“Get It!”

How many of you USED to “get it?”

There was a time, and it wasn’t so long ago, that I used to “get it.” But today, more often than not, I find myself saying, “I don’t get it.”  Pants so baggy that you look like a human-sized penguin?  I don’t get it.  Reality TV shows that are more depressing than the news?  I don’t get it.  And the one thing I don’t get the most?  Kids who text one another in the SAME ROOM!  But the thing is, there was a time when I DID get it.  You remember those times, don’t you?  Back in the 80’s when I was in high school, I wore my sweater over my shoulders and tied it in front because being preppy was cool.  Then, I wore bright orange neon clothes because wearing things that glowed was cool.  And I when I found out I needed glasses I got aviators like Tom Cruise in Top Gun because Tom Cruise was cool.  I used to even practice my Tom Cruise smile in the mirror.  Don’t worry, it didn’t work then either.  Hard to imagine, right?  Anyhow somewhere between then and now, I lost it.  I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but I lost it.  The transition from having it to not having it happens without us even realizing it.  You wake up and one day you realize that you don’t have it anymore. 

Has that happened to you?

Have you ever gone from having it to not having it and didn’t even notice?  Have you lost something you wish you hadn’t?  Or lost touch with someone who just kind of drifted away?  The thing is, it happens all the time.  Our talent.  Our friends.  Our loved ones.  All of them from time to time are suddenly no longer there.  Maybe you were great at juggling or skateboarding or doing the Rubik’s cube.  You look back when you were younger and think, “Boy, I used to be able to do that.”  Maybe you had a friend who meant the world to you and somehow you lost touch and you don’t even know them anymore.  Worse you wake up one morning and realize that the person sleeping next to you isn’t the one you fell in love with all those years ago.  You had your job; they had theirs; you were shuffling the kids around and one day you realized there was a gap between the two of you and you say to yourself, “When did that happen?”  None of us wants to wake up one day and find the people we love the most are suddenly strangers to us.  None of us wants to lose our closest friends.  And none of us wants to look back at the good old days when we used to be able to do something we can no longer do.  Many times, we can’t even conceive of it happening.  But it so often does – with our gifts, with the people we love, and sometimes, even with God.

Jesus talks about that in our Scripture passage this morning. 

Growing apart from God isn’t something new.  It’s been happening since human beings were created.  Just read through your Bible.  Over and over, the people of God would turn away and then something tragic would happen and they would come running back.  But in this passage Jesus shares with us the key to KEEPING up your relationship with God so in a crisis you know God is with you instead of feeling like God abandoned you. During this time in Jesus’ ministry, he is building quite a following.  Large crowds gather wherever he goes and people come from all around to hear what this man has to say.  There’s something about Jesus people realize is more than simply a man close to God.  They call him a prophet, they know he’s a healer, and some have even seen him raise a boy to life who was dead.  But Jesus knows that even with so many who are following him, they are not all coming for the same reasons.  Some are coming because they believe, some are coming because they are hopeful, some are coming because they are skeptical, and some are coming because they think he’s dangerous to Jewish thinking and want to get rid of him.  We catch up to Jesus as he is moving from place to place, sharing the Word with the people, and in this particular passage, he shares with them a parable as he often does.  If you would please rise as we read together from the Word of God, let’s hear from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 8, verses 4-15.

⁴While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: ⁵“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. ⁶Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. ⁸Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
      When he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

 ⁹His disciples asked him what this parable meant. ¹⁰He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
   ” ‘though seeing, they may not see;
      though hearing, they may not understand.’

 ¹¹“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. ¹²Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. ¹³Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. ¹⁴The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. ¹⁵But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. – Luke 8:4-15

“Hear the word, retain it, and by PERSEVERING produce a crop.”

What kind of soil are you?  Most of us think we ARE the good soil.  At least we hope we are.  But today I want you to be honest with yourself.  I want you to really think hard about this question, “What kind of soil are you?” Jesus tells us there are four types: those along the path, those among the rocks, those among the thorns, and those in the good soil.  The path, the rocks, the thorns, and the good soil.  He says some of us have never experienced Christ at all or if we have it was such a negative experience that we don’t have any relationship with God.  Those are the seeds along the path.  The people whose seed falls in the rocks are the ones who have a very surface faith.  They say they love God but have never really thought very much about their faith.  Maybe they go to church, maybe not.  But we know they haven’t spent a lot of time getting to know God, either in prayer, Bible study, or talking about faith with other people so their “faith” remains largely unexplored.  If something bad happens to them, they are more likely to blame God or believe he doesn’t exist because their faith has no roots.  The seeds in the thorns are people who probably grew up in church.  They learned their Bible verses, they really believed in God, but as they got older, the world started taking priority over God.  They started worrying about their car, their wealth, their status, their position in the company.  They started worrying more about making a name for themselves instead of making a name for God.  Those are the thorns that come in to choke off a person’s faith.  But the good soil is the one that will always stay close to God and Jesus describes it this way, “¹⁵But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”  They HEAR the Word, retain it, and persevere.  The key word there is persevere.  Persevere.  Now, the seeds that fall on the path don’t have any of those qualities.  The seeds on the rocks and thorns at least hear the Word, and the seeds on the thorns even retain it for a while.  But it’s only the good soil that perseveres.  God is telling us that it’s not enough to hear we must also persevere.

Perseverance is the key in our relationship with God. 

Like in any relationship, if we don’t work to maintain it, it fades from our lives and that’s our fault, not God’s. God is constantly working in our lives.  Through our friends, through our families, through the church, God is everywhere, but we have to work on our end, too.  It’s sort of like what happens when you’re swimming in the ocean.  When I was younger, I used to love swimming in the ocean.  I’d go out as far as I could and just let the waves carry me back in.  I used to love using a boogie board and just trying to see how far the waves would take me.  I remember one instance when I was out there for a pretty long time. I hadn’t really been watching the shore because I was so busy concentrating on the waves and by the time I was ready to come in, I couldn’t find my towel.  I walked in a straight line from the water to where all the people were and my towel was gone.  In fact, all my friends’ towels were gone, too!  And some girl in a bikini was sunbathing right where all our stuff should be.  I was thinking, “I would’ve remembered her.”  I couldn’t figure it out until I looked at the skyline and noticed the buildings were further down than I remembered them.  Without realizing it, I had drifted about a quarter mile down the beach away from our stuff.  Our relationship with God is like that.  If we don’t work at maintaining it, if we don’t check-in once in a while with God, we forget how to find him and we drift away. 

This week I want you to think about your relationship with God.

Are you persevering?  Are you regularly finding ways to connect with God either through prayer or Bible study or volunteering in service?  Because those are key ways to connect with God.  Read. Pray. Share.  As we explore God’s vision for our lives, be encouraged to do one of these things regularly and see if it helps you grow roots in God’s garden.  Take the time to be connected to God and see for yourself how your relationship with God grows!