Soil: The Condition Of The Heart | Tyrone P. Jones | Kingdom Ground

might have heard last week, it's really about agriculture, but how that relates to us as the people of God and in a grarian community. We certainly can see those things and the impact, and very easily can tie the things that we see in Scripture, because that's the community that they had, how that applies to us. The end result, of course, of any farmer that's planted seed is harvest. The end result, of course, that the Lord wants from all of our lives is harvest, whether it be personal life, whether it be soul saved, if it's harvest for the church, the mission that the work is of what God wants us to do. This passage, Psalm 107, 37 through 38, says this, "They sow fields and plant vineyards that yield a fruitful harvest. He blesses them and they multiply greatly." That is the heart of God, and the one thing that I know, and the thing that I've even learned more so, for the harvest to come, even in our valleys, it takes a lot of planning, a lot of scheduling, it takes a lot of strategizing, a lot of ground prep, a lot of irrigating, a lot of planting, a lot of cultivating, a lot has to go into it before harvest comes. And so we're going to look at each of those elements each week. Last week we looked at water, this week we're going to look at the soil. I'm going to ask if you would take your bibles and stand with me. We're going to go to Matthew chapter 13, and we're going to look at verses one through nine. Throughout the message, however, you're going to get the explanation of this that Jesus gave in verses 18 through 23. We're going to read Matthew chapter 13, verses one through nine. One through nine. Okay. Can you hear me all right? Yes. Thank you. Okay.

Very good. Here's the word of the Lord. That same day, Jesus went out of the house, and he sat beside the sea, and great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parable, saying a sore went out to sow. As he sold, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some 100 fold, some 60, some 30. And hear this verse, "He who has ears, let him hear." He who has ears, let him hear. Can you just do this for a minute? There we go. He that's got ears. Let him hear. Can you say amen to the word? Now you may be seated. Now, this is a parable, and parables was, Jesus designed parables to communicate a truth. Usually some kind of narrative that was analogous to the people who could hear it. It was designed for them to understand a moral or a spiritual lesson. That's what Jesus did with these parables, and he used things that in that community, he knew they understood what he was illustrating. In this case, of course with the farmer, sorry with the sower, we certainly have no doubt that that's the Lord, and those whom the Lord uses to preach and teach the Word. The seed is certainly the gospel, the Word of the Lord, and the field is our heart. What Jesus is driving at in this message is the various types of heart that each one of us could have based on the soil that a farmer would see.

Is it a hardened heart? Is it a shallow heart? Is it a crowded heart? The big idea of this message is that the condition of the heart determines how the word is received and whether it bears fruit, the condition of your heart. So the soil, of course in this message, is absolutely analogous of our heart. The soil is our heart. So you're going to see some pictures on the screen. This is from our local community. But before crops were planted, there's a lot that has to take place right from the beginning. There's a leveling of the land, there's a shaping of the beds, there's managing the soil conditions, preparing the irrigation. No farmer considers that a waste of time. of that absolutely. in is at the beginning. Once everything is done when I was with Blaine last week, there was one field I asked in particular about, he said, "No, no, nothing else to do on that field. It's now just waiting for the crop or the harvest to grow because of all of the work that has been done prior to that." So they don't treat none of that as wasted time. It's the same with us when it comes to our heart. Repentance is not a wasted time. Humility is not a waste of time. Confession is not a waste of time. Surrender is not a waste. None of those are distractions from what the Lord wants to do for kingdom growth. As a matter of fact, all of those are necessities. Repentance, humility, confession, surrendering unto the Lord. And the condition of the field certainly determines the crop, the condition of your heart determines the harvest in your own life. So that's what Jesus is doing here. Now there's no doubt about it. Jesus knows that the seed is good because that's the word of God. It's the seed. It's the word of God that actually begins that transforming work in our life. The Scripture is clear that the word of God transforms the soul or converts the soul. So the seed is not the problem. It's the heart. It's the condition of the heart. So I want to talk about the various grounds that Jesus talked about and what our hearts can reflect even when the word of God is being preached. The first one is a—my statement

is to break up the hard ground. To break up the hard ground. Even when the seed is being given, what is your posture? What is your position when preaching is going on? Is this just 35 minutes of what you have to do on a Sunday morning to check off the box to say that I've been the church? Or is your heart in a posture and a position? I want to hear the word and I want the word to take root in me. Do I want the word to actually be something that changes my life? Am I okay hearing something? The old church we used to say, "The word of God should cause you to respond two ways, either ouch or amen." Ouch or amen. And so are you in that position? Here's what Jesus said. "And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside and the birds came and devoured them." Verse 19 explains that, "When someone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside." So Jesus is certainly letting us know that the enemy, which we all have an enemy, believe me, the devil is your enemy. If you don't think you have any human enemies, you can still be sure you got one. The devil is definitely your enemy. And can I say this? He's not too concerned on whether you're going to hear the word of God. He's not too concerned about that. What he's looking forward to see, how long is that message? How long will it take you to leave CTC here on Sunday morning and you forget about everything that was preached? Will it be by the time the football game come on? Will it be by the time you have dinner? Will it be Monday, Tuesday? Because if that word doesn't go within you, he's just going to come snatch it and it will never have an effect on your life. It will never have an effect in your life. So Jesus is saying those folks, when they hear the word, they don't believe it, they don't receive it and they never become saved. So we have to put ourselves in a position where we want to hear the word. That's the analogy of doing something with the hard ground because we are naturally, we are not naturally inclined to let the gospel change our life. We're not inclined to that naturally. But we put ourselves in a position just like this. Whether it be here, whether it be in a small group, whether it be around the table with your friends and you're reading the word or in your devotion time, you put yourself in a position to say, I'm not going to let this hard heart keep me from receiving the word. Am I talking to the right church? And so Hosea 1012 says, I say, plant the good seeds of righteousness and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow out the hard ground of your

hearts for now is the time to seek the Lord that he may come and shower righteousness upon you. So the issue is you can sit, if you got a hard heart, you can sit under good preaching and remain unchanged. So Jeremiah challenges us. He says, this is what the Lord says of the Don't waste your good seed among thorns. O people of Judah in Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power. Change your hearts before the Lord, or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all of your sins. That, without going much into that, you certainly see the alternative. If you don't let the Word of God come into your heart and change you, that unquenchable fire just does not sound appealing to me. I don't know about you. Now, here's the good news. If you posture and position yourself in such a man of the Lord, it's so willing to change your heart. He's willing to do the hard work for you with surrender to him. Here's Ezekiel 36, 26. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. That's a surrendering to the Lord. That's allowing him to be the Lord of your life. Allowing him to work with you by the Holy Spirit so that that Word of God can have a tremendous impact

in your life and therefore lead you on the way to harvest. So that's the first thing, breaking up the hard ground. Here's the second thing is developing deep roots. This is the second illustration, Jesus' shoes. Now, I do need to say this. Of course, in this culture, we're talking 2000 years ago, they certainly don't have all the ability and equipment that we have to get the ground ready like we can now. They did have makeshift plows. They had oxen or whatever that would pull it and they would go through and make these rows, but they didn't have the equipment to pull all the rocks out, all the stones out. Their real issue was trying to get the rows so that they could put the seed down. So therefore, there would be stones or rocks that would be left sometimes within the areas that have been plowed. So Jesus is using that illustration. He says this, some fell on stony places, talking about the seed, where they did not have much earth and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up and they were scorched and because they had no root, they withered away. Here's the explanation. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while.

For in tribulation and persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. So listen to what is being stated here. The seed, the gospel, the word, it hits the ground. And there's enough soil there. There's enough stuff that's went on in the heart where the work can have an impact. It gets into the heart, but it springs up right away. It doesn't go down deep and develop roots. And hear this, no root, no fruit. No root, no fruit. It can't develop deep roots. So yes, it's there, the seed is there. It's enough soil that covers the seed and it sprouts right up. A lot of excitement to know, man, God can't change my life. A lot of joy to say, oh, man, this really is changing in my life. You know, just the real emotion of what's taking place because you've experienced something from the word that you've absolutely saw does work in your life and brings about changes. But here's where the problem is. Because there's no root, then when trials come in your life or tribulation comes in your life or persecution comes or some challenge, maybe some disappointment with God because the prayer wasn't answered the way you want, some distraught with God. You upset with God because someone that you love may be passed on even though you prayed for them.

When those things come to light in your life, then you withdraw because that tribulation, that persecution is more than the root of God's word that you have in you. Hear me on this, folks, no one walks away from Jesus, except something takes place in their life and they get discouraged or distraught with God. Whether it be persecution, whether it be tribulation, whether it be some kind of challenge in your life, people just, they don't have enough root of the word of God in their life. And it draws them away from the Lord. This is what Jesus is saying instead of perseverance because there's a persevering because there's no deep roots, then it's quickly taken away. They withdraw, they dried up. if you if you you know what the word kalichi means. It's, if you can, you can try it right now, you can just go to your backyard, take a shovel, stick it, stick it in the ground, maybe you can dig six inches, maybe you dig eight inches, but more than likely you're gonna hit a spot. Shovel will almost clank, you think you hit a rock or stone, but it's just, it's kalichi, it's hard ground, because what happens is when rains come, waters come, it's pushing the minerals down. And if it doesn't push the minerals all the way down or down to a certain level, then the minerals sit on the top of that particular area.

And over years, it's layers and layers and layers of those minerals that build up. So the top part of your ground, yeah, that may be regular soil, but you got those minerals that's got into the soil down below and you can't get any deeper. Now farmers here, what they do, they do the pre-work where they take that hard cap, they do that pre-season tillage and take that hard cap off and then go down a little deeper to make sure that that ground is cultivated so that they don't just hit that kalichi when they're planting the seeds. But for many of us in our life what Jesus is saying, yes, something good has come in, but it's only went so far. So you can't get a good root system. Basically what Jesus is saying is some of us have a kalichi heart. We have a kalichi heart. There's some stuff that hit the soil and it sprung up. It came up, but it didn't last. And if I could just say this, I'm going to mess with some folks. You've seen it. You've seen people and you said, man, they were saved, but I don't think they are now. Or people who you've seen and you thought, man, they were so excited. They would be on the front row for worship. Man, when we needed to serve, they were there. And then all of a sudden, you don't see them, you don't see them. And then when you run into them, it's not even the same person. And you think maybe they lost their salvation. No, they haven't lost their salvation. They never had it.

They had excitement. They had emotion. Something affected them and it sprung up. But they never took roots in the Word of God and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Y'all doing all right? It was joyful. It was emotional, but it was a shallow experience. The Lord is not interested in us quickly responding if we don't dig it down enough roots that our faith will endure. The reason that many of you are here, some of you have been serving the Lord a long time and you know as well as I do, trials, tribulation, and persecution will come to your life. But why are you one of the ones that are still here? Because you've got enough roots dug down that when that stuff comes, you're still standing. You're still standing. You're still going, you're still going forward because you've dug down some roots. God lost in two, six, and seven, and now just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him and let your lives be built on him, then your faith will grow strong in the truth. You were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness. The reason we give thanks so joyfully when we get through trials and tribulations is because we know the roots have been established and the fruit of God in our lives is still going forward. Can you say amen? Here's the third heart and that's the crowd of heart. And this is the statement, remove competing growth. Here Jesus uses another illustration. This is actually seed that's been planted. Here's some seed that has went into the ground. Here's some roots that's been established.

But every farmer can tell you, any of you that has a flower garden knows this. Whatever has been put in that ground to cause good stuff, could it come up? Also allows bad stuff to come up. You've seen the flower bed, it's got a beautiful flower there, and its weeds also mixed in with the flowers or its grass in the flower bed. Something good is coming up, but also what's in it is something that's not good. Listen to what Jesus said. And some fell among thorns and the thorns sprang up and choked them. Now he who receives seed among the thorns is he who bears a word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Obviously, if you're farming or you're doing a flower bed, you're not going to let those weeds stay there. You're not out there displaying how wonderful your flower garden looks, and anybody can stand there and say, "Oh, okay, there's some nice-looking flowers there, but does she not see all them weeds?" No farmer's going to go out there and say, "Man, let me show you how great this crop is." And you go out there and you let them see whatever it is, your lettuce, and there's weeds all around. No, no, you're going to pull those out, but we don't do that in our own life. We don't pull those out. We see the weeds, but we learn to accept the weeds because they're really not that bad, and after all, there is some flowers growing also. So the cares of this life, it's okay, I still got flowers. The deceitfulness of riches, well, you know, maybe I'm putting too much effort into making money and storing up money, but I've got some flowers, I tithe. The past ain't going to come to me and pull out no weed long as I'm tired. Oh, yeah, I will. Take your tithe and pull the weed, just so you know. But no, no, you just let these things, here's what it says in Mark 4, 18, it says, "The cares of the world, deceitful of riches and desire for other things." Luke says it this way, the pleasures of life. What Jesus is saying is we can let some stuff just choke out spiritual growth, because that becomes more of where we give our attention. None of these things are inherently evil, possessions and money and comfort and even desires. None of those things are evil at all, but it's the fact of when they become more important in Christ and your relationship with Him. I can tell you, listen, the weeds of love and ministry, love and kingdom work, love in the church, those things grow up in my heart all the time. I love what I do, love the church, love kingdom work, and sometimes I can put the church,

kingdom work, ministry work, above my relationship with Jesus. If I didn't have accountability people in my life, if I didn't have a wife that could speak to me, I'm telling you that weed would grow up and next thing you know, I'll look at all the fruit of CTC and this weed is as big as a Jolly Green Giant. Man, I ain't heard Jolly Green Giant a long time. I don't even know if that's still a thing, but that dated being, but that can happen to all of us. Sometimes the greatest threat to spiritual growth is not what we reject, but what we refuse to release, what we don't let go of because it's choking out what the Lord wants. And so here's the last thing in team. You can, you can come as I, as I land this. The fourth one is to receive the word and bear fruit, receive the word and bear fruit. Here's Matthew 13, 8, 9, and the explanation, but others talking about the seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop. Some 100 fold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears to hear, let him hear, but he who receives seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and catch this and understands it. Here's the word and understands it. That person indeed bears fruit and produces some 100 fold, some 60, some 30. Good soil, good soil is what we got going on here. When the heart is so open, it wants to hear the word and accepts the word, it receives the word. You're working the ground, you're getting the weeds out, you're making sure you got some deep roots. You're listening for understanding. If you're not listening, when the word of God is preached for understanding, then honestly, you're just listening to a motivational speech. And you know as well as I do, you can get motivated by things and inspired by things, but that'll soon go away. But the word of God will take root for all eternity. That doesn't go, that doesn't go away. And the Holy Spirit will help us to understand that and genuine faith expresses itself in obedience. Here's what James said, James 1 21 through 25. He said, so get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, get that stuff out. And humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts. For it has the power to save your souls. That's the power of the word. But don't just listen to God's word, you must do what it says. Otherwise, you're only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the It's like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, you walk away and forget what you look like. And so you understand, James is certainly saying that when you hear the word preached,

something does strike you. You realize something needs a change or something is affected me, something needs to be different. You reflect upon that word. But even after you reflect upon it, once you walk away, you forget about what the intent of that word is. But he says, but if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free and you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. God will bless you when you have a ground, a heart that's willing to receive the word, accept the word. Dig some deep roots, bring forth some fruit. Remember, good ground is not a perfect heart. It's transformed by grace and it's responsive to God's word. And so I honestly want to just encourage all of our teachers here and preachers here, those that are leading small groups, city life groups, those that are teaching Bible scholars, those that are teaching tweens and the youth, et cetera, keep on producing and preaching the word of God. Keep on, just like right now, I don't know what I got in front of me, but according to the scripture, there's four different hearts of people that's sitting in front of me. I don't know who you are. I don't know if you got a hard heart.

I don't know if you got a heart that's being choked out. I don't know if you got a heart that's got some shallow ground or good ground. But this is what I know my assignment is to keep preaching and teaching the word of God. It's the same for those that teach and preach in our Bible college and in our small groups and allow the word of God to have an effect upon people's life. So I just close out with this. Hear the word of God to understand it that you may grow. First Thessalonians 2, 13 says, therefore we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn't think of our words as mere human ideas. You see, when you hear the word of God and it takes effect in your life, you know that wasn't just Tyrone's idea, that that was God's word that is bringing about the changes. Nothing that you're doing unto God is simply because you heard me say something. It's because the Spirit of the Lord and the word of God worked in you and brought forth the fruit. You accepted what was said as the very word of God, which of course it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe. The word of God will keep working and produce good fruit. Everybody stand if you would. I'm going to close out with the prayer.

Because this is what I know. The destiny of your life is not the kind of heart, if you don't have that good soul, that good heart, the destiny of your life is not the condition of your heart right now. If it's hard in heart, it don't have to stay hard. If it's shallow, it doesn't have to stay shallow. If it's being choked out, it doesn't have to stay that way. It's a matter of what you determined you want to do with repentance, with humility, with confession, with surrender to God. And God can change your heart. And you can become more and more like him by hearing the word. Lady V and I was with some folks last night at a gathering. Lady V, she sung songs with Tony's daddy, some mariachi songs. I'm going to play them one of these days. She didn't, I'll film that. I'm going to play it one of these days, but we had a great time. But one of the ladies there, she talked about, I think she's been coming to CTC maybe a year and a half or so. And she was describing the environment of the people that she worked with. And she honed in on one particular guy. She talked about several, but one particular guy. And she said, the dude is just a jerk, he just is. But one Sunday I came to CTC and there he was. There he was sitting in church. And then she started noticing that he became,

he was getting better. And she talked to him and she said, I can't believe you go to CTC and you go to church. And she told him how long he had been coming. And she said, well, if I can be honest, you're just a better person now. And this is what he said. Isn't that what it's for? To go and hear the Word of God and become better? And then he said this, "I know I was a jerk." But I've been changed because the Word of God is changing my life. So it doesn't have to stay that way. Whatever your heart is, God can do the work and you can become who God wants to be. Prayer team, you can come. The Father I want to thank you now for this opportunity to share the Word of God. And Lord, it is my prayer that wherever we're living, hard in heart, shallow heart, choked out heart, that Lord every one of us will become hearts that receive the Word, accept the Word, and out of us comes great harvest, produce, great crops that bring glory to your name. Father, I thank you in Christ's name we pray, amen. God bless you. Have a great day. [MUSIC PLAYING]