Beneath the Surface: A Heart Check with Jesus

Dr. David Fraze: I'm so glad that you're here today to be able to hear my friend Brad Ingram.
Brad Ingram is the Executive Minister at the Hillside Church here in Lubbock.
He's also part of the preaching team.
But let me just say this about Brad.
Brad, I've been around his family, I've coached his kids, and he's the real deal.
And we like to bring people in front of you the real deal.
And I think he has a message I want you to tune in on that I think is going to bless you today.
Help me welcome to the stage Brad Ingram.
Brad Ingram: All right. Well, good morning, everyone. Hope you're doing well. I got a hard stop in about 12 minutes. Okay. So listen, we're glad to be here. I'm glad to be here today. And I respect so much of this administration and know so many of you guys. I can't see you, but there's a lot of students that I personally know that are here today.
And listen, here's what I want to do. I've got about 12 minutes to open the scriptures and try to lay something before you that hopefully will be helpful.
Hopefully it'll be empowering to you. Hopefully it'll be a moment of evaluation of where your heart is today.
And what I want to do is real simple. I want to kind of dig a little bit deeper beneath the surface of our hearts today.
And if you go to my church, you know we've been talking about this quite a bit.
In fact, I found myself studying a lot of Jesus' words and teachings on what he has to say about the heart.
Because a conversation that I've had with many people over the past few months is really, man, there's just some heart issues.
And I'm not talking about like, you know, like physical heart issues.
I think that's real for some people.
But what I'm talking about is more of a spiritual heart issue.
In other words, I keep talking to people who are passionate about God and who he is and really want to do good things in life.
But when I dig a little bit deeper and talk about what it looks like to actually walk with Jesus on a one-on-one basis and have a relationship with him,
it just feels like and seems like that there is a heart disconnect.
And so it just kind of had me thinking, okay, like why?
What's going on here?
One, and two, like, what does Jesus have to say about this? And so,
it's important for us to lean into this topic. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23,
you'll see it on the screen. The writer of the Proverbs says, above all else, guard your heart
for everything you do flows from it. So, heart matters, right? The Bible would say that from
your heart comes evil thoughts. From your heart comes evil intentions, evil motives. There's good
that comes from your heart. There's evil that comes from your heart. And Proverbs 4 says,
above anything else that you do, are you paying attention to what's here? Because what's here
will eventually be out there. And it matters in our day. See, I think Jesus understands what the
heart is all about. And we know that the heart directs our life. We know that the heart is where
God looks. We know where the heart is, where faith lives. And we also know that Jeremiah in
Jeremiah 17 said that the heart is deceptive and wicked above anything else. Like who can tame it
and who can understand it? And so what we know is the heart needs renewal. And maybe today, if you
were honest with where you are today, wherever you are in your journey with Christ today,
does your heart need renewal today? I want you to see this on the screen, that when God's word
is planted in a surrendered heart, it always produces a transformed life every time.
Like if you and I are really into the word and it just lands in our heart, it always produces
a transformed life. And so this idea took me to a parable that is very, if you're like, listen,
if you're like, if you know the Bible, you're going to go, Hey, I know that Jesus had a lot to
say. And in fact, there's one parable in Matthew chapter 13 that I just want to land on for a few
moments. And I want to kind of give us some observations. And then I'm going to close this
thing and let you kind of do heart work, if you will, as you leave this place to go, Hey, where
is my heart today? Like according to what Jesus says, if everything flows from it, where is my
heart today? In Matthew chapter 13, we see the parable of the sower. And in fact, you're going
to see on the screen here that the parable of the sower, really there's three things. The sower is
going to represent our triune God, who he is, right? Father, son, and spirit. That's who the
sower is in this story. The seed is the word of God and the soil is our hearts. And Jesus one day
was teaching, according to Matthew 13, Matthew lets us know that Jesus was teaching one day
and he was on a lake shore, if you will, next to the Sea of Galilee. So many people were coming
to hear him talk that he gets in a boat and he goes out into the water. And he begins to talk
to the hundreds of people that would have been there to listen to what he had to say. Now,
He spoke in parables.
And parables frustrated the religious leaders because the religious leaders, the Pharisees,
they didn't understand what he was talking about because they didn't understand the connection to the Messiah,
to salvation, to the kingdom of God.
But it was the people who really understood who Jesus was, what he was about, and the nature of their hearts,
they would hear the parables and go, man, unbelievable.
Like there was a connection to them.
So Jesus is in a boat in the water.
There's people like you just listening to him talk, and he begins to talk about the sower that goes out.
And the sower goes, and he throws some seed out onto the road.
And he basically says that the first type of soil, if you will, the heart, was a heart that was a little hard.
And the soil hit, and it didn't germinate, it didn't penetrate the surface, and the birds came and took the seed and flew off, and it was gone.
Then the sower goes out and throws some more seed on the ground,
and this type of soil was a little bit different.
Like it actually germinated and sprouted just a little bit,
but then the sun came out and scorched it, and the plant died.
The reason why, because the root system only was so deep,
and it couldn't go deep because the surface of the heart was really, really hard.
Then the story goes that the sower throws seed out to a crowded heart.
Well, it didn't really take either because there was so much going on that the thorns choked it out.
But then there was a fourth type of soil, and that soil was a receptive heart.
Where the seed landed, that is his word landed, and it produced something really, really good.
And then he ends this portion of scripture and says, if you have ears, you need to hear it.
In other words, Jesus says, if you can hear what I'm saying, you got to do this.
This is what you have to do.
So when I read that text, here's what I see.
I see an invitation to self-examination, to where the Holy Spirit would speak to me and say, hey, Brad, what heart do you have?
Hey, students, what kind of heart do you have?
What's the soil of your heart look like today?
Are you tired?
Are you frustrated?
Do you have worry, anxiety?
Do you have these things that are just stressing you out
that you literally can't even see straight
because your heart is just so crowded?
Like, is your heart so hard
because of something that happened in your past
and you just can't get over it?
And so what's happening is,
it's like you go to things like this,
you hear guys like me talk,
your professors talk, wherever you are,
and it's just not really penetrating
because your heart is just really hard. Where's your heart today? And I just want us to know
that Jesus gives a very specific instruction for what to do with our hearts. Matthew 13,
18 through 23, he says, let me tell you what I'm talking about. And you're going to see it here on
the screens. Jesus says, listen then to what the parable of the sower means. When anyone hears the
message about the kingdom and does not understand it. The evil one comes and snatches away what was
sown in the heart. This is the seed that was sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground
refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy, but since they have no root,
they only last a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word,
they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word
But the worries of life, you ever been there?
The stress of life, the weight of life, and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.
But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word, who understands it.
This is the one who produces a crop, yielding 160 or 30 times what was sown.
Where is your heart today? What does it look like beneath the surface?
We see the hard soil or even the closed heart. You'll see it on the screen here,
verses 4 and verses 19, the hard soil. Here's what it represents. See if this is helpful to
maybe where we are. It represents a hardened heart that hears but does not understand.
The truth never penetrates because of pride, distraction, or even spiritual blindness.
This is the type of soil that you know enough about Jesus to be interested,
but really not enough for him to grab your heart and change your life.
I'm externally curious and intellectually curious about what he's talking about,
but not enough to let it change who I am. It's what Isaiah says in Isaiah 29, 13, as God is
speaking to the prophet Isaiah. He says, these people, they honor me with their lips, but boy,
their hearts are far from me. In other words, what he's saying is their hearts are so hard to me
that they don't understand who I am. And Jesus would say that this is the type of heart,
This is the type of heart where a seed doesn't even, like, it can't even sprout because the heart is so hard.
So here's my question I want you to think about.
Is there any area of your life where you've stopped listening to God's word because you think you know better?
And maybe you want to take a picture of that.
Just think about that question.
I mean, the second type of soil is the rocky soil or the shallow heart, verses 5 and 6 and verses 20 and 21.
right this is the type of soil where right there there was a little bit of top soil on the rock in
that day where it was one of those you know one of those uh you know if you lived in israel in
this day you would know is a very rock rocky arid uh place and there was very little grass but where
there was grass it was just kind of in you know in pockets and you could actually pull the grass
up and even in this day you could pull it up because the root system only goes so far down
In fact, the roots can't penetrate the rock that is there.
And Jesus would tell us that this shallow heart represents a person who receives the word with excitement,
but falls away when trouble or persecution comes.
Their faith has emotion without endurance.
In other words, you get real excited about what's happening,
but you're not doing the hard work to put roots down deep into the soil of all that Christ is,
and your passion and excitement only go so far because you don't have the adequate root system.
Right? This is the people who go to a conference or a camp and get so passionate and excited,
and then four days after the camp is over, they go home, and they're back to doing what they used
to do. Why? Because their passion and excitement only lasted for about a week, and they didn't
have the root system to support. And boy, you talk about common in our day. We see a lot of people who
have great ideas and great excitement, but they're unwilling to do the work.
Are you willing to do the work? Like, are you willing to identify what's in your heart?
And even when it gets hard, Jesus is saying this type of person, when the sun comes up, right,
This picture of like hard times.
The plant is scorched.
Your life is scorched.
Why?
Because the root system can't support the growth.
And so when faith becomes costly, do I stand firm in truth or fall away when life gets hard?
Like do we understand what we're talking about?
The third is the thorny soil or the crowded heart, right?
This is a seed that is choked by the thorns of life's worries and wealth and wrong desires.
It's a heart that is so just full of worldly realities that you have no room for the things of the Lord.
The distractions are dominating your mind and your emotions and your heart.
You find yourself worried about life and consumed with earthly desires and the deceitfulness of wealth.
and you're just stressing over everything, and you're just looking for anything to help.
And at the end of the day, your heart is just crowded.
And even sometimes there's good things that can crowd our heart.
What good things in my life have become God's substitutes, choking out my devotion to Christ?
And don't be deceived.
Adults in the room, I want you to answer this too because we are just as prone to fall.
We're just as prone to have the soil of our hearts get hard.
And so students, yes, this is directed towards you, but collectively, all of us, what are the God substitutes in our life that can make our heart crowded?
But then you have the good soil.
I'm going to end on this, the receptive heart, verses 8 and verses 23.
See, this is the seed that produces the harvest.
30, 60, or 100 fold. This represents a heart that hears, understands, and obeys the word.
It welcomes truth deeply and bears fruit visibly, right? This is the person who
has a great desire to be faithful to Jesus and be used by him, and your life actually proves it.
Like your life just proves it. There's something different about how you live. Your heart is
open. You're producing a harvest. The question I would ask us is, am I allowing God's word to
transform how I think, speak, and live? And I think what Jesus is saying is he's telling this story
to a group of people. He's basically, he's not saying these are different stages. You know,
you start here, you go to stage two, three, and then you finally get there. Here's what he says.
It was true that day, and friends, it's true today in this moment, in this chapel session,
and true for me as well. My heart is in one of those categories. And so I just want to ask you
a question. What heart, what category is your heart in? See, when your heart is right, everything
else aligns. Your faith, your obedience, your inner peace, your relationships. Why? Well, because
we're open to God's word, his ways, and his truth. And I just want to land with some application here
real quick. You're going to see it on the screen. So how in the world do we stay in a place
to where our heart is receptive and open? I would encourage you to abide with Christ. John 15,
Jesus says this, apart from me, you can do nothing. It's a crazy verse. A crazy verse is Jesus says,
as a Christian, you do nothing apart from me. And if that's true, why do we live apart from him?
We have to learn to abide in him.
We are part of him.
He is in us and we are in him.
It's a beautiful, unbelievable, like the doctrine of unity, like the unity of Christ, that we are in Christ and he is in us.
And when we remember that and we live out of that, there's something that changes in our heart.
We've got to be quick to confess sin, right?
We hold things in.
We don't want to say anything.
We just, you know, no, I'm saying like there's healing that comes when we confess our sin to God and to others.
that vertical forgiveness and then horizontal healing that when you confess that sin there's
a healing that takes place in your heart we got to stay humble we got to none of us have it figured
out first john would say that if we think we have no sin in our life we make god out to be a liar
no we are people who can struggle at times and that keeps us humble we need each other
we have to feed on the word and we have to proverbs 4 guard our hearts at all cost
So, here's my question.
Where do you need the Holy Spirit to plow your heart today?
Where? How? When?
Wrestle with this.
Because when God's word is planted in a surrendered heart,
it always produces a transformed life.
Father, thank you for your word.
I thank you for these students.
And I pray you would do a deep work in our hearts.
In Jesus' name.
Y'all have a great day.
Thank you.