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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Thank you for listening to your Daily Bible Verse,

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Speaker 1: the podcast that examines one verse each day to learn

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Speaker 1: more about God and his will for our lives. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, Kyle Norman. After a brief message from one

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Speaker 1: of our sponsors, we will continue with today's verse. Today's

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Speaker 1: verse can be found in Luke chapter eight, verses five

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Speaker 1: and six. A farmer went out to sow his seed.

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Speaker 1: As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path,

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Speaker 1: was trampled on. Then the birds ate it up, some

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Speaker 1: fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the

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Speaker 1: plants withered because they had no moisture. The first time

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Speaker 1: I ever heard the parable of the sower, my thought was,

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Speaker 1: this guy is the worst farmer ever, After all, who

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Speaker 1: tries to plant seeds in a pile of rocks or

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Speaker 1: on a sidewalk, who wanders around tossing seeds indiscriminately hoping

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Speaker 1: that seeds somewhere will take root and produce a bountiful crop.

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Speaker 1: Even someone like myself, with no green thumb or gardening

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Speaker 1: sense at all, knows that this is not what you do.

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Speaker 1: So why does Jesus present a parable of some inept farmer?

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Speaker 1: As an illustration about what it means to accept the gospel.

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Speaker 1: What on earth is going on? Well, it turns out

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Speaker 1: this farmer wasn't so inept. In the ancient world, farmers

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Speaker 1: would sow their seeds in what was known as the

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Speaker 1: broadcast style. This meant that they would walk up and

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Speaker 1: down their field, casting seeds in all their actions, and

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Speaker 1: because there would often be pathways around a field and

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Speaker 1: sometimes through a field, the seeds would naturally fall upon

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Speaker 1: the path where birds would come and take it up. Similarly,

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Speaker 1: seeds would naturally fall in the shallow soil where the

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Speaker 1: rock bed would stop deep roots from forming, seeds would

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Speaker 1: fall on its thorns, and of course seeds would fall

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Speaker 1: in good soil. It is also important to know that

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Speaker 1: in the ancient world, plowing a field was done after

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Speaker 1: sowing the seed seed. Today we do things in reverse.

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Speaker 1: We turn the soil, we remove the rocks that we find,

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Speaker 1: we prepare the soil to receive the seed, and then

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Speaker 1: once we have plowed the soil, then we go and

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Speaker 1: diligently placed a seed in soil so that they can grow.

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Speaker 1: We even have an ancient hymn about this. We plow

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Speaker 1: the fields and scatter the good seed on the land,

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Speaker 1: But in the ancient world plowing came after. When planting

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Speaker 1: wheat in the field, a sower would broadcast a seed

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Speaker 1: and then begin plowing in order to get the seed

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Speaker 1: further into the dirt. Given that Jesus describes the system

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Speaker 1: that everybody listening him would have been familiar with, he

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Speaker 1: then links it to what it means to follow him.

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Speaker 1: So what is his message? See? The point of the

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Speaker 1: parable is to sow the gospel message and leave the

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Speaker 1: results up to God. Just before the parable, Jesus points

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Speaker 1: to his disciples and says, whoever does the will of

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Speaker 1: my Father in Heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

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Speaker 1: So the obvious question is, well, what is the will

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Speaker 1: of the Father? How do we live out who we

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Speaker 1: are as followers of Jesus. Answer, we sow seeds. We

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Speaker 1: evidence the truth of Jesus in our life and the

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Speaker 1: difference that the Holy Spirit makes. And the challenge of

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Speaker 1: this parable is to sow those seeds in broadcast style,

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Speaker 1: to throw out the Gospel as widely and as robustly

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Speaker 1: as we possibly can. And when we do this, guess

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Speaker 1: what is bound to happen. We are going to fail

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Speaker 1: a lot when we actively share our faith, whether that's

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Speaker 1: in word or in action, there will be people who

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Speaker 1: refuse to accept it. We might invite someone to church

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Speaker 1: and have them refuse. We may offer to pray for someone,

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Speaker 1: only to have them reject that offer. We may even

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Speaker 1: have people insult us for having faith. The seeds that

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Speaker 1: we sow are going to fall on people or in

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Speaker 1: situations who are not ready to receive it. But that

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Speaker 1: never diminishes our call to spread the gospel as widely

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Speaker 1: as we can, because how do we actually know what

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Speaker 1: the soil is in front of us without trying to

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Speaker 1: plant the seeds of faith in the first place. The

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Speaker 1: action in this parable is quite simple. So or sos.

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Speaker 1: That's it. The so or sows in all directions forwards, backwards,

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Speaker 1: side to side, over their heads as they go along

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Speaker 1: the fields. And the sower trusts that the seed will

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Speaker 1: land where it needs to land so that God can

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Speaker 1: produce the growth that need to happen. And then once

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Speaker 1: there's an indication that the seed is received, once someone

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Speaker 1: shows interest to Jesus, then we take the time to

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Speaker 1: help that seed get deeper and deeper in the person's life.

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Speaker 1: It is in broadcasting the gospel broadly robustly, passionately that

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Speaker 1: we see God's blessings take hold. So what does it

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Speaker 1: look like for you to sow the seed of the

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Speaker 1: gospel in your life. The fact is there are people

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Speaker 1: all around us who want to know that there's a

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Speaker 1: God who loves them. There are people who are going

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Speaker 1: through incredibly hard times and they need to know that

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Speaker 1: they're not alone. There are people who feel so frighteningly

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Speaker 1: alone that they would welcome a community of love, prayer,

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Speaker 1: and support around them. The harvest is plentiful, Jesus says.

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Speaker 1: The only question for us is how far do we

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Speaker 1: want that gospel seed to be cast