Gateway Church Australia
Mark Pomery - Surprised by Growth
Well, hey, they're gateway friends and family. Great to be back with you coming all the way from the great nation of Australia. Now, here's a question. Have you purchased anything from Amazon recently? If you have, you would know that Amazon's entire system is pretty well-class, very frictionless checkout, payment, process. One of the things that I've noticed that they've really upped their game in is the very day after your package is delivered, Chances are you'll receive an email asking you to review said product because, you know, Amazon, they know the power of reviews. This is kind of like word of mouth in 2024. This time last year, I was in the market for a new double-edged safety razor. Now, I've been using double-edged safety razor for 20 years and the particular model that I was using went to be with Jesus very unexpectedly. So there I was from a standing start needing a brand new double-edged safety razor. So I began my research, which, you know, Amazon's a good place to start, and I soon narrowed my quest down to this guy. The Mueller are 41 German-designed and manufactured, and those Germans, they know how to do stuff in the industrial world. So I'm like, okay, this looks promising, I noted that there was over 1,400 reviews. It's a pretty good number for just a, you know, seemingly obscure product, and the average rating was 4.7 stars out of 5. Hello, well, this should be enough, but I'm like, you know what, I'm going to read some of these reviews. So I start scrolling and, look, most of them are positive. You start to see the ones from Australia first, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And then you get reviews from other countries. And I stumble across Emberto, from Mexico, and his review is titled La Bestia. And I'm like, that's not good, because that essentially translates into the animal. But then I came across Giuseppe from Italy. Now I'm married to a full-blooded Italian, so I know when it comes to truth-telling, the Italians don't hold back, Giuseppe's review was titled La Squalor, which translates the shark. This got my attention. So I delved into Giuseppe's review, and it included this statement, and I quote, "This thing is a bloodthirsty beast could result in death." Well, I tell you this to say that more information is not always more helpful. In fact, in this world, we've been living with the idea that the more information we get year-on-year, decade-on-decade, we'll eventually solve all of the world's problems. But you've probably noticed we have got more information than we've ever had before, and yet we have not quite solved all the world's problems. And I want to put it to you that it's not simply more information that we need. It's actually more wisdom. See, wisdom will tell us which information matters, and wisdom will give us some insights into how to best apply the important information. Now, by the time that you're joining in here, we're probably over here at Elevate Church, just wrapped up a series, which we called Surprised by Jesus, where we looked at some of the stories, or some of the parables that Jesus taught, any parables at churchy word, it kind of was the idea that Jesus would tell a familiar story, a sort of a metaphor, an everyday observation, and then he would smash a spiritual truth alongside it. Like you understand how this world works will let me use that to then catapult you to understanding how the kingdom of God works, and so, look, if this message spins your propeller, you can just look for Elevate Church Perth on your favorite podcast app. It's free, and you get to turn your smartphone into a smartphone. All right, speaking of smartphone, if you've got your smartphone, how about you scan this flow code? This is something we like to do over here at Elevate. It's going to take you to the Bible app. You have to have the Bible app installed first, but it's going to take you there, and it's going to take you to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew is one of Jesus' handpicked disciples. He's also one of Jesus' four biographers, and so he starts to record this particular parable that I want to drop us into today. Jesus is speaking in a largely agricultural society, so it's no surprise that he uses and often used agricultural metaphors because his audience would be like, "Yeah, we get that." And here's one. "Listen," Jesus said, "a farmer went out to plant some seeds." As he scattered them across the field, some seeds fell on a footpath and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. Well, the seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow, but the plants soon wilted under the hot sun and since they didn't have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants, and then finally other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was 30, 60, and even 100 times as much as had been planted. Anyone with is to hear, should listen and understand. So first of all, there's three key pieces in this story. There's the farmer which represents God. There's the seeds which represents God's word and kingdom perspectives. And then there's the soil which represents the human heart. And Jesus says there's one farmer, one type of seed, but four types of human heart and only the fourth one produced anything. So it's not like the first three were okay, but the fourth was better. No, the first three were big fat zero and then the fourth produced different levels of fruitfulness. And here's something else I want us to understand. We actually can have a certain influence on the second two. We don't have to influence God's spreading seed because he does that anyway. He wants everyone to hear his word. So he's busy. He's always out there. He's always scattering seed. We can influence whether we position ourselves consistently to receive God's word. One, secondly, we have some impact over our heart. And that's what I want to focus on today. So Jesus talks about four types of soil and then he goes on later, you scroll down, I'm going to take us there. He says, well, these are the various heart conditions that I was referencing when I talked about the soil. And the first one Jesus talked about is the hard heart. He explains the seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the kingdom and don't understand it. And then the evil one comes and snatches it away the seed that was planted in their hearts. Footpath, hard heart. Last month, I was just, you know, on the smart TV. I was kind of doom scrolling the YouTubes and came across Taylor Swift, kind of a pirated clip from her performing live at Wembley Stadium. And Louisa, my wife, she's nearby on the couch, kind of looks up and says, is Taylor Swift's concert tour still going? And I'm like, all right, that's a reasonable question because, you know, after all, she did start in March 2023. Still super popular, sellout, eight nights in a row at Wembley Stadium, a new record. Hello, tte everybody. And yet, I'm also starting to learn there's a little bit of pushback. Not everyone's a fan of tte anymore. And I got to want it to myself. When did sweet little tte become the antihero? And why do we do that? Why do we, why do we kind of dunk on people? Why do we kind of get closed off to people? I mean, sporting teams, you, you're in Melbourne, you probably heard this one, or I really hope Collingwood. Really? Why do you hate Collingwood? Oh, I don't know, I just do. And you're like, uh, uh, okay. Now, it's no big deal when it comes to Taylor Swift. Sorry, Swifties. It's even not a big deal when it comes to Collingwood. Sorry, Rick. But look, it's a problem when we start to harden our heart when it comes to people, when it comes to the church, and even when it comes to God. And the reality is that this can and does happen. People can hurt you. And they often do. And we can develop a hard heart towards people. The church can hurt you. I wish it didn't, but on occasions, it does. And you can get a hard heart towards church. And then God, he can hurt you or, you know, just disappoint you. And you can start to develop a hard, hard towards him. But all of those things will close our hearts and ultimately our lives off to God wanting to plant seeds into our lives that will ultimately produce fruit. Now, just a little bonus tip, Solomon, the wisest person that ever lived, except for Jesus, uh, he actually warned us to guard our hearts, but guarding our hearts and developing a hard heart are not the same thing. We need to guard our heart against a bitterness, against unforgiveness, against toxicity, but not allow it to ultimately form a crust around our heart that we develop a hard heart. And in fact, I want to put it to you that the better we get at guarding our hearts, the less likely we're going to be to develop a hard heart. All right. So the first soil, the footpath, nothing produced hard heart. Then Jesus says the second type that I referenced, it's a shallow heart. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. All right, good start, golf clap. But since they don't have deep roots, hello, they don't last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God's word. Now, I'm a lawn dad, kind of probably graduated from my L plates to my P plates at this stage. I'm a member of a Facebook group called the Western Australian lawn legends. Yes, such a group exists. Anyway, the kind of the idea of this group is that lawn newbies can kind of post up, hey, got this question out there, you know, you guys who got more experience and expertise, can you help me get, you know, figured this out? And I can actually tell the newbies because they kind of asked the same questions that were asked last month by someone else new and the month before new. One of the most common ones, people have put new lawn in, new roll on turf, especially put it in, started nicely. When you put it in, you're allowed to water it a lot like legally. And then it, they put photos like, oh, this is what it looked like when I, when I, you know, rolled it out, this is what it's looking like now, going to Brown town. Health, they say health. And I can't believe it because I am watering it every morning and every night, seven days a week. And it's actually going backwards. What am I doing wrong? Now, I don't comment because I'm kind of new there as well. So I just let the actual real experts comment, and they all say the same thing, stop watering it every morning and every night, seven days a week, because what you're doing is you're preventing it from being forced to develop deep roots. So ultimately, because it doesn't have deep roots, it's actually getting weaker because deep roots are foundational. Well, that's true of lawn. That's true in pretty much all forms of agriculture. And it's true in our lives, that one of the most important things we can do is allow God's word and actually cultivate the roots of God's word going deep into our hearts. Then Jesus talks about the third one being the cluttered heart, the seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God's word, but also quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth. So again, no fruit is produced. Now, moving on from lawn to the back of my property, this is a snapshot of Marco's urban farm taken yesterday. Have a close look, people. And before you get to judge Judy on me and you think, boy, this guy, that's untidy. This guy's just letting things go crazy in there. Well, the thing that you're seeing seemingly take over is a plant called a nistertium. And actually, I want it to be there. Now, this guy self-seeds and pops up every spring, what urban farmers call a volunteer. We don't even have to do anything. And just goes week by week, month by month, for several months, sprawling across the majority of my backyard. And I want it to. It's not about being lazy. It's about by doing that, one of the benefits is it actually crowds out the weeds that are lying, or the seeds of the weeds that are lying dormant in the soil underneath. And they don't actually get to grow through. You're welcome. Let's take that principle and then just like swap out the players here. So instead of nistertiums, Jesus talks about the weeds actually growing rampant in our hearts. And instead of the seeds being weeds that we don't want to spring up, this is actually the seeds of God's Word, which we do want to spring up. But because we've allowed our hearts to get overgrown and overrun, and Jesus is very specific with the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, they are barriers to kingdom fruitfulness, which then takes us to the fourth of the four soils, the fourth heart condition, the only one of the four, as I mentioned earlier, that actually produced any fruit. Jesus explained that this is the seed that fell on good soil, represents those who truly hear and understand God's Word and produce a harvest of 30, 60, even 100 times as much as had been planted. I call this the fertile heart. And that's what we want. That's the aspirational goal. Have I got a hard heart? We need to do some work and break that up. Have I got a shallow heart? I need to get better at allowing God's Word to be established deep in my heart. Have I got a clotted heart? Am I allowing the worries of this world, the lure of wealth to become the number one, number two, top five, whatever, pushing God's Word, God's kingdom principles down, and sometimes out entirely. Well, this is fourth one, the fertile heart, and this, this is the gold standard. This is the one people. Now, I mentioned I have Marco's urban farm. I'm an urban farmer. And if you're not into urban farming, that's okay. But let me explain something. My primary role, what would you kind of guess is the primary role of an urban farmer? Now, you might think, well, duh, it's planting things. Well, that's a role, a very important role. It's not the most important role. Okay, weeding, unless you're smart like me and having assertions, you might need to do some weeding. Well, again, yes, but not the most important thing. Oh, okay, then pruning. Okay, yes, also pruning happens, but not the most important role. In fact, let me just drop it to you. The most important role of an urban farmer is soil improvement. That's the most important thing, soil improvement. So in my urban farm, I've got compost bins. I've got so many compost bins. I don't even have the guts to tell Louisa how many I have. I've got them tucked away in parts of the backyard that she doesn't even doesn't even know exists. I've got two compost bins. I've got a worm farm that's like as big as Tasmania. I've got chickens, the real chickens of Kensington. And they poop. And when they poop, I scoop. I am the chief pooper scooper here at Marcos Urban Farm. And all of these things, as soon as they're ready in the compost, I layer them out. I layer them out on the vegetable patch. I layer them out around the fruit trees. I just keep layering it and layering it. And as fast as I can produce it, I put it out there because the number one determinant of a productive urban farm is the soil quality. Well, that exact same principle is true in our hearts and in our lives as well. The number one determinant, and Jesus double clicked on this in this parable, the number one determinant of kingdom productivity, kingdom fruitfulness. It's not the quality of the, sorry, it's not the intent or the generosity of God spreading his word because he's putting it out there for everyone. It's not the quality of the seed. Hello, because the same seed was scattered across all four soils. It all came down to the quality of the soil, the quality of our hearts. And one of the things that I know as an urban farmer, one of the things I know as a Jesus follower, one of the things I know as a church leader is the process never finishes while we're here on this earth. If you're not dead, God's not done. We can continue to improve the quality of our hearts, whether you've been following Jesus for a minute or a decade or a century, as long as your heart is still ticking, there's more improvement to be done. So don't get proud. Don't get lazy, be intentional. Allow God's word to go deep into your heart's guard against a hard heart. Allow your roots to go deep because storms of life and persecution will try to take God's word away from you. Guard against a cluttered heart because we live in a prevailing culture that tells us the stuff that we have to deal with day to day is the most important stuff. Money, lure of wealth and getting Jesus saying cultivate a fertile heart and you will produce increasing amounts of kingdom fruitfulness.