Cultivating Your Heart: Finding Abundance – Living an Abundant Life, part 1
Are you settling for less than God’s abundant plan for you? In today’s message, learn where abundance comes from and how to cultivate it in your heart.
In this series, we’ll learn about where abundance comes from and what abundance looks like. We’ll look at different states of the heart and what we can do to cultivate a healthy heart for God. Then we’ll learn about the connection between the fruit of the Spirit and abundance; and what that means for living an abundant life God’s way. When we’re done, we’ll see how abundance comes through us; and that abundance is about what we give.
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About the Speaker
Joel Wolski has been a passionate follower of Christ for over 30 years and serves on the Board of Faith Chapel. He is dedicated to living and sharing a Christ-filled life. Through the years, he has also been both a student and leader in Bible studies. His greatest desire is to help others grow in their identity in Christ. Also an avid photographer, you can follow Joel on Instagram or his website.
Cultivating Your Heart: Where Abundance Comes From
Years ago, I saw that the garden nursery down the street from where I was living was hiring, so went in to apply for a job. I handed in my application and immediately went in for an interview. During the interview they asked, “Why do you want to work at a nursery?”
To this I answered, “I recently read an article in the newspaper (yes, this was THAT long ago) about the 10 hardest to kill house plants and I realized that I had already killed 8 of them, so I figured if I got a job at a nursery, maybe I could learn how to not do that.”
I started work that Tuesday.
We are really good at doing things the wrong way. Over the next couple weeks, I’m hoping we can all learn how to not do that. For the next two weeks we’ll be going through a series called “Living an Abundant Life.” This week we’ll be looking at where abundance comes from; next week we’ll look at what abundance looks like.
This week’s message is called, “Cultivating Your Heart” and is from the text of the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8.
‘When a large crowd was gathering, as people were coming to him from town after town, he said in a parable: 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed some fell on a path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6 Some fell on rock, and as it grew up it withered for lack of moisture. 7 Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. 8 Some fell into good soil, and when it grew it produced a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out, “If you have ears to hear, then hear!”’ (Luke 8:4-8, NRSVUE).
The Four Types of Soil
There are four types of soil: the path, rock, thorns, and good soil.
Path Soil (verse 5). This soil is heavily traveled and exposed. Luke includes “trampled on,” emphasizing that this was a path with other intended purposes, not just bare ground.
Rocky Soil (verse 6). This soil is shallow and dry. It refers to a thin layer of soil over solid rock. It looks like good soil on the surface, but it’s shallow.
Thorny Soil (verse 7). This is infested and toxic. Notice how the thorns grew with the seed together. Weeds and wheat look the same when young.
Good Soil (verse 8). This is fertile and life-giving soil. This seed produced 100 times what had been planted. It was abundant!
“If you have ears to hear, then hear!” In other words, if you have a desire to understand, then actively listen.
What is active listening?
Active listening has to do with understanding, not just hearing; and being an active participant in the conversation. What does it look like?
Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10 He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but to others I speak in parables, so that ‘looking they may not perceive and hearing they may not understand.’ (Luke 8:9-10, NRSVUE).
This is active listening. Jesus doesn’t want passive spectators. The people had already decided what scripture meant. The parables are there to force us to ask.
It’s there in the word parable. It comes from the word parabola, a math term which is used to describe the curved path a projectile takes when acted on by gravity.
A parable is designed to pull the listener toward the speaker. A parable demands a response from the hearer. From looking, there is no perception. From hearing, there is no understanding.
We receive understanding after we ask.
The following parable explains why Jesus uses parables.
“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. 14 As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with endurance (Luke 8:11-15, NRSVUE).
Jesus came to earth, and is here now, to make known the things that have been hidden. He is here to cultivate hearts. That’s right, we don’t do it, he does.
The Hard Heart – Stop Walking in the Way of the World
The hard heart takes away (verse 12). I’ll tell you a secret; the world does not want the seed of God’s Word cluttering their streets. But it can only take away what your heart isn’t receptive to.
What is God telling you that you don’t want to hear? Where have you allowed the lies of the devil to harden your heart against God’s Word?
We get caught up following the path of the world instead of walking in the way of Jesus.
What do we do about the hard heart? We need to get off the world’s path. The world around us tramples us under foot so we build a shell to protect ourselves. But the way of Jesus is one of tenderness and humility, compassion and generosity.
The world says that other political party is your enemy and you should hate your enemy, and show that hate online for all the world to see how much you hate what they stand for. But Jesus says to love your enemies, and pray for them. Show them the same mercy and grace he has shown you—while you were still sinners, he died for you.
Get this straight, Jesus didn't wait for you to figure out that you were wrong before he forgave you.
The Shallow Heart – Allow the Holy Spirit to Break Through
The shallow heart falls away (verse 13). Remember how the rocky ground looks like good soil on the surface, but it’s really shallow and dry? Paul warns, “holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. . . who are always studying yet never able to recognize truth.” (2 Timothy 3:5,7).
Church is not a country club with an entertaining set of programs. At least it shouldn’t be. If that’s what we’ve made it, God forgive us. The Bible is not a self-help book! It’s a God-is-the-only-one-who-can-help book! If all you’re looking for is some “good moral teaching,” you’re doing this wrong. All the “moral teaching” won’t hold you up when the world comes crashing down around you.
Jesus is the only one that will get you through!
What do we do about the shallow heart? We need to get past the rocks in our lives; those things that keep our struggling to live on a surface level. But know this; these are not simply stones scattered around the field. This is a layer of bedrock that needs to be broken up. This cannot be done by you or me. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Sometimes it feels imperceptibly slow, like picking away at it with a toothpick. At other times, it will feel like dynamite blasting away at everything you’ve been standing on. But it’s a work God will do if you seek him.
The Distracted Heart – Allow Jesus to Change Our Hearts
The distracted heart does not mature (verse 14). Notice how it says, “their fruit does not mature.” This makes me sad more than angry. These are likely people with good motives, but distractions prevent them from ever maturing in their faith to a point where they can have true abundance.
We try to live in two worlds; one world where we are relying on God for everything, and the other where we get by through our own efforts. “The gods help those who help themselves” is from ancient Greece where their pagan gods were fickle and unreliable. People had to prove they were worth helping. It’s truer to say, “God helps those who finally admit they can’t do anything without him.”
These “cares of the world” distract us from what God truly has for us. We settle for “riches and pleasures of life” when God is offering us an abundant life, if we would just take up his burden.
What do we do about the distracted heart? Working at the nursery, I learned some interesting things. One of which was that weeds thrive in bad soil. One way to deal with weeds is to poison them, but then you risk poisoning the good seed as well. Arguing on Facebook over some social or political issue is like this, but at the same time it’s poisoning the seed of compassion and grace that God has planted in you.
You can’t kill the weeds without harming the wheat. A more recent modern alternative is to genetically mutate the seed so that it can tolerate the poison. We alter in our minds what compassion and grace mean into something no longer resembling the Word of God; and we feel justified because we’re “rooting out the weeds.” But all we’ve done is turned the life-giving message of Jesus into a weapon.
There’s a better way – dare I say a correct way – to combat the weeds: amend the soil. We need to have the composition of our hearts changed. We need to allow Christ to pour into us grace and peace. Root out the bitterness that’s poisoning our hearts. When his Word is being properly fed in our hearts, then his Word will choke out the weeds. This is difference between a Christian just existing, and a follower of Jesus who’s abundantly thriving.
THE OPEN HEART – ABUNDANCE COMES THROUGH US, NOT FOR US
The open heart (verse 15). All these soils aren’t simply referring to different types of people, but the various conditions of our hearts. This represents the condition of all our hearts to some degree or another, at some point in our lives. None of us come into this would having hearts of good soil. It’s the planter’s job to prepare the soil – it’s God’s work to prepare our hearts. And the sowing of seed is an ongoing thing; season after season.
The gospel isn’t something we hear once and then go on our marry way, never needing God again. We need to be continually reminded of Jesus and what he has done. Just as the sower doesn’t just toss the seed out once and then abandon the field to fend for itself, so too is God continually preparing our hearts and sowing more seed.
This is where abundance comes from. Out of a heart, prepared and cultivated by the Holy Spirit to receive the word of God, who is Jesus.
Through that heart God himself works “exceedingly abundantly,” not just for our benefit, but to save the world.
Looking at all three gospel accounts we can see a more complete picture.
Matthew says hear the word and understand it (13:23). This gets us off the path.
Mark says hear the word and accept it (4:20). This gets us through the rock.
Luke says hear the word and hold fast to it (8:18). This gets us out of the weeds.
Then, and only then, will we begin to see abundance in our lives and the lives around us. Abundance that isn’t about what God does for you, but what he does through you.
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