Parable of the Soils

Turned to Mark chapter four, verses one through twenty. It's

a big week for us here at Crossway. I know,

you know why. You know what next Sunday is. It's

our birthday. We turned ten years old.

I know.

So we're gonna make a big deal out of that

next Sunday, I mean as big a deal as we do.

You know, you know how we are.

But we're gonna celebrate that a little bit next Sunday

and then on Wednesday. So this coming Wednesday, prior to

next Sunday, we'll have our members meeting, which is awesome.

And I know some of you have been thinking, Hey,

you guys are gonna be We're gonna be planting a church.

We're gonna be planting a church. Stephen, uh sorry, Seamus

Drake is going to be planting on the west side.

Sorry Stephen, My son is in the corner of my

eye right here, Seamstrake's gonna be planting over on the

west side. Tony LeHo is gonna be planting nearby here,

a Spanish speaking congregation. I know some of you have

been I know it's exciting, and some of you have

been asking, okay, you've been talking about like, okay, we

need to seed those plants with the right forty to

fifty adults. How we are going to determine who goes

and who stays? How do we determine those forty to

fifty adults. We're gonna get started with that Wednesday at

the members meeting. Aren't you curious.

How that works?

Me too? No, And then we not only have that,

but this week we're gonna have the word brought to

us by someone I respect very much. Ben Dowdy has

been a senior pastor for over two decades. And not

only is he committed to proclaiming God's word and shepherding

God's people, he's a church planter. He's one of us.

He's a church planter. And you know, we're a part

of a church planting network called the Great Commission Collective.

And just a few years ago he became a part

of that collective and rolled up his sleeves and started

training to church plant in South Austin. And they just

turned two years old. They just had a birthday. I now,

super exciting. So yeah, would you welcome Ben Dowdy?

Thank you, Josh.

It is a joy for me to be here and

a privilege to be here. So grateful for Pastor Josh

and all of your elders. So grateful for the gospel

partnership that we enjoy together in the good News about Jesus.

And it's been exciting to see God grow his church

in greater South Austin. So if you have anybody in

that general area of South Austin, Butuda or Kyle, just

spread the noose.

Also grateful to.

Have my lovely bride here with me today, Marcia. And

are you ready to dive into God's word.

Let's do it.

Let's read Matthew or Mark chapter four. It is close

to Matthew Mark chapter four, verses one to twenty, So

if you're there, I'll read, you can follow along.

Again.

Jesus began to teach beside the sea, and a very

large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into

a boat and sat in it on the sea.

And the whole crowd was beside the sea.

On the land, and he was teaching them many things

in parables. And in his teaching he said to them, listen, behold,

a sore went out to sow, and as he sowed,

some seed fell along the path, and the birds came

and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky grounds where

it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up,

since it had no depth of soil. And when the

sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root,

it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the

thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain,

growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold, and sixtyfold and

one hundredfold. And he said, he who has ears, let

him hear. And when he was alone, those around him

with the twelve ask him about the parables. And he

said to them, to you, it has been given the

secret of the Kingdom of God. But for those outside

everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see,

but not perceive, and may indeed hear, but not understand,

lest they should turn and be forgiven. And he said

to them, do you not understand this parable? How then

will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word,

and these are the ones along the path where the

word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes and

takes away the word that is sown in them. And

these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who,

when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy.

And they have no root in themselves, but endure for

a while.

Then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word,

immediately they fall away.

And others are the ones sown among thorns.

They are those who hear the word, but the cares

of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the

desires for other things enter in and choke the word,

and it proves unfruitful. But those who were sown on

the good soil are the ones who hear the word

and accept it and bear fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and

one hundredfold.

This is God's word.

I trust that you get it and are gotten by it.

So I want to ask you two questions this morning,

thrust way, how are you respond to God's word this morning?

So think about that, because Jesus is talking about hearing

and heart responses, and he's talking about his word. So

how are you responding to the Gospel currently? That's one question.

The second question is where are you sowing.

The word?

Where are you sowing the seed of the Word of God.

There's three components to this story. This parable that Jesus

tells his disciples and the crowd that we need to

get there's a sower and their seed and their soil.

The sower is Jesus.

The sower is the person who shares the good news

of Christ.

That could be you, it could be me, It is us.

If we're Christ followers, we sow the seed of God's Word.

The seed is the Gospel. The seed is about Jesus.

The seed is for us today, the entirety of the Bible.

And so if I have a burlap sack with seed

or a tattered sack with holes in it probably wouldn't

work well with holes, and I'm just scattering seed everywhere

I go.

But this is no ordinary seed.

This seed is the imperishable seed of the Word of God.

It is the incorruptible seed of the good News that

Jesus came to rescue rebels through faith by grace.

It is that kind of seed.

It is the seed that is the power of God

under salvation to everyone who believes it.

The Word of God.

References the power of God and harnesses it to the

seed of the Gospel.

Two times.

It doesn't do that of an erupting volcano, the massive

boil of our sun.

It doesn't do that.

With a shooting star firing across the galaxy that we

live in. It does it twice of the seed of Christ,

the good News. So here's the big idea. Here's the

big idea that the Holy Spirit gives us through this

story and its explanation to us, and that is this.

People respond to the risen King in different ways. I

don't know how many people are in here today. Every

single one of us represents a different response to the

same seed. Every single one of us, young, old, marrieds, single,

new in the.

Faith, mature in the faith.

Maybe curiosity, maybe a family member, friend like what's God

doing here at Crossley? I just want to show up

and find out what this vibe is.

Wherever you're at. Every heart.

Responds to Christ differently. And so we're going to look

at the soils. There's four kinds of soil, and then

we're going to ask the Holy Spirit as we do that, Lord,

which kind of soil represents my heart today? And then

we're going to ask the question where am I sowing

the seed of Jesus in life? So number one soil

that we're going to look at. Is the soil representing

a hard heart that rejects God's word. A hard heart

that rejects God's word that's found in verse four in

verse fifteen. In verse four and in verse fifteen, we

see a soil that is kind of like rain bouncing

off a tin roof. Like you're out in the field,

you're farming, you're gardening. You have your seed in your sack,

and you're scattering it.

You haven't cultivated the soil.

Jesus just says, you're taking it out of your bag

and you're just flinging it out there. Maybe parents, it's

with your young ones, your teenagers, your adult children, family members,

co workers. But you're just adding the seed of the

Word of God, over a hot drink, over a meal,

over the fence, over the next cubicle.

You're just scattering seed. And the seed.

That is compacted by animals walking across it, people walking

across it. It's hard, so when the seed falls down,

it doesn't penetrate beneath the surface of the soil. And

so what we have is the reality that this hard

heart in verse fifteen is where the word is sown

and immediately, Satan comes like a bird and he picks

it off the surface. Satan is the god of this world.

He has blinded the minds of unbelievers. Maybe he whispers

in your ear this thing called Jesus on a cross,

like that's crazy. That doesn't resonate with your felt needs.

Not today, not ever. Whatever.

I understand some people are excited about this, but in

your heart there's just a hardening, a hostility, a rejection.

It might be atheism, it might be agnosticism. It might

just be indifference. It might show up in the form

of apathy. It might come through busy lives and barren hearts.

And what we desperately need if we find ourselves in

category number one, is we need either through God's kindness

which leads us to repentance, or through adversity and hard things.

We need a shot to the soil. We need a

cultivation to the soil. Not too long ago, someone came

up to me. I had shared that I had gone

through treatment for cancer in the mid nineties and that

that was a shock to my system. And he said

I resonated with that because I am of that hard

heart soil. And he went on to explain how God

brought something really traumatic in his life to plow up

the soil of his heart. And so as we evaluate

the seed that we sow and how our own hearts

are responding, we understand it may not work out to

twenty five percent because there's four soils. That doesn't mean

it's equal twenty five percent each. But there are going

to be people, and there's going to be occasions where

it feels like it's not penetrating at all. So we

can pray that God would cultivate that's hard soil. By

the way, this hard soil represents someone who is not

a Christian.

They are not a true follower of Christ.

There's a second seed, a second I'm sorry soil that

speaks of a shallow heart that reveals a temporary commitment

that's found in verse five and then explained by Jesus

in verses sixteen and seventeen. And this is the person

who is more encouraging. On the surface, they get dunked

in water. They want to become involved in gospel community.

They come to an event, they come to a Bible study.

They piggyback off of some discipleship opportunity that you're a

part of. And they get excited about Jesus. They warmly

embrace Jesus. But someone has said there is an instant bloom,

but an instant fade. They because the seed falls onto

rocky places. Immediately they're excited. They have the feels. Maybe

it's the music, maybe it's the persuasive YouTube video or

whatever that really connected with them, and they get all

amped up. But then something happens. Because they have no

root in themselves, something happens. They find out not everybody

is excited about Jesus. They find out that they live

in a world that hates the things that God loves

and loves the things that God hates. They find out

that the culture deifies man, humanizes God and minimizes sin.

And so when they.

Go in their joy and in their excitement to share

this amazing news about Jesus.

And people are like huh.

They start to get a taste of people not being

excited about the word of the Gospel, and they shrivel,

They fall away because of the word. By the way,

this person also represents someone who is not a true Christian.

I believe.

You see trials that are meant to push us to Jesus.

For this person push them away from Jesus. So one

author put it this way. He said, and I quote

this speaks of the half Christian who always flops in

the face of the first catastrophe that happens because they're superficial.

Incetionalism doesn't stand the test. So even that which they

think they have is taken away from them.

Is that the soil of your heart.

Perhaps as you throw the seed, you suspect that maybe

the soil and other hearts, And by the way, God

alone reserves the right to see beneath the surface of

the soil of our hearts. So it's always, maybe not

always easy to tell where others fit into this story

at different places. But there's a third kind of soil,

and that is a divided heart that chokes the word.

That's in verse seven, and again in verses eighteen and nineteen.

Christ explains it. So it's not rocky soil, like right

below the surface of the heart, there isn't rocks. But

what happens is as it springs, as it sprouts, as

it seemingly comes up, the seed goes beneath the soil,

and then you start to see green growth like coming

through the soil and you're initially thinking this is hopeful.

But here's the problem.

In the garden of this heart, that there are thorns,

and the Holy Spirit through Jesus, gives us three aspects

of thorns. There's the worries of the world, the deceitfulness

of riches, and the desires for other things.

And they slowly.

And deliberately, sometimes imperceptibly, begin to choke out the message

of the risen King. And so again, this third soil

represents someone who doesn't know Christ truly, a genuine heart

that's been transformed by Christ. But I got uncomfortable with

this third soil, because the more you walk with Jesus,

the more you see some of the propensity of your

own sinful flesh toward hardness, towards rocky places, and especially

here towards the desire for other things, the desire for riches.

We buy things we don't need to impress people that

we don't like, with money that we don't have, and

we begin to covet cash more than Creator, our Creator.

We covet our stuff more than we covet our Savior.

And that begins to choke out the word of God.

And then there's just the desire for other things. What

is other things? Well, Jesus said in Matthew six, to

seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and then all

of these other things, including a place to live and

food to eat and clothes to wear, will be provided

for you. And so what happens crossway is we begin

to shift our gaze from the giver to the gift,

and we get consumed with horizontal things, with created things,

with stuff and fun. We fill our lives with fun,

and we stuff our lives with stuff, and the thorns

begin to choke out the message of the risen king.

And so Jesus says that when we scatter seed, it's

going to fall on sometimes distracted hearts, sometimes hardened hearts,

and sometimes shallow hearts.

But if it's stopped.

There, if it's stopped there, it would be kind of

of discouraging. I can tell you my wife and I

didn't move from El Paso over to this region of

central and South Texas to just plant a garden and

get thorns and get rockey soil and.

Get hard and soil. No, we came to bear fruit.

In John fifteen eight, we read that our father is

glorified in this that we bear much fruit and so

prove to be His disciples.

Here is the good news.

The good news is that the fourth kind of soil

represents a fruit bearing harvest, a responsive heart that means

a fruitful harvest in verses eight, and also in verse twenty.

This is the heart.

That here's the Word and accepts it, understands it, and

bears fruit. And I love the look on your faces.

How many of you have your bibles open and you're

taking notes, and you're leaning into the word of God.

You're welcoming the Word of Christ. You are letting the

Gospel feel at home in your heart as a rich treasure.

What an amazing, encouraging thing that I see here at Crossway,

and we're beginning to see more and more of it

in South Austin to the glory of Christ. You see,

there are people in our church that have been stirred

by uncommon generosity. And in the last two Sundays, God

has allowed me to witness uncommon generosity that is a

fruit of pushing a cup of cold water across the

table to one of the least of christ disciples. And

I see relationships and marriages that are leaning into the

fruit of the spirit, the fruit of love and joy

and peace and self control and gentleness and kindness, that

fruit that Galatians five talks about. By the way, the

crop that Jesus explains is a bumper crop. The typical

crop that was good then was fivefold to fifteenfold, tenfold

was fantastic. Jesus says thirtyfold, he says sixtyfold, and he

says one hundredfold. What a gift that you can look

into your loved one or your small group members, or

the people in your circle of disciple making here at

crossway and you can see good fruit. And the point

of this isn't for us to study others and say, well,

I wonder if they're a onefold fruit bear or a

sixtyfold And like, Lord, I want to be the sixtyfold.

Like we're not doing horizontal competition here. Like ultimately, fruit

bearing and understanding the Word of God is a god thing,

like God's spirit enables us to get it and to

be gotten by it. The spirit of God turns the

light on, so we understand the message of the risen King,

who is crucified for rebels like us. So you can't

take any credit for your fruit bearing. We are God's workmanship.

We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works which

God has prepared in advance for us to do. But

even those good works don't earn our space with God,

our place in his family. It is by grace that

we're saved through faith, and even the faith that saves

us it is not of ourselves.

It is the gift of God.

It's not by works, so that no one can brag

about it. But the one God grants the understanding and

the welcoming of his word, the word of the cross,

the word of the empty tomb, the word of the

risen Jesus.

That person does bear fruit.

To the glory of God, and that gives me great

joy to see fruit all over San Antonio and all

over greater South Austin. That's a god thing. We must celebrate,

that crossway. We must celebrate that. And all of that

came via Jesus the Soul, or becoming the ultimate Seed.

It wasn't his kindness, It wasn't his example, It wasn't

his powerful teaching.

It wasn't him.

Healing sick and casting out demons and telling a storm

to stand down. It was none of that. You see,

the one who sowed. The seed had to become the

ultimate seed. Listen to this verse in John twelve, verse

twenty four, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you,

unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,

it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

You see, Jesus had to be murdered by his own people,

did you, by the Roman soldiers? In the very plan

of God. He had to be crushed for our rebellion.

He had to have the wrath of God, the Father,

that was aimed right at me and aimed right at

you because of our rebellion and sin. He had to

have that exhausted on him wave after wave for those

six hours he hung on the cross. You see, he

became the seed that went into the ground. In his case,

he went into the empty tomb, or the tomb that

became empty the third day. You see, that seed that

started so small through his death, and only twelve who actually,

by the way.

Abandoned him at the cross.

By the time he ascended to the right hand of

the Father forty days after his resurrection, it was five

hundred First Corinthians fifty team tells us. And then on

the day of Pentecost in Acts two, it became three

thousand that were added to their number. And then by

the end of Acts in less than thirty years, from

Jerusalem to Rome, it became them turning their world upside down.

And that little seed that was crushed for sinners the

king who came to start his kingdom not through overtaking

a Roman government, but by calling out ordinary.

Men and women.

And they said, Jesus, we're all in. And they stumbled

a lot, like we stumble a lot. But when the

Spirit came and lit the flame on the day of

Pentecost and Acts two, boom, and guys, we're still witnessing

this amazing fruit today all over Central Texas, all over

the world, where hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, hundreds

of millions of people are worshiping Christ as the risen King.

You see, God will have his people.

And that's why Jesus, for the joy that was set

before him, endured the cross and despised its shame, and

is now seated at the right hand of the throne

of God. And someday he's going to come back, and

he's going to gather all of his people from every

tribe and language and nation, and we're going to worship

Him together. What a bumper crop. And you and I

get to be a part of that. It's awesome. Let

me leave you with three questions. Number one, how are

you responding to God's word? How are you responding to

God's Word? Are you understanding it? Are you welcome?

Mean it?

Are you resistant to it? Are you excited about it?

And you've kind of jumped off the Jesus bandwagon for

a while. You got all amped up, and then it's like, eh,

you know what, here's by the grace of God. You're

here this morning. God, there's still time. There's great hope,

even for the hardest of hearts, even the divided hearts,

even the distracted hearts. God can plow up the soil.

Every everyone that bows the me to Christ is a

miracle of the first order.

How are you responding to God's word? Where are you sowing?

Where are you sowing the word of God in your

normal rhythms of life? Parents to kids, spouses to your spouse,

singles to other, singles and extended family and coworkers swear?

And how are you sowing God's word?

Listen? The power isn't in you the sower. The power

is in the seed. This power is in the seed.

Let me tell you about an Ada. She was a

widow with three young children during the time of the

Great Depression, living in Galveston, and for an entire year,

her fifteen year old niece from Kerr County lived with her,

and every night, before she tucked her kids into bed,

she would read the Bible and pray and share about

the risen King, the crucified risen King, Jesus. And so

this fifteen year old niece heard it again and again

and goes back to Kerrville and Ingram and shares that

message with her twelve year old brother. His name was Kenneth,

and he heard the word from his unbelieving fifteen year

old sister the sewer. He understood it, and it bore

great fruit in his life. And that twelve year old

boy was my dad. And out of all the many

men that have influenced me towards Christ, my dad is

at the top.

Of the list, you see. And Ada she was tired,

I have no doubt.

She was exhausted raising kids survivalism. But yet she sowed

the seed, and the harvest goes on.

And on and on beyond her life.

Where are you sewing? Finally, where do you need encouragement?

I hope you are encouraged.

If you need encouragement, I would encourage.

You to study Chapter four of Mark, verses twenty six

to thirty two, two more parables about seed. By the

way Jesus says in the parable that we read, if

you understand the parable of the soils, you'll start understanding

these other parables. If you need more encouragement, just stop

and recount the work that God has done in your

life and in the lives of others. If you need

further encouragement, go to Revelation chapter five and verse nine,

and think of the day when we'll gather with the

Redeemed to worship the Lamb.

People respond to the risen King in

Various ways, but God is bearing made fruit to the Gospel.