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The Good News of Jesus

12/14/2008 - What Kind of Dirt Are You?, Mark 4:1-20

Jesus loved people. He loved all kinds of people. As you read through the gospels you see that Jesus talks with men and women, young and old, children and babies. In his teaching he talks about fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. He refers to people who are single and who are engaged and who are married, brides and grooms, husbands and wives. He talks about neighbors and relatives, friends and enemies. There's hardly a relationship that Jesus doesn't address.

He seems totally at ease moving among people of all kinds of social and economic backgrounds. He hangs with people from all walks of life. In fact it's amazing to me when you read about all the different kinds of people that Jesus talks with or talks about. There are shepherds, farmers, fishermen, laborers, soldiers, guards, police, thieves, prostitutes, beggars, rabbis. He talks about doctors and bankers and managers and tax collectors, kings, governors, rulers and judges. There are innkeepers and shopkeepers and teachers and students and masters and slaves and landowners and tenants and builders and merchants. He talks with priests and Levites, elders and professors, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians.

Jesus interacts with people in every kind of human condition. There are the rich and the poor, the hungry and the thirsty, the humble and the proud, the uneducated and the well educated. There are the disrespected and the well respected, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the dumb, the demon possessed. There are debtors and lepers, cheaters and hypocrites, wise and foolish, evil and good, those who laugh and those who cry. There are Greeks and Romans, Jews and Gentiles, Samaritans and Galileans, city slickers and country folk. Some who were hated, some who were loved, some in prison, some oppressed, some broken hearted and some with no hope.

Jesus moves easily among all kinds of people from all walks of life. And they're coming to see Jesus by the thousands, but when he looks out at the masses what he sees is people's hearts. Jesus can look past all the stuff on the outside because he's most concerned with what's going on on the inside. He's most concerned about the condition of our hearts. And in today's passage Jesus is going to describe four kinds of hearts that beat inside the people who were coming to him then and that beat inside the people who come to him today. And all of us in this room have one of these four kinds of hearts.

If you have a Bible turn with me to Mark 4:1-20 as we continue our series called The Good News of Jesus … As Told By Mark. Look at Mark 4:1-2, Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. ²He taught them many things by parables.

Let's stop right here. Once again, Jesus goes down to the lake, that's the Sea of Galilee, and he's mobbed with people. And so to create a little space between himself and the crowd he climbs into a boat and pushes out into the lake while the people come right up to the water's edge as close as they can. And with the boat as his pulpit he begins to teach them with parables. Now this marks a significant shift in the way Jesus is going to communicate.

Last week, we came across the first mention of the word "parable" when Jesus responded to the accusation that he was casting out demons in the power of Satan. In Mark 3:23 we read and he began to speak to them in parables.

And that's when Jesus talked about entering the strong man's house and tying up the strong man and plundering his property. The strong man in that story was Satan. And the one tying him up and cleaning him out was Jesus. That was a parable.

Our English word parable comes from two Greek words balle with means "to throw" and para which means "alongside." So the word parable means "to throw alongside." And so when Jesus tells a parable he takes a mystery about the kingdom of God and throws it alongside a simple story that everybody can relate to.

He wasn't the first rabbi to do this. Other rabbis told stories, but nobody told a story like Jesus. He was the best storyteller. About 1/3^rd of his recorded words in the gospels are parables. When you count them up there are about 40 of them. In fact, in Matthew 13:34 we read that Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables. He did not say anything to them without using a parable.

Jesus told everyday stories about everyday people like desperate widows and corrupt judges and buried treasure and lazy employees and bad debts and noisy neighbors. He would take everyday situations and throw truth alongside to teach people about God and about his kingdom because he wanted people to think about these things in the everyday experiences of life. And the crowds loved to hear him spin stories.

And the parable that Jesus tells in Mark 4 is foundational to all his other parables because it addresses the condition of every human heart. It's the parable of the sower and it's found in each of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And it talks about each one of us and God's dream for our lives.

Let's look at it together starting with verse 2 , He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said, ³"Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. ⁸Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times." ⁹Then Jesus said, "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear."

It's very likely that when Jesus was telling this parable there was a farmer right next to the lake sowing seed in his field. Farms and fields surround portions of the Sea of Galilee so it's very possible that Jesus was pointing to a farmer as he told the story.

Now before he interprets it look at what he says in verse 10, When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. ¹¹He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables ¹²so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'"

Jesus told parables to reveal the kingdom of God and he told parables to sift the crowd. Those who wanted to know more would hang around after the closing prayer and ask Jesus what he meant by the story, just like they were doing now. And those who didn't would leave scratching their heads wondering "what in the world is this guy talking about." But that was to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah who said that, they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding, otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!

That's sounds odd, doesn't it? It almost sounds like Jesus was trying to hide the truth with parables. But he wasn't. Instead, the telling of a parable would reveal the heart of the listener. And anybody who wanted to know more was always welcome to come back again or to stay after and talk with him.

I like the way The Message puts this passage when it says, "You've been given insight into God's kingdom - you know how it works. But to those who can't see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight. These are people 'whose eyes are open but don't see a thing, whose ears are open but don't understand a word, who avoid making an about-face and getting forgiven.'"

Now in this parable there are three elements, the sower, the seed and the soil. And when you study a parable you want to look for the part of the story that changes, because that's the point Jesus is driving at. In this story the sower doesn't change. It's not a story about good sowers and bad sowers. The sower is Jesus the one who scatters the seed generously. He's an extravagant sower. The seed doesn't change. It's not a parable about good seed and bad seed. The seed Jesus says is the word which is the gospel, the good news of the kingdom that he's been proclaiming. What changes is the soil. There are four kinds of soil in this story. And each soil represents a heart condition. And so as we unpack the parable I want you to think of your heart and what kind of dirt you are.

Look at verse 13, Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? ¹⁴The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

The first soil is a hard packed path. In Israel, when a farmer planted a crop he would sow the seed first. He'd carry it in a bag over his shoulder and throw it out by hand. Then afterwards he'd plough the ground and turn the seed under. And if he was a lavish farmer some of the seed would end up on a path or on a road like this one that bordered his field, a road that was used by sheep and goats and donkeys and people going from town to town. And if seed ends up on the road, Jesus says, Satan will come and takes it away so that it has no root. Growth demands soil that is soft.

And that's exactly what was happening in Jesus' ministry. We saw it last week with the contingent that came down from Jerusalem claiming that Jesus was possessed by the devil. They had listened to Jesus teach, they had heard the message of the kingdom, but they didn't buy it. Their hearts were hard and the seed was taken away.

Jesus understands that not everybody is going to receive the seed. Not everybody is going to respond to the good news of the gospel. And I think it's significant that he uses a path, a road as the picture of a hard heart. Because often people whose hearts are hard have been beaten down and run over by life. They've been trampled on and hurt deeply and disappointed a lot. And when those things happen its easy to strap protective armor around our hearts. And when we have hard hearts toward God the devil can come in like the birds and take away the word and keep us from believing. There's a spiritual battle going on here.

But I believe that hard hearts can be softened, they can be softened by the love of Christ. We talk a lot about the mission of Christ around here and all the ways that we can put the gospel into practice. And when people see the good news lived out and find themselves on the receiving end of the love of Christ their hearts can be softened to the message of the gospel. Maybe there really is a God out there who loves me? You hear stories like that all the time.

Hard soil needs to be softened up so the seed has a chance to be received and take root and grow. And the good news is that God's seed is powerful and it only needs a crack to start growing.

The second soil in this story is the rocky soil. Look at verse 16,Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Israel is the land of rocks. Rocks are everywhere. Even where there is good soil it's sometimes only a few inches deep, underneath is a bedrock of limestone and often those stones come right through the soil. And when good seed falls on rocky soil it sprouts up quickly and then it withers away because it has no root system. Not only does growth demand soil that is soft, but growth requires soil that is deep.

Jesus knew that there would be plenty of people who would follow him as long as things were going great. Some of those who were healed may have thought that their troubles were over and life would be a piece of cake now that they've met Jesus. But their faith was shallow and as soon as life got hard or they were ridiculed for following this renegade rabbi they quickly fell away. In Luke's account of this parable Jesus talks about those who believe for a while, but in the time of testing fall away.

We need to be careful that we don't have false expectations of the gospel. When we believe in Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are rescued out of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light. We become members of God's family, indwelt by his Holy Spirit, and on our way to heaven. That's a lot to be thankful for.

But Jesus never promised that our problems would go away. Instead, he promises to be with us in the midst of our problems and gives us the assurance that he won't put us through more than we can bear and that he's working all things together for the good of those who love him. But that's not the same as saying life will be easy.

Later on in Mark 8:34 Jesus will say, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Following Jesus can be tough because life is tough. I'm continually amazed and challenged by those in our Valley View community who are going through difficult times. Right now it seems like we have an exceptional amount of people who are battling illnesses, cancer in particular. And when I talk with them and pray with them and hear their trust in Christ I'm humbled by it. Oh I know they have their moments, but for the most part they're clinging to their faith in Jesus because their roots go deep down into the soil.

One night this week Jennifer and I fell asleep talking and praying for some of the needs in our community. At one point we both said, "I don't understand it. Why is life so tough for this person or for that family? Why doesn't Jesus just take it away? I know he can. It seems like way more than anyone should be able to bear." The stuff of life can tank our faith if our roots are shallow.

This summer in our Transformers series we talked all about the ways that our roots go deeper into God's good soil through worship, the Scriptures, prayer, community with other believers. Acts of justice and peacemaking and compassion and beauty and love are all ways to sink our roots deeper into God's good soil. But if we cut ourselves off from those habits we can quickly fall away. It can happen to any of us.

Growth requires soil that is soft. Growth requires soil that is deep. And growth requires soil that is uncluttered. Look at verse 18, Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Some seed, Jesus says, falls on thorny soil where there are weeds that choke out the life of the seed. The soil's soft enough, the soil's deep enough, but there's another problem. The soil is just so cluttered with other things that growth is stunted. The energy and vitality of the soil get bled off in so many other directions that the seed fails to thrive and never reaches maturity.

The Twelve apostles could track with this because they knew of others who were invited to follow Jesus but didn't. And they all had excuses but most of them boiled down to these three the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things.

These are the things, Jesus says, that can stunt our growth. Does anybody here struggle with too much clutter in their life? How can we not? We live in America where consumerism reigns? We live on the northeast corridor where the pace of life can be insane along with the stress that goes with it. Clutter sounds like a little thing, but it can be lethal to the kingdom work that God wants to do in and through us. And unless we do some weeding out in our lives we'll never reach our full potential in Christ. Weeds don't just go away. Weeds spread unless we're ruthless about rooting them out.

In Luke's account Jesus says, worry, riches and pleasure choke the seed. We worry don't we? We worry about everything and our minds get cluttered with the stress of this world. Yet Jesus says, Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. But seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Worry chokes the seed. Riches choke the seed. In our credit card culture we can get so overextended financially that it chokes the generosity and the vitality right out of us. It's easy to adopt a lifestyle that can keep us working day and night to sustain. And that can drain us and put the cares of this world ahead of the kingdom of God.

Worry chokes the seed. Riches choke the seed. Pleasure chokes the seed. As a parent of three children I know how easy it is to get so busy running our kids around to practices and games and clubs and lessons that we run the risk of communicating that life is all about activity and accomplishment and achievement. And it can choke us all. Every good thing may not be the best thing. We've got to make some hard choices if the seed is going to produce a harvest in our lives.

Hard hearts, shallow faith, cluttered lives choke God's work in us. But Jesus says where the soil is soft and the soil is deep and the soil is uncluttered, watch out! You won't believe what can happen. Growth is unstoppable.

Look at verse 20, Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown."

In a good harvest year in Israel one seed could bring forth a crop of 20 or 25. But Jesus says, "In my kingdom one seed can bring forth a crop of a hundred fold. That's how potent my seeds are." The kind of fruitfulness that God wants for each one of us is beyond belief. This is what he dreams about for your life and for mine. And we can be good soil too, every one of us, as we let God soften our hearts and deepen our roots and weed the clutter out of our lives.

I believe that Jesus told this parable for two reasons, first for examination and then for preparation. He wanted his followers to know that when they scattered seed they wouldn't always see a harvest. But that wasn't a reflection on them or on the quality of the seed, but on the hearts that received it. They were just to be faithful seed sowers and God would do the rest. And that's our responsibility too, to be faithful, lavish seed sowers of the good news of the kingdom by word and by deed. And then let God do the rest. After all, it's his harvest.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.