Matthew 13:3-9
Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Introduction
We have just one more week of parables of Jesus, but today we turn to one more parable that is quite famous. As one author put it, parables were not meant to be decoded in the study; they were intended to be understood, heeded, and acted upon. When we study these parables, the intent by Jesus was for us to understand what he was trying to convey to us as believers, to bring attention to what we need to do in our own lives, and then to act upon that in which we need to improve!
One of the great itinerant Methodist preachers of the turn of the previous century was a man named William L. Watkinson. Born in Hull, England in 1838, he would be accepted as a candidate for the Methodists in 1858. Over the rest of his life, which would end in 1925, he would preach on a great many variety of subjects. When offered huge fees for his lecturing, he found that it interfered with his preaching, so he gave it up. He would spend many hours researching his sermons, and polish them often. But one thing that he said about the passage that we read just now speaks to us through the years. He said:
“We are told that in Japan there is a traffic in rice seed said to possess magical properties. Whatever crop you wish to grow, this seed will produce it. Only sow the rice and pray. There will arise barley, wheat, maize, watermelons, according to your heart’s desire. So we popularly cheat ourselves into the belief that by some magic things will eventually turn out satisfactorily, no matter how we live and act.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. We cannot sow to the flesh; sow covetousness, insobriety, dishonor, and realize the fruits of Paradise.”
In our day and time, we sow so much that does not grow into great faith. We push our own agendas, we try to hide hurts from people, we do things without considering the cost of it (which is what next week’s sermon is, by the way). And we often don’t consider the sower himself.
II. The Sower
The sower came not as someone who was going to tame the land. He did not come as a person who was going to conquer all things. Jesus came instead as the person who won his victories through persuasion and patience. The message of Good News does not just come down to us from his throne, but rather, it is planted into our very souls. That is the seed. The message of Good News, the Word of God, is planted into our souls for it to grow and prosper.
But what of the sower? Isn’t he careless in his throwing? Why not be specific in where he puts the seeds so that they will grow and make a bountiful harvest? Well, to fully understand this, we must know a little bit about the times that Jesus lived in. First, there were no tractors, no harvesters, no sort of mechanization other than a plow and mules, horses, or oxen. But even more than this, at the time of Jesus, people would plant exactly as Jesus was telling us in this parable. They would throw it everywhere in a field, even up to the sides of a road, and then later, they would plow all the seeds under the ground. In addition to this, we must remember that the sower came for all people, not just the ones that have their lives in perfect rows. Remember that Jesus said himself in Luke 5:31 that “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick”. As we well know, all of us are sick. We are sin-sick. And can you imagine the lack of hope that we would all have if we knew that no matter what we did as people, no matter what we did as Christians, and no matter what Jesus did on the cross for those sins, that only those who had everything in order, everything checked off, everything right in line, were the ones who would get to be saved? There are denominations of churches that do believe that, of course, but we believe that Christ came to save all! Remember John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will be saved!” Not, if you have not sinned, not if you have been to church your whole life, not if you are giving greatly to the church, not if you have served in the church, not even if you’re a preacher! The WHOLE WORLD has been given Christ to be saved. That’s why the seed is thrown all over the place because if it wasn’t, then there would be no need for Christ to have come into the world. God would have devised a way for those elect to have been saved only, and he would have condemned the rest of the world to Hell for their sins. But we can be saved, because we have the seed, which is the Gospel.
III. The Seed
But what about that seed? One author put it this way: “to understand the nature of the seed means to accept its tremendous possibilities. It means to believe that it can give strength to our feeble purposes and grant us power to live by.” That same author states as well that the sowing of seeds is a precarious business. When a farmer would sow his field, he knew that when he was doing so he was going to put some of these seeds into places where it would not grow. It was a calculated expense and risk for the farmer. But the exchange would be that those seeds that fell into the great soil would come up and produce not only a great harvest for that moment, but would produce other seeds that would ensure the harvest of many years ahead.
We see that so many seeds end up in bad places. But what about the seed? It is an incredibly tough thing. An author I’ve been reading put it this way: have you ever tried to see a church killed off? A church seems to have very little chance against a world that is entirely against it. It may even be torn apart from within, but yet somehow, it refuses to die. Look at how dictators and regimes have tried to kill off the church. In the early 1990s, the fastest growing church in the world was the church in Russia. The Communists had tried for nearly a century to kill off the church, but it had actually grown and continued under their cruel rules. And when it became an open state, Christians within Russia took the opportunity to share their faith and to grow!
The seed of faith influences other religions as well. Look in Japan, where children literally sing “Buddah loves me this I know!” The Buddhist temples have playgrounds, schools, and grand buildings, because they took the form of Christianity and put it into their own faith. They even have co-opted Christ, naming him one of the great Yogis of their faith. It is the seed of faith that has done this.
The seed of faith is shared through sharing it with others. Preaching the gospel, sharing your faith, talking with those that are hurting, and those in need. One person put it this way: sharing your faith is at once the most exciting and the most upsetting thing in the world today. Preachers experience this a lot. There have been so many times where I thought that I had preached a very poor sermon, but y’all have come up to me weeks after and said “well, I got a lot out of that sermon, I even used it to talk to someone!” And then other times I’ve been challenged heartily and felt like I preached greatly, but nothing happened with it. But that’s the part of the seed, isn’t it? It’s not really about me, it’s not really about whoever you listen to presenting the Gospel, as long as the Gospel is given. We should be very glad that the seed is not a creation of our own, of mankind. We would have messed it up greatly! And we should be even happier that the power of the Gospel is not in how we present it, nor is it dependant upon the person who is spreading that seed. It is something committed to us by God.
IV. The Soil
But there is one other part of this parable that Jesus gives to us, and he does spend a great deal of time explaining it to us. Look at Matthew 13, and start with verse 18. Jesus says this:
“Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Jesus gives us all we need from this. Since we know that the soils are symbolic, there are four different kinds of listeners. The first is the one who is hard towards the Gospel, the ones along the pathway. Pathways in Roman times were lined with stone. They were truly the first modern roads of this world. Lain in precision, put in with purpose, but also very hard and very much meant to last for a long time. When a farmer threw his seeds into the road, there is no way that they would take root. There was no soil for them to do so! But beyond this, this seed is laid out where anything can come and get at it. Have you ever put bird seed out in a place where birds can plainly get at it? I don’t mean a feeder, per se, but even just out in the open. A while back, we had a rooster wander into our yard, and the kids spread birdseed out for it. After it went back to its home, over the next day or so we had so many kinds of birds that found that seed, and all of it was taken up. This is the same for the person who is so hard against the gospel. They have the gospel given to them, but because of the hard stone heart or because they don’t understand it, they are easily taken away by the enemy, which of course is Satan.
Then we have the person who hears the Gospel, but they are in rocky ground. They receive the Gospel, and it gets into their lives. But the root is not there. They know God’s word, but it has not become their foundation. Just like last week, their house looks good, but they are on the sandy soil! Have you ever seen a plant growing on a rock? Only things like moss and plants of that sort truly grow on rocks, and even then, they are not the kinds of plants that have a true root system. Jesus takes this further, though. He tells us that when this kind of person hears the Gospel, and they apply it to their lives, they are filled with joy. Great! But when the first persecution comes, when the first time they have hard troubles in their lives, they abandon the Gospel. Now, this persecution and trouble may come from a few different places. We might think that it comes from the people that they used to associate with. Certainly that will happen. But sometimes, it comes from the people within the church, sadly. I saw a cartoon recently, and it had a man who was dressed in black leather pants, a leather jacket with all sorts of patches on it, tattooed up and down, long, dirty hair, but he was reading his Bible, one that was heavily marked and the spine was falling apart. He was saying “Thank you Jesus for saving me from my sins!” And the people around him on the pew were dressed perfectly, were good, decent-looking people, but were saying things like “I wish they wouldn’t let this kind of person in here” and “wouldn’t it be better if he went to one of those modern churches?”, and even, “I don’t even know if Jesus could save someone like that!” Our troubles can come from within our own community of faith if we aren’t careful. We have an option when we encounter people coming to faith: we can either help take the rocks out of the soil and help them take root, or we can put rocks into their path and they leave the Gospel behind, never having fully committed to Jesus Christ and his redemption for their lives.
But those rocks can be of our own making, too. I was reading this week a story about a man who went to a church in California, and he called up the preacher to let him know that he was not going to be at church that Sunday, and that if someone could cover for his greeting duties. A few days later, the man called back up to the preacher and let him know that, yes, he could be there. When the preacher asked him why the change, the man said “Oh, well I thought that the Rams game was the early game this week, but it’s not, so I’ll be there.” Now, this church member was probably likeable, charming. People probably had nice things to say about him. But so many of the people in our churches today are like this man. Church is just a building and another thing to check off the list. There are no roots! The kind of person who hears the Gospel but does not let it take root into their lives will not make a stand for Christ. This shallowness must be blasted away, getting the rocks out of the way, so that the root of the Gospel can be there! So that the roots can get down deep. When we get to a place in our lives where we are among the rocks, and we are trying desperately to cling to the Gospel and to take root, we are not content to be there amongst the rocks. We need room to grow, to push out, and to prosper in our lives for Christ.
Next, we have the seed that falls amongst the thorns. Jesus would talk about this in his next parable in this chapter as well, and I urge you to go and read the rest of this chapter because Jesus takes the time to reveal to us what will happen in the end times when he comes back to Earth. But right here, he is talking about a very specific person. We all have thorns in our lives, sometimes quite literally. We have a large Cherokee rose bush that we have to keep cut back in our garden or else it will choke out so many other plants, be it by overtaking their spot in the garden, or else blocking out the sun. It’s a dangerous place to grow up your faith amongst the thorns of life. You can take root, but look at what Jesus says here: they hear the word (that is, the Gospel), but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. This is someone who has not allowed the fullness of the Gospel to dominate their lives. They are too concerned with the accumulation of things in their lives, in the pursuit of this earthly life without thinking of the life eternal. They hear the word, but do nothing. They know the word, but they don’t truly accept it. They teach it, but they don’t practice it. They let themselves get overwhelmed by the worries and problems of life without knowing that God has everything under his control and command. They don’t grow in maturity in their faith because they fear what that might bring.
I’ve known a few farmers in my day, and I know that they all deal with what some call ‘dirty soil’. This is the soil that has those bad weeds that could contaminate an entire field and render it useless. The soil itself is very rich. It’s like that dark soil you see by the creekbank that could grow just about anything you put into it. But since that soil has not been cleansed of the bad seed that is within it, it looks rich, and it has a great deal of potential, but it will never produce in such a way that makes it worth the time and effort of the farmer. That is, unless something comes along to cleanse it completely and make it new. That is the hope we have in this life. We will experience that dual nature within ourselves. Even though we may be saved, while we are here on this planet, we deal with the sinful nature of our souls. But if we truly give ourselves over to Christ, if we truly live for him, we see those thorns become less and less in our lives. We see the gardener of our soul take those thorns out of life, leaving us room to grow and to produce. It’s not always easy, and often it's painful to pull the weeds and the thorns out. But the results are that we have deep roots, we produce, and we thrive.
Finally, there is the seed that falls on the good soil. This is the hearer who hears the Gospel, who fully understands it, applies it to their lives, and truly lives for Christ. Now, let me ask you, we’re about to get into the true part of fall. How many of y’all are planning for next spring already? Are you doing work in your gardens, at least a little bit, getting it ready for next Spring? I know that my Mom has already stripped out the dead things from her garden, and is planning on getting some new soil, nutrients, and such to add into the soil now so that it is completely ready for next spring’s planting. Now, could we wait to do this until later? Yes, I suppose we could. But would the harvest of the plants be as good if we waited until early spring or if we did the work now? It’s the work we do now that makes the harvest greater. In that same way, it takes work and sometimes even great pains to keep our hearts and souls receptive to the Gospel, even today. Did you ever stop to think that the Gospel is something that we continue to receive even after we become a Christian? It is the Good News, plural, not the good news singular. It is always alive and prospering, and should be in our lives as well!
That work that you do to prepare the soil for the hearing of the Gospel happens when you talk with other people as well. Did you know that sower has given us the responsibility to continue the harvest? He has given us all the tools to do so, have given us the training, and it is up to us to actually do the work. John 4:35 reminds us that the fields are white for harvest, but in verse 38, Jesus states to us that “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.” When we use that opportunity to work in the field, Jesus has enabled us to take the seed that we have been given and to spread it to others. And Jesus honors and glorifies that. Look at what it says, that the Gospel seed that lands in the good ground, the one who hears it and understands it, will bear fruit, some 100 fold, some 60, and some 30. One expert on the time of Jesus said that a 2 to 1 harvest at that time would be considered a great harvest, no matter what plant was being produced. In modern times, even with all the technology that we have today, a rice field that produces a harvest that claims 4 seeds to every 1 is considered a great harvest that will ensure the health of a farm for years to come. Jesus was talking about 100 times the harvest coming in for some who believe. Think about this: Jesus came to earth, he recruited 12 inner circle men, and there were a few hundred that followed Him as he had his earthly ministry. From that, over 2 billion people have come to follow Christ today, and countless billions of people before us have come to put faith in Christ. From one person, to 12 more, to a few hundred, to over just 2000 years, billions.
And that is our job, even today. Spread the seeds. Spread the Gospel. Yes, some of it will land on the hard rocks. Some will land in rocky soil, and some will land amongst the thorns, and some will surely land into the good soil that you’ve prepared. And the way that you sow those seeds will be different from how I sow them, or how anyone else sows them, because our stories are all different, but point to the same place. Your story, your testimony is your own, and is truth that no one can claim is false. People will see what God has done for you in your life. By being humble, by seeking out the Kingdom of God first, and by sowing those seeds, you will be doing the work of the Lord, and it will be greatly blessed.
V. The Solution
When we look at this parable, it is one of the few that Jesus actually took the time to fully explain to his followers. If you go back and look at the verses in between the actual parable and the explanation, the disciples were confused by the message that Jesus was trying to give to his followers. But because Jesus gave the exact meaning, we can have no doubt in our minds what he meant by this parable. We must remember that all these different soils occur in our lives. We will see people who come to the Lord, but we will also see people who we share the Gospel with who will completely reject it. But here is the ultimate test for us: are we willing to share that news with any and all who come in our path? Just like Jesus did, we are to spread the Good News of the Gospel with everyone, not just those who are receptive.
I know that there are some of you in this congregation today that have already been doing that. Been doing it for years. But maybe you’ve been so beaten down by the rejection that lately, you feel like you can’t anymore. Or you feel because of how things are going in this church that you can’t. Can I tell you something, something that seems like a secret but really should be at the root of our Christian lives? It doesn’t matter what we are going through in our lives right now when it concerns the Gospel. This isn’t to mean that what you are going through doesn’t matter. It does, and it certainly does to Jesus. But when it comes to sharing the Gospel, we are to do it in all seasons of life, in all aspects of life, and in all circumstances. Look at Paul and Silas. Beaten half to death, forces to lay on their wounds because of how their feet were shackled. What did they do? They sang praises to God, and they prayed. And when the great earthquake happened and the jailer was about to kill himself, Paul led that man and his whole family to Jesus Christ. The soil we are in determines if we are going to grow and produce a hundred, sixty, or thirty fold what has been put into us. It is up to us to determine what soil we have been planted in, and if we will take time to work our faith and build it so that it becomes something that not only is easily reproducible, but is something that people desire! Can you be that? Absolutely, and it only takes one step: committing your life to Jesus Christ. You may be one of our older congregation members, but it’s never too late to turn your way back to Christ. If you have breath in your lungs, you have time! But if you are someone who has never given your life to Jesus, this is the time. If you are here today, do not hesitate, do not wait. We are not promised anything for tomorrow. Come to the altar today. And if you are joining us in the parking lot, there will be someone who can talk to you today about your faith in Christ. And if you’re joining us through our live feed, or even watching us later in the week, reach out to us through the comments or through the messaging. We will get in touch with you. The time is now, what soil are you in? Let’s pray.
No comments:
Post a Comment