The Stories of the Kingdom: The Parable of the Sower
Beartown Road Alliance Church
Sunday, July 30th, 2006
Intro: My wife and I just celebrated our 10 year anniversary this week. I love my wife and am amazed that she has been hanging around with me for as long as she has. Some of you may have noticed, but my wife and I are very different people. It’s not a bad thing. We love to be together and to spend time together, but our tastes and talents are not even close to similar. She has great taste. She is creative and artsy, an HGTV kind of person. I’m not. I have very simple tastes, I’m not overly creative and enjoy art if it has captions and comes in the Sunday funnies; I’m more of an ESPN kind of guy. If you mention the Corning Museum of Glass to us, you get two very different reactions. She lights up and starts to talk about the gift shop and all of the neat exhibits. I on the other hand immediately begin to yawn and to list, in my mind, the 7 million things that I would rather do with my time. We have very different tastes. So I’ve never really understood her fascination with planting things.
When we purchased our home in Ohio, she had a blast yanking out old plants, working with the soil and planting new things. For the most part, everything grew. She turned a boring area into something beautiful with all sorts of flowers and plants. Despite all of her planting prowess, for some reason, when it came to planting grass, this was a man’s job and it was up to me to handle it. I’ve shared with you before that I do not like to rake leaves. One year, I had them all raked into one huge pile and before I could get them to the curb, it snowed. Winter started and by the time things cleared up in March and I cleared the leaves out, all of the grass underneath was dead. We had a small yard and now about 1/3 of it was nothing but dirt. I took control. I got a tiller, I got grass seed, I got straw to cover the seed. I used the tiller for about 45 minutes and was about to give up when my neighbor, who owned it, called over and asked if I had raised the guard up. I told him of course I had and as soon as he left I raised it up and things went much smoother. Once the soil was ready, I planted the seed. This is where it got interesting. The seed was the same, I sowed it very liberally, I watered it regularly and it grew in about half of the places I wanted it to.
Someone explain this to me, I had grass growing up through the concrete in my driveway. Obviously this is some powerful stuff, it could push apart rocks! But I couldn’t get it to grow in some places where the soil had been completely prepared for it. For the next 3 summers I planted and watered and cared for the grass until it finally began to look like a lawn again.
The same seed, each with the potential to grow and flourish, acted differently according to slight differences in where they fell. Some grew and were fine, some grew and died quickly, others never even sprouted. Jesus uses a story that is very similar to this to explain the way that people are and the way that they will respond to the Good News of the Gospel.
Read Matthew 13:1-9
Jesus begins to tell the stories of the Kingdom. We’re told that He told them many things in parables. He told stories to describe what the Kingdom of God was like and what the people should expect. He used things that they were familiar with, weddings, treasures, sheep, and here he uses farming to share spiritual truth in a way that made sense.
The word “parable” “comes from the Greek word “parabole” which literally means ‘putting things side by side’.” A parable is basically when one story is thrown out or lain down beside another story, and the two stories run beside one another. In other words, the two stories are “parallel” to each other. Some will draw one meaning from it, while others will look past that and see a different meaning and story unfold. It was a brilliant way of teaching. But why did Jesus teach like this, why not just lay it all out and explain in great detail with powerpoint and graphs, what He had come to do, and who He was, and what our part was in the whole thing. The disciples wanted to know this as well. Read Verse 10.
This was Jesus’ reply: Read 11-17
The fame of Jesus was growing. People were hearing of this man and flocking to see Him. There were those who were sincere and there were those who were merely curious and trying to figure out how Jesus did His magic tricks. Jesus explains that the aim of the parables was to draw out from the masses the few who would grasp what Jesus was driving at, the ones who could see the parallel meaning. These stories would be the window of understanding, the filter, to separate those two types – the believers in Jesus and those who rejected Him. God would use the teaching of the parables to enlighten the receptive and to confuse the unreceptive. Parables revealed truth to those who were hungry, and concealed it from those who were too lazy to look for it, or too blinded by hatred and prejudice or too caught up in their own agenda to discern it. So, when Jesus teaches in this way, He has a very specific purpose in mind.
Let’s look at the parable that Jesus uses here. Parables are meant to drive home a point. The point here is that the Kingdom will grow when the word is sown. Different people will react in different ways, but a harvest will take place. We have three major elements to the story. The Sower, the Seed, and the Soil.
Let’s look at the Sower first.
I. The Sower
The Farmer in the story is out planting his seed. So the first question we have is: Who does the farmer represent? Jesus is using the sower to illustrate any one who shares the gospel with others. The sower is us. All of us, as Christians are charged with the task of sowing the word of God in to the lives of others. All of us are given the command to go and preach the gospel and to always be ready to share the hope that we have. God has chosen to grow the Kingdom by working in and through us to plant the word in others and to join in the harvest.
Now there’s a few Truths that we should know about sowing.
The farmer:
a. Sows actively.
It requires the farmer to go out and to work hard to make sure that the seed is planted the way it should be. Sharing our faith needs to be active as well.
Philemon 1:6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
Sometimes, someone may come to us and an opportunity may present itself to share God’s Word without much action on our part. Most of the time though that’s not the case. We have to work. We prepare the soil by building relationships and by living out our faith on a consistent basis for everyone to see. The farmer works hard and by the time he sows the seed, he has already put a lot of himself into the planting.
b. Sows Liberally.
The story describes everywhere that the seed fell and paints a picture of the farmer spreading the seed tossing the seed in all directions, knowing that it will take root in the good soil and hoping that it will be able to grow in the other places as well.
When I was planting the grass in my backyard, I was focused on the one area that I was working on, that area that I had prepared. I remember turning around and catching Ethan grabbing handfuls of seed and just throwing them all over the yard. I don’t know how much of his seed grew, but I can guarantee you that some of it took root. The way that he was planting is a better picture of the way that we are to share our faith. So often we share only with those that we think will respond the way that we want them to. We sow, but its only in those areas that we feel that seed will grow. The farmer in the story threw the seeds out there and let them land where they may knowing that some might grow in places that he never expected.
c. Sows Expectantly
The farmer plants expecting that the seed will grow. I think that so often we share with others and when they are open to Christ’s gift, we’re a little bit shocked and surprised. When we plant the Word, we need to expect a harvest and plant with confidence that God can take those seeds that are planted and grow them in the life of the one who hears. The work of sowing is never done in vain, even if the person does not respond.
1CO 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
We don’t know what God will do with that seed in the future and so we sow with expectation. Trusting that God will cause the seed to grow and we’ll see a harvest in His time.
So we are the sowers, and we need to be sowing actively and liberally and expectantly.
The next thing we see in the story is the seed.
II. The Seed –
This is a very straightforward part of the parable and doesn’t require a whole lot of explanation. As we’ve already mentioned, the seed that is planted is the Word of God. In verse 19, Jesus says that it is the message of the Kingdom. It’s the Good News that a Savior has come. The Good News that we, as sinners, can know forgiveness from God through Christ and that we can experience His love through a personal relationship with Him. We can enter into this new Kingdom that He has come to establish and live our lives on Earth through His strength. And when this life is done we will be forever in His presence and experiencing His glory in Heaven. That’s the Good News. That’s the message. That’s the seed.
And we know this about seed, it always has the potential to sprout and grow, but it depends on the soil it’s planted in.
III. The Soil
The soil is the main part of this teaching. The soil is the hearts of man. This is the main thrust of the parable and it’s important for us to understand what Jesus is teaching here for two reasons. First, it helps us when we sow. It gives us an understanding of the different reactions that we’ll get from people, the different ways that people will respond to the Gospel. If you share the hope you have, you will run into people that fall into each of these categories. Second, it helps us to do an inventory in our own lives and to see what the condition of our own heart is. Which soil that Christ talks about, describes the condition of our heart. Is the word growing in us, or does our soil need a little work.
Fields in biblical times were not like our fields today which have been prepared by modern machinery with the crops planted in neat rows. In those days, the farmer would cast the seed all over the ground and then plow it under. The fields were in long strips with paths between them so that people could pass through. That was important in a culture where everyone walked. Sometimes the Romans built their roads next to a farmer’s field. Sometimes the land next to the field was allowed to grow wild and it was full of thorns and weeds. So, as the farmer sowed the seed, there were many different places that it could fall.
a. Hard – Verse 19
The first type of soil that Christ points out is the hard soil. This is the soil along the path. It has been packed in and hardened by people walking over it and when the seed hits it, there is nowhere for the seed to go. It cannot sink into the soil and begin to grow and the birds come and eat it up. Jesus says that the one who hears the message and doesn’t understand it or rejects it outright, is like this. The word cannot find a place in their heart and in His explanation Jesus says that the evil one, Satan, comes and snatches away what was planted. The Word does not take hold in this person.
There are many different circumstances and reasons that make a heart hard like this. Pride and independence can turn our hearts hard to a gospel of surrender and dependence. As you share God’s love with others, understand that some simply will not listen. Pray for them, continue to model Christ’s love for them, but do not feel that you have failed. You sowed the seed, like you were called to do, the decision they make is between them and God. And Jesus teaches that some hearts won’t ever embrace the Truth.
b. Rocky – 20-21
Some of the seed fell among the rocks where it grew up quickly but was not able to put down any roots. There are some who will hear the word and it sounds good to them. The ideas of heaven and of God’s love appeal to them but they don’t let God’s Truth change their lives. They make no attempt to grow deeper in their walk with God. So, when the sun burns brightly and the problems come, and they will, instead of resting in God’s promises and finding their strength in Him, their first reaction is “why is God doing this?” or “Where is God?” and they fall away because they have nothing to stand on.
God doesn’t want us to simply be enamored with the ideas of His blessings and benefits, He wants us to pursue growth, we need to continue to grow out our spiritual roots. Paul says, in Ephesians, may your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. A plant cannot survive without its roots. They provide:
- strength
- stability
- nourishment
- and allow the tree to live and to grow.
Pine tree Illustration – the tree had no roots and it couldn’t stand the pressure of a storm.
If the soil of your heart is rocky and there is nowhere for God’s Truth to take root, you will be toppled over at even the slightest breeze. We need to understand this as we grow our relationship with Christ and we need to be constantly making sure that we’re removing the rocks that would keep us from growing. We also need to understand that some who hear the word that we share will fall into this category. They will sprout up and there will be excitement, but we cannot be satisfied there, if we want them to stand, we need to encourage them and help them to begin to put down roots.
c. Weed Infested – v 22
This is the category that many Christians today fall into. This is the man or woman who makes a genuine decision to follow Christ with their life. They have put down some roots and grown in their walk with Christ but then they got distracted. Children were born, mortgages were due, careers took off, and the word that was sown in them gets choked out by everything else that’s going on around them.
I have asked people to serve in different ministry opportunities and often I would get the answer: “We are just too busy now, maybe when things slow down.” Friends, things will not slow down unless we intentionally slow them down. When everything that is temporary becomes more important than that which is eternal, our soil needs weeded.
My father used to make us weed the garden when I was little. We would just pull off the top of the weed and not worry about the rest of it. This really didn’t accomplish anything. If you didn’t pull out and kill the roots, the weed would still keep the healthy plants from growing by taking away its nourishment and literally choking the life out of it.
What have you let into your life that is choking the life out of your relationship with God. Is it money, is it work, is it family obligations, is it just being busy all the time? Until we remove the weeds, roots and all we are not going to see fruit on our lives. This is a continual process. Anyone that gardens knows that weeds have a way of always coming back. We need to be on our guard and making sure that the distractions do not take priority over the eternal work of the Kingdom.
d. Good – v 23
Finally, Jesus refers to the good soil. This is the man that hears the word and it sticks. Roots are put down, weeds are destroyed, and a crop is produced that yields more than we ever could have imagined. It’s in this soil that the seed grows fastest and largest and this plant produces an abundance of fruit.
As we sow the Word of God we need to remember that what we see on the outside is not always an indication of the condition of the heart. There are those who go to church, know the right words, and have perfect looking families that have hearts that are hard and the Word can’t find anywhere to grow. There are others who don’t look like they would even entertain a thought about God, they don’t know the right words, their past is full of addiction and pain, and yet their heart may have been being prepared all of this time and the soil may be good and they may be hungry to hear the Word that we have. We need to sow liberally and watch for where that seed sticks and begins to grow. We need to ask ourselves, Are we sowing?
The seed is God’s word. We can’t sow what we don’t know. We need to ask ourselves what place God’s Word, the gospel truth has in our lives.
And finally, we need to be aware of the different soil that we will encounter as we sow. But we also need to know what the condition of our soil is. Do we have hearts that are hard and unresponsive? Have we given our hearts to Christ but decided that it’s not going to change us in any way and so we don’t put down any roots. If that’s true, it’s only a matter of time until you fall away. Has your life been changed but now you’re just distracted? There’s too many other things going on that have captured your attention and your relationship with Christ is being choked so that you are unfruitful in all that you do. What weeds do you need to pull? Or is your heart where it needs to be. Has the seed produced a crop that is 30, 60, or a hundred times what was sown? The Spirit of God on your life can bring about that kind of crop. We can live lives that are growing and where we are seeing the power and grace of God displayed on a daily basis. Let God work the soil and the seed will grow in you. Let God direct your steps and the seed will fall in good soil as you sow.
When I planted the grass seed in my yard, it didn’t grow everywhere I threw it, but I knew that the seed was good and I continued to sow it until it began to look like a lawn again.
Trust God. Sow liberally and expect a harvest. Jesus tells us that this is the way His Kingdom will grow.
