Heart Health

• 17 million people die each year of heart disease

• 39 billion dollars is spent on health care related to heart disease

• 1 person will die of heart disease every 33 seconds.

Church Health

• 40 million people have left the church in the last 25 years. That is more people are leaving the church than all the new people who became Christians in the First Great Awakening, The Second Great Awakening, and every Billy Graham Crusade combined.

• In 2019: 3,900 protestant churches were started but 4,700 closed their doors.

• Over half of the churches in United states are plateaued or declining.

The reason I share that with you is not to discourage you it’s to warn you: I believe the leading cause of death for people and churches in a America is the same: heart disease and likewise I believe most of it is preventable through our lifestyle choices. Your heart health will most likely determine your longevity as person and the condition of your heart will most likely determine if Grand Parkway continues to be a place where people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

Matthew 13:10-17 NIV – Why Jesus spoke in parables. • Understanding starts with the heart, not the head. • Waxed Gross • Leo Bodes describes what Jesus means by heart that is waxed gross: the spiritual spark is buried in a heap of earthy cares and pleasures, and you arm yourself with countless errors and falsehoods.

You hear but you don’t understand. You read but you don’t comprehend. You listen but can’t or won’t obey. You can call yourself a Christian, but you don’t live like Christ. • Fredrick Buechner once wrote that we cannot truly hear what stories of the bible are saying until we hear them as stories of ourselves. We are parodical and we are the paralytic. We are leper and we are the lame. We are the man born blind and the woman bleeding and needing a touch from Jesus. We are the Pharisees and the Sadducees; we are tax collectors and the sinners We are the crowd who cries hosanna one day and then the crowd who cries crucify him the next. We are all four soils. We are hard hearted, halfhearted, and broken- hearted humans who need the gospel again to become wholehearted followers of Jesus. Let us receive and respond to word of God

Matthew 13:18-23 MSG – Explanation of the four soils • HARD HEARTED<HALF HEARTED<WHOLE HEARTED GRAPHIC • What soil are you?

Conclusion

• The scandal of this parable is that the farmer doesn’t seem to great farmer. He is throwing his precious seed on every type of soil – 75 percent of his efforts and his resources to do not make it to the harvest. But the miracle is that the seed that does find good soil produces a harvest beyond our wildest imaginations.

• So, maybe the odds may be stacked against us the next couple of years. So, the church is at large is hemorrhaging people. But the Kingdom of God is not in danger. The gospel continues to grow in small places when ordinary people cultivate their hearts to receive and respond to the message of Jesus and it will produce a harvest beyond our wildest imaginations, in this generation and the next.

Mental Worship

• What is the current soil condition of your soul?

• Look at the four soils, which one best describes the posture of your heart when it comes to Your biggest appetite Your greatest enemy Your deepest fear

• What do you need to surrender in your heart so that you can truly “hear and understand” the mission and message of Jesus?