#The Parable of the Sower: God's abundance - available to us!

Bless you for this wonderful opportunity to come and share my

heart with you this morning. Roger, my husband and I live in

a charming old farmhouse, and many of you have actually been

to have tea or meals with us there.

And as you know, it's surrounded by fields all around, different

crops growing. So I've had the joy over the

years to watch little sprites coming up growing sometimes

wheat, barley, rape seed and then the harvesting and it's now

the harvest season. And what's amazing is that

before it used to be the old farmer ploughing up and down,

but now it's these huge combine harvesters and ladies drive them

too, which is great, and they go up and down with amazing

precision because it's all computer controlled and

sometimes drones are used. So it's high tech, but it's

fascinating to see the change of the seasons.

But then inside of our garden we've got an old apple and pear

tree and a very reluctant plum tree, but the apples and pear

trees are old and Nall, but they still keep producing so much

fruit. And this summer our two little

granddaughters, twins of eight years old and I, have been

climbing the trees and picking the fruit baskets full of apples

and pears. And it's been a thrill to cut

those fruits open and see the amazing perfection of the seeds

inside. I know the computer generated

harvester does this incredible rescission, but the way the

pattern of seeds is formed inside the fruit is just a

thrill. Do you know how many seeds are

in an average apple? Well, a Granny Smith has got 26

seeds, Golden Delicious or Red Delicious has nine and a Gala

apple is 10. So it goes.

But isn't it amazing that each kind has its own pattern and its

own number of seeds? It's astounding.

And if you plant a pip you don't just get another apple.

If you get a whole tree, all of apples that each have pips and

or more abundance is just written into the DNA and this

has been a summer of lots of lovely salads and you cut open a

tomato and if you've seen the pattern it's almost like a tree

of life inside a tomato and an average tomato.

How many? 300 pips isn't that amazing?

300. So you plant a tomato and just

think of all the abundance. It's amazing.

So after I was just thinking about this and researching, I

went to the supermarket and had a hundred of tomatoes in my hand

waiting to check out. And I thought in this little

punish of 100 grams, 27,000 seeds.

Isn't that astounding? So we are wired.

We are created for abundance in everything.

It's been a time of barbecues, corn on the cob, 800 pips in 16

rows. Isn't that amazing?

We haven't even got to the watermelons.

Yes, so watermelons also about 800 pips.

And I just always bless the dear people in these research

laboratories who counting pips. And what about pomegranates?

Well, that is phenomenal. We won't have to go there, but

in one Pomegranate 1370, I didn't personally count them, so

it's amazing. So you get the message

abundance. It's abundance.

That's what's in a seed. And to me what's a thrill is

that the miracle of the seed is that it's encapsulated in this

tiny little dot and it's the master of everything in the DNA

of that seed. It has the capacity to grow into

that particular fruit or crop. So you look at this tiny little

seed, and it grows not into just another fruit, but into a tree

or a Bush to produce myriads. God is a God of abundance.

And so of course, as we're talking about the parables, you

guessed it, it's a parable of the sower.

And I've called this talk God's Abundance, and it's available to

us. It really is.

But how many of us tap into that abundance?

The miracle of the seed? Just remember, that encapsulates

all the magnificence of the taste, the color, the texture,

the fragrance. It's absolutely wrapped up in

what looks like a dry dead husk, but given the right conditions,

it starts to grow and the roots become shoots and the shoots

become roots. I'm going to repeat that.

The roots become shoots and the shoots become roots, but it

starts with that seed, with all that locked up potential being

in the right condition to make it grow.

Over the weeks we've listened to amazing sermons by all these

lovely gifted speakers. We've had Trevor talk about the

wise and foolish builder. We've had Chris give a sermon

that really struck deep to me when the Good Samaritan had Mark

talking about the last coin, Heather talking about Be the

Light, which is just amazing. If you've missed them, catch up.

But it's interesting that today's sermon on the Parable of

the Sower Jesus said these words about the Parable of the Sower.

Mark Chapter 4, verse 13. Do you not discern and

Mark 4:13

understand this parable? Is that right?

How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all

the parables? This is a key parable, and it's

interesting that it's the last one, because this is the essence

of all the powerfuls, and I'll be unpacking why.

So I ask you to bear with me as we dig a little deeper.

Sorry about that. It's a very weak one.

But basically what I would love to share with you is why did

Jesus say that? Why is this such a significant

and key parable? It's actually mentioned in all

three of the Synoptic Gospels. It's in Matthew chapter 13, one

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

to 23. It's in Mark chapter 41 to 20,

and it's also in Luke chapter 81 to 12.

All of them mention this parable, and it's so interesting

that Jesus actually explains it because he didn't always do

that. It's key.

It's vital. It's important that you get

this, that I get this, and not just that we get it here, but

that we get it here and that we receive it and live it.

John's gospel doesn't have any parables.

But this parable, the sower is rimful in the Gospel of John,

and I'll be showing you a little bit later.

The Gospel of John is throbbing with this parable.

It's so exciting. I love it.

So why did Jesus use parables? We've gone through that

parabola. It's a comparison.

And Jesus liked to provoke his audience.

He was a master storyteller. He could hold hundreds,

thousands of people's attention in days without the light

speakers and the big mics because of who he was, the

presence, the authority that he had.

He could hold their attention because he didn't just give

earthly stories like the parables, but they have a

heavenly meaning. That's what this is about.

Everyday things that people really knew about.

Didn't know about the combine harvesters and the drones and

the technology and the app on your mobile, but they saw so as

they saw people in seeds fields. And that's what Jesus speaks

about the parable of the So let's read it together.

Mark chapter 4128 from the new international version.

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 down in it on the lake while the people

were along the shore at the water's edge.

You could just imagine that crowds pressing right along the

water's edge and Jesus sat down in the boat.

In those days, the rabbi always sat down to give his teaching.

So it's it's amazing. That's what Jesus did.

He taught them many things by parables and in his teaching

said listen, and when Jesus says listen we listen.

A farmer went out to sow his seed as he was scattering the

seed. Some fell along the path and the

birds came and ate it up. Some fell in rocky places where

it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the

soil was shallow. When the sun came out, the

plants were scorched and they withered because they had no

root. Remember what I said about roots

become shoots and shoots become fruit without roots.

Bad news. Other seed fell among the

phones, which grew up and choked the plants so that they did not

bear grain. Still other seed fell on good

soil and it came up grew, reduced a crop, some

multiplying, 30, some 60, some 100 times.

We talked about the abundance, and there it is.

Well, I love this story of the parable, but so much of what

Jesus has taught in the past in the Bible, we might have learned

in Sunday school or children's church or somewhere in our past.

So when we hear these very familiar words, we think so, you

know, kind of know it just secretly.

I mean, you wouldn't admit that. You kind of think, you know.

Well, I'm hoping that as we dig down and look very carefully at

some of these aspects that there will be a new revelation for

you. I really do, because I'm going

to be asking you a very deep and a very personal question at the

end of my talk that only you will be able to answer.

And I say this lovingly to you. Listen, because there were many

in that grip with Jesus who just casually listened, didn't take

things too seriously and they missed it all together.

But they were those who were intentional, who sat and soaked

in every word, and their lives were changed forever.

Something happened because they allowed what Jesus said, the

truth of that to penetrate. So we all know that this story

is about the sower sowing seeds, and I love the way he's

generous. This isn't a sower that walks

along and thinks, well, that looks pretty fertile.

I drop a few there. That's not so good.

Rocks that I'll drop. No, this survey just splashed it

everywhere. He just.

And at first you think, what was he A clever farmer just to be

wasting seeds where he thought it wouldn't grow.

It couldn't grow. But that's the father's heart.

He loves you. He loves you.

And you might look as if you are the hard soil.

But he knows your heart. So he's just putting the seeds

there. He's putting them everywhere is

just abundantly flinging seeds because this is the message of

life. This is the message of life, the

hard soil. Let's look at the different

soils. It's all the heart response to

that seed. Many of us have had times in our

lives where we have been like that hard soil.

Maybe that's where you are at this moment and if you're

watching online or on catch up, I just want to welcome you

especially and say this is a message that I really pray will

penetrate into your hearts hard soil.

Why is that? Many times it's hardened just

because we've had to toughen up in order to cope.

Things have been so hard. We've suffered so many

disappointments. Maybe there's been abuse, maybe

there's been a lack of of understanding.

Maybe there's just been an appalling set of circumstances

and you think, why is this all happening to me?

And in order to cope you've become very hard.

I understand that. And Jesus understood that.

That's why he mentioned that first, because he said so often

when you like that I'm still throwing the seed, I'm still

reaching out to you because I love you.

I want you to change. But if you don't open and make

yourself available to that message of life, it's going to

be snatched away. Hard hearts.

We understand why, but I pray if that's you just aloud what we

were singing about, the drenching of the Holy Spirit to

soften you. There's the shallow heart, the

heart that has so many rocks and stones and things that have

happened again, that they're little pockets of soil and maybe

there's a little bit of a growth taking place, but when the sun

comes up, or when there's persecution, that Withers and

dies because you tried it. But it just doesn't work.

Not for me. Oh, I heard you.

If that's you change. Open your heart.

Listen. Seriously.

It doesn't have to be that way that you struggle for the rest

of your life with these rocks and these stones.

That's what Jesus wants to come and take away.

The third is the thorny heart, the crowded heart, because you

receive that word. You want to believe it.

You want to get going. Then life happens.

There's just so many worries. There's so many anxieties,

There's so many problems and pressures.

And you know, where will you get the money to pay the bills?

And there's all of this interesting stuff that other

people are doing that you'd rather like to go along with.

And the thorns and the weeds just crowd out the birth and it

with us and dies. And then there's the fruitful

soil, soil, where it actually does take root and start to

grow. And the little roots become

fruits because they first become roots and shoots and fruits.

And there is fruit. But if you look at what she

said, it's so interesting. It's not.

And then there's fruit. He was so wise.

Some are 30%, some are 60% and some are 100%.

Some are just less than half the potential of what it would be.

Some have just weaked over the 50 to get to 60.

You're still not the capacity of what you have created for

abundance. And then there are those who are

100 percenters, we just rejoice. And those that they are bearing

fruit, that's the parable of the sower.

It's quickly to verse 13. Jesus said to them, don't you

understand this parable? Because the disciples were

asking him to explain. How then will you understand any

parable? Verse 14 is key.

The farmer sows the word, and in Greek that is the Logos.

Remember that the Logos. That's what Jesus says.

This is powerful. The farmer is sowing the word

the logos. Some people are like see it

along the path where the word discern.

Soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes it away.

Interesting here we've been talking about the enemy in this

restore course, but how amazing that Jesus actually calls him by

name. We have an enemy.

We are in a battlefield, and where you are responding to the

things of God, you can be sure that Satan, the enemy, would try

to snatch that away. So it's vitally important that

we are in fellowship with other believers who can pray with us,

hold us up, be strong with us, listen to worship music in the

things of God, all the tools which we would love to help you

with. You don't have to be alone and

battling any longer. Others, like seed zone and rocky

places hear the word at once, receive it with joy.

But they have no root. They last only a short time.

I mean, trouble or persecution comes because of the word.

They quickly fall. The deceitfulness of the wealth,

the desires of other things come and choke it.

That's the weeds. So the worries of this life.

So we have the seeds, So hard ground, rocky ground amongst the

thorns, and then the good soil. And Jesus explains all of this

so carefully because he really wants us to get this message.

But I want to just look for a moment at the word, What was

sown? Because we've talked about the

soil, we've talked about the heart response.

I'm now wanting to just focus on that seed, the logos before I

talk about the no grass and the impact of the word.

The question that I said I was going to ask you at the

beginning is still simmering. Part of it is for you to think

about what kind of soil you are. You are one of these if you

feeling that you. Have had so many disappointments

and hurts and pains along the way that you have become

hardened. Or maybe there are just so many

rocks and stones in your situation.

If nobody will understand, I want to encourage you by saying

Jesus knew exactly you are here this morning and you are

listening online for a reason. It's not an accident because he

has a beautiful purpose for you, a purpose of abundance, the

purpose of freedom, a person of enjoying his presence.

The seed is the Logos. As I said, John and his gospel

didn't give any parables. If John's gospel starts by

saying in the beginning was the Word the logos and the word was

with God and the word was God and then in verse 14 it says we

beheld his glory, he took flesh and blood and came and lived

amongst us. And John 1010 says the thief

comes to steal, kill and destroy.

Just what I was saying about the birds Satan coming again.

But Jesus said, I have come that you would have life in

abundance. There it is again.

Abundance. It's the same.

So a message that John is giving chapter after chapter after

chapter. And this is the essence of this

parable. And This is why it's so vital we

understand the seed. Remember what I said at the

beginning? Everything that's wrapped up in

that, it's a capsule of the DNA of that master perfect plant.

The taste, the texture, the color, the energy is

encapsulated in the seed. And Jesus said so is so is the

sea, which is the logos. I am the Word made flesh.

Open your hearts. You might think it's dry, crusty

soil. It might be rocky.

So I can deal with that. The response I ask you open your

heart. Let the locust, the living

Jesus, come and dwell with you. That's John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

He starts with the logus, which is all about this parable, the

Word, the seed. And right at the end, before

Jesus went to the Christ, when he had his closest people with

him, the discourse was this all right in me?

Let me live in you. The implanting of this living

word Jesus in our hearts changes everything.

And he, through parables, was trying to wake up people,

provoke them to see. This is the truth about the

Kingdom of God. It's glorious.

It's wonderful. It's worth rejoicing over like

the last coin and the rejoicing and all these other parables.

The Good Samaritan who came along the side and you cleaned

up that man who was attacked and nurtured him and put oil on his

wounds and put him in the hostelry and paid all of this.

When you understand this parable of who Jesus is and what he's

doing in your life, when you open to him, everything makes

sense. Isn't it wonderful?

It's beautiful the way the Lord's just unpacked and

orchestrated this. The abundant life is in the

seed, it's not in the soil. So no amount of striving on our

part, no amount of doing good exercise.

I mean all of that's really good.

We need to keep fit and do stuff.

But you get all of these self help courses saying it depends

on you. It's all up to you.

And we are saying no. We're saying, Lord, I've made a

real mess. I've become hard.

I've allowed the rocks to just put me up over and over.

I've allowed the thorns to entangle me and just catch me.

But I'm coming to you and releasing all of this and asking

that you will fill me with yourself like a seed.

And how amazing. When that seed, which is Jesus

Christ, the designer of this fantastic glittering cosmos, the

perfector and author, it dwells us.

What a difference it makes to life, doesn't it?

I think it's exciting. It really is.

It's not just a tomato pip. It's Jesus Christ, the Logos of

Word made flesh. We can receive Him, and the

capacity is unending of what He can do through us.

That's why he says all things are possible to those who

believe, and it's true. Who would think all the things

that he's done through your life, through my life, through

people, hear the testimonies, shifts of hopeless, hopeless

situations, but we haven't given up because we clinging to that

hope. Oh, there's so much more I could

share, but the time is marching on.

But if you can get this, the sower will never be the same for

you again, because he's sowing the Word.

And Jesus knew exactly that. And John, who was listening to

this, possibly was penning how he would write his gospel.

The word, the seed made flesh. Well among us we saw his glory.

So then you understand all these scriptures as you start to read

them. Christ in you the hope of glory,

May the word of God well richly in you through Jesus Christ.

There's so many of you. I think of James 121.

James is such a practical little book, and he says put aside all

the filthy stuff and clutter, for goodness sake and in

meekness seek the implanted seed, the word in your hearts.

That's what James says. So all through scripture, these

themes just recur over and over. And the book of Hebrews, there's

one that we don't even know who wrote it.

It could have been Lydia, it could have been a woman.

We just don't know. But it's so interesting.

The book of Hebrews is beautifully written, but I'm

going to just go very quickly from the version that I love,

this amplified classic version, Hebrews 12/1.

And two, let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance.

This is the nitty gritty of how to let's make a decision today

to do that. It's an unnecessary wait, and

it's a sin which so readily, deftly, and cleverly clings to

us, entangles us. And let's run with patient

endurance and steady perseverance, the waste before

us. And then verse two, looking away

from all that distracts. And this is again, the parable.

Don't let distractions come, Don't be entangled, but just get

rid of it. Now let's do that and let's go

for all that God has got for us in His abundance.

And then Hebrews 13-5 and six. This is a heavy one.

Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of

money. And that is this obsession with

Gimme, Gimme. My name is Jimmy.

Not quite the love of money, including greed, Everest, lust,

craving all the earthly positions.

We know all of this stuff. He's satisfied with your present

circumstances because Christ infills you and indwells you.

And I have included this because I really believe there might be

somebody here today. We're feeling alone and feeling

nobody has really understood. And if I knew your name, I would

just say it. But I believe this is what God

is saying to you. For he God himself, has said, I

will not in any way fail you, or give you up, or leave you

without support. I will not.

I will not, says it again. I will not in any degree leave

you helpless, or forsake you, or let you down, or relax my hold

on you. Assuredly not.

Oh, I pray you get that message. That's a strong one.

And therefore the next verse six.

Don't be seized by alarm. These are all the things that

stop the flourish. Just give it to him with the

band coming up, please. And I know it's just Mark.

So we've looked at the soil, the response of your heart.

We've looked at this amazing seed and then as we close,

that's extraordinary is as we've received this message.

And we know Jesus for ourselves. We've given him all of the

mistakes and the mess, and we've received the newness of life.

What happens is extraordinary. We become, so is.

We get to sling that seed. We become the so is what you

sow, you grow what you sow, you grow.

If you're sowing love into your children, into your family in

spite of circumstances, maybe you're getting a whole lot of

negative stuff back. But if you sow love, you grow

love. If you sow joy, you grow joy.

So I encourage you as we close, please just pray.

Father God, what a joy to share the sower, the essence of who

you are, the magnificence of the capacity of all your

characteristics, the energy of creativity, life and abundance.

And we can have you in dwelling us.

Oh, Father, I pray if there's somebody here who doesn't know

you, may today be the day where they just ask to come in to

penetrate whatever hard crust, whatever Stony rocky base,

Whatever thorn tangled mess come in.

Oh, come in. And fellas, the newness of life

is weak. Yield ourselves fully to you,

God of abundance, God of glory. Thank you that you've made all

of this available to us through Jesus.

Amen.