- [Passage]
Matthew 13:3-9
[3] And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; [4] and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. [5] “Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. [6] “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. [7] “Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. [8] “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. [9] “He who has ears, let him hear.”
Introduction
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
This is the last session on ‘Cultivate the Heart-field’.
In this Year of Harvest, I am talking to you about cultivating our heart-field and also about the law of sowing and reaping.
As these messages were being preached, I heard many testimonies from the members saying that they had received blessings by obeying the word.
Harvesting so many blessings means that your heart-fields are becoming more and more of the good heart-soil.
Of course, some of you have cultivated good soil completely.
Financial blessing is surely a great blessing, but your heart-fields becoming more of the good soil is a much greater blessing.
God gives you abundant fruits even though you have not yet completely cultivated good soil because of the things that our church has accomplished.
Because of this, you can reap abundant fruit as you sow the seeds before God with faith, hope, and love.
If we sow for the kingdom of God, God will certainly pay us back with blessings.
Until now, many of you have sown for different occasions again and again.
Many times you have given everything precious to you, just like giving the last handful of flour in the flour bin.
But the flour in the bin never ran out.
God re-filled it again and again, and you were also able to give again and again.
God also supplied you with the necessities of life.
God’s kingdom was enlarged through your sowing with all your hearts and minds.
Many souls received life and God received glory greatly.
Every single time, God also gave us glory and praise.
Furthermore, He allowed for us to cultivate righteousness in our hearts more quickly.
So, if we just cultivate the good soil in our heart, how many more things will God give to us?
If you just prepare the vessel of blessing, He will pour down on us all the blessings that He has prepared.
I pray in the name of the Lord that all of you will be able to give testimonies of blessings.
[Main]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the last session, I talked about the good soil.
Let us review the characteristics of the good soil.
First, unlike the hard packed soil of the roadside, the good soil is soft.
The heart-soil of the hardened roadside cannot accept the word of God because of the self-righteousness, personal frameworks and evil.
On the other hand, the good heart-soil will readily accept all kinds of words of God.
Second, good heart-soil has no rocks in it.
Namely, it does not have untruth that hinders one from practicing the truth.
So, they don’t just hear the word but they obey the word with ‘Yes’ and ‘Amen’.
They act by the word of God even in tests, trials, or persecutions.
Third, good heart-soil does not have thorns.
So, they obey the word of God as they hear it.
They do not utilize any fleshly thoughts.
It’s because they have completely cast away all fleshly hearts including the worries of this world and the greed for money.
Good soil does not have flesh, and they can fully understand the meaning of the word.
They hear the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly, so they obey the word with an understanding the heart and will of God in every matter.
Whether they eat, or drink or whatever they do, they do it all for the glory of God, without having selfish motives.
For this reason, they reap abundant fruit in accordance with their actions and what they sow.
Brothers and sisters, have you checked how much of the good soil you have in your heart?
In this session, I will talk about the three things that we need to cultivate our heart into the good soil.
If you just do these things consistently, your heart will certainly become filled with the good soil.
The first is your worship in spirit and truth before God.
When God first created Adam, Adam’s heart was a heart of good soil.
But when Adam disobeyed God’s word and ate the forbidden fruit, his heart changed into barren land.
Furthermore, he was driven out of the Garden of Eden and he had to live in this physical world.
Now, he could no longer communicate with God as clearly as before.
So, God opened a way for Adam to communicate with God.
It was by giving the sacrifices.
God’s people gave sacrifices to communicate with the holy and perfect God to a limited degree.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob communicated with God by building altars before God.
Solomon met God in his dream and received great blessings when he offered one thousand sacrifices.
By offering sacrifices, the sons of Israel were forgiven of their sins that blocked communication with God.
Also, they were set apart as God’s people and received His guidance.
Today, we don’t offer sacrifices. In place of sacrifices we offer worship services.
Jesus talked about worship, the new sacrifice as follows:
John 4:23 says, “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”
Here, ‘an hour’ refers to the hour when the Holy Spirit does His ministry after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord.
Jesus gave Himself as an atoning sacrifice to reconcile us to God.
He redeemed all mankind from their sins with one sacrifice.
Since then, the people of God offer worship services in spirit and truth instead of sacrifices of animals’ blood.
They could communicate with God, who created Adam with a heart-field of good soil, more clearly by worshiping God in spirit and truth.
To have communication with God through worship, our worship must be offered in spirit and truth.
Jesus taught us how the worshipers of God must worship as follows:
John 4:24 says, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
God is spirit. We can communicate with God only when we worship in spirit and truth.
Here, to worship in spirit means we worship God with all our heart along with the Holy Spirit in our heart.
It is to listen to the word of God in the fullness of the Spirit and make it our spiritual bread.
To worship in truth is to worship with all our body, heart, mind, and soul.
It is to give God the aroma of joy and thanks in our deeds of offering prayers, praises, and offerings with our love for God.
When we worship this way, we can quickly recover the heart-field of good soil through the help of the Holy Spirit.
The speed of cultivating one’s heart will be completely different according to whether or not a person worships in spirit and truth.
For example, if they listen to the sermon in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they can understand very well what kind of heart the heart of good soil is.
Also, they can clearly see what kind of soil they have by reflecting on the word.
When they receive special grace, they not only discover the state of their heart-field, but while listening to the message the rocks or the thorns in their hearts are removed.
Therefore, I urge you to check whether or not you are really worshiping in spirit and truth.
If you worship in spirit and truth, you will be happy worshiping God.
You will be joyous listening to the word, praising God, and praying to God.
So, you will always wait for the worship services and prepare for them in advance.
You will listen to the sermon very carefully so as not to miss even a single word.
You won’t have any idle thoughts or fleshly thoughts.
Even though you are tired, you will soon control the tiredness by fullness of the Spirit.
When you sing praises, you will give your heart to God in the praises, and you will pray earnestly.
In every service, you will cheerfully give offerings that contain your devotion.
These people have different glittering in their eyes and different attitudes.
Sometimes, viewers of Manmin TV or GCN testify that they were very impressed by the way we worship in the main sanctuary.
If you are not worshiping in spirit and truth at this moment, I urge you to straighten up your mindset.
Those who worship in spirit and truth will continue to worship in their everyday life.
Romans 12:1 says, “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” As said, they offer their whole life as a living sacrifice.
If you worship in spirit and truth, you will keep the word you heard in your mind, and that word will be active in your daily life.
You will be reminded of the word you hear in your life, so it is easier to follow the word. As you follow the word, you will experience the power in the word.
You will be filled with the Spirit through the worship service, so you can always offer up to God the fragrance of joy and thanks.
Thus, your heart-field will be cultivated.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will offer up all the worship services in the 52 weeks of the year in spirit and truth, so that you can cultivate your heart quickly into good soil.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the second aspect that we need to cultivate our heart-field into good soil is ardent prayer.
1 Timothy 4:5 says, “for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”
Just by realizing that you have many rocks and thorns through the messages, you cannot cast away those things completely.
In fact, we cannot pull them out by our own willpower.
Our heart-field and the untruths in our heart-field belong to the spiritual realm that is invisible.
Therefore, we can cast away the untruths in our heart-field only through spiritual means.
Namely, there has to be some spiritual functioning through prayers, so that we can completely cast away untruths in us.
When God sent Adam and Eve out from the Garden of Eden, He said the following:
Genesis 3:17-19 says, “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.'”
This verse does not just apply to a physical field.
In spirit, it applies to our heart-field as well.
We can cultivate our heart-field and harvest abundant fruit only through the toil of fervent prayers.
If we pray ardently, we can receive the strength to follow the word of God.
Our heart-field is also cultivated when we pray.
Namely, the fire of the Holy Spirit may melt down the rocks or burn up the thorns completely.
The roots of untruths, namely the sinful natures are burned up. Even the deep and delicate roots will be burned up.
Just like we dig out rocks with excavators and remove the weeds with weed killers, we can cultivate our heart with much less toil.
We will be able to cultivate our heart-field so quickly if we can do these works everyday.
Therefore, I urge you to pray fervently. Also, pray without ceasing.
How pitiful it is if you just stop praying midway, when the rocks and thorns are almost pulled out!
If you are not a new believer and if you are not praying either, then you should know that you are not cultivating your heart-field.
King David, whom many of you love, received many trials until he became perfect.
And during those days of harsh trials, he always prayed to God.
He confessed in Psalm 145:18, “The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.”
David could accomplish perfect heart through such truthful prayers.
God will be near you when you pray earnestly and ardently longing to cultivate your heart-field into good soil.
He will give you comfort and answer your prayers.
Therefore, I urge you to pray until the end, until you cultivate a field with completely good soil.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the third aspect needed to cultivate good soil is your effort in following the Word.
To worship in spirit and truth and to pray fervently is also an act of following the Word. They are the most basic deeds.
As you check your heart-field in the worship service, you pull out the rocks and thorns through prayers.
Namely, you have to follow the word that tells us not to do or throw away certain things.
God tells us not to hate our brothers, so we don’t hate them. He tells us not to slander, so we don’t do such things.
He tells us to cast away evil, so we cast away evil.
Then, the rocky or thorny heart-fields will change into good soil. It is very certain.
At the same time, you have to sow. It means we have to follow the word that tells us to do and keep certain things.
For example, we have to love, serve, and be faithful.
If we sow wheat as we cultivate a rocky field, that rocky field will change into a wheat field.
If we sow grape cuttings as we cultivate a thorny field, the field will become vineyard.
Likewise, if you sow the seed of the word as you cultivate your heart-field, your heart will become good soil.
If you overwhelmingly practice the word, it will become even better soil.
Romans 1:17 says, “For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.”
James 2:22 says, “You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.”
If we practice the word with faith, our faith will be perfect through that action. It means we reach faith through faith.
Namely, even though we are not completely good soil yet, we can become good soil if we diligently practice the word as if we had good soil.
You Manmin members are witnesses to it.
I believe virtually none of you met God having a good soil from the beginning.
But because you have been diligently practicing the word, your heart became very much like good soil. Many of you have cultivated good soil completely.
Therefore, I urge you to diligently practice the word having hope, faith, and love.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Luke recorded in Luke 8:15 what Jesus said about good soil as follows:
“But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”
As written, those with good soil will keep the word with good heart.
They don’t think it is hard to practice the word or doubt about why they have to take the narrow path.
They feel the heart of God who wants to give us the most precious New Jerusalem, so they joyfully keep the word.
In order for you to cultivate such good heart, you need endurance.
Only those farmers who overcome hot weather of the summer and the storms can harvest crops 30, 60, or 100 times more.
If we work diligently with endurance at each moment, we will surely have the harvest season.
As for our church, we have already come into the harvesting time.
I urge you to cheer up a little more and have the time of harvest personally, too.
If you worship in spirit and truth, pray fervently, and diligently keep the word, the time will be shortened.
By the time we go into Canaan Sanctuary, I hope you will offer up to the altar of the sanctuary abundant fruits in spirit and body including the fruit of light and fruits of the Holy Spirit.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will also offer them up to the throne of the Father in the city of New Jerusalem.
[Amen]
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