Parables Pt 1

And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13. You may remember that in Matthew chapter 12, we were talking about that Jesus had been squaring off with the religious leaders and really in that squaring off with religious leaders, they had been rejecting his work. He wasn't the Messiah they wanted. He wasn't who they were looking for.

They had begun to reject him. So as we move into chapter 13. We find that Jesus takes a little different approach to the way that he begins to teach and even the way that he begins to present the truth to the masses. He begins using a form of teaching called parables. As a matter of fact, all of chapter 13 is made up of parables and the beginning of this chapter in my Bible is entitled, Jesus Teaches in Parables.

So I entitled this series in chapter 13, Parables. Because it just kind of made sense and I don't get that creative. So this is part one of this and we're going to look at this main one to start with. This parable that has to do with the sower and really it's going to take up a big chunk of scripture and it's a lot to cover in a day but I feel like it's important to all cover together.

So as we break down these first 23 verses, they break down three ways. We're going to look at the parable. We're going to look at the purpose of parables and then we're going to look at the explanation of the parable. So we pick up in chapter 13 verse 1 and this is what it says. That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea and large crowds gathered to him.

So he got into a boat and sat down. The whole crowd was standing on the beach. And he spoke many things to them in parables saying, Behold, the sower went out to sow seed. And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the side of the road. And the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places where they did not have much soil. And immediately they sprang up because they had no depth of soil.

But when the sun had risen, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. So again, paint the picture in your mind of what's going on. It starts off here in chapter 13 verse 1 by saying,

That day Jesus went out to the house and was sitting by the sea. Now that's one of those places in Scripture that you should begin to ask yourself a question. What day? Because Matthew seems to be pretty specific about the day that's mentioned here. Well, that leads us directly back to chapter 12 and all the things that had gone on. The last time that we saw Jesus teaching, he was teaching in a house.

And as he was teaching in a house, the religious leader had asked him for a sign. And he said, No sign will be given to you except the sign of the prophet Jonah. You can pick up on last week's message online if you want to, to hear a little bit more about that. He said, No sign will be given to you except for that. And as he was talking to them about the danger of signs and the danger of those who seek signs,

it says that his mother and his brother showed up. And when they showed up, they wanted to see him. Now we said that there was probably a little bit more to them wanting to see him other than just, Hey, how's Jesus doing? Haven't talked to him on the phone for a while. It was kind of a, Hey, Jesus is taking this Messiah thing a little too far. Maybe he needs to come home with us.

And so as Jesus was approached and said, Hey, your mother and your brothers are here and they want to see you. And he said, Who are my mother and my brothers? He said, You see this? Anybody that does the will of God is my mother and my sister and my brothers. He's in the house teaching. And so as he's in the house and all of those things are taking place, on that same day, he decides he wants to go down by the seashore.

It undoubtedly needs a little bit of air. Perhaps it's getting to be a little bit too much to deal with the people in the house. The rejection maybe is getting more intense. And so he decides to move to a different place where he can do some more teaching. So he goes down by the seashore because the beach felt like a relaxing place to be. But if you're Jesus, you don't get to relax because people are always there.

And so large crowds show up and he decides if I'm going to teach these large crowds, I can't do so where I'm at right here on the beach. The best thing would be for me to get into a boat and go out into the water a little bit so that my voice can perhaps project a little bit better. I'm throwing some thoughts in Jesus's mind, but I feel like that's probably the thought that went through his mind. And as he does so, he begins to teach.

Only this time it says, according to Matthew, that when he began to teach, he taught them parables. That's what he began to teach them. Now if we look at this term parable, literally in the Greek, the word parable means to throw down beside. That's the idea of the word. And the idea is this, that it puts a physical truth next to a spiritual principle. Now the interesting thing is that this is a little bit of a different way than Jesus had ever taught before.

Because parables are different. They're not what we would necessarily just call illustrations. Because there's something a little bit more concealed about the way that you teach in a parable. When I was growing up, we called parables earthly stories with heavenly meanings. Those of us that grew up going to Calvary Chapel Christian School had that sort of drilled into our heads.

We knew that that's what it was. But that's the idea of what these parables were. It lines up these two truths. Now if we were to look at Matthew 5-7 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presented a spiritual truth. He illustrated the spiritual truth. And then he applied the spiritual truth. But these parables look very different. And this first parable that he told was about a farmer who went out to sow seed.

He says this farmer went out to sow seed and there were four different types of soil that the seed fell on. The first type of soil that the seed fell on is it fell beside the road. Now it seems odd that if a farmer is going to go out and sow soil, how could the road be that close that he would end up throwing some seed on it? Well you may remember from the last chapter that the disciples had gotten themselves in trouble on the Sabbath day by quote unquote harvesting grain.

If you remember what we said about that, we said that there were paths that cut through the farmer's fields to make it easier for people to get to town. These paths would be traveled quite frequently and that's what the disciples were walking on when they would have reached their hand out to grab a little bit of grain. Only you know as well as I do that when a path gets worn down enough, that soil gets very hard. And so the seed could not penetrate the soil.

He said so the birds of the air, they came and they ate up the seed and it produced no crop because the seed had been taken away. The second type of soil was a rocky type of soil. It says that the seed went down but there were rocks down below the soil and so they quickly took root. But eventually the sun, when it became hot, scorched that which had grown because it had no good root system and it could produce no fruit.

The third type of soil was the type of soil that has no fruit. It has no soil that has lots of thorns in it. So once again thrown down, it starts to come up but the thorns eventually choke out the crop that comes up and so no crop is produced. And then the fourth type of soil is a really good soil. Seed is sown on that soil and as that seed is sown on that soil, the soil takes it in.

It develops a good root system and then it grows and it begins to produce fruit. Some a lot of fruit, some a little bit of fruit, but it produces fruit nonetheless. Now, you and I, most of us, have probably heard this story before. You've probably read this chapter before. As a matter of fact, many of you know what Jesus is going to explain as the meaning of this parable is.

Many of you have heard other teachers teach on what this parable is about. But I want you to put yourself in the sandals of a first century person who's living in about 30 AD that just heard this story for the very first time. They were not told that Jesus applied this story to their lives at all or even told them that there was a spiritual purpose to this story. Matter of fact, all he did was tell the story.

All he did was tell this story about a farmer who went out to sow seed and then when he was done telling this story, he was done with it. We know because his disciples are going to start talking to him here in a minute. Now, I want you to imagine you never had this spiritually applied to your life. When he was done telling this story, you would kind of be like, huh?

I don't get it. What? I'm in agriculture right now? Like, should I be writing this down? Is that like wisdom about agriculture I should be learning? Is it, are the birds bad? I don't know what I need to learn from this story. And he just left it at that. And then when he finished out the story, he gives us verse 9, which is really important because he's given no spiritual application except this one little line that may give us some form of application.

He says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. What Jesus does in the last line of this story. He invites anyone who is willing to find a deeper meaning in what he just said to begin the process of taking it in. To begin the process of seeking exactly why he told them this story. The idea is that if your ears are tuned into the things of the Spirit, then perhaps you can start hearing exactly what the Spirit has to say.

Well, his disciples were there. And I like his disciples. Because his disciples are like me. And so they asked Jesus a question. And this is where we get into the purpose of parables. Notice what it says in verse 10. It segues directly into this question from the disciples. And the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables? Jesus answered them,

To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given. And he will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables. Because while seeing, they do not see. And while hearing, they do not hear.

Nor do they understand. In their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled which says, You will keep on hearing, but you will not understand. You will keep on seeing, but you will not perceive. For the heart of this people has become dull. With their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears,

and understand with their heart, and return, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and blessed are your ears because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it. And hear what you hear and did not hear it. Now again, with the backdrop of the understanding that Jesus

has not yet explained this parable to anyone yet, he just left it hanging there for them to figure out. They ask a question. Jesus, what's up with the parables? Why did you decide that this is what you were going to do? Now, in the way of being completely honest and frank with you, I have really wrestled with this particular section of scripture this week. And I feel like I'm not the only human being who feels that way.

I'm not the only human being that's wrestled with this, because I feel like most of the guys that I read about this all had some mildly different thoughts, which tells me that they're wrestling with it as well. Because this is sort of a tough section of scripture to take in because of what Jesus has to say. And so as we approach this purpose of parables, I want to point out the fact that parables really do two things. Parables both reveal the truth, but parables also conceal the truth.

Now that sounds a little counterintuitive to who Jesus is, am I correct? See why this is a little bit of a wrestling match? I've picked up those two things on what Jesus has said, because to some it's been given to be revealed, and to some it's been given to be concealed. And so they ask this question, Jesus, why do you speak to them in parables? And this is how Jesus answers,

To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. Now, I feel like as Jesus is addressing these disciples, he tells them, To you it's been granted for the truth to be revealed. Now what on earth makes you qualified to be the one to whom the truth is revealed? I believe the key to this is actually given to us in Matthew chapter 11.

So go back to Matthew chapter 11, and I want you to start in verse 25. Matthew 11, 25. Notice what it says. At that time Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden me, hidden these things, we could probably substitute the word concealed, hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, Father, for this was well pleasing in your sight. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Now, I believe that this is the key to what Jesus is saying here. Who does he choose to reveal these things to? Not to the wise and the intelligent. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't be a smart person and take in what God's word has to say. Absolutely you can be. Perhaps I'll add a couple of words without taking this completely out of context. You have hidden these things from those who claim to be wise

and from those who are intelligent in their own estimation. You see, that was what these religious leaders were at this point in time. They were the ones who claimed to be the wise people. They were the ones who claimed to be the intelligent people. After all, they are the ones who had been spending their lives studying the scriptures, the sacred writings. And as they studied the scriptures and the sacred writings,

they also could quote to you what all of the law was and make sure that they could keep every aspect of it. They could quote to you what all of the teachings about the law were. And they could follow every aspect of it. They could give you all the commentary on it. They were, in their own minds, about as wise and intelligent as anyone could be. And yet, Jesus is speaking in parables to conceal the truth to them

and reveal the truth to the disciples. So why were the disciples the ones to whom he revealed the truth? Because they were the intelligent people. They were the infants and the babies. Why does that matter, Ryan? I don't know if you've been around an infant lately, but infants find themselves pretty dependent, don't they? I've never once come across an infant who's like,

I've got this. Because they're very dependent upon their parents to do everything for them. See, I believe what Jesus is doing when he uses these parables is he's speaking in such a way that you can't pick up on it right away. To find out the truth, you have to begin to dig deeper. To find the truth of what he has to say, you have to have a heart that is set on spiritual things

and a mind that is determined to take in those spiritual things. A mind that says, I'm going to seek it out until I find the truth. Because up to this point in time, the truth was plainly set in front of everyone. And what did the religious community do with the truth? They rejected it. So Jesus said, fine, if you will reject the simplest, plainest truth that's put right in front of your face,

then I will conceal the truth and only reveal it to the true seekers. Only reveal it to those who are truly seeking after me. Only reveal it to those who will not give up until they have found the truth. I kind of question that if Jesus was around today, I feel like he'd speak in a lot of parables when he came to being at the church. Because I think he would want to make sure that the people that were listening to him

were really seeking the truth. I think that that's what he's doing. That's how Jesus would speak to a lot of the religious community today. So he tells these disciples when they ask him, why the parables? He says, because to you it's been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Not because of who you are, but because of the desire of your heart to know the truth.

But then he says this, but to them, end of verse 11, back in chapter 13, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given. And he will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they don't see, while hearing they don't hear, nor do they understand.

What does he mean by that? To those who are rejecting him, the truth is concealed. What a dangerous place for the church to come to, to where Jesus, who could have revealed the truth in the plainest way possible, has to decide that he'll begin speaking in such a way that only the true seekers will come after him, and the rest will just say, why did that guy tell me a story about a farmer? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Actually, at that point in time, they would probably be like, what's that have to do with the price of tea in Syria? Right? Because it didn't make sense to them. What's going on right now? And Jesus goes on to sort of drive the nail in just a little bit deeper in their understanding when he gives this prophecy from Isaiah. Notice what it says in verse 14. He says, in their case, meaning those who have rejected

and even what they have has been being taken away, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, you will keep on hearing, but you will not understand. You will keep on seeing, but you will not perceive. Why? Because the heart of this people has become dull. You know what that word dull means? That word dull literally means fat. Their heart has become fat.

What does that mean that their heart has become fat? You know what I think of? I think of the church of Laodicea. You don't even know that you're blind and you're miserable and you're poor because you have everything as far as you're concerned. And that's what the nation of Israel was doing right now. That's what the religious community was doing right here.

They thought they had everything because they had the temple, they had the law, they had Jerusalem, they had everything. But they missed the one thing, and so their hearts were dull. Even though everything that the temple represented, the scriptures pointed to, and Jerusalem was crying out for, was standing right in front of them, they still rejected him. Why? Because their heart was dull.

It goes on to say, With their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return, and I would heal them. The nation of Israel was fulfilling this prophecy right before Jesus' eyes. And while the truth was being revealed to the seekers, it was being concealed from the rejecters.

Well, Jesus goes on to give a wonderful word to his disciples. Notice what he says. He says, But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. I like verse 16 for two reasons. Number one, because it's really cool that these guys were seekers, and because they were seekers, God opened up the world to them. It reminds me of what it says in Jeremiah 29, 13, where it says that,

If you will seek me, you will find me. When you search for me with all your heart, I will be found of you, declares the Lord. And that's who these guys were. They were seekers. And so that gives me courage because I just know I want to know the truth. I don't care if I'm wrong. I don't care if I'm right. I don't care how much it offends me. That's a place I've had to come to over the years.

I don't care how much the truth offends me. I just want to know the truth because if I live in a lie, then I'm living in death, right? And so that's who these guys were. But it also gives me a great deal of encouragement because you know what the disciples were capable of? The disciples were capable of really high highs where everything was awesome and they were so spiritually in tune and they were flowing in the Spirit with Jesus.

And the disciples were also capable of the lowest lows where they were the biggest idiots known to man, right? Like one minute Jesus is like, Oh, flesh and blood has not revealed that to you. That came straight from my Father. The next minute he's going, Get behind me, Satan. That's a bad idea, right? Because they were capable of that sort of thing. But in their hearts, they were like,

In their heart, they were still seekers. It makes me happy because I can be capable of the highest of highs where man life is flowing and I am in tune with the Spirit and the next minute I can fall flat on my face, both physically and spiritually speaking. He says, To you it's been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom. And then he goes on to say in verse 17, For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it, to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

He said, Man, you guys are blessed beyond anything you can imagine because the prophets over the centuries have been talking about what you're looking at right now. They've been prophesying about the coming of the Messiah. And here I am. So we've seen the parable and we've seen the purpose of the parables. And now it's time for this parable to be explained.

So we pick up in verse 18 and this is what it says. Hear then, and I love this, how Jesus graciously explains this parable to them. Hear then the parable of the sower. 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. This is the one on whom the seed was sown beside the road.

The one on whom the seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no firm root in himself but is only temporary. And when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. And the one on whom the seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.

And the one on whom the seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold, some sixty and some thirty." Now, I'm blessed by the fact that Jesus is willing to explain this parable to them, which reminds me of the fact that the entire reason he told them was that the true seekers would say, teach me what you mean. And Jesus was completely willing to do that because to those really seeking, he will take as much time as necessary to give the truth. And so he begins explaining this parable to them. And he goes through each of the four soils.

Now as we go through each of these, I want you all to understand something. I don't know anything about farming, okay? I do know about horticulture. So rather than knowing that some of you in here do know a lot about farming, rather than embarrassing myself with not knowing anything about that, I will apply these to my knowledge of planting grass seed because I do know a lot about that.

So the first type of soil that he talks about here is he says, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it. So we're given a little bit of an understanding of some of the players here. We have the sower, we have the seed, and we have the different types of soil. In this direct application, the direct context, the sower is Jesus giving out the word.

The seed, as we see here, is the word of the kingdom, or we might call it the scriptures, the word of God. And the different soils are each individual person that hears the word of God. Now I do believe that we can apply the sower tag to any of us that give out the truth of the word, any of us that are going to be willing to, share the word of God with anybody. And I'll address that when we get to the application portion.

But that's the general idea of who the people are. And so he says, the sower goes out and he sows the word of God. He sows the word of the kingdom. The first type of soil that it falls onto is the soil that falls beside the road. Now, if you were to go out into our front yard right now here at the church, you would see that there's some areas that need some seeds sown.

As a matter of fact, Kurt and I have been talking about what that's going to look like. Now, once we get to the point where we start sowing, that seed, I know that one place that the seed is going to end up is on the sidewalk. It may not be the dirt path that Jesus is talking about, yet equally as difficult to penetrate with grass seed. Except in one place on a sidewalk, and that's the crack of the sidewalk.

Have you ever known? Like, I can grow the nicest patch of grass on the crack of a sidewalk. I could seed my whole yard, and I'm like, oh look, that spot right there is growing. We were talking about this between the services, and I said, you know, the other place I've really grown some good grass is in the back of my pickup truck. Because some leaves have been there,

and I've spilled some seed, and it rains, and I'm like, son of a gun, I need to mow my truck today. Now, that's one of those types of soil that doesn't, it's too shallow. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. So anyway, so you throw it out, it lands on the sidewalk. What happens when it lands on the sidewalk? Well, first of all, birds do come, and they do begin to eat it off of the sidewalk.

But then the other thing that happens is, I know it's not going to grow there, and so I take a blower or broom, and I clean it all off the sidewalk. Why? Because the sidewalk is impenetrable. You are never going to get that seed to go down deep in the same way that the path that Jesus was talking about, the road that Jesus was talking about, the seed could never get past the top.

Why? Because it's too hard. And do you know that there are some people that when they hear the word of God, their heart is so hard that it will not take in the truth of what God's word has to say. As a matter of fact, immediately the enemy comes in and completely rips out the message of the word of God because their heart won't take it in. He said, that's the first type of soil.

That ground is so hard, nothing can happen with it, and it's completely ripped out. The devil, as it says, snatches it away. The second type of soil that's given is the, or the second type of soil is the rocky ground. It says there's seed that was spread on the rocky ground. Do you see what happened? It says this man hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

When I lived in Johnson County, there was a yard that I mowed. It was a beautiful yard, and I loved it because I could stripe it up and make it look so nice, but it had one problem. Underneath the surface of the yard, there were large rocks, I mean big rocks, like this size or the size of that table. They were huge. And I remember the first summer that I mowed it,

springtime, it looked gorgeous. They're fertilizing, rain's coming down, the weather's perfect, everything's great. The whole yard looks awesome. But come the middle of July, I started going, hey, do we need to get somebody out here to check and see if you've got some disease in your yard? Because I'm seeing all these brown spaces, all these brown places out here.

And they said, no, that's because we didn't pay to have all of the rocks removed. And so there's not enough soil on top of those. They've hit the rock, and because it's so hot and the rains aren't coming down, the grass just doesn't grow very well there now. And I thought, wow, what a perfect picture of what Jesus has to say here. He said, there are some people who,

they hear the word of God and they take it in and it's amazing and it's beautiful. And when conditions are absolutely perfect, they're producing the perfect yard because their lives are easy and life is flowing. And I'm still caught up in that initial emotion of having given my life to Jesus. But you see, my roots aren't going down very deep. My roots are hitting a place where the soil's really rocky,

where they can't go any further to seek after the water of the word. And because I'm really shallow in my faith, my faith was maybe only built on the emotion of the moment that I heard the word, pretty soon difficulty comes. In the parable that Jesus tells, it's the scorching sun. But as he applies it here, he says, affliction and persecution. You see, one thing that you can promise

in the life of any believer is the thing that you can promise in the life of any human being. Difficult times. Difficult times are gonna come. I don't always like when people are like, man, once you follow Jesus, there's either two directions they'll go. Follow Jesus and your life will be awesome. It'll be perfect. You'll never have any problems. And we all know that's a lie, right?

Because that's not real life. But then there's other people that are like, man, once you follow Jesus, life is always gonna be hard. There's always gonna be extra difficulties. And I'm like, can't we just settle on the reality that life is hard and it's full of a lot of difficulties, whether you know Jesus or not. But if your roots aren't deep in who he is,

then when affliction comes and the hard things come, you'll fall away from faith. Why? Well, that was God's fault. God did that. God's a mean God. Their roots weren't very deep. And then they end up blaming God for the things that happen in their life. And they begin to shrivel up and wither. And it can't produce anything that's good. Well, then there's the third type of soil.

And the third type of soil is the one that is sown among the thorns. It is sown among the thorns. It says, verse 22, and the one on whom the seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Now, I've never planted grass seed among the thorns.

I've never had thorns grow up and completely take over my yard. But do you know what I have had take over my yard? The most evil thing God has ever allowed to be on this earth that is straight from the pit of hell. You know what it's called? Crabgrass. It is evil beyond evil, right? That plus army worms. Don't get me going on army worms. We will be here all morning.

Crabgrass comes in and takes over your yard. And you know what it does? It robs your yard of all of the moisture and it completely takes over your yard, even if you've got good grass. It just completely takes it over. And pretty soon you're like, son of a gun, that was fescue five days ago. Now it's all crabgrass. What happened? And then your mower bogs down.

And it's an evil that should never be allowed. There will not be crabgrass in the kingdom, okay? I'm claiming that by faith right now. And it completely takes over to where you don't see anything good anymore. Well, the same thing happens in our lives. Only for us it's not crabgrass. What is it? It says the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth.

Let me encapsulate those into one word that I think best fits. I would use the word distractions. You see, distractions love to come in and choke out our lives, especially our spiritual lives. And do we not live in a world that advertises for distractions all the time? We live in a world that thrives on distraction. There's so many things that we can be distracted by

in the world right now. There is the worries of the world, which are like, how am I gonna pay for gas this week? There's how am I gonna buy groceries this week? Are there gonna be groceries on the shelves this week? What's gonna happen in the world? All the different worries that can go on in the world, all those things that can end up choking us out. But you see, I think that goes beyond

just worrying about things, and I think it goes into more caring about things. How am I gonna climb the corporate ladder? How am I gonna make more money? How am I gonna end up making a name for myself in the world? How am I gonna end up forming a reputation for myself in the world? Now, if I was teaching a group of teenagers this right now, they would say, that won't be me.

I don't do that kind of thing. And I'm like, that's so funny. Because you live that. And then if I was teaching you all, you'd probably be like, that's not me. That's funny, because you live that. Because we all live that. We all struggle with those distractions. I don't care which one of them they are, we live them all. Because those distractions are all around us all the time.

And we can say, oh yeah, kids deal with that. Or oh, they deal with that. But how about I start saying, oh, I deal with that. But those distractions are in my life. I get easily distracted. Okay, so I told this story first service. It's about my oldest daughter from when she was a baby. So there's nothing she could have done, good or bad, to change this story.

So there it is. When she was a baby, we got to where we were starting to feed her the solid food. And so we fed her the most disgusting looking thing I've ever seen in my life. Rice cereal. That stuff was terrible looking. She loved it. So we'd put her in her little bumbo chair, or whatever it was, and put a little bib on her. And eventually we started taking her clothes off

because it's the best way to do it. Anyway, so we put that. See, she's a silver dollar city. She can't hear any of this right now. So we're feeding her, only we couldn't feed her fast enough. Kid loved her food, right? So immediately takes in it. We're like, okay, well, she really likes this. So we're reaching down to get another one, only she gets distracted because if it's not constantly

coming in her mouth, she's like . . . So she would get distracted by things. She would go, my fist. Oh, and she'd stick that in her mouth because that looks super tasty. And we'd go, no, you can't put your fist in your mouth. And then she would grab her bib and she would stick it in her mouth. No, can't do that. And then one of us would have to hold her back

from all of the things she's trying to put in her mouth because she's so distracted by all the things around her that she could stick in her mouth. We're like, that won't do anything for you. You need the cereal. That's what'll give you some form of nutrients. This is what you need to eat. But you see, she's so distracted by her fist and the bib and all these kinds of things

because the cereal's not coming to her fast enough. And I remember sitting there feeding her. I'm like, stop being so distracted. And it was almost like God said, kind of like you. And I was like, oh, that sucks. Yeah, you're right. That is kind of like me. I get so distracted. I know what's good for me. I know that the word of God is what I need. But if I'm not taking in the word fast enough,

I'm like, ooh, brownies, right? Or do you name it? Whatever distraction it is that's around me. I'm like, that looks like fun. I should do that right now. And Jesus is like, how about that? How about that? How about we be here? And I'm like, okay, yay. Ooh, my phone, right? The distractions just come, and pretty soon I'm not focused on anything. And all of a sudden,

the word starts getting choked out of my life because if I don't deal with those distractions, then those distractions become habits. And if those habits aren't dealt with, those habits become lifestyles. And if those lifestyles aren't dealt with, it becomes who I am. And so, he tells this story about the soil where the thorns can take over. The worries of the world

and the deceitfulness of wealth choke out the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And then we come to the last type of soil, the very good soil. It says, and the one on whom the seed was sown was on good soil. This is the man who hears the word, who understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold, some 60, and some 30. And man, this is what we're all looking for

when we plant that brand new yard, right? We plant all the grass in our front yard. We look for that spot that everything just goes amazing. Not too long before we moved down here, the summer before we moved down here, I'd saved up enough money to pour a driveway at my house. It was a gravel driveway, and it looked gross, and I couldn't shovel snow off of it.

So, having access to construction equipment meant I could do it for a lot cheaper, so I poured this driveway. When I pour this driveway, I've got like a strip of just soil on the outside. And I'm like, now's my time. So I start throwing the soil out there, and I'm doing everything. I'm watering. And I mean to tell you, still to this day, we drove by this house

when we went up to Kansas City for spring break. Still to this day, the strip around that driveway is the sweetest looking grass in all of Johnson County. At least as far as I'm concerned. Because that was good soil that produced a great deal of tall fescue. It was an amazing thing. That's what he's talking about. He says, man, the guy that takes in the word of God,

the lady that takes in the word of God, they understand it. They apply it to their life. They understand it. And then they live it out. They produce seed. Or they produce fruit. What's the fruit that we produce in our lives? The fruit that we produce in our lives is those good works. Those good works of loving God, of loving other people, of giving out the gospel,

of serving people. Right? All of those things start getting produced in our lives. As that soil is really good. Now, as I think about this, I think, well, how can we apply this to our lives? So what is the application? Well, I think there's a threefold application here. The first application comes to the sower. Right? As I mentioned, in the direct context, I believe that the sower

in this story is Jesus. He's the one that's giving out the word of God. And not everybody's taking it in. But I think that if you go beyond that, we can really say any of us that give out the word of God are just like that. We're the sower in this story. You don't have to be me standing up in front of people giving out the word of God in this way. You can just simply be sharing

the truth with a friend of yours. You can be sharing the truth with the person you're standing next to in the room. You can be in the coffee line. Whatever it is, you give out the truth of the word of God. You're just like this sower. And there's a real word of encouragement that's given to us in the sower. Do you know what Jesus promises? Jesus promises a 25% return.

Now, I don't know about you, but that is a little bit of a bummer at first. Because as someone who's worked with a lot of young kids over a long time, over the past 20 years, I look back and some of them, I look and I go, man, you'd think I'd never taught them anything. Because I see their life now and I see them and it's not at all reflective of anything that scripture has to say. And I go, what went wrong?

And my wife is always so good to remind me that my job is not the result. My job is to give out the word. My job is to sow the seed. From there, it's completely up to the Lord and how he does things. From there, it's completely up to God what happens because people have to make their own choices. And so sometimes I look and I go, man, I feel like so many people I've ministered

to over the years just don't have much of a walk with Jesus Christ. And that hurts my heart. But then I'm reminded of those that do. I think of a young couple that we went on vacation with last year who were a part of our college ministry. We got to see them before they ever knew each other. We got to see them come to know each other, get married, and now have a beautiful family

that they're raising in the fear of the Lord. And I go, good fruit. That's part of the 25%. And then I see that, you know, I've got Rachel and Tristan now that are getting ready to take over the youth group. And what a beautiful thing that that is because they came up through my youth group from freshman in high school. And I remember the first time that Tristan showed up

and I said, who's this? And she said, this is my friend Tristan. I said, just your friend? She said, we're just friends. And I said, that's what Aaron and I were too. And now to see them getting ready to take over the youth group and love Jesus and serve Him, I go, it's part of the 25%. And so when we give out the truth, you need to understand some people are not going

to accept what you have to say. But listen. They did the same thing to Jesus. If Jesus is saying that He is the sower at best, has a 25% return, we can't expect a whole lot better than that for ourselves. And so we can take comfort in knowing that it's not because you've done something wrong. It's because that's what the hearts of people do. And so the first application

that we see is to the sower. The second application, though, that we see is to the hearers. And I'm reminded of the fact that there's two different groups of hearers that take in the Word of God. The first is what I would call the basic understanding of this. And that's that the truth of the gospel goes out to the unsaved. Right? That's the first group of hearers.

And you can know that as the gospel is given out, whether it be in a mass setting or any type of setting, as the gospel goes out to the unsaved, you can know that one of these four responses is probably going to take place in their life. Either one, it's going to completely fall on deaf ears and they're not even going to hear it because Satan immediately removes it. Two, they're going to get real geeked up in the beginning, but they're going to stay shallow and going to end up being choked out by the care, or being scorched because of the affliction of life. Three, they're going to be planted among the thorns and all of a sudden all the cares of the world are going to pull them away.

But then there's that glorious 25% that when they hear the message of the gospel, they will say, I am a sinner. I do need a savior. They get saved. They get plugged into a church and they become a true disciple of Jesus Christ. We know that's true among the unsaved. But it's also true among those who are saved. Because what happens every time you hear the word of God is

you will choose to respond to what God's word has to say in one of four ways. Either one, your heart will have gotten hard through sin. Perhaps hard through apathy. Perhaps hard through some aspect of bitterness that's come into your life that is hindering the work of God. And immediately, the enemy comes in and just takes it away. Just completely removes it

and you go, man, I don't even remember what I learned. I don't even know what we talked about in church. I don't even know what I read in the Bible this morning. Because the enemy snatched it away. The other thing though is that for some of us as believers, the word of God will come. You'll hear God's word and you'll go, yes, that was exactly what I needed to hear.

I'm so excited. But then Monday happens. And when Monday happens, you're like, oh, affliction, never mind. That sounded like a good idea yesterday in church. Or it sounded like a good idea in my devotions this morning. But now, let's not do that. Let's not be so serious because affliction begins to scorch your life. It begins to pull you away. That can absolutely happen

among believers. And then for some of you, you're gonna take in what God's word has to say and you're gonna find that the distractions of life become great. And listen, right now, the distractions of life are great. There's all kinds of them. And you're gonna take in God's word and you're gonna say, that's pretty good. But pretty soon, you're gonna get distracted.

Pretty soon, you're not gonna have time to show up to church once on a Sunday morning. Well, there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody misses church sometimes. Pretty soon, you oversleep and you couldn't do your devotions that day. The problem is that one day sometimes turns into two. Two days turns into five. Five days turns into a month. And a month turns into six months.

Six months turns into five years. That's true in your own personal devotional time. And that's true in your church attendance. That's true in being amongst the body of Christ, which is something that we're called to do. And pretty soon, the distractions of this life slowly but surely choke you out. And it always starts small. It always starts, well, that's not that big of a deal.

It was just once. Well, it was just a month of it. And then pretty soon, you go, man, I don't even remember who goes to church anymore because I'm never around the body of Christ. And the distractions of life are slowly but surely choking you out. Oh, you may say in the beginning, it's not a big deal. I'm still maintaining my walk. After all, my walk is the only way

I'm gonna be able to get to church. I'm gonna be able to get to church. I'm gonna be able to get to church. After all, my walk is mine. It doesn't matter if I'm around God's people. But when you do get around God's people, they can tell. Because you don't talk about Jesus like you used to. Those distractions can begin to choke us out. And then for some of us,

we take in what God's word has to say. And it brings that peaceable fruit of repentance because it brings about that confession in our lives. We say, Lord, that's absolutely right. That's where I need to grow. And then we apply it to our life on a daily basis. And all of a sudden, we start seeing that fruit produced. It's slow, and it's sure, but it's still there.

And that fruit is produced. Really, when it comes right down to it, what we see is a really good and challenging question, and that's this. What kind of soil are you? What kind of soil is your heart made of? Now perhaps if you're like me, you can get a little concerned sometimes that maybe your heart has some bad soil. I went through a period of time of being concerned

that my heart had bad soil, and I was like, Lord, I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm not taking anything in. Do I just have bad soil now? The Lord gave me. He gave me a word at some point in time. I was working at Lakeview Village, and I was doing grounds keeping. Super, super dry summer. We couldn't get anything to grow. I'd planted a bunch of grass seed

in an area that was very bare, and I couldn't get it to grow. I was watering it. Nothing was happening. And I was like, I remember the thought going through my head. Must just be bad soil. So I kind of went about life and continued thinking the same thing about me. And I remember that fall. As a matter of fact, it was Labor Day weekend. We got several inches

of rain over Labor Day weekend. And you know what happened the next week? That grass grew like nothing I've ever seen before. It all filled in and became this really beautiful yard, this carpet of grass in that area. And you know what? There are very few times in my life where I felt like, man, God spoke to me. But that was one of the times where I felt like

God spoke to me. You know what he said? I'm bigger than bad soil. Isn't that great? Now, I can't prove that scripturally, but I do think that there's something here for us to learn. Because I feel like that's what God spoke to me. And so how do we overcome bad soil? And so I asked myself this question as I was preparing this. And I thought, well, how do farmers

overcome bad soil? They overcome bad soil by cultivation. You see, a farmer doesn't just go, I threw my grass seed out. Let's see what happens. I threw all the wheat seed or whatever it is that they're trying to grow. I threw all that out. Now let's just see what happens. No, they cultivate their soil. They do the work that has to be done. In the same way that I, as a guy

who loves a beautiful yard, doesn't just go, well, hope it grows this year. No, I begin doing what needs to be done. So how do we cultivate good soil? Three ways. Number one, break up the hard ground. Break up the hard ground. You see, when a farmer goes out to sow his seed, the first thing he does is prepare the field. How does he prepare the field? He prepares the field

by running a machine over it that absolutely destroys the top of the soil so that it tills it up. You know what I was going to do if I was going to plant a brand new yard? I would take something called a verti-cutter that has a bunch of knives that slice directly into the soil so that I could break up that top inch of soil so that the seed could penetrate the soil. It's no good.

It's no different in our walks with Jesus Christ. You say, Ryan, I feel like the word of God is not coming in. Well, then maybe it's time to break up the hard ground. How do you break up the hard ground? Listen, I only know of one way to break up the hard ground. As a matter of fact, we're told in Joel, in the book of Joel, he says, break up the fallow ground

of your heart. There's only one way to do that and that's through confession. All you can do is start going and confessing those sins to the Lord because listen, the hardness of heart only comes about because of sin. It's not that but it's just true. The one thing that will cause your heart to get hard to the things of God is sin. Even if it's a sin somebody else committed

against you, if it has brought bitterness into your heart, then now it's sin in your life. And all you can do is just start confessing that. Ryan, I don't really feel like it. I don't even feel that heavy of conviction but if you know you're doing it wrong, start confessing it to the Lord and I promise something will happen. As you begin to confess your sin

to the Lord, there will be a little bit of forgiveness and eventually as you begin confessing those sins to the Lord, it will absolutely start tearing up the fallow ground of your heart and pretty soon you'll be just like me. You won't make it through a day without tearing up because that's how soft God's made your heart. Break up the hard ground. Number two, remove the barriers.

What's keeping you shallow in your walk with Jesus Christ right now? What's keeping you from going deeper in your walk with Jesus Christ right now? It's because there was rocks in there. With the yard I was telling you about, it's because there was a rock down underneath and it was keeping that yard, it keeps the seed from going deep with its roots into the soil.

What's keeping you from going deep in your walk with Jesus Christ right now? Is it because there's going to be sacrifice involved? Well, it's time to remove that barrier. Is it because it's going to require more of you than it's time to remove that barrier? Is it because there's someone in your life that's keeping that from happening and not to remove those barriers?

Otherwise, I promise you what Jesus said is going to happen. Eventually, when afflictions come, you'll be scorched by the sun of affliction and there won't be anything you can do. Number three, get rid of the weeds. Get rid of the weeds. What do I mean by that? Time to start eliminating distractions from our lives. Time to start eliminating distractions from our lives.

I've shared with you lots of times before. I love to share with you what I've learned and what I've learned in my life. I've shared with you lots of times before. I love hearing stories about athletes. Favorite thing I love about hearing stories about athletes is how they have to remove things from their lives that keep them from being an elite athlete because those distractions

will always keep them from being who they want to be as an athlete and because it means so much to them to win a crown, they're willing to make those sacrifices. Brothers and sisters, we have an even greater crown that we're pursuing. We're seeking an eternal life. We're seeking an eternal life in our lives. How much more should we be willing to get rid of the distractions

in our lives? Amen? Well this morning is Communion Sunday and I'm hoping that we have some kids ready to come in. Sweet, got a thumbs up. So we're gonna bring the kids in and once all the little people are in here, I'll explain what we're doing with Communion. So you might look and see if your kid's coming that way. They're not the one at the back going, I don't know

where my mom and dad is. Come sit with Grandpa. Good job. So this morning is Communion Sunday and Communion Sunday is the day that we celebrate the fact that Jesus died to save us from our sins. On that last great night of the feast, Jesus took the bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body which is broken for you. Every time you do this, do it in remembrance

of me. And then he took that cup and he said, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood of Jesus Christ. So every time that we partake of the bread in Communion, we are reminded of the fact that Jesus bore all of our penalty for sin in his own body on the tree. His body was broken for us. And every time we partake of the cup, we're reminded of the fact

that the blood of Jesus Christ was enough to cover all of our sins. So Paul told us, he said, hey, you need to make sure when you partake in this meal, since you are declaring that you are not a part of the family of God, that you are not a part of the family of God, that if you're not a part of the family of God, this won't mean much to you. It'll be the saddest snack you've ever eaten. And so if you're not a part of the family of God, then today's the day to become a part of the family of God.

Listen, God's word has gone out. We are all sinners in need of a savior and Jesus provided that salvation by coming and dying for us. And so, all it takes is, is admitting that you're a sinner and accepting that he's your savior. But the second way that we partake of this in a worthy manner is we make sure that our hearts are clean before the Lord. That if there is

that bitterness that we have between each other, if there is unconfessed sin in our lives, if there is sin that we've been harboring that we need to confess to him, that we do so. Because as we remember this, it reminds us that that's what he did for us. And so, I'm gonna invite the worship team to come on up. When the worship team comes up to share this last song, I would like for you to begin to ask the Lord to search your heart.

To search you and see if there's any wicked way in you. To search you to see if you really are a part of the family of God. And as he does so, just pour your heart out to the Lord. Seek him in these things and begin to confess sin. And we can rest in the fact that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. And so, as they're singing

this last song, I want you to stand out the elements. As you receive the elements, if you would please stand and then we'll all partake together.

Would you bow with me? Lord, we come before you and Father, I thank you so much for your body that was broken for us. Lord, that you bore in your own body our sins on the tree. And Lord, that by your stripes we are healed. Father, I thank you for your blood that was shed. Your blood that is not only enough to cover all of our sins, Lord, but to wash us as white as snow.

Your blood that makes us brand new in you. And Lord, I thank you that you proved that the sacrifice was accepted when God raised you from the dead. Father, I just thank you so much for who you are. And Lord, may we always keep in mind that this is the one place of hope that we have. We are one with you. And Lord, I thank you for the unity that we have with each other

as the body because of being unified through the sacrifice of Jesus. And so, Lord, as we partake now, I just ask that you would keep us in mind of just how much you love us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Would you bow with me one more time? And Father, as we depart from here this morning, I ask that your spirit would go before us. Lord, that you would go among the blessing.

Lord, that you go before us, behind us, and beside us, all around us, Lord. And I just thank you for that presence. And so, Lord, may we seek that presence more and more as we go throughout our week. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.