I'm a heretic for saying it because that's what Jesus said. I can say, you should really love your enemies and not resist them. And maybe some people might look at me strange or try to come around it, but at least it's accepted that Jesus meant that.

I could say, Jesus said, lay not up treasure and the rich barely ever make it into heaven. And you'd probably say, well, yeah, okay, let's interpret that right. But it could be said, it could be said and stand.

There's so many of these teachings. Jesus said, I wrote some of these down. Oh, he said, anger will send you to hell.

And I could say that this morning, right? I could say, if you can't get a hold of anger in your life, you're on your way to hell. And I don't think too many of you would say, wait a minute, brother, that theology is a little messed up and go through the reasons why Jesus didn't really mean what he said. I could say, if you can't stop lusting with your eyes, it would be better for you to gouge out your eye or go get a different kind of phone or whatever it is, get this thing under control.

That's how important it is, because it'll send you to hell. I could say that, right? That's why I want to be here, because you're okay with following Jesus and letting his word stand and say, we need to obey him. Not everywhere says that.

Not everywhere they want to admire Jesus as the baby, but not everywhere says Jesus meant what he said and we need to obey that. Yes, we need holiness. Yes, we need to pray for healing.

Yes, we need to study the Bible. Yes, we should wear certain clothes or do certain things, but the most important thing is Jesus and what he says and if we obey him. One verse I remember years ago, when I was trying to decide, I remember I was at a holiness church and some in this church would believe that it's okay to go to war, to join the military, and I was struggling like, Lord, but these people seem to love you and that's between them and God.

I'm not here to judge them. But I remember reading this verse as I was seeking the Lord, what his will was for me and this was in 1 Timothy chapter six. You can turn there if you want, verse three.

And this verse was like that answer when you need that answer from the Lord. I was just, Lord, I don't know what to do. This was that verse, 1 Timothy chapter six, verse three.

It says, if any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine, which is according to godliness. And he goes on and he says, from such withdraw yourself. And I took that at that time as from the Lord that I was supposed to be associating with people that consent to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Turn to Hebrews chapter one. It starts off Hebrews chapter one. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son, whom he had appointed heir of all things. I love that we can get up here and we can read Jesus' words and take them literally. We can take them and apply them to our lives.

But here's a fear I have. And this would probably be my burden for this church. There's a little verse in Timothy, 2 Timothy.

Let's all turn there. Because see, the Lord woke me up in a Baptist church with this mindset. He woke me up.

But I think this can happen in any church. 2 Timothy three, five. It says this, having a form of godliness, but denying the power of from such turn away.

You know, there's a fear in my heart because I know I was there. And you can have it anywhere. A fear in my heart that says, there's a form.

There's a form, there's a consent. Yes, yes, Jesus, Jesus is our Lord. Yes, he's our master.

But somehow we can be denying the power of Jesus in our lives. Turn to 1 John chapter two. I remember during this time, this verse woke me up as I'm struggling because I would have been raised in a way that said that Jesus' words were not for the Gentiles.

They were for the Jewish people. During that time, they rejected him as a king. And so we didn't need to take those words literally.

But in 1 John chapter two, I read this verse and I know I've read it to you many times before, but this is one of my life verses. Let's just pick it up in verse three. And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

He that sayeth I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know that we are in him.

He that sayeth he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. If you wanna say this morning, I'm a disciple, I'm a follower of Jesus, your life should be reflecting Jesus. It should be, we should be able to look at every way Jesus reacted, every words he said, all of his attitudes, how he went and took time to pray, how he had compassion on the sick and the weak.

And we should say that is our perfect example. We should walk like he walked. That's the calling.

Can you turn to 1 Peter chapter two in verse, we'll just pick it up in verse one. Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile, that's deception, that's hypocrisy and hypocrisies and envies in all speakings that's newborn babes. Desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.

If so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious to whom coming as unto living stones disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. You also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture.

Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone. We're talking about Jesus. Elect precious and he that believes on him shall not be confounded.

Unto you therefore which believe he is precious. But unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builder disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner and a stumbling block and a rock of a fence. And to them which stumble at the word being disobedient where unto also they were appointed.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should show forth the praises of him who had called you out of darkness in his marvelous light which in times past were not a people but now are a people of God and obtained mercy. Verse 11, dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. My question to you is this verse right here, verse seven.

Unto you therefore which believe he is precious. May I ask this morning, is Jesus precious to you? Is he just a cute little baby? Or is he your main focus? If I were to put a crosshair upon this board and I would say, what is your focus of your life? What is your days? What each day drives you? What would you put in that crosshair? Is Jesus precious? Second Timothy four, eight, verse eight. Here's the promise.

Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge shall give me at that day. And not to me only, but unto all them that love is appearing. Is the Lord precious to you? And do you love? Are you looking for his return? Are you thinking about, is it governing your life? Is the thought of Jesus on your mind? You know, I can't help but make a parallel between Timothy and Miriam.

You know, they were over at our house yesterday and, you know, newlyweds. And what do you think newlyweds do? You know, it's new for me as a father, you know, all this time I've been saying, hands off, hands off. And now all of a sudden, you know, they're hugging and, you know, holding hands and this is all good, right? Now it's the good thing.

And I would say, I would probably venture to say that Miriam is precious to Timothy. I don't think he would have any bashfulness saying that. You know, is Jesus that to us? Or is Jesus just a system? Is he just a thing we do on Sundays? Is he a cute baby that lays in a manger? Is he something that, you know, brings us honor among each other because we come and say we are followers of him? Listen to the words of this song.

I don't think it was in our book, but it says this. Jesus is all the world to me, my life, my joy, my all. He is my strength from day to day.

Without him, I would fall. When I am sad to him, I go. No other one can cheer me so.

When I am sad, he makes me glad. He's my friend. Jesus is all the world to me, my friend in trial sore.

I go to him for blessings. He gives them oar and oar. He sends the sunshine and the rain.

He sends the harvest, golden grain, sunshine and rain, harvest and grain. He's my friend. Jesus is all the world to me and true to him, I'll be.

Oh, how could I this friend deny when he's so true to me? Following him, I know I'm right. He watches oar me day and night. Following him by day and night, he's my friend.

Jesus is all the world to me. I want no better friend. I trust him now.

I'll trust him when life's fleeting days shall end. Beautiful life with such a friend. Beautiful life that has no end.

Eternal life, eternal joy. He's my friend. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 13.

These words of Jesus. Ask yourself this question. Is Jesus precious? Is Jesus your treasure? Notice in verse 13, verse 44, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has and buys the field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who when he has found the one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. You know, I was trying to think, you know, me and I don't have a very far reaching thought process. So I'm trying to think, okay, how can this apply to you? And I couldn't help but think of like Caleb here, you know, or some of you, you know, with this new gun law coming up, you know, you're searching and seeking for, you know, we got to get the guns before the law starts.

And, you know, I could see like if the perfect thing came up, like you're searching and you're looking and there it is, the right deal. This is a great for supplying food for my family. And so you go, right, that's right.

Yeah, so you go and you like do whatever it takes. Now, what if you sold like your 22 and your 308 and all this stuff, because it's the perfect gun. Like this thing is your, what you've been thinking about.

This is what Jesus is supposed to be for us. It's like, do we really think of Jesus like that? Now you fill in the blank, maybe that's Caleb right now, but what's, you know, what's on your heart right now? What things are you really wanting? And what things would you give up? Because Jesus is your treasure. He's your precious jewel.

I read this verse and I think, is Jesus really that much to me? Am I willing to sell everything? Is he that precious to me? And I think if you're like me, the reason why I'm preaching this sermon is there's so many things in life that somehow get in here, right? Somehow creep their way into here. You know, and I'll tell you the heart behind this. A couple weeks ago, I was very hungry for revival and for prayer and for knowing God closer.

And I don't know what happened, but in a week and a half, I felt my heart was colder. It wasn't as fervent. And I had to check and say, what changed, Lord? Why am I not so hungry? And I just want to be honest.

I want to confess that to you. Why? And as I looked into my own heart, I could see things had crowded in that took him off the throne. You know, a lot of these things can be good things.

In fact, I would venture to say, for most of us, if you're watchful, you'll find good things make it in there, but they take away our focus off Christ. He's no longer that precious thing that we want, that we desperately want. You know, at the beginning of the year, it was, I know this sounds so silly, but I'm just going to be honest with you.

It was a silly, my wife's father died and the family wanted us to put together a slideshow for all the pictures. And it took, I think I spent 60 hours just finding all these pictures and putting them in. And I have a way of just pouring my heart into something.

Anybody else pour your heart into things sometimes for things? Yeah. And so I start pouring my heart into this thing. And at that time I was very seeking the Lord very close and I started feeling a cooling in my heart.

And, but I didn't notice it right away. It took a while. And by the time I caught it, it was months and months later.

And I remember I used to talk to David, my brother-in-law on the phone. And before this time I would have something, something the Lord was showing me, just, I was excited about things. But during this time I'd have to just tell him, I feel so dry right now.

Why do I feel so distant from the Lord? And I started to see just simple things like making a slideshow. We can get our heart on that than on keeping it on the Lord. You know, what you may ask, well, what wasn't this last week and a half? Well, you know, I was excited about Timothy and Miriam's wedding.

And so I wanted to do it well. You know, I like to do things with gusto. So I wanted to have this live stream and I wanted to, you know, have it work well.

And I wanted to record the video for them so they would have the video afterwards. Cause I remember our video from our wedding was really not that great. I don't even know we have it anymore.

But my focus, my heart left revival and knowing Jesus and got onto things that matter, but not that much. Now, could I somehow have still done those things? That's the question. But with Jesus, I think so.

But somehow I was just so enamored and got so focused on this thing, whatever it was, that now I'm having to repent to the Lord and say, Lord, this thing has come into my life. And I think if we're honest, we could put the tag on this as idolatry. I know it sounds harsh.

It sounds so like, really? Jeremy, you're struggling with idolatry? But what is idolatry really? You know, it's an interesting passage. If you look through the Bible, how many times in the New Testament we're told that people with idolatry don't inherit the kingdom of God? It says it in 1 Corinthians chapter six. He goes through a list and you know, we have all these brothers meetings and we come on their purity meetings and we're concerned about fornication.

We're concerned about adultery. And those are all good things to be concerned about. But did you know just a couple, just the next one right after fornicate is idolaters.

Did you know idolatry will keep us out of the kingdom of God? What is idolatry? Galatians chapter five says, the same thing, the works of the flesh are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry. Ephesians chapter five, but fornication in all uncleanness and covetousness, let it not once be named among you as become saints, neither filthiness nor foolish talk nor jesting, which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks. For this you know that no whoremonger or unclean person or covetous man who is an idolater hath an inheritance.

Did you know that if we have covetousness in our life, we're an idolater? And this will equal if we don't get it out of our life, that we won't inherit the kingdom of God. I'm glad I can say that here. Maybe some people wouldn't really, in some places wouldn't accept that message.

Did you know in Colossians three, it says this, mortify therefore all your members, which are upon the earth. Fornication, there's that list again. Uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness.

What does it go on to say? And covetousness, which is idolatry. You know that covetous just means, you know, we all think, well, that means I want Abe's gun or whatever he has, right? Did you know covetous just means, if you look at the Greek, it just means more in quantity, it's two words, more, and it's quantity or quality. Did you know that if somehow something creeps into these crosshairs of quantity and quality that takes Jesus off of his throne and we focus on that, it's idolatry.

Do you know a slideshow could become an idol? Isn't that crazy? A slideshow. But if it's stealing our focus off of, okay, now let's think about this. Like, what if Jesus told his disciples, you know, I want you to go over to heal that man.

They're like, I'm busy making a slideshow. Would they be idolaters? Yeah. Maybe if they're not listening.

First Corinthians says this. So this morning when I woke up, I was like, Lord, what should I preach on? I need to know what you want for your people. And I did not have this verse in my mind.

It just came in my mind, flee from idolatry. Okay, Lord, I'll take that from you. I hadn't even been meditating on that verse.

So I think we need to take it to heart. Flee from idolatry. Let's look at that really quick.

It's in First Corinthians 10. I'm not here to give you a black and white list of what idolatry is, but I am here to say, if your conscience is bearing witness that you're cold to the Lord. You know, idols, they don't speak, right? They don't hear and they don't do anything with their hands.

If your God is not, if you're not communing with him and hearing from him, he's not speaking to you and you don't feel like you're talking to him, then maybe we've got a problem with idolatry. Maybe your God is not the God. You're not worshiping the right God.

What did I say? First Corinthians chapter six, no, 10, sorry. So he's talking about the Israelites and he says, you know, they all drank from the spiritual rock and they were baptized with the same. They went on through this cloud, through the sea and all these things.

And then he says, but with many of them, verse five, but with many of them, God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things were our examples to the intent. We should not lust after evil things as they also, neither be idolaters as were some of them.

Listen, listen to what it says, the idolaters. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. That's all it says.

It doesn't even mention the calf. It mentions that they were looking for fun, right? They were looking to rise up and play, eat and drink and rose up play. Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell one day, three and 20,000.

Neither let us tempt Christ, some of them also tempted and were destroyed of the serpent. Neither murmur ye. Notice complaining is thrown in here.

And then he gets down to verse 14 of this chapter. Wherefore, because of all these things, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. He's not talking to outside the church.

He's saying, my dearly beloved, my brothers and sisters, flee from idolatry. What kind of idols can we have in our hearts? The last chapter of 1 John, John ends this book with little children. Keep yourself from idols.

It's a big subject. I don't even know what it all means. But as I meditate and think about what is idolatry, it's anything that takes Jesus out of his rightful place in our hearts.

Turn, if you can, to 2 Corinthians 10. Anything that takes Jesus out of his rightful place. 2 Corinthians 10, sorry.

Did I say 10 verse five? Yeah, I'm sorry. It says here, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Here, I believe we can get a definition for idolatry.

An imagination is a thought, a reasoning, a reckoning. So when I have a thought, you know, I wanna do a slide show. That's an imagination, right? It hasn't come to fruition.

It's a thought, I'm thinking about it. And this verse goes on to say that every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. You know, we have a way, this problem with idolatry goes all the way back to the beginning of the garden.

We start off with man and Eve eating after God told them not to. She made an idol of this fruit. It looked good.

Pleasant to the eyes. Then later we see Cain and Abel and we see an idol of how they were gonna worship God. One said, I will do it this way, not that way.

I will bring the fruit of my field. I will bring vegetables, you know? And that's how I'll worship you, God. And he had his own imagination and he exalted that above how God said.

Here we say, here we see in this verse any imagination that comes into our heart that exalts itself above, that's lifting up itself above God's rightful place in our heart to where now we're not willing to obey him is an idol. So anything that enters into this cross here and kind of pushes Jesus out a little bit and now we're focused on this thing and Jesus can't say to us, do this or do that is an idol. I want to turn to Mark and look at this parable.

The parable of the sower. Mark chapter four, verse three. He says, hearken, behold, there went out a sower to sow and they came to pass as he sowed, some fell by the wayside and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up and some fell on the stony ground where it had not much earth and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth.

But when the sun was up, it was scorched and because it had no root, it withered away and some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no fruit and others fell on good ground and did yield fruit and sprang up and increased and brought forth some 30 and 60 and some 100. This parable, we cannot forget. This is told for a reason.

This is so important. So everybody don't look at your Bible. Let's see if we can do this together.

What was the first plant? Anybody remember what was the first plant? The first seed that sowed. Where did it go? Sorry, I'm not doing it right. What was that? Heart.

Okay, heart and ground, the wayside. That would be kind of like if I threw some seed out on the road, right? It couldn't really go into its pack down and so the birds came and stole it away. What was, so we'll just put heart here.

What was the second one? Yes, good. So we'll draw some rocks here. So we'll just put rock, okay? What was the third one? What was that? Thorns.

So we'll put some thorn plants. What was the last one? What'd you say? Good, yeah, good. I think you farmers should understand this really well.

The reason Jesus told us this. Okay, so let's jump ahead. Now, I mean, you all know this story, right? Let's see it from memory if we can do it.

What happened to the seed that fell here? The birds came and took it away. Does that mean there's any life in them? They're gone, right? The seed, by the way, does anybody know what the seed is? The word of God. It says it in Luke, the word of God, and it says in Matthew, the word of the kingdom.

So these two things are interchangeable. So this little seed is the word of God. The word of God came down into their heart.

Now, how do we know it's his heart? Well, in Mark, it says this. The birds came and stole it out of their heart. So we know that this whole parable is about your heart this morning.

If your heart's this hard, the word of God does nothing. There's no life. You're not even Christian because nothing can produce any fruit in your life, okay? What was the second parable? It withered.

It withered, yes. Why? The sun came out. So the sun came out, and we'll put this plant kind of just like drooping down.

Okay, the net result is what? Is it alive or dead? Dead. Does it have life? No. It said, can anybody remember why, other than the rocks, anything other features about why it died? Yes, it had no root in itself.

The thing couldn't grow roots, okay? Thorns. What happened here? It choked it out. So we'll put this little plant coming up, but it just has hardly anything, right? It just has no what? Fruit.

Okay, if I plant a piece of corn into the ground, what do I expect to come from it? Fat ears. Fat ears of? Corn. Corn.

Okay, if I plant wheat, I hope to get wheat. If I plant the word of God in your heart, what do I expect to come out of your life? The word of God. What is the word of God? Okay, thank you, Jesus, for Jesus coming out of your life.

What else is the word of God? Fruit. Fruit, okay. Fruit of the spirit.

Can anybody tell me how this verse goes? The word of God is quick and powerful or living. Quick is living. So it's living.

It's alive. And what does it do? Peering. What's that? Pierces, dividing, and what does it say? It's a discerner of what? Thoughts and intents.

So if the word of God is in your heart and producing, what should it be doing? It should be discerning of thoughts and intents. It should be saying, is that to the obedience of Christ? Is that to the obedience of Christ? What did Jesus say about this? What should Jesus say about that, right? That Jesus living in you. So if there's no fruit coming out of that, then you might hear, right? Because the last one, can you remember how many it brought forth? 30 and 60 and 100.

So this thing's got, you know, the word of God is coming out of their life. God is all day long, okay? Think back last week, Wednesday. We'll just pick that for your day.

Seven o'clock in the morning, you woke up, or maybe you got up earlier, hopefully, and you read the Bible. And did the word of God bring fruit? By 10 in the morning, was it still bringing you fruit? Was it still reminding you of what Jesus said? By 11, by one, was it bringing fruit in your life? Was it producing godliness? Was it changing you? Were you growing in grace? By five o'clock in the afternoon, by six in the evening. Okay? I don't think if you're here this morning and you really believe you have life in Jesus, I don't think you're here.

And I don't think you're here because the things wither and don't. You probably wouldn't come here. You probably are in one of these two things.

Notice this thing still has life, but it doesn't have fruit. It's not producing the word of God in the heart. Remember the Pharisees, they read the Bible all day long, and Jesus said, you've never heard their word of any kind.

So my question is, and this is my verdict, where are we? Can anybody remember, without having to read it, what are the things that choke the word? Bears. What's that? Can I add something here? Did you know in both Gospels, it says the deceitfulness of riches? Ever thought about that? What's deceitful about what? Okay? For you? Could it ever deceive us that we think we're doing okay with the Lord, and it's really choking us? And riches and wealth deceive us? What did Jesus say? Now I can say this, right? Because you guys believe in following Jesus. He said, what did he say about wealth? I think of the Roger who wrote a book on it.

He can't serve God and money. He can't serve God and money. Okay, what else did he say about wealth? Sell and give.

Sell and give? It's hard for rich men to entertain you. It's hard, it barely happens. It's like a miracle when rich men entertain you.

He said, what did he say? I mean, he didn't say a lot of good things about riches and wealth. So, I'll put that deceit, I don't even know how to spell this, but you'll figure it out, of riches. What else can anybody remember for things that choke the Lord? The lust for other things.

The lust for other things. Anybody remember what's in Luke? Pleasure. In the Luke, I can't remember this.

Pleasures. Can anybody raise their hand and say their conscience bears witness that these things steal away the presence of the Lord and the joy of the Lord and the focus of the Lord? I'll raise my hand. We're either one of these two places most likely, unless you're not born again, you're probably one of these places.

And we would be foolish and pretty deceived to think that, I would say in America, we have it probably the worst among a lot of countries. Because of this right here, it deceives us the greatest. Before we close, we have about nine minutes.

Let's go to Luke. And I just want us to, the burden of the message this morning is this. Do we have idols in our heart? Yeah, we wanna say Merry Christmas and we wanna say Jesus is the reason for the season and we wanna think all these great thoughts about Jesus, but are we really his disciples? Are we really his followers? Luke chapter 10.

Is Jesus precious to us? Luke 10, verse 39. Now it came to pass as they went, he entered into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word.

But Martha was cumbered about with much serving and came to him and said, Lord, does thou not care about my sister who had left me to serve alone? Bitter therefore that she helped me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful and Mary has chosen that good part which shall be not taken away from her.

I wanna just dissect this a little bit and look at this. First of all, where was Mary sitting? What, why? What was she doing there? She had one thing she wanted, right? She had one focus. And that was Jesus' word, his teaching.

I wanna know who you are. I wanna know how you think. You are my focus.

Martha, on the other hand, was doing good things, right? She was serving. She was probably making a slideshow. But notice what Jesus said.

Martha, Martha. Notice the care in his voice. He calls her two times out to get her attention.

He says, Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled. Careful is an old English word for full of care. What kind of things can enter into our hearts that we put our attention towards? You know, that silly mic up there.

You know, it didn't work very good, by the way. But I was tempted. I had wanted to be here early to test it and some things happened we couldn't get out on time.

And you know, I was tempted to put my attention, you know me, put my attention and focus on that. You know, isn't that a cool thing? By the way, it was supposed to pick up all of you guys talking. So I was doing it for you and for all of our listeners.

But anyway, and I could have easily have made that my focus on the way because we got out late and we weren't able to get here in time to really get it set up like I was hoping. But is that really what matters? You see how little things crowd in and we become careful and troubled and then we get frustrated and we complain and we murmur about silly things like mics and being late, you know? And we forget the focus. What is the focus? The focus of this life of being a true follower of Jesus is to follow him and to sit at his feet.

And I think sometimes we can set up mics and do things like that, but we really have to watch our heart. We really have to watch our heart. Now notice what he says.

He says, you are cumbered. That word means to be drawn around, you know, from this thing to the next thing. You're drawn away.

You're drawn away. Your focus isn't there anymore. He says, you're drawn away by many things.

But then he says, one thing is needful. And she's chosen that better thing. Only one thing.

Everything in your life right now, there's only one thing that's needful. You know, just go through your mind, all the things last week that maybe stole your peace, stole your joy, stole your focus. Might be boyfriend and girlfriends.

Just saying that could happen, you know. It might be projects. I know exactly this feeling.

One thing is needful. What is the one thing that's needful? What's the one thing that's needful? That's right. And you know, that might mean you wake up on Tuesday morning and, you know, for whatever reason, your alarm clock didn't go off and you couldn't read the Bible.

Can you still listen to Jesus' word all day? Can you still sit at his feet? You know, we talked about this. Carl brought it up in the first hour. Checklist, right? Do you know you could read the Bible and never sit at Jesus' feet all day? That's a scary one.

You all checked your list and said you sat at Jesus' feet. Do you think Jesus would rather you not read the Bible but commune with him all day and meditate on one verse that somebody preached on Sunday? That's how the early church did it. I'm not trying to say don't read your Bible.

That's a good step in the right direction, but what I am trying to say is the one needful thing is that we sit at Jesus' feet all day while we work, while we play, while we set up mics, you know, while we make slideshows. Whatever it may be that you do, the one needful thing is that you sit at Jesus' feet. What is one needful thing you do in life that you have to do or you won't live? Breathe.

I mean, you could live for a couple of days without eating, but you can't live very long without breathing, right? That's one needful thing. And what is the one needful thing that we need? Jesus said, men shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The one needful thing you need to be thinking about is where is that little seed finding the soil, and where is your heart at? And the way to know that is where's your focus? Where is your focus? 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, two, three, and I am a human just like you.

I, we vacillate, right? We need to have these weekly reminders to remind us of these things. To remind us that, oh, I've gotten off course again. That's why we need each other.

Provoke one another to love and good works. To get up here and act like I'm some guy that has this all figured out, and I never struggle with this, is just, would be a hypocrite. Listen to the words of this song.

Sitting at the feet of Jesus, oh, what words I hear him say. Happy place so near, so precious. Is Jesus precious? May it find me there each day.

Sitting at the feet of Jesus, I would look upon the past, for his love has been so gracious. It has won my heart at last. Sitting at the feet of Jesus, where can mortal be so more blessed? There I lay my sins and sorrow, and when weary, find sweet rest.

Sitting at the feet of Jesus, there I love to weep and pray. While I from his fullness gather grace and comfort every day. Bless me, oh my Savior, bless me as I sit low at thy feet, I'm waiting.

Oh, look down in love upon me. Let me see thy face so sweet. Give me, Lord, the mind of Jesus.

Keep me holy as he is. May I prove I've been with Jesus, who is all my righteousness. So, what I say, my burden is flee from idolatry.

Daily, hourly. The second you notice that your passion and your focus is leaving your hunger for righteousness, check your heart. There's probably something, some focus that you've allowed to creep and push Jesus out.

Cast it down. Cast down every imagination to the obedience of Christ. And let's keep each other accountable.

Let's ask each other how we're doing. Let's keep Jesus as our focus, thank you. And thanks for being the group that.