September 8, 2024 • 33 mins
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Is your heart ready to receive and nurture the word of God? Join us for a profound exploration of Jesus' parable of the sower from Mark 4, as we unpack how the receptiveness of our hearts influences the growth of God's word in our lives. We'll delve into the significance of the different types of soil and reflect on the constancy and effectiveness of God's message, urging us to introspect and prepare our hearts to bear spiritual fruit.
In this episode, we also confront the challenges posed by worldly distractions, particularly the cares and deceitfulness of riches. By spotlighting the seed that falls among thorns, we emphasize the need to maintain our spiritual focus amidst life's worries. Drawing wisdom from Solomon, Jesus, and Paul, we offer a balanced perspective on wealth and its potential pitfalls. Tune in for practical insights on cultivating a heart fertile for God's word and leading a spiritually fruitful life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Mark, chapter 4.
So we have been considering theparable of the sower, a new
point in Jesus' ministry, wherehe begins to speak mainly to his
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disciples in the form ofparables, earthly stories with a
heavenly truth, right, andthings have been going well.
I guess in some ways we couldsay right, the crowds are coming
to Jesus or flocking to Jesus.
There's excitement, a lot ofexcitement, but not a lot of
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depth in that relationship withthe crowds, and so Jesus kind of
pulls away there with hisdisciples.
You have the other crowd, right, the religious leaders that are
following Jesus around andthey've decided.
Leaders that are followingJesus around and they've decided
they don't like this guy, hedoesn't do things their way, and
they've hardened their heart.
Right, they have.
Every time Jesus does something, they say oh, he's doing this
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by the devil, he's not good,he's not righteous, he's of the
devil.
He casts out demons by theruler of the demons and their
hearts are getting harder andharder and harder.
And Jesus turns to hisdisciples and begins to focus in
on them.
He begins to teach them inparables, and parables are a
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scary thing for me.
I mean, I know we don't need tobe scared of God's word, but
parables can be sketchy.
Right Over history people havedrawn some pretty ridiculous
theology out of parables.
They're not always a verycertain way to get teaching.
They're important, for sure,but they can be kind of sketchy
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in what they mean, unless you'relooking at this first parable
that we read in chapter 4, verse1, the parable of the sower.
And the reason is because Jesusspecifically tells us what it
means.
He puts the parable out therein the first few verses and then
in the second part he explainsit there, starting in verse 13.
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So we can't go wrong, andthat's really why we've slowed
down on this parable, becauseyou can get so much out of it,
because Jesus has explained itto us.
Let's read the parable there,starting in verse three.
Jesus tells the story.
Listen Three.
Jesus tells a story.
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Listen, behold.
A sower went out to sow and ithappened, as he sowed, that some
seed fell by the wayside andthe birds of the air came and
devoured it.
Some fell on stony ground whereit did not have much earth, and
immediately it sprang upbecause it had no depth of earth
.
But when the sun was up, it wasscorched and because it had no
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root, it withered away.
Some seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and
choked it and it yielded no crop.
But other seed fell on goodground, yielded a crop that
sprang up, increased andproduced some thirtyfold, some
sixty and some one hundred.
Then he said to them he who hasears to hear, let him hear.
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And so here is this story thatJesus tells.
Now we've considered this.
Honestly, it's not a veryexciting story, right?
You know?
I could imagine you know more,you know intense plot lines than
this.
But a guy goes out to sow seed,a farmer goes out to plant some
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seed and the punchline of thisis some of it grows but most of
it does not.
Right, we have three bad soils,I guess you could say, and one
good soil.
We have three times where theseed does grow, but only one
time where it bears fruit.
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And that's what you want, right?
I mean, if we plant a garden,that's what we're looking for,
not just the experience ofplanting it.
We want fruit, we wantsomething from our planting.
And so Jesus tells this storyand he explains it for us.
And we've looked at these.
We're in no rush to get throughit.
We've looked at this how Jesussays there, moving over to verse
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13.
Actually, verse 14, the sowersows the word A verse all by
itself.
Jesus gives us a very importantkey to this parable.
We're talking about spiritualthings.
God's word is like a seed, andso we picture it.
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The seed goes out, god's wordgoes out, it falls on ground.
Now notice the end of verse 15,that these soils are a picture
of our hearts.
That's the basis for this wholeparable.
God's word is like a seed.
Our heart is like dirt, is likesoil, and so as we look at this
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, we understand that the seedwill, god's word will, succeed
or fail depending on what ourheart is like.
And as we consider this, weunderstand that the seed is the
same all the way through thisparable.
There is absolutely nothingwrong with God's word, right,
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god's word will grow in goodsoil, bad soil.
It's not the word's fault, it'snot the seed's fault, it's the
soil's fault.
And so, as we look at this,it's a real deep kind of probing
that God does in our hearts,where he says what is your heart
like?
His word will always dosomething good in our lives.
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That's what God wants, but ourhearts, they ruin it, right?
So God would say in this whatis your heart like.
Which soil is your heart like?
And it challenges us because wecan't make any excuses, right.
A lot of times we say thingslike when we're reading you know
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, I just don't get anything outof God's word.
And we have to be honest andsay, well, it's not God's fault.
Right, the seed will grow ifour heart is right.
If we're not having growth inour life, the problem is us.
And God in love points that outfour different ways here in
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this parable.
The first soil, just as areminder, it's a hard heart
right Falls by the wayside onthat tough as concrete hiking
trail and because of thehardness of the soil the seed
just sort of bounces right off.
The birds in the story, apicture of Satan come around and
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eat it up.
And we're warned that ourhearts can be hard.
We can come into a time in God'sword and say, yeah, yeah, I
know this, you know we startreading John, chapter three, and
we know John 3.16 is coming upand immediately in our heart we
go, yeah, but I already knowthis one.
I could quote it to you.
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Right, and our heart is hardand God's Word doesn't do
anything.
In our own pride we can say,well, I don't really need
anything today.
I'm not desperate for God tospeak to me.
And so, in the hardness of ourheart, god's word just doesn't
do anything.
It's not God's fault, it's ourfault.
We want to look at our heart.
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We want humility in our life.
We need to come to God and sayGod, you're the one I need,
you're the one with the answersto the things in my life.
God, teach me.
Now.
We noticed the next soil welooked at last week was the
shallow ground, the rocky groundStill some hardness involved,
but you'll remember, the seedsprings up with joy.
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Immediately.
It springs up excitement,emotional excitement, but no
real root.
Then, when trials come, the sunbeats down on that seed.
It shrivels up and dies.
So in our lives we have to lookand go.
Am I really letting God's wordget into my heart?
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Am I taking time to think itover?
If there's something I don'tunderstand, do I bust out the
dictionary and look up that word?
Do I try a differenttranslation?
Maybe read it again, maybe takesmaller bites?
Do I get God's word in my heart?
Am I really taking itpersonally?
Because trials will come right.
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When the sun beats down, trialswill come.
And if it's not, in our heartwith roots, it'll wither away
the work that God wants to do.
So we've seen those two andthis week we come to verse 7,
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really verse 7.
Some seed fell among the thornsand the thorns grew up and
choked it, and it yielded nocrop.
It's the thorny ground, as it'sknown.
Now there's growth as we lookat this, notice in this picture
there's growth.
It begins to grow there in thethorns, in the weeds, and then
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these weeds just come and chokeit out.
Now notice verse 18.
Jump over to verse 18.
Jesus tells us what this is allabout.
Now, these are the ones sownamong the thorns, or the weeds.
They are the ones who hear theword but or and how about?
And and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches.
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And the cares of this world,the deceitfulness of riches, the
desires for other things, enterin and choke the word and it
becomes unfruitful.
So here Jesus lets us knowthese weeds.
In this story, this rivetingstory of dirt right, the weeds
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are a picture of a few thingsthe cares of this world, the
deceitfulness of riches.
Those are the biggies.
And Mark adds this last one.
There he says the desire forother things.
So we look at this, the weedsin our life, the things that
choke out what God wants to do,the cares of this world,
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deceitfulness of riches and thedesire for other things.
Let's just take a look at thesethings because this can be a
huge distraction in our life.
In fact, that's what this is.
Notice the thorns, the weeds wewould probably call them Weeds
are crazy things.
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Right, thorns, weeds arenatural, right.
If you don't do anything toground, you will get weeds.
In fact, even if you dosomething to ground, I sprayed
for weeds this year, you know Iused Roundup and if you look
around, they came back.
You know what I mean.
Now, the vegetable garden thatwe used to have over there, it
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didn't come back, but the weedsthey came back.
So, left to itself, weeds are100% natural Part of the fall.
Right, god tells Adam, you'regoing to get thorns when you try
to plant things and you go, ah,sweat on my brow, you know.
And so, left to itself.
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Weeds are a normal, natural partof life.
We can expect them.
They require maintenance and wecan all flash back to our
parents, maybe grandparents,challenging us to pick all the
weeds in the garden, right, andthen you come back next week.
And there they are again.
I'll give you a quarter if youpick all these weeds.
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And they're a natural part oflife and we can expect them.
We need to rent our life ofthese things regularly.
But what are they?
This is where it becomeshelpful, and Jesus points it out
in verse 20.
These weeds, these thorns,these things that destroy our
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garden, they're the cares ofthis world.
Cares of this world, worldly.
Now Jesus talks about thesethings in the Sermon on the
Mount and he uses the exact sameword.
Here we have cares, but hereJesus uses the word worry.
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Listen to what he says inMatthew 6, 31.
Therefore, do not worry.
Saying what shall we eat, whatshall we drink, what shall we
wear?
So Jesus here says the cares ofthis world.
The things that make us worryare what do we eat, what do we
drink, what do we put on?
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The basic needs of life, right,we might call it paying the
bills.
Right, a normal thing of life.
Jesus doesn't say that worrydoesn't exist, but he says be
careful of it, be careful ofwhat you do with it.
Peter says to us a verse that Ilove going back to all the time
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1 Peter, 5, 7,.
Casting all your care on himbecause he cares for you.
And the cool thing here isthat's the same word care.
So Jesus says the weeds in ourlife, the things that can just
choke out what God is doing,it's the normal everyday things
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of life.
What do you eat, what do youdrink, what do you put on?
It's the bills, right?
Peter says you're going to havecares in your life, but you've
got to cast them on God.
Cast all of your cares.
So there's practical things wedo to meet our needs, right, the
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Bible is pretty clear aboutthat.
If a man doesn't work, hedoesn't eat, right?
There are practical things youdo to take care of the bills,
the cares in life.
But ultimately, even in thosenatural things, we don't do it
very much.
But we have to cast them on Godand say you know what, I'll do
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my best, but ultimately God,you're the one who takes care of
me.
And that's what Jesus pointsout in the Sermon on the Mount.
Look at the birds.
They don't worry about whatthey're gonna eat, but God takes
care of them and you're worthmore than birds.
God will take care of you.
And it's this weird thing oflike we've got cares in our life
.
They're like weeds that chokeis a good word, right, choke us
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and overwhelm us, but what we dowith them is we say, god,
they're yours.
God, I can earn all the moneythat I can, but you're
ultimately gonna have to takecare of me.
That, no matter how it comesabout, god is the one that
provides for us.
So this world, by nature, hascares and basic needs.
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We've got to cast them on God.
Sometimes we think, well, if Ihad more money, then I wouldn't
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be so overwhelmed by my cares.
That's the problem.
Sure, right, I get it.
But I should remind you thatcares are lots of zeros, right,
people with lots of money havehuge cares and concern.
I'll take, it sure, I'll takethat one, I'll take the rich
person cares, maybe, but theultimate thing is still the same
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no matter how much we have, wehave to cast it back on God, or
else it'll choke out.
What he wants to do in ourlives and that's what Jesus
tells us for certain here is itwill choke us out, it will make
us unfruitful, and that's notwhere he wants us.
Now notice Mark, chapter 4,verse 19.
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We're given another thing herethe cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of riches.
So here we have a.
But when I'm like in adifferent place, visiting, I
don't like being taken advantageof.
That's I try.
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I still get taken advantage ofbecause I'm just like that, but
I try.
Me and my son over here went toNew Orleans.
Nothing against Louisiana,louisiana, friends but we went
to New Orleans down on BourbonStreet.
We were walking down thatstreet because it's famous and
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and you know, I had read up alittle bit and there was this
warning don't be taken right,because there are certain prank
not pranks, but scams and thingsthat people say.
Um, and my son realized howparanoid I actually can get
because somebody came up to uson that street and said, yeah, I
came up to you on the streetand said I can tell you where
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you got your shoes.
I go.
It's a scam.
It's a scam, son.
Don't answer him, don't.
And my son is like 100 bucks,you never tell me.
I'm like, don't do it.
He's going to say you got yourshoes on the street right now.
He's going to, you know, and Ihate that, don't?
You hate that?
It's like number one thingDon't get scammed when you're on
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vacation, you know.
He also said he could tell mewhere I bought them, no, where
you got them, where you got them.
See, I was looking out for you.
So I'm like, don't answer him,we couldn't be there.
Don't talk to a stranger, no,you couldn't.
They say it gets ugly after that, but anyways, that could happen
anywhere.
But you know, you like havingthe heads up Because nobody
wants to be deceived, right that.
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Because nobody wants to bedeceived, right?
That's the biggie here.
And so the deceitfulness ofriches.
Riches are deceitful, that'strue, that's way true.
We have our friend Solomon, whoI don't understand, but we're
reading through Ecclesiastesright now, and this guy had
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everything.
He made gold so much it didn'teven matter, it was like water
to him anymore, it was soplentiful in his kingdom.
And yet he says you know whatVanity of vanities, everything
is vanity.
It's like striving after the,the wind.
And Solomon goes into detailthat in Ecclesiastes, rather
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depressingly all these things,I've had it all, and all of it
is vanity.
You go, what does vanity mean?
And he explains it for us.
He says it's like strivingafter the wind.
So you know, after we're donehere, go outside, and I want you
to just grab a big handful ofwind, grab a big handful of air.
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And you know, if you do thatand you look rather silly going
around, grab an air and Solomonsays that's what life feels like
.
Sometimes I'm looking forsomething, I'm grabbing hold of
it and then whoosh, nothing butair.
Right, and Solomon would tell usriches are deceitful.
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Like that you could gather inas much as you possibly can and
you'll never be satisfied.
Now we would like to try thatout, right, fiddler on the roof.
Fiddler on the roof.
There the budding communistPerchak says money is the
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world's curse and the maincharacter says If it is, may the
Lord smite me with it, and Inever recover.
And you go.
I'd like to try that one out.
It's deceitful.
I'd like to find out for myself.
But we ought to understand thatthere will never be enough.
Right, the more you have, themore you spend.
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The more you have, the more youwant, like striving after the
wind.
And Jesus here says just don'tbe deceived.
Riches are deceitful.
Now we could at this point saythe Bible doesn't say that
riches are evil, right?
1 Timothy 6.10, although a lotof times when we bring up this
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verse I think we're just tryingto defend ourselves.
But 1 Timothy 6.10, paul tellslittle Timmy, for the love of
money is the root of all kindsof evil, he goes on to say and
those that strive after it, youknow, they pierce themselves
through with troubles.
And so the love of money is theroot of all evil.
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And we go.
Well, you know, I don't lovemoney, I don't love money, I
just want money.
But I don't love money.
And we do try to justify it.
But we really ought to take toheart what Jesus is saying here,
that riches are deceitful.
There will never be enough, itwon't solve our problems, and in
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the end Jesus gives us a betterperspective of it in Matthew 6.
Let's turn there.
Matthew, chapter 6, verse 19.
Matthew 6.
Oh, wow, I'm in Mark.
That was terrifying.
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Matthew 6, verse 19.
See you in a way?
Yeah, I know I know Trouble, hesays this.
Jesus says this Matthew 6, 19.
Yeah, I know I know Trouble, hesays this.
Jesus says this Matthew 6, 19.
Do not lay up for yourselvestreasures on earth where moth
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and rust destroy and wherethieves break in and steal, but
lay up for yourself treasures inheaven where neither moth nor
rust destroys nor thieves.
Do not break in and steal, forwhere your treasure is there,
your heart will be also.
So Jesus points us to somethingwe don't think about much
heavenly riches.
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He says lay up treasures inheaven.
Now, I don't exactly knoweverything that that is.
I don't know how we're gonnasee that when we get to heaven.
Now, I don't exactly knoweverything that that is, I don't
know how we're going to seethat when we get to heaven.
But there is this thing oftreasures in heaven.
And he says the problem is wecan lay up for ourselves
treasures here.
You can do it, you can workreal hard.
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You can get yourself sometreasure and lay it up, and when
you leave this life you'llleave it behind.
Then you find yourself inheaven.
I've been thinking a lot aboutthat lately.
Find yourself in heaven andJesus says have you laid some
treasures up in heaven or willyou be totally bankrupt when you
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get there?
And that really is this idea offruitfulness.
I think that we see that whenwe get to heaven we're going to
be some treasure.
Now I have my ideas of whatthis treasure is.
I think it's people.
Right?
Paul says to the people you'remy crown, you're my joy, you're
my crown, you're the thingthat's going to meet me when I
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get to heaven, it's you.
My treasure in heaven and Ithink that probably is one of
the biggest forms of treasurethat we can have are the people
that we bring along with us.
But we can work so hard forjust a little bit more here.
And Jesus says don't bedeceived.
It's not going to satisfy you,it's not going to make you feel
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better about this, it's notgoing to solve you, it's not
going to make you feel betterabout it, it's not going to
solve all your problems.
In fact, it may give you moreproblems.
But what about treasure inheaven?
What about fruit in heaven?
And so we're challenged withthis Just what are we doing for
eternal things?
And we look and we go.
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Well, that doesn't reallymatter so much to me right now.
I'd really like more here.
But we will care, we'llabsolutely care what kind of
treasure we have in heaven.
And so Jesus says don't bedeceived, don't get taken on
this idea.
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Now Luke, in his account ofthis, adds one more we might as
well catch while we're here.
Luke, in Luke, chapter 8, saysanother thing these weeds are
like are the pleasures of thislife.
That goes along with treasurein heaven.
Right, treasure here, treasurein heaven.
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But you think about how much wework for pleasure in this life,
and that's not bad either, inone sense, because God's made
this place good.
There's a lot of wonderfulthings to experience and I think
God, you know, we you knowgives us so much joy in this
life.
It's amazing, but the pleasuresof this life, living for the
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pleasures of right here andright now, can choke out the
ultimate thing that God iswanting to do the priorities of
our life.
Simple pleasures, right?
I experienced this in my ownlife between, you know, eternal
things and the here and nowpleasures.
Every morning, you know, I havea routine and a habit.
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It has to do with my phone,right, my feet touch the ground
and, honestly, the first thing Icheck is my email.
I'm in a routine.
I check my email, you know, andthen I check the news.
Are all the countries stillaround?
Are there any new wars,anything going on that I need to
know about?
Check the news, and then Icheck Facebook, right, because I
want to make sure that I got itall down.
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You know, what did my childhoodfriend have for breakfast today
?
I'm going to look it up and Iwant to make sure, right, that I
know, then ready to get into?
Wait a second, what about myAmazon package?
Is it coming today?
Let me check that real quick.
And then I get into God's word.
Now, that is true every day.
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Am I fighting it?
I don't know if I'm fighting it, that's true every day.
I try to get it out of my headbefore I get into God's word.
That's what I'm holding to.
But you know, it's kind offunny how we can, you know, live
for pleasures in this life,even knowing where our lousy
Amazon package is before we getinto eternal things.
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That's not like a condemnationthing, but that's just where our
heart goes.
And Jesus, I think here, wouldchallenge us and say if that's
the way we look at life, we'regoing to be unfruitful.
We have to be careful.
He would tell his disciplesdon't be unfruitful, you're made
for fruit.
Now, mark, he gives us one morething I don't want to miss here
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.
He says the desire for otherthings.
And that really just covers it,doesn't it?
Other things, non-kingdomthings, the desire for anything
else, go ahead and put it inthere.
And it's amazing the kinds ofthings we can get distracted
with along those same lines.
You know, on my list of morningthings is Wordle right.
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And every time I start thatlousy game I go why did I start
this?
Now I've got to finish it.
I don't even care what the wordis, you know.
And you look at the desire forother things.
Wordle is okay, do your Wordle.
Let's do it together sometime,you know.
But but you know you look atthe things that take us away,
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the hobbies and things that takeus away from eternal things,
and then you look at laying outtreasures in heaven.
This is kind of the punchlineof all this that one day, when
we get there, none of theseother things are coming with us,
these other things that wespend so much time and energy on
.
They're not coming with us andwill enter into eternity.
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I think the thorny ground, theground with the weeds, still
enters into eternity.
They've had some growth intheir life, but it's unfruitful.
Into eternity, they've had somegrowth in their life, but it's
unfruitful.
It's not what we were made for.
God lays out to us 24 hours,perhaps you know for a day, and
says use it, use it how you wantto use it, what you think about
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, what you do, but realize youwant to lay up treasures in
heaven.
And then we look at the finalsoil.
There's not much you can reallyeven say about it.
Verse 20, these are the onesthat are sown on good ground.
Those who hear the word acceptit and bear fruit.
Some 30, some 60, some 100.
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The typical, the best, theabsolute best in the ancient
times that they would expectfrom seed would be tenfold.
I don't even know what thatmeans, but it's 10, right.
And here jesus says you knowwhat, if you're going to be
fruitful, you could be 30, 60,100 fold.
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Now what we gather from that isthat Jesus is talking about
some super growth in this plant.
Some just stand back and go wow, that was a lot.
You know this mutant growth,you know in a good way, and yet
that's what God wants us to comeinto heaven with just this
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super abundant fruit about whathe's done in our life.
Now we'll end up having totrust God in all these things.
Right, because nobody ever madea plant grow right, not with,
you know, fertilizer, not withthe right amount of watering and
science.
No person ever made the plantgrow.
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Because God makes plants grow.
It's just amazing.
It's part of what he does.
He makes plants grow and thegood things in our life.
We'll step back, and I thinkthis is why, when we get to
heaven, it says we'll lay ourcrowns down at his feet.
I don't know if those areliteral crowns, but we'll lay
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them down at his feet becausewe'll realize the good that came
out of my life, god.
The bad, yeah, I did that.
The good that came out of mylife, it's all you, god.
I didn't do it, but to be apart of that, to see people's
lives changed and peopleexperience healing in their
hearts or whatever it is thatGod wants to do in your week,
(31:31):
that's amazing to God's glory.
And so we look at this as Jesuspulls his disciples aside and
he says guys, how's your heart?
You have a hard heart, justover and over again, rejecting
and denying.
There's no growth in that.
You have a shallow heart,doesn't really ever get into our
(31:51):
mind, into our heart and outthrough our lives.
You need to let it go deep intoyour lives.
Are you just crowded out withthe simple cares of this world,
the seatfulness of riches, thedesire for other things?
That's not how you want toenter into heaven.
You want to enter into heaven,treasure sent ahead, and that is
(32:15):
the life that Jesus wanted forhis disciples and he wants for
us.
So, god, I know it's not a peprally that we need.
We can't just positive, thinkourself into good works.
But, God, we can easily getdistracted by things that
absolutely don't matter.
We can be deceived intothinking that riches are going
(32:37):
to solve our problems and makeus happy, and they're not.
Now we can get overwhelmed bythe cares in our life and yet
you want us to just cast ourcares on you.
So, god, help us not just to besomething that we've done here
on Sunday, but, god, it wouldreally be in our heart that our
life would be run by theseprinciples.
(32:57):
God, our heart would be fullygiven over to you.
God, whatever you ask us to dothis week, I just pray that we
would step forward in that, god,the priorities in our life.
I pray that you'd help us tolay down the things that just
absolutely don't matter, god,that you would grow good things
(33:19):
in our life, things that wecould never have imagined, and
it be all to you, lord.
We pray in Jesus' name, amen,thank you.
Mark, chapter 4.
So we have been considering theparable of the sower, a new
point in Jesus' ministry, wherehe begins to speak mainly to his
(00:33):
disciples in the form ofparables, earthly stories with a
heavenly truth, right, andthings have been going well.
I guess in some ways we couldsay right, the crowds are coming
to Jesus or flocking to Jesus.
There's excitement, a lot ofexcitement, but not a lot of
(00:53):
depth in that relationship withthe crowds, and so Jesus kind of
pulls away there with hisdisciples.
You have the other crowd, right, the religious leaders that are
following Jesus around andthey've decided.
Leaders that are followingJesus around and they've decided
they don't like this guy, hedoesn't do things their way, and
they've hardened their heart.
Right, they have.
Every time Jesus does something, they say oh, he's doing this
(01:17):
by the devil, he's not good,he's not righteous, he's of the
devil.
He casts out demons by theruler of the demons and their
hearts are getting harder andharder and harder.
And Jesus turns to hisdisciples and begins to focus in
on them.
He begins to teach them inparables, and parables are a
(01:38):
scary thing for me.
I mean, I know we don't need tobe scared of God's word, but
parables can be sketchy.
Right Over history people havedrawn some pretty ridiculous
theology out of parables.
They're not always a verycertain way to get teaching.
They're important, for sure,but they can be kind of sketchy
(02:00):
in what they mean, unless you'relooking at this first parable
that we read in chapter 4, verse1, the parable of the sower.
And the reason is because Jesusspecifically tells us what it
means.
He puts the parable out therein the first few verses and then
in the second part he explainsit there, starting in verse 13.
(02:23):
So we can't go wrong, andthat's really why we've slowed
down on this parable, becauseyou can get so much out of it,
because Jesus has explained itto us.
Let's read the parable there,starting in verse three.
Jesus tells the story.
Listen Three.
Jesus tells a story.
(02:44):
Listen, behold.
A sower went out to sow and ithappened, as he sowed, that some
seed fell by the wayside andthe birds of the air came and
devoured it.
Some fell on stony ground whereit did not have much earth, and
immediately it sprang upbecause it had no depth of earth
.
But when the sun was up, it wasscorched and because it had no
(03:05):
root, it withered away.
Some seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and
choked it and it yielded no crop.
But other seed fell on goodground, yielded a crop that
sprang up, increased andproduced some thirtyfold, some
sixty and some one hundred.
Then he said to them he who hasears to hear, let him hear.
(03:27):
And so here is this story thatJesus tells.
Now we've considered this.
Honestly, it's not a veryexciting story, right?
You know?
I could imagine you know more,you know intense plot lines than
this.
But a guy goes out to sow seed,a farmer goes out to plant some
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seed and the punchline of thisis some of it grows but most of
it does not.
Right, we have three bad soils,I guess you could say, and one
good soil.
We have three times where theseed does grow, but only one
time where it bears fruit.
(04:09):
And that's what you want, right?
I mean, if we plant a garden,that's what we're looking for,
not just the experience ofplanting it.
We want fruit, we wantsomething from our planting.
And so Jesus tells this storyand he explains it for us.
And we've looked at these.
We're in no rush to get throughit.
We've looked at this how Jesussays there, moving over to verse
(04:33):
13.
Actually, verse 14, the sowersows the word A verse all by
itself.
Jesus gives us a very importantkey to this parable.
We're talking about spiritualthings.
God's word is like a seed, andso we picture it.
(04:56):
The seed goes out, god's wordgoes out, it falls on ground.
Now notice the end of verse 15,that these soils are a picture
of our hearts.
That's the basis for this wholeparable.
God's word is like a seed.
Our heart is like dirt, is likesoil, and so as we look at this
(05:19):
, we understand that the seedwill, god's word will, succeed
or fail depending on what ourheart is like.
And as we consider this, weunderstand that the seed is the
same all the way through thisparable.
There is absolutely nothingwrong with God's word, right,
(05:42):
god's word will grow in goodsoil, bad soil.
It's not the word's fault, it'snot the seed's fault, it's the
soil's fault.
And so, as we look at this,it's a real deep kind of probing
that God does in our hearts,where he says what is your heart
like?
His word will always dosomething good in our lives.
(06:07):
That's what God wants, but ourhearts, they ruin it, right?
So God would say in this whatis your heart like.
Which soil is your heart like?
And it challenges us because wecan't make any excuses, right.
A lot of times we say thingslike when we're reading you know
(06:27):
, I just don't get anything outof God's word.
And we have to be honest andsay, well, it's not God's fault.
Right, the seed will grow ifour heart is right.
If we're not having growth inour life, the problem is us.
And God in love points that outfour different ways here in
(06:48):
this parable.
The first soil, just as areminder, it's a hard heart
right Falls by the wayside onthat tough as concrete hiking
trail and because of thehardness of the soil the seed
just sort of bounces right off.
The birds in the story, apicture of Satan come around and
(07:09):
eat it up.
And we're warned that ourhearts can be hard.
We can come into a time in God'sword and say, yeah, yeah, I
know this, you know we startreading John, chapter three, and
we know John 3.16 is coming upand immediately in our heart we
go, yeah, but I already knowthis one.
I could quote it to you.
(07:29):
Right, and our heart is hardand God's Word doesn't do
anything.
In our own pride we can say,well, I don't really need
anything today.
I'm not desperate for God tospeak to me.
And so, in the hardness of ourheart, god's word just doesn't
do anything.
It's not God's fault, it's ourfault.
We want to look at our heart.
(07:50):
We want humility in our life.
We need to come to God and sayGod, you're the one I need,
you're the one with the answersto the things in my life.
God, teach me.
Now.
We noticed the next soil welooked at last week was the
shallow ground, the rocky groundStill some hardness involved,
but you'll remember, the seedsprings up with joy.
(08:12):
Immediately.
It springs up excitement,emotional excitement, but no
real root.
Then, when trials come, the sunbeats down on that seed.
It shrivels up and dies.
So in our lives we have to lookand go.
Am I really letting God's wordget into my heart?
(08:32):
Am I taking time to think itover?
If there's something I don'tunderstand, do I bust out the
dictionary and look up that word?
Do I try a differenttranslation?
Maybe read it again, maybe takesmaller bites?
Do I get God's word in my heart?
Am I really taking itpersonally?
Because trials will come right.
(08:52):
When the sun beats down, trialswill come.
And if it's not, in our heartwith roots, it'll wither away
the work that God wants to do.
So we've seen those two andthis week we come to verse 7,
(09:13):
really verse 7.
Some seed fell among the thornsand the thorns grew up and
choked it, and it yielded nocrop.
It's the thorny ground, as it'sknown.
Now there's growth as we lookat this, notice in this picture
there's growth.
It begins to grow there in thethorns, in the weeds, and then
(09:40):
these weeds just come and chokeit out.
Now notice verse 18.
Jump over to verse 18.
Jesus tells us what this is allabout.
Now, these are the ones sownamong the thorns, or the weeds.
They are the ones who hear theword but or and how about?
And and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches.
(10:04):
And the cares of this world,the deceitfulness of riches, the
desires for other things, enterin and choke the word and it
becomes unfruitful.
So here Jesus lets us knowthese weeds.
In this story, this rivetingstory of dirt right, the weeds
(10:28):
are a picture of a few thingsthe cares of this world, the
deceitfulness of riches.
Those are the biggies.
And Mark adds this last one.
There he says the desire forother things.
So we look at this, the weedsin our life, the things that
choke out what God wants to do,the cares of this world,
(10:48):
deceitfulness of riches and thedesire for other things.
Let's just take a look at thesethings because this can be a
huge distraction in our life.
In fact, that's what this is.
Notice the thorns, the weeds wewould probably call them Weeds
are crazy things.
(11:09):
Right, thorns, weeds arenatural, right.
If you don't do anything toground, you will get weeds.
In fact, even if you dosomething to ground, I sprayed
for weeds this year, you know Iused Roundup and if you look
around, they came back.
You know what I mean.
Now, the vegetable garden thatwe used to have over there, it
(11:31):
didn't come back, but the weedsthey came back.
So, left to itself, weeds are100% natural Part of the fall.
Right, god tells Adam, you'regoing to get thorns when you try
to plant things and you go, ah,sweat on my brow, you know.
And so, left to itself.
(11:53):
Weeds are a normal, natural partof life.
We can expect them.
They require maintenance and wecan all flash back to our
parents, maybe grandparents,challenging us to pick all the
weeds in the garden, right, andthen you come back next week.
And there they are again.
I'll give you a quarter if youpick all these weeds.
(12:13):
And they're a natural part oflife and we can expect them.
We need to rent our life ofthese things regularly.
But what are they?
This is where it becomeshelpful, and Jesus points it out
in verse 20.
These weeds, these thorns,these things that destroy our
(12:34):
garden, they're the cares ofthis world.
Cares of this world, worldly.
Now Jesus talks about thesethings in the Sermon on the
Mount and he uses the exact sameword.
Here we have cares, but hereJesus uses the word worry.
(12:57):
Listen to what he says inMatthew 6, 31.
Therefore, do not worry.
Saying what shall we eat, whatshall we drink, what shall we
wear?
So Jesus here says the cares ofthis world.
The things that make us worryare what do we eat, what do we
drink, what do we put on?
(13:17):
The basic needs of life, right,we might call it paying the
bills.
Right, a normal thing of life.
Jesus doesn't say that worrydoesn't exist, but he says be
careful of it, be careful ofwhat you do with it.
Peter says to us a verse that Ilove going back to all the time
(13:40):
1 Peter, 5, 7,.
Casting all your care on himbecause he cares for you.
And the cool thing here isthat's the same word care.
So Jesus says the weeds in ourlife, the things that can just
choke out what God is doing,it's the normal everyday things
(14:01):
of life.
What do you eat, what do youdrink, what do you put on?
It's the bills, right?
Peter says you're going to havecares in your life, but you've
got to cast them on God.
Cast all of your cares.
So there's practical things wedo to meet our needs, right, the
(14:21):
Bible is pretty clear aboutthat.
If a man doesn't work, hedoesn't eat, right?
There are practical things youdo to take care of the bills,
the cares in life.
But ultimately, even in thosenatural things, we don't do it
very much.
But we have to cast them on Godand say you know what, I'll do
(14:42):
my best, but ultimately God,you're the one who takes care of
me.
And that's what Jesus pointsout in the Sermon on the Mount.
Look at the birds.
They don't worry about whatthey're gonna eat, but God takes
care of them and you're worthmore than birds.
God will take care of you.
And it's this weird thing oflike we've got cares in our life
.
They're like weeds that chokeis a good word, right, choke us
(15:05):
and overwhelm us, but what we dowith them is we say, god,
they're yours.
God, I can earn all the moneythat I can, but you're
ultimately gonna have to takecare of me.
That, no matter how it comesabout, god is the one that
provides for us.
So this world, by nature, hascares and basic needs.
(15:26):
We've got to cast them on God.
Sometimes we think, well, if Ihad more money, then I wouldn't
(15:53):
be so overwhelmed by my cares.
That's the problem.
Sure, right, I get it.
But I should remind you thatcares are lots of zeros, right,
people with lots of money havehuge cares and concern.
I'll take, it sure, I'll takethat one, I'll take the rich
person cares, maybe, but theultimate thing is still the same
(16:18):
no matter how much we have, wehave to cast it back on God, or
else it'll choke out.
What he wants to do in ourlives and that's what Jesus
tells us for certain here is itwill choke us out, it will make
us unfruitful, and that's notwhere he wants us.
Now notice Mark, chapter 4,verse 19.
(16:42):
We're given another thing herethe cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of riches.
So here we have a.
But when I'm like in adifferent place, visiting, I
don't like being taken advantageof.
That's I try.
(17:07):
I still get taken advantage ofbecause I'm just like that, but
I try.
Me and my son over here went toNew Orleans.
Nothing against Louisiana,louisiana, friends but we went
to New Orleans down on BourbonStreet.
We were walking down thatstreet because it's famous and
(17:27):
and you know, I had read up alittle bit and there was this
warning don't be taken right,because there are certain prank
not pranks, but scams and thingsthat people say.
Um, and my son realized howparanoid I actually can get
because somebody came up to uson that street and said, yeah, I
came up to you on the streetand said I can tell you where
(17:52):
you got your shoes.
I go.
It's a scam.
It's a scam, son.
Don't answer him, don't.
And my son is like 100 bucks,you never tell me.
I'm like, don't do it.
He's going to say you got yourshoes on the street right now.
He's going to, you know, and Ihate that, don't?
You hate that?
It's like number one thingDon't get scammed when you're on
(18:18):
vacation, you know.
He also said he could tell mewhere I bought them, no, where
you got them, where you got them.
See, I was looking out for you.
So I'm like, don't answer him,we couldn't be there.
Don't talk to a stranger, no,you couldn't.
They say it gets ugly after that, but anyways, that could happen
anywhere.
But you know, you like havingthe heads up Because nobody
wants to be deceived, right that.
(18:42):
Because nobody wants to bedeceived, right?
That's the biggie here.
And so the deceitfulness ofriches.
Riches are deceitful, that'strue, that's way true.
We have our friend Solomon, whoI don't understand, but we're
reading through Ecclesiastesright now, and this guy had
(19:04):
everything.
He made gold so much it didn'teven matter, it was like water
to him anymore, it was soplentiful in his kingdom.
And yet he says you know whatVanity of vanities, everything
is vanity.
It's like striving after the,the wind.
And Solomon goes into detailthat in Ecclesiastes, rather
(19:25):
depressingly all these things,I've had it all, and all of it
is vanity.
You go, what does vanity mean?
And he explains it for us.
He says it's like strivingafter the wind.
So you know, after we're donehere, go outside, and I want you
to just grab a big handful ofwind, grab a big handful of air.
(19:45):
And you know, if you do thatand you look rather silly going
around, grab an air and Solomonsays that's what life feels like
.
Sometimes I'm looking forsomething, I'm grabbing hold of
it and then whoosh, nothing butair.
Right, and Solomon would tell usriches are deceitful.
(20:05):
Like that you could gather inas much as you possibly can and
you'll never be satisfied.
Now we would like to try thatout, right, fiddler on the roof.
Fiddler on the roof.
There the budding communistPerchak says money is the
(20:27):
world's curse and the maincharacter says If it is, may the
Lord smite me with it, and Inever recover.
And you go.
I'd like to try that one out.
It's deceitful.
I'd like to find out for myself.
But we ought to understand thatthere will never be enough.
Right, the more you have, themore you spend.
(20:51):
The more you have, the more youwant, like striving after the
wind.
And Jesus here says just don'tbe deceived.
Riches are deceitful.
Now we could at this point saythe Bible doesn't say that
riches are evil, right?
1 Timothy 6.10, although a lotof times when we bring up this
(21:14):
verse I think we're just tryingto defend ourselves.
But 1 Timothy 6.10, paul tellslittle Timmy, for the love of
money is the root of all kindsof evil, he goes on to say and
those that strive after it, youknow, they pierce themselves
through with troubles.
And so the love of money is theroot of all evil.
(21:37):
And we go.
Well, you know, I don't lovemoney, I don't love money, I
just want money.
But I don't love money.
And we do try to justify it.
But we really ought to take toheart what Jesus is saying here,
that riches are deceitful.
There will never be enough, itwon't solve our problems, and in
(22:03):
the end Jesus gives us a betterperspective of it in Matthew 6.
Let's turn there.
Matthew, chapter 6, verse 19.
Matthew 6.
Oh, wow, I'm in Mark.
That was terrifying.
(22:25):
Matthew 6, verse 19.
See you in a way?
Yeah, I know I know Trouble, hesays this.
Jesus says this Matthew 6, 19.
Yeah, I know I know Trouble, hesays this.
Jesus says this Matthew 6, 19.
Do not lay up for yourselvestreasures on earth where moth
(22:48):
and rust destroy and wherethieves break in and steal, but
lay up for yourself treasures inheaven where neither moth nor
rust destroys nor thieves.
Do not break in and steal, forwhere your treasure is there,
your heart will be also.
So Jesus points us to somethingwe don't think about much
heavenly riches.
(23:08):
He says lay up treasures inheaven.
Now, I don't exactly knoweverything that that is.
I don't know how we're gonnasee that when we get to heaven.
Now, I don't exactly knoweverything that that is, I don't
know how we're going to seethat when we get to heaven.
But there is this thing oftreasures in heaven.
And he says the problem is wecan lay up for ourselves
treasures here.
You can do it, you can workreal hard.
(23:30):
You can get yourself sometreasure and lay it up, and when
you leave this life you'llleave it behind.
Then you find yourself inheaven.
I've been thinking a lot aboutthat lately.
Find yourself in heaven andJesus says have you laid some
treasures up in heaven or willyou be totally bankrupt when you
(23:51):
get there?
And that really is this idea offruitfulness.
I think that we see that whenwe get to heaven we're going to
be some treasure.
Now I have my ideas of whatthis treasure is.
I think it's people.
Right?
Paul says to the people you'remy crown, you're my joy, you're
my crown, you're the thingthat's going to meet me when I
(24:13):
get to heaven, it's you.
My treasure in heaven and Ithink that probably is one of
the biggest forms of treasurethat we can have are the people
that we bring along with us.
But we can work so hard forjust a little bit more here.
And Jesus says don't bedeceived.
It's not going to satisfy you,it's not going to make you feel
(24:34):
better about this, it's notgoing to solve you, it's not
going to make you feel betterabout it, it's not going to
solve all your problems.
In fact, it may give you moreproblems.
But what about treasure inheaven?
What about fruit in heaven?
And so we're challenged withthis Just what are we doing for
eternal things?
And we look and we go.
(24:56):
Well, that doesn't reallymatter so much to me right now.
I'd really like more here.
But we will care, we'llabsolutely care what kind of
treasure we have in heaven.
And so Jesus says don't bedeceived, don't get taken on
this idea.
(25:17):
Now Luke, in his account ofthis, adds one more we might as
well catch while we're here.
Luke, in Luke, chapter 8, saysanother thing these weeds are
like are the pleasures of thislife.
That goes along with treasurein heaven.
Right, treasure here, treasurein heaven.
(25:39):
But you think about how much wework for pleasure in this life,
and that's not bad either, inone sense, because God's made
this place good.
There's a lot of wonderfulthings to experience and I think
God, you know, we you knowgives us so much joy in this
life.
It's amazing, but the pleasuresof this life, living for the
(26:03):
pleasures of right here andright now, can choke out the
ultimate thing that God iswanting to do the priorities of
our life.
Simple pleasures, right?
I experienced this in my ownlife between, you know, eternal
things and the here and nowpleasures.
Every morning, you know, I havea routine and a habit.
(26:25):
It has to do with my phone,right, my feet touch the ground
and, honestly, the first thing Icheck is my email.
I'm in a routine.
I check my email, you know, andthen I check the news.
Are all the countries stillaround?
Are there any new wars,anything going on that I need to
know about?
Check the news, and then Icheck Facebook, right, because I
want to make sure that I got itall down.
(26:47):
You know, what did my childhoodfriend have for breakfast today
?
I'm going to look it up and Iwant to make sure, right, that I
know, then ready to get into?
Wait a second, what about myAmazon package?
Is it coming today?
Let me check that real quick.
And then I get into God's word.
Now, that is true every day.
(27:07):
Am I fighting it?
I don't know if I'm fighting it, that's true every day.
I try to get it out of my headbefore I get into God's word.
That's what I'm holding to.
But you know, it's kind offunny how we can, you know, live
for pleasures in this life,even knowing where our lousy
Amazon package is before we getinto eternal things.
(27:28):
That's not like a condemnationthing, but that's just where our
heart goes.
And Jesus, I think here, wouldchallenge us and say if that's
the way we look at life, we'regoing to be unfruitful.
We have to be careful.
He would tell his disciplesdon't be unfruitful, you're made
for fruit.
Now, mark, he gives us one morething I don't want to miss here
(27:57):
.
He says the desire for otherthings.
And that really just covers it,doesn't it?
Other things, non-kingdomthings, the desire for anything
else, go ahead and put it inthere.
And it's amazing the kinds ofthings we can get distracted
with along those same lines.
You know, on my list of morningthings is Wordle right.
(28:18):
And every time I start thatlousy game I go why did I start
this?
Now I've got to finish it.
I don't even care what the wordis, you know.
And you look at the desire forother things.
Wordle is okay, do your Wordle.
Let's do it together sometime,you know.
But but you know you look atthe things that take us away,
(28:39):
the hobbies and things that takeus away from eternal things,
and then you look at laying outtreasures in heaven.
This is kind of the punchlineof all this that one day, when
we get there, none of theseother things are coming with us,
these other things that wespend so much time and energy on
.
They're not coming with us andwill enter into eternity.
(29:02):
I think the thorny ground, theground with the weeds, still
enters into eternity.
They've had some growth intheir life, but it's unfruitful.
Into eternity, they've had somegrowth in their life, but it's
unfruitful.
It's not what we were made for.
God lays out to us 24 hours,perhaps you know for a day, and
says use it, use it how you wantto use it, what you think about
(29:23):
, what you do, but realize youwant to lay up treasures in
heaven.
And then we look at the finalsoil.
There's not much you can reallyeven say about it.
Verse 20, these are the onesthat are sown on good ground.
Those who hear the word acceptit and bear fruit.
Some 30, some 60, some 100.
(29:46):
The typical, the best, theabsolute best in the ancient
times that they would expectfrom seed would be tenfold.
I don't even know what thatmeans, but it's 10, right.
And here jesus says you knowwhat, if you're going to be
fruitful, you could be 30, 60,100 fold.
(30:06):
Now what we gather from that isthat Jesus is talking about
some super growth in this plant.
Some just stand back and go wow, that was a lot.
You know this mutant growth,you know in a good way, and yet
that's what God wants us to comeinto heaven with just this
(30:27):
super abundant fruit about whathe's done in our life.
Now we'll end up having totrust God in all these things.
Right, because nobody ever madea plant grow right, not with,
you know, fertilizer, not withthe right amount of watering and
science.
No person ever made the plantgrow.
(30:49):
Because God makes plants grow.
It's just amazing.
It's part of what he does.
He makes plants grow and thegood things in our life.
We'll step back, and I thinkthis is why, when we get to
heaven, it says we'll lay ourcrowns down at his feet.
I don't know if those areliteral crowns, but we'll lay
(31:09):
them down at his feet becausewe'll realize the good that came
out of my life, god.
The bad, yeah, I did that.
The good that came out of mylife, it's all you, god.
I didn't do it, but to be apart of that, to see people's
lives changed and peopleexperience healing in their
hearts or whatever it is thatGod wants to do in your week,
(31:31):
that's amazing to God's glory.
And so we look at this as Jesuspulls his disciples aside and
he says guys, how's your heart?
You have a hard heart, justover and over again, rejecting
and denying.
There's no growth in that.
You have a shallow heart,doesn't really ever get into our
(31:51):
mind, into our heart and outthrough our lives.
You need to let it go deep intoyour lives.
Are you just crowded out withthe simple cares of this world,
the seatfulness of riches, thedesire for other things?
That's not how you want toenter into heaven.
You want to enter into heaven,treasure sent ahead, and that is
(32:15):
the life that Jesus wanted forhis disciples and he wants for
us.
So, god, I know it's not a peprally that we need.
We can't just positive, thinkourself into good works.
But, God, we can easily getdistracted by things that
absolutely don't matter.
We can be deceived intothinking that riches are going
(32:37):
to solve our problems and makeus happy, and they're not.
Now we can get overwhelmed bythe cares in our life and yet
you want us to just cast ourcares on you.
So, god, help us not just to besomething that we've done here
on Sunday, but, god, it wouldreally be in our heart that our
life would be run by theseprinciples.
(32:57):
God, our heart would be fullygiven over to you.
God, whatever you ask us to dothis week, I just pray that we
would step forward in that, god,the priorities in our life.
I pray that you'd help us tolay down the things that just
absolutely don't matter, god,that you would grow good things
(33:19):
in our life, things that wecould never have imagined, and
it be all to you, lord.
We pray in Jesus' name, amen,thank you.
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