Blue Team Go!

Praise God! We had our first evangelism night and it started off with a great blessing from the Lord. Although we did not start off by sending people out and praying as will be the regular schedule, we had a large group of people step forward in faith to be a part of this ministry. We had about 15 people show up and volunteer to go out to visit people's homes, spend an hour in prayer for lost souls, or write letters to those who have expressed interest in the church. We spent about 15 minutes in prayer asking God to bless us and forgive us where we have failed. We asked him to give us wisdom in speaking to lost souls, and for love and compassion to be heard in our voices and seen in our eyes. We prayed for courage for the people who are on the front lines and for soft hearts for those who are being visited. I have only been at Emmanuel for a year now, and this is the most excitement for evangelism I have seen at any church.

If you would like to participate (any age, any gift, any spiritual maturity), we meet on Wednesday nights at the conference room across from South Hall.

The visitation crews will meet at 6:30 pm and head out by 6:45 with appointments already set up and people expecting our presence.

The prayer team and letters team will meet at 7:00 pm.

If you want to participate and don't feel you have time, start by asking God to help you be more faithful in evangelism, then just drop off some snacks for the team to begin. We want to encourage everyone to get involved in some way and we will grow in faith together. If you have new ideas for our ministry, post them here or email me, we would love to help you get going.

I pray that we are obedient to the task set before us. Please join us in praising God for the work he is starting here.

Parable of the Soils

Parable of the Soils
Matthew 13:1-11,18-23
(Mark 4:2-20, Luke 8:4-15)

Introduction to Parables:
They were not simply analogies meant to clarify a point Jesus was trying to make. To some people they were meant to hide the meaning. A parable left unexplained by the author is more like a riddle without the answer.

Parable comes from the Greek word Parabole (para meaning ‘something along side of something else’). It is taking something external and abstract, comparing to something understandable and relatable.

Parables are meant to make a point to the audience concerning the topic of the context. We cannot assign meaning to every detail of the parable and pull out spiritual meaning (e.g. In the parable of the lost coin, the woman had to clean her house to find the coin, so we must also clean ourselves up before we can find the treasure of God’s Kingdom) The interpretation must also be consistent with the rest of Scripture.

In the parallel passage in Mark (verse 13) Jesus says that unless you understand the Parable of the Soils, you won’t be able to understand the other parables he shares. So this one is quite important in understanding a large portion of Jesus’ teaching.













The Parable:
Wayside Soil:
Paths around the edges of the fields that people walked on often in traveling between cities or getting to the fields.
Very hard ground that wasn’t plowed up.

Rocky Soil:
Not that it had a lot of rocks in it (a good farmer picks out the rocks), but that the soil was shallow with bedrock only a few inches below.
Plants growing here could not establish a good root system, depriving them of proper nutrition.

Thorny/Weedy Soil:
Weeds are never apparent when planting, they show up as your plant begins to grow.
Weeds take away the vital things a growing plant needs (sunlight, water, nutrients).

Good Soil:
Deep, nutritious, soft, clean soil ready to promote growth and an abundant harvest.

Remember that salvation is manifested by fruit, not foliage (John 15:2, 6). The harvest is what matters to the farmer; not a bunch of leaves in the field, but fruit. The only seed that produced fruit was that growing in the good soil.

Explanation:
Sower:
Immediately – Christ, Eventually – anyone who shares the gospel
Seed:
“The Word of God”, the gospel

Wayside Soil:
Gospel never penetrates the soul, so it is easily taken away by the world (it is possible that God will plow up the hard heart sometime after the seed is sown and is not taken away).
No matter how nice or “relevant” you are, there will always be people who are hardened to the gospel.

Rocky Soil:
Enthusiastic, emotional, immediate, superficial profession of faith that is lost because of the inability to go deeper.
Plants in shallow soil spring up quickly because they can’t establish a root system and the energy goes into building upward. When drought and heat (persecution) come, they are the first ones to die off.
This person didn’t count the cost in following Christ and the initial excitement is lost in the realization of the hard truths involved.

Thorny/Weedy Soil:
Superficial commitment without turning back on the things of the world.
A preoccupation with wordly things prevented proper growth and in time this person falls back to the world.

Good Soil:
Only seed to produce fruit.
Not all believers have equal amounts of fruit, but they do show much fruit.
Average harvests produced about a 7.5 yield. When Jesus told the disciples the good soil would yield 30, 60, 100 fold, he was telling them it would be a tremendous harvest. When the seed takes hold in good soil, there is a dramatic transformation that is evidenced by lasting, noticeable fruit over time through difficult trials. He doesn’t say the seed produced a couple of fruits that may be hidden behind a bunch of leaves making the plant look like the fruitless plants.

Jesus told this parable in response to the apparent downturn in His ministry that the disciples saw. The Jewish leaders were rejecting Him, and the disciples thought their mission would be hopeless. Jesus told them there will always be hard-hearted people and false-converts when sharing the gospel, but encouraged them with the promise of good soil and fruit-bearing seed.

Points to Ponder:
What kind of soil are you? If you have a hard heart, ask God to plow the hardness and soften your heart to be transformed by his Word. If you have a shallow soil heart, count the cost of following Christ and ask God to plow deeper and make your faith real and fruitful. If you have a thorny soil heart, repent from worldliness and ask God to cleanse you to receive the gospel with purity.

It is not the talent of the sower, but God working in the heart that produces fruit. There will always be discouragement in sharing the gospel (hard hearts and false conversions), but keep sowing faithfully.

Here is a Great Study Guide for the Parable of the Soils
Here is one of the best messages I have heard, on True and False Conversion, discussing the parable of the soils (Audio or Video).

A Convert's First Prayer

Each Sunday I would like to dedicate a little space to post a prayer from the compilation of Puritan prayers called "The Valley of Vision." These are some of the greatest prayers I have read and encourage me to pray for more than health and travel safety, but for things of eternal value.

My Father,

I could never have sought my happiness in thy love,
unless thou had’st first loved me.
Thy Spirit has encouraged me by grace to seek thee,
has made known to me thy reconciliation in Jesus,
has taught me to believe it,
has helped me to take thee for my God and portion.
May he grant me to grow in the knowledge and experience of thy love,
and walk in it all the way to glory.
Blessed for ever be thy fatherly affection,
which chose me to be one of thy children by faith in Jesus:
I thank thee for giving me the desire to live as such.
In Jesus, my brother, I have my new birth,
every restraining power,
every renewing grace.
It is by thy Spirit I call thee Father,
believe in thee, love thee;
Strengthen me inwardly for every purpose of my Christian life;
Let the Spirit continually reveal to me my interest in Christ,
and open to me the riches of thy love in him;
May he abide in me that I may know my union with Jesus,
and enter into constant fellowship with him;
By thy Spirit may I daily live to thee,
rejoice in thy love,
find it the same to me as to thy Son,
and become rooted and grounded in it as a house on rock;
I know but little-
increase my knowledge of thy love in Jesus,
keep me pressing forward for clearer discoveries of it,
so that I may find its eternal fullness;
Magnify thy love to me according to its greatness,
and not according to my deserts or prayers,
and whatever increase thou givest,
let it draw out greater love to thee.