Did you leave after hearing Sunday’s message and think, “Well, now what?” Each Sunday, we will provide a discussion guide for our church body designed to create a conversation about what we’re learning. We encourage you to prayerfully gather with your family, friends and community group and dive into how to apply Sunday’s teaching from God’s Word to your life.
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Message Summary
Using the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:1-20, Blake Holmes describes the Bible as God’s love letter to us. It is the seed spread by the sower wherever he goes. The challenge of both the Parable and for us today is to identify the type of soil that reflects the condition of our hearts. Are we like the hard path, the rocky soil, the thorn-infested soil, or the good soil? Then we have to cultivate the soil of our hearts by removing the barriers so that we can be productive like the good soil. How can we do the things necessary to be like the productive soil this year and reap the harvest of a life that honors God?
Discussion Questions
- Are you willing to invest the time necessary in 2015 to know the heart and mind of God by reading through His Word? It is God’s love letter to you. Are you willing make reading and responding to God’s Word a priority for 2015?
- Read and reread the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:1-20. Which type of hearer are you—a skeptic, a seeker, a sincere believer? Will you read His Word faithfully this year with an open mind?
- The sower spreads his seed everywhere. Are you spreading His message wherever you go? What needs to change in your life to make 2015 a year of spreading His Word to others in your life? Are you willing to do so even in the face of skepticism, doubt, or rejection?
- Which soil in the parable best describes the condition of your heart? The hard path, the rocky soil, the thorn-infested soil, or the good soil? Ask your family and your community group. How are you responding to the Word? What needs to change in 2015 for your heart response to the Word of God to be like the good soil that yields abundant production?
- What is keeping you from being like the good soil? How can you cultivate the soil of your heart to be productive in 2015? How can your community group purpose together to do the things necessary to be productive soil this year? Will you make 2015 a year of responding to the Lord’s invitation to live for Him? What will that look like in your daily life?