SPEAKER_00: Matthew 13, beginning in the middle of verse 3, Jesus told them a parable saying a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell on rocky ground, and they didn't have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of the soil.
SPEAKER_00: But when the sun rose, they were scorched.
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell among thorns, and thorns grew up and choked them.
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell in the good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
SPEAKER_00: He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a very well-known parable.
SPEAKER_00: It is the parable of the ESV heading here, calls it the parable of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: It's a parable that is Jesus' longest parable.
SPEAKER_00: It's the first one he's told.
SPEAKER_00: It's a parable that by and large everybody understands.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a Christian for any amount of time, you understand the point of this parable, that the word of God is the seed, and that in evangelism you're scattering the seed.
SPEAKER_00: And some people respond in faith, and other people respond by rejecting your message because of what's in their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Again, a very basic parable that I would hazard to guess almost everybody who's been a Christian, you know, around a year or so understands this parable.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that hard.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, I hope it encourages you to think of the fact that after Jesus told it, the disciples asked him, What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's something that's low shelf for us, but the disciples didn't know what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because we all have read the rest of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: We know that Jesus goes on to explain it.
SPEAKER_00: And so some of the wonder of this parable is lost on us.
SPEAKER_00: But if you teleport yourself back to that Galilean hillside, the first time Jesus told it, there's a massive crowd of people there.
SPEAKER_00: They are rejecting the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are wanting to murder Jesus, and the crowd keeps growing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is pushed off onto a boat, and he begins to teach them about this period of time that's coming in the future that they don't know anything about.
SPEAKER_00: By this point in Matthew's gospel, it is evident that Jesus is the king.
SPEAKER_00: The voice from heaven is declared him to be God's Son.
SPEAKER_00: Even Herod, wicked Herod, said, This is the one who is born king of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: He's clearly the king.
SPEAKER_00: He is taught with massive authority.
SPEAKER_00: The Sermon on the Mount really upends the whole religious world.
SPEAKER_00: He validates the Sermon on the Mount with miracle after miracle, sign after sign.
SPEAKER_00: There's no ambiguity about what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the religious leaders look at that and listen to that and say, we think he's of the devil and we want him dead.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament prophesies a kingdom led by the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Messiah has come to his people, and his own do not receive him and instead want to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: So there is a very obvious question in the disciples' mind as they're starting to take in their surroundings and see the massive crowd and see Jesus on the boat, and they are aware that most of the crowd doesn't believe him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus has no problem drawing a crowd, but from the disciples' perspective, he has a problem drawing disciples.
SPEAKER_00: So what's going to happen now that everybody's rejecting him?
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal with the kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen next?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answers by giving a series of parables, remember the parables go over the head of the crowd, but they go to the hearts of the disciples, and his parables are all about the church age.
SPEAKER_00: This is something unseen in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's about a period of time between the rejection and crucifixion of the Messiah and his second coming, when God is going to build a body of people on the earth that are from every nation, every language group, every ethnic group, all around the world, called the church.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus starts to teach on that now.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, these disciples, they don't know anything about this.
SPEAKER_00: They haven't been taught this before.
SPEAKER_00: It's so obvious to us, not only because we've read Matthew 13, but be hello, we're in the church.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have a grid for the Lord's Day.
SPEAKER_00: Worshiping on Sunday, they don't have that.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have a grid for elders leading a congregation, for deacons, for baptism, for communion, for church pews.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have any of this.
SPEAKER_00: This is totally foreign to them.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus starts teaching on that in Matthew 13.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why they don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: It's so evident to us because we know the end of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: It's so evident to us because we're in the church.
SPEAKER_00: It was not evident to the disciples, as evidenced by the fact that they asked Jesus, what is going on?
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus answers them.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 18, hear then the parable of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: He retells the story, this time with explanation.
SPEAKER_00: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is what was sown along the path.
SPEAKER_00: What was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, he immediately falls away.
SPEAKER_00: As for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of the riches choke the word.
SPEAKER_00: It proves unfaithful.
SPEAKER_00: As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.
SPEAKER_00: He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is his explanation.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the context here is what of confusion.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd wants him dead.
SPEAKER_00: It's filled with spectators, not disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus responds by telling his disciples a parable about the church.
SPEAKER_00: This is what's going to happen next.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the perfect parable to start with because it's a parable about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: The heart of this parable is about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: How is the gospel possibly going to go from 12 disciples on a shore surrounded by thousands of antagonistic people?
SPEAKER_00: How's it going to go from that in Galilee to this global endeavor that can rightly be called the kingdom of God on earth?
SPEAKER_00: How's that change going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is very simple.
SPEAKER_00: It is very evident to everybody who's a believer now, it's going to happen through evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: And that'll be our outline this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Elements of effective evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: They're all drawn from this parable.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea of evangelism being the means that brings the gospel into the world, again, it's evident to us.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing like this in the Old Testament, though.
SPEAKER_00: There was no door-to-door evangelism in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: There's no missionaries in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: There's no sharing the gospel on the street corners in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And the Old Testament, they had prophets that told people to repent and get themselves right, return to the terms of the Mosaic covenant.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: There was no international message to, you know, send a net into the sea and scoop up fish from all around the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's not in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So this is brand new.
SPEAKER_00: But it is so foundational to the church.
SPEAKER_00: People are drawn to the church through evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: People come to faith through evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of what it means to be in a church.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's begin with the components of the parable.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with a simple sower.
SPEAKER_00: It's called then in verse 18 the parable of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus calls it that.
SPEAKER_00: The headings here in the ESV call it that.
SPEAKER_00: But doesn't it stand out to you as you read through this parable that there is nothing about the sower here?
SPEAKER_00: You don't know anything about the sower.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know his method, you don't know his dress, you don't know his anything about him.
SPEAKER_00: His style, nothing about the sower is said except that he went out sowing seeds.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's an aptly named character.
SPEAKER_00: The one thing you know about him is that he sowed seeds.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: Beyond the fact that he's an evangelist, that's all you know.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, you don't know.
SPEAKER_00: The ark of his throw is not mentioned.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of seed bag he had, you don't know.
SPEAKER_00: What music was he listening to while he was sowing seed?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I I bet this is what Bill Price wonder is about.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I think he was listening to For the Beauty of the Earth, though.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good s it's a good sewing song, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You have no idea what he was listening to.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get any details about him, and this is why.
SPEAKER_00: The details of the sower are inconsequential.
SPEAKER_00: They're not important, and they are absolutely not determinative when it comes to someone's salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Some people believe the gospel and some don't.
SPEAKER_00: It has zero to do with the style of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: And I harp on this point because there is so much in American evangelicalism, consumer-driven American evangelicalism, that tells you that the style of the sewer is all that matters.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe I'm overseeing this because I'm the target audience of this, but I get magazines, newsletters, podcasts, flyers in the mail, things that are trying to persuade me that the style of the church is the most important.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to reach this generation, you need to have this style with these kind of references and this dress and definitely no pews.
SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
SPEAKER_00: That is the main thrust when it comes to evangelism in our society, is all about in our modern evangelicalism, again, consumer-driven evangelicalism, it's all about the style.
SPEAKER_00: This attitude that the right style will draw people and the wrong style will keep people away.
SPEAKER_00: And that has the subtle but direct effect of assuming the power of the gospel message is in the style of the sower rather than the substance of the seed.
SPEAKER_00: It's an attempt to guilt people into manipulation, manipulating the message to adjust the messenger to have a better success of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just silly.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe I'm receiving that because I'm a pastor, but it starts to have a trickle-down effect where people in the congregation begin to think they won't be an effective evangelist if they're not stylishly dressed or familiar with cultural cultural references or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Having connection points.
SPEAKER_00: How can I evangelize my neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: He likes the Eagles, and I don't even know what a football is, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm lost.
SPEAKER_00: And it starts to dilute evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: This idea that the evangelist needs to be funnier or friendlier to be successful is absurd and not what is introduced in this parable.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine telling somebody You're a sinner and God loves you so much, he doesn't want you to go to hell for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: He's taken your sin and placed it on Jesus, who suffered and died bearing the wrath of God for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: He was buried, showing that the penalty of God was fully poured out on him, but he rose from the grave to show that your sin was paid for by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if you turn to him and put your faith in him, you can receive the love of God, have your sins forgiven, go to heaven when you die, and while you live, you're adopted into the family of God with brothers and sisters in the church that love you and care for you.
SPEAKER_00: And the person thinks, oh my goodness, I know I'm a sinner, and that message means so much to me, and I can be saved from my sin, but you're not wearing skinny jeans.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you laugh at it, but that attitude is so prevalent in American Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: The message we preach is foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody is gonna say, I would believe it, except that the one who's preaching it looks foolish.
SPEAKER_00: That's just not true.
SPEAKER_00: As far as evangelism goes, the style of the guy sewing, the ark on his throw, the bag that he's wearing is irrelevant.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not going to be what keeps non-Christians from hearing the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There's obviously a tension in evangelism between God's sovereignty and his means.
SPEAKER_00: We know God is sovereign over who's going to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he is.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to save whom he's going to save, and people will use that as an excuse not to evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: They'll say, hey, if God is sovereign, why should I evangelize?
SPEAKER_00: Because if he wants that person saved, he'll get him saved some other way.
SPEAKER_00: And that's true.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's going to hell because you didn't evangelize, but you will lose all of the joy of partnering with God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the lesson of the book of Esther, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Where Mordecai appeals to Esther to stand up to the king, and Esther says, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, well, if she doesn't, all the Jews are going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai doesn't think that.
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai knows God's promise the Jews aren't going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai just tells Esther, listen, if you don't act, relief and deliverance will rise up from some other place.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: God's will is going to be done, though.
SPEAKER_00: You will lose the joy of being part of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you evangelize because you're a sower.
SPEAKER_00: Sowers sow seed because that's what they do.
SPEAKER_00: They sow the seed.
SPEAKER_00: And then they watch the Lord work.
SPEAKER_00: They watch the Lord work.
SPEAKER_00: You know what you call a farmer who doesn't sow seed?
SPEAKER_00: You know what you call a farmer who doesn't plant?
SPEAKER_00: Hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Unemployed.
SPEAKER_00: Poor.
SPEAKER_00: Lazy.
SPEAKER_00: You got a lot of words for it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the equivalent of the Christian who doesn't evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: It's less about how you do it and more about that you do it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the nature of evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: You as Christians are sowers.
SPEAKER_00: You're a simple sower.
SPEAKER_00: First, the simple sower.
SPEAKER_00: Second, the same seed.
SPEAKER_00: The same seed.
SPEAKER_00: The next point of continuity in this parable, it's the sower doesn't, you know, his appearance doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: The seed, though, do you notice that's the same seed in all six hearts?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to find six different responses to the gospel in this parable.
SPEAKER_00: It is the same seed in all six cases.
SPEAKER_00: The same seed.
SPEAKER_00: The seed that falls in the rocky soil is the same seed that produces a hundredfold in somebody else's heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is the message of the gospel that is repeated again over and over in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is the Son of God, truly God and truly man, who led a sinless life, who died on the cross bearing the penalty for sins of all who would ever believe.
SPEAKER_00: He was buried, and on the third day he rose again.
SPEAKER_00: And if you place your faith in him, your sins can be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: That is the basics of the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: That message does not change culture to culture.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't change ethnic group to ethnic group.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't change society to society or style to style.
SPEAKER_00: It is an unmovable message.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a message that is capable of changing the world.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine for a second, if you're the farmer and you have some seed that lands over here that produces a hundredfold, and some seed that lands on a rocky road and doesn't grow at all.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're looking at the seed that's not growing, and you think, I need to change the seed to make it more acceptable.
SPEAKER_00: But any manipulation of the seed here will undercut the same seed that's giving growth over there.
SPEAKER_00: You change the seed that is not giving any growth at all, you end up breaking the seed that's producing supernatural growth.
SPEAKER_00: There's no indication in this message that the farmer is to blame for sowing the wrong kind of seed.
SPEAKER_00: The presupposition is that the evangelist is bringing the unadulterated message.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't adopt synthetic seed to help it grow better.
SPEAKER_00: He uses the same seed.
SPEAKER_00: The hard truths of the gospel are not conducive to gaining influence in the culture, but they are conducive to helping Christians grow spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: If you're frustrated in evangelism because you're telling the gospel to people and they're not believing it, the last thing you should do is change the message.
SPEAKER_00: You keep the message the same because that message, when it does penetrate a human heart, will provide incomprehensible growth.
SPEAKER_00: So the takeaway from this, it kind of doesn't matter how you evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you do door-to-door evangelism, street evangelism, you share the gospel on the metro.
SPEAKER_00: You stand outside Nat Stadium with a big sign that says Jesus Saves in a typical tattoo green.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you share the gospel with your coworkers.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you go door to door, like I said.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you're sharing the gospel with the parents of, you know, other kids on your kids' soccer team, with your family members.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that one is right and the others are wrong.
SPEAKER_00: All that matters is that you are faithfully sharing the gospel, that you are sowing the seed.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to judge how or where other people do it.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, the the how and the where and the when irrelevant.
SPEAKER_00: What matters is that you are faithful in evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: That's the message of this simple sower in the same seed.
SPEAKER_00: But that leads to the gist of the parable.
SPEAKER_00: The heart of the parable is the six soils.
SPEAKER_00: There are six different responses to evangelism in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Six.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through them one at a time.
SPEAKER_00: And behind all of this is the question: why do some people respond well and others respond in anger and others respond in indifference?
SPEAKER_00: Why do some people get saved and others not?
SPEAKER_00: Now we know from the eternal perspective it's because of the choice of God.
SPEAKER_00: But from the evangelism perspective, from this side of eternity, why do some believe and others don't?
SPEAKER_00: And again, let me reiterate: it's not about who the sower is, and it is not about the seed.
SPEAKER_00: It is about the soils.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's determinative.
SPEAKER_00: The first soil that Jesus talks about in this parable is the road, the soil that falls on the road.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 4, as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and birds devoured them.
SPEAKER_00: He explains what that means in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: Seed is sown along the path.
SPEAKER_00: The birds represent the evil one who snatches it away.
SPEAKER_00: Our farmland in the United States doesn't have paths through it.
SPEAKER_00: So this could be an odd illustration.
SPEAKER_00: But the farmland in Palestine, in Israel, during Jesus' lifetime, it was often terraced.
SPEAKER_00: People are growing things in their yard, they're growing things along the paths, they're growing things everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Wealthier people might have a fenced-in vineyard, but most people were just growing everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And these terraced vineyards have paths that zigzag back and forth through them.
SPEAKER_00: That's how people get to the market or to the synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: That's how people go anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Kids go out to play, they take the paths.
SPEAKER_00: They don't fly, they actually walk, and wherever they're walking is on a path where there's stuff growing around it.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be able to grow things on that path.
SPEAKER_00: It zigzags right through your crops.
SPEAKER_00: You can't grow anything on it because everybody walks on it all the time.
SPEAKER_00: The ground gets hard.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of crops they're growing aren't these big, you're not growing massive fruit trees.
SPEAKER_00: They're these, for the most part, they let the sun through.
SPEAKER_00: The path gets hard, and it is worn out for generations.
SPEAKER_00: Those paths are solid because it has been tread on for generations.
SPEAKER_00: And this represents religion.
SPEAKER_00: It represents the paths where everybody walks.
SPEAKER_00: What their family, what their people have believed for generations.
SPEAKER_00: Their whole community, their whole neighborhood walks on the same path all the time.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel hits that path, it does not go in, and instead the devil snatches it away.
SPEAKER_00: That represents religion.
SPEAKER_00: What everybody around you believes, and so it makes your heart impenetrable to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I think I may have said this last week, but it's less here in Virginia, but my experience doing evangelism in California, the most com the most common response to evangelism that I received in California was people saying, I understand what you're saying, but you don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Catholic.
SPEAKER_00: I've always been Catholic.
SPEAKER_00: My parents are Catholic, my grandparents were Catholic.
SPEAKER_00: We've been Catholic for generations.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that they don't understand the gospel you're explaining, it's that they're Catholic.
SPEAKER_00: It hits their heart and bounces off, and they're gonna move on.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same kind of concept.
SPEAKER_00: You share the gospel with them, you talk to them about Jesus and about the New Testament, and they say, I believe in Jesus, I believe in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So they're assimilating little parts of what you're saying into what they already believe, what their parents have already taught them.
SPEAKER_00: Of it just bounces away.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make it into their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Islam believes that Jesus was a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: You're telling them about the wonderful things Jesus taught.
SPEAKER_00: They have no problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: The wonderful things Jesus did, they have no problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: They believe he's coming again.
SPEAKER_00: They have no problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: And they reject the part about the cross.
SPEAKER_00: They reject the part about him being truly God and truly man.
SPEAKER_00: Reject that, reject the cross, and assimilate the rest, and it just falls on the road, and the devil swoops it up and takes it away.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the devil is behind all false religions.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is the one who deceives people.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is the one who gets people to rely on their own works.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is the one who said, You could know good and bad yourself without the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That is demonically inspired.
SPEAKER_00: False religion works righteousness and it makes hearts so hard to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And people won't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Their hearts are hardened by the roads of generations of beliefs that are instilled in them.
SPEAKER_00: And they won't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Second, the rocks.
SPEAKER_00: Some soil lands on rocky ground, Jesus says in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have a lot of soil there.
SPEAKER_00: Some seed lands on rocky ground.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have a lot of soil.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately the root springs up, like it germinates, gets enough water there because it's so shallow.
SPEAKER_00: Springs up, but there's no depth of soil.
SPEAKER_00: So when the sun comes out, it's scorched.
SPEAKER_00: And it has no root, so it withers away.
SPEAKER_00: This represents people who love sin.
SPEAKER_00: You know this because you jump over to verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: What was sown on the ground?
SPEAKER_00: This is the one who hears the word, immediately receives it with joy, but he doesn't have any root in himself.
SPEAKER_00: He endures for a while and tribulation, persecution arises, he falls away.
SPEAKER_00: There's no root in himself.
SPEAKER_00: Now immediately he's so joyful.
SPEAKER_00: People who are caught up in sins often respond to the gospel with joy.
SPEAKER_00: I was a chaplain with the LA Sheriff's Department for many years, and I would share the gospel in jails and in drug rehab centers.
SPEAKER_00: These are people that are at the lowest of the low.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're incarcerated.
SPEAKER_00: Their addictions have led them to a place where a judge has locked them up in a rehab center, and they're like they're open at this point.
SPEAKER_00: And you share the gospel with them, and there's oftentimes such joy.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, yes, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you see them back nine months later, back in the clink again, back in the rehab center.
SPEAKER_00: What happens?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I just I love sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: I love sin.
SPEAKER_00: But this time, I mean it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a cycle.
SPEAKER_00: There's no root in them.
SPEAKER_00: They have such joy immediately.
SPEAKER_00: They grow up so fast.
SPEAKER_00: But then when it comes down to it, they're not ready to repent from their sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's a rocky soil.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many rocks in their life, they're not ready to get rid of the rocks.
SPEAKER_00: And you know this even in Virginia, if you're gonna plant a tree in your yard, you dig up the ground and you get rid of the rocks.
SPEAKER_00: These people are not getting rid of the rocks.
SPEAKER_00: They have the rocks in their heart and they don't want to get rid of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, you can plant something there, it'll grow up for a hot minute.
SPEAKER_00: And then it hits the limestone below and it's done.
SPEAKER_00: It cannot grow deep.
SPEAKER_00: So the sun gets up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some trees with deep roots can find water from a deeper source.
SPEAKER_00: But if it doesn't have that, it's gonna get scorched and die.
SPEAKER_00: Scorched and die.
SPEAKER_00: These are the people that make professions of faith and get so excited about Jesus, but they never counted the cost of following Christ, and so they're out.
SPEAKER_00: Persecution comes and reveals it, and they're done.
SPEAKER_00: They might follow Jesus for a season.
SPEAKER_00: They get invited to church, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: You share the gospel with them, they come to church, they like it even, and they're excited for Jesus, and the people around them are excited that they're excited for Jesus, and oh, this guy's a new convert, and everybody's encouraging to him, and he makes new friends here, and he's so excited and happy and looks forward to church for a period of time until his love for sin is exposed, or he comes back to it until he's told you need to repent from your sin.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, I don't want to do that part of the thing.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just keep coming to church without repenting?
SPEAKER_00: Eventually they get turned away and they disappear.
SPEAKER_00: And that quick response can be deceptive to an evangelist because it brings you so much joy as an evangelist.
SPEAKER_00: You're sharing the gospel with somebody and somebody responds with such joy and eagerness.
SPEAKER_00: You're excited for them.
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard as a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll see people like this, and you see their excitement for Jesus, but you kind of learn to tell the signs after a while that you know they're not repenting from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna grow so fast for a couple months.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't warn somebody like that.
SPEAKER_00: You can't tell somebody, hey, you're it seems to me like you're the kind of guy that's gonna grow really fast for a few months and I'm never gonna see you again.
SPEAKER_00: You can't say that.
SPEAKER_00: So I just tell Alex.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I just met with a guy.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see if he's around in three months.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I will tell people like that, you need to get discipled, get a Bible, get discipled, find somebody older to keep you accountable, meet with them, come check in with me in three months.
SPEAKER_00: It's sad when you see them disappear.
SPEAKER_00: The road, the rocks.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, the rose.
SPEAKER_00: The rose.
SPEAKER_00: This is the one that falls along thorns.
SPEAKER_00: I know it says thorns and not rose, but I'm trying to get them to start with Rs, and every rose has its thorn.
SPEAKER_00: So, some of them fall along the thorns.
SPEAKER_00: It says this in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: The thorns grew up and choked them.
SPEAKER_00: In California, the roses have, you know, they're brilliantly colored roses with like one or two thorns in them.
SPEAKER_00: But they're beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: You can cut them down and give them to your wife for Valentine's Day, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Not the rose bushes out here in Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: My goodness, those things are so gnarly.
SPEAKER_00: Like they catch bears in them and the bears die.
SPEAKER_00: There's thorns, a mess of thorns.
SPEAKER_00: The ones in Israel are closer to the Virginia ones.
SPEAKER_00: They grow in these like circular patterns.
SPEAKER_00: They turn in on themselves and grow.
SPEAKER_00: And so a seed can fall in the middle of that and grow up in the middle of that.
SPEAKER_00: It can get sunlight through and it can get water through, and the ground might even be turned over enough that it gets roots because the roses work in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: But then as it grows up, it's going to grow into the thorns, and the thorns latch onto it, and the thorns use the growth to brace itself.
SPEAKER_00: It chokes it out and it dies.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus describes this in verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: As for what was sown among the thorns, it's the one who hears the word.
SPEAKER_00: But the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
SPEAKER_00: The thorns grow and they block the sun and steal the water.
SPEAKER_00: And the plant just loves the world so much, it's like it's being choked by thorns.
SPEAKER_00: And I have seen so many people that have walked this road.
SPEAKER_00: There was a girl who went to church for a while who was a Division I volleyball player, and she was so excited about her faith in Christ and faithful part of the church, and then one day she just kind of disappears.
SPEAKER_00: I sent her an email asking what was going on, and she replied and said, the bottom line, bottom line, is that she loves volleyball more than the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And she was afraid that if she kept going to church, that Jesus was going to make her quit volleyball.
SPEAKER_00: That's what she said.
SPEAKER_00: And so part of me, I'm reading this and I'm thinking, nobody told you volleyball was a sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a sin to play volleyball.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the way some of you play it is a sin, but it's not a sin to play it the way she's playing it.
SPEAKER_00: She can play volleyball, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, you recognize that she had enough insight in it at least to recognize it's not volleyball that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: It's loving something more than Jesus that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: And so she disappeared.
SPEAKER_00: Think of another guy that was faithful for a while and then just decided to move back to his previous town to live with his dad and take over his dad's business.
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with that, of course not.
SPEAKER_00: But it was one of those situations where if you had discernment, you could just see that this choice, for the reasons he was making it was going to lead to him apostatizing or deconstructing his faith or whatever language you want to use for it.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody that knew him warned him about it.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, no, I'm just, you know, helping my dad and I'll take over the business and moved away.
SPEAKER_00: And before too long, he stopped going to church, and before too long, he doesn't acknowledge the Lord anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what happened with him?
SPEAKER_00: He was so, it seems on the outside mature for a while.
SPEAKER_00: What happened to him?
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, he just decided he loved his family more than the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he was choked out.
SPEAKER_00: Withers up, dies, not willing to count the cost, not willing to love the Lord more than the things of this world.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus' language.
SPEAKER_00: Not willing to love the Lord more than the things of the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's the deceitfulness of riches.
SPEAKER_00: And it makes it unfruitful.
SPEAKER_00: And you notice in a lot of these bad soils, it is persecution that brings this to a head.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus even says it in verse 21 that it's persecution that comes on account.
SPEAKER_00: It's tribulation, it's difficulties that expose it.
SPEAKER_00: It's going without the money that you wanted.
SPEAKER_00: It's going out without the recognition you wanted.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's actual persecution.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you saw in the news this week, what, 70 Christians killed in a church in Congo?
SPEAKER_00: Beheaded.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, some of them were converts from Islam.
SPEAKER_00: And so Islamic terrorists invaded the church and killed everybody there.
SPEAKER_00: Or in the United States this week, maybe you saw this story.
SPEAKER_00: Friday, a federal judge, so not some like local magistrate, but a federal judge at a case and called the DOJ attorney to stand up and had him come forward and asked him, Are you a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: And he tried to dodge the question, but she pressed him on and he finally said yes.
SPEAKER_00: And she asked him, How many genders does Jesus say there are?
SPEAKER_00: And he responded, a very good answer, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He responded by saying, the United States of America does not take a position on how many genders the Jesus you're imagining right now thinks there are, which is a very good answer, I would like to say.
SPEAKER_00: It's not one she accepted.
SPEAKER_00: You know, she began yelling at him, kicked him to the back of the courtroom, told him he had to spend the rest of the trial sitting in the, you know, in the normal places in the courtroom.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't allowed up at the bar anymore, banished him and yelled at him the whole time for being an unloving Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not the same thing as 70 people having their heads cut off in Congo, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's not the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that being beheaded and being yelled at by a judge and made to sit in the back of a courtroom is the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the same family of things.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same big picture category of things.
SPEAKER_00: Just persecution presents itself differently in different cultures.
SPEAKER_00: But ask yourself this question If you're neighbors to the church in Congo and you see 70 people beheaded for being Christians, is that gonna make you more or less likely to go to church next Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: Or jump to the United States?
SPEAKER_00: If you're a college student that really wants to climb the ranks in the DOJ and really wants respectability with judges and whatnot, and you love the legal profession, is that story gonna make you more or less likely to be open about your faith?
SPEAKER_00: That's the effect that persecution has.
SPEAKER_00: And the true seed takes roots and grows through that.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some soils that don't respond.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the three soils that do.
SPEAKER_00: Final three soils.
SPEAKER_00: We'll do these all together.
SPEAKER_00: No, you're looking at the clocks.
SPEAKER_00: Thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.
SPEAKER_00: Some seed responds incredibly well.
SPEAKER_00: Thirty, sixty, hundredfold.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's the same seed in all the hearts, but some hearts just produce a massive spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: This is not an agrarian society, so you may not know this, but a typical seed might produce a five-fold return.
SPEAKER_00: In the life of Jesus back in this part of human history, there's not professional mechanical farming back then.
SPEAKER_00: It would be an incredible harvest of a lifetime to have a return on your seed of like sevenfold.
SPEAKER_00: That would be a once-in-a-lifetime harvest if it's a sevenfold return.
SPEAKER_00: A tenfold return might be the kind of thing that you would tell your kids, oh, grandfather used to say about a guy that he knew that used to have his grandfather that had a tenfold return on the seed.
SPEAKER_00: It's so far-fetched to be stuff of legend.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus here does the 30-fold return as the lowest bar.
SPEAKER_00: The most immature baby Christian who's so stagnant spiritually, at the end of their life, they're going to look back and see a 30-fold return on investment.
SPEAKER_00: The seed will produce massive growth in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Even the immature Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And I can prove this to you in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a Christian, let's say like 20 years, okay, 20 years.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't feel like you're the most mature Christian around, you're still fighting sin in your life, right?
SPEAKER_00: If somebody's been saved for 20 years, they're still fighting sin.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: But think of the kind of sin you might be fighting now.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're angry at your neighbor for some reason.
SPEAKER_00: You have angry thoughts in your heart about your neighbor, that villain.
SPEAKER_00: And you recognize that's a sinful thought in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I need to deal with that.
SPEAKER_00: I need to confess it and work to love my neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's what you're fighting through.
SPEAKER_00: You know, what were you fighting through 20 years ago when you got saved?
SPEAKER_00: Like you're trying to repent from doing drugs 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And now you're like, I had a hateful thought towards my neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Like you're you have massive spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: And I know like some weeks are better than others, and some months better than others, and it's up and down.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it is.
SPEAKER_00: But over the course of your lifetime, even immature Christians see massive spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: And when you start evangelizing somebody else, you see that growth grow exponentially.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you're one person fighting in sin and it should grow in godliness and you're increasing in godliness throughout your life.
SPEAKER_00: You evangelize one person.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's two of you fighting sin and growing in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: That person evangelizes two more people to get saved.
SPEAKER_00: And now you've got four people growing godliness.
SPEAKER_00: See how there's exponential growth.
SPEAKER_00: And this is supernatural growth.
SPEAKER_00: This requires a sovereign and supernatural work of God in the human heart to cause that kind of growth.
SPEAKER_00: Hard soil is natural.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's hearts are hard naturally.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's hearts are on the path or in the rocks or whatever naturally, but the Lord can work in someone's heart and turn over the soil and plant the seed in their heart, and it is the Lord who gives the growth.
SPEAKER_00: You evangelize someone, they get saved, somebody else disciples them, but it is the Lord who gives the growth.
SPEAKER_00: I planted, Paul tells the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: I planted you.
SPEAKER_00: Apollos watered you, God gave you the growth.
SPEAKER_00: What's wonderful about these six soils?
SPEAKER_00: This is so obvious to us, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know all six of these people, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00: You can put a name to all of these.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is describing these before the church exists.
SPEAKER_00: Before these kinds of people were around.
SPEAKER_00: He's describing the reality, the most basic reality that we live in every week in church.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is describing before it's all, before it ever happens.
SPEAKER_00: The main takeaway from this parable is that all the hard grounds, all the rocky grounds, all the weedy rejectors of the gospel will not stop the gospel from growing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus closes out Matthew's gospel by telling the parable of the bloody vineyard and says, There are those, speaking of the Jewish leaders, who refuse to give God the fruit that he's due.
SPEAKER_00: And God is going to come and strip the kingdom from them and give it to other people who will, remember what he says, bear fruit in keeping with the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's how he wraps up his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's the last parable.
SPEAKER_00: He wraps up the gospel that way.
SPEAKER_00: Ends it with the great commission, go into all to the eleven disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Go into all the world bringing the gospel, and it's going to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: Baptizing, making disciples.
SPEAKER_00: It's as if Jesus is saying the kingdom of heaven is just one small seed that will land somewhere and grow into a massive tree that will cover the earth, and the nations of the earth will come and find shelter in its shade.
SPEAKER_00: That's how powerful the gospel is going to be.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the seed He's given to every one of you to bring into the world this week.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful for the gospel and how it compels us to go into the world.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for the boldness and the courage of those in this congregation today.
SPEAKER_00: Pray that you would make them bold evangelists this week.
SPEAKER_00: Give them wisdom on how to take the gospel to those around them, be it neighbors, co-workers, friends, family, strangers.
SPEAKER_00: We know it'll look different in every one of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for open opportunities this week to sow seed.
SPEAKER_00: Keep us from being focused on things that are insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: Help us be good stewards of the seed you've given us.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.