Is kingdom, culture and soul. If you got your Bibles, here’s the roads. We get excited about the Bible. Why? Because we believe it is the ultimate truth that we have in our life. So Rhodes family, erodes, family, Mount Carmel, North city, come on, let’s get our Bibles out today. Let’s get excited about what God has to say. The Roads Church Mt Carmel Let’s open them up to Matthew chapter 13. Yes. Matthew chapter 13, sermon notes are available for you there in the worship guide or on the YouVersion Bible app kingdom. Culture’s the title of the talk today? Part two. What is culture? According to Webster’s dictionary, culture is a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize the society, institutional organization, attitudes, values, and goals and practices. So I believe there are set. There are a set of these attitudes, values, goals, and practices that match the culture of the kingdom of heaven.
And there are set of attitudes, values, and goals that match the culture of the kingdoms of the world. So we have the culture of the world versus the culture of the kingdom of heaven. And of those two things are in operation, regular member. When Satan took Jesus up onto the high mountain and tempted him and in the Bible says that he showed him all the kingdoms of the world, right? And he offer them to Jesus. But our Bible says that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God. And so I’m just wanting to highlight the difference between the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom culture, and Satan’s counterculture. Once you know that Satan has a counter-culture to the kingdom of heaven culture, and this is what he’s trying to sell us on. And what I think this is important to emphasize to Satan’s counterculture.
When we talk about Satan’s culture and Satan wants you to adopt his culture, many people think that his goal is to get you to worship him. That is not the goal of the satanic counter-culture. It is not to get you to worship Satan. His goal is get you and I to believe that we can live without God. It’s been his goal from the very beginning. When he came to Adam and Eve in the garden, he didn’t say, Hey guys, bow down and worship me. He just began to get them to question what God said. And he got them not to point to him. He got them to point to themselves.
Yeah,
God, doesn’t God, Satan doesn’t want you to worship him. He wants you to worship,
Right?
And when you worship, you you’ve adopted his culture because what did he do? He wanted to worship for himself is how he gets us fooled. Because we think, we think we’re only wrong when we’re worshiping Satan and no, no, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve left the kingdom culture and adopted the satanic culture. When we begin to worship ourselves, when we think we can live without God, and this is what he wants to get us to believe, he wants to get young people to believe this, you get raised in church, and then you come into your late teen years going into college and you begin to get some ideology that, you know what, maybe that’s not for me. And I got some freedom and decisions and I think I can live without God. I don’t have to go to church. I don’t need to go to church wherever the adopting right. Falling right into satanic trap of embracing his culture. That I don’t need God. As long as I have a good job and got enough money, I can get everything.
Okay. Pretty, pretty strong for an introduction. But this is what happens. As long as I have a good enough job and I can take care of myself and buy what I want when I want, why do I need God, satanic culture? I take care of me, kingdom culture. I can’t breathe without you. That’s the difference? That’s the difference. All right. Here at The Roads Church Mt Carmel let’s get into this Matthew chapter 13, which culture are we going to adopt culture of the kingdom of heaven or the culture of give me some me versa. Let me jump to verse three. I just need to save some time in those two verses will just bogging me down. I’m sure. Then he spoke many things to them in parables saying behold, a sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seed fell by the wayside and the birds came into Bauer them some fell on Stony places where they did not have much earth.
And they immediately spring up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, there were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away and some fell among thorns and the thorns spring up and choke them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundred fold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears to hear, let them hear. And the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? He answered and said to them, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, it has not been given for whoever has to him more will be given. And he will have an abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has, will be taken away from him. Let’s just pray over the word, father.
Thank you so much for your word. Holy spirit. I invite you to come and just breathe life into it. Speak truth to us. Lord, we do want to have an ear to hear what you’re saying to us today. So open blind eyes, open deaf ears. God that we can hear truth today and hear what you want us to do. We love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Everybody say, amen. All right. So now look in verse 11. It says talks about the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven so quickly, I will remind you what is the kingdom of heaven? We talking about kingdom of heaven of the time. People think about the place of heaven up there and going there, but the word kingdom and the Greek means royalty realm or an area ruled by a King. So yes, it can be an area ruled by the King talking about heaven, but he not only rules heaven above, but he rules the earth and beneath he rules everywhere, but it comes from the root word.
That means the bottom or the foundational principle components of something. So when you say kingdom of heaven, I want you to think with me, I want you to begin to change the way you think when I see and read kingdom of heaven, because in chapter 13, we’re going to see this a lot. Whenever I see kingdom of heaven, I want you to think the foundational principle components of heaven or the system of heaven or the culture of heaven. When you read kingdom of heaven, I want you to think about the culture of heaven, the system of heaven, how heaven operates. Let’s teach about that here at The Roads Church Mt Carmel Okay. That’s what we want to think about. And it says there are mysteries of the foundational principles of heaven that’s been given to us to know. So if we believe heaven is a great place, right? A lot of people talking about heaven, everyone wants to go to heaven.
I don’t know a lot of people that say, I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to go there. Heaven’s a great place. Even for people that don’t believe, they still say, well, if there is one, I want to go there. So if the kingdom of heaven are the foundational components or principles of the system that heaven’s run by. If we like heaven and we like what’s going on in heaven, and we all want to go there after we die, why would we not want to bring that system and principles and foundational components into the earth and operate with it while we’re here? Can we do both? Can we operate in the system of heaven while we’re on the earth? I didn’t say, can it be exactly like heaven, but Jesus did tell us to pray. Did he not your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in as what he said.
So let’s see how we can do that. Look at Matthew 13 here, Jesus uses seven parables to describe this system of heaven, seven parables. We’re just on the first one. This could take us awhile. Let’s go to verse three behold, a sower went out to, so here’s the first thing about the kingdom of heaven. The system of heaven, behold, a sower went out. Next two words went out, right? When I say next two words, I means you go ahead and say those two words, sorry, I didn’t prep you on that one. So I want you to get with me and we’ll make sure you’re getting this behold. A sower went out to sow. So the sower didn’t go out to sea. The sower. Didn’t go out to say, let’s see what happens.
The Zoeller
Didn’t go out to just say, well, you never know. The sower went out. Those approaches are reactive approaches. Well, let’s just see what happens. How many times do we say this? Well, let’s wait and see what happens in the kingdom culture. The sower goes out with a purpose. The sower goes out proactively not reactively. It says the sower goes out to salt, two sides. Why? He goes out. I go out to soap
Rio.
We are realized. That’s what God’s telling us. The kingdom. When you go out into something, you don’t go by what you see you go by what you’re sowing. So what does it mean to? So remember I gave you this word. It means to place or scatter seeds in the ground for future growth. So again, in this kingdom, we’re doing something now that will change what we’re experiencing later. The sower goes out to sow. So here’s the question. Are we continually reacting to the culture we’re experiencing around us? Or are we being proactive to change the culture? If you don’t like your friends group and what’s happening, are you sowing into it to change it? Or are you just complaining about it? If you don’t like the atmosphere at work or you say, Oh, I just hated here at work. Are you reacting to what happens at work? Or you proactively sowing into it? The kingdom culture says we go out to, so if you don’t want to like, what’s happening in your relationships with every marriage or kids or parents or whatever, what are you doing to change the culture around us? This is what we deal with. A lot of times in our life. We just like to tell it like it is, or we say this phrase.
It is,
We know it so well, it is what it is. What does that mean? We’re not sewing. We’re just reacting. This may be what I’m facing today. So, I mean, I can either say this is all that I’m going to have, or I’m going to sow into what I see so I can experience something different. That’s the kingdom culture they go out to. So, all right, so let’s jump here. I talked about the, a wayside seed last time. So you can watch last week. So let’s jump to verse five, verse five, some seed we’re talking about. Some seed fell on Stony places where they did have much earth and they immediately spring up because they had no depth of earth. So no Swiss has some fell on what kind of places on Stoney, on Stony places, Stony place. What are, what does Stony places mean? This is a word in the Greek. There’s this means simply a thin layer of soil with bedrock or larger rocks, just beanie. So Stony places. This is an area where it looks good on the surface, but if you go down just a smidge, there’s some junk underneath. It looks like good soil on the surface. What everybody else can see, it looks like they got their life. All looks like everything’s going well. Oh, I wish I could be like them. But if you dig a little bit below the surface, now be careful. We’re not talking about them.
We’re talking about we, because here’s the problem. Here’s an incorrect way to interpret scripture. And this happens all the time. I do it. You do it. If we’re not careful, we will broad brush stroke our whole life in one area. In other words, this breaks down into good soil or Stony places. So you can either, here’s an error on both ditches. We can get into. If I get into the ditch that I think that, uh, I don’t want to think I’m a Stony heart person. Cause member’s Stony places talking about the condition of our heart. And if I want to think it’s totality, then I don’t want to say, Oh, I don’t have Stony places. I want to concentrate on all my good places. And so I don’t want to agree that I have any bad places in my life. So I negate the areas where I have rocks and issues. And I just focus on the good parts. We do. Broad brush strokes. Like we think we gotta be all good or all Stoney. It’s not like that. There’s some areas of my life where I have some Stony places. Yeah.
There’s rocks. I need to dig up. I’ll teach you how here at The Roads Church Mt Carmel.
They’re called blind spots. We’ve all got them. So then you got go. So you can either be so focused on your good soul that you don’t pay attention to your Stony places or the other ditch we get into amend. This is another one we get so focused on our Stony places that we condemn ourselves and beat ourselves up. And we never appreciate the good soil that we have in other areas of our life. Don’t get caught up in either ditch realize that there’s some areas of your life. You are crushing it. That’s a good thing. That’s a compliment. You’re doing good. You’re doing good. You’re awesome. You’re knocking it out of the park, whatever analogy you want to do. You’re excelling in that. But there’s some areas of your life. You may have some rocks that you need to dig up and neither one identifies you in totality.
I
Am not my best days, nor am I. My worst days. I’m a combination of all of that. A work in progress. All right. So that was just freebie to throw in there. So now let’s look at this. Stony places looks good on the surface. I just wanted to say that because I feel like some people think that we’re talking about somebody else that it looks good on the surface, but underneath they got rocks and issues. And so that’s everybody else. But me, for those of you who are hearing that in your head right now, I am with you that you think you’re the only one in the room that underneath the surface, that you don’t have any rock that you got some rocks look to your right, your left and your front and back, Stony places all around. It doesn’t mean we’re bad. And I’m not talking about that.
Everybody’s just willfully living in sin. I’m not talking about that. We’ll explain what that means, but I’m just talking about don’t feel isolated in this moment. All right? So some fellow Stony places where they didn’t have much earth and we’re going to hamster the Stony place, they immediately spring up because they had no depth of earth. They immediately spring up. Now let’s look at the exempt or the deficit or the ex explanation rather, sorry. In verse 20, jump down to verse 20 says, but he received seed on Stony places. This is he or she who hears the word and look at the response immediately. They sprang up in verse six. Immediately. They receive it with joy. This is when a person initially hears what the word says. Here’s what God wants to do in their life. Someone gives a testimony, Tums, someone comes along and encourage them, tells them what God’s wants to do.
And they grab hold of that word. And they respond immediately with joy and go, yes, I want that to happen. How many of us have ever had that happen in our life? Where we got excited about what we heard God wants to do in our life. In the beginning of man, we were pumped. Excited. Yes, yes. It’s going to happen. Yes. But then time goes by. Okay. If ever got excited about something in one stage, and then later your excitement went from a level 10 to a Lego Neville level, negative five, because it didn’t work out in the timeframe. You thought it would work out. And the same testimonies that once encouraged you now make you mad.
Who am I talking to? He wrote family. I guess what you see was the one that once upon a time, the testimonies that got, yes, that can be me. They go forward. I reach out. I believe it. But then something happens. Time goes by. And those same testimonies start to bring more bitterness because you haven’t seen it happen in the timeframe that you wanted to see it happen. I’m with you. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking about myself. See, we got to stay in curse. So if we don’t have a lot of, we don’t have any depth of earth. If we got these Stony places, this is what happens. So what’s the cause? Why is it springing up causing problems? We got excited in the beginning, but there’s a problem. Here’s the problem. Verse six. But when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away.
Sun came up, they were excited. They were pumped. They were looking forward to it. It’s going to be good, man. God’s going to move. I can’t wait to see it. Things are going to turn around things, going to be different than the sun came up. Look at verse 21, because in verse 20, they received it with joy. They were excited. They were church on Sunday. But yeah, Tuesday’s coming. You’re going to go back to the office tomorrow. Yeah. You got a doctor’s appointment on Thursday. Just try to be as real as we can that we can be excited in here. There’s no other name. And then they got to go to work on Monday and there’s lots of other names.
Help him. Jesus. So here’s what happens. Here’s the word. We get excited on Sunday coming to The Roads Church Mt Carmel. But verse 21 comes. But yet if he has no root in himself, sun comes up. That gets scorched. Cause they have no roots was 21 has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. No root in himself. What’s a root undo. The root is the fundamental part of the plant. The catch catch. This absorbs nutrients from its surroundings. The root absorbs nutrients from its surroundings. So what you’re surrounded by feeds you. That’s what roots do, where you put your roots, you get your nurse from it from so it’s telling me that the plant has roots. So this is the part of the plant that does three things. It feeds the plant, stabilizes the plant and sustains the plant. So here’s the problem. I got excited about the word, but it got a problem. I had no root in myself. It says your Bible says in himself, I first read that. I’m thinking in himself, that’s not right. As fruit should be in Jesus. But here’s what God was saying in himself is locating the source, but not identifying the source.
It’s saying where the source is, but it’s not saying who the source is. The source is in me. The sources, not of me.
So the roof, I’m just getting excited because I know what God’s doing. So the root has no root in himself. So it’s, it’s in me. It’s a location. It’s, it’s the part that feeds me. It’s a part that stabilizes the stays me. So here’s the question is the part that feeds stabilize and sustains you that root. Is it in you or is it on the outside of you are your roots? And this is a question we get asked all the time are the roots. The things that are feeding me, sustaining me and supporting me are my roots in other people’s opinions. Are they external? Are they in circumstances or are they internal? If we’re not careful, we get our root system in the applause and the approval and the affirmation and the stuff of people. And all my roots are dug out there. When people in circumstances that I can’t control.
And then when they dry up, what feeds me, stabilizes me and sustains me. All of a sudden, it’s gone. I have no root system and I can’t stay the course. He says, if you have no root in yourself, Colossians chapter two, verse six says this as you therefore have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, as you have received, not your neighbor, not your mom, not your dad, not your kids. Not nobody else, not your preacher. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus, the Lord. So walk in him, rooted, rooted, rooted, and built up in. We got to try to get verse seven rooted and built up in and in and here we’re rooted and built up in him, in him. He in him who it’s in him as Jesus was where is Jesus Christ Jesus in you? The hope of glory, the Holy spirit not only be with you, but will be in you. So no root in myself doesn’t mean my support system is chats. That means Christ is inmate and I’m rooted and built up in him. You have to have it for yourself. You have to have this in yourself. You have to have a relationship for yourself, firmly planted. So as you receive Christ for yourself, get rooted and built up in him so that when everybody else leaves you bails on you fails you. You’re not rooted in them.
Don’t be rooted in me. I’m a human being that could failure tomorrow. Get rooted in him because if I fail you, if I, if you’re rooted in me and I fail you, then your nurse is going to dry up. And, there you go. This is what happens. People get too attached and I realize how it can happen. So I don’t want to spend a lot of time with a lot of disclaimers, but I’m just saying don’t be rooted in me. Be rooted in Jesus, rooted and built up in him. Don’t be rooted in external things. Be rooted in internal things. This is what God’s telling us to do. Get her, get our source from him. Because if we don’t do this, we’re going to get rooted in other people. So let me use so quickly. Like, um, uh, how do I say it? I like how I try to pull these illustrations just out of my head.
And then I got to think about all the things that I don’t want to say incorrectly and run them around the track and all that. So I used this first foot. I’ll use myself. I was going to go something else, but I think this works better. So let’s just say, I want to make it change in my life and be a better husband. Then I can’t just have the idea. I want to be a better husband. I have to get rooted in myself because what’s going to feed stabilize. And the growth of the new me is not going to be something external, but it’s gotta be something internal mistake I can make. If I get rooted in being a better husband. And I put a few strands of roots over in Dawn’s reaction to my changes.
Don’s my wife. For those of you don’t know, just making sure clear that up. So if she doesn’t respond to my changes the way I think she should feeding, stabilize and sustain by her response, then the Bible says I will only endure for a while. Okay. I won’t do it because it says that word endure is a different Greek word. It’s not the normal. When we talk about, about being patient and direct, it’s a word that literally means to be something to exist. So the idea like this, how I’m breaking down and making it simple for me is that I cannot become that husband. If my root system is not in Jesus internally, if it’s in someone else, then external things will begin to affect the feeding, the stabilizing, the sustaining of what I’m trying to be. So I will only be that as long as she affirms that and the moment she does it, then I’ll fall right back into my old habits and be what I, okay.
So this way he says, we gotta be rooted internally because we want to do it cause so, so you get excited, but you don’t have your rooted in yourself what happens, but endures only for a while for when tribulation and persecution arises, tribulation and persecution arises. So in the, so you’re doing good. You’re excited about what God’s going to do and about the changes you’re wanting to make in your life and the habits you’re wanting to break and all that. But then when all of a sudden the tribulation and the persecution, which is external things begin to arise. So we start out excited about what God’s willing to do. And then all of a sudden, Glenn fries starts singing in your head, the heaters it’s on the street, it’s inside your head at every beat. Tell me, can you feel it? Tell me, can you feel it, tell me, can you feel it? The heat is on. What I’m saying is he’s going to come to test your decision to make a change in your life. The heat’s coming. And this is what he’s saying here, says the sun comes up over in verse six and then it says tribulation and persecution rises. What’s tribulation and persecution. Tribulation is pressure and oppression suffering.
That sounds fun.
What is persecution? It’s when someone actually pursues or chases you or systematically organizes a program to oppress people, to renounce their beliefs. So what’s happening. I want you to see something in this verse that maybe is not jumped out at you before. Maybe it has in verse 21 yet has no root in himself. He was heard. The word of the kingdom was excited about making a change, excited about believing God for this, but the sun came up and all of a sudden tribulation pressure, stress, stress suffering comes, and now a systematic plan to get me to change. My belief arises next four words because of the, Oh, maybe you didn’t see that. Why did tribulation and persecution arise? It does not say because of the devil tribulation and persecution arises because of the,
Because of the word.
So the word caused tribulation and persecution to arise. Here’s what some people believe. And I branded this a lot. People said, Chad, I’ve tried every time I try and get closer to God, my life just goes to pot. All hell breaks loose. So their solution is this I’ll solve that. I just won’t get close to God. And they really think that’s the answer. Because every time I go to church and I start trying to get close to God, all hell breaks loose, and I don’t want any of that junk in my life. So I’m just going to go back to mediocrity and compromise. So I don’t have to deal with that. That’s the tribulation and the pressure arising because of the word the devil is after the word. He’s not after your emotions, he’s not after your feelings. He’s after the word. Why is he after the word?
Because he knows it is incorruptible. See that he cannot see, cannot stop it from producing what God wants to do in your life. He’s after the word, the pressure, the systematic approach to get you to not believe that anymore. So I’m believing God for something I’m trusting. I’m standing on the word. This is what I’m trusting, what God’s going to do. All of a sudden it doesn’t happen the way I want it to happen when I want it to happen. So what is he doing? He’s trying to pressure you and push you into changing your beliefs. That maybe God doesn’t want to do that for you. That’s pressure and tribulation, trying to Rob you of your expectation that God wants to do what he said he will do. How many times have I said this to myself? I’ve tried that and it didn’t work.
Tried that I’ve done that before I prayed stood. I prayed. I stood. I spoke and it didn’t work. So what am I going to do? What else am I going to do? What else? I’m just going to keep believing God, I’m going to keep believing. I’m going to keep expecting. God’s going to stand by his word. And this is what the enemy’s plan is to try and get us church through tribulation and persecution because of the word to cause us to stumble that we’re stumbled just means to trip up cease, believing what is right and begin to believe what is false. So now here’s something I want you to understand this. So I feel like God’s speaking to me, sustain growth in an area of your life. Remember don’t broad brush stroke think compartmentalize because there’s areas of my life that I’ve got good soil, I’m receiving, I’m producing.
Great. And I am certain, there are areas of my life that I’ve got some rocks that I need to dig up. Here’s some of the rocks that you may be thinking about. You might need to dig up rocks of shame, unforgiveness of yourself, or others, regret anger or offense, bitterness, fear, insecurity. All these can be rocks underneath the surface that we’ve put away because sometimes things happen in our life. And we like to bury them and we cover them over with good-looking topsoil, pretty our life up on the outside. And we say, we don’t talk about those things. Just look at me. Lummi everything’s going great. And under the surface, there are rocks, maybe rocks that you didn’t put there, maybe rocks that other people put there. And the only way you knew to deal with them was to put top soil over the top of them.
But I’m telling you , the healer wants to come and dig those things up and get them out of the way. So you can produce the life that God wants you to produce. Sometimes we put them there. Sometimes we bury issues and we cover them over. And we say out of sight, out of mind, I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’m over it. I’m over it. I’m over it. I’m not over it. I’m over it. I’m over it. I’m over your rocks. Tend to want to move to the surface. Right? You can vary some, but over time, I don’t know how it is with these rocks. There’s all of a sudden starts showing up, right? What is that? That’s old issues that if we don’t deal with him, they’re going to show their face again. And I believe the Bible says this to confess your faults.
One to another, that you may be healed. What does that talking about? I believe those are rocks that God wants to dig out of our life. Not to bring shame to us, but to bring healing to us. He wants to dig that thing up and say, Hey, see, it’s gone cast in the sea of forgetfulness. Let’s move forward. He’s got something he wants to do in our life. The Bible says in eco chapter 36, listen to this verse. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. This is a prophetic word for somebody today who wants to receive it? Who has an ear or see you as ear to hear, let them hear this. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. And you shall be my people and I will be your God. This is a word of the Lord, what he wants to do. So today there’s two applications to the message to specifically, I’m going to highlight. You can apply it. However, the Lord deals with you. But number one, what is your root system in and what I’m going to ask the Lord to show us. And I want you to have this heart today that you’re willing to pray and ask the Holy spirit to show you Stony places, show you Stony places and show you places where you’ve got roots in the wrong thing. Maybe you’ve got roots in your career roots in your financial status, and there’s nothing wrong with money.
That’s not, not the issue. We’re not preaching against money. It’s the love or the root in money. That is the problem. It’s not, it’s not to feed me, sustain me or stabilize me. Other people. Maybe you’ve got some roots in the opinion of others. This is when I have to work with and deal with constantly is worrying about what other people think. So I have to keep my roots out of people. I got to keep my roots and what is God telling me to do? Because it’s easy to gravitate towards likes and followers and attendance and whatever return customers to your business. I got to do whatever I can to make sure people keep coming back. Careful, careful, some customers you may need to let go. I need, I need there. You don’t need there. You need him. You need him.
We hope you enjoyed this message today at The Roads Church Mt Carmel. And that you connected with Jesus. If this message has changed your life and you accepted Jesus as your savior, but you can text the word new life to the number (618) 243-0900. We would love to celebrate with you. If you would like to give to the ministry of the Rhodes church, visit our website, www.theroads.church for all of our giving options. We would also like to invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel, to receive notifications of our Sunday live services and to discover more of pastor Chad’s teachings. And now we pray that you experience God’s presence throughout your day.