Snippet of Sermon by Rev Tan-Yeo Lay Suan:
INTRODUCTION
This is the first of a series of parables Jesus gives to His disciples and He always starts with something they can understand and moves to something they don't understand. He begins with something they see and moves to something they can't see. He starts with something natural and moves to something supernatural. He starts with what is material and moves to what is spiritual. He starts with what is common and moves to what is uncommon. Starts with what is simple and moves to what is profound.
And that's exactly what He did here. They understood sowing, they did it all the time. They were part of an agriculture or agrarian society. They very familiar with the experiences and the activities and the principles and laws of sowing and reaping. What they didn't understand was spiritual truth. And so Jesus began where they were and took them where they've never been. And the language in this story is filled right down to every necessary word with profound spiritual meaning.
In Matthew’s version of the Gospel, he seemed to insert a turn in Jesus’ method of teaching in v 36. Jesus had started his ministry teaching without the use of parables, but later on when he experienced rejection and the misunderstanding of his teaching, Jesus wisely decided to adopt the use of Parables. What was Jesus’ intention? Parables was a way of "encoding" God’s message so the spiritually sensitive could understand, but the hardened would merely hear a story without heaping up additional condemnation for rejecting God’s Word. He used parables so that the hearts of those rejecting would not be hardened further. So in using this new method of teaching, Jesus was exercising God’s mercy towards the hardened. The parables are given in light of Jesus’ rejection by the Jewish leaders, mercy given to the undeserving.
There are only three components here. There is the sower, there is the seed and there is the soil, that's it. The seed represents the word containing the secrets of the Kingdom. The Sower sows the seed in all the field, in all sorts of places with their varying conditions. The parable is not about the sower, but about the condition of soils and how they affect the seed that was sown. The desired outcome is to that the seeds become plants and bear fruit when the great truth is allowed to influence the mind, sway the thoughts, and mold the life. When men turn around and experience the fullness of God’s saving grace. Whether this, in fact, takes place is dependent not on the skill of the sower but on the soil, the condition of our hearts. In the end, it was clear that the secrets of the Kingdom are revealed to the humble, diligent hearers.
There are 2 ways to explore these parables :
1. introspectively i.e. 1. to practice introspection; consider one's own internal state or feelings OR
2. extrospectively i.e. examining what is outside ourselves.
From the parable, we learn that the main emphasis of the parable which is the soils...the soils and we want to looking within ourselves i.e. introspectively.
Reflection Question: What sort of soils are we? What’s the state of our hearts when we receive the word of God? And this is where the thing really begins to make important sense to us.
The soil is the heart. The sower is anyone who presents the seed. The results of the hearing of the gospel always depend on the condition of the soil, not the skill of the sower. It's the condition of the heart that determines the effect of the Word on a person.
1. UNRESPONSIVE HEART
What’s the reason for those whose hearts are like the well trodden ground, so hardened that the seed cannot penetrate? The devil is constantly destroying the effects of the word of God on your life. The Evil One is likened to the birds to rob the heart of the precious seed. Birds look seemingly insignificant and even innocent – and this is also the way Satan goes about his work. Satan wants to make sure it never has a chance to penetrate. He snatches it away through prejudice, stubbornness, procrastination, influence of false teachers, the fear of man, through pride, through doubt and away mostly through the love of sin. Which one of these are you most susceptible to be unresponsive?
The unresponsive heart invites the Evil One to move in. It is visited by the mixed multitude of sins day after day after day. And the fields weren't fenced so those paths lie exposed, they lie unprotected from all the evil stompings of everyone that comes. Never broken up, never softened by conviction, never softened by repentance, never softened by self-searching, the heart grows callous, the terrors of the Lord aren't frightening and the love of the Lord isn't even winsome. The seed is good. The sower's okay. The heart is unplowed. Every time the word of God is revealed to us, we take nothing in, we did not apprehend the soul-penetrating, life-giving words addressed to us.
Reflection Questions: Has your life been hardened by sins that you've constantly tread over your heart so that the powerful, productive seed of God's Word never can penetrate? Does God’s Word bounce off your heart?
2. SHALLOW HEART: see verses 20 and 21 rocky soil, where the seed readily dies because it cannot put down roots (Argyle 1963:101). Here's the person who has shallow faith...on the surface, easily deceived into thinking that it is possible to be joyful without commitment to the King.
Reflection Question: Does that describe you? You were initially filled with joy receiving the mystery of the Kingdom… how long did it last? Remember the gatecrasher to the wedding feast mentioned in the parable of Matthew 22? When the pressure is placed on us, we couldn't handle it. Our faith in the Lord has never gone any deeper. We bail out, bow out, and we are gone. There was just no real root there. We never saw it because we were so taken by the initial joy and exuberance of the new believer that we never imagine it could turn out this way. They never counted the cost. They never realized that, you know, to be a Christian could cost you something: a relationship, your own family or friends turning against you. There will be a real price to pay. It's the most joyous life there is but it is a cross bearing. If the law of God has never plowed the stony heart, bruised it small, then you may by receiving the gospel on some temporary superficial sort of soft act think you've obtained your religion very easily, only to find out that when the pressure is on you bail, you're gone. It’s just too much hardship to deal with.
John 6 tells us that Jesus became popular when he provided lunch for 5000 people. The people were so exuberant, so excited. But when He started talking about Himself and His Kingdom, many turned their backs on Him, deserted and were gone. They flourished for a little time, didn't they? But when He started to talk about the cost and the price, and the suffering, they were gone.
Yet trouble and persecution are very helpful. They do two things.
a. One, they strengthen believers : After you've suffered a while, Peter said, the Lord will make you perfect. So you're going to have those kind of people. I've experienced it, you've experienced it. It's just going to happen, Jesus told us it's going to happen and it's encouraging to know that so we don't get surprised by it.
b. they manifest non-believers. Trouble and persecution will show you who's real and it will strengthen God's own.
I soberly recall that many friends who became followers of Jesus at the same time I did, including some of my witnessing partners, later abandoned the faith. God is less interested in how quickly we run at the beginning of the race than in whether we truly finish it (compare Jn 8:30-47). Some will fall no matter how plainly we preach the truth, but we definitely set people up for failure when we fail to instruct new believers that suffering comes with following Christ (Acts 14:22; 1 Thess 3:3-4).
3. PRE-OCCUPIED/ALLOW COMPETITION WITHIN THE HEART:
Third, the soil is well, the seed grows deep, the plant springs up, all is as in the next case (i.e. the fourth type of soil), with but one exception: the bearing of fruit. It is unfruitful. It is so because the seed and the roots of the thorns are in there and they spring up in the heart together. He is the man who hears the Word with a receptive attitude, but the worry of the world...yeah, he's just into the spirit of the age. He's just into his career, his environment, his world. And along with that, and probably the compelling reason he's in it is because of riches that are available to him so the combination of the system itself, the world in which he's found himself, and the deceitful allurement of riches choke the Word and it becomes unfruitful. Our hearts can only hold so much, the ground is limited as to its capability and the thorns drain the soil of its nourishment, it competes for nutrition, for water so that the good seed cannot survive. And by the way, the good seed is not native to your soul, the thorns are. They used to be in there. They live there. But the good seed is alien to you and it has to be protected and cared for and cherished. And as long as thorns live, they grow. You will find in such persons a divided will, a half service which ends in the prevalence of evil over good.
I remembered how a happy I was to have one of the most promising MOT’s was assigned to serve together with me. He made us all very happy because he was diligent yet all these were just on the surface we were to discover later. He had been feeding his thorns (a habit), borrowing money from different people in order to keep his love for football gambling going. He had to lie to cover his tracks borrowing from church members, he spent time building a way to receive the monies in his wife’s name so that he would look clean should anyone ask. It wasn't long before everything snowballed. It was the deceitfulness of riches, winning at the football matches. He never really yanked the roots of the thorns? Deep underneath, he nurtured thorns that took away his focus from his ministry in church… he was always thinking who would be a likely candidate to borrow from. These sucked the resources from keeping his faith life healthy. This is the double-minded man who's not going to receive anything from God, James said. He's trying to serve God and money, the deceitfulness of riches. He needed God has to pull it out and bring him to a place of repentance for it.
Reflection Question: Today are you that person who's gone to Christ, you're gone to hearing the gospel, but you're really into the system: the lifestyle, the path you’ve chosen? What is your priority? Salvation occurs in a heart where the things of the world have been plowed up.
4. FALLOW GROUND is BROKEN UP/TENDER HEART:
The last category of soil is the hopeful part of all of this, verse 23, this is the fruitful hearer who understands the Word, accepts it, there's genuine repentance, there's a genuine plowing of the Spirit of God in his heart, plowing out those noxious thorns of his former life. It’s willing to be broken up, softened by conviction, softened by repentance, softened by self-searching, experiencing the grace of turning fully to the worship of God and of being healed from our sins and of coming into full salvation. Now not every Christian produces the same amount of fruit. Different conditions in the soil that cause different levels of fruitfulness in the crop. And the same thing is true of our spiritual lives. We all bear some fruit. Some bear just some fruit, some bear more fruit, some bear much fruit, but we all bear fruit... That's the distinguishing mark of believers. Are you a fruit-bearing believer?
REFLECTION QUESTIONS1. Which one of us has good soil? How do we have good soil? In the intervening section (vv. 10-17) Jesus emphasizes that only his inner circle will understand, because they had chosen to come after him and learn from him. That’s the meaning of the disciple. The learner. They pressed on together with Jesus in all his ministry. They moved from learning from John to Baptist to learn from Jesus… through the days when Jesus was popular… to the days when many no longer followed him because he spoke of hardship. He wanted them to trade their inferior pursuits for the things he spoke about. But these disciples chose to persevere and God rewarded them with more understanding because they prized the kingdom life that Jesus spoke about. Today, prospective disciples have a measure of choice: only those who press into his inner circle, those who persevere to mature discipleship, will prove to be good soil. What will you choose today? What must you do to persevere to mature discipleship?
2. We are not solely one type of soil : Perhaps there are those of us at the other end of the spectrum thinking that you belong to the good soil, bearing fruit. We are often tempted to “plong” ourselves into one of these categories. But this morning I would like to say that we are not solely one type of soil? Perhaps you are bearing fruit in the workplace, but God’s word on your family life, you’ve left for the “birds” to pick them off your heart. Over the years you’ve grown numbed to the prompting of the spirit about what’s needed for you to do in your family. You may be bearing fruit as you serve the church, but God’s word regarding the unwholesome habits that impede your growth, you quickly brush aside because you would not make the changes… working ONLY on the parts that bear fruit. Leaving those other parts to wither and stay unfruitful. Don’t go away complacent that you’ve overcome and there is nothing but maintenance to do. The good seed continues to bear fruit from 10-fold increasing to 100-fold year after year. Identify the parts of your life that are often picked at by the Evil one, which parts are shallow in your obedience to the Lord, which parts are choked by your misplaced priorities, which parts are growing well. Make a fresh start to allow God to re-arrange your priorities that you can become more fruitful.
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