Secret Is In The Soil

Last week, Pastor Carrie preached an incredible message about digging deep. And actually, this is really funny, the entire message that I have today came from the idea of digging, sorry, thinking a lot about dirt, on about soil. That's what I'm gonna preach about today. I'm not going to get too into it right now. But I was also thinking about transformative moments in the presence of God, especially moments that we have together, I've had a lot of private moments with the Lord. But I've had a lot of moments with the Lord and a room like this, where God's just gotten a hold of something in my life, and I've left radically transformed. And every single time I've had a moment like this, in a room like this, there have been people that have left that same room unchanged. And then I've had moments in the presence of God where I've left unchanged, and I'll talk to someone who will say that was the most transformative moment of my entire life. And I began just wondering about that, why, in a room like this, the some of us leave, radically changed. And some of us just leave. And I'm going to do my best to address that today. And I think I'm gonna give you like the title of my message. And and I think this is the truth of it. The secret is in the soil. And you might not have any idea what that means. Right now. I didn't have any idea what it meant when it actually came to me like that earlier last Sunday. But uh, but I'm glad for where it's taken me and I think God's gonna speak to some of us that you believe that. I'm gonna pray. We're gonna get going. So Father, God, thank you thank you that you take someone like me. And use me to speak to your people. God, I pray that it's your word, not my word. And I pray that people don't hear Derrick they hear the Holy Spirit. I step out of me and I step into you, God, would you do it only you can do today? In Jesus name, amen. Amen. We're gonna jump right into Scripture because I got a lot of it. So just real quick, this the first verse that we're gonna read Matthew, chapter 13, you can go ahead and turn there. We're gonna read verse three through 23, skipping a couple in there, but the first word that we're going to read is the word he it's important for context that you know, he is Jesus. So this is a lot of Jesus teaching. But we're gonna jump right in and Matthew 13 verse three, he, Jesus told many stories in the form of parables such as this one. Listen, a farmer went out to plant some seeds. And as he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath and the birds came by and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. And these seeds quickly sprouted, because the soil was shallow, but the plant soon wilted under the hot sun. And since they did not have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. And still other seeds fell on cert on fertile soil. And they produced a crop that was 3060, and even 100 times as much had been planted. Anyone with ears? To hear should listen and understand. Has anyone ever read that phrase in Scripture? Like anyone with yours? I've got yours. Everybody got yours? Look at your neighbor, make sure they got ears. Don't talk on him. That might be a little strange. But uh, but I've read things like this in Scripture before. And I've thought like, okay, like, obviously, I don't think he's talking about people. Like if you have ears, you should hear. I want to get right into the heart of the matter real quick. He's using natural language to talk about spiritual truth. Every most of us, I mean, maybe you don't have ears. If you don't, I'm sorry, then you probably don't hear me right now. That's fine. But anyway, if we have yours, we can hear. And he's talking about spiritual. This is spiritual truth that needs to be communicated. So I want to I want to set that up, because we're going to continue to read and that, like, that juxtaposition is going to happen through the rest of this scripture. He's going to talk about natural things, to talk about spiritual truth. And that's really what a parable is. It's an a story told about a natural truth that represents a deeper spiritual truth. So he's not just saying, hear the words. He's saying, Let this hit your heart. So he goes on to say, his disciples came and asked him, Why do you use parables? When you talk to the people? He replied, You are permitted to understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but others are not. Again, that goes back to you What do you listen in with? Are we leaning in naturally? Are we just trying to learn information? Or are we trying to get application I'm going to talk about that in just one second to those who listen, he says to my teaching more will be more understanding will be given. And they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. And that word understanding I did this a while ago, I, this portion of Scripture always messed me up. Like, okay, so just because I don't, I'll just I'm gonna be upfront, I do not have great reading comprehension skills. Reading is not my, my favorite form of learning. I like listening. But but but even in that, like when I read, I don't always comprehend what I'm reading. So I read this the first time I was like, Yo, this seems kind of mean, like, I'm trying to understand what you say, God. But if I don't understand, you're going to take away my understanding, it just really baffled me. But I went and I looked up the original language of this. And that word understand is a Greek word that is two parts, and it means to discern and do. So he's saying, if you're not listening to my teaching, taking it in discerning and then putting it to action, you're not going to get anything from it. Can I tell you the Word of God is not just information to be learned it's application to be walked out. And if we're going to be people who want the truth of God to resonate in our hearts in a real way, we have to be people who don't just listen, we live it. The Word of God is not just made to be listened to, it's made to be lived out. So I'm going to continue in this he says, that's why I use parables where they look, but they don't really see they hear but they don't really listen or understand. This fulfills the prophecy that Isaiah that says, when you hear what I say, You will not understand when you see what I do, you will not comprehend and here's the key for the hearts of these people are hardened. This isn't a parable about soil. It's a parable about hearts. So when I say the secret is in the soil, what I really mean is this the secret of understanding and walking out the truth of the kingdom of God relies on the condition of your heart. And he goes on to say, and they cannot, for the hearts of these people are hardened and their ears cannot hear. And they have closed their eyes so their eyes cannot see. And their ears cannot hear and their hearts cannot understand. And they cannot turn to me and listen to his heart and let me heal them. Here's the truth. God's desire to God's desire is to heal this Listen, listen to even how he phrases that they cannot turn to me. And let me heal them. I just I want you to hear my voice for a second. Maybe you're in this room and you feel like you're walking through some sort of brokenness. I want to let you know that the desire of God's heart for you is healing. God's desire is to heal you. But a person with a hard heart cannot receive healing from God. It's not about whether or not it's flowing to you. It's whether or not you're open to receiving it. And I want to talk about hearts today because he goes on to say in Matthew 1318, he says now listen to the explanation of the parable about the farmer planting seeds. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the kingdom and don't understand it and the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts, you see it, the soil is our hearts. So he goes on to say the seed that fell on rocky soil represents those who hear the message and they immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they don't last long, they fall away. As soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God's word. The seed that fell among thorns represents those who hear God's word. But all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the loser of wealth. So no fruit is produced, the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and understand God's word and produce a harvest of 3060 or even 100 times as much as has been planted. So before we go into this, I just want to say I think that we live in a society that has become obsessed with measuring fruit. We look at everybody else's life, and we measure our life based upon their outcomes and our outcomes. We look at I mean, think about what social media has done to the landscape of comparison, especially in young people in the last 10 years. The only way that we had to compare our lives to other people, or earlier before social media was actually going and seeing what other people were, there was a relational component of it. And when you introduce relationship to observing the fruit of someone else's life, you might begin to understand what it took to get them there. But if all you see is someone else's highlight reel, you're never going to have the understanding that you need. And we begin to think that maybe it's the seed that was planted in their life that was different than my life. And we begin to maybe kind of walk in a little bit of self righteousness in the comparison of our lives based upon in other people's lives, but here's the truth of this. All of these people in this received the same seed. The farmer walked through his field, and he was scattering the seed. And as he walked in, he was scattering the seed. Here's the thing, can I tell you what God does every single time we enter a room like this, he walks through, and he scatters the seed of His Word. And he scatters the seed of His Word. And what we begin to see is we begin to see this parable play out in real time. Because here's the thing, the secret is not in the seed, the seed is the same, the secret is in the soil, the soil is different. So here it here's the truth in this room, everybody today in the chapel, everybody, today, you're going to receive the same seed. But how it grows is not dependent upon the seed that scattered, it's dependent upon the heart that it's sewn into. And so today, I believe that we're going to address this parable, this parable is all a matter of the heart. And I'm gonna have two parts, I've got eight points. So buckle up with me, we've got 21 minutes, that means I've got about two minutes per point. So it's going to be great. And we're not gonna go over today, you're gonna get to the buffet in time. But it's two parts I've got foreign for. The first part is going to be more description, I'm going to describe, and maybe help put a little bit of skin on and a little bit of meat on just like help humanize this parable a little bit. Because even sometimes, in reading these parables, we can understand them sort of, but it's hard to see ourselves in them. I want to help spiritually locate you this morning. Because it's really easy to naturally locate ourselves, right? If you're in the chapel, or if you're in this room, right now, you are at 6224 Logan Avenue, if you're watching this online, sometime after it's been posted, you are wherever you are, and hopefully you know where that is naturally. But most of us in this room, I would say have had trouble in one season or another spiritually locating yourself. Because it's really easy to know what we can see, it's all not always easy to be able to wrap our mind around spiritual truth that we don't see in touch and feel and smell. So I want to help spiritually locate us today. And I want to describe the four types of soil or hearts that this parable goes through. The first thing it talks about is the seed that fell on the footpath. And I believe that that represents a hard heart, a hard heart, what does a hard heart look like? Remember, this is the description phase. So I'm going to I'm going to throw out some descriptions. And here's my challenge for you today. This is not information. This is application. So I don't want you to think about your neighbor. I don't want you to think about the person that you're mad at. I don't want you to think about your spouse, as Oh, anybody else just like wives grabbing your husband's hand being like leaning Listen, husbands being like lead, you know, this is for you. This is like a like we're gonna put this into practice as we go. So as I throw out these descriptions, I want you to take inventory. Is this me? So for a hard heart, what does that look like? Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. You're guarded. But you're guarded against the wrong things. You're guarded against the wrong things. Nothing good gets in, nothing good gets out. Maybe you're numb. Another another great indicator of a hard heart is you're cynical. You always leave a room, seeing what went wrong. Not what went right. And I think maybe even emotionless. You're just you're walking through life just numb. Lastly, the last kind of descriptor I want to give her a hard heart is this unwilling to submit? Unwilling to submit, I had a conversation with someone this week and they said this phrase, I submit only to myself. And I said, and I'm so sorry. And that's that's great in practice if you don't understand that in and of ourselves. The Bible says no one is righteous, not even one. The reason that we need Jesus is because in and of ourselves. We're capable of anything. The Bible says our righteousness is like filthy rags compared to God. I'm not saying that to make you feel bad. I'm saying that because the good news is that we get to take on Jesus His righteousness because of what he did. But in that we don't just get to put on the righteousness and do our own thing we submit to Him. A hard heart his heart that's unwilling to submit number two a shallow heart a shallow heart what this describes is this describes the the seed that fell on the footpath and it said it sprouted quickly, but it had no roots because there were rocks buried underneath the soil. And it this was the description that it gave it was withered by the sun. I haven't been in a biology class in a long time he's been studying does that biology still studying plants? Anybody helped me out? Still biology? Ellie says yes, I trust that great. I haven't been in a bio logically, obviously, I haven't been in a biology class for a long time if I needed to ask the audience for that. But um, anyway, I know that plants only need a few things, they need soil, they need water, they need sunlight. Right. So sunlight is one of the things that a plant needs to grow. Notice this, those things that were planted in shallow soil were actually killed by something that was supposed to bring them life. So a lot of times, a marker of a shallow heart is a misunderstanding of the true character and nature of God. I'm gonna say that, again, a marker of a shallow heart, not the only one, but a marker of it is a misunderstanding of the true nature of the character of God. Because if you don't understand the depth of God's love, the intensity of His Holiness will take you out. God is holy. And he's all loving. So if we're not rooted in the love of God, the intensity of who he is, is one of the things that can cause us to run. So let me give a really practical example of what this looks like. This is the person who in a room like this, here's the word and every week, they're ready to go. Every week, they're like, Yo, I'm on board, I'm putting this to my feet for the rest of my life, I'm never going back and you never see him again. And that's typically because the next day, they begin to think that they're not good enough for it, they begin to think that God's mad at them again, they begin to mischaracterize the God that they fell in love with in that moment. And the heat of the sun, causes it to wither. That's a shallow heart. Number two, number three, sorry, eight points. I'm confused on what's what. But number three, grounded heart, a crowded heart. And this is a really easy one to explain. You want the things of God, but you also want the things of the world. Man I want. We were singing that song oil and offering God I want to be holy, like you are. And then on Monday, you also want to go out and do the things that your friends are doing that you know that you shouldn't do. And then on Sunday, when you get home and you're by yourself, you start scrolling through your phone and you get carried away looking at things that you shouldn't be looking at you I want to be holy, but I also want to be unfaithful in my marriage. I'm going for it today. Like y'all we can't can we be honest in this place, we've got to understand that just because we're in church doesn't mean that everything's all figured out. There are some of us in this room, I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that we desperately want the things of God and we equally desperately want the things of the world. And here's a truth that I want you to know about a crowded heart, weeds will always choke out good seeds. Weeds will always choke out good seeds. Number four is a good heart. And a good heart. How do you know if you've got a good heart if your heart is a good place to associate because a good heart multiplies what sum? It multiplies. What so when you hear the word here's, here's how you identify. You come into a place like this. You hear the word, you put it into practice and your life changes. That means your heart is a good place. That means that your heart is that doesn't mean your heart is perfect. But that means your heart is in a place where it's producing something. I think that one of the reasons he said it produces sometimes 30, sometimes 60, sometimes a hundredfold. That means that you can have a good heart, but it's still less fertile than someone else's. That's saying that even in being in a good space, you still have work to do. I want to let some of you off the hook who thinks a good heart means perfection, it doesn't. It just means you're producing a good heart doesn't mean that you're walking in perfection, a good heart means that you're doing something with what's being sewn into your heart. So that's the description phase. We're all past the description phase. And here's the thing I used to get really, really, really discouraged when I read this parable, because I used to think, Okay, well, I've got a bad heart. Because if I'm being honest, almost every time I've gone through this parable, I've seen myself in one of the places that's not the good heart. And like I honestly even as I was working through this this week, I started seeing shallow tendencies in me have moments where I'm on fire, and then I fade and moments that I'm ready to go and then I'm back to the same place. So I'm not saying this to you, as someone who's preaching at you, I've been walking through this and understanding that I'm still susceptible to this in every season of my life. This isn't like a one time thing. Because here's the truth. And here's the truth that will set some of you free is not good soil can become good soil. So if you've identified yourself in all of those, any of those places any of those first three, that's not to say, You're horrible, you're bad. that God can never do anything. No, it's to say I want to become more like God. And that's what we're gonna get into in the moment is how we deal with this. But also, here's my caution to us, if you see yourself or your I'm multiplying, God is doing something that doesn't guarantee that you're always going to be there either. Good soil can grow a lot of weeds to someone can throw rocks in good soil. Good soil can get hard if you stop watering it. So no matter where we are, this is the we move through these. And as we move through these, it's important to know how we move through these. So that's what we're gonna get into now. So I want to talk for 11 minutes and 55 more seconds about how we tend the soil of our hearts. How we tend to show up so for those of us in the room who found ourselves as hard hearted, nothing gets in, nothing gets out. I think here's the thing. I think this is the hardest one. Nope, no pun intended. It's the hard heart. But, but for a lot of us, I think that if we're in a place of hard heartedness, I think it's the easiest place to feel hopeless. I think it's the easiest place to feel like because nothing gets in, nothing gets out. And that includes hope. If you're if you're feeling hard hearted, you're not allowing the hope of God into your situation. And you're not expressing it either. But I want to I want to just come to you today and let you know there's hope and a hard heart. How do we tend to a hard heart needs to be broken. I know that can feel heavy. But I don't think it needs to be heavy. The Bible says this, that God does not despise a broken and contrite heart, a broken heart is actually the heart that God loves. And now here's what this a broken heart doesn't mean I just got broken up with and now I'm sad. I think that's culturally, when we hear broken heart. That's what we think like I'm sad. Broken means this. It's the in that verse where it says God doesn't despise a broken and contrite heart, the word broken is actually the same word that's used to describe a horse when it's broken in. And what that means is it has a spirit that's willing to submit. God does not despise a heart who is willing to submit to Him. And I want to let you know, there's two ways to break a horse. And there's two ways to break a heart. So we're gonna get into your ad two ways to break heart that I should have called this message two ways to break heart that would have been fun. Anyway, are you guys with me? Like, okay, I know that this can feel a little bit heavy, but like it, here's the thing. There's life in this. This is actually life giving. It's not life taking the only thing that's life taking is being in one of these places and not doing anything about it. So the last half of this message is all the good news. Good news, breaking my heart. Yes, let's get to it anyway, two ways you ready? Brute force? Number one, that's how you can break a heart and no one actually wants to be there. So we're going to skip over it quickly. But this is what people used to do with horses before they develop better, better methods, they would basically write it into the ground. They break it until it was fearful of them and willing to obey. And here's the thing, sometimes this is what rock bottom does to us. Can I tell you, I received a broken heart through brute force, and I don't recommend it. I was unwilling to obey God. And it took me reaching rock bottom and hitting something that was harder than me, for my heart to break open and be ready to receive what he had. I'm so grateful that that happened, but I don't recommend it. There's another way to break a horse. And there's another way to break a heart and what they call it now in raising up horses. I don't know I don't know these words, guys. Please, Jane helped me out here. That's a equestrianism equestrian things. They call it gentle braking, called gentle braking. And it's it's becoming more common, because it produces better results. And let me tell you, that's true of our hearts as well. This produces better results. And how do you go about gentle braking? I don't, I'm not going to go around through the whole process. But I'm going to start with what it starts with. It begins with repetition, and contact with the horse and the rider physical contact. And you repeat that on a small scale until you're able to increase. What that means is it starts with small, repeated moments of intimacy with God. If you're in a place where your heart is hard, you need to consistently find yourself in a place of small, intimate moments with God. Because the Bible says this, that it's the kindness and the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. He can break you with force, but he doesn't need to. It will allow our hearts to go to him and have consistent contact with God. God does not want to break your spirit. His goodness leads us to repentance. Amen. Amen. Number two, the shallow heart a shallow heart needs to be deepened. A verse pastor Carrie read last week is this May you experience the love of God though it's too deep to fully understand. In order to deepen our hearts, we need to be people who are rooted in the love of God. But for many of us, we are not rooted in the love of God because there's something beneath the surface that's blocking the roots from connecting. And if so, for a moment, I just want to talk about lies. If you have, if we're walking in a space where we are sprouting, leaving, and dying, sprouting, leaving and dying, I will almost guarantee you that you're believing a lie either about yourself or about God. And you might not know what it is, that's the danger of a shallow heart is because the surface looks good. But under the surface is where the raucous so how do we do this, we have to deal with the things that are beneath the surface. I'm like, you cannot get to a space where your heart is deep into the point where the root of God's word can actually take root in your heart. If you're not willing to do heart work. If you're not willing to allow God to search beneath the surface, how do we do this? Psalm 139, verses 23. And 24 says this, search me O God, know me, test my heart and point out anything in me that offends you. There are things in our hearts, there are things in my heart right now that offend God. And can I tell you what offends God more than anything is not believing truth, it's believing lies. And that doesn't offend him to the point of I'm so mad at you. What it breaks his heart because he knows there's more that we could be walking in. And if we're willing to deal with the lie that we're believing we can begin to replace it with God's truth. That's how we deepen a shallow heart, we replace the lie with God's truth. So here's, here's how you do this. You get in the presence of God. You asked him what the block is. And then you replace it with the truth of His Word. Can I Can I just share with you something that I've been that literally was uncovered in my heart? Three weeks ago, when I was having a conversation with my counselor, hello. Not ashamed of that. I'm grateful for it. And she asked me, she said, Derek, what do you fear more than anything in the world? And literally, without even thinking, I opened up my mouth. And I said that, that I'm going to fail it the thing that God set out before me, I have no idea where that came from. But it's a lie that I'm believing. I'm believing a lie, that my life is destined to fail. So now what do I do with that? I identify it. But then I begin to remove it, how do I remove it? One of the ways is trying to find the root of it, I've got to dig around it. I've got to I've got to start getting some of that soil out and think what are the things in my life that have contributed to this mindset that I'm gonna fail? I don't know what they are yet. I'm still dealing with it. Did you know that that sometimes the people that you hear from are still dealing with I'm still dealing with it, and I'm not ashamed of that I'm, I'm doing the work. I'm digging around it and I'm gonna get that rock out of the soil. And then what am I going to do? I'm going to know what the word of God says. Because Ephesians two, verse 10, says, I am the masterpiece of God, we are the masterpiece of God, and He has created us a new, I'm not broken, like I used to be anew in Christ Jesus, and he has good things that are planned for me. So I'm going to begin to fill the places of my heart with the good soil of God's word. How do we deepen a shallow heart we get the lies out and we replace it with the truth of God. Amen. Amen. Number three, crowded heart, a crowded heart needs to be weeded. These are the seeds that sprouted up among the thorns and they were choked out. And here's what this is. It's sin that needs to be removed. It's sin that needs to be removed. Many of us are not flourishing, because we're trying to commingle our old life with our new life. And here's the thing when we're dealing with weeds, we don't trim them. We uproot them. When we're dealing with sin in our life, we've got to be all in. We don't just try to do something less. We get it out of the ground. My wife has a garden and has a lot of weeds that grow up in it sometimes. And I've seen that girl out on like, literally, every time she gardens she's pregnant. I don't know why she does this, but she chooses every single time. So I've seen Becca out there nine months pregnant down on her knees and not nine months. She's never made it to nine months but anyway, like, almost nine months pregnant down on her knees, pulling these weeds out. You know what I've never seen her doing. I've never seen her down on her knees with a pair of scissors cutting off so no, she up roots them because if you just cut off the fruit, it's gonna grow back. So what am I saying? We've got to be aggressive in our removing of sin in our life. Why? Because sin is weeds and weeds. Always choke out good seeds. Weeds always choke out good seeds and it Not because weeds are more powerful than seeds. Some of us have believed the lie that our sin is more powerful than the Word of God. The weed is not more powerful than the seed, but God does not share soil. I'm gonna say that against what might it might actually the weed the sin is not more powerful than the word, God does not share soil. God wants your whole heart. Now, here's the thing in good soil, weeds still sprout up, we just deal with them. We just deal with them. We pull them out. So here's the thing, if you're in a place where the sin of the world is encroaching on your life, it's okay to cut it off. Romans 812 says that we are no longer obligated to our sinful nature, we are only obligated to the Spirit of God. You do not have an obligation to your old life, you do not have an obligation to your old friends, you do not have an obligation to your old addiction, you do not have an obligation to go where you used to go. The only thing that you are obligated to is following the Spirit of God let yourself off the hook in two ways, stop feeling so guilty. God paid the price. The righteousness of Christ is yours in Jesus. But also let yourself off the hook. It's okay to cut off that relationship. It's okay to dump the bottle down the toilet. It's okay to throw the drugs away. It's okay to break off that extramarital affair that you're having. Cut it off. If you do not kill your sin, your sin will kill you. We've got to be people that kill our sin. Amen. Amen. Number four, because here's the thing is a good heart. How do we tend to good heart you still need to attend a good heart. A good heart needs to be guarded. A good heart needs to be guarded. Proverbs 423 says guard your heart above all else, what are the words above all else means It means nothing is more important than this thing. Guard your heart above all else. And it goes on to say why it says because everything that you do, flows from it. Every single issue of life flows from your heart, we have to guard our heart. And here's the truth the enemy wants nothing more than to mess up the soil of your life. The Bible says that the thief comes to steal to kill and destroy. I was thinking about this in terms of have a garden again. And here's the thing, there's little thieves and guards, little bugs, weeds, rabbits, right? The Bible says the small foxes spoil the mines. It's not always the big things, often the small thing. So in our garden, we have a fence around some of our plants, we have cages and we spray things on it. We pull things up, we guard the soil, we guard it, because when it's parted, it stays safe. Here's the thing, if you're walking in a place where you're multiplying, they're still waiting that you have to do. If you're walking in a place, when you're multiplying, there's still deepening that you have to do. If you're walking in a place where you're multiplying, there's still braking that needs to happen on the inside of you. Remember, this is a place where we can go from any one of these. So we guard our heart above all else, and I'm gonna close Let's stand to our feet as we close. If you're wondering, how do I move past the place that I am? Okay, I know that my heart needs breaking but how? Okay, I know that my heart needs deepening. But how? Okay, I know that my heart needs weeding. But how? Hey, I know that my heart needs guarded. But how. And this is where I'm gonna land this. And this is true for all hearts, that repentance is always the way back. And repentance is not telling God you're sorry. Repentance is not going to go and say God, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, repentance. It literally is the Greek word metanoia. And it means to change your mind. Hey, I'm going to stop thinking about that thing. The way that I used to think about that thing. Romans 12 Two says that we become new people by changing the way that we think maybe your thought pattern needs to change today. Maybe you need to submit your thoughts to God in a way that you never have today. Can I tell you one of the ways that you need to submit is to know this. You're not stuck in the soil that you're in. Someone needs to hear that today. You're not stuck. There is a way out. And I believe that today it will take this not just imprinted in our mind. We're not going to store it in the cabinet. We're going to put it into our feet. And as we begin to put this one We're dwarfee I believe God's gonna set some of us free. Come on you believe that today. So I'm going to read a prayer of repentance that David prayed. And this isn't what David prayed after he had an affair, and then had that woman's husband killed in battle. And he didn't tell anybody about it. Someone found out this is as bad as it can get. And this was David's prayer. So here's the thing, no matter where you are, no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, we're going to pray this bird here, as we pray this prayer. I'm going to read this scripture, I'm going to pray at the end of it. But as I'm reading it, our prayer team is going to come join us up front, if you need to stand with someone because here's the thing, David needed to stand with the prophet Nathan, but in and deal with his sin with this person who's supposed to and with God. So if you've been trying to get yourself to think that you can do it alone, God did not design you to do it alone. So I'm gonna pray. We're gonna go back into worship, and now's your time to respond. If you need to respond and you're seeing this lift your hands, I wonder if you do that. So it says, This created me a clean heart, O God, renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. God make me willing to submit to you, then I will teach your ways to rebels and they will return to you God right now we return to you, we repent God, we turn back to you God from all of the places where our heart has been hard gotten to the places where our hearts have been shallow or crowded or God even if they're good and weeds are beginning to creep in God, we repent we change our mind. We just want you God if your holy we want to be holy. So God I pray right now that you would create in us clean hearts, God to you and make our hearts good soil so that we can be people who consistently taking your word and leave transform in Jesus name, Amen.