I read these words studying out the Parable of the Sower, in a quote I found that marked me deeply:
“People are now so sermon-trodden many of them, that their hearts, like footpaths, grow hard by the way of the word, which takes no more impression than rain doth upon a rock; they have brawny (physical strength, weight, rugged, powerful, swollen, hard) breasts, horny (stiff, immovable, unaffected) heartstrings, dead and dedolent (feeling no grief, or compunction, calloused; apathetic) dispositions.” John Trapp, (enduringwordcommentary)
Sermon Trodden, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is now obsolete really, only recorded in mid-1600s, by John Trapp specifically in this quote, but for some reason, it hung in the air for me…
Sermon trodden.
As an almost 40 year old person who was born, raised, lived in the church 3-4 times a week almost weekly, I have heard a LOT of sermons.
Too many to count.
I have heard and heard and heard the message of the cross, the price paid at Calvary, the cost of our sins paid by my Savior.
I have heard over and over “it is well with my soul.” I have sung over and over the songs, the hymns…
“Just as I am, without one plea,” week after week, inviting folks down to the altar over and over…
I knew the Bible stories. I’d heard the Christmas story, I’d seen the girls play Mary, hold babydoll Jesus, quoting Luke 2, by heart.
I have learned my weekly memory verse, I showed up for GA’s, I went and worked on the roof of a stranger’s house with World Changers.
I played basketball in the gym, had a youth group at church, had a good group of church friends.
I got saved at the youth retreat to the Point of Grace concert at Carowinds…God called me, drew me and saved my soul placing me into eternity at age 13 years old. This was certain. I knew Someone had turned a Light on in my soul that I didn’t know needed to be turned on…
I got baptized in an outdoor baptismal, in a white robe, and I had a bible with my name engraved on it in gold…
I wore the hats, the gloves, and fancy outfits for Easter and Christmas…
But somehow, unknowingly, I began to not believe that Jesus could actually change me, with real life practical things. I didn’t see that happening with anyone around me, other than getting saved. I didn’t know I could ask God to help me with a relationship, a friendship, a problem right now.
So things drifted to an idea that salvation must just be a religion…just something we do. Something we say we are.
A label.
A set of rules to follow that would guarantee my entrance into Glory one day, in the sweet by and by…
Somehow I had gotten confused that because I was “saved” that I just live my life the way I want to, and I figured Jesus would just answer my unanswered questions and hard life things when I get to heaven… if I stayed right and made it there.
If I stayed in the lines.
If I learned the rules, and blended in.
If I looked like everyone else…
If I don’t screw up and get drunk or cuss or something.
I let that feeling of the Light that changed my heart that night God saved me grow dim…
I didn’t feed it what it needed, I didn’t know how…
So, I started learning and modeling everything I saw.
I sat in the pew and wrote notes on the offering envelopes.
I sat and chewed double mint, quietly trying not to rattle peppermint and jolly rancher wrappers.
I sat and daydreamed about other things during the message.
I wrote down the grocery list, the work idea, the distracting thing coming in my brain during the teaching.
I showed up to only sing the songs instead of worshipping the Father.
I was often more concerned about boys, the girl’s drama, the friendships and camaraderie that is so wonderfully present in these sweet hometown churches…
My heart grew sermon trodden, quickly.
I had a mindset that I’m a good religious church girl now, I’m saved, I’m in, and I’m safe.
I didn’t grow at all spiritually, I did NOT lose my salvation, I did not ever lose the love of my Father, I just simply paused.
I had a heart that was no more impressionable by the gospel than ‘rain on a rock…’ like Trapp said above.
When you are learning to be religious accidentally instead of learning who God actually is and who you are now, post calvary, you are forced to take things into your own hands…because it’s all you know to do.
You begin to think that your own actions are what keeps you right with God, instead of simply knowing Him and being His…
My bible says that anything that is not of faith, which is total trust and belief and dependence in Him, is sin, and sin will harden a heart faster than most anything.
You cannot serve two masters, two idols, two things.
Your trust in anything other than Christ alone, even your religious works at church, the religious rules, the religious doctrines of man, make the word of God of no effect in your life… this religious heart causes the word of God to be unable to penetrate you, because you’re in charge, you’re to blame and it makes you feel afraid.
I implore you to look at your heart… is it sermon trodden?
“But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.”
Romans 14:23 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/rom.14.23.NKJV
“He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.””
Mark 7:9-13 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/mrk.7.9-13.NKJV
“ And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.” –Matthew 13:4
“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;”
Ephesians 4:17-18 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/eph.4.17-18.NKJV
Mama Talks Jesus 
Leave a comment