The Sower and the Seed

The Sower and the Seed

Introduction

§ Today we turn our attention to the Gospel of Luke and in particular chapter 8.

§ As you are turning there let me quickly say that each of the gospels tells the story of Jesus from not only a different perspective but also with a different focus.

§ Matthew’s gospel focused on Jesus as the Wonderful Messiah; King of the Jews

§ Mark’s gospel portrays Christ as the Mighty God; the miracle worker

§ Luke was written to a Gentile audience and affirms Jesus to us as the Counselor and the Savior of all of mankind

§ John presents Jesus to us as the incarnate deity, the Everlasting Father in his essential nature

§ These four aspects of Christ’s ministry were prophesied about him hundreds of years before he was born by Isaiah in chapter 9 and verse 6

§ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be calledWonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

§ If you were paying close attention there you noticed that I explained to you the relationship of the four gospels in light of Isaiah 9:6 but Isaiah actually listed 5 aspects of God’s plan for redemption; the final one Prince of Peace is revealed to us through the agency of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts.

§ But for today our attention will be focused on Luke’s gospel. Remember that Luke portrays Jesus to us as a Counselor and the Savior of the world. Is it any surprise then that Luke’s gospel records for us more parables than any other gospel and several in this gospel aren’t in the other three.

§ Today we are going to go to the Scriptures and examine one of those parables that I am sure many of you would consider yourself very familiar with; the parable of the Sower and the Seed.

§ For those of you have been in church since your youth or even if you have spent a good portion of your adult life in church then you probably are already familiar with the basics of the story.

§ For those of you who aren’t perhaps familiar with this parable, or any other parable for that matter, you should know that a parable is a teaching tool kind of like an allegory.

§ Simply stated a parable is: “An earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”

§ What is meant by that is that the content of the story is very simple and down to earth and describes something that the listener is already familiar with, somewhat like an analogy.

§ The key aspect of the parable that makes it different from an analogy or an allegory is that the teacher is first of all Christ, and second the meaning and message of the story is about His Kingdom.

§ So today we look at the parable of the Sower and the Seed

§ However today I would like to examine it from perhaps a slightly different angle than you have examined it before.

§ Now that you have had opportunity to locate Luke 8 let’s go to the Lord in a word of prayer and ask him to bless His Word.

The parable

Luke 8:5-8 A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. ⁶And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. ⁷And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. ⁸And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold." As he said these things, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
So that is the parable. Now in verse 11 Jesus begins to explain the parable
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. ¹²The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. ¹³And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. ¹⁴And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. ¹⁵As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
It all seems so simple on first glance doesn’t it? The story is told and then the explanation is given.
Are you like me; does your mind race and you begin to assign peoples faces to the various types of soils?
Well old Bob he always was hard hearted, would never listen to any talk about God, I guess Satan just snatched the word out of his heart.
Or do you sit there and say yes, remember that one family that used to come to church; until they bought a boat; now every Sunday they are out boating and we never see them here.
That is how mind has always worked, I begin assigning the people I know into the four buckets, or rather into one of four types of soil.

Some fell along the path

Luke 8:34-38
However before I can read that I need to set the backdrop
When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. ³⁶And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed^[d] man had been healed. ³⁷Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. ³⁸The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying,
Notice the response of the people, it was not wonder, love and amazement but terror.
This is the same word for fear that was used in Luke 2 when the shepherds saw the angels and the sky was filled with angels singing and praising God.
The people were terrified to be in the presence of God.
However no matter how scared they were then it will not compare with how terrified they will be when the stand before a just and holy God who is their judge and stands ready to send them to Hell for all eternity for the sins which they committed and because they did not believe on the Son.
I think the thing that strikes me about this story is this isn’t the man or woman that won’t talk about God because they are angry at God or doesn’t believe in God.
These people knew that this man ran around the tombs, that he never wore any clothing, that he would cut himself, and cry out, they had seen or heard about him being bound in chains and because of supernatural power he could break the chains that he was bound with. And when they arrive the text tells us, he was sitting clothed and in his right mind.
The people knew something had changed, they could see the power of God clearly in his life. The miracle worker was sitting right next to the man and they knew it, and they were afraid.
Let me ask you something, maybe you have never seen a man possessed of a legion of demons set free but what was your response the last time you saw God do something wonderful and spectacular?
Examine your own heart today and ask yourself the tough questions, what did you do with Jesus?

Some fell on the rocks

That seed which fell among the rocks is those that receive the word with joy but when times of testing come they fall away for they have no depth of root.
Luke quickly turns around and models for us this very type of person right here in the same chapter just a few verses down.
The story continues and Jesus does as the people ask and he leaves their region never to return and after sailing back we read
Luke 8:40-42 Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. ⁴¹And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house, ⁴²for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.
…49-50
While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, "Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more." ⁵⁰But Jesus on hearing this answered him, "Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well."
…52-53
And all were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, "Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping." ⁵³And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.
This group of people seemed sincere, they were waiting on the bank for his boat to return to their region.
They had the outward appearance of disciples, they waited, the followed, they listened but they lacked one key.
They did not truly believe; when the difficulties came they fell away because they lacked root or in other words lacked substance.
Let’s be honest about belief. It is fairly easy to follow a stranger when they say what you already believe to be true.
If a stranger walked in here and said follow me, I am going to take you to every theme park in Southern California because I am here to proclaim to you that theme parks are fun he could draw quite a crowd, couldn’t he.
But why is that, it is because what he is selling we already basically believe. However if this same person told you that if you jump in the water at the pier here in Ventura and take off swimming for Santa Cruz island out there on the horizon you will add ten years to your life you would look at him like a nut case wouldn’t you.
Why is that? Because you don’t believe what he is selling!
In all your experience you have never found that doing any one thing would add 10 years to your life, let alone something that seems impossible even for a top athlete to do.
This is where the shallow ground crowd finds themselves. They like the idea of eternal life, the are ok with the notion that God loves them and died for them. The love Matthew 11:30 which says “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”
However this same group either hasn’t heard or has blocked out of their memory 2 Timothy 3:12 which tells us that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
Jesus was easy to get along with when he was turning water into wine. But when he says “Do not fear, only believe, she will be well.” That takes faith; and a lot of it in the face of just being told your daughter has died.
What was the crowds response, it was really no different than the people in Gerasenes.
You see right in the middle of this story as Jesus is making his way to Jairus’ house to heal a sick girl a woman with a 12 year flow of blood touches Jesus garment and she is healed.
She had spent all of her money on doctors and hadn’t gotten any better but just touching the edge of Jesus’ garment in faith healed her but the crowd didn’t care.
You see again like the others they witnessed the miracle that was meant to encourage and boost their faith but instead what did they do?
They didn’t even have the good sense to be afraid, at least those in the Gerasenes knew to be afraid, on the other hand these people chose to mock Jesus for what he said.
He wasn’t asked to leave as before instead he was ridiculed.
Have you ever wondered why sometimes you take more flack and more heat from the people you go to church with than you do the world?
First, don’t be surprised, Jesus was rebuked by his disciples, remember Christ had to say to Peter, “get behind me Satan”
Sometimes as believers what we say isn’t on target, however sometimes what comes out of the mouths of some that we assume to be believers are not really believers at all.
They are just people who have heard the Word, accepted it with gladness but when trials and tribulation come they will quickly fall away.
Think back 20 or so years ago. Do you remember praying for our Christian brothers and sisters in Russia, Romania, and other communist countries because they could be thrown in prison just for saying the name of Jesus let alone attending a Bible study or worship service?
Do you know some of the pastors of those underground churches that became mainstream after the collapse of communism told western church leaders in some of the first conversations they had?
They said pray for persecution again, the church was so much more pure when there was persecution present.
When the squeeze is applied your fruit is tested, if you are filled with Christ then a sweet aroma is released, if you are filled with the stench of self then quickly you will fall away as you look to get out from under the pressure God is bringing to bear on your life.
So again I say, ask the tough questions of yourself, how did you handle your last trial? What came out when you were squeezed?
Did your attitude and response indicate a depth of life, that you were well rooted or were you on the rocks?

Some fell among thorns

Those that fell among thorns are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
This is illustrated to us by Luke in the next chapter in verse 57
Luke 9:57-62 ⁵⁷As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." ⁵⁸And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." ⁵⁹To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." ⁶⁰And Jesus^[g] said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." ⁶¹Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." ⁶²Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
So be honest, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of when you hear “cares of this world”?
My mind goes straight to money. I immediately think of the person who is either too busy making money to give God any of their time or the person who is too busy enjoying the luxury and privilege their wealth affords them to spend time in a relationship with God.
And while I think that type of person is certainly in view here that is not exactly the types of people that Luke gives us as examples here.
So let’s break down and look at these three guys. First guy wants to follow Christ but after Christ shares with him that he can’t promise him a house to sleep in every night he is lured away.
Obviously something Jesus had said earlier had struck a cord with him or wouldn’t have been ready to leave his house, his business, his life and follow Christ.
His desire seemed really sincere but God the Son saw right through and got to the real issue. He was still a materialist at heart. He was lured away by a passion of the world.
2^nd guy Jesus called him and asked him to follow. This guy wanted to bury his Father first.
This one seems tricky, aren’t we supposed to respect our parents, didn’t the law teach us that?
This one is more subtle; likely the man’s father wasn’t dead or necessarily even close to dying, the man’s request is to wait until a more opportune time to follow.
Have you ever met the person who claimed they were going to believe in Christ and live for Him but first they needed to______ (fill in the blank)
Again the cares of this world; making it sound noble, caring for father and mother but once they have died I will follow you Lord just doesn’t work in the economy of God.
When God says follow me now is the appointed time.
3^rd guy Volunteers to follow but can you just wait for me to say good bye to my loved ones.
The bottom line is you can’t serve two masters, you will either love one and hate the other, or cling to one and despise the other.
If you have a love that comes before your love for Christ you don’t have a love Christ at all.
If you love your son or daughter more than you do Christ then simply put you don’t love Christ at all, in fact you hate him and are his enemy.
That is a hard word, many of us struggle throughout our lives with this one. We will readily say that I will do anything for my child, I would even die for my child.
How many of us would say so quickly I would do anything for the Lord Jesus Christ I would even die for him if I had to?
Pointed questions, require pointed answers; let the Holy Spirit shine his light into your soul as you ask yourself these questions.

Good Soil:

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
The key here is holding fast with honesty; you see the last two groups lacked the honesty; one group played church until the persecutions came, the other group pretended to be Christians until the cares of the world consumed them.
Both groups knew deep down in their heart that they were not the genuine article, they had doubts about their own salvation but instead of humbling themselves before God and correcting it they plunged head long into faking it until in the end it became clear what they really were all along.
But the evidence of what you really are isn’t just how long can you hang around a church, the evidence of having held fast is the fruit.
The Christian life is a fruitful life, there is no such thing as a Christian life that never produces fruit.
Colossians 1:9,10 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
We must learn to live every day with the confident expectation that God expects us to bear fruit and thus we need to be so in tune with His Spirit that we don’t miss the opportunity to do the good work that he has prepared in advance for us to do and thus miss the opportunity to bear fruit.
Remember Matthew 21:19, Jesus sees a fig tree and walks up to it intending to eat figs and when he finds no figs on it he curses it and it immediately withers.
This is *not* a picture of the normal Christian life
I don’t think I ever understood that until this week.
Are you ready for this?
The answer is Matthew 7:19; Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
So again the evidence of the holding fast with a honesty and a good heart is the fruit that is produced.
If no fruit is being produced expect to be treated like the fig tree in Matthew 21:19, cursed and withered
What do you do with withered fig trees? Matthew 7:19, cut them down and cast them into the fire.
The purpose of Jesus cursing the tree was a picture of Him judging the unfruitful i.e. the unjust/unredeemed.
However we need to be careful what kind of fruit we produce as well.
There is the fruit of the flesh, this is diseased fruit or bad fruit and is not consistent with righteousness.
So how do we know if we have good fruit or bad? Well in John 15 Jesus teaches that he is the vine and we are the branches. And if we abide in him we will bear much fruit but branches alone cannot bear fruit.

Ill.

Boys discover how to climb out window and down tree to sneak out at night
Dad decides to cut tree down because it doesn’t bear fruit
Boy tie apples to tree that night, next day Dad remarks because pear tree is now “growing” apples.

If the fruit you are producing is bad fruit because they represent the effort of the flesh then also according to Matthew 7 you will be cut down
The point is we need to abide in the vine if we are to bear fruit but how do we do that you ask.
We abide in the vine when we are pardoned, accepted by God through faith in the righteousness of Christ, and regenerated through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Absent that there is no life that produces life, all you have is outward evidences that are like Christmas tree ornaments that are hung on the tree but are not produced from within the tree itself.
While it is possible to hang enough stuff on the outside of your life to fool people around you it is not possible to fool God who looks at the heart.
Furthermore it is not my primary goal to asses your fruit, the Bible is quite clear that a man should examine himself.
It is far easier to examine all those around me and note their lack of fruit when I really need to be turning the microscope around and looking at my own life and observing the lack of fruit there.
Ultimately what I am saying is that the fruit that is produced externally in the life of a believer is nothing other than the by- product of the divine life that is living within the true believer.
What better example do we have than Galatians chapter 5, where Paul describes the workings of the flesh and then contrasts that in verse 22 and 23 with the workings of the Spirit.
2 Peter 1 when you have these things in increasing measure they keep you from being unproductive and they make your calling and election sure.
The Scriptures are clear, fruit is part of the normal Christian life.

Conclusion:

The Word of God is compared to seed, the last time the seed of God’s Word came in contact with your life how did you respond?
Were you afraid? Did you dismiss it as coincidence? If so you are that soil that is hardened from people walking on it, the birds come and eat from your life, Satan takes the truth and walks away with it leaving you destitute of truth in your life.
Seed is being scattered here today, examine your heart, evaluate what soil type you are.
In the story Jesus never returns to this region during his public ministry; and likewise God is under no obligation to continue revealing himself to you or showing his mighty deeds to you.
Today is the day appointed for you to repent
Perhaps you are here today and are unfruitful.