Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to this episode of Roots of looking into the transforming truth of God's Word. Today we explore a parable that Jesus used to open the eyes of his listeners. And it's just as powerful today. It's the story of a sower, a seed, and four kinds of soil. But this isn't just a farming lesson. This is a reflection of your heart.
And what if the next time you hear the word of God, it changes everything?
In this message titled the Seed of the Word for the soul of the Heart, we'll discover how the same seed, the Word of God, can produce radically different results depending on one thing, the condition of your heart.
You will be challenged to plow up hard ground, dig out the rocks, pull the weeds and soften the soil so that God's Word takes root and bears fruit in your life.
Stay tuned and prepare your heart for the seed is powerful and the harvest eternal.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Chapter 13, verse 1 begins. And that same day, Jesus went out of the house and he sat by the lake.
Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it while all the people stood on the shore.
Then he told them many things in parables.
Now notice that he told them many things in parables.
And he said a farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came along and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil, so it sprang up quickly.
But when the sun rose and the heat of the day came on, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root.
Other seed fell along thick thorns which grew up and choked the plants.
Still other seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop a hundred times, sixty times, thirty times. Those are all good.
Let's begin with a word of prayer as we go to God's Word this morning.
Father, we pray that you would take your word and let it be the seed that falls on good soil.
Encourage our hearts before you that Lord, you are the one who gives the increase.
For your name's sake, we ask this in Jesus name.
Amen.
I just wonder, what if tomorrow or the next time that you hear God's word, that what would happen if everything changed because of that?
What if the next time you hear God's word, whether it's from a preacher on a podcast or whatever, or maybe it's even in the quiet times that you have in devotions, or maybe it's even just a friend speaking with you, it isn't just another Word.
What if that is the very word that God has appointed to take you and take root deep in your life and deepen your soul and have it bear much fruit even to outlive you?
Jesus told that exact story or parable when we look at Matthew, chapter 13.
And I love this passage because he didn't leave it open to interpretation.
Actually, the parable of the sower and the seed goes from verse three all the way down to verse nine.
And then Jesus is asked by the disciples, why are you teaching in parables? Why are you telling stories?
And Jesus explains that the parables are given because some people are not going to understand.
So it's a challenge to listen.
But he says it's been given to you disciples to listen and to take the Word in and to understand it. It uses the word that means to fully absorb, to take it all in and understand.
And then in the verses that remain from verse 18 to verse 23, he says, now let me tell you what this means.
And so he begins by opening up the word of God and saying to the disciples, I want you to fully understand what. What this parable of the seeds and the sower actually mean.
Now, when Jesus told that the seed of the Word falls, it's the same seed every time.
It's God's seed, God's word.
But the results are totally different, because there was one thing that was different, and that's the soil that it fell on.
And here's what's remarkable about this.
The condition of the soil for you and I depends on us when we talk about the seed.
I want to just tell you real quickly so that you get the picture. I want you to get the full picture.
During the time of Christ, there were two ways of sowing seed.
Most frequently, I think of the old picture that was painted and showed the sower and the seed, and he was carrying that sack of seed, and he was going and spreading the seed like that.
But there was actually another way of heavy sowing of seed that was practiced in the time of Christ.
And that's where they would take either a cow or some cattle or a donkey, whatever animal that they could take.
They would put saddlebags basically on that animal, two sacks of seed spread across the haunches of that animal, and they would poke holes in the seed sacks.
And so as the animal would walk, the seed was constantly dropping out. So you can kind of picture this going along and how when Christ described the sewer and the seed, you can kind of picture this as the seed dropping everywhere as they went along.
Now when we think about this, the word of God, the seed has the power to transform your life and mine, but only if the ground is prepared to receive it, to respond to it, to take it and give it root.
You think of the power that scripture gives to the Word of God. In Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12, familiar verse, it says, and the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double edged sword it penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. So he's saying, you know, it divides even between your mortal self and the spiritual parts of your body. That's how the Word of God can be active. And then he says, it's just like a surgeon going and applying it to even separating bone and marrow.
Wow.
And he says, and it judges the thoughts and attitudes of our heart.
Wow, that's powerful word.
And it says that the word of God is not simply a collection of words.
I read lots of collections of words.
Although I keep telling people I don't read, I listen. Because I'd much rather listen than read.
Because my mind gets too boggled up when I'm sitting there reading and I want to go back and read the last sentence again. I have a terrible time reading. I was a terrible reader when I was growing up, but I loved listening.
And so it's not just the collection of words that's communicating an idea.
It's living life changing dynamic as it works in us. That's what the word of God is.
And God's word reveals who we are and what we are.
It penetrates to the very core.
If we hear and it goes back to the repeated thing in scripture, many, many times over, he that has an ear, let him hear.
You know, many times when we deal with somebody and especially our own children, oh, I love this, you know, they would say, yeah, yeah, I hear, yeah, pay attention and do something is what you wanted to say as a parent.
But you see, that's what the Word of God is saying to us. It penetrates to us and it discerns within us what is good and what is evil.
The demands of God's word actually require us to make decisions.
First. Thessalonians, chapter one and verse five says, because our gospel came to you not simply with words. Now listen to this.
Didn't come. Gospel didn't come simply by words, but also with power and with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.
Do we just listen the way our kids frustrated us saying, yeah, yeah, I hear you, or do we really let the word of God come and take root that's what's here.
So the problem is never the seed.
It's always the problem with the soil.
There were no green and yellow tractors back in Jesus day.
I like my John Deere. I even had a truck at one time, a 51 Chevy pickup truck that the owner before me had painted green, John Deere green, and he painted the hubcaps yellow.
John Deere yellow. I love driving that green and yellow truck around.
But when we talk about the word of God and having it sown, I said to someone earlier this morning, it's like no till farming.
Mike's sitting back there agreeing with me. Yep, we did talk about that. Did you ever think about that? That's what was going on here.
And the problem, the soil. There are four conditions of that soil that scripture puts out.
Now, what it says in chapter 13, it gives the first one.
He said the farmer went out to sow his seeds. And as he was scattering the seeds, some fell along the road, the path.
It was the packed down earth.
One writer even said there were roads within the fields that the animals used to go on so they could plow, so they could treat it, so that they could go through the land and work with the seedlings.
And he said it fell and it says here, and the birds came and ate it up.
When Jesus interprets that in verse 18, he says, anyone, when anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the NIV says the evil one comes and snatches it away.
Satan is the word that's used in the original language in this particular case, actually, in the different. If you read through the three different times that this parable is done, they use all the different words. They use diabolus, they use the word Satan. They use the word the evil one.
In all of the different translations or synoptics. I don't want to say the translations. It was actually what Luke wrote, what Mark wrote, what Matthew wrote.
And so the picture is that there are those who hear the word of God.
I want to point out one thing real quickly before I lose focus of it, and that is that wasn't necessarily. I know the NIV says the farmer, but the way it's translated in the original language, it's the sower went out to sow.
That's the way it says it.
The sower went out sowing in the field.
A lot of times it wasn't the head of the farm or the land owner necessarily. It might be one of his servants that he would send out there. So whoever had the responsibility for going out and sowing was the one going through the land and sowing the seed.
And it says that when anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one, Satan, comes and snatches it away.
What was sown in the heart, that is the seed sown on the hard path.
That's the soil that definitely wasn't prepared.
The second soil that's described, it says some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil and it sprang up quickly.
But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root.
The idea here is much of the land in Israel, very rocky ground, even in the productive parts.
And there wasn't. It literally says there was not much depth. That is exactly the way it translates. There wasn't much depth.
So you can picture this. Here's the seed. The seed falls to the ground, and it's a beautiful day. The summer rain came, it flooded the ground. It produced sprouts that came up, and boy, they look good when they come up.
But there was no depth for those roots to go down and to pull.
There was no place for it to take root.
And that's exactly the way Christ interpreted for the disciples.
In Matthew, chapter 13, verses 20 and 21. It says, A seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word of God and at once receives it with joy.
But since they have no root because there's nothing holding it in, there's no place for it to draw strength from.
They last only a short time.
And when trouble or persecution comes because of the Word, they quickly fall away.
How sad is it?
We have a commission to take the word of God and to proclaim it. That is exactly what the Great Commission says.
Go and preach the good news.
And by the way, that doesn't just mean evangelism. This passage is not just about the results of evangelism because it talks about fruit that's 100 times and 60 times and 30 times more productive.
Those were good yields because the average yield, they say, was about 20%.
That's all you got.
Go look for those signs that says which corn is growing.
And maybe we should have signs along the way that talks about how's the corn growing in our lives?
Because then it's the word of God that comes and goes into our lives.
And, boy, that's easy to see. Someone gets all excited. I'm a Christian. Oh, boy.
When somebody challenges them. Well, I don't really believe that there is the third type of soil and that third type of soil.
It's described as ones with thorns. It says in verse seven, other seed fell among thorns which grew up and choked the plants.
That was the whole description.
When the seed fell, Christ interpreted this to the disciples. In verse 22 of chapter 13, the seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the Word of God.
But the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.
No one deliberately goes to a patch of weeds and decides to throw good corn in there to see if it will grow.
That's crazy. You wouldn't do it.
But what was happening, what Christ said is, when the seed, when the word of God comes and comes into our lives, there is a need. And the thorns that he describes, I love this because the first words there about the words of this life, he actually uses a word that was used as a type of torture during the early church because it means what presses down on the chest. In this type of torture, what they would do is they would take a person, put them in the wreck, so to speak, and they would keep adding weight and they kept adding weights until eventually the chest was crushed.
There was no more life in it.
And he says, that's what our worries do to us when we begin to worry about everything.
They come and they add the weights.
But I loved one translation, and I, not sure whether it was the NLT or whether it was the ESV translation, translated the rest of this, and it says, the deceitfulness of wealth.
It said, the illusions of wealth.
When John D. Rockefeller died, he left a massive fortune.
An enterprising reporter went to Rockefeller's aide and he said, you know, I really want to report this. He says, tell me, how much did he leave?
The aide looked at him and he said, all of it.
All of it.
That doesn't say you don't prepare, but it does say that we don't take our wealth with us.
The only wealth that we take with us is the wealth in the Word of God that fills our lives.
And then when it comes down to the prepared soil.
Oh, yes, what's prepared soil, even in no till farming there is prepared.
You just have to sit there and watch the Amish farmers go through some of that stuff too.
And it's when the Word of God comes and that seed falls and. And the ground begins to accept it, and it begins to grow those roots and they go deep in the ground to dig out those nutrients that are in the ground. It's why we rotate crops, so that the nutrients are replenished what are we doing in rotating our own crop in the Word of God so that we get that fullness of. Of what God's word has for us?
It says In Matthew, chapter 13 and verse 25, when Jesus interpreted this for the disciples, it says, but the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word of God and understands it.
This is the one who produces a crop yielding 100 fold, 60 fold, 30 fold, the amount that the Word of God has that produces fruit in our lives.
Well, that raises a question.
The question is then, if we are the ones who are responsible for preparing our hearts, we have to look at our soil.
And when we look at our soil, what do we have to do to prepare that heart? And the first thing that we think of is the words to plow it up.
Do you realize that that statement is both. In the Old Testament, when God was speaking to Israel, two of the prophets actually used the term. Jeremiah, chapter four.
It says in chapter four, verses three to four. And I've got a quote from the King James, because I think it's so good, and it's what we're familiar with.
It says, for thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, in other words, the two remaining tribes. He says, I want to tell you something, guys.
It says, break up your fallow ground.
The word fallow simply means it's unplowed.
If that road that was packed dirt had been plowed up, would the seed have taken root?
If our lives weren't crushed by our worries of today, Would the word of God take root if we weren't shifting our focus away from our wealth? The illusion of I've got enough.
Would the Word of God actually be able to take root in us?
The other place that it's found in the Old Testament is the Hosea, chapter 10, verses 12 and 13.
Now, Hosea was contemporary with Isaiah.
Hosea was preaching to the 10 northern tribes.
So God was covering his bases with Israel.
And he said to them, so to yourselves, in righteousness, reap, in mercy, plow up your fallow ground.
Wow.
Do we think and even regard our soil when we hear the word of God?
The second thing that's mentioned is that rocky ground.
And when you think about the rocky ground where there's not much depth, rocks are barriers, stony places.
And some people commit themselves to Christ in an emotional and a superficial way.
But then when it comes to the times of testing, do I really believe that?
Is that what you really believe?
Huh?
Then their interest fades away when there's a Sacrificial price to pay, they go away.
We need to also pull up the weeds that grow up in us, the worries of every day, and we need to finally plow up that ground.
And that is a constant thing that we need to be doing, because otherwise we're going through our Christian lives. And you know what you're doing when you're walking through your Christian life? You're packing the ground back down.
How do we get the word of God to take root?
Well, there are many things that you could sit there and say, but the one thing that I see, there are two things that I want you to think about.
How do we begin to make our soil ready for the word of God?
The first thing is that we need to face honestly the condition of our soil in our hearts.
It means to get honest with God and to sit there and fall on our face before the Lord and say, lord, here I am.
Yeah, plow up my ground.
Dig into my life.
Second Corinthians, chapter 13 and verse 5 says, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.
Where are you putting your trust?
And you ask, is my heart open or is it cluttered?
Am I distracted?
Am I hardened?
Am I shallow in my faith?
And then the second thing, which I think is the greatest part of this, because it says, you and I are the ones that are in control of our soil, because it says that that is the time when you sit there and open yourself up to the Holy Spirit and say, lord, speak to me.
Speak to me, and I'm ready to listen. Convict me and I'm ready to move.
I'm ready to take that in.
The Holy Spirit softens the soil of my heart. Show me what must be surrendered, Lord.
The word of God has the power to transform your life and mind, but only your heart.
Only if your heart is prepared, receive it.
Only then when you receive it, you respond to it and it takes root.
Oh, that today you would purpose in your heart before the Lord. Lord, examine my soil.
Let me see it honestly.
Why isn't the word of God prospering?
I want that hundredfold. I want that 60 fold. I want that 30 fold.
I don't want to settle for 20%.
Is my heart prepared? Lord, let me look at my heart and show me where I need to change.
Plow up thy fallow ground.
And then when we are being honest before the Lord, say, lord, here I am.
Holy Spirit, teach me.
The word of God has the power to transform your life, but only if your heart is prepared to receive it, to respond to it.
And to have it take root.
Let's bow in prayer.
Father, you set before us your word and your word falls into our lives.
Lord, help us to take what we've heard today, to listen, to understand it, that our lives might be full and yielding the fruit that you want from us.
So Lord, we ask this in Jesus name.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Roots of Faith, a ministry of law and Evangelical Congregational Church in Lawn, Pennsylvania. We hope today's message has uplifted you and deepened your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember, whether you're new in the faith or have walked with him for years, God's Word is always fresh and powerful to transform.
If you are blessed by this episode, please share it with friends. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. We would love for you to join us on Sunday at 10:30am at 5566 Elizabethtown Road, Route 241 in Lawn, Pennsylvania. As always, stay rooted in the Word, stand firm in faith and keep growing in Christ.
