Responding to Jesus
Series: Markers Along the Narrow Way
November 25, 2012
*** READ Mark 4:1-3a
Jesus is teaching by the lake again. Because the crowds are so large, his pulpit is a boat, while the crowd stands and sits at the water’s edge. Not only is he safe from being crushed, but the water acts as a megaphone for the 1000’s of people trying to listen. So he starts to tell a story. A story with a spiritual meaning, called a “parable”. And the 1st thing He says is…LISTEN! He’s not saying that because people were too busy talking to their neighbor to hear…he saying that because even though they had ears…it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re listening to what’s being said. AMEN?
Sometimes, when it comes to listening to Gods Word, we’re like passengers on an airplane just before take off. We’ve all been there, the stewardess wants you to watch and listen as she gives you life-saving advise…but what do we do? We talk, read, stare out window. But when it comes to listening to God’s word, we need to be more like the passengers on this Southwest Flight (SHOW Video clip)
The word Jesus uses for “listen” is “akouo”…which means more than just physical hearing…it means to look beneath the surface and discern the inner meaning of what you’re hearing or seeing. In fact, Jesus is so adamant that they go deeper in their comprehension, that he uses the word 13x’s in this story. So listen with not only your ears…but with your hearts as we talk about 3 things today…farmers, seed and dirt!
1st… The FARMER
Mark has already identified the farmer for us back in 1:38…it’s Jesus. Jesus came to preach and teach the word…but it could be ANYONE who is preaching and teaching the Word that God is using. It could even be me this morning! It could be you…as you go to your workplace or your home, maybe a small group…
Jesus says that, “A farmer goes out to sow his seed...” But did you notice something strange about this farmer? He’s unlike any farmer I’ve ever known. See, usually a farmer is very careful where he sows his seed. Before he sows his precious seed, he prepares the soil by plowing it, fertilizing it, spraying it with pesticide…but not this farmer. He actually seems a little sloppy, doesn’t he? Instead of carefully sowing his seed, making sure that he doesn’t waste good seed on bad soil…this farmer just starts casting it out and letting it land wherever it ends up! As a result, some of it lands on hard packed down dirt, some of it lands in the shallow rocky dirt, some of it lands in the weeds, but just a small portion of it actually lands on good soil.
Either this farmer is incredibly dumb or he’s incredibly gracious! But this farmer, (Jesus)…isn’t foolish, he’s loving. Because even though he knows the chances of good seed landing on bad soil and producing a harvest is low…he casts the seed anyway. Aren’t you glad? I am! He wants EVERY person to have at least a chance of producing a harvest! Now, I don’t know how good of soil I was when I 1st heard the seed was sown in my life…but He took a chance on me…and He took a chance on you!
And he knew something about the seed that you and I may not know…it’s powerful stuff! See, 2. The SEED is the Word of God! And despite the risk of losing the Word to the birds and the sun and the thorns…He knows that it doesn’t fail! In fact, according to Isa.55:10,11… “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” In otherwords, for those that listen…the seed of God’s Word is going to have a powerful impact!
According to Hebrews 4:12…the word of God is alive and active. That means it’s not just dead words that you can listen to and be done with, but the Words of God are active and dynamic. They’re a force to be reckoned with. They WILL do their work in your life!
Sharper than any double-edged sword… It cuts two ways… 1. it’s provides the promise of salvation to those who listen to it, but 2… judgment for those who don’t... it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; It cuts so deep that it’s able to slice through all our defenses, our rationalizations, through our surface religion, through our hard hearts…deep into the inner spiritual reality… to the point that… it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The grk. word for ‘judges’ is ‘kritikos’, where we get our English word “critic”… it’s like a spiritual investigator that discovers your true motives and attitudes and then reveals them to not only to you…but to God, for…13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered i.e. nothing has the ability to hide from God’s gaze…and “laid bare” before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
That word ‘laid bare’ is the word ‘trachea’. It refers to sacrifice of animals when they would pull it’s head back and expose it’s throat. That’s what God’s Word does…it goes for the jugular!
In otherwords…you can run, but you can’t hide from the truth of God’s Word. It WILL find some good soil. Has it found you? The Farmer knows that sowing is risky business, but it doesn’t keep him for trying. And so he casts the seed on the soil, (which is the last word we want to talk about this morning…)
So…the “Sower” (farmer) is Jesus. The “Seed” is the living, active Word of God…and the “Soil” is the condition of my heart. LISTEN! Your heart is either in 1 or 4 conditions this morning…and with the help of God’s Spirit…it’s YOUR job to discover what condition it’s in, and then do something about it! Let’s look at the 1st one…
The 1st soil represents what I would call a
1. A CLOSED or a HARDENED heart
Two kingdoms are locked in deadly combat over your eternal soul this morning…God and Satan. The Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees…had closed and hardened their hearts against God to the point that they were on the verge of committing what Jesus called the “unforgiveable sin” last week. They were resisting & rejecting the work and the influence of the H.S. in they’re life. And we talked about how each of us could be in the same danger if we resist His Spirit to the point of death. In the Pharisee’s case, no matter what Jesus said or did…they rejected Him.
• If he healed the sick…they’d complain it was done on the Sabbath…
• If He cast out demons They attributed it to the power of the chief of demons.
It didn’t matter what He did…they were “A’GIN IT!” (a little OK talk for my Midwest friends)
Do you know anybody like that? People who are spiritually unreceptive and unresponsive. The fact that you came to church today, shows a degree of spiritual receptiveness… but there are 100’s of 1000’s of people within driving distance of churches all over this country, who for all practical purposes are hardened and dead to God. Jesus says they’re like the 1st kind of soil.
Mark 4:4, As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Then in v. 15, He gives us the interpretation of this. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. In Lukes version of this parable, he adds that as a result, “it prevents people from believing and being saved”.
On every farm there were footpaths the farmer walks on as he works his crops. Because he walks over and over on them, the soil gets compacted. Now, there are 2 things true of any footpath… 1st, it’s very hard. 2nd … It’s very narrow. A lot of peoples’ minds are like that. They’re hard and narrow! They’ve got “hardening of the attitudes” – “Don’t confuse me with the truth; I have my mind made up.” They’re closed minded. And… they’re very narrow minded. When the seed gets thrown on this kind of hard-packed soil…it might begin to penetrate except for the fact that like the birds…Satan comes along and grabs it before it has a chance to take root. Sometimes we’re like that. We don’t give God a chance to work in our lives…
• We don’t Him a chance to answer our prayers …because we don’t pray.
• We don’t give Him a chance to do a miracle in our lives…because we’re too busy worrying how we’re going to figure it out ourselves.
• We don’t give God a chance to grow us spiritually… because we’re too busy trying to avoid the trials to learn from them!
People whose minds are closed and hearts are hard, can’t expect to ever see God work. They’ve shut Him out! If you bring up the issue of God… the walls go up and they say something like… “Hey, none of that here! It’s unconstitutional!” Some of you have teachers like that, others of you have employers or fellow employees like that… maybe you’re dealing with a close relative (a parent, brother or sister) who’ve shut their minds to God… and it’s frustrating. Because they’re missing out on sooooo much!
Maybe YOU’ve become hardened to God… You’re angry and bitter towards Him this morning – You’re been hurt in life and think, “If God allowed that, no thanks, I can do without Him!” Some of you’ve lost a loved one. (a child, a parent, brother or sister – somebody you really loved.) And you’re thinking, “Why? Why did this happen?” I know some people who’ve been hurt emotionally or sexually, and are thinking... “ If God’s so loving and caring, why’d He allow that to happen?”
Some people have hardened their hearts to God because they’ve been hurt by other “Christians” –Maybe you were burned in some other church by a self-righteous, judgmental, hypocritical person who was trying to hold you to a standard, they couldn’t keep themselves. You think, “If this is the way God’s people are, I don’t want to have anything to do with them OR Him!”
Whatever you’re BEEF this morning, I’d have to say, I don’t know your situation, but I do know this: heaven is a perfect place and earth isn’t! And if you’re allowing imperfect people, and an imperfect world to keep you away from a perfect God…that’s very dangerous and risky stuff. Never let another person or experience get between you and God. Allowing someone who “sinned” to get between you and God, leads you into sin, and it has eternal consequences. BEWARE!!!
Because when we hold onto our hurt, our hearts become cold and hard. And when we’re hardened and barren and bitter inside…nothing can grow there. Jesus graciously sows the seed…but it’s wasted!
Hard hearts and closed minds lead to wasted lifestyles. So if you want to live a productive life you first have to say, “God help me to be receptive to You. Help me to get over my hurt and my anger and my resentment, because it’s only making me miserable and leading to a barren life!”
While the hardened soil represents a shut mind and heart, the next kind of soil represents a…
2. A SHALLOW heart
Mark 4:5…“Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.” What’s He talking about here? Well, 1st of all, remember that Jesus is telling this story in Israel. In Israel, most of the nation is covered by a thin layer of topsoil with solid bedrock underneath. So if you’re not careful when you plant crops in Israel, the plants grow to a certain depth but the bedrock prevents their roots from reaching down deep. As a result, when the hot desert winds blow and the heat of summer burns down, plants that have shallow roots wilt and die. The only way to stop that from happening is to continually water and irrigate them. Jesus is saying a lot of people are like this. Like the shallow soil, their commitment to God is shallow.
Interpretation is given in vs.16,17…“Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away”.
Notice He says, “These people welcome the word with joy.” Circle “with joy”. Have you ever know people who were excited about Jesus, or the church they attended, and then you ask them about it a few months later and they mumble something like… “I don’t go there anymore!” The reason for that is that their ‘commitment” was based on surface level emotion. They were thrilled but they weren’t transformed! When good times of joy are over, and the time of trial starts…the plant shrivels away. See, your faith has to run deep if it’s going to endure the trials and tribulations of this life. It has to be based on more than emotions, it has to be based in the determination to follow and be like Jesus…no matter what! Believe me… the trials WILL come…but if your faith isn’t any deeper than your feelings…or your desire to avoid pain…you’re going to shrivel and blow away!
Over past 12 years this church has seen a lot of people who never got their roots deep enough to stand strong during a drought. Major reason: Never surrounded themselves with the rich TOP SOIL of a spiritual community! That’s the reason for Life Groups. If don’t have that…I fear for you, because I’ve seen it happen too many times! Unless we let the word of God penetrate the bedrock of our personality, and surround ourselves with others who will help us integrate His Word into our lives... we’re not going to grow and produce eternal fruit! It’s all excitement and no commitment. I don’t know about you, but my best intentions don’t last 2 minutes, let alone 2 years! If I’m going to be productive in life, it’s going to have to be more than feelings or guilt that gets me there. It’s going to take some action! I’m going to have to ACT on my commitments.
If I go to my son and ask him to mow the lawn, and a couple of days later the lawn isn’t mowed, I’m gonna go back to him and say, “What’s the deal with the lawn?” What if he says, “Well, Dad, when you requested that I mow the lawn, it was beautiful the way you asked. It brought tears to my eyes. I told several of my friends this week about how you asked me to mow the lawn.” But my question is still, “Why isn’t the lawn mowed?” Jesus asked one time, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord (Master)… but don’t do what I say?” That’s a good question for us all to answer! Sometimes we hear things and we’re excited about them but we never do anything about it. And so because of that, obviously, we don’t see any progress. Studies tell us that we’ll remember only about 5% of what we hear after 72 hours. (that’s a very depressing fact for a preacher!) Listen, the only parts of the bible that you really believe are the parts you put into practice! And unless you practice what Jesus is telling you to do… you’ll never see any real change…and you’ll never grow deep in your spiritual life.
The 3rd kind of heart is represented by the Thorny Soil. I call it a…
2. DISTRACTED heart.
In the 3rd type of soil, the seed isn’t scattered…it’s suffocated. He says in verse 4:7…Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. In vs. 18,19 He reveals the meaning… Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
Circle the word “choked” in v. 7 and “crowded out” in verse 14. He says the seed sprouts in your life and you begin to grow spiritually, but after a while it’s choked out by weeds. It’s crowded out and it can’t bear fruit. Is it possible to get so busy that I don’t have time for God in my life? SURE! Jesus says it’s possible for your life to become so saturated with other things, other pursuits, other involvements, that you’ll get distracted and begin to lose focus. Mark 4:19 puts it this way in the LB… "The attractions of this world, the delights of wealth, the search for success and the lure of nice things come in and crowd out God."
Now look at that vs. again and tell me…is there anything evil in this list? No. Is there anything bad in the list? No. Is there anything that's really sinful in that list? No. There's nothing wrong with wealth, success, nice things. So there's nothing wrong with those things in themselves, as long as they're not the most important things in your life! See, although they’re great if you have them… wealth, success and nice things aren’t what God put you on earth to achieve! Those are just the gimmes, the freebies, the perks.
See, if success or wealth, or nice things become #1 in my life, God gets bumped out of first place and whatever bumps Him becomes a “weed”. (I’m not talking about marijuana specifically…but it could be marijuana!) See, A “weed” is anything that crowds and chokes out God. It could be a good thing. It could be my family, it could be my career, it could be my hobby, it could be television, video games… it could be fun things to do, it could be my investments, cigarettes, alcohol. Anything that crowds out God and keeps me from putting Him #1 in my life, becomes a weed. It has the potential of growing up in my life and choking out my spiritual growth.
Weeds grow up in your life and begin to choke out the spiritual growth so you don’t have any energy left to get to know God. Because of the distractions, you end up with “0” interest in becoming what He wants you to be. I don’t have time for Him.
• I don’t have time to pray and talk to God
• I don’t have time to spend a little time reading my Bible every day.
• I don’t have time to go to a midweek bible study.
• I don’t have time to get connected with other Christians.
• I don’t have time to get involved in a ministry.
• I don’t have time to make the kind of commitments that I need to make, in order to keep God #1 in my life.
As a result, we go through a slow “spiritual strangulation” and eventually fall away. Some of you used to be really close to God. You were on fire! There was a passion, a joy, an enthusiasm in your life, and you really felt His presence. But now you don’t feel that way any more. The joy is gone. Why? I’ll tell you why, it’s called…Overcrowding. Saturation. You’ve allowed something else to sap off your energy, your joy, your vision, your vitality. Let me just ask you, “How much effort does it take to grow weeds?” Zero! Zip! I mean, do you have to plant weeds in your lawn? No. Do you have to fertilize the weeds in your garden? No. Weeds are always the sign of one thing – neglect! In fact, that’s a difference between a weed and a flower. You feed a flower, you cultivate it...and it still dies! But when I neglect my lawn, it doesn’t stop the weeds from growing. In the same way…
• when I neglect my marriage, weeds grow up in my marriage.
• When I neglect my relationships with my kids, weeds grow up in my relationships to my kids.
• When I neglect my relationship to God, weeds grow up in my relationship to God.
Weeds are a sign I’m not spending the time I need to cultivate and maintain that particular relationship. And the same thing is true in your relationship with Jesus. Now, let me ask you…what do you do with weeds? (No! You don’t smoke ‘em!”) You rip ‘em out! You uproot ‘em! You don’t negotiate with them… you don’t let them co-exist with the other plants… you don’t go up to weeds and say, “May I please pull you out?” No! You get rude! You strap on a 6 gallon industrial strength can of “Roundup”… and get to business! Because if you’re not ruthless with weeds… they take over! Listen, either you yank out the weeds in your life by the roots, or they’ll take over your life!
Some of you need to use some “Spiritual Roundup” this morning. You need to get ruthless about eliminating distractions. What habit, what hobby, what part of your schedule or habit… needs to be uprooted so you can get back to God?
Now, the last kind of heart that Jesus talks about is what I’d call a…
4. PRODUCTIVE heart
“Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” –Mark 4:8 LISTEN! (pause) God wants you to live a fully productive life, and so Jesus talks about one more type of person, (or soil)… the “Productive Person”. This person achieves God’s greatest potential for their life, they please Him and use their lives to bring Him glory…and in the end receive eternal life. They are the ones that make the sacrifice of the sower makes worthwhile.
And I want you to listen very carefully for how they do it. “Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.” –Mark 4:20 Did you hear how they did it? They make a commitment to listen and obey God’s word, and they stick with it! They keep doing it over a long period of time. They keep their heart soft. They don’t let anyone or anything harden them. If you want to establish a stable, meaningful life, you have to make some commitments that will send the roots down deep.
So…did you LISTEN this morning? Did your really hear to the point that you began to ask the question…”Which soil am I? Careful, it’s easy to fool yourself! For many Jesus’ words go in one ear and out the other. Note that start out with a crowd, but because they didn’t really “hear” and had to explain to disciples. Jesus’ teaching always creates a split between those who really want to learn and those who don’t.
How do I know what kind of soil I am? I do a SOIL TEST! Jesus’ parable tells us what makes bad soil…
1. Path: those who don’t want to repent. Is that me?
Am I resisting God this morning?
2. Rocky: dropouts who want life without trials.
3. Thorns: life wrapped up in making money, and having things.
1. Do you have a closed heart? “I'm afraid to get close to God! I'm mad at God! I don't need God!” Your heart has grown cold and barren.
2. A shallow heart? Maybe you love going to church, but you hate putting it into practice! If you don’t let your spiritual roots go any deeper than that, when the trials and the hurts come… you won’t make it!
3. Are you living a saturated life? Are the ‘weeds’ crowding out the “wheat”? Satisfied with your level of devotion to God? Shouldn’t be! You have weeds!
