Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20)

Okay, so we're gonna be, like I said, in Mark chapter 4, and we're gonna be reading verses 1 through 20.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

So if you're able, would you stand for the reading of God's word?

Alright, it says, again he began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him.

So he got into a boat on the sea and sat down while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore.

He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, Listen, consider the sower who went out to sow.

As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.

Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it didn't have much soil, and it grew up quickly, since the soil wasn't deep.

When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.

Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn't produce fruit.

Still other seed fell on good ground and it grew up, producing fruit that increased thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.

Then he said, Let any one who has ears to hear listen.

When he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

He answered them, The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside everything comes in parables, so that they may indeed look and yet not perceive, they may indeed listen and yet not understand, otherwise they might turn back and be forgiven.

Then he said to them, Don't you understand this parable?

How then will you understand all of the parables?

The sower sows the word.

Some are like the word sown on the path.

When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them.

And others are like seeds sown on rocky ground.

When they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy, but they have no root, they are short-lived.

When distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away.

Others are like seeds sown among thorns.

These are the ones who hear the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

And those like seeds sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I pray, Lord, that you would use me as your mouthpiece here this morning, that you would help me to rightly divide it correctly, and that it would be you speaking to us here today.

I pray that we would approach you, Lord, with soft hearts, with open ears, with an open mind, with open eyes, to the things that you want to change in us, to the things that you want to convict us of, to the things that you want to encourage us in.

Lord, just let us be clay in your hands here this morning.

We pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated.

So last week we looked at, if you'll remember, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and how that is a result or a decided rejection of God.

It's actually rejecting God and speaking evil of the work of the Holy Spirit.

In that case, last week, attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil.

And if you'll remember, we ended with answering how we make sure that we never blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

And the answer was keep a soft heart towards Jesus, not allowing our hearts to grow hard.

Now, this is going to come into play again today.

This is really a continuation from last week's verses that we went through of Jesus' warning against specifically a hard heart.

So it's going to be important that we get a good mental image of what's going on here in our passage today, and that's really gonna help us to understand the parable of the sower.

So we're going to spend some time painting this picture of this setting in this crowd where this parable is actually taking place.

And we're gonna look at how the crowd specifically ties into this soil uh parable that we're gonna be going through, the or the sower parable.

So just as we're reading through as we're talking, just try to continue to paint that mental picture of what this looks like and what's going on specifically.

So let's jump in at verse one.

It says, again he began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him.

So he got into a boat on the sea and sat down while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore.

He taught them many things in parables.

So there's an obvious theme that we've seen week after week after week.

Jesus is teaching by the Sea of Galilee, and a very large group shows up every time.

So I've heard some people say that, you know, we're so amazed that Jesus could heal the blind and the lame.

But maybe the bigger miracle is that Jesus could speak to 10,000 people without a sound system, and they could still hear him.

You know, I don't know how many people we have here, but it's hard to even get to the back of the tent here.

But for think about this, Jesus is talking to these huge crowds, and he doesn't have a PA system, he doesn't have a microphone in front of him.

So in the 70s, an archaeologist and a sound engineer got together and they conducted an experiment.

Their names were Chrysler and Miles, if you want to go and look it up on your own.

And they noticed that the Sea of Galilee has a lot of coves in it that could serve as a natural amphitheater just by the natural terrain that's around it, where the shore almost can surround you on three sides and it and it goes uphill.

And there were a few spots specifically like this around Capernaum and also around the places where Jesus fed the 4,000 and where Jesus fed the 5,000.

So they did an experiment.

They got out in one of the coves near Capernaum and they set up a noise machine on a natural rock that was out in the middle of this cove.

And they they turned it up and they got back on the shore, and then they just started walking and measuring how far they could actually hear that noise machine that was on the rock.

And so they they just kept going and going and going, just realizing they could go a long ways and still hear it.

And then they realized that they could just talk at a normal level, one being at the noise machine and one being on the shore, up to 300 feet.

And the natural acoustics of that off of the water, and because of the terrain, they were actually able to hear each other at about 300 feet.

And if you're not if you're having trouble picturing that, that's the length of a football field where they could actually just have a conversation back and forth from 300 feet apart.

And so they did that experiment, and it kind of shows that okay, maybe this is why Jesus keeps getting in boats because this is serving as a natural amphitheater uh for them.

So that's just you know a theory that they wanted to test out, but it really helps me to kind of paint the mental image of what may have been going on right here.

So then he takes this boat out, he sits down, and he starts speaking to them in parables.

So you're starting to get the picture of what this looks like?

Yeah, okay, perfect.

So verses three through eight, which we already read, are going to be covered in the explanation of the parable in verses 13 through 20.

So right now we're gonna skip to verse 9, and then we're gonna cover the parable all at once.

So let's jump to verse 9.

So then he said, Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.

So who has ears to hear?

Metaphorically, the word ear here means the faculty of perceiving with the mind, the faculty of understanding and knowing.

So this is important because Jesus is saying, Let those who honestly seek the truth, who honestly seek understanding, and are here for honest reasons, listen.

Those people listen.

And Jesus doesn't say it, but basically, the rest of you with hard hearts, just stop up your ears, leave.

It doesn't matter, don't even bother listening.

This truth is for those that are here for honest purposes, purposes.

And this may sound harsh, but as we explain the parable of the sower, it's gonna start to make a lot more sense why Jesus is saying this.

Verse 10.

Says, when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

So this is his twelve disciples, and those other people as well that are with the twelve disciples that are forming Jesus' inner circle.

So Jesus had other disciples besides the twelve.

The twelve were the closest, those were the ones that were called to be apostles, but there are other people that were following Jesus for honest reasons.

So, right now in this scene, Jesus is surrounded by the people that are there for honest reasons.

So therefore, he's going to explain this parable to them.

And they're asking Jesus for clarity.

Now remember, we can we can look at these people and think, wow, they're really dense.

They're not getting what Jesus is saying.

But remember, they don't have the Holy Spirit inside of them working to be their counselor and to help them and give them understanding with spiritual things.

So they just outright ask Jesus, please make this clear, we don't understand.

Verse 11.

He answered them, The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables.

So remember, we defined a couple weeks ago the kingdom of God as wherever God is king, wherever he sits on the throne.

That's the kingdom of God.

It's currently in heaven.

Jesus is embodying the kingdom of God, and we have the opportunity as well for the kingdom of God to live inside of us and put God on the throne of our life.

And Jesus is revealing the secret of the kingdom of God right now.

And some of your translations may say the mystery of the kingdom of God.

So parables are these stories that grab your attention, that help you see things in very relatable ways to help you understand something that you're having trouble understanding.

The kingdom of God was an absolute mystery to everyone at this point.

And that's why we see Jesus continually saying, the kingdom of God is like, or the kingdom of God is at hand.

Jesus is trying to help them wrap their head around something that is completely foreign and very, very mysterious to them at this point.

Now, verse 12 is the reason Jesus is using parables outside of his inner circle.

So let's read that together.

He says, so that they, meaning those outside, may indeed look and yet not perceive.

They may indeed listen and yet not understand.

Otherwise, they might turn back and be forgiven.

So first read through here.

This can be something that's difficult for us to wrap our heads around.

This verse that he's quoting from Isaiah 6 verses 9 through 10.

Isaiah 6:9–10

So keep your finger in your Bible where you are.

Okay?

I know there's a lot of moving around, but it's all going to make sense in the end.

So keep your finger in the Bible.

Turn one book to the left to Matthew 13, 13.

What's happening is Jesus is quoting Isaiah 6 verses 9 through 10 here.

Isaiah 6:9–10

And as we've mentioned before, Mark is a very condensed gospel.

It's fast paced and it's meant to be gone through the whole thing in one evening.

But in this case, the Gospel of Matthew makes this explanation from Jesus much clearer.

So I want to just go through and read that, and it'll give us a lot better understanding of this verse that we're in here this morning.

So Matthew 13, starting in verse 13.

And these are Jesus' words.

He says, That is why I speak to them in parables.

Because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand.

Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says, You will listen and listen, but never understand.

You will look and look, but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown callous.

Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes.

Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back, and I would heal them.

So you can turn back to Mark now.

But Jesus' desire is to heal them.

But he can't until their heart is changed, and until the soil is right in their heart.

And I really like the way that Damien Kyle puts this.

He says, a parable reveals or conceals based on the heart of the listener.

I'm gonna say that again.

A parable reveals or conceals based on the heart of a listener.

And I think that is key to understanding the parable of the soils that we're about to dive into right now.

Jesus is casting out the word with the seeds of truth.

He's casting out the word of God.

These large crowds that are in front of him are filled with people that are there for all kinds of different reasons, with all types of different conditions of the heart, with all types of different soils that Jesus is working with.

And these parables that Jesus is using is either revealing or concealing the truth from this crowd based on the condition of each person's heart that's in the crowd.

So what happens with the truth and the effectiveness of the truth is a matter of what environment the truth lands in.

Is that making sense?

Okay.

So he's casting out the seed, and what happens to it completely depends upon where it lands and what the soil of the heart is in each individual person.

So let's look at verse 13.

It says, Then he said to them, Don't you understand this parable?

How then will you understand all of the parables?

You know, at first read you may think, Jesus is annoyed.

You know, just looking at his disciples and thinking, Man, can these guys be any more dense?

Father, I know I just picked them, but can I get another 12, please?

But that's not it at all.

The reason Jesus is saying this is because this is a parable to help understand all of the other parables, to understand how they work, to understand the purpose of them and the ultimate effect of parables on each individual's life.

Jesus is saying, if you don't understand this parable, you're not gonna understand all the rest of the parables.

So let's get this straight and let's get this figured out right now so that going forward you're gonna understand how all of this works.

And that's why Jesus says, How then will you understand all of the parables?

And then Jesus goes on to give them the key that's gonna unlock this parable.

So before we get into verse 14 and the explanation of the four different types of soils that we're gonna look at, I think it'd be beneficial for us to talk about what good garden soil actually looks like.

Jesus' audience in this day would completely understand it.

They'd be acquainted with farming and having personal gardens or having professional uh farms in some way or just growing enough stuff for their own livestock, they would be much more acquainted with that than we would here today.

And remember, this is in the northern region of Israel, it's in Galilee that's taking place.

This is the blue-collar region filled with farmers and fishermen and herders and laborers and stuff like that.

So this is why Jesus chooses this imagery.

So I think for us, since we're not as acquainted for the most part, we should talk about what good soil is.

It's going to help us unlock this parable.

So good soil is a mix of mix of dark, rich dirt and organic matter that's all mixed in.

And organic matter is just broken down, old plants, it could be worm castings, uh, chicken manure, some other sort of manure, and it's all mixed in together.

Good soil is soft and it's not filled with a bunch of clods.

It holds water, but not so long that it drowns out the roots.

So it needs it needs to hold water but also have good drainage.

It can have a little bit of rock, but nothing that would obstruct the root growth or affect the soil temperature to get too hot in summer.

And it's broken up, it's not compacted, it's not hard, it's not filled with clods, and it's not filled with weeds or the seeds from weeds from the year before.

All of this is needed because as a seed lands, you want it to either get covered up or actually fall into the soil.

Because a seed needs moisture in order to grow.

So, in good soil with moisture in it, that seed will stay wet until it actually starts to germinate.

And when it sprouts, it needs somewhere for the tender roots to go down into some nice, soft, rich soil.

And hopefully they can find their way down, the roots, into some soft soil, and then start to gain everything that they need from the soil their nutrients, their water, um, and a place for the roots to go.

So that's the good soil, that's what a seed needs.

Now, let's jump in to the parable.

That was a long preface, I know, but let's jump in.

Verse 14.

Jesus says, the sower sows the word.

Let's just stop right there.

This is our key to this parable.

The seed is God's word, it's God's truth being cast out.

And it's being cast out to take root and then to bring in a crop of fruit at the end.

That's the whole purpose for casting out seed, is to have something that you can get in the end.

So, in these days, a farmer would prepare their field, they would turn over the soil, they would amend it with manure or compost of some sort, and then it was ready to seed.

And so they would go out and they would cast it by hand.

They just grab handfuls at a time, and they would just start walking and just throwing that seed and throwing that seed.

But as you're throwing the seed, in this method, some is going to inadvertently end up in places that you don't want it, that it was not intended, but because you're throwing it, it's just scattering all over the place.

And I think, in the terms of our context here today, Jesus is casting the seed, he's casting God's word to this huge crowd filled with people that all have different types of soil conditions in their life.

And Jesus is aiming for the good soil, but God's word is landing on all kinds of soils because people are there for all kinds of different reasons.

Look at verse 15 with me.

It says, Some are like the word sown on the path.

When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them.

So a path, as you could imagine, would be a very compacted place because it's high traffic.

So it's just completely compressed, it's all clotted up, and it's completely compacted.

And when the seed hits it, it never penetrates.

There's nowhere for that seed to go.

It's gonna have sun exposure, which is the death of most seeds, because then they get too hot and they get dried out and they die before they ever even germinate.

And it will be and it will be highly visible to birds to pluck up as a free meal if they just see it right there on the path.

So these are the ones that hear the word of God and they never take it in, it never penetrates into their heart.

There's no room in their heart to even entertain the truth of God's word, so it never has a chance to germinate, much less grow, much less ever produce fruit.

God's word hits them and it just completely bounces off of them.

So to me, this is the scribes and the Pharisees, and there's probably some more in there as well, but I think these are the obvious ones in the crowd that Jesus is speaking to.

This is the scribes and the Pharisees, and they're the ones that have the hard heart.

The soil of their life is already so hardened that Jesus' words just bounce right off of them, and they don't even consider if he may be right.

It's they just hear the words and they automatically assume that he's wrong.

There's no second thought because their hearts are so hard.

There's no place for Jesus' word to fall to receive shade and water and the care that's needed to nurture this into a plant.

You know, this happened uh probably about a year and a half ago.

I was still over at Shoreline in Morro Bay, and we got a phone call of a random person, and I ended up fielding the phone call, and the guy uh he he says, Hey, you know, my name's And so, and I'm actually driving a truck right now.

He's a driving a big rig.

He says, I try to call local churches as I'm driving through their cities, and I just want I you know I have a question for you.

And it just seemed like this beautiful, honest question that this guy had.

And he had this question in the Old Testament about the firmament that it talks about before the flood and what that meant and all that stuff.

And he's like, What do you think about that?

And so I just kind of started explaining him what I thought and stuff.

He's like, Well, what about this verse?

And like he you can tell it's memorized, and he just throws the verse out.

I was like, Oh, well, you know, let's you know, and I keep explaining, well, what about this verse?

And he quotes like this big long verse, obscure verse from the old testament.

It's not like what's in the back of your Bible, you know, memory verses, and uh, and so he just keeps going on and on.

And I'm thinking, okay, this guy is he's got a different motive.

He didn't call, you know, because he had an honest question.

He's like, he's trying to do something here.

So I just asked him out.

I said, Okay, why did you call today?

He says, Well, here's what I think it means, and then he goes on to tell me how he believes that we all live in a giant snow globe.

No joke, a giant snow globe, and he's talking about how we have this huge thing around us and that we've been lied to about space and all this stuff.

And he spoke, and I'm not joking, he spoke for 20 minutes straight and wouldn't let me even get a word in edgewise, trying to convince me, and he had all these scriptures memorized, taking them completely out of context and stuff, and uh, and so finally I just stopped him and I said, Okay, okay.

I said, Hold on a second.

I said, You're spending a lot of time calling churches to try and convince them about your pet doctrine here.

I said, What would happen if you took all of that time and energy and spent it bringing the gospel to people that have never heard it before and use that time trying to bring people to Jesus instead of trying to convince churches that we all live in a snow globe?

And I kid you not, he this is how the conversation ended right when I said that.

He went la la la la la la la la la beep and he hung up on me.

So when I think of a hard heart, I often think of that conversation because he had nowhere for my words to come, even though he he came posing it as an honest question, he just had a hard heart and he wasn't gonna hear anything that I said, he just wanted to convince me.

So, anyway, I kind of picture that with a lot of the Pharisees and stuff just kind of sitting there la la la la, like I don't want to hear what he's saying.

But anyway, that to me is a hard heart.

Let's look at the next soil.

That's in verse 16.

It says, and others are like seeds sown on rocky ground.

When they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy, but they have no root, they're short-lived.

When distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away.

So rocky soil can germinate a seed, but it has little nutrients for anything for the plant beyond that.

You know, the seed can find a place to fall into, can find some shade and maybe some moisture from the little soil that's mixed in with the rocks.

And the rocks can actually be beneficial for germinating seeds because they routine retain heat from the day through the night and keep the seed warm at night to help with the germination.

But those same rocks can end up scorching the plants because, in the heat of summer, the plant never gets a break.

It just gets really hot during the day, and it stays really hot during the night, and that plant just gets scorched.

Not to mention, the roots have nowhere to go, and they have very little nutrients once they pop out of that seed.

So they have a quick germination, they have early growth that can be very deceiving.

You know, you look at them, wow, what a great start for that plant, and then a week later that plant is shriveled up and completely dead.

So I see this as the emotional listener that makes an emotional commitment to Christ.

You know, they're there in the crowd, and they're like, Yes, this is awesome.

Look at all these people, look at what's going on.

I want this with all that I am, I want to be a part of what's going on here.

But the newness wears off, and distress or persecutions come because of that emotional commitment that they made.

And they think, okay, this is totally not worth it.

This is getting really hard.

I'm out of here.

You know, and unfortunately, I think we saw an example of this when quarantine went into effect two marches ago now.

You know, as soon as churches went to a live stream or they went to meeting outside, you know, where the sound wasn't as good, uh, where the fog machines didn't work anymore, you know, where the AC wasn't available and the seats weren't as comfy anymore.

I think a lot of churches saw a huge decline in numbers, and a lot of those people aren't back in church even when things are opening back up.

Because those people signed up for the warm fuzzies, they signed up to be entertained, or they were looking for emotional hives, or they just wanted to be a part of something that seemed fun and exciting at the time.

And then when the honeymoon was over, they're like, This is too hard, this isn't what I signed up for.

I'm not being entertained, I'm no longer comfortable, I'm out of here.

Because God's word hadn't taken root in their heart.

It was the peripheral things that were keeping them in church or keeping them in fellowship.

It wasn't God and it wasn't his word.

These people don't realize that following God's word will mean hardship and persecution.

It will mean dying to self, it will mean carrying our own cross.

And those people will split as soon as following God's word makes them uncomfortable.

The rocky soil is a heart that does not love the whole counsel of God's word.

It just wants the easy and comforting passages only.

And the rest they highlight with Sharpie.

You know, they just want those good ones.

Verse 18.

It says, Others are like seeds sown among thorns.

These are the ones who hear the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

So sown among thorns.

This is referring to wild, unwanted plants and weeds.

So this seed may have hit good soft soil, but the weeds found the same good soft soil as well.

You know, when we bought our house, it was in really rough shape about six years ago.

I don't think anybody had touched the front or the backyard, and what we're guessing was probably a couple years.

No joke, we started cleaning out our the overgrowth in our front yard, and we found a six-foot olive tree.

That's how bad our front yard was.

There were zero landscaping anywhere, um, and I don't think it had been weed whacked in you know, probably two, three, four years, something like that.

And the thistle that was coming up in the backyard was just running rampant.

Felt like there were forests of it everywhere, and I fought that thistle for a couple years before I finally was able to get it under control because weeds will grow and reseed in almost any condition.

They have to be pulled or killed when they're very young to have any kind of control over them.

So, why am I telling you about my backyard?

Because it takes a gardener or a caretaker to manage weeds.

And throughout scripture, Israel is referred to as a vineyard, and God calls himself the vine dresser or gardener of that vineyard.

So when we look at the seed sown among the thorns, the problem, yes, it is the thorns, but the deeper issue is not allowing the gardener to do the maintenance needed to remove the cares of this world.

The seed was thrown out on soil that wasn't properly cared for the year before.

And both the good seed and the weeds end up popping up together.

And the weeds start to steal the nutrients from the roots and water from the root system as well from the good plant, and it starts to steal the sunlight that the good plant needs as well.

So this soil in verse 18 is an example of good soil without the proper care and maintenance of a gardener, you know, without God convicting and tending to and removing the ugly.

That's what this is.

The soil of our heart needs to be constantly tended to by God.

Doing maintenance in our hearts now for growth that we're gonna see in the future and maybe even years from now.

And honestly, I think this is the soil that we as Americans need to be the most careful of.

Because of our freedoms and our wealth, it's easy for us to allow weeds to start to grow in our life.

Yes, God's word is taking hold, but we have these little side idols that are growing right along with God's word and his truth in our heart.

And like we talked about last week, you know, these little side idols, they that might be our family.

We're placing them before God.

Or maybe it's like in verse 19 here.

We're putting our faith and our trust in our savings account or our retirement.

Because it says the deceitfulness of wealth in verse 19 right here.

The deceitfulness that once we make enough, or once we have enough saved, then we'll finally be fulfilled and happy and we'll finally have made it.

You know, John D.

Rockefeller, you know, the oil type tycoon of long ago, he was being interviewed by a reporter that asked Rockefeller at the height of his wealth, which at the time was 1% of the U.S.

economy.

He owned 1% of the U.S.

economy.

At the height of his wealth, the reporter asked him, how much money is enough?

And Rockefeller replied, just a little bit more.

Pretty sure that was tongue-in-cheek, but he got it.

He understood that he was never going to be satisfied.

He had 1% of the U.S.

economy, and he still wanted more.

That is the deceit of wealth.

And you'll never be satisfied by attaining more things.

But maybe it's not wealth for you.

Maybe it's youth sports.

Or maybe it's watching sports.

Or maybe it's betting on sports.

Or maybe it's our hobbies, whatever those might be.

Are we allowing those to grow up alongside of Jesus in our life?

You know, idols are anything that steal our time, attention, and affection from God.

These are the weeds that are trying to choke us out.

And the thing about God is He's a very, very polite gardener.

He doesn't come into our life and just start ripping stuff out.

What he does is he makes us aware of a weed and says, I'd like to remove that.

And then we can either permit him or we can refuse.

And it's up to us to allow God to weed out the things in our life that are stealing our time, our attention, and our affection from him and from his word.

It's up to us if we're going to allow God to till our soil in preparation for growth that still may be years ahead of us.

And in order for God to do this, we need to have a soft and humble heart that knows and trusts God to do what is best for our future.

To allow him to search our heart and to convict us of what he wants us to surrender directly to him.

You know, I've had people come in for counseling, and in just a matter of minutes, I realized that they're so surrounded by weeds that it feels like they kind of have to part the weeds just to talk to me.

You know, one time a while back, I was doing some marriage counseling for a couple and they were on the verge of divorce.

They were just going through some really tough times.

And I asked them, are you willing to put everything aside except God and each other to make this work?

Are you willing to put everything on the chopping block to save your marriage?

And they timidly kind of said, Yeah, yeah, I guess so, I think.

And I pointed out some of the weeds that became very obvious to me in the counseling session.

I said, These are weeds in your life, and these things need to be pulled out if you want to get your marriage back to a healthy place.

And then they gave me excuse after excuse as to why those weeds were actually necessary in their life.

Then I asked them, as I often do in marriage counseling, I asked them to tell me when was the last time that your marriage felt healthy, where both of you felt like your marriage was healthy.

And they both spoke very fondly of the same time period where everything was going so well and they were in true they were truly enjoying being married to each other.

And I pointed out that at that time, the weeds we were talking about in that session were not present in their life.

And they still refused to remove the weeds because it would have meant that they would have been earning less money.

Because they were deceived by wealth, and they refused to take those weeds out.

And unfortunately, they actually ended up getting divorced, which is extremely sad, but it was because they wouldn't remove the weeds that were present that was actually choking their marriage to death.

They preferred having those weeds in their life than surrendering those things to God.

They were deceived by wealth.

You know, it's the cares of the world, it's the busyness, the stress.

It's the enemy using these things to try and choke out the truth, the word of God, so that we're gonna have a miserable life because we're trying to please two masters.

And he tries to make it so hard that eventually we just finally give up because it's so hard.

Or we finally just go into full-blown idolatry or addiction and we turn our back on God because the weeds have just gotten out of control.

And look at the end of verse 19.

It says, and it becomes unfruitful.

Have you heard the expression that if the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you busy?

If he can't get you to reject God, his next strategy is to make you unfruitful.

So caught up in the peripheral that you're ineffective for his kingdom.

So now let's look finally at the good soil.

Let's look at what the good soil looks like.

Verse 20.

It says, and those like seeds sown on good ground, hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit 30, 60, and a hundred times what was sown.

So good soil, good soil for planting seeds as we talked about.

It's not found out in the wild, like just maintaining itself.

If there's potential for good soil, you can be sure it's already overrun with weeds and wild grasses all over the place.

But good soil, particularly for planting seeds, is tended to.

It's dark, it's rich, it's filled with nutrients, it's not compacted, it's amended, and it doesn't have weeds in it.

Good spiritual soil is tended to by God.

And it's tended to by God continually.

You know when I found um when I finally got the thistle in my backyard under control, it still required maintenance.

Every year I have to go back there and I have to kill those weeds while they're young so that they don't go to seed and then spread again for the next year.

I have to pull the thistle specifically from underneath my fruit trees because those things love to grow up and just steal the nutrients and the water from those trees.

And when the weeds are under control, then I can go in and I can break up that soil and I can start to amend it with compost, and then I can start to give it the water and the fertilizer that it needs so that it can have that good growth during the summer so that we can have fruit in the end.

And this is the same care and maintenance that we as followers of Christ need as well.

If you want to be the good soil in this parable, which I hope all of us would raise our hand and say yes, we all want to be the soil in this parable, you need to have a soft heart towards God.

If you want to produce fruit for his kingdom, you need to have a soft heart towards him.

And then it says we can produce 30, 60, and a hundred times what was sown.

So that's the fourth soil.

So now I kind of want to look at all the soils as we're closing here today together.

So the first two soils are actually to the detriment of the person to hear the truth.

Because they're not ready for it.

The first one is compacted.

They hear the truth, which makes them accountable for the truth, and then it forces them to reject the truth.

Jesus said it's better to be hot or cold instead of lukewarm.

And this the hardened path, that's a cold heart.

It's better if they didn't hear the truth in the first place until the soil of their heart is ready for the truth to come in.

Now the second soil is the rocky soil.

They spring up in their growth as a Christ follower, but then they fall away quickly.

And these are the people that tend to later have the attitude of, I tried that whole religion thing and it just wasn't for me because they fell away.

That's rocky soil turning into compacted soil.

Now the second two soils are good soils, but to varying degrees of surrendering.

The thorns choke out the good plant because they're allowing the things God wants to weed out to coexist with Jesus.

The good soil is a surrendered life that lets God be the master gardener that He is.

How a person responds to the Word of God is a reflection on the condition of the heart of the listener.

So I hope that we leave here today with a desire to come to a place of deeper surrendering to the master gardener.

And that's the takeaway for us here this morning.

I want to encourage you this week to keep asking God to reveal the weeds that are in your life.

And I need to do the exact same thing.

And then we need to have the courage to say, okay, God, you've revealed this weed.

Go ahead, pull it, remove it.

I'm done.

Have your way.

I know that what you're gonna do is best.

So that's my challenge to us to go and just ask God, the master gardener, how he needs to tend to us.

It might be breaking up soil, it might be pulling weeds, it might be removing some rocks, whatever it might be.

Maybe we need some watering, you know, um, whatever it might be.

But let's just take that away with us, with that commitment.

So I'm gonna spend this week just asking God to reveal those things and then to have the courage to say, okay, God, go ahead and remove that, whatever that might be.

Would you please pray with me?

Lord, that truly is the desire of our heart.

Lord, we know that there's nothing that you desire more from each one of us than a heart that is completely surrendered to you.

Lord, as I prayed in the beginning, I pray that we would be clay in your hands, that we would allow you to mold us and to shape us, to till us and to turn us over, to water, to fertilize, to weed, whatever it is that we need.

But we realize that it comes from you.

We are completely dependent upon you for all of these things.

Lord, we love you so much and we want to please you.

And we want to be just like our rabbi Jesus.

So show us how to do that.

Show us how to be the disciples that you desire us to be on a day to day, moment by moment basis, we pray.

And Lord, we give all of these things to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.