Parable of the Soils // Matthew 13:1-23

Introduction

Illus. We live in a spiritually confused age.

On the one hand, our culture seems to be more spiritually interested than the religious decline of the last several decades would suggest. People are open to and interested in conversations about the purpose and meaning of life. Podcast charts and book bestseller lists tell the story of a people spiritually open, longing for transcendence, yet unsure where to find it.

But for all of the spiritual openness, it would seem, as a culture, we are more disoriented than ever trying to find answers to these meaningful questions. One recent article on The Guardian reflected on how many people feel adrift because traditional sources of meaning such as religious belief and community identity have weakened, leaving people to search for new sources of meaning on their own. With the desire for purpose and meaning still intact and the resources to find it removed, we’ve entered the age of what psychologists call purpose anxiety as people feel a pressure to find meaning and purpose in life as traditional frameworks of meaning decline. The article I mentioned has one bit of advice for this monumental task — simply “try small steps and set the bar low.”

Scholars have begun to speak about this as a cultural condition. Cognitive scientist John Vervaeke describes the our current moment as a “meaning crisis” — one that originates from people having lost the structures that once provided coherence, meaning, belonging, and purpose.

From a Christian perspective, this seems to be a hopeful opportunity — We live in a culture that is searching transcendence, meaning, and purpose. Our neighbors are searching for truth to anchor their lives. Those seem to be exactly the kinds of questions that the gospel can uniquely answer.

At least anecdotally, it seems like there’s more of an openness to conversations about Christianity than there has been in quite some time. But here’s the tension — even in a culture that has all the right ingredients to hear and respond to the gospel, people respond dramatically differently to the message of the gospel.

Some people reject it immediately. Some seem excited about it for a time and then drift away. Some keep it around on the edges of life but allow other priorities to crowd it out. And some hear the gospel and their lives are profoundly transformed.

How do we make sense of this? In our passage today, Jesus teaches a parable that helps us make sense of how some people hear the gospel and are unchanged while other hear the gospel and are radically changed — and that is the condition of their hearts.

Transition

To do teach this truth, Jesus uses one his favorite methods of an agricultural metaphor — he says that the human heart can be like different kinds of soil; some which facilitate good and fruitful growth and others that hamper it.

Not just a framework to understand what happens “out there” in the hearts of those around us but also what is happening within us too…. DA. Carson — Parable challenges us as hearers to ask what soil we are.

We want to think about these as fixed and categorical — but this parable is ongoing wisdom to be aware of our hearts and how we hear and receive the gospel today and every day.

Matthew 13:1–23 CSB

On that day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, while the whole crowd stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying, “Consider the sower who went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly since the soil wasn’t deep. But 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. Still other seed fell on good ground and produced fruit: some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty times what was sown. Let anyone who has ears listen.” Then the disciples came up and asked him, “Why are you speaking to them in parables?” He answered, “Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them. For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. That is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand. Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: You will listen and listen, but never understand; you will look and look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown callous; their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back— and I would heal them. “Blessed are your eyes because they do see, and your ears because they do hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see the things you see but didn’t see them, to hear the things you hear but didn’t hear them. “So listen to the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one sown along the path. And the one sown on rocky ground—this is one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. But he has no root and is short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away. Now the one sown among the thorns—this is one who hears the word, but the worries of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But the one sown on the good ground—this is one who hears and understands the word, who does produce fruit and yields: some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.”

Main idea: The difference between hearing the gospel and being changed by the gospel is the condition of our hearts.

With what kind of heart do we hear and respond to the gospel?

The Hard Heart

The Shallow Heart

The Divided Heart

The Good Heart

Exposition // Matthew 13:1-23

ONE // The Hard Heart

Matthew 13:3–4 CSB

Then he told them many things in parables, saying, “Consider the sower who went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.

Jesus’ explanation — Matthew 13:19 “When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one sown along the path.”

Not understanding = spiritual understanding

Problem ≠ seed, but the condition of the soil — heart that has become resistant to God

What does hard soil look like?

Cynicism — “I can’t believe” — Disappointment calcified into unbelief. It has all the appearance of intellectual objection but comes from a heart that is deeply disappointed in God and not willing to believe his goodness.

Intellectual pride — “I don’t believe” — I’ve made up my mind about the propositions of the Christian faith and I’m not open to being changed

Spiritual apathy — “I don’t care to believe” — I’m not sure I can prove or disprove the message of the Christian faith, but I’ve determined it wouldn’t have meaning on my life anyway.

Crowding out the desire for meaning and truth — Constant noise, distraction, scrolling

Or a humanistic framework to make sense of reality and moral truth

Application — The frightening thing about hard soil is that it doesn’t happen overnight — rather it often develops slowly. No one wakes up one day deciding to have a hardened heart. It happens through small refusals. Moments where the word of God presses on us and we say: “Not today” or “maybe tomorrow.”

Over time those refusals pack the soil down. Until eventually the heart that once responded to God becomes resistant to him.

The question for us: Is there pressure on my heart to harden? — bring those things to God in openness and honesty asking him to do in you what you can’t

TWO // The Shallow Heart

Matthew 13:5–6 CSB

Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly since the soil wasn’t deep. But when the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.

Jesus’ explanation — Matthew 13:20–21 “And the one sown on rocky ground—this is one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. But he has no root and is short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away.”

When difficulty or persecution comes — faith collapses

This kind of faith seems genuine for a moment (and perhaps is), but it is not durable because it is not rooted deeply.

Modern fruit of the shallow soil

Vague spirituality — the kind of spirituality we talked about earlier that has no referent or authority, just a notion of longing for transcendence

Inspirational Christianity — another possibility that passes in many Christian circles

More generally, this looks like the kind of faith pursued and encouraged in contemporary evangelical circles — emotional faith without deep inner formation

And it’s dangerous because it’s perfectly attuned to our flesh and our cultural sensibilities that are not of God — we want experiences that deliver immediate results, we crave excitement and novelty, we expect transformation to happen in a moment… but deep formation of the soul doesn’t look like this.

Application — Is my faith rooted in convenience, emotion, or deep conviction?

We want to be a church that challenges shallow hearted faith through: Scripture, community, obedience, endurance — to shepherd one another in an environment where we spot the rocky soil before it finds us out

THREE // The Divided Heart

Matthew 13:7 CSB

Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it

Jesus’ explanation - Matthew 13:22 “Now the one sown among the thorns—this is one who hears the word, but the worries of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”

Jesus identifies two worries — worries of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth

Sinister — because it doesn’t look like outright opposition; much like the rich young ruler who came to Jesus asking all the right questions but couldn’t see the obvious reality that his wealth was keeping him from truly responding

What are the thorns of our day?

Formation is choked out by — busyness, ambition, entertainment, anxiety, success, and comfort

How do we know if something is a thornbush for our faith in Jesus? — “I must be…”

That’s how we know our we are being formed into people of comfort, ambition, and wealth; what controls our destiny is what sits enthroned on our hearts

Warning — the enemy is at work to make our hearts ambivalent towards the things of God

Most tragic example in the Bible — why it matters we pay attention

Philemon 24 “Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my coworkers.”

2 Timothy 4:10 “because Demas has deserted me, since he loved this present world, and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.”

Application — What in my life is competing with discipleship to Jesus?

Could be — career, money, reputation, comfort, digital distraction

Growth requires weeding the garden — You don’t just live your life hoping you’ll fall out of love with the things of the world and more in love with Jesus; you root out the habits which cause you to love those things in the first place.

FOUR // The Good Heart

Matthew 13:8 CSB

Still other seed fell on good ground and produced fruit: some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty times what was sown.

Jesus’ explanation — Matthew 13:23 “But the one sown on the good ground—this is one who hears and understands the word, who does produce fruit and yields: some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.”

Contrasted with the first — understanding vs. not understanding; spiritual understanding hears and bears fruit consistent with what was heard

Fruit = formation of the whole self towards the image of Jesus

Fruit = 100, 60, 30 times what was sown — the point is that Jesus does immeasurably more than we can imagine with a heart that is simply ready and open to receive him; he produces fruit by the Spirit in good soil

Application — Requires we weed out what is counter to fruitful living and cultivate our hearts with humility, repentance, obedience, and trust.

Question to ask God — Do I have the kind of heart where your work in me can bear fruit?

Conclusion

The question this parable asks us to wrestle with is what kind of soil is my heart? — The truth is that we can recognize all these types of soilk in our lives

Hope — But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus does not merely diagnose the condition of our hearts.

Gospel — He transforms them.

The point is not to gradate our hearts and act accordingly as though the answer to rocky soil and thorns in our lives was ever to try harder and do better. Instead, the invitation of this passage is to pay attention to the interior of our lives so that we are aware of what transformation might look like as we surrender ourselves to Jesus.

Weeding — seeking in faith — James 1:21 “Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”