The Seed, the Soil, and the Sower

Good morning and welcome to First Baptist Church of Aria. Welcome! We're so glad you've joined us online and in our sanctuary. We're going to get started with Ephesians 6:10-17.

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God.

— Ephesians 6:10-17 (CSB)

Join us in worship this morning.

Worship in Song

O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise, The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of His grace.

My gracious Master and my God, Assist me to proclaim, To spread through all the earth abroad The honors of Thy name.

Jesus! the name that charms our fears, That bids our sorrows cease; Tis music in the sinner's ears, Tis life, and health, and peace.

He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me.

Everyone needs compassion, Love that's never failing; Let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness, The kindness of a Savior; The hope of nations.

Savior, He can move the mountains, My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, Author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave.

So take me as You find me, All my fears and failures, Fill my life again. I give my life to follow, Everything I believe in, Now I surrender.

Savior, He can move the mountains, My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, Author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave.

Shine your light and let the whole world see, Singing for the glory of the risen King. Jesus, shine Your light and let the whole world see, Singing for the glory of the risen King.

How great the chasm that lay between us, How high the mountain I could not climb. In desperation, I turned to heaven, And spoke Your name into the night. Then through the darkness, Your loving-kindness Tore through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished, the end is written, Jesus Christ, my living hope.

Who could imagine so great a mercy? What heart could fathom such boundless grace? The God of ages stepped down from glory To wear my sin and bear my shame. The cross has spoken, I am forgiven, The King of kings calls me His own. Beautiful Savior, I'm Yours forever, Jesus Christ, my living hope.

Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free! Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me! You have broken every chain, There's salvation in Your name, Jesus Christ, my living hope.

Then came the morning that sealed the promise, Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring Lion Declared the grave has no claim on me. Jesus is the victory!

Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free! Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me! You have broken every chain, There's salvation in Your name, Jesus Christ, my living hope.

Jesus Christ, my living hope. God, You are our living hope.

Look, but Do Not Perceive

Well, that's the first time that has happened to me with the microphone feedback! I'm just going to keep talking. I think if you mute the other microphones, the feedback might go down a little bit, but we'll see how it goes. Good morning!

We believe every word that we just sang: that His blood avails for us, that Jesus sets the prisoner free, and that because of His resurrection, death has no claim over those who are in Him, because we have everlasting hope in Jesus. If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it and open it to the Book of Mark.

Testing, one, two, three. How's that? Is that better? Okay. If you guys are okay, you're going to watch a one-winged bird try to fly right now for the rest of this morning! If you have a Bible, open it to the Book of Mark. We're going to be looking at chapter 4, verses 1 through 20.

For the past few months, we've been going through the Book of Mark. If you are using a pew Bible, I believe that should be around page seventy. If you're using a Bible for the first time, the big numbers are the chapter numbers and the little numbers are the verse numbers. We're going to be looking at verse 1 of chapter 4 all the way to verse 20.

Again he began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him. So he got into a boat on the sea and sat down, while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore. He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, “Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly, since the soil wasn’t deep. When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce fruit. Still other seed fell on good ground and it grew up, producing fruit that increased thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.” Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.” When he was alone, those around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables. He answered them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables so that they may indeed look, and yet not perceive; they may indeed listen, and yet not understand; otherwise, they might turn back and be forgiven.” Then he said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand all of the parables? The sower sows the word. Some are like the word sown on the path. When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them. And others are like seed sown on rocky ground. When they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. But they have no root; they are short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away. Others are like seed sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.”

— Mark 4:1-20 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, we want to heed the words that we just heard from this parable. Help us not to be like the seed on the path, on the rocky soil, or on the thorny soil, but to be seeds in good soil. Help us to receive and welcome Your Word this morning. We can only do that by Your Spirit's help, so we ask that You would help us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Has the universe ever told you that your sibling is better than you? At an instance like that, when I was eight, I was confronted with a fact that I did not know before, which was that I was colorblind. My sister and I were going to the optometrist to get new glasses, and they had one of those colorblind tests on the wall filled with different circles of different colored dots. You would look and try to figure out what digit was inside.

Except, for me, it was like a cruel puzzle where everyone was in on the joke, and I couldn't decipher what I was looking at. I could see the first puzzle, because that's the one everyone should be able to get, and I was able to dictate what digit was inside. But I couldn't see any of the other ones.

My sister saw my pain as a gleeful science experiment. She would point at a circle, ask me what it was, find out that I didn't know, and giggle with delight. She pointed, and I failed. Every single inquiry was another clang on the gong of my own incompetence.

See, the numbers were there in the circles; I just couldn't see them. I could look, but I couldn't perceive what was there. In this passage in Mark, we get to see Jesus deliberately teaching in parables where people are hearing the words, but they can't understand—where they look, but they can't perceive the truth that is inside. As we peer into this dotted circle of a parable together, we can learn an important warning and encouragement as we continue to listen to God's Word.

Here is our main idea for this morning: To welcome the Word. You see with the good soil that they are welcoming the Word in verse 20. There are two points for us this morning. Number one, we're going to look at the seed of the Word being planted. Number two, we're going to look at the soil.

The Seed of the Word

Let's start with number one: the seed. Look again at verse 1. As Jesus continues His ministry throughout the Book of Mark, His influence is continuing to grow, and now this crowd is huge. In fact, this is the very first time in the Book of Mark that you see the word "very large" or "super-crowd" being used, because every single time Jesus appears at the Sea of Galilee and gathers a crowd, the crowd gets bigger. It starts out as a crowd, then gets to a large crowd, and now it's a super-crowd.

Earlier, when He was on the Sea of Galilee, He saw four disciples. He met Andrew, Peter, James, and John, and He called them to follow Him so that He could make them not just fishermen of fish, but fishermen of people. Now, back at that Sea of Galilee, Jesus's net has spread so wide as to gather a school of people that are eager to hear Jesus's teaching.

Whatever you think of Jesus, you can't ignore Him. When He speaks, people listen. The word began to spread, and it has continued to spread until now there is a literal multitude of people eager to hear what Jesus has to say. There's a reason why we're here today talking about Jesus. If you're not a Christian and you're here visiting today, I'd like to welcome you, because you are also tangled in that net. It's a net that is worth being caught in, because we believe that Jesus is the most significant man to have ever lived, and His words are worth your consideration and your time.

This very large crowd gathers to see what the fuss is about with this Jesus guy. As Jesus begins to teach, as He looks out to the multitude and speaks, He begins to comment not on who He is, but on who they are. He tells this story about a sower who goes out to sow seeds. They are laid on the path, on rocky soil, on thorny soil, and on good ground. The seed on the path gets taken, the ones on the stones shrivel, the ones on the thorns get choked out, and the ones on the good soil flourish. Then Jesus concludes His lesson by saying, "Let anyone who has ears to hear listen." He gets up and He leaves. No explanation, no elaboration. You can imagine people in the crowd looking at each other with puzzled looks and just shrugging at this mystery that Jesus just gave.

When Jesus is alone, some of these people, along with the twelve disciples, come to Jesus to ask Him what He meant by what He just said. What is this "secret of the kingdom of God" that Jesus is talking about? Well, we know that He's talking about the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news that Jesus opens with in the very beginning of this book in Mark 1:15 when He says, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe." That seed, according to verse 14, is the Word of Jesus being spread—the secret of the kingdom of God being revealed, that God became flesh and dwelt among us, that He came to fulfill His Father's plan. The secret of this kingdom of God is this news, this call to repent and believe. The way that this seed gets spread, the way that this good news goes out, is by hearing the Word of God, by hearing Jesus's teaching, and it is planted in the hearts of these people.

Except, in this chapter, Jesus doesn't say the things that He said in Mark chapter 1. He doesn't say any of that. He doesn't call anyone to repent and believe. Instead, He tells this parable about seeds and soil. Rather than calling those listening to repent and believe in Him, verse 12 says here that He deliberately spoke in parables so that they wouldn't turn back and be forgiven. That is literally the opposite of the gospel call! Rather than turning away from their sin and trusting in Jesus, He deliberately masks what He teaches so that people wouldn't repent and wouldn't believe.

Is Jesus being cruel? What kind of sadistic God would deliberately withhold forgiveness from people? That's a difficult question and one that deserves a decent explanation. I don't have time to overview everything, but I'll just give you two points for now.

First, human beings are not exempt from God's judgment. We know that to be true. If God were truly good, all of us would expect Him to administer justice impartially and objectively. When we hear of atrocities that are being committed around the world, especially recently, we want to see the wicked get punished. It is good that we feel that way. When we hear stories about Hitler or about Jeffrey Epstein—whoever commits the greatest atrocities in the world—we know in our hearts that the right thing to do, the good thing to do, is to punish those who have done wrong. That's why we believe in a justice system, because we think it's right to administer punishment on those who have genuinely done wrong.

The problem, then, is not that God judges the wicked; it's that, according to God's Word, all of us fall into that category. Romans 3:23 says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The issue is not that God's not good by withholding forgiveness; the issue is that we are not good and are deserving of punishment. God has every right to withhold forgiveness from those who do not deserve it.

I don't know if you've been watching the news recently, but there is this guy named Sam Bankman-Fried who was just convicted and sentenced for running a Ponzi scheme that was masquerading as a cryptocurrency trading firm. He had a group chat with his coworkers that was literally titled "wire fraud." It took that jury less than three hours to come to a verdict. That is a subjective human court, and it would take a heavenly court no time whatsoever to convict any of us. All of us have the word "sinner" attached to our case, and we deserve to lose.

The scandal of the gospel is not that God went out of His way to save innocent children, but that He forgave despicable criminals. The good news of the gospel is not that God finally managed to live up to our expectations of what He should be doing for us; the good news of the gospel is that God shows extravagant forgiveness to those who do not deserve it by sending His Son to live the perfect life that we could never live and by dying the death that we deserve to die. When Jesus died and rose from the dead, He paid the sentence of condemned sinners like you and me. That's the good news of the gospel. That's why we're here today: not because we deserve something from the Lord, but because the Lord loved us and was gracious to us.

Second, Jesus doesn't arbitrarily choose to withhold secrets from this crowd. It wasn't just some random whim of His own emotions; there's a purpose behind it. If you look down at verse 12, you'll notice that it is structured a little differently. It might be bolded in your Bible or italicized, and that's because Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament, from the Book of Isaiah.

If you've grown up in the church, you've probably heard sermons from Isaiah 6. Isaiah has his vision of the Lord sitting on His throne in the temple, and the train of His robe fills the temple. There are pillars and smoke, and angels are crying out, "Holy, holy, holy" to one another as the pillars rumble and shake because of God's holiness. Then Isaiah falls on the ground and says, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips," and God forgives him with a live coal. Then God says, "Who will go for us?" and Isaiah says, "Here am I, send me!" We've all heard sermons about that, about how we need to answer that call and go out and follow the Lord.

What most people don't talk about is what God then tells Isaiah immediately afterward, which is what Jesus is quoting here in verse 12. God tells Isaiah that his ministry would be defined by blindness, hard-heartedness, and rejection. God was going to send Isaiah to the people of Israel not to cause repentance in them, not to cause a revival, not to change the hearts of Israel, but rather to reveal Israel's rejection of Him.

You see the same thing in the Book of Ezekiel in chapter 3, where He calls Ezekiel to go and proclaim His prophecies to the nation of Israel. He says, "I'm not sending you to evil nations, because if I sent you to them, those evil nations would listen to you. But I'm sending you to the nation of Israel, because they will not listen to you." Both Ezekiel and Isaiah had ministries that had the express purpose of not "working," in order to reveal just how hard-hearted Israel had become.

Two weeks ago, we talked about how the scribes of Jerusalem were saying that Jesus was following Beelzebul, the prince of demons, and how when Jesus talks about this idea of a divided house that cannot stand, He was actually making a comment on the nation of Israel, highlighting Israel's hard-heartedness. They were unable to see the treasure right in front of them, and here Jesus is pointing it out again. By teaching in parables, He is exposing just how hard-hearted Israel is. They hear Jesus's words and are able to understand the exact words that He's saying, but they're not able to comprehend His meaning. They can't perceive who Jesus is, and because of their blindness, they've sealed their fate. Israel is condemned as a result.

What about you? You who are sitting here in the pews today as you are listening to God's Word, how are you going to respond to the seed that the Lord is spreading? Well, that depends on what type of soil you are. That brings us to our second point.

The Soils of our Hearts

Jesus gives us images of four types of soil that He then explains to His disciples. The first is on the path. The seeds on the path are immediately swooped up by Satan. We tend to think that we here in this room have more agency than we actually do, but the Bible is clear that we don't just live in a world where the natural world is all there is. It's not just up to our circumstances or our environment; we actually have an enemy, and his name is Satan. The Bible commands us in verses like James 4:7 that we are to resist the devil and he will flee from us.

Some of us are more vigilant in killing mosquitoes in our living room than we are about Satan, who seeks to kill and destroy us. If we're not sober-minded, if we're not alert, equipped with the armor of God and proactively guarding ourselves from his attacks, we may find our soil to have no seed at all. We need to resist him.

Next, we see the warning from the rocky soil. Unlike the seed that falls on the path, which doesn't even get a chance to get into the dirt, this seed manages to get inside and sprout. In fact, at first, it looks like it's going to be a great plant. It shoots up quickly from the ground, but then when the sun of distress and persecution comes, it scorches the plant, and the plant withers away.

It is easy to talk a big game when things are going really well. A couple that's two months into dating talks as though they've figured everything out. A pastor starts his pastorate, and there's no conflict, no problems in the church, and he thinks, "I should write a book about the ministry!" A new believer is on fire, sharing the gospel with every single person that he knows. To be clear, we shouldn't fault ourselves for enjoying those types of beginnings. There's nothing wrong with using the momentum of starting something new to carry yourself into developing new habits, new rhythms, or new patterns for the future.

The problem, though, with something that is new is that it eventually becomes old. Honeymoons fade. Life erodes at your passions. External circumstances can be the last straw before everything falls apart. When life gets hard, what matters is not your visible fruit, but your invisible root. This is why we at this church are disinterested in shallow faith—faith that just optimizes your life or uses Jesus as an accessory, but doesn't offer you anything of real spiritual significance. Faith that is dependent on anything other than a true understanding of the gospel is not a faith at all; it cannot withstand the heat of hardship.

Don't be distracted by visible fruit if there's no evidence of deeper roots. The tallest house of cards can still tumble when the wind blows. Shallow faith leads to scorched falls. I wonder how deep your roots are. Not what you're doing to volunteer for the church, not how curated your spiritual profile is when others look at you, but how deep is your faith? How deep is your obedience? Have you let the Word plant itself deep into your heart?

A sign of true conversion is not just that you do stuff for Jesus, though that's certainly part of it. A true sign of conversion is a faith that wants to plumb the depths, that wants to go deeper, that wants to understand what Jesus says, to understand His Word, to understand what God has to say, and to grow deeper, not just higher. When your anchor is deep, when you're actually deep in the Word, and when you understand what Jesus is teaching, you're able to endure the flames of the trials around you. The preparation that you give to your faith now will help you when you're in the fire tomorrow.

Thorns of Idolatry and the Good Soil

Next, we see the thorny soil. For the last warning, Jesus transitions from external opposition to internal opposition. The thorns represent the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and other desires. That word "desires" hits at what Jesus is pointing at: in other words, the thorns in this imagery represent the evil desires that come to tempt our hearts, our will, and what we love.

Our thoughts can start to be dominated by the concerns of this world: "Can you really afford to live in the state of California? Am I advancing in my career? How do I make sure that I don't mess up my kids? How do I make sure I find the right spouse? How do I provide for my retirement properly? How do I keep the earth from destroying itself? How do I keep humans from destroying themselves?" Some of these questions are not bad to think about; they are worth your consideration. But when these thoughts begin to creep into your heart, when they start to creep into your desires, they evolve into worries. They start to slither around our affections—what we love—and begin to suffocate us.

That's part of what makes wealth so deceptive. I rarely meet people who are obsessed with money for money's sake. It's not the dollar bill that captures their imagination; it's what they think the dollar can give them. It's the security of being able to provide for your family. It's the joy of enjoying life's delicacies. It's the hope of a brighter future. Money becomes a mirror of whatever our heart desires. Wealth promises us our wildest dreams. In other words, money helps us feel like God.

For many Christians, this is an unnoticed, domesticated sin, especially because we can use godly intentions to justify ungodly desires. Let me say that again: Christians can use godly intentions to justify ungodly desires. We want to provide for our family—the Bible says that if you don't provide for your family, you're worse than an unbeliever. But taking that good desire, we then permit greed into our hearts. We want to enjoy God's creation—and God wants us to do that; He tells Adam and Eve to enjoy the fruit of the garden. But then we use that to indulge in gluttony. We want to be responsible and prepare for the future, but then we find our ultimate security not in the Lord, but in our idols. When we start to think that we can accomplish what we want with our own ability, when we get so caught up with trying to elevate ourselves that we forget who's actually above us, we are committing idolatry.

Money and other idols promise control, promising us the ability to transform our lives into our own image. The thorns of idolatry here that you see in this parable don't kill you by penetration; they kill you by asphyxiation. It doesn't pierce, it doesn't wound, it doesn't stab. What it does is it chokes, digging its grip into our flesh and slowly squeezing the life out of us. The jewelry of wealth is not a necklace; it's actually a noose. It chokes the life out of you.

Don't fall into the trap of Ananias and Sapphira, who professed to follow the Lord and mixed godly intentions with selfish desires. The Spirit cannot cohabitate with sin. What we need is not cohabitation; what we need is extermination. We need to completely uproot whatever idols may seek to grip our hearts so we can remain in Christ alone.

Lastly, Jesus talks about the good soil, and we'll close with this image here in verse 20. The good soil is not like the path, it's not like the rocky soil, and it's not like the thorny soil. It is soft and loamy. It accepts the Word of God. It hears the Word and lets it plant deep. This ground is kept holy, with no thorns in sight, and the result is fruit: thirty, sixty, and a hundred times whatever was sown. What determines whether or not this soil bears fruit is not how hard the dirt worked, but how the Word was welcomed in.

Thank you for being a church that welcomes the Word, that takes time to sit down and listen to the Word being preached, that goes home and spends time in your Bibles considering what the Word says, that goes to Wednesday night Bible studies, and that values the Word. You treasure it. You trust that the Lord is able to bear fruit in ways that we can't possibly comprehend—not because of great feats that we do, not because the church has this marvelous spectacle, but because we believe that God is faithful and that He will continue to be.

As we welcome the Word, the Word works in our hearts. You see, the Master Sower, our Savior Jesus, doesn't just sow; He also tends His garden. He pulls our thorns, He clears out the stones, He tills the soil. He who began a good work in you will see it to completion, and He will continue to tend to us until we bear fruit for His glory, because the secret of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is not hidden from you. This parable is not a mystery to you. The Lord has revealed this truth to you, not because of your own flesh and blood, but because your Father in heaven loves you and has revealed it to you.

So let anyone who has ears to hear listen. Let's pray.

We pray this morning that as we think about Your Word, You would help us to treasure it. Help us to dedicate ourselves to it, to be open to welcoming it in our own lives. We pray that You would give us the supernatural strength to believe, to value it, and to pursue it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Closing and Benediction

Thank you. God bless you. Praise the Lord! Sometimes church is a little too quiet for me. Praise God, sometimes we need to just get a little bit excited about the Word! Amen. Praise God.

Now, just a couple of announcements. As you know, on Sunday mornings we have our Church Matters class for new members, but also if you are an existing member or maybe you've never made that commitment to be a church member, this is a good class for you. It is six weeks. Pastor John teaches that in the morning. Then we have our adult Bible study; Pastor Irwin teaches that class, and that class is overflowing in the library there. They are actually in the Gospel of Mark. So that's a good class you can come early and be a part of.

Wednesday night Bible study will have our last meeting of the year this coming Wednesday, because then we're going to pause for the holidays and all that other good stuff. But just a marker for the holidays: as you know, last week we had our big celebration and everything went great. On December 24th, when we have our service on Christmas Eve, we're going to have a joint celebration with the Spanish church, the Korean church, and everybody is going to be here. So just kind of be thinking about that and preparing for that. It's just a good time to celebrate and come together. Amen.

As I call up the praise team and we go into the benediction, I'm going to read a short little prayer for you from 1 Chronicles 4. It's the prayer of Jabez. It is a simple little prayer that I pray—not every single day, but most days. Usually, I pray this as I'm falling asleep at night, but it is a benediction of sorts.

Jabez called out to the God of Israel, “If only you would bless me, extend my border, let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm, so that I will not experience pain.” And God granted his request.

— 1 Chronicles 4:10 (CSB)

My prayer for us this morning, as I call on the Lord God Jesus Christ our Savior, is: Lord, that You would bless us indeed this morning, that You would enlarge our borders, Lord, that Your hand would be with us in all that we do, and that You would keep us from harm so that it may not pain us.

Lord, we give You praise, we give You honor, we give You thanksgiving, for You are holy, You are true. May God bless all of you this week. May He strengthen you, may He encourage you, and may He illuminate your life this week. In this we give Him praise, honor, and glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Worship in Song

When I call, You are my morning song. Though darkness fills the night, It cannot hide the light. Whom shall I fear? You are my sword and shield, Though troubles linger still. Whom shall I fear?

I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies Is always by my side. The One who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies Is always by my side.

My strength is in Your name, For You alone can save. You will deliver me, Yours is the victory. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I fear?

I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies Is always by my side. The One who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies Is always by my side.

And nothing formed against me shall stand, You hold the whole world in Your hand. I'm holding on to Your promises, You are faithful, You are faithful. Nothing formed against me shall stand, You hold the whole world in Your hand. I'm holding on to Your promises, You are faithful, You are faithful, You are faithful.

I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies Is always by my side. The One who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies Is always by my side. The God of angel armies Is always by my side.

Have a blessed week!