Sermon Tone Analysis

True Faith Bears Fruit (Mark 4:1–20)

!

Introduction, Outline, & Prayer

If you think storytelling is merely an activity for children or something people did before TV was invented, you are mistaken.

People tell stories in many ways—books, songs, plays, art, movies, television, etc.

These are all hugely popular forms of storytelling today.

But regardless of /how/ stories are told, they have an amazing ability to impact lives and we love to enjoy them.

If you think storytelling is merely a form of entertainment or self-expression, you are also mistaken.

For better or worse, every culture /remembers/ its /past/, /understands/ its /present/, and /directs/ its /future /through the stories it tells.

The way we live today is the product of the stories we believed yesterday.

Christians should know this better than most because Christianity is a storytelling faith.

We become Christians by /believing /the/ story/ of Jesus, the gospel.

And, as Christians, God calls us to /tell/ the gospel/ story /to others.

But Christianity is also a storytelling faith because we have a storytelling Savior.

We will see this in Mark 4 as Jesus tells several stories that help us understand who He is, what the kingdom of God is like, and how we can be a part of it.

These stories are called /parables/.

A parable is a special kind of story that uses simple, familiar ideas to help us understand complex, unfamiliar ideas.

In other words, they help us learn things we /don’t/ know by showing how they are similar to things we /do/ know.

Today, in Mark 4:1–20, we will look at one of Jesus’s most popular parables.

It’s my personal favorite because after Jesus tells the parable, He explains it for us.

Since Jesus explains His own teaching, we will spend most of our time this morning applying His teaching to our lives.

I’ll read the text, pray, give a quick outline, and then jump in.

“Again he began to teach beside the sea.

And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.

And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: ‘Listen!

Behold, a sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.

Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil.

And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.

Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.’

And he said, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’

And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’

’

And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable?

How then will you understand all the parables?

The sower sows the word.

And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.

And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when 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.

And others are the ones sown 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.

But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.’”

– Mark 4:1–20

Two things happen in this passage and both deserve an entire sermon: Jesus /teaches/ and /explains /a parable but in between the teaching and explanation He reveals w/hy/ He teaches in parables.

Today we’re going to focus on Jesus’s parable and His explanation of it (4:1–9, 14–20) and next week on why He teaches in parables (4:10–13).

There are 10 different symbols in this parable, 10 different parts of the story that represent other things in reality.

Remember: that’s the point of parables, to help us understand difficult ideas by showing how they are similar to simple ideas.

Five of the simple ideas represent people and the other five represent how they react to the gospel.

We will look a them in 5 pairs: 1) /The Sower and the Seed (vv.

1–3, 9–14);/ 2)/ The Path and the Birds (vv.

4, 15); /3) /The Rocks and the Sun (vv.

5–6, 16–17); /4) /The Thorns that Choke (vv. 7, 18–19); /5) /The Good Soil that Bears Fruit (vv.

8, 20).

/We will look at each in order and conclude by examining our hearts to see which one we are.

!

The Sower and the Seed (vv.

1–3, 14)

The large crowd was once again ready to swarm Jesus.

This time, instead of withdrawing completely, Jesus sets out in a boat just a little off shore—far enough away so the crowd won’t crush Him but close enough so He can still teach them.

He taught many things in parables and the first one we read is usually called “the parable of the sower.”

“Sowing” is an old fashioned way of saying, “planting.”

A “sower” is a farmer, someone who plants (“sows”) seed in the earth.

Jesus says here that the “seed” the sower plants represents the word, which leads to two questions: “Who is the sower and what ‘word’ does he sow?”

The “sower” is the one sharing or proclaiming the word—definitely Jesus but also the apostles, “And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him /and he might send them out to preach/” (Mark 3:14).

So, even at this point in His ministry, I don’t think Jesus considered Himself the only sower.

Those who followed Him were also to be sowing the word.

But what “word” were they to sow? Right away, we probably think “the Bible,” which isn’t wrong—I just think Jesus meant something more specific.

I think “word” here means the same thing as “gospel” elsewhere, the specific word or message Jesus came to preach and entrusted to His disciples.

That word is present throughout the Bible as a whole, but again I think Mark already summarized the word that Jesus proclaimed, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (1:14–15).

So, the sowers proclaim the word about how Jesus has fulfilled the time and has brought the kingdom of God near.

They also call people to respond rightly by repenting and believing in that word.

But in this parable, Jesus focuses on the various responses people have to His word more than the word itself.

He wants to expose the hearts of His hearers—showing who has true faith and who has false faith.

Remember: that’s what this section in chapters 3–6 is about, identifying true faith vs. unbelief.

The point here is that true faith bears fruit.

Let’s take a look at the first response.

!

Response 1: The Path and the Birds (vv.

4, 15)

Every year on Mother’s Day, my dad and I would take my mom to a garden center so she could buy all of the flowers she was going to plant in our yard that year.

Garden centers probably wouldn’t make the top ten list of places grade school boys like to go but I loved it.

It was a sensory explosion.

When you gather thousands of plants in the same green house, everything about them is amplified.

The smells were incredible: herbs, flowers, vegetables, and rich, nutrient packed earth.

The sights were breathtaking: colors more lush, vibrant, and varied than you thought possible.

Textures ranging from prickly cactus thorns to velvety leaves that feel more like a puppy’s fur than a plant.

Just amazing.

The flowers held my interest for a while but what really got me excited was the fruit.

It starts out as a flower but then you get to eat it.

I remember seeing the seed packets and thinking, “If I buy this packet of watermelon seeds for 75 cents and bury it somewhere, I will have an endless supply of watermelon in just a few days.”

The reality was my parents bought the seeds for me, I buried them in the backyard, and never thought about them again for the rest of my life.

But let’s imagine that I decide this is the year of endless watermelon.

What would happen if I spread seeds all over my sidewalk?

Within a few minutes it would be filled with birds eating the seeds and leaving nothing behind.

That is /not/ the way to secure the year of endless watermelon, just like Jesus says about the path and the birds.

People who are like the path may hear the word but only at the surface level and only for a moment.

They don’t receive it or understand it—it doesn’t penetrate their hearts or transform their lives or leave them in awe of God’s glory and grace or lead them to repentance and faith.

It’s there and then it’s gone.

The spiritual forces of darkness that war against humanity according to Ephesians 6:12 are experts at devouring the word before it can impact the lives of people who don’t believe, which means we either need to plant elsewhere or see that sidewalk transformed into fertile ground.

!

Response 2: The Rocks and the Sun (vv.

5–6, 16–17)

But what if decided to scatter the seeds on the gravelly area in our backyard?

The birds wouldn’t easily see them and if it rained there might be a little quick growth but I wouldn’t get any fruit because there’s not enough soil, nutrients, and water to sustain the plant’s growth and as soon as the blazing hot summer sun hit the rootless sprout, it would be game over.

This is Jesus’s point as He talks about the rocks and the sun.

Like the path, the rocky ground hears the word but goes a step further and “immediately [receives] it with joy.”

That seems like a win, right?