Hearing the King

Introduction

Have you ever been totally transported by a work of art? Moved deeply by a painting in a museum that just captured your attention? Maybe it was the first time you heard a song or a piece of music. What I find so interesting about art and its ability to engross someone is that the very same piece of music or painting that captures one person could very well totally bore the next. You might be engrossed in a work of art and the next person just walks right on by without a second glance.

It’s like when I excitedly recommend my favorite movie to someone and they inevitably come back and say, well that was pretty boring! But that’s the same as someone trying to explain, in great detail, to me the inherent beauty of the game of baseball. I guess I just don’t have ears to hear. And in some way, this is like the parables of Jesus, it’s like the Gospel itself. Since the first days of his ministry Jesus’ gospel has enthralled some and confounded others; it is precious to one person and boring to the next!

Today’s passage, the Parable of the Sower, shows us Jesus’ purpose in using stories that both reveal and confuse, captivate and bore. Jesus tells parables using common images—the ordinary scene of a farmer sowing seeds—to reveal deeper truths to his listeners, or at least to those who are ready to hear. Our main idea today is Jesus’ purpose in these parables: Jesus has come that we would hear the message of His Kingdom (the good news of the Gospel) and respond to Him.

But before we get to the parable itself, we’ll start in the middle, with their purpose.

The Purpose of the Parables (v. 9-12)

“He who has ears, let him hear.” Even in the telling of the story, Jesus knows that not everyone will hear, that there are those unable to hear the truths revealed. And I love this moment: he is alone with his disciples and they ask him about the parables. In Luke’s gospel, the disciples specifically ask him to explain the meaning of this parable. I love it because it shows even the disciples did not fully grasp the truths Jesus was revealing in this story. But it seems that there willingness to admit their lack of understanding is an indication that they’re hearing something.

They may have understood more than they thought: “To you,” he says, “has been given the secret of the Kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.”

As I said, these stories that both reveal truth about the Kingdom of God and conceal that same truth from those who are closed off to hear it. To those with ears to hear it is meant to reveal, to those on the outside the parables serve only to confound.

When Jesus refers to the secret of the Kingdom it is NOT some secret knowledge only for the initiated few. It is the good news of Jesus and of salvation, proclaimed to all, but for many it remains a secret. Yet for those with faith, they have ears to hear and the truth in the parable is illuminated for them to see.

Jesus uses language that might make us uncomfortable: “those on the outside,” we don’t like hearing that. But think of a stained-glass window. From the outside of a church building a stained-glass window looks dull, with very little color. But if you’re on the inside, that same window is illuminated by the light and it shines brightly with beautiful colors and revealing incredible images.

How could someone on the outside fully see what’s on the inside and understand the truth? Scripture says that apart from Christ and the work of the Spirit, a person cannot understand or accept the Gospel. Look at what Paul says in 1 Cor. 2. Verse 12, he says: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God...14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand.”

Do you see? Apart from the enabling of the Holy Spirit illuminating our minds and hearts, we will not understand the things of God. Others hear the parables and they reject it, they’re confused by it, they are unable to take it and accept it. The content of the message is the same but people respond in different ways. The difference is faith and the Spirit.

Is Jesus’ goal to keep people from understanding? It seems that way. But we need to be careful how we understand his intent. Is this some malicious way in which Jesus keeps certain people out of the Kingdom? Of course not. So what do we make of v. 12? “So that, ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

This is not Jesus saying he hopes certain people don’t repent to withhold forgiveness. But it is a recognition of how God works; God allows people to pursue what they think they want. He allows those who reject him, those who insist on their own spiritual blindness, to continue on in that blindness. Jesus is quoting the book of Isaiah here; the prophet calls out God’s people for their spiritual blindness, their rejection of Him. And the consequence of this? More blindness. It was a judgement they brought on themselves, having had every opportunity to see, they hardened their hearts.

Paul says it this way in Romans 1:24, of those who reject the truth of the Gospel: “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.”

Look, there is tremendous tension in these verses. A tension between God continuing to blind the hearts of people (giving them over to their desires) and the will of man to reject. Between the hard hearts and God enabling some to see and hear by His Spirit, moving them into faith. This is hard. Why does Jesus not make his message clearer or speak plainly for all to understand? Well, we know the answer. They’ll still reject Him. Many will be content to walk away confused, and in some real way, we are responsible for the way we respond.

And that explains this section of Mark. How could these people—the pharisees, the crowds, and even his own family—how could they have so missed the point of his message so far? They were with him, they have witnessed miracles firsthand! Yet they don’t have ears to hear. The King is right in front of them, He is with them and they have not taken and received the good news of the Kingdom.

And for us today the central question might be this: if so many of people who walked with Christ could not hear, could not understand, then what hope is there then for us? Hold on to that thought while we move into the parable.

The Seed of the Kingdom (v. 1-8)

Let’s look at the parable itself. Jesus still has these great crowds following him. And he gives us this story of a sower planting seeds. The emphasis in the first telling of the parable is all on the sower and the seeds, rather than on the types of soil—the hearers. Jesus wants us to focus on the seed, the seed that he calls the Word—the book of Matthew calls it the “word of the Kingdom.” It’s the message of the kingdom, the good news of the gospel.

The seed in this story is this all-encompassing thing; the gospel message of the kingdom and Christ himself. The gospel is more than information. It is not a set of isolated intellectual propositions to be mastered, but it is centered on the person and work of an individual: Jesus Christ. The parable is not about sowing the information about the Kingdom, the parable is the sowing of the gospel itself and how we respond to the person, work, and message of Christ.

And I love the image of the Kingdom as a seed, a small, even weak looking thing. But the seeds do not remain small, the potential power and might of these seeds is extraordinary, supernatural even. Look at the yield from these seeds: one seed yields a harvest thirty, sixty, a hundred times over.

This is the message of the Kingdom, the gospel. That when the seed of the gospel is sown, when it is allowed to take root deeply in an individual, in the world, the transformational power is astounding.

Paul understood the gospel as far more than just a nice message. He said, again we go to Romans 1, in v. 16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” it is the what? The power. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation. This is not an intellectual argument, or a headline in a newspaper, it is the powerful message that changes the hearts of people and changes the whole world.

We cannot just hear the content of the Kingdom and the gospel, we must take in deeply the wonder-working power of God through this good news. We must let that small seed of the Kingdom take root and break out with such force that we will bear fruit a hundred times over! Let this be part of our application today, that we would understand the Gospel not merely as information but as power to change from God.

The Kingdom is that which looks like weakness and insignificance—a tiny seed—like the gentle and lowly person of Jesus, like the weakness of the cross. But, in fact, lying in that seed is the power for tremendous transformation. And the gospel is the same. Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:18: “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God!” For those who have ears of faith to hear: this tiny seed, this weakness of the cross, is the power of God Himself.

And how do we respond? Because that’s the heart of Jesus’ explanation of the parable.

The Response to the Kingdom

He takes the time to explain what he means with this story, the disciples have asked so he helps them understand. He goes so far to say that understanding this parable is the foundation of understanding all of his teaching. For at the heart of this teaching is how people respond to the word of the Kingdom, how we respond to the Gospel.

The emphasis is no longer on the seed but instead on those who receive it and hear it, or fail to do so. We’ll see these first three groups that struggle to hear and accept the word. I asked this question earlier, how can anyone of us hear him? How can we be the good soil? Consider if you relate to any of these different responses.

The first is the seed on the path. Jesus says that when the hear (of course, not having ears of faith to truly hear) Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. We might say this sounds like the Pharisees, for theirs was a full-throated, complete rejection of Jesus and His proclamation of the Kingdom. There are those whose response to the Gospel will be rejection. They’re offended by Christianity and its message. Their hearts are hard and the seed cannot even get under dirt. You probably know people like that—maybe that was you at some point in your life. Can God change hearts? Of course he can! Look at the life of the Paul, a persecutor of the church and of Christ, to an apostle and church-planter. We can pray that God would move in their hearts.

The next response is the seed sown among rocks. Again they “hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” This sounds like the crowds of people that followed Jesus, desperate to see a miracle! Desperate for a spiritual experience. They don’t want Jesus for Jesus, they want Him for the joy, the feeling, the experience He can give them. But for people like this, as soon as their faith costs them something or as soon as they face a trial or challenge in their lives, they wilt away. They have no root, they have no foundational relationship with Jesus, just the high of a spiritual experience.

He’s inviting us to reflect on what happens to our faith when we face a trial or trouble in this world. Do we move toward God in trial because we are so deeply rooted in Him? Or do we move away from, distrusting Him and His goodness in our lives? Let us be rooted to the gospel in all circumstances.

The third group is the seed down among thorns: “They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” We might say this sounds like the family of Jesus, remember they were with him but thought he was out of his mind. Concerned with their reputation and the things of the world instead of concern for His message.

Many of us are tempted to respond this way. Tempted to give ourselves over to the cares of the world, both the good and the bad, at the expense of our relationship with Christ. We give ourselves over to our sinful desires, to sins that alienate us from God, that cause our hearts to turn away in guilt and shame. But we also are tempted to give ourselves over to the everyday concerns of career, financial security, success, even maybe ministry productivity at the expense of truly being with Jesus and receiving the Gospel. These other things become idols.

Whether it’s sin or any other idol, these things will eventually choke out the gospel in our lives. We will bear no fruit. Jesus says elsewhere, apart from me you can do nothing. The seed among the thorns are those who give all their energy and their lives to lesser things, those who are not connected to Jesus, those who are not abiding in Him first and above all else, and therefore have nothing to give, have no capacity for the Kingdom or the gospel. Instead, let us remain in Christ.

Finally, Jesus tells us of the good soil, they “hear the word and accept it and bear fruit.” There’s no other explanation, he doesn’t tell us how to cultivate good soil. He doesn’t give us the five step plan for better dirt. He just says the difference is this: they hear the word and accept it.

I will note this. The first three responses Jesus uses the word “hear” in the past tense. They heard, and it was snatched away. But then he changes the tense of the verb when it comes to the good soil, no longer a past action, the hearing is a continued present reality. For those who continue on in hearing the Gospel they bear fruit.

In some ways it’s that simple: hear it and accept it and continue in it. Let us be people who guard our hearts and be people who come back again and and again to the good news of Jesus.

Finally, I return to the question I’ve asked a few times: how can any of us hear? How can any of us be like this good soil? The answer will either disappoint you or fill you with great joy depending on whether you have ears to hear. The answer is, simply, Jesus. Jesus enables us, by His Spirit, to have a changed heart, a heart that hears and accept his good news; a heart that moves toward Him.

And Jesus, here’s the good news, is the solution to the first three responses. If you fear you see yourself in these responses, know that Jesus makes a way for your to be made into that good soil.

The seed that is snatched away by the enemy? Elsewhere Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice…no one will snatch them out of my hand.” His people are secure and he has made sure of it.

The seed sown on the rocks that withers when trial, trouble, or persecution comes? Jesus says, “in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” He also has faced trouble and He will see you through it.

And the seed sown among the thorns, choked out by the deceit of the world and bearing not fruit? Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches…whoever abides in me bears much fruit.”

So, stay close to Him. It is not our inherent goodness, the good soil of our hearts. But that goodness of Christ that makes it so, changing us and then giving us Himself. Continue listening to him and to his good news. For those who have ears to hear, hear this gracious news! Amen.