Verse 1-2: Read Matthew 13:19-23. What is it that we need to hold firmly to? What happens if we don’t?

19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21 yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.[b] 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 23 As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

Verse 3-8: On what does your hope rest as a Christian? Some reasons people call themselves Christian:

• I was raised in the church
• I go to church every Sunday
• I had a spiritual experience
• It aligns with my conservative worldview
• I live in a Christian community
• I believe there’s a God and my idea of God most closely aligns with a Christian God
• God, guns, and country music. Yeehaw!

Faith in Jesus is not a blind faith. It is not based on moral principles, it’s not just a social club, it’s not a political movement, and it’s not something we do because our parents did it. Our faith is based upon a real historical person, Jesus, who claimed to be God, died and was resurrected. The Christian movement should have died with the crucifixion of Jesus, but against all odds the Christian movement grew because the faith of his followers wasn’t based on an ethical model or a blind belief system – the Christian movement began with the personal, physical relationship with a resurrected Jesus. What do you think would be different about our faith if we had met Jesus in person or could talk with someone who had met Jesus in person?

Verse 9-11: Read Matthew 11:28-30. Jesus didn’t promise to relieve you of all burdens, but he promised that his yoke is easy and that his burden is light. Have you ever confused rest with a carefree life? Do you still feel compelled to serve Him? How do we stay in the habit of putting on his yoke every day?

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Verse 12-19: Why is resurrection so important in Christianity? If this life was all there was, do you think that your life would be futile? Is the Christian life compelling without a resurrection?

Verse 20-28: What is the end game for Jesus? What is our role in all of this? Read Revelation 4:10-11.

Verse 29-34: How is your faith been tested this week? Does your life exemplify the sacrifice Jesus made for you or does it make a mockery of it? Read John Piper’s speech “Don’t Waste It”.

“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things.

If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity, you don’t have to have a high IQ or a high EQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches. You don’t have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You just have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them.

But I know that not everybody in this crowd wants their life to make a difference. There are hundreds of you — you don’t care whether you make a lasting difference for something great, you just want people to like you. If people would just like you, you’d be satisfied. Or if you could just have a good job with a good wife and a couple good kids and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, a fun retirement, and quick and easy death and no hell — if you could have that, you’d be satisfied even without God.

That is a tragedy in the making.

Three weeks ago, we got word at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards had both been killed in Cameroon. Ruby was over eighty. Single all her life, she poured it out for one great thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing eighty years old, and serving at Ruby’s side in Cameroon.

The brakes give way, over the cliff they go, and they’re gone — killed instantly.

And I asked my people: was that a tragedy? Two lives, driven by one great vision, spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the glory of Jesus Christ — two decades after almost all their American counterparts have retired to throw their lives away on trifles in Florida or New Mexico. No. That is not a tragedy. That is a glory.

I tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is. “Bob and Penny . . . took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their thirty-foot trawler, playing softball and collecting shells.”

That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: “Here it is Lord — my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!”

Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.”

Verse 35-44: Read Matthew 6:25-34. If you know you are getting a new power tool, how does your attitude change about your old tool? If you know that this material world will be replaced with a newer, better version, how does that affect your perspective on this life?

Verse 45-54: If we go to heaven when we die, what is verse 51 all about? What is our final destination?

Verse 55-58: Where are we struggling in pursuing the perishable? What imperishable things should we be pursuing?