The Way of the Word | Week 7

- It's so good to see all of you. So honored that you're joining us today at all of our campuses at Grapevine at the Edmund Campus. Those of you who are watching online, we're honored that you're joining with us today. And so grateful for you. We're in the middle of a sermon season called The Way, where we're discussing the ways of Jesus. What does it mean to be a follower of the way, trying to get as practical as we possibly can through this entire season? And every single week, we're giving resources to try to help you in your own journey. You can go to victory.church/resources, okay? So if you go to victory.church/resources, every week you'll find a devotional to walk you through all week, a daily devotional that syncs up with the sermon from that week. And so I hope you're taking advantage of that. I encourage you to do so. If you have your bibles, go ahead and turn to Mark chapter four. Got a lot to cover today, we're just gonna jump right in. I'm excited to bring a word to us today, Mark chapter four. While you're turning there, I wanna read you something. Around the year 386 AD, there was a young man living in Milan named Augustine. Augustine was brilliant, one of the most gifted teachers and thinkers of his generation. For years, he was searching for truth.

He studied philosophy. He explored different religions. He debated Christianity and he resisted the faith of his mother, Monica, who had prayed for him for years. Eventually though, something began to change. Augustine started listening to the preaching of a man named Ambrose and many of his intellectual objections to Christianity began to fall away. He would later write that he had reached a point where he was no longer uncertain that Christianity was true. His problem was no longer that he couldn't believe. His problem was that he didn't want to accept it because accepting it meant something would have to change. Augustine had lived much of his adult life pursuing the pleasures of this world, promiscuity. Years earlier, he had famously stated, Lord, give me chastity and self-control, but not yet. In other words, God, I know what you want and I know you're right. I'm just not ready to let your word have that part of me. Then one day, the struggle finally reached its breaking point. Augustine walked into a garden overwhelmed by the war, going on inside himself. He collapsed beneath a fig tree and began to weep. How long, Lord, how long? Why not now? And while he was there, he heard a voice of a child somewhere nearby repeating a phrase, tole lege, tole lege, tole lege, and it was Latin for take up and read. Take up and read.

So Augustine got up and he went to where the voice was and he found a copy of St. Paul's letters and he opened it and his eyes fell upon Romans chapter 13, verse 13, where it says put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to your lusts. And Augustine stopped reading and he said he didn't need to read any another word. He later described at that moment as though a light of certainty flooded his heart and the darkness of doubt disappeared. He had heard the word for years. He had studied it. He had debated it, but he had never fully accepted it. And when Augustine finally accepted the word, it did something very unexpected, it cut him. It cut him to his core and it cut directly to the part of his heart that he was unwilling to let God touch up until that moment. The word demanded a response. Years later, this is how, as you'll see a photo behind me, this is how an artist portrayed Augustine. Notice where his eyes are looking. Above him is a Latin word veritas, which means truth in Latin. And look at where he's holding, he's holding a heart on fire. And this is a portrayal of Augustine's life and how the truth of the gospel penetrated his mind, transformed his heart and set his life ablaze. The truth, he had heard for years finally became integrated

into his heart through the accepting of it. He would go on to become one of the most influential and prolific theologians in the history of Christianity, shaping Christian thought for more than 1,500 years. If you're like me, maybe you two have been exposed to the word, maybe you haven't, but maybe you grew up with a grandmother who would pray for you or preach to you, or if you're like me, I came out of the womb. I was in the womb hearing, And I spent many years running from God. I spent many years rebelling from the Lord. Until the day, my sophomore year of college, when I had this radical encounter, where I really had a similar encounter of Augustine, where I accepted the Word. I'd heard it, I knew all about it, but there was something that needed to happen in my heart. So that passage in Mark chapter four, there's this parable that Jesus tells to the masses. And he tells the story of four seeds that fell on different, four different types of soil. And the first one fell on the path. The birds snatched it away. The second one fell amongst the rocks, and it sprouted quickly, but then withered. And then the third fell amongst the weeds, and it grew, and the weeds choked it out. And then the fourth was a seed that fell on good soil. He doesn't explain it, doesn't give any kind of context.

And then like he does many times, he turns to his disciples. He says, "Let me explain that to you." And so we get the benefit of seeing the explanation that Jesus told his disciples, and that's what we're gonna cover today. This is Jesus' explanation of that parable in Mark 4.13. It says that he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? "How will you understand all the parables?" The sower sows the Word, the Word. These are the ones, the first seed. These are the ones that are beside the road where the Word is sown. And when they hear immediately, Satan comes and takes away the Word, which has been sown to them. In a similar way, the second seed, these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who when they hear the Word, immediately receive it with joy, and then they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary. And then when affliction or persecution arises, because of the Word, immediately they fall away. And others, this third seed, they're the ones who fell and was sown amongst the thorns.

And these are the ones who have heard the Word, but the worries of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the Word. And it becomes unfruitful. And those are the ones, this fourth seed on whom seed was sown on good soil, and they, same thing, hear the Word and somebody say, "And, and accept it, and bear fruit, 30, 60, 100 fold." I tried to pause and give special care to certain words in this that I hope you picked up on, that the first three seeds were sown in three different types of soil, and all of them say the same thing. They heard the Word. And then in verse 20, we're described a good soil, and then we're given a clue as to why it was good soil, and as to why it bared fruit that none of the other three soils were able to produce. This says that they heard it and accepted it. These two words that if we're not careful, we'll skim over that Jesus was trying to differentiate this type of soil from all other types of soil

that we have to accept it. How many of you are guilty of getting a notification on your phone at some point where there's a software update? And then it says, "Scroll to the bottom." And what do we do? We (whimpering) And then we hit two little words, the one little word that says accept. You can decline it or you can accept it. The latest, I researched this, the latest update that Apple, for all the Christians in the room that have apples, that was a joke. Okay, calm down. We're probably, I mean, Apple's probably as evil as the rest of them. Okay, so if you have the latest Apple update, if you scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and hit accept, you scrolled through 8,345 words. They say the average reader reads 240 words a minute. You scrolled through 35 minutes of reading. And then if you're like me, you scrolled, scrolled, scrolled. Did anybody, let's just say, you're in church, don't lie. Did anybody read every word of that? Anybody, anybody raise your hand? Okay, we had a couple of lawyers at the nine o'clock that raised their hand, okay?

What we did is we accepted everything. Here's what we did. We didn't read it. the opposite I think we actually read it we just never fully accept it because if if you're a believer even if you're not really a Christian but you kind of know how Christians are supposed to act you know that Christians according to this if you read it it'll say you have to forgive this says you have to love your enemies I've read that before in here this this this book says talks about generosity this book talks about sexuality this book talks about serving one another this word this book talks about the power of my words and yet stuff still comes out of my mouth that I wish didn't could it be that I've read it but I never fully accepted it what does it mean to fully accept the word and I'm surprised we've gotten this far without talking about this because if we want to be followers of the way if we truly want to be followers of the way there is no way that we can get around this and the words that we read but is it enough to just read it because most creatures like you need to read the Bible read the Bible but I'm here to tell you that you could read this cover to cover and never fully accept it so what I want to do today is I'm not here to lecture you about reading your Bible more I'm here to talk about the words that Jesus used might be another layer that we're supposed to lean into to say what it what if what if it's not that I need to read it more what if it's that I need to accept it more so let's talk about this let's talk about the way of the word this week this word except let's just break it down real quick and get right to the bat this word except is the Greek word paradakoma and it means to receive to welcome to take to oneself so when we click when we scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll 8,345 words and then we hit accept you know what you're doing you are not saying that you acknowledge what they said you are actually clicking what you are saying is I will come under the authority of everything that I just skimmed through which is why our phones listen to us all the time by the way so could it be true with the word of God

too is to fully accept the word is to fully fall under the authority of everything the word says so there's a couple of different seeds here that shown okay let's just cover them real quick and I'll give you kind of a brief skim when Jesus tells this parable he says there's a seed the first seed fell on a particular kind of soil and this soil was what I would call hard soil this is the seed that can't get through okay we'll talk about this we're gonna unpack these the second one the second seed that fell on the soil that was what I would call shallow soil shallow soil this is the seed that cannot get rooted okay it tries it's excited about it it liked the sermon it was a good sermon and I liked it and it sprouted and then it faded when when life hit me the third soil was what I would call the crowded soil I love the seed I want the seed the seed sprouted but the seed couldn't get room to grow and the things of this world choked it out and at any given time here's the disclaimer all right every single week I try to be the most vulnerable one in the room the truth is at any given moment we can all take a deep breath and let our guards down we don't have to pretend to be something we're not if we can't be honest with ourselves who can we be honest with the truth is at any given moment of our lives you and I me included are one of these three at any given moment there are seasons of life where I'm hard-hearted there are seasons of life where I'm too shallow to fully let it take root and there are seasons of life where I've just got too much going on and the seed gets choked out and never bears fruit so what do we do what do we do we have to figure out how to cultivate a heart that accepts the word that doesn't just hear a sermon or a podcast or read through my Bible or I'm listen John I've read the verse of the day on you version my streak is like 30 days that's awesome keep it up but what does it mean to fully and If Jesus said the ones that bear fruit, hear it and accept it. What does it mean to accept it? Three quick things today that I wanna point out, all right? And we're gonna unpack these one by one.

The first one, if you're taking notes, is accept the word over your own opinion. So let me read this again. Verse 15 says, "This is the seed. These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown. And when they hear immediately, Satan. Any mission around, it's not like it's not the enemy. It's not the bad guy. No, Satan himself comes and snatches that seed so that it will not take root in your life. I like that it says that it's the path beside the road. So obviously the roads are different than ours are today. They got chariots, they got carts, they got horses. And so next to the road is a path that they would walk on. Now, if you've ever walked on a path that's not concrete, it's dirt, you walk on it, you can create a path in your yard. If you walk it back and forth, I've got dogs in my neighborhood that've created a path in their backyard barking up and down the fence. If you do something over and over again, the same way over and over again, you will create a path. And I love this symbolism here because this is describing our lives, the way we live our lives, the thing we do all day, every day, the people we hang around, we become more like the people you hang around over and over. And if you don't like the certain things that people are saying, you will gravitate towards people that agree with you.

Even that is creating a pathway. In fact, scientifically, in your brain, you have neuro pathways, things that you just think over and over again. And what they do is they create and form a mindset, a value system in your life. And if we're not careful, that in and of itself will become a worn down path that the seed cannot penetrate. The two main kind of areas that I would compartmentalize them into, I would say one could be something I would call just familiarity. I've just become familiar with my thoughts, the podcasts that I listen to, my algorithm is trained real well, and it gives me what I want to see. It becomes familiar to me, right? Even your life experiences, if you were abandoned as a child, if you were abused as a child, if the church hurts you, if an organization hurt you, if a man hurts you, if a woman hurts you, these are all things that are creating paths in you that if we're not careful, we will allow those pathways to become the very thing that Jesus is describing. Some of the seeds, some of the truth of the Word of God fell on a path in my heart that was too hard to be receptive. The Bible is very clear about generosity. I believe the Bible is very clear about tithing. But if I have neural pathways and teachings in my mind or life experiences that are the opposite of what the Bible says, I, if I'm not careful, I will actually go in the opposite direction.

I will read it and never fully accept it. I will read that I am to forgive. And in fact, Jesus says, if you don't forgive your brother, your father in heaven will not forgive you. You talk, there's not a more direct Bible verse, but if we're not careful, our paths will carve unforgiveness in our heart. And before you know it, the seed can't penetrate that part of our heart. So we have to be cognizant of this. We have to be aware. We have to be open of saying, "Lord, is there anything in my life that I have created a path that I'm not letting the truth of what God's Word says penetrate my path?" The Bible says in Proverbs 3.5 it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding." Now listen, it doesn't say don't have understanding. It just says, don't lean on it. Never lean on your opinion and your understanding and your pathways more than you trust the Lord. So these are the things that come. And let me just tell you something about the Bible, okay? The Bible is encouraging. It's a lot of things. It brings peace. It does a lot of those things. Let me tell you something that the Bible is, okay? The Bible is very disruptive. It's very, very disruptive. It happened to me this week, Thursday morning. I had a circle that I guys that are on me with every other Thursday morning.

I get up early. I'm just reading to my Bible. And before I know it, something that I'm reading comes to the forefront that I had not fully accepted. You know what God did? He cut me. And I was like, oh my gosh Lord, I've never seen this before. This is unbelievable. I'm so sorry. And I take it to my group. I share it with them. And we've been texting about it all week. And guess what? It was disruptive. Let me show you this passage if you don't believe me. Hebrews 412 describes the Word of God. It says the Word of God is living and active. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. And piercing, as far as the division, the Bible is divisive. It's dividing soul and spirit. It's dividing my flesh from my spirit man and it comes to sever and to cut. It says it's able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And here's what I believe is true. A lot of Christians look to the Word to only bring comfort. The truth is many times your comfort will come through cutting.

And the Bible comes to cut. All the way back into one of the first covenants in the Old Testament was circumcision. Awkward, it was a cutting away of the flesh. Fast forward to the New Testament. Now it is no longer a circumcision of the flesh. Fellas, can I get amen? It is now a circumcision of the heart. It's still cutting. Jesus every day is wanting to get into your heart and find the things that shouldn't be there and he wants to cut them away. The Bible is disruptive. It comes to cut, it comes to shift and to change and to fully accept the Word of God, to fully, fully accept the Word of God is to give this permission to disagree with me. And to not just be willing to let it disagree with me, but to come under the authority of what this says, not of what my opinion says. So the action step, right? The action step in all of this, what do we do? What's the action step? Before I read, reading is good. You should read, but if all you do is read and never fully accept, you will never bear fruit. So before I read it, I have to be willing to say, Lord, if there's anything that I'm going to read today that I have not fully accepted,

I am asking you to cut me. No, amen, it's cool, is all right? It's still truth. I am asking you, Lord, to show me the areas of my life where my heart has become hard and my path has been too worn to receive the word that you're trying to sow into my heart today. Second one, let's go back to Mark, verse 16, the second seed that says this, it says in a similar way, are the ones whom seed was sown on the rocky places. And when they heard it, they received it immediately with joy, they were happy about the seed, man, they wanted it. And they have, but they had no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary. Now listen to this. Then when affliction or persecution arises, I did not see this until last night, I was praying to the great vine campus. I studied this all week and I did not see it. I was like, thank you, Holy Spirit, better late than never. It says affliction and persecution arises. Listen to this, because of the word, the word caused persecution and affliction because of the word. And so what happened? Immediately they fell away. I got excited about the word. I picked up the word, I put it in my heart and because of that, the enemy attacked it

and I was persecuted and I was like, it was better before, it's better before the word. And so what happens is we have our soil is too shallow. How do I overcome shallow soil number two? You accept the word by staying with it. As simple as that sounds. I stay with it. The problem is not the initial response. It's like, John Sermon was pretty good this week. I like that one part, I hated the second part, but that one part was really good. I'm gonna keep that. And what we do is we receive it on Sunday and we forget it on Monday. And listen, guilty, guilty. I will preach it myself on Sunday and forget it Monday, right? Because the soil has become too shallow and I've found that one of the best ways to overcome shallow soil, as crazy simple as the sounds, it's to write it down. When the Lord speaks, when I sense the seed penetrating the soil of my heart, There's a reason all through scripture, the Bible says over and over again, remember, remember, remember, stack stones so that when your children see the stones, you can tell them what it is. Over and over again, God's like, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, remember, do this in remembrance of me. Why did he say that? 'Cause we forget a lot in our forgetful hearts,

our forgetful minds create shallow soil. So I can hear a real encouraging word on Monday and I can read this devotional and be so encouraged. And then come Thursday, I'm right back in the same gutter that I just crawled out of on Monday. Why? 'Cause my soil is shallow. What I have found is when I journal, I don't diary fellows, calm down. When I journal, I am reminded of the faithfulness of God. And six months later, I go back and I read my journal from six months ago, and you know what I find out? God's really faithful. He's true to his word. He's so good. But if I don't remind myself of that over and over again, my soil would be too shallow. And you know someone like this, not you, 'cause all of us were great. But we know somebody who's like this. They're encouraged today preaching to you and then you're pulling out of the gutter tomorrow and then they're preaching to you the next day. It's because our soil is too shallow. So what's the action step? I gotta let the word cut me. I gotta accept it fully. And then I have to be willing to practice. So what we're gonna do, how are we gonna do this? We're gonna choose one truth. We're gonna read, we're gonna find one thing

from what we read that is piercing our heart that's cutting us, we're gonna write it down. And we're gonna ask ourselves, how do I practice this every day? How do I deepen the depth of my soil every single day? James, let me show you this in James, one quick passage in James, chapter one, verse 22. It says, prove yourselves doers of the word, not merely heroes. And then it tells you what it does when all you do is hear the word, but never do it. What you really do is you delude yourself. It says, for if anyone is a hearer of the word, but not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror. For once he has looked at himself and gone away, he immediately forgets what kind of person he was. It goes on to say in verse 25, but one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty and a bides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man, somebody said, this man or this woman will be blessed in what he does if we're doers. Let's go back to Mark, give you the last one, verse 18, the final seed. It says, these are the seeds that were sown among the forms. These are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in

and choke the word and it becomes unfruful. Point number three, if you're taking notes, is we have to accept the word by clearing the competition. I told you I'm vulnerable, I wanna be vulnerable. If I am suffering from one of these three, it's more than likely going to be this one. It's gonna be this one. This is the soil that really, really loves the word. I love the seed, I want it in my soil. And I would gladly receive it in my soil. And I believe that it does grow and it begins to sprout forth. But if I'm not careful, there's a lot of other things in my life that begin to sprout around it. And I love this passage because it gets very descriptive. It's the most descriptive of the three bad soils. And I think there's a reason for that. I think it's because it's the most likely, especially in 2026. It says, "The worries of this world." I said, I listened to a podcast the other day that said, "We're all AI is gonna kill us all by the end of 2030." Well, praise God. The deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things. Man, if one of those three don't get you, I don't know that you're alive. And these are the things, the thing that sticks out the most to me, and I think the reason it relates to me the most is this seed didn't have to be rejected completely for it to be unfruitful.

It wasn't like the soil was like, Forget that, I'm hard-hearted. The first one was, I reject the seed completely. I don't even want it to enter my soil. This one is not a rejection of it. It is simply that it becomes too crowded and it crowds out what God is trying to produce in us. This is so descriptive for me and for all of us because the things that crowded out aren't even bad things. I mean, it's work. It's kids, kids aren't evil despite what you may think. They're not. It's kids, it's busyness, it's sports, it's activities. It's running my kids all over the place. It's trying to have enough money at the end of the month beyond the bills. It's podcasts, it's politics, it's news, it's entertainment, it's social media. It's worry, it's desire, it's the pursuit of something. It's the heart simply just becomes too full. And what I am here to say is, I'm not here to tell you to do more. You should read your Bible more. You should get in another Bible study. You should listen to another podcast. If somebody sends me another podcast that I gotta listen to, you know what I bet? I bet you don't need another podcast. I bet you need to do something less.

I bet there's something that you need to not do. I would say something real crazy. I would probably tell you, you don't need another Bible reading plan. Probably just need less Instagram. Let's just be real, you know? You probably don't need another podcast. You sure as heck don't need another app on your phone for a game that you'll play. Your kids don't need another sports league. Your kids actually need to be in church every single week getting the word of God in their heart. It's not that we need more. It's actually that we need less because life is choking out the word. It's choking out the word. And this is really hard. It's way easier to preach about than it is to actually do. There's this really famous sculpture. I think I've talked about it before. Michael Angelo chipped away this very famous sculpture of David, King David. It's that if you've seen it, it's that super awkward one where David's naked and you're like, I don't know if I'm supposed to look at this. This is weird, that one. It's carved out of one solid chunk of marble. And they asked Michael Angelo at one time, like, how did you do this? How did you chip away just one little chip at a time?

And he said, before I ever put a chisel on it, I actually saw David in it. And I just removed things until he revealed himself. Most of the time, your life is not void because you have too much. It's actually missing something because it has too many of something. There's something you need to, there's not something you need to start doing to find life to the full. I'll bet you anything is something you need to stop doing. Something you stop doing. And so what is a really practical action step? A really practical action step if you're married or if you're not married, you can give with a friend. A really practical action step is you're married is you want to sit down with your spouse and you want to write down five things that your family is going to stop doing. We're going to stop. We're going to stop doing five things. And what's going to happen is you're actually not sowing more seed into your life of the Word of God. The Word of God that's already there is going to sprout and it's going to begin to pour fruit off the vine simply because the things of this world aren't choking it out. So what's choking it out? Is it the worries of this world? Is it the deceitfulness of riches chasing, chasing the promotion and chasing the bonus and chasing and chasing and chasing

or is it the desire for more things? I think it's one of those because that's what Jesus said. Let's read about the final one and then we're done. Verse 20, the good one. Let's get to the good one. It says, "These are the ones on whom seed was sown on good soil and they hear the Word and they accept it and they bear fruit." That's the key of the whole verse, they bear fruit. And then it tells us the ratio, like, I love to invest. I plan on accruing wealth, not because I'm a pastor or I'm not doing on the backs of the church, but I'm an investor, I invest a lot. You know, when I get a white papers of an investment opportunity you and I'm looking for, I scroll to the bottom where it says return on investment. This is the estimated return on investment. Can I just tell you something as an investor? 30, 60 and a hundred fold is insane return. That's insane. You will never come across an investment that yields on paper a 30, 60, a hundred fold return on investment. How do I do this, John? I wanna know how to do this. Do less. Do less. What's choking out the word? Like what is, what's choking it out? And I wanna do less.

So I wanna hear the word, I have to hear the word. If I don't hear the word, I can never accept it. I wanna hear the word, I wanna accept the word and I wanna bear fruit. So if your heart is hard today, accept the word over your own opinion. The word of God is more powerful than your own opinion. Accept it. If your heart is shallow, accept the word by staying with it. Don't quit. Don't be a roller coaster ride. Keep the faith, believe God, believe the word of God is true. And if your heart is crowded, accept the word by clearing out the competition. One more thing we're gonna do before we go. We have set here for 30, 35 minutes, talking about the power of the word of God, how we're gonna hear it, we're gonna obey it, we're gonna accept it, and we're gonna watch it bear fruit in our life. The staff had an amazing idea that we could come along, 'cause this series, this season is all about practicality. How do I practice this? I wanna practice it. I don't wanna just hear it, I wanna practice it. So we're gonna come together as a church, and we're gonna do something, and I'm gonna ask for everyone's participation. If you can't, it's not a big deal.

But what I'm holding in my hand is an Arabic Bible. It's an Arabic Bible. This is a seed. This is a seed. This is a seed that we understand. This is a seed that Arabs understand. These are not allowed in the Middle East, okay? The power of this word that I hold in my hand, that I cannot read one word off the page to you, is the same word that penetrates our hearts, cuts us. And I believe that it can do for you, the same it does for me, and I believe it can do the same for them that it does for us. So what we're gonna do is we have a ministry partner that I have to be very careful how I say this, and I'm gonna read part of this, 'cause I don't wanna mess it up, because we have a ministry partner that's embedded in the middle of the Middle East. I can't even tell you where they are. But they have, it's a humanitarian hospital that offers free hospital services to women and children in the Middle East, and they have permission by the government to have Bibles in the rooms. And so I wanna read this 'cause we're streaming this, I do not want this to be, I don't want this to do harm. All of our victory campuses are joining together to provide Arabic Bibles through a Christian humanitarian

ministry that has faithfully served in the Middle East for decades. For security reasons, I cannot tell you their name, or even the country where they're located. What I can tell you is that they provide extensive free healthcare to women and children, and because of their unique standing in this region, Arabic Bibles can be openly available there. People travel from across the region for care and have the opportunity to receive the word of God in their own language. I actually heard a story from the director of this hospital that he has just randomly going somewhere, he got in a cab, and the cab driver said, what do you do for a living? He said, well, I'm the director of such and such hospital. And he said, that's, I know that hospital, that's that hospital that has Bibles. He said, I'm from Africa, Northern Africa, and I had heard that this hospital had Bibles, and I traveled all the way to that hospital just so I could get a Bible. So they're known for this, they're known for this. So today, we're going to hear and accept the word in our lives, and we're gonna open our hands and pray that someone in the Middle East experiences the same, okay? So here's my challenge. First off, disclaimer, if you're a skeptic, and you're like, oh, I've seen this before,

these are those churches that have a gimmick and they wanna give money. Listen, if you don't trust me or trust this house, don't give, it's cool, it's cool. Every dollar that comes in for this is going directly to a Bible. We don't have an administrative cost, we're not skimming off the top. Every single dollar that comes in from this special bill is going straight to that, okay? So these Bibles cost them $10 each. from our congregants to provide Bibles for this hospital?" So here's my challenge. It's not a demand, it's a challenge. My challenge as your pastor is that you would consider buying one Bible for every member of your family, okay? So if you're a married couple and you have two kids, you buy four Bibles, $40, okay? That's my challenge. If you're like, "John, I don't even know if I can buy groceries today." That's okay. This is not a command. This is not a demand. This is not a bag to give. But I'm challenging us. If you could give $2, you could buy half a Bible. It doesn't matter. Is the Lord speaking to your heart and prompting you to be a part of making one seed? This is one seed. And we can believe by faith that this seed will land on good soil in the middle least. So if you want to do this, if you want to do it by cash or check, you can put Bibles in the memo line, you can get an envelope in the seed back in front of you and write Bibles on it and put it in the slots as you leave at our campuses. They're safe and secure ways. You can slot it into the walls there. They're safe and secure ways. Or you can text. Most people are just texting. It's easier. You can text to give. And the directions for that are popping up on the screens. Right now you can see how to do that. You simply text any amount and you text the word give and any amount to 888-705-3162 followed by the word Bible. Okay, followed by the word Bible. And you can just take a picture of that. If you guys will put that back up on the screens one more time, you can do that. Just take a picture of that and you can do it later today. And what I want to do, we're going to close by doing this, is I want to close by praying over these. Every Bible that's going to go to the Middle East, the Bible says in the book of Isaiah that God's word

never returns void. So let's pray over all these Bibles. Lord, first and foremost, Lord, we thank you for the word of God in our own lives. I speak to every one of us, Lord, who may have a hard heart. That you, your word, would cut through the hardness of our heart. The same way you did Augustine and penetrate our heart and the seed would take root. Lord, I pray for those of us that have shallow soil. Lord, we try, we get excited, but it just fades and we find ourselves on this roller coaster. Teach us, Lord, to deepen our soil. Lord, I pray for all of us, all of us, Lord, that the word just gets choked out by the busyness of this world. And may we learn to clear away the competition so that your seed can take root in our hearts. We thank you for this, Lord. Lord, let the seeds of all of these Bibles, however many we send to the Middle East, we pray over every single seed, Lord, that it would penetrate the heart of anyone who picks it up, that they would not just be hearers of what they read, but they would fully accept it. They would come to know Jesus as their Messiah. We thank you for that in Jesus' name. We're so grateful that you joined us today. At Victory, we pray big prayers to a big God and we expect big results. If you would like to receive prayer, you can submit a prayer request by visiting victory.church/pray. If this message or any of our messages have impacted your life and you would like to partner with us through giving, you can do so at victory.church/give. Thank you again for joining us. At Victory Church, we live life to the full. you