The Parable of the Sower

Intro- We are continuing our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark this morning as we look at Mark 4:1-20 at the Parable of the Sower. As you turn to Mark 4, I find it interesting that in this passage Jesus is teaching the people about what they were doing right then…and what you are about to do right now: which is hearing the Word of God preached. Have you ever thought about how few of the people who heard Jesus preach actually became Christians? Thousands upon thousands heard his messages. But after His death and resurrection, Acts 1:15 tells us that the number of believers was only 120. Not every one who heard Jesus preach believed. Not everyone put His words into practice.

Now, think about how many people have sat in these pews over the last 100 years and heard the Word of God preached but left this building unchanged. There is a very real danger this morning that you will hear the Word but benefit very little from it… that you will hear the truth but be unchanged by it. Being here isn’t enough! Hearing the word preached isn’t enough! You have to put the word into practice. It has to produce spiritual fruit in your life.

But how does that happen? What separates the person who hears the Word to no effect from the person who hears the Word and produces much fruit for the kingdom of God? They both sat in the same pews and heard the same sermons from the same preachers. Why is one person changed and the other just hardened in his disobedience?

We find the answer in this parable. What we find is that there are 6 Enemies to Fruitfulness in the Christian Life that you need to guard against. Then we also find that there are 3 Requirements for Fruitfulness, 3 conditions that must be met if the Word is going to produce fruit in your life.

Read Mark 4:1-20

Transition: Let’s look first at the 6 Enemies that can keep the Word from producing Fruit in our lives.

1. Satan

The first enemy is the great Adversary: Satan. Jesus compares him to a bird that comes and gobbles up the seed that was sowed, taking it away before it can take root in our lives. You need to remember that hearing the Word preached isn’t a passive activity. You have an enemy who works to rob you of the saving and life-changing impacts of the Word. And in my experience he has many tactics for doing that.

At no other time of the week are people as tired, or as hungry, or as interested in the walls and the ceiling of the church sanctuary as they are when the Word is being preached! Now, certainly, preachers need to work to be interesting and engaging. But have you ever considered that maybe Satan is also at work during the sermon to distract and confuse you Matthew Henry put it this way. He said, “The devil is very busy about careless hearers.” [Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Mk 4:1.]

App- Don’t be careless hearer. Remember that listening to a sermon is a spiritual contact sport. You have an opponent who will go to any length to prevent you from taking these truths to heart and being changed by them. So, listen intently when the Word is preached!

2. Hard Soil

There’s another enemy here that’s easy to miss. Notice that the seed that Satan takes away is seed that fell on the hard path. Luke’s gospel actually adds detail here by saying that the seed sown on the path was trampled on (Luke 8:5). And this describes how some people receive the Word. They listen to the Word preached with heart-hearted indifference. [John D. Grassmick, “Mark,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 119.] They don’t let it penetrate down into the soil of their heart. They just let it sit on the surface waiting for the enemy to come by and take it away. [Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 68.] Their heart is so hard that they hear the word, but they don’t receive it! They may even trample it under their feet.

App- Is your heart hard and unyielding to God’s Word and the Spirit’s promptings? If so, break up the hard soil of your heart with the plow of repentance. Humble yourself before God. Soften your heart to His correction. Repent and mourn over your sin, be broken over your sin and come to Him for forgiveness and grace. Don’t just hear the Word today, receive and accept it.

3. Shallow Soil

The third enemy of fruitfulness in the Christian life is a shallow and immature faith. Jesus pictures this in the parable as rocky soil. But the picture here isn’t soil that has a bunch of little rocks in it, but rather “ground that could appear fertile but actually is just a thin layer of topsoil” covering bedrock or limestone underneath. [John D. Barry, Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Mk 4:5.] Seed planted in soil like that shoots up quickly. The early returns can look quite promising, but that rock beneath the surface prevents the plant from growing deep roots so that when the sun comes out it withers and dies.

This is a picture of the person who hears the Word and receives it with joy, but doesn’t count the cost of following Jesus. They don’t realize, nor do they think through what following Jesus or obeying God’s Word will actually cost them. So, when hardship or persecution comes, they fall away.

I’ve seen this happen to some of the most enthusiastic church visitors. The early evidence of their faith looks good. At first, they seem like they’re on fire for the Lord, but over time their shallow faith withers and dies because they have no root, no spiritual maturity for enduring the difficulties of the Christian faith.

App- If you are going to be changed by God’s Word you can’t just receive it at a shallow level. You have to really look at what living in obedience to His Word looks like. You have to count the cost. You have to decide if you are willing to be unpopular for Jesus…if you are willing to make difficult life changes to obey God’s commands… if you are willing to commit to the slow process of growing your faith. Because apart from these things the Word will never produce fruit in you, it will whither and die. Shallow faith produces no fruit.

Transition: Now, the last three enemies of the faith all appear as thorns that choke the word’s fruitfulness in Jesus’ parable. The idea here is that the soil can be soft enough and deep enough to receive the seed. It can have all the nutrients and water necessary for the seed to grow, but if it hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned of the other things growing in it, the weeds and thorns, then they will choke the seed. They will draw all the life-giving moisture and nutrients away from the seed and starve the plant. They will grow up taller than the plant and smother it by blocking the sun out from it. [Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 68-69.]

In the same way, your heart can be consumed with spiritual weeds that “choke and smother the Word in your life and prevent it from taking root or bearing fruit. These weeds do this by absorbing so much of your interest and using up so much of your time, that there isn’t enough left for you to pursue the things of God. [Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 69.]

This is a good reminder that we need to be very careful what we allow to take root in our lives. A lot of people try to change their life by adding a few good things without ever removing the bad. They start going to church or reading the Bible and praying and they don’t understand why their life doesn’t change. They don’t realize that they are casting good seed on soil that can’t receive it. It’s consumed by thorns, sins, that need to be removed before they can bear spiritual fruit. Let’s look at the thorns that Jesus says we need to remove from our lives if we are going to be fruitful.

4. The Thorns/Weeds of Worry

First, Jesus mentions the “Worries of this life.” It is so incredibly easy to get caught up in all the cares and concerns of this life and forget to live for the next life. Have you ever stopped to think that all the worries of life might be distracting you from more important, eternal matters? Wouldn’t it be a shame to get to Heaven only to realize that you never really lived for God because you were too busy worrying about things that won’t last?

Don’t squander your chance to store up treasure in Heaven because you are living your life worrying about dirty laundry, bills, sports, cars, politics and entertainment. Ruthlessly prioritize your life according to what matters most!

5. The Thorn/Weed of the Deceitfulness of Wealth

The second thorn that Jesus mentions is the deceitfulness of wealth. There is perhaps no greater or more successful lie of the Enemy than the lie that money will make you happy. And even though we all claim to know this isn’t true, somehow deep down inside we all think that just a little more money probably would make us happier. And so we contrive all kinds of ways to get more of it. We work more than we should, leaving no time for our faith or our family and somehow think we have done a good thing. We expand our farms and our businesses and then spend endless hours worrying about how we are going to pay the bills. We put ourselves through untold miseries and stresses all in the name of making money. And we never see that the money we love and sacrifice to get more of is choking the spiritual life right out of us!

Don’t be deceived by the love of money. Don’t seek to get rich! 1 Timothy 6:9–10 says, “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Don’t fall into this trap.

6. The Thorns/Weeds of Desire

The third weed and the last enemy of spiritual fruit in your life Jesus simply calls “desires for other things.” Luke’s gospel calls them “pleasures.” There are so many things that we desire, crave, long for, and lust after. And it is very easy to get caught up living our lives for these pleasures and desires.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen leave the faith (or at least put their faith on hold) because of a relationship. They fall in love with someone that doesn’t love Jesus. And for a time they love that person more than they love Jesus. Or they fall in love with someone and want physical intimacy before marriage. And their desire for sex is stronger than their desire to please the Lord, so it chokes their fruitfulness for a time or in some cases forever. I’ve seen others drawn away from the Lord by any number of things, travel, sports, work, the lake, camping. The human heart is a fickle thing. It will love all manner of things.

But all of your loves and desires must come second to your love for Christ and your desire to obey His Word. Keep Him as the greatest love and the greatest desire of your life. And don’t let anything or anyone take His place.

Transition: Now, by way of conclusion let’s look at verse 20 and see what three conditions will cause us to produce spiritual fruit.

Read Mark 4:20

This is what it takes to produce spiritual fruit. You must hear the word, accept the word, and produce a crop.

1. Hear the Word

First, you must hear the word. Twice in this parable Jesus emphasizes the importance of hearing or listening. In Vs 3 He begins the parable by saying “Listen!” And then as He ends the parable in verse 9 He says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” You have to decide if you are going to listen or not. And you actually have a great privilege in that you can listen to the word preached any time you want. You have the worlds greatest preachers recording their sermons and making them available online or via podcast. You control how much of the word you hear. If you want to be more fruitful as a Christian then make time to hear the Word, and when you do hear it, really listen and pay attention.

2. Accept/Receive the Word

Second, as they hear the word, the fruitful Christian accepts it. The soil of their heart and mind isn’t hardened. It’s soft. They receive the Word with joy and accept it into their lives.

It can be easy when you listen to a sermon to ignore the truths that you most need to listen to. It can be easy to just overlook or ignore the truths that apply most to you. But if you want to produce fruit for God, then you must accept and receive the Word preached, especially those parts that apply most directly to your life. When you hear the word preached don’t reject it, let it take root in your life.

3. Produce a Good Crop (Put it into practice)

Lastly, Jesus says simply that they produce a crop. I take that to mean that they put what they have heard into practice. They don’t just hear the word and accept the word, they obey the word!

If you will do this, then you will produce a remarkable harvest for the kingdom. Some of you will produce 30 fold, some 60 and some of you will produce 100 fold what was planted in you.

How fruitful will you be? Being here isn’t enough. Hearing the word isn’t enough. Accepting the Word isn’t enough. It’s time to obey the Word too. Let it take root in your life. Let it grow and let it do its work in you all the way through to the harvest.

How will you respond this morning to the word preached?

PRAY