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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.
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