Several years ago this advertisement was placed in a New England are newspaper:
"Unknown item for sale. We know it's valuable; we just don't know what it is. If you can identify it, we'll sell it for $250.” (Reader’s Digest 9/02 p. 145)
Sometimes it’s hard to decide what something is worth. My daddy once said that when you’re selling something you can ask whatever you like. But something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay you for it.
ILLUS: About 10 years ago, a man was browsing at Music City Thrift Shop Nashville. He found an old yellowed rolled-up document that had the Declaration of Independence written on it. It was priced at $2.48, so he bought it.
But he was curious about it because it looked so old, and so he did some online research and then sent it to someone he trusted to evaluate it. It turned out it was one of the 200 “official copies of the Declaration that had been commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820. The firm that examined it determined he could sell it for about $250,000
The man ended up selling it to an investment firm for almost ½ a million dollars. (https://www.deseretnews.com/article/680193028/Declaration-moves-from-rags-to-riches.html)
So, how much was that old yellowed scroll worth? Well… it was worth whatever someone was willing to pay for it.
Now, here’s a question: What are YOU worth?
Jesus compared your worth to a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost Son. The Bible says you were worth so much that God gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That’s how much you are worth to God.
But not everybody agrees. Sigmund Freud (the founder of psychoanalysis) once said: “In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.”
And in the days of Jesus, the Pharisees would have agreed with Freud. They often condemned Jesus for hanging out with the losers in society saying: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” Mark 2:16
And even today, there are way too many churches that will allow only certain kinds of folks to come to their church buildings and sit in their pews.
So, the question today is this: Do we agree with God (as to value of men and women) or with Sigmund Freud? And who would you know you agreed with God or Freud? Well you can tell by understanding how much the lost and the struggling are worth to you.
And that brings us to our text this morning. Jesus said “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” Mark 4:1-8
ILLUS: When you sent me to Israel a couple years ago, one of the places I visited was Jesus’ childhood hometown - Nazareth. On the outskirts of modern Nazareth they found (and rebuilt) an ancient watch tower. In addition they added a model of a traditional home of the era, plus a workshop and other buildings that would have existed in days of Jesus. But what caught my attention was the remnants of some ancient farmland.
If you were fortunate enough back then to have inherited “bottom land” down in the valley you might become a wealth man. But this section of Nazareth was built into the hillside and had “terraced” farms. People in this area only had “farms that were little bigger than a good-sized garden.
This land had a mixture of shallow ground where there was rock was just about an inch under the soil, as well some sections where the ground was fertile and would yield a good crop. Seemingly everywhere there were a fair amount of weeds and though you might pull a lot of them… there’d still be a fair amount still growing alongside the crops. In addition, the owner would access his particular plot by a path that ran between his land and his neighbor’s.
Now, with the right tools, you MIGHT be able to make ALL the ground useful. But Nazareth was a poor community with limited resources, so farmers did what they could with what they had. As a result, the “farmers” threw their seed everywhere, hoping some of it would grow. Their land was precious (since there wasn’t much of it), but the seed was comparatively cheap.
So as Jesus told the parable, he described the four types of ground every farmer had to deal with. Only a ¼ of the ground was useful – and it was apparently hard to tell which land would be fertile, and which was not. But the fertile land would give a high yield and was worth the trouble.
So, what does this parable tell us? Well, first – it’s telling us that the sower is doing his job. He’s throwing the seed EVERYWHERE and he’s doing what he’s expected to do. He’s not wasting his time and he’s not wasting the seed. He’s doing his JOB!
But who’s the sower? Who is this person in the parable who’s throwing all that seed around? Well, we’re not told, but I’ve got a pretty good idea. I think it’s YOU… and it’s ME. It’s the Preachers, the Elders, the Teachers, and everyone else. Anybody who LOVES Jesus is the sower of the seed.
So, it’s YOUR job. And it’s MY job to sow the seed.
The next thing that puzzled me was - what exactly is that seed? Well, Jesus said: “The sower sows the word.” Mark 4:14. So the seed is THE WORD. But what “word exactly?” Could that word by the Bible? Well… maybe. Was that word “Jesus”? That’s a good answer…but I don’t think it was either the Bible or Jesus.
It occurred to me that the “word” had to be something that Jesus and His followers would “preach” to others. And that “word” had to be central to all of Christ’s teachings. As I went looking through the Gospels I was surprised by what I found.
In Matthew 4:17 (shortly after Jesus had been tempted in the desert by Satan) we’re “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’”
Later, when Scribes and Pharisees complained about Jesus eating with tax collectors, Luke 5:32 tells us that Jesus said “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to REPENTANCE.”
And when Jesus rose from the dead he talked with a couple of men on the Road to Emmaus and we’re told: “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that REPENTANCE and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Luke 24:45-47
And then, when Peter preached his powerful sermon at Pentecost and 1000s of people were baptized into Christ, were told that Peter’s sermon was so powerful that the crowd asked him what they needed to do to obtain God’s forgiveness. And do you remember what he told them? That’s right: “REPENT and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
So, what’s the WORD? The word was REPENT!!!! Change! Turn toward God! Quit trying to pretend you can do your life without God! The seed we have been asked to sow … is REPENT!
If we don’t sow THAT seed, if we don’t call people to repent of their sins, then we’re not going to have the harvest Jesus called us have.
ILLUS: Now, I’m not talking here about going up to a stranger, grabbing them by the lapel and saying “If you don’t repent of your sins you’re going to hell!” Usually that doesn’t work out real well. But what I am talking about here is listening to people as they tell you about their difficulties in life and then telling them the solution to their problems in life is to turn themselves over to Jesus.
I read just this week a story about the actor Sir Anthony Hopkins (he’s played Zorro and Thor and other characters in blockbuster movies over the years). You might not have realized it, but for years Hopkins was an atheist and chronic alcoholic. But one day back in 1975, someone approached him and said something very simple – “Why don’t you just trust in God?” That simple question caused him to question how he was living his life and he left his atheism and his alcoholism. Now, I’m not sure where Hopkins is with his walk with God, but I was impressed that such a simple statement could have caused him to change his mind.
(https://godtv.com/anthony-hopkins-from-atheist-to-believer-in-god/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=317&utm_campaign=Fbpartnerships&fbclid=IwAR3uQotK3ccXboCW6DqXspqNYmE5z57bimPBa4DDCTFlR8JzPvVuZZejS7Q)
Now, most people don’t think that way. Most people don’t think about asking people to change/repent. They tell people – “come to church.” It’s a nice church, it’s so friendly. And the preacher is interesting, and he’s not too bad looking (I struck a pose). And that is all good…
But – there’s the problem. You do realize don’t you that people can go to the right church… and still go to hell. They can do all kinds of good works … and still go to hell. They can stand for all the right causes… still go to hell. In fact people can even have the right political views (it’s hard to believe in our current news atmosphere, and with the things people put on social media)… but they can still go to hell!
They can do all that… but, if they don’t repent; if they don’t decide to turn their lives over to God; if they don’t accept the idea that they can’t be good enough without Jesus, and surrender their lives to Jesus - then they’ve got a problem.
Somebody has got to tell them… “you’re doing this all wrong!” Somebody has got to tell them (in love) that the way they’ve lived their lives isn’t doing them any good. Somebody has got to tell them that they (just like the rest of us) need to repent.
So… who’s going to tell them that? It’s supposed to be you and me. But how much is it worth to you to make sure they don’t go to hell?
ILLUS: There’s a magic team called Penn & Teller. (We showed a picture of the team on the screen) Penn Jillette is the BIG guy. He’s also an atheist. Some time back he said this: “I don't respect people who don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that there's a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward.... How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”
Why did Penn say that? Because, after a show somebody offered him a Bible and told him about Jesus. Penn didn’t convert to Christ at that moment (he’s still an atheist last I knew), but he was very gracious with that man… because he RESPECTED a Christian who cared that much about him to tell him about Jesus. He understood that if heaven and hell were real you really had to hate someone if you weren’t willing to tell them about Christ.
Now when we ask “How much are the lost worth?” a lot of times we’re talking about money. I mean - how MUCH you care about the salvation of others has a lot to do with what you put in the plate. Why? Because the money you put in plate – is used (at least here) to reach the lost. A sizable portion of that offering goes to underwriting our efforts in THIS community to reach people for Christ, but a good portion also goes to support missionaries who reach out to the lost in areas of the world we may never see.
The Preachers, the associate ministers, the Elders, the Sunday School Teachers and missionaries - they’re all sowers of the seed. And you and I help them by our tithes and offerings. Your offering is a measure of how committed you are to reaching the lost of the world for Christ.
But if you think you’ve done your job, just because you’ve put money in the plate; and you think you’ve done your job just because you’re faithful in attending church – you’ve missed the point. Because, you see, YOU are the sower of the seed too!!!
ILLUS: Every Friday I go down to the jail to talk and study with several of the inmates there. I’m limited to about 20 minutes with each man. Often, these guys are very serious about their faith in Christ and I’ll try to encourage them by telling them that they’ve got a ministry I could never touch. I get to meet for 20 minutes a week with them, BUT they are spending hours every day with men back in the block that I’ll never get to meet. They can listen to these other men, pray for them, and invite them to study the Bible – and will have the opportunity to reach into the lives of those other prisoners in ways I never could. I even tell them about one of the men from our congregation who’d been in prison a few years back when another prisoner explained to him that he needed to get himself right with Jesus if he ever hoped to stay out of prison in the future.
Just like those prisoners – you have the opportunity to talk to people I’ll never see – people who need to change their lives and who might listen to you. They might not ever listen to me.
ILLUS: If you are a faithful sower of the seed - just like the guy in Jesus’ parable - you’re gonna be scattering the seed EVERYWHERE. That led me to think about posts I’d been seeing on Facebook. It occurred to me that some of my 2000 + intimate friends I have on that site often spent their time focusing on political issues and their anger at one political party or another. Others talked about their families or posted memes and videos about their favorite music or the cutest pets, etc. But it struck as odd – many of them spent more time on those topics than they did on their faith and their love for God.
Folks, we ought to be using social media to talk about Jesus every chance we get. We ought to be sharing videos and articles and pictures about what Jesus means to us and how important it is to place our faith in God. It’s free, it’s easy and it’s one of the most significant ways we can use to “cast the seed” into the world around us.
But too often Christians don’t do stuff like that. Too often, they’re like a farmer that walks into the field and throws a couple handfuls of seed out on the ground and he just walks away because he thinks he’s done his job. But you know he hasn’t. Frankly - you haven’t done your job until you are committed to throwing as much seed on as much ground as you possibly can.
You are part of a team. And if you don’t do your part, the team suffers; the seed doesn’t get spread to every place it could bring a harvest; and people that didn’t have to go to hell… go to hell.
So how much is the salvation of those around you… worth to you? And how determined are you to tell the lost about your Jesus?
CLOSE: I want to close with the true story of a Christian who was his honeymoon in the Bahamas. He said a man walked up to him and said, "Would you like to buy some cocaine? You can tell everyone how much you really enjoyed the Bahamas."
He said a curt "No!" But then he began to think about how Jesus would have responded if someone came up to him selling drugs. Later that day, someone else came up to him selling drugs and that gave him a chance to share Jesus with them in a most creative way.
After the drug dealer told him that he had the "good-stuff," the Christian asked him, "What have you got?"
Once he said "Cocaine!" he said the following: "Is that all you have? I'm disappointed! I was hoping you would have something better than that. You see, I've got the real thing! What I have is all natural, pure and very powerful. And it makes me feel great all day and all night. And get this, it may be illegal in some countries, but not in this one, so you can't get arrested for having it!"
By this time the drug dealer was very curious and asked this guy… “what is this incredible "stuff" you’re was talking about?”
The Christian replied, "I'm talking about having Jesus in your heart! It's awesome what he will do for you when you get him inside of you! No drug in all the world is as good as having Jesus in you."
The man STOPPED SMILING and got this real serious look on his face and said, "I want what you have. How do I get it?" (John Mays)
Would you know what to tell him?
Here’s the deal. Too often people immerse themselves in all kinds of things they consider important. Their jobs, the political affiliations, various forms of entertainment or even drugs and alcohol. But somewhere in the backs of their minds is often a feeling that this can’t be all there is to life. Somehow what they’ve made the focus of their lives isn’t quite as satisfying as they once thought it would be.
If you listen to them closely you can hear their dissatisfaction. It’s at times like these that you have the opportunity to talk to them about that which can really satisfy. It’s at times like these that you can make them hunger and thirst for Jesus. Times when you can convince them Jesus is better than anything they’ve ever had.
Those are the times to cast the seed.
INVITATION
