[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning and happy new year to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope you've had a good start to your year.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Sarah said, we are starting a new mini series today for the next three weeks we're going to look at five parables of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got one and over the next couple of weeks we'll look at two more each week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of these parables come from Matthew chapter 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew 13 is a really interesting chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's right in the middle of the gospel of Matthew.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you divide up all the verses, the middle is in this chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is a pivotal moment in the ministry of Jesus as it's recorded by Matthew.
[SPEAKER_00]: Up until this point, Jesus has been traveling around.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been preaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been gathering disciples to him and he's been preaching in a very direct manner.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's in chapter 13 that we begin to see a shift in the way he preachers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He becomes a little less direct and starts to use parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: The commentators say that there's a whole heap of other things that happen in Matthew 13 as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few other changes happen around this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't got time to go into all the depth of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the observations that many of them make is that in the chapters just before 13 in chapter 11 and chapter 12, we see another kind of shift happening as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's in the response that people have
[SPEAKER_00]: to Jesus' message and they tie this to why he's talking in parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: In chapter 11, we begin to see people pushing back a little more to Jesus' message.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of the pushback he gets is from obvious sources and some from surprising sources.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the most obvious of them is the Pharisees.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've been pushing back a little all throughout Matthew, but it's in chapter 12 that the big shift happens and we see that instead of just asking questions, they begin to plot to kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the ultimate rejection of his message at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in chapter 11, we see some other pushback as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first of which comes from John the Baptist.
[SPEAKER_00]: A surprising pushback.
[SPEAKER_00]: John the Baptist is in prison by this point, and he sends some of his disciples to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he gets them to ask Jesus, are you really the Messiah?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or should we be expecting someone else?
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's getting a little bit of pushback, even from the person who is there to usher he mean, John the Baptist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we see in verse 20 in chapter 11 that Jesus denounces some of the towns that he's spent a lot of time in.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it says that they are the towns that he performed most of his miracles in, and he denounces them because they haven't responded to his message.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even the people who've seen him do his most amazing miracles are not responding to his message.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the end of chapter 12, we even see his family coming, and they come to the house that he's in and they want to speak to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Matthew, we don't actually see what they want to talk to him about, but in some of the other gospels, we see that they're concerned with his approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Particularly, it seems, this comes right on the back of some teaching he's done about the Pharisees.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's really called the mountain, so his family, as well, are starting to push back a little.
[SPEAKER_00]: where Jesus is now getting met with resistance and outright plotting to kill Him that He shifts gears and begins to speak in parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so today we come to Matthew 13 and we're going to read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to share with you the first parable that He tells and the explanation of that parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: On this same day, Jesus went out to out of the house he was in and he sat by a lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Local tradition tells us that it's this place that he was in this particular day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was went out by the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is now called the Cove of Parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know for sure if it was here, but this seems to be the type of place that he was, because there were such crowds of people there that he gets into a boat and pushes out from the shore.
[SPEAKER_00]: This particular cave you can go to today and you can do a tour there and people will get into a boat and go out into the lake and they speak from the boat and the acoustics of this place is just incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a natural amphitheater and so we can imagine Jesus in a boat sitting down which is the position rabbi takes when they're about to preach crowds gathered on the shore and
[SPEAKER_00]: On that same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake, such large crowds gather around him that he got into a boat and he sat in it, and while all the people stood on the shore, then he told the many things in parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: saying, and I've used the word listen here because it's in the Greek, it's not in the NIV, but it's the theme of this parable listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Jesus says, listen, you've got to listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is for us as well as the people he was talking to.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: a farmer went out to sow his seed as he was scattering the seed, some fell on the path and the birds came and ate it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow, but when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root.
[SPEAKER_00]: other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still other seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop, a hundred, sixty, thirty times what was shown.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever has ears, let them hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: At this point in the story, his disciples have started to notice that he's doing something different and they're asking why he's teaching with parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't got time to go into his explanation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll touch on a little later, but I want to skip down to verse 18 where he explains the parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's worth noting here that he's only talking to his disciples at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not explaining this parable to the crowd.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, listen then, same thing as before, listen to what the parable of the cellar means.
[SPEAKER_00]: When anyone hears or listens to the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was shown in their heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the seed, sewn along the path.
[SPEAKER_00]: The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word, but it once receives it with joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But since they have no root, they last only a short time.
[SPEAKER_00]: When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.
[SPEAKER_00]: The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the one who produces a crop, yielding 160 or 30 times what was shown, and so we see here Jesus sharing his first parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting when you look at the parables, we see a shift in the method of Jesus' teaching, but we don't see a shift to big a shift in the topic of his preaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: Up until this point in Matthew, the theme of Jesus' preaching that just recurs time and time again is the kingdom of heaven is near.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in the sermon on the Mount in chapter 5, 6 and 7, we see a description of the kingdom of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we start seeing him teach about parables, in most of the parables, he actually is talking about the kingdom of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, most of them start with the words, the kingdom of heaven is like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, those words don't appear in this particular parable, but it's pretty clear that Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And particularly, he's talking about the way people will receive the kingdom of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it comes at a really good time that he shares this parable because the disciples have just seen all of these different responses to Jesus' message.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't this the Messiah?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't people just want to flock after him and follow him?
[SPEAKER_00]: And now he's getting this pushback.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this parable comes at a really great time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is using an image from agriculture, which is a really smart thing to do, because most of the people living in this part of Israel, at this time, worked on farms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of the people in the crowd that day would have literally
[SPEAKER_00]: all of them would have walked through fields where seeds were germinating and growing and crops came about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a really relevant story for Jesus to tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's going on in the story?
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing that we can notice about this parable is that it speaks of a soar or a farmer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a couple of things that we'll say about this soar.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is that this soar
[SPEAKER_00]: Just doesn't stop sowing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually don't see it in the English translation, but in the Greek, the action of sowing is mentioned in the continuous sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a sower who doesn't sow in a certain season.
[SPEAKER_00]: This sower sows and sows and sows.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just a continual sower.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a strange kind of sower, because sowers usually only sell it to times.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that I think the people listening to this story would have picked up their ears at is that this sower doesn't so in logical places.
[SPEAKER_00]: This sower isn't the seemingly the smartest of sowers because he sowed seed on paths, on rocky ground, on ground where there's thorns, and on good soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this solar is so in continually and he's so in on all types of soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some might say he's not a very smart solar, others might say he's a very generous solar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's generosity that we can take out of this particular lesson because the solar in this story is Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can actually see in the time of Jesus in His ministry that He soes very generously.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, rabbis of this time were expected to go to some people, but to stay away from others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus goes to all people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes to the holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He interacts with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, but he also interacts with the tax collectors.
[SPEAKER_00]: He interacts with men and women, interacts with the old and the young children.
[SPEAKER_00]: interact with the clean and the unclean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interacts with the Jews, the Samaritans, the Gentiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus goes to all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes to those who we would expect will reject his message.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes back to them time and time again.
[SPEAKER_00]: He continues to interact with the Pharisees even after they start to plot to kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He continues to sow his seed, sowing on all types of soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this parable isn't about the solar, I think he's there, but he fades away in this particular story.
[SPEAKER_00]: This parable really has two other main characters, and they are the seed and the soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we're going to focus most of our time on this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The seed in this particular parable is identified in verse 19 as the message about the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: The message about the kingdom, that word message is the word logos.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's translated in a variety of ways in different gospels.
[SPEAKER_00]: John says the Logos is a name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, right in chapter one, that the Logos was with God, the Logos was God, and we find out that Jesus is the Logos in John.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Matthew is not using the word in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's using the word logos as the message of Jesus, the content of his preaching, the gospel, the good news of his message about the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God that is arriving through him.
[SPEAKER_00]: this is the message and it's a message that requires a response.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus isn't just giving a philosophy or a theory, he's giving an invitation to people and it's the response to this
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that Jesus uses a seed as a picture to illustrate his message and the coming of his kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: By equating the message with a seed, he's saying that his message has latent life within it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has the potential to be germinated and to be bringing life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's also saying that his kingdom, the kingdom that he's saying is coming with him is unlike any other kind of kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the kingdoms that have come throughout history, kingdoms normally come about through force.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Jewish people at this time have experienced the coming of a kingdom, the Roman Empire upon them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It came through overpowering, it came through violence, it came through threat through coercion, through smashing everything that stood in its way.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how kingdoms normally come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says His kingdom is brought about in a very different way through His message which is a seed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeds are small.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeds are easily overlooked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeds are relatively unremarkable
[SPEAKER_00]: They quietly and gradually work to bring about life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at the ministry of Jesus, this is how he came.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came and his message was a seed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it didn't have massive impact at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the end of Jesus' life, life in Acts, we see a hundred or so people gathering together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It hadn't had a massive impact at that point, but it changed the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are here today because of the seed that germinated in those hundred or so people and that grew into something quite significant.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this parable talked of the seed, the message about the kingdom of heaven, and it has four types of soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: The four types of soil,
[SPEAKER_00]: Speak of the way the seed is received four different responses to this seed and each one responds in a different way and the outcome is different as a result of that Jesus explains that these are four ways his message is received and four ways that his message has already been received
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure as he shared these four soil types that the disciples would have had in their minds, people come to mind that were represented in these seats, perhaps they even saw themselves in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beauty of parables is that they invite us.
[SPEAKER_00]: to find ourselves in the stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the power of storytelling.
[SPEAKER_00]: We automatically begin to see ourselves in the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to invite you this morning to see yourself, find yourself in this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Find where you have been and where you are today.
[SPEAKER_00]: These first three types of soils should act as warnings or tests for us to think about how we listen to and respond to the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first type of soil should act as a warning.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be aware of listening to the message with a hard heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, when anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was shown in their heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the seed shown on the first path.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our fields in Israel had no fences, they had no boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And between many of the towns and villages in Israel there were no roads.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead there were paths and these paths wound their way through fields.
[SPEAKER_00]: These would be well-trodden paths, and the so I would have been walking along the paths to sew their seeds, but animals would have walked people would have walked along there to get from one place to another, and with any path the ground becomes hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a result of this hardness, the compacting of the soil, it is not a very smart place to sew seed, because the seed simply bounces off in sits on the surface.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't penetrate the soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't sink into the soil, and as a result, it doesn't germinate, and it's easily snatched away.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus' explanation of the power will, he says that the person described by this soil type hears the message, they actually hear the message.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, all of the force soils hear the message, but they do not understand it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't know about you, but when I first read that this week, I was like, this doesn't seem very fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: The person described here
[SPEAKER_00]: is Jesus saying that if you're not smart enough, you're the first soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not intelligent enough, I don't think that's what he's saying, thankfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of us in the room are probably going, who?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what Jesus is saying here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word, understand here, has depth to it when you look at it in the Greek.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've spent a lot of time meditating on this word and reading about it this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't just speaking of an intellectual understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word is synemi.
[SPEAKER_00]: It speaks of a posture.
[SPEAKER_00]: It speaks of an attitude towards understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, between the parable and the explanation of the parable, the disciples come to Jesus and ask him why he's talking in parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as part of his explanation, he quotes Isaiah, and I think it is relevant for this first soil type.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he reads out, or he resorts from Isaiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you will be ever hearing, but never understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving.
[SPEAKER_00]: For these people's heart has become calist, it's become hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: They hardly hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus hears speaking about some people who have ears but don't hear and have eyes but they don't see because they have closed their eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have hardened themselves so that nothing will penetrate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is saying that some will hear His message, but it won't penetrate, it won't become personal, they will keep it at arms length.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder here whether He's speaking of the Pharisees, those who have rejected His message in the preceding chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the Pharisees that we see interact with Jesus come to him with questions, but their questions that are simply asked to prove their own point or to trap him in some way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the Pharisees, not all, but most of them don't seem to genuinely want to understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their posture is closed towards his message.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I look around the room today and I don't see any Pharisees among us, but perhaps some of us can see ourselves in this soil type.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps some of us have kept the gospel at arms length, perhaps we've kept or made our hearts hard, perhaps we've heard the message and it hasn't sunk in.
[SPEAKER_00]: This parable invites us to allow our hearts to be more open, to change the posture that we have towards the message.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next soil type speaks about listening with a shallow heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It warns us of doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says that this person hears the word again, and they receive it with joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's initial growth, the seed germinates, and becomes a seedling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It breaks the surface of the soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like it's healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ground in Israel in many places is like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a thin top saw, but underneath it, there's a shelf of limestone, which prevents roots from going down.
[SPEAKER_00]: The limestone traps the water above the surface and it heats up the earth, which makes it an ideal place for germination.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why the seed is growing, and it grows quickly at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the seed doesn't know how to stand up to the heat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I wonder here where the Jesus is actually talking about the crowds.
[SPEAKER_00]: At times, Jesus teaches to crowds of thousands of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know, in one instance, there's at least 5,000 people there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They flock to see Him, even into desolate wilderness places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Going without food, just to see him preach and to listen to his words and to see his miracles and to see him confront the religious leaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he comes into Jerusalem in Matthew 21, there are crowds of people greeting him with enthusiasm and joy, putting their cloaks on the ground, waving branches around, shouting out all the right things.
[SPEAKER_00]: They seem to get him, they seem to understand that he's the Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as Aaron, who did our online service spoke about last week, the faith of the crowds is fickle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's flaky.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are the crowds just a few days later?
[SPEAKER_00]: They are together again shouting out crucify him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They flipped so quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: The crowd has a certain expectation of what a Messiah should look like, and what he should do for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when Jesus doesn't come in that way, they're gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they become aggressive towards Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says the one who initially responds with joy, but has no roots will wither in the heat, when trouble or persecution comes, when suffering comes, when confronted with the real gospel message.
[SPEAKER_00]: They fall away.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Greek says that they quickly stumble another interpretation of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Timothy Keller in his sermon on the sermon on the sermon that the Sawa says that this group of people want a sugar daddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want someone who blesses them, who provides a service to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say that as long as Jesus helps me in the way I want him to help me, I will follow, but if that stops, I'm out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first type of soil reminds us, or warns us, I'm listening with a hard heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: This second type of soil warns us of listening
[SPEAKER_00]: The third type of soil warns us of listening with a divided heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: This type of soil accepts the seed, they hear the message, the roots start to go down, the plant even matures, but the problem at faces is competition, thorns.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thorns aren't unique to Israel, in fact, I have a thorn growing down my side, path
[SPEAKER_00]: Thorns grow quickly, their hearty plants, they compete for light and water in nutrients from the soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they may not always kill the plants around them, but they can severely limit the potential for fruit on those plants.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is explicit about what these thorns are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they shouldn't be a surprise to us because he's preached about these things very directly in the sermon on the Mount.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, the thorns are the worries of life,
[SPEAKER_00]: and the deceitfulness of wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word deceitfulness can also be translated delights, so the delights of wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think both of those words are relevant here.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I said, Jesus is spoken about both of these things in the sermon on the mount.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Matthew 6 we find that he has teaching on worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you eat or drink or your body or what you're aware, is not life more than food and the body more than clothes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes on to encourage his listeners to instead of worrying, to put their minds to seeking first the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, preceding this particular teaching on worry, there's a teaching on riches and on wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, do not stir up for yourself treasures on earth instead stir up for yourself treasures in heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He makes the observation for where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he explicitly says, you cannot serve both God and money.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we serve the wrong things, they tend to choke out the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think his white Jesus is saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's interesting in this parable, the plant doesn't die, it doesn't wither, and die.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is limited in its potential to bear fruit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately you only plan to crop because you want it to produce a crop.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see to produce crop.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we allow the worries of life,
[SPEAKER_00]: and the deceitfulness and the delights of wealth to rise up in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: It chokes out the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't know about you, but for me, this is the soil that challenges me the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a world where it's so easy to be consumed by worry and anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a world where the delights of wealth all around us, and it's so easy to have a mind's focus upon these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a world where the deceitfulness of wealth is there as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many things that tell us that if we pursue them, we will have life.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is challenging stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even this week, as I've been preparing and thinking about this parable,
[SPEAKER_00]: Worries have captivated my mind at time and the shiny objects of life have taken my focus away as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where might our hearts be divided?
[SPEAKER_00]: What worries and anxieties threaten to choke out the gospel in your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: What deceptions and delights of wealth could also be threatening to choke out the gospel message.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first saw warns us of listening with a hard heart, the second of listening with a shallow heart, the third of listening with a divided heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lastly, Jesus moves on to the good soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the only soil he says is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: This person, like all of the other soils, he is the word, but this one understands it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the result is a crop fruit that's considerably more than what was shown.
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference between this soil and the other three seems to be the word understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: This passage of the first 23 verses of Matthew 13 uses the word hearing or listening 17 times.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at first glance, it seems to be the major thing, but what Jesus seems to really be on about is not just hearing the gospel message, but understanding it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This
[SPEAKER_00]: but having a posture of openness to understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: This starts with listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to listen if we want to understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why I think Jesus tells us to listen so often in this parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's about letting the message sink in.
[SPEAKER_00]: about penetrating, becoming personal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about letting it to grow roots deep down, and to allow you, your faith to become mature.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's when we actually let it sink in that we begin to see the things in our world that could be choking out the message.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's when we allow ourselves to have a posture of understanding that we're able to stand against those things as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: This week I was reading in Proverbs and I came across this particular proverb which speaks about understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this speaks about the posture of understanding really well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice as I read it how active we are called to be and of highlighted some of the words there.
[SPEAKER_00]: My son, if you accept my words and you store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom, applying your heart to understanding, indeed if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, if you look for it as for silver, if you search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and you will find the knowledge of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: for the Lord gives wisdom from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are called to be active in seeking understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: This proverb tells us that understanding comes from God, but we are to pursue it.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is the one who gives understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not our work that brings it, but we need to pursue it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the best illustration of this is in the disciples themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever noticed when you're reading the Gospels how often Jesus gets frustrated with his disciples for not understanding something?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fascinating to do a study of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I encourage you this week to read through the book of Matthew and to find out where Jesus gets frustrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I noticed last night when I was reading is that it all happens after this parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: It happens after he tells them to be standing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's constantly telling them that they don't understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's constantly correcting them.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, in Matthew 13, and Jesus tells another parable, and Peter comes up to him and says, can you explain it to me?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus is quite mean to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, are you so dull?
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't understand, and Jesus points it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet in time, they do understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: the more they spend time with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we get to the point in acts where this small group of people have understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Acts 4, Peter stands up in front of the Jewish Council, the most religious people, the most educated people in all of Jerusalem, and he stands up, and he speaks with such
[SPEAKER_00]: eloquence and authority and boldness and understanding that it says that the council were astonished.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they realized he was an unschooled and ordinary man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet something was different about this man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they can only put it down to the fact that he had been with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the time that he'd spent with Jesus, the one who was once duller became astonishing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what I believe happens when we spend time with him as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to finish by just giving you two things that I think we can do to seek understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first one we actually saw there in that that proverb, or could you put it back up on the screen for me, the proverb says, to cry out for it, to seek it, to call out to God for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was reading in Colossians this week where Paul prays for the Colossians.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what does he pray for this group of Christians?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, we continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work.
[SPEAKER_00]: He prays for the Colossians to have understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is a great prayer for us to pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to encourage you this year to pray this prayer and to keep coming back to this prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ask the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit, we've filming with the wisdom and the understanding of your kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Soften my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remove the rocks from my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help me to see the things that potentially could choke out the gospel within me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me understanding of your kingdom, cry out to it, call out to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make this part of your rhythm of life this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the second thing I want is linked to this one, and that is the spend time with the solar.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to see the seed of the gospel take root in your life this year, spend time with the solar, the one who continually soes, who soes on all soil types.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more time we spend with the solar, the more we will understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as you look at your year ahead and you've probably done your resolutions already, I want to encourage you to not just have the resolutions to be better and to be healthier and to have better relationships, make a commitment this year to spend time with the solar.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no better time to establish some practices around this.
[SPEAKER_00]: When will you spend time in the Word this year?
[SPEAKER_00]: Build it into your week.
[SPEAKER_00]: When will you spend time in prayer this year?
[SPEAKER_00]: Build it into your week.
[SPEAKER_00]: When will you spend time with other believers this year?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where two or three are gathered, that's where Jesus is, he says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Build it into your week.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is when we are in his presence that we are best able to deal with the hardness of our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's when we're in His presence that we're able to identify the rocks in our lives and smash them up with His help.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's when we're in His presence that we're most clearly see the thorns and be able to resist them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in His presence that the seed germinates and grows and fruit is produced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, we thank you that you are a sower, who is so generous, that you are constantly selling, that you would scatter the message of your kingdom across every soil type, including ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though God as we think about the year ahead, we want to be more than just casual hearers of your gospel message, like the prayer of Paul the Apostle, we want to ask that you would fill us with your knowledge and understanding and wisdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit, we give us that understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: We bring to life what the gospel message truly means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to not only hear your message this year, but to be people who have a posture of understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, we recognize that the transformation that we see in the good soil of this parable only happens when we stay close to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that you would help us to find rhythms,
[SPEAKER_00]: and habits and practices this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will enable us to have that proximity with you, that relationship with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, I pray for each person here today who has seen themselves in one of the soil types.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those who see that they're hard to hide, we use softened them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We plow their hearts and make them more open to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those who see that they are in rocky soil, their faith is shallow.
[SPEAKER_00]: We smash those rocks and help them to find new depth in their relationship with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for those who feel like the message has been choked out by the worries and anxieties of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: While the shiny objects, the delights and the deceitfulness of wealth, we enable them to deal with those things that consume their minds and help them to refurpose back onto you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do your gardening work in a subpray and may the seed of your kingdom produce a harvest in us, 30, 60, and a hundredfold times more than what is so need to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.