Our welcome team members will pass an offering basket during this song.

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If you have children, they are welcome to join our Sunday school classes! 

When Christ speaks, the heart is revealed.

I. The Kingdom Advances Through the Word of Christ vv 1-3
II. The Word of Christ Reveals the Heart vv 4-8
III. The Parables Reveal and Expose the Heart vv 9-15

Introduction

1. What is something you heard recently, a song, a conversation, a sermon, that genuinely stopped you in your tracks and made you think? What made it stick?

2. Have you ever been in a conversation where someone was clearly not listening to you, even though they were looking right at you? What did that feel like?

Into the text

3. Read Luke 8:1–3. Luke goes out of his way to name these women and describe what they did. What does that tell us about who Jesus welcomes into his ministry, and what does their response reveal about the condition of their hearts?

4. Read Luke 8:4–8. Jesus tells a parable and closes with “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Why do you think he ends there without explaining it? What does that tell us about how parables work?

5. In verse 11, Jesus says plainly, the seed is the word of God. Given that the seed is the same in all four scenarios, where does the difference lie? What does that tell us about the nature of God’s word?

Applying the text

6. The sermon said the right prayer is not “Lord, help me try harder” but “Lord, do in me what only you can do.” How does that shift the way you approach your own spiritual growth? What would it look like to pray that this week?

7. Jesus is described as the sower who keeps sowing no matter what. Who in your life is the Lord putting on your heart to sow into, to share the word with, to invite in, to pray for consistently?

8. Look at verse 15: good soil holds the word fast in an honest and good heart and bears fruit with patience. Where in your life right now is God calling you to be patient with the fruit he is growing in you? What does faithfulness look like in that specific season?