SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: So glad you're here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's been a wonderful morning of worship.
SPEAKER_00: I want to direct our attention now to Matthew chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: And as you're turning there in your Bible, tell you a story, not just a story, something that I lived.
SPEAKER_00: I'd been on the job about three months, four months, I think, and I I received a call from a mother asking me to meet with her son, to talk to her son, and her made a phone call to this gentleman.
SPEAKER_00: I'd never met him before.
SPEAKER_00: I'd heard of him, never met him before.
SPEAKER_00: And on the phone, we we spoke for quite a while, and most of the time it was hard to understand him because he was in tears.
SPEAKER_00: He was in tears because he had called me to speak to me about some help with his daughter, with his oldest daughter, who was struggling through some things and had been, at least to some extent, suicidal.
SPEAKER_00: And he was wanting some counsel and wanting some help.
SPEAKER_00: So I went over to his home to meet with him and sat down on a couch.
SPEAKER_00: And we were on a long couch.
SPEAKER_00: He was on one end of the couch and I was on the other end of the couch.
SPEAKER_00: We talked for quite a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time he was in tears.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't address his daughter at all.
SPEAKER_00: Because he was the one that needed help.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord had providentially been working in his heart to break up the hard soil that had been compacted through a hard life.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I had the privilege of opening the scriptures to him and showing him the free gift of God that is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that man came to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Such a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: But that's rare.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time you speak with people about the good news of salvation in Christ alone, and it feels like you're throwing a ball against a hard wall.
SPEAKER_00: It just comes right back at you.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have have family members, parents, children, spouses that seem to be resistant to the good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's hard, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's a burden on us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talks about those kinds of situations in our passage this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, let's take a moment.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you a chance to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that one person in your life that you most communicate the gospel to and most is most resistant to it.
SPEAKER_00: Just take a moment and bow your head and pray for that person.
SPEAKER_00: Ask that the Lord would soften the soil of their heart to be open to hearing the good news of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Would you do that right where you sit?
SPEAKER_00: We've looked into your glorious face and pages of Scripture and the voices of your saints.
SPEAKER_00: We know the joy of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: We've heard it expressed, and yet there are so many that do not have that joy.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, we know that you are capable of softening hearts, and we ask that you would do that.
SPEAKER_00: Give ears to hear your truth, not ears that just receive sound waves, but that process and seek to know more to understand who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Father, by your sovereign grace, draw people to you so that they might join the eternal chorus of those who praise your name.
SPEAKER_00: Open our ears and our hearts to hear your word this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: On another time I shared the good news of salvation in Christ alone with a very good friend.
SPEAKER_00: And asked if if he wanted to know where he would spend eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And his response to me was, no, I think I'd rather be surprised.
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather be surprised.
SPEAKER_00: Last Sunday we started looking at Matthew chapter 13, a chapter that is often referred to as the parables of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The whole chapter here is connected, interwoven.
SPEAKER_00: There are pieces all throughout, scattered throughout this entire chapter, that unite the whole thing together.
SPEAKER_00: And his disciples, on the other hand, who are somewhat confused about these stories, these parables that Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: They are struggling to grasp the meaning of the parables themselves.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is doing two things at once.
SPEAKER_00: Something that no man can do.
SPEAKER_00: Some women can do well, but no man can do, except for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He can do two things at once.
SPEAKER_00: He is speaking to the crowds, he's sharing the gospel with them, he's communicating to them in stories.
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, he's teaching his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He's training them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's important for us to understand this morning as it helps us grasp the importance of this chapter for us together in the Lord's church.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus was training his disciples to go out into the world to make disciples, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's the end of the book.
SPEAKER_00: That's the end of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave a command.
SPEAKER_00: As you're going, assuming they were going to go, as you're going, make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: So he's training them for that.
SPEAKER_00: But he's letting them know that as they go, they're going to experience many of the same things that Jesus endured.
SPEAKER_00: Some positive, most negative.
SPEAKER_00: And as we know from the end of Matthew, these disciples would be commissioned, commissioned under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to make disciples in his name.
SPEAKER_00: Initiating those disciples into the Lord's kingdom through faith and baptism and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: To put it another way, Jesus, as he's speaking to the crowds of people that gathered, is sowing seed.
SPEAKER_00: He's sowing seed of the gospel, of the good news, and he's preparing his disciples to do the same.
SPEAKER_00: He's training his disciples to be farmers, to be gardeners, to put out the seed of the good news.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Matthew is hinting at, the end of the chapter in verse 52, where Jesus says, Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.
SPEAKER_00: In a similar way, all disciples, all of us, are to be trained for kingdom work.
SPEAKER_00: To be able to understand the word of God and so to be able to make disciples and to teach them.
SPEAKER_00: To know that the seed is good seed and it's worth sowing, it's worth putting out there, no matter what the response is to that good news.
SPEAKER_00: Last week and this morning are really one conjoined sermon.
SPEAKER_00: So if you missed last week, you'll want to go back and listen to that.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal is to grasp all of verse 1 through verse 23, the parable of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll read that if you'd like to follow along so we can get it back into our memories once again.
SPEAKER_00: It says that same day that Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole crowd stood on the beach.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus told them many things and parables, saying, A sower went out to sow.
SPEAKER_00: And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and birds came and devoured them.
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil.
SPEAKER_00: But when the sun rose they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away.
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
SPEAKER_00: He who has ears, let him hear.
SPEAKER_00: Then the disciples came to Jesus and said, Why do you speak to them in parables?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
SPEAKER_00: For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, You will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive.
SPEAKER_00: For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.
SPEAKER_00: But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
SPEAKER_00: For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Hear then the parable of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: When any one 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: As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
SPEAKER_00: Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
SPEAKER_00: As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word.
SPEAKER_00: But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
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: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So often we open up our Bibles to read.
SPEAKER_00: Often out of guilt.
SPEAKER_00: We haven't read for a while, so we just open it up and start reading something.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Lord can use that just opening up his word and reading it, choosing a section to just start reading.
SPEAKER_00: But we miss something there.
SPEAKER_00: We're missing a point if we if we don't put what we're reading into its context that God intended, and that's true here in chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Last time we looked at how this all fits together in the flow of Matthew's biography of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we noted that chapter 12 is a significant turning point in the biography.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, John's gospel, John chapter 1, verse 11, echoes the theme of Matthew 12.
SPEAKER_00: John 11, or John 1.11 says that Jesus came to his own, but his own people did not receive him.
SPEAKER_00: And that rejection is very stark here in Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus declared that the Jewish people of his time would be condemned.
SPEAKER_00: And he gives accounts of that in chapter 12, telling them that they're going to be condemned by non-Jewish people who repented at the preaching of Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: Non-Jewish people who were so astounded by God's gift of wisdom to Solomon that they would travel days upon days just to hear Solomon speak.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here the word of God is present, and they'd close their ears.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus pictured that situation by an illustration of demon possession at the end of chapter 12, and he says that it's an evil and adulterous generation that rejects Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord is gracious, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Look around you.
SPEAKER_00: Here's evidence of the Lord's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And an adulterous and wicked generation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, as the one who holds all things in his hand, the one who possesses all authority, as we saw in chapter 11, Jesus could have could have wiped out everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Just as God had done in the time of Noah.
SPEAKER_00: But he was gracious.
SPEAKER_00: He was gracious.
SPEAKER_00: Like a farmer sowing seed, Jesus proclaimed the word, the message of his kingdom and his kingship, knowing all along that some of the seed would not fall on productive soil.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel of the kingdom with Jesus as its king was heard by those to whom Jesus was sovereignly revealing himself.
SPEAKER_00: They had ears to hear.
SPEAKER_00: But it was also heard by those whose hearts were hardened in unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And it was heard by those who were somewhere in between.
SPEAKER_00: They hadn't ruled Jesus completely out yet.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they had some sense of curiosity.
SPEAKER_00: They were interested in hearing more to some extent.
SPEAKER_00: And that we find is the meaning of the soils at the beginning of the chapter that Jesus later explains in verses 18 through 23.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus spoke of varying kinds of responses to his messianic preaching.
SPEAKER_00: It's described for us in the terms of understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 13, they do not understand.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, you will indeed hear, but never understand.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, understand with their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, does not understand, and so on.
SPEAKER_00: This is all about do you really grasp what Jesus is saying?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says that those who hear the word of God, of all of those who hear, only those who hear and understand are compared to the good soil from which seed sprouts, grows, and bears fruit for the farmer.
SPEAKER_00: And significantly, Jesus asked his disciples in chapter 13, verse 51, at the end of all of these sayings, he asks them, have you understood these things?
SPEAKER_00: Have you understood?
SPEAKER_00: It's important that we, as the Lord's disciples, today also understand these things.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to understand that Jesus is talking about the proclamation, the spreading of his good news.
SPEAKER_00: This is how his kingdom grows and progresses.
SPEAKER_00: First, Jesus and now his disciples, that's us.
SPEAKER_00: We speak the words of the kingdom, the word of God, making disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We plant that word, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: So once we plant it, once we scatter the seed, what then?
SPEAKER_00: What can we expect as farmers of the seed of the word of God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we can expect nothing more than what Jesus expected.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we pick up where we left off last week.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we covered the proclaimed word.
SPEAKER_00: Consider with me now the planted word.
SPEAKER_00: The people to whom Jesus was speaking would have been familiar with the agricultural ideas in this parable.
SPEAKER_00: Now they may or may not have understood the point of the parable, but they would have understood the farming analogy.
SPEAKER_00: And it will help us understand the meaning and the intent of the parable if we too understand that farming analogy as best that we are able.
SPEAKER_00: I should have invited one of our farmers up here today to explain the modern concept of farming because I'm going to try to do it as a rancher, not a farmer, and I'm going to make mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, guys, that's just the way it is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to try my best.
SPEAKER_00: Even though Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Dahlin here is on the front edge of farming, he's going to say, no, there's more ways than this.
SPEAKER_00: Today we have machinery designed to efficiently and effectively till the soil to exactly the right depth.
SPEAKER_00: Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Dalin's into non-tilling farming, is that right?
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
SPEAKER_00: All right, good.
SPEAKER_00: But we we have machinery that does all of this stuff, right?
SPEAKER_00: We have cedars that that place the exact number of kernels at the right depth in the soil.
SPEAKER_00: We have fertilizer spreaders that that help facilitate growth and enhance soil nutrition.
SPEAKER_00: We have all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: We have mechanized reapers that make the process of harvesting little more than driving through the field with the proper equipment and then delivering the produce to the processor.
SPEAKER_00: Hope that was a fair enough summary for all the farmers.
SPEAKER_00: Farming in advanced countries like ours has never been more productive.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there are many details involved in keeping up the expensive machinery and making sure everything still goes according to schedule, but we've never been able to produce greater results in a smaller space than ever before.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like that in the time of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We have historical records available to us that tell us how they farmed.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they seeded a plot of ground and then tilled the seed under.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they plowed first and then seeded the ground and simply left it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they plowed first, they seeded, and then they plowed it under again.
SPEAKER_00: But when and how often they plowed is not important to this parable.
SPEAKER_00: What is important to this parable is how they seeded.
SPEAKER_00: See, most farmers would have a bushel basket or something similar to that strapped to their body right alongside of them, and they would reach in and they would grab a handful of seed and spread it out, fling it out.
SPEAKER_00: It's called broadcast seeding.
SPEAKER_00: Often with the two primary grains of Israel, barley or wheat.
SPEAKER_00: And as the farmer or his workers walked through the field, they would take a handful and broadcast it, throw it, cast it across the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Now, first century Israel was not layered with highways, either two-lane or four-lane.
SPEAKER_00: Fields were not cordoned off by barbed wire fences.
SPEAKER_00: Most fields were simply plowed out in the open country, and there were often foot or cart paths going around the fields, or even in some cases, right through the middle of the field.
SPEAKER_00: Some locations had shallow topsoil.
SPEAKER_00: You see, much of Israel sits upon a A limestone shelf.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Jesus speaks of the rocky soil, it's probably not a location that's that's that's a rock outcropping, but an area of shallow soil with very little, maybe just an inch or two of topsoil on top of that rock shelf.
SPEAKER_00: And when soil was not properly worked, any type of thorny bush or weed could grow, even right at the edge of the field.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus tells the story like this a sower, that is, the person broadcasting the seed across the ground, went to sow his seed.
SPEAKER_00: And as he cast out that seed, flinging it out, some naturally fell on the hard-packed ground of the pathway.
SPEAKER_00: Since the soil wasn't soft, the seed simply rested right on the top of the soil, and birds, hungry birds, or other critters would come along and eat the seed.
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell on the soil with the rock shelf just underneath the surface.
SPEAKER_00: There was some soil, so it might sprout and grow.
SPEAKER_00: And since there was very little depth to the soil, it acted like a greenhouse, warming the seed from that rock underneath.
SPEAKER_00: So providing an ample opportunity for that seed to grow quickly, but there's no depth for the roots and very few nutrients because of the rock.
SPEAKER_00: So eventually it just dries up and withers away.
SPEAKER_00: Some seed fell where thorny bushes grew.
SPEAKER_00: Those types of growth just choke out anything else that tries to grow.
SPEAKER_00: They rob the nutrients in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: So the grain may grow a little bit, but other plants steal the precious nutrients in the water, and so it just grows up as a stalk with no head of grain.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, there is the seed that falls on good ground and it produces more grain.
SPEAKER_00: Now try to put yourself in the farmer's shoes for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: That seed that you are broadcasting is your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's your livelihood.
SPEAKER_00: The produce from the seed that is broadcasted is needed so that you might eat, might feed your little ones, you might survive.
SPEAKER_00: That seed that you're broadcasting is the seed that you need to get more seed to be able to do the same the next season.
SPEAKER_00: Your life is dependent on the output of the sown seed.
SPEAKER_00: In that situation and in those circumstances that Jesus is describing, which set or sets of sown seed, broadcast seed are what the farmer is looking for?
SPEAKER_00: Only the last one, right?
SPEAKER_00: The farmer isn't interested in the stocks that sprout up and die without producing more grain.
SPEAKER_00: He's not interested in the stock that grows up in the midst of thorns but has no head of grain.
SPEAKER_00: All he cares about is the seed that produces more grain.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's important.
SPEAKER_00: If that's not what he cares about, then he won't be a farmer for very long, and he probably won't be living for very much longer.
SPEAKER_00: Now we have to remember at this point, we have to remember that Jesus is talking about people.
SPEAKER_00: When we hear these parables, especially this one, he's talking about people, specifically people being receptive or not receptive to who he is, to what he's come to bring to them.
SPEAKER_00: Eternal life through faith in him.
SPEAKER_00: I love the one way that one commentator puts this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Once one realizes that Jesus is talking about preaching the word, it's not difficult to see the first three soil samples as involving those in whom that word took no root, who thus never made a profession of faith, those whose initial commitment proved superficial and temporary, and those who, while first appearing like true disciples, demonstrated they could not survive competing demands for their loyalty.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are active in sowing the seed of the word of God, you know that that's exactly what you encounter today.
SPEAKER_00: It's no different, even though our farming techniques have improved.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to the seed of the word of God, this is the same thing that we encounter today.
SPEAKER_00: When we think about the planting of God's word, the proclamation of the good news of Jesus, the Messiah, God's eternal King, we see these exact same kinds of responses, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Hear then the parable of the sower.
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: As for what was sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
SPEAKER_00: Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of this word, immediately he falls away.
SPEAKER_00: As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
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 Matthew's been preparing us for this.
SPEAKER_00: This shouldn't be a surprise to us.
SPEAKER_00: He's been telling us about the response to Jesus, the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: The result has not been good.
SPEAKER_00: There are people out to destroy him.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew uses that word.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the good news of Jesus was cast out by Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: He was the sower, proclaiming it to all.
SPEAKER_00: And as the seed was scattered in the fields of people, the end result was that only one kind of soil produced what the farmer was looking for.
SPEAKER_00: Or, to use Jesus' words, only one kind of soil hears the word, understands the word, and bears fruit and yields.
SPEAKER_00: The seed is planted, it is scattered again and again, over and over, scattered all over, but only one kind of soil produces.
SPEAKER_00: Let's move then to the last element of this parable and its explanation, which is the productive word.
SPEAKER_00: You know, not many life endeavors are as grounded in faith as gardening and farming.
SPEAKER_00: The gardeners and the farmers of our time have far more reliable resources than those of even the recent past.
SPEAKER_00: But faith is still vital, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We can prepare the soil, we can even to some extent modify the soil to greater or lesser extents.
SPEAKER_00: Soils can be can be irrigated, pests can be fought, weeds can be controlled, but the gardener or the farmer cannot make the seed sprout.
SPEAKER_00: A farmer cannot cause a plant to produce.
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, no one can control the weather.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that scientists tell us that the year 536 was likely the worst year to be alive on the face of this planet?
SPEAKER_00: They're not thinking about Noah's flood.
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking about since then.
SPEAKER_00: 536.
SPEAKER_00: 536 was the worst year to be alive on this planet.
SPEAKER_00: And it was so bad that the planet, they tell us, did not really recover for a hundred years.
SPEAKER_00: Farmers alive in 536 could not expect the eruption of an Icelandic volcano that summer that spread ash all across the northern hemisphere.
SPEAKER_00: Historians tell us that the sun's light was darkened so much that it looked more like the moon.
SPEAKER_00: Summers for several years across Europe and Asia were 35 degrees colder than normal.
SPEAKER_00: As the sun, they say, took on a bluish tone.
SPEAKER_00: Seasons were hardly distinct at all.
SPEAKER_00: There were additional eruptions four years later in 540 and in 547.
SPEAKER_00: And then to top it off, bubonic plague broke out for the first time in 541.
SPEAKER_00: Farmers can't control the weather locally, much less regionally or globally.
SPEAKER_00: Go back in time, and there is much less within the control of a farmer.
SPEAKER_00: It's not much of a surprise then that Matthew relates that Jesus' sowing of the seed of the kingdom was not well received.
SPEAKER_00: From a farming perspective, it's almost expected.
SPEAKER_00: You just know that some years are going to be really bad years.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the seed gets on soil that just doesn't produce.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's the soil or whether it's weeds, whether it's the traveling patterns of people or the growth of thorn bushes or weather or geographic events, a farmer understood that dealing with crops depended not on him, but on God who gives the increase.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the explanation of much of the rejection of Jesus even today.
SPEAKER_00: Especially in Jesus' time among the leadership of the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: But there's even more that we can understand.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the human writer of this biography of Jesus, the disciple Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: You remember Matthew, right?
SPEAKER_00: He was a traitor working for the foreign government that invaded Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The implication of Matthew's biography of Jesus is that we are all Matthew's.
SPEAKER_00: That is, we are all sinners working for the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: We are all scribes and Pharisees, thinking we have our own sense of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: We don't need this Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: We are all, by nature, hearing the word of the kingdom, but the soil of our hearts is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we give rain to the devil and the seed is stolen, or maybe our hearts give more to the pleasures of life than to this one who is called the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew is laying out for us as disciples, he says, listen, brothers and sisters, this is normal.
SPEAKER_00: This is the life of farming.
SPEAKER_00: From a human perspective, the norm is that Jesus is rejected.
SPEAKER_00: Because unless God Himself works the soil through the work of God the Father drawing people to his Son and the work of God the Son revealing the Father to us, we remain unproductive soil.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I asked you to pray for that person who is most resistant to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: God must prepare the soil.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew is always reminding us to look to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And he points here in this chapter, as he often does, to Isaiah in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: From the mouth of Jesus here comes the word spoken to Isaiah in Isaiah 6.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 6.
SPEAKER_00: Many are likely familiar with that passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's the passage where God called Isaiah to be a prophet, a spokesman, a missionary, if you will, to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: It's the chapter that is the basis for our hymn, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: Because there in that chapter, Isaiah came face to face with the God proclaimed by the cherubim as holy, holy, holy.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you remember that chapter, Isaiah 6, from the call of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: God is speaking in his heavenly throne room, and he says to the inhabitants of the heavenly glory, whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah sort of sheepishly looks around and says, I guess you can send me.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard that text preached as a call to missions, which I'm sure you have as well.
SPEAKER_00: But if we let that passage remain in its context, as Jesus did here, it's not exactly the most welcoming call to missions work.
SPEAKER_00: See, God said to Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6, he said, Isaiah, go and tell this people, that is, the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: Tell them to keep on hearing but do not understand.
SPEAKER_00: Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and their eyes blind, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.
SPEAKER_00: See, the people of Isaiah's time had so turned away from God that God sent a prophet to them, not to rescue them, but to confirm them in their rejection.
SPEAKER_00: They would hear Isaiah's message and not repent.
SPEAKER_00: They would see the hand of God upon Isaiah the prophet, but they would just turn away.
SPEAKER_00: They would not understand God's word through Isaiah because God was intending to confirm them in their unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: It's as if God was saying to Israel, that's the way you want it?
SPEAKER_00: Fine, go.
SPEAKER_00: Have your way.
SPEAKER_00: But he was merely a prelude to Jesus, the greatest prophet.
SPEAKER_00: See, these parables have the same function as Isaiah's prophetic message.
SPEAKER_00: They confirmed people in their unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: They had ears, but they would not hear because they loved their evil and their adultery more than they loved the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have ears to hear today, repent of your lust for sin and spiritual adultery and come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is gentle and lowly of heart.
SPEAKER_00: And he calls you, he commands you to turn to him and be healed.
SPEAKER_00: But brothers and sisters in Christ who have already heard that news and believed, relish.
SPEAKER_00: Relish in the grace of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_00: But blessed are your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they see.
SPEAKER_00: And your ears, why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they hear.
SPEAKER_00: For truly I say to you, many prophets, many of God's righteous have longed to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it wonderful that Jesus reveals the Father?
SPEAKER_00: Because if he did not, we would be the hard-packed ground.
SPEAKER_00: We would be the thin soil.
SPEAKER_00: But for the grace of Jesus that grants us understanding to hear the implanted word that saves the soul, there we are.
SPEAKER_00: But by the grace of God, that divine word sprouts and grows.
SPEAKER_00: It brings life and eternal fruitfulness because the soil of the heart was prepared by Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: As for what was sown on the good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.
SPEAKER_00: And he indeed, for sure, absolutely bears fruit and yields.
SPEAKER_00: In one case, a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
SPEAKER_00: In ancient times we are told that a ten to twentyfold increase on a planting was a good harvest.
SPEAKER_00: A ten to twenty fold increase was a good harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Then what's thirty, sixty, and a hundred?
SPEAKER_00: That's unimaginable.
SPEAKER_00: What a miracle then that Christ takes what begins as unprofitable soil, hard, stony ground, wrapped up with thorns because of the cares of life.
SPEAKER_00: Hearts that are unable to hear, hearts that are unable to understand, and he grants them new life, eternal life, his life, and they begin to grow and to bear fruit, not merely for a good harvest, but an astounding harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone to whom the Son reveals the Father, to whom he grants his authority to be called a child of God, becomes eternally fruitful.
SPEAKER_00: But understand, the miracle that he's referring to here is not the miracle of fruitfulness.
SPEAKER_00: The miracle is that there is any fruit at all.
SPEAKER_00: And this is our hope in sowing the seed of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's not our duty, friends, to make the seed grow and bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's Jesus' work.
SPEAKER_00: Our duty is merely to go.
SPEAKER_00: And as we go, we we cast out the seed.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus will continue his kingdom work through the sowing of his seed, both in rejection and in belief in him.
SPEAKER_00: And all of that is his building of his church, which will continue until the end.
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to his glorious grace.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We do pray for that hard and stony ground.
SPEAKER_00: We pray even for our own hearts that get distracted by the cares of this world.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, sometimes we just don't know what we have.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we forget the grace that has been given to us.
SPEAKER_00: May you cause us to know that grace and to relish in the work that you've done in us.
SPEAKER_00: May you give us a boldness to spread that seed, to sow more seed by speaking of you.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the word for a reason.
SPEAKER_00: It requires speaking.
SPEAKER_00: It requires communicating.
SPEAKER_00: Enable us to have the boldness to speak of this Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Who, like a seed, was buried.
SPEAKER_00: Because he died.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he rose again.
SPEAKER_00: And he bears fruit to this day.
SPEAKER_00: May we be like you, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Make your will to be true in us.
SPEAKER_00: May your will be done here, even as it's always done in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for that hard soil that you would break it up.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for that unfruitful soil that you would fertilize it and cause it to be a good place for the seed.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would hinder the evil one who comes to steal the seed.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would be glorified in all of this.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.