Jesus' First Parable
Tom Shrader walks through Mark 4:1-20, the first of Jesus' 27 recorded parables, set against the backdrop of Jesus' growing popularity, opposition from the Pharisees, and concern from His own family. He explains each of the four soils as distinct heart conditions — hardened, shallow, distracted, and receptive — drawing on Jesus' own interpretation to show that only the fourth soil represents genuine saving faith evidenced by fruit. Shrader applies the parable both to those examining their own spiritual condition and to believers who sow the Word among others, reminding them that faithfulness in proclamation, not results, is their responsibility.
“The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter and choke the word and it proves unfruitful.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Mark
Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 51 min
Themes: parables, hearing god, spiritual receptivity, evangelism, fruitfulness, hardened heart, faithfulness, sowing the word, doubting salvation, questioning faith, new believer, struggling with distraction, sharing the gospel, feeling spiritually dry, evangelist, seeker
Scripture: Mark 3:6, Mark 3:7, Mark 3:13, Mark 3:19, Mark 3:20, Mark 3:31, Mark 3:32, Mark 3:35, Mark 4:1-20, Mark 4:33, Romans 1:18, Romans 1:14, Romans 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Galatians 5:22-23, Ephesians 2, 1 John 2, Matthew 13, Matthew 19:23, Mark 10
Theological Themes: soteriology, saving faith, hermeneutics, biblical interpretation, perseverance of the saints, sanctification, the kingdom of god, word of god
Full Transcript
Background: How Jesus Drew the Crowd
Please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4. We are going to look today at a parable that is probably familiar to you. If you have been around church for a while, it is the parable of the sower. It is a parable recorded not just in Mark's Gospel, but in other Gospels as well.
Two words should grab our attention as we look at this. One is the word *largest*, and the second is the word *first*. Those are words we often use as attention-grabbers, and they certainly fit here. Look at Mark chapter 4, verse 1: "Again, he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered." Some of your translations will say "a large multitude." Most scholars believe that numerically this is the largest group that Jesus ever spoke to. He is at the apex of His popularity, and we are going to examine how He got there in just a minute.
So there is the word *largest*. There is also the word *first*. This is the first of 27 parables recorded in the Gospels. Parables are stories that Jesus tells using real-life circumstances to teach us a spiritual truth — to take something we are very familiar with and use it to illuminate something we do not yet understand. In this case, He is going to use a sower, seed, and soil. In the agricultural society they lived in, they would be very familiar with the word picture He is going to use. So this is the largest group Jesus speaks to in His public ministry, and this is the first parable — the first of 27 stories He uses in that fashion.
The Opposition Forms
I want to give you some background on how He drew this large crowd, so look back at Mark chapter 3, verse 1. Jesus goes into the synagogue. There is a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees and the religious leaders are watching Jesus to see if He will heal on the Sabbath. Indeed, He does, and that really solidifies the opposition to Him.
Chapter 3, verse 5: "He looked around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart. He said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, and the hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out immediately and held counsel with the Herodians against Him on how they might destroy Him." How are they going to get Jesus? How are they going to silence Him? My assumption is that humanly speaking, if they could simply embarrass Him and have Him go away, that would have been fine with them. We understand, of course, that is not God's plan. God's plan is that they will ultimately bring Him to trial — not a legitimate trial, a kangaroo court — condemn Him, and crucify Him. But they set out now ready to destroy Him. Jesus has invaded their territory, and Jesus is beginning to expose them for who they really are.
The Growing Crowd
Look at verse 7 of Mark 3: "Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and all the surrounding areas there. And when the crowd heard all that He was doing, they came to Him. And He told His disciples to have a boat ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they crush Him. For He had healed many, so that all who had disease pressed around Him to touch Him."
The word is spreading that Jesus is performing signs and wonders and miracles, and the crowds are coming. They are coming seeking to be healed. They are coming to see what is happening. The crowd becomes so large that Jesus says they need some kind of emergency getaway plan — get the boat ready. He goes to an area that would serve as a natural amphitheater, the crowd gathers, and He begins to teach them.
The Twelve Are Appointed
By this point, He has also assembled His apostles. Look at verse 13: "He went up on the mountain, and He called to Him those that He desired, and they came. And He appointed twelve whom He called apostles, so that they might be with Him, and He might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons." Mark then lists those twelve men, and they include, as verse 19 notes, Judas Iscariot, who would ultimately betray Him.
So you get a sense of what is going on. There is a lot of excitement and a lot of action. You have all the elements of a compelling story. Jesus is performing miracles and becoming popular with the people. The leaders of the day are out to get Him. And now we add one more element to the equation — family.
His Family's Reaction
Look at verse 20: "Then He went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when His family heard it, they went out to seize Him, for they were saying" — and this is His family speaking — "He is out of His mind." Here are His mother and His brothers and His sisters saying that Jesus has lost His mind. And look at verse 31: His mother and His brothers...
The True Family of Jesus
The crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you." He answered them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" He was not putting them down. He was about to expand their thought process. Looking about at those who were seated around Him, He said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, my mother."
Now, for some of you, that right there is an attention-getter, especially if you come from a Catholic background. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was not only a virgin as she gave birth to Jesus, but that she remained ever a virgin — that she and Joseph never consummated their marriage. It is bad teaching, though it does not quite rise to the level of the heresy they also teach, which says that she was born without original sin. That is real false teaching. The perpetual virginity doctrine seems to have been developed to keep Mary's integrity intact.
I went to Holy Family grade school, kindergarten through eighth grade, and we had in the lobby statues of Mary and Joseph and Jesus. I always wondered why Joseph looked frustrated, and this helped me understand that. The problem with saying Mary was forever a virgin is that you then have to account for at least six more virgin births, because Scripture identifies four brothers — James and Joseph and Simon and Judas — and sisters, plural.
So His family has gathered and come to where He is, standing outside and calling to Him. By the way, when I said they called Him out because they thought He was out of His mind, it may not even be that His teaching is the issue. They may simply be saying, "Listen, He is risking His life. These are the power elite of the day, and they want to get Him." The appeal may essentially be: "Jesus, tone it down — and it may not just be You in danger. It could be Your friends. It could even be us." So I sense the appeal to Him is coming from several directions all at once.
Invited Into His Family
Joseph was likely dead by this point, at least for some period of time. There is no indication, other than perhaps Mary near the end of His ministry, that His brothers ever believed in Him during His earthly ministry. We do later see James, His half-brother, become one of the pillars of the church, but at this moment they are outside saying He has lost His mind. And Jesus says, "Wait — who really is My brother?"
What He is saying is that we are all brothers and sisters. He is inviting us into His family. The book of Ephesians says that naturally we are children of disobedience, sons of wrath. Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You are of your father, the devil." There is a change of relationship that takes place for those of us who are Christians. Those of you who are followers of Christ — most of you, when it is time to pray, almost inevitably begin with the word "Father." That relationship is exactly what Jesus is pointing to here.
We had a baby dedication this morning, and it was a wonderful one. The family chose a passage of Scripture I had never heard read at a baby dedication, which was refreshing. They introduced their mothers and fathers and grandparents, and then they said, "And behind them is our small group — that is our Arizona family." At that moment I smiled from ear to ear, because as a member of the staff of East Valley Bible Church, that is exactly what I love to hear our church family say. There is our biological family with whom we have a genetic connection, and behind them is a family we are even closer to — a family with whom we share a spiritual connection. It is my prayer that East Valley Bible Church would be that kind of family, knit together in that way.
There is another point worth noting here, and maybe it is just me, but I want you to see that having Joseph as a father and Mary as a mother did not guarantee that His brothers would believe in Him. You may have children, you may do everything right, and you may somehow think that just because your kids are with you in church, or just because they were raised in a Christian home, they will inevitably become followers of Christ — and that is simply not true. That is what we acknowledged at the baby dedication this morning. We said we wish we could believe for this little one right now, but we cannot. We wish there were a switch we could throw to guarantee he would believe, but there is not. And look again at verse 35 — "Whoever" — that is an open invitation. Any one of you who comes to Christ in repentance and faith will be able to call Him Father.
The Setting of the First Parable
So that is the background that leads us into Mark chapter 4. "Again he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered about him. So he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on land, and he was teaching them many things in parables." The seated position was the official posture for teaching — He is ready to instruct. This is the first of the parables that Jesus teaches.
The word "parable" in Greek is a compound word. The verb means to throw, to lay, or to place, and the prefix means "alongside of." As one author writes, the idea is that of placing or laying something alongside something else for the purpose of comparison.
Understanding the Parable Form
Spiritual or moral truth would often be expressed by laying it alongside a physical example that could be more easily understood. A common observable object or practice was used to illustrate a subjective truth or principle. That which was well known was laid alongside that which was not understood in order to explain it. This was a familiar teaching technique to the Jews. In the Septuagint — that is, the Greek Old Testament — there are forty-five records of this use of a parable: a real-life situation used to explain something, in this case a spiritual truth.
An Outline of Mark 4:1–20
Let me outline the chapter through the first twenty verses. Verses 1 and 2, which we have already read, are the introduction. The actual parable is in verses 3 through 8. Verse 9 contains what I would call Jesus' challenge — a fascinating comment He makes. Verses 10 through 13 are a parenthetical insert, and then in verses 14 through 20 Jesus interprets the parable. What we are going to do is study the parable right alongside its interpretation. But in order to do that, I want to look at that parenthetical insert for a moment.
Look at verse 10. Jesus is teaching using this new method He is now going to employ on a regular basis. "And when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parables." From the other passages we learn they are asking Him, "Why are you teaching this way? Where did this come from?" His answer leads to what we typically identify as one of the hard sayings of Jesus.
"To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God" — some translations say "mystery." We use the word mystery here not in the sense of a whodunit. A mystery is something previously concealed that is now revealed. What has been given to the disciples is the mystery, or secret, of the kingdom of God. "But for those outside, everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, they may hear but not understand, lest they turn and be forgiven." Then He said, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?"
You can see why we call this one of the hard sayings. It seems that what Jesus is saying is: "I am going to teach in this way because these people do not have the ability to understand."
Why Jesus Taught in Parables
Here is what Kent Hughes writes, speaking of a parallel passage in Matthew chapter 13: "It is striking that we have not encountered parables in Matthew's gospel until now. We are at chapter 13, almost halfway through the gospel, but this is the first place Jesus' parables are introduced. Jesus adopted the use of parables at this specific stage in His ministry for the deliberate purpose of withholding further truth about Himself and the kingdom of heaven from the crowds."
Why should He do that? The answer is that the masses of people had rejected Him, and therefore they could not understand the deeper things He now needed to reveal about the kingdom. The disciples, on the other hand, had begun to believe on Him and were looking to Him for teaching. Therefore He taught His lessons in parables and then explained the stories to them.
In virtually every instance where Jesus employs a parable, He teaches it and then pulls His disciples aside and explains what it means. That is exactly what happens here. Look at verse 33, still in Mark chapter 4: "With many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without parables, but privately to His own disciples He explained everything."
The Key to All the Parables
Jesus begins to employ this new teaching technique to help His disciples understand greater truths. In verse 13 He seems to be saying: if you do not get this parable, you will never figure out the other parables about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. You had better get your arms around this one. Fortunately, this is a straightforward parable to understand, because Jesus gives us the parable and then gives us the interpretation — we do not even have to guess.
The Sower, the Seed, and the Soil
As noted earlier, Jesus uses agricultural imagery here that would have been familiar to all of His listeners. There is a sower, there is the seed, and there is the soil. In that day and age, the sower would carry something like a bag over his shoulder or around his waist, reach in, and scatter or cast the seed — with very little control over where it would land. What we are going to see is that the seed lands on four different types of soil.
The sower, as we work our way through the parable, is in this case Jesus, or anyone who is casting the seed — that is, the Word of God, the teaching of God — to the receptive hearts represented by the soil. This is a helpful parable for you and me. There are times when we are casting that seed ourselves, taking what Jesus has done in our lives, what Scripture says, and sharing it with others — at work, at school, sitting around watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. We begin to share this truth, and what we observe over the years is that different people respond differently.
What Jesus identifies here is that there are four categories of soil, and the soil represents the heart of the recipient — the heart of the hearer. Let us take a look at them.
The First Soil
Here is the first soil. Verse 3: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the..."
The Four Soils
The fields in Jesus' day would not have resembled our fields. We have these gigantic fields you can see as you drive around. Their fields would have been strips that they would plant and harvest, with paths running alongside for walking — ways to traverse from one area to another. These paths would have been uncultivated areas, packed down solid over the years, perfect for walking. As the sower walked along scattering seed, some seed fell on those pathways, and immediately the birds came and devoured it.
The second soil appears in verses 5 and 6: "The other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil and immediately sprang up, but since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorching, and since it had no root, it withered away." This was soil that would have been prepared — the sticks and rocks removed — but with very little topsoil. Underneath it was what we might call caliche out here, though it was likely limestone. As seed fell on this soil, it would quickly spring up, but it had no basis for root and could not penetrate through the limestone bed. The plant would shoot up quickly, but then the sun would get it, and with no root and no survival system, it would simply fade away.
The third soil appears in verse 7: "Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain." This was land that had been tilled, prepared, and cultivated — it looked perfectly good. The weeds had been pulled out, but the roots of some of the weeds were still in the soil. So when the seed began to take root and grow, the thorns were there among it, growing up together around the plant. The thorns ultimately overpowered the seed, and it yielded no grain, no fruit.
The fourth soil appears in verse 8: "The other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, growing up, increasing and yielding 30, 60, 100 fold." This last soil is loose, soft, and receptive to the seed. The seed takes root, begins to grow, and is fruitful — 30, 60, 100 fold, far beyond any yield they would ever expect.
He Who Has Ears to Hear
This parable is an attention grabber — a story, a picture, a medium the crowd would understand: agriculture. Jesus makes His point very clear and then says in verse 9, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." He is not referring to the physical ability to capture the vibrations of sound. He is speaking about understanding. What He is saying is: he who has the ability to understand this, understand it.
His disciples then ask why He is teaching this way. He tells them they need to get a hold of this — it is for their benefit. They can understand spiritual things. First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14 is the perfect illustration of that: the spiritual man can understand spiritual things. They are spiritual men, and at this point, they should understand the spiritual things of God.
The Sower Sows the Word
Jesus interprets the parable for them in verse 14: "The sower sows the Word." Whether it is Jesus, or you, or me, or anyone else, we are sowing the Word — the Word of God, the things of God, the truth of God. These are the opportunities that you have and take in your life with all of those people in your sphere of influence, communicating the Word of God to them. But they do not always respond the same way. They respond differently.
Here is the first response, beginning in verse 15: "And these are the ones alongside the path where the Word is sown. They hear. Satan immediately comes and takes away the Word that is sown in them." That is the hard soil. The Word never penetrates. The moment it comes, they reject it. The Old Testament term for people like this is stiff-necked. The Word comes and it is hard. They may be hostile, they may be apathetic, they may be endlessly disinterested, but they have developed the ability to simply turn it off.
There was a child here this morning who was sound asleep with his head back, and it was driving Tom to distraction. As a parent of Christian kids, one of the things he worried about was his own children becoming sermon-proof — that you could preach and preach and preach and it would just bounce right back off them, like preaching to a piano. That is that first soil: hard, never penetrates.
Hard Hearts in Romans 1
Paul addresses these kinds of people — the hard-hearted, the disinterested — and it is worth taking a closer look. In Romans chapter 1, verse 18, Paul writes: "For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." The picture there is of someone actively suppressing — holding down the truth.
The Hard Soil: Suppressing the Truth
"For what has been made known about God is plain to them. He has shown it to them. His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that He made, so that they are without excuse." What do you need to do to be godless? The answer is absolutely nothing.
Look at verse 21. "So they knew Him, they didn't honor Him, and they didn't give Him thanks, and they become futile in their thinking, foolish in their hearts. And their hearts are darkened." Verse 22: "Claiming to be wise, they became fools." Here is what he is saying. These are people who look around, and God has spoken through creation, and they ought to be able to see it, but they don't. They suppress it.
The illustrations we always use, of course, are the stars and the moon and the solar system. But last Monday I took Susan to the hospital. We go to see the doctor every Monday morning, and she needed to get a shot. Haley gives us her shot, so we stopped by to see Haley at work.
Many of you know she works at Crisis Pregnancy Center, and it is an amazing organization. I have gotten to really know and admire it. If you are looking for a way to invest some time, energy, effort, or money, Crisis Pregnancy Center is a truly worthy recipient of your efforts.
What Haley does there is perform ultrasounds and sonograms on girls who come in thinking they may be pregnant. When they are far enough along, she can scan them and get a picture. These girls will come in, have a consultation, and will typically express their intent, which is usually abortion. Then Haley's great privilege is to say, "Let me show you something." She will scan that belly, type in the name, and say, "This is your baby." Seven out of ten girls who say they are going to have an abortion, once they see that baby, go on to carry the baby to full term. It is an amazing thing.
A Moment in the Ultrasound Room
So we were in there, and you all know Haley is pregnant. She had been scanning herself every day, and Susan finally said, "You have got to stop this, Haley. This kid is going to come out with one eye in the middle of his forehead. You cannot do this every day." When her mom says not to do something, Haley just does not do it, so she had not done a scan for thirty days.
We were in there last Monday, and Tyler's mom's brother — his uncle — had died, and they were going back for the funeral. Haley wanted to take a picture of Antoine — that is what I would call my baby — a picture of Antoine. She said, "Mom, can I take a scan?" And Susan said, "Oh, I suppose."
So we are all in this room, and it may be one of the sweetest moments of my life. Haley is standing there with the scanner, and the minute the picture of that baby comes up on the screen, she changes immediately. She says, "Antoine, it has been thirty days. I have not seen you in thirty days. Look at how you are growing. Look at your back. Look at your face. Oh, there is your brain. Look at your hands." And then, just as if it were on cue, the baby's hand went into its mouth. She said, "Oh, you are so cute. I cannot wait." And I am sitting there thinking, we have got to go. It was a tremendous moment.
What Paul is saying is this: how can you look at something like that — something that comes from a sperm and an egg and is now a human being — and not think there is a Creator God? That is exactly what he is saying. Because your heart is hard. You will not believe because you will not believe, and nothing is going to convince you.
Satan Snatching the Seed Away
Turn back to Mark chapter 4. He says that in that first soil, Satan immediately comes along and snatches the word away — perhaps through false teaching, perhaps through something pawned off as Christianity when in fact it is not Christianity at all, but is contrary to God's truth.
I read a story this week. I do not know if you all get World magazine, but World is a great publication. There was a story this week about a church in Sweden where the bishops had displaced the pastor because he had openly declared that he did not believe in God. That seems to me to be a limiting factor in one's career path. But the story was really about the fact that the church had reorganized and welcomed him back as their pastor, even though he did not believe that God existed. That is just bizarre. That is Satan snatching the seed away.
The Rocky Soil: Feelings Without Root
Here is the second seed. It is in verse 16. "These are the ones sown on rocky soil, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. They have no root in themselves but endure for a while. Then when tribulation and persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away."
This is the soil that hears the word and there is an excitement, an exhilaration. It may be because it sounds so refreshing to hear that one can be forgiven. It may simply be that it is novel. The reason is really immaterial. What matters is this: their feelings are changed, but their heart is not. They are filled with joy.
I see it in Priority Living regularly, where somebody will come in and say, "This is unbelievable. How long have you been doing this?" Eighteen years. "This is the best kept secret in Phoenix." I agree. And then they will say, "I am going to be here every week. This is unbelievable. I am going to bring all my friends. What should I read? This is all new to me." I will give them a reading list, and they will come in the next week with a book bag and they will have —
The Soil of Shallow Roots
When you are a Christian, your problems do not go away — they just intensify. You have all the wear and tear of living, all the things that are adjoined to us in life: sickness, health, and all of that. On top of that, you have tribulation and suffering for the faith. You go into the office all excited and say, "I found this new thing. I found Jesus. I found this Bible study." Pretty soon people are saying, "Wait a minute, are you nuts? What's the deal here?" They start to get on you. Maybe the family begins to say, "Stay away from us. Don't be bringing that stuff in here." Maybe it is a spouse, an ex-spouse, kids, or parents — but somebody comes along and there is tribulation.
One of the translations says there is affliction. These afflictions and tribulations show us what is really there. Remember what happened with this plant: it sprouted up quickly and would have looked as healthy as any other plant, but there is no root. How do we know if we have taken root? When affliction and tribulation come, that is when we know. "Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, because the testing of your faith produces endurance."
I was having breakfast with Jerry Smith the other day, and he was relating some things he had been reading about one of the nations in the world right now where they are persecuting Christians. One of the ways they do it is they keep people in cages during the day, and at night they lock them up by their feet. They cut their feet so they bleed, and through the course of the day and night the mosquitoes get in and start to bite on them, infecting them with diseases. Families are separated. When I hear about our own persecution — somebody calling us a naughty Christian — that does not really carry the same impact as what I hear when I think of that kind of suffering. But our persecution is just as real, isn't it? And it is the same pressure that begins to reveal what is in the soil.
Emotion and Worship
There is something else I want to add here, because people may be thinking it at this point. This soil is marked by the idea of emotion. I am afraid that sometimes we can be so skeptical of emotion that we miss the fact that there is meant to be joy, emotion, and responsiveness in our lives. Kids get all excited at summer camp, come home, and some of them turn out to be this soil right here. We hear, "Well, that's just that emotional high." There are some kids who are swept away in emotion, just as there are adults who get swept away in the emotion of the moment.
Right now at East Valley Bible Church, we have essentially three styles of worship. What we do in the main sanctuary in the morning and at night, what we do in the conference center in the morning, and what we do at the six o'clock service. I have heard people say the six o'clock service is so emotional, so interactive, so responsive. Some of that emotion could be fake — and that is what I tell the kids. If you are in here all excited and then you go home and you are a jerk to your parents, then this is a joke. But there should be emotion.
Here is the point I want to make: none of those forms of worship is better than another. The 8:30 service is not better than the 10:30. The 10:30 is not better than the 6:00. The 6:00 is not better than the 8:30. It has nothing to do with that. It is about how I choose to express my worship to God. I can be a hypocrite in any of them. It is not the expression I am concerned about. This parable is not about expression — this parable is about heart condition.
You know the name Jonathan Edwards, and some of you have seen his picture. He does not look like a fun, emotional, exciting kind of person. Yet he examined revival and said some of it is silly, some of it is not real — but there should be genuine feeling, and thus the title of his book: *Religious Affections*. There are times when the heart is simply swept away. Think of the picture of falling in love. Some of you can go back and remember what that was like — you are together all day, and when you are apart you are wishing you were together, wondering what she is doing, what she is thinking, whether she is thinking about you. If that is true on a human level, should it not be true when we consider the Creator God of the universe, who while I was a sinner, while I despised Him, sent His Son to die for me and bear the guilt of my sin? Should that not generate some emotion? It will express itself differently according to our personalities, but do not look at this parable and conclude that emotion is bad. Fake emotion is bad — but not emotion itself.
The Third Soil: The Thorns
Here is the third soil, in verse 18: "And others are the ones sown among the thorns. They are the ones who hear the word." The idea seems to be that they hear the word, they get engaged, they get involved. They buy Bibles, they get notebooks and pens, they start to teach a Sunday school class, maybe sing on the praise team. They become known in the community as a Christian.
The Third Soil: Choked by the World
"But the cares of the world" — one translation says "the worries of life" — "and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter and choke the word and it proves unfruitful." I get the sense that the second group just disappears. There is this joy, this immediate growth spurt, and then they are gone. With this third soil, I get the sense they hang around. I get the sense that there is something wrong still in churches, that they are still active.
They do not walk away, but they are internally fighting this awful struggle between the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of the world and the fruitfulness that God says is necessary if one is truly His. They are trying to do this terrible straddle with one foot in the world and one foot in the things of God. The key to understanding this third soil — and I do not believe these are Christians — is that they are unfruitful. There is no fruit.
When push comes to shove, they take their own agenda and supersede God's agenda. They love the world. They have these irreconcilable loyalties to one another, and ultimately their love of the world trumps their love of God. First John chapter 2: "Do not love the world nor the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Matthew 19:23: "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." And in Mark 10, Jesus says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. That is the teaching I see in Scripture.
The American Dream vs. God's Dream
I am getting ready — we have four more Sundays and then I am on vacation — and one of the things I am examining is this idea of the American dream, because we hear it all the time. Every election year we hear that the American dream is intact, or that the American dream is under attack. If you want to have an incredible experience, go to Google, type in "what is the American dream," and about the fourth entry down is a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. that is absolutely fascinating. It shows you the difference between what Dr. King was thinking and saying in the early sixties and where we are as a nation now.
Typically, when we talk about the American dream, we equate it to something material — a house, a car, something material. Where I am trying to go is this: I wonder if the American dream is in competition with the dream that Christ would have for each one of us. I am wondering if reaching the epitome of success in the world's economy is contradictory to reaching the epitome of success in God's economy. It is pretty hard to balance the two, and that is what He is saying.
These are people moving along, and I have the sense that they are still involved in Christian activities. They are still going to the outreach luncheons, still talking to their friends, still in church. But the worries of life — all the different things that come at us — and the deceitfulness of riches choke them out and do not let any real fruit begin to grow.
A Warning to College Students
I spoke Friday night with the college students, and I love that. I went in and decided to say: listen, you are at a really important point in your life, and there are things you can do now that are going to cause lasting damage, so let's get our arms around them. Scripture says no soldier in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so we just talked — what are the things that can entangle you?
The first thing they said was money, and I was relatively prepared for that. The average college student is graduating with $28,956 worth of debt, $3,000 of which is credit cards. The average 18 to 24-year-old is spending one-third of their income on debt reduction. One think tank recently modeled a college graduate making $35,000 a year and found that after taxes, rent, utilities, car, gas, food, and debt service, that person had $34 a month left for entertainment and clothing. The next thing the students named was success. Whether they realized it or not, what those college students had just tagged was the deceitfulness of riches and this pull of the world, and so I pleaded with them to be very careful.
The Fourth Soil: Bearing Fruit
Those were three difficult soils. Here is the fourth. Verse 20: "But those are the ones that are sown on the good soil. They are the ones who hear the word, and they accept it, and they bear fruit." The word does not just bounce off as with the first soil, nor does it produce only a quick growth spurt as with the second, nor does it begin to take root but bear no fruit as with the third. This is seed that bears fruit.
These are people who are saved, and the evidence of it is that there is fruit in their lives. There is to be in our lives the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23: "The fruit of the Spirit is" — and then Paul lists nine things. Grammatically it is striking, because we would expect him to say "the fruits of the Spirit are these nine things," but he does not say it that way. He keeps it in the singular: "the fruit of the Spirit is" — these nine things — either meaning that they all come together as one, or that the Spirit produces them as a unified whole rather than as separate achievements to be collected one by one.
Bearing Fruit and Recognizing the Soils
The fruit of the Spirit comes as a bunch — much like a bunch of grapes contains many individual grapes. Whether these qualities arrive together as one or whether love is the first and defining fruit and all the others are distinctions or subsets of it, these are the things that are to be present in your life and mine. I wish Paul had said, "The fruit of the Spirit is: do this, do this, do this," so we could go check, check, check down the list. But he doesn't. He says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love." What does that mean? It means loving as Jesus loved — and He loved by giving Himself up for His bride, the church. The question is simply this: is that present in your life? Do you see those characteristics in your life?
What You Will Encounter as You Sow
As you begin to sow the seed, understand that you are going to come into contact with all different types of soil. There will be some people who say, "Get out of here. I don't want anything to do with it. I'm not listening." You can talk and talk and talk, and nothing happens. There will be other people who respond quickly, and you get swept up in their joy — you experience a kind of vicarious excitement watching them — and then, almost inexplicably, they drop away, and you find yourself asking, "What was that?" That was the rocky soil. It looked real, but it wasn't the real deal.
Then there are the truly difficult ones — that third soil. You spend time with these people. You invest in them, come alongside them, and God seems to be doing a work in their lives. They seem to be hanging in there, and time is passing. Some of them even survive seasons of tribulation. But then, all of a sudden, there is a conflict between God's agenda and their agenda, and their agenda supersedes God's agenda. It breaks your heart, and the truth is, you know a lot of people like that.
A Word to Those Who Recognize Themselves in the Third Soil
Church can actually be a comfortable place for people like that to hang out, because they still feel somewhat spiritual and good about themselves. But if they look honestly at their lives, they see things essentially in disarray and no fruit. If you are here today and that describes you, you have to look at your life and say honestly, "I have serious problems here. That's me. I know the Bible verses, I can sing the songs, I even enjoy being here — but I have to tell you, the worries of life and the deceitfulness of riches have choked it out. It really hasn't taken root. It isn't bearing any fruit."
You look around and cannot see how God has used you to touch any life. And setting aside the fruit of evangelism, the fruit of the Spirit isn't there on a personal level either. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control — the honest answer is no, or at best a question mark. There is no fruit.
The Encouragement of the Good Soil
Then there is the encouragement that comes from knowing you have heard the Word, accepted the Word, and see fruit all around you. If you take that reality and marry it with verses 34 through the end of chapter 3, you know that you can call God Father. You are one of His. How do you know? Look at the fruit that is in your life. That is a magnificent truth.
And I go back to verse 13: if you do not understand this parable — if you do not get this as your baseline — then you are not going to understand any of the other parables about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for this truth. As one charged with the responsibility of teaching tonight, I am so grateful to You for making this so clear — there is the parable, and there is the interpretation. God, what I ask now is that Your Spirit would invade our lives to help us see which one of those four soils best represents us. God, I pray that You would soften our hearts, and break our hearts if You need to, in order to teach us Your truths.
As we go and begin to share these truths with the people around us, Father, I pray that You would allow us to see and understand that not everyone is going to respond positively. Some are going to say, "Get out of here." Some are going to say, "That's great," and then disappear. Some are going to hang on for a while but bear no fruit. And some will truly be converted. God, remind us that our mission is simply to sow the seed — to cast out that truth — and that it is up to You and Your Spirit what You do with that proclamation. God, make us faithful sowers of the Word, that we might do it to Your honor and Your glory. We pray to You in Christ's name. Amen.