The Parable of the Sower

Hello again, friends. If you've got your phone close by, your computer, you can open up your Bible app, or maybe you've got your old-fashioned Bible, open that up to Chapter 4 of the Gospel of Mark. I want to say, to me, the teaching in this chapter is some of the most inspiring, some of the most important teaching regarding the Kingdom of God. I'm Dave Scherrerrer, and here at Kingdom Offerings, this is the podcast environment of A Hundred Full Ministries, and we're starting a series on the parables of the Kingdom of God. And in my mind, you would do well to consider the Gospel of Mark, the whole Gospel, as a primer on the Kingdom of God. Mark is establishing Jesus' place in that Kingdom, in that Kingdom of God, and our place in that Kingdom, for that matter. Mark, which most of the scholars believe was the first of the accounts of Jesus' life to be written, was written to celebrate, to promote the authority of Christ, and to establish in the minds of the readers this true status of Jesus as King of Kings, and that was the point that Mark wanted to make all along, and he wants to drive it home. I think it's interesting that in all the Gospels, Jesus will often introduce a conversation about the Kingdom by saying, the Kingdom of God is like, and then he proceeds to tell a story, Kingdom, so Kingdom, the Kingdom of God. This is a difficult subject material, it's the deep stuff of eternity. In my mind, trying to understand the Kingdom of God is like a PhD physicist trying to explain the string theory of elementary particles to a small child, or worse yet, trying to explain that to me, because I'm not going to get that. Most of us are lost when we're trying to understand the string theory in physics, this advanced mathematical science, the attempt to understand microscopic theory of gravity that's sometimes called the theory of everything. I figure that's going to be hard to understand. I'm going to need a story of some kind to try and help me understand that. So it's the same kind of dilemma for Christ. As the King of an eternal Kingdom that has truths and values and realities that we can't even guess at, that we can't really see, Jesus' challenge is to make known to humankind the Kingdom of God, and he really wants us to understand, but it's not easy. So rather than confuse us with facts we can't understand and endless details of infinity that my finite mind cannot fathom, Jesus tells us stories, he uses word pictures to capture our imagination and our passions. He tells what theologians call Kingdom parables. And in these stories, Jesus is trying to tell his followers, the seekers, that the Kingdom of God has broken out, has invaded the world, our world, so to speak, with the advent of the Son of God, of Jesus Christ. He's coming to our world, the Kingdom of Light, has come into the Kingdom of Darkness and is beginning to change it, one enlightened, one rescued person at a time. King himself has entered the false king's dark realm and is calling citizens to himself. Remember when Jesus said, behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you? He said that in Luke 17. He was talking to the Pharisees in that moment, the religious leaders of the land, and their hearts were so hard that they couldn't even see the truth of whom Jesus was right in front of them. It was as if Satan was plucking away the seed of truth that Jesus was sharing to them, even before it could take root in their hearts. When he said, the Kingdom of God is in your midst, he must have been looking right at them and saying, don't you see me, it, the Kingdom of God? So this parable, this parable is strategically placed in the fourth chapter, I think to engage the reader toward a specific conclusion, a specific purpose. Mark places this Kingdom teaching here, and then he does some more Kingdom teaching in chapter 13. And other than these two portions of Mark, really the account of Jesus' life don't focus on what Jesus taught. More it intends to solidify who Jesus was. That's what Mark is all about. Mark here in chapter 4 is bringing us face to face with the confrontation, which is the Kingdom of God and its king. So the story is a story about Jesus. So let's read it. In Mark chapter 4, beginning in verse 1, again, he began to teach beside the sea and a very large crowd gathered around him so that he got into a boat and sat on it on the sea. And the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. He was teaching them many things in parables. And in his teaching, he said to them, so he's got a lot of teaching going on in parables. And so Mark pulls one of them out. And he was teaching them many things in parables. And he said to them, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path. Birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell upon rocky ground where it didn't have much soil. And immediately it sprang up. And since it had no depth of soil, when the sun rose, it was scorched. Since it had no root, it withered away. Another seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew and choked it. And it yielded no grain. And finally, then no other seeds fell into good soil and produce grain growing up and increasing and yielding 30 fold, 60 fold, and even a hundred fold. And Jesus said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So we're going to discover that that kind of threw off everybody. That was a lesson that people didn't really understand. One of the reasons is that parables in and of themselves are a tricky little instrument of communicating a deep truth. The word parable comes from two Greek words joined together, para, which means come alongside, para, and balo, which means to cast or throw. So a parable is an illustrative story where a familiar idea is cast alongside an unfamiliar idea in a way so that the comparison will help us better understand the more complex or unfamiliar idea. Oh, I get that idea. And so now you're telling me it's like this idea only bigger. So parables aren't used to try and hide, but more as word pictures to bring meaning to difficult concepts or unfamiliar ideas. So then we say to ourself, well, what could this parable be about? Well, Jesus finishes it by saying, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So maybe Jesus is telling us to pay attention. It could be a parable about hard hearts, and we're going to discover that indeed, that's at least a good portion of it. Hard hearts and good soil. It could be a parable about the lost finding God and their rewards in heaven. All these things are important to Jesus, but this is a kingdom parable. And if we read on in our text, we will see a prediction of what will happen when we sow seeds of light and life into a world of darkness and lies. When we, just as Jesus sowed seeds into darkness and light, we too will sow seeds of life and light into darkness and lies, and we'll see what happens. Jesus has to explain it to the disciples because they don't get it. And Luke, when he starts his explanation, he starts out by saying, the seed is the word of God. And then Mark in chapter four, verse 14, he goes on to say, the sower sows the seed. The bringer of the word of God sows the seed. And these are ones that come along the path where the word is sown. And when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes the word that is sown. And then there are the ones that are sown on rocky ground, the ones that when they hear the word immediately, they receive it with joy, but they have no root. They have no root in themselves and they adhere for a little while. But when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, well, it immediately falls away. And then there's one more bad soil, others are sown among thorns. And they're the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things enter in and they choke the word and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on good soil are the ones who hear the word, accept it and bear fruit, 30 fold, 60 fold, even a hundred fold. Some think that the story is about the nature of good soil. And it is, at least in part, we read that, but there's something more to it. There's something more to it. And I think if we knew more about plowing in the first century, that would help us. What's going on in the context of the story? Because in first century farming, they didn't often plow the ground until actually after the sowing of the seeds. The seeds were sown and then they plowed the earth over the seeds, leaving swaths of land in between, paths between the plowed portions so that they could come by and walk and pull up the weeds and the tears from the crop. So what this is telling us is that when Jesus told this parable, everybody understood that in that day, you don't really know what kind of soil it is until we cast the seeds. We don't know what kind of soil, what kind of heart there is until we cast the seed. So this is a story about Jesus. He is coming as King of King. He's entering into our world, into a world of hard soil. He's casting words of truth and he's casting them everywhere. He's casting them because all who will seek are worthy to come and find. So once again, this is a story about a sower who loves everyone and his truth of scripture about himself is for everyone. Not everyone's going to respond. But the sower casts with abandonment, with generosity. He's the prodigal God who is lavish in his spending on us. He does this in love, hoping against hope that the hard-hearted will repent. Because Jesus said, I came to aid the sick, not the healthy. He called Levi the tax gatherer to be a follower, a disciple, not because he was good, but because he was good hearted. Paul talks about this battle between two kingdoms, this battle between truth and light and lies and darkness and how we are now to live as kingdom citizens. He says in Galatians 5, verse 9, you believer were once of darkness. You're once of a kingdom of darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light for the fruit of the light consists in goodness, righteousness and truth. It's all about fruit here, isn't it? So we're looking for fruit, good fruit, the kind of fruit that remaining here is goodness and righteousness and truth. Live as children of light. Find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds. Remember how all the grain that fell on that hard soil, it had no fruit. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. And in doing this, we participate in God's harvest. It could be 30, it could be 60, it could be even 100 fold. So 20 years ago in my ministry at my last church, I spoke with him about my desire that we could be a 100 fold church. And this wasn't out of arrogance that we were somehow better than other churches. No, in fact, it was more out of a desperate dependence upon God and a deep desire to know the fullness of Christ and to participate in the greatest degree possible by our own prayerful obedience to his will and way, his rule and reign. This gospel of the kingdom is good news. It's good news that at the coming of Jesus, God moved into this world in an unprecedented way and began to show himself. Jesus has come, he has exerted his right to rule and to reign in new and powerful ways. He's attacking his enemy, the devil in new ways. He has dealt with sin in a new way. He is gathering people in a new way. He is empowering his ambassadors in new ways. In all this, he is reigning as king and kings and this kingdom is advancing and that is the gospel of the kingdom. So what does that mean to us as we live as children of light? That means that every one of us can and must turn from other things that claim our allegiance and we should surrender to the king of kings. Let us repent of all rebellion and treason. Let us accept the terms of his amnesty, this good king, and let us put our trust in the king of glory and we will overflow with joy. We will see a harvest of 30, 60, even 100 fold. We're going to continue to look at these kingdom parables here at Kingdom Offerings and I invite you to tune in again in the next couple of weeks to start listening to this body of work that Jesus is presenting before us. You can also tune in, take a look at our blog as well and check into a backyard conversation with us. This is Dave Scherrerrer, 100 Fold Ministries, peace to you.