Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea

Tension: How does the Gospel of Matthew use parables?

Resolution: To reveal the nature of the Kingdom and its true disciples.

Exegetical Idea: The Gospel of Matthew uses parables to reveal the nature of Kingdom and its true disciples.

Theological Idea: Jesus’ parables reveal the nature of the Kingdom disciple.

Homiletical Idea: Jesus’ parables reveal the nature of the Kingdom disciple.

Introduction:

Why Parables?

The nature of parables is that they are stories that cause you to stop and consider.

They are stories, drawing on images from the everyday world of his listeners.

They are about fishermen, tax collectors, husbands, tenants, landowners, farmers, brides, and grooms.

And they are images that cause you to stop and really think them through.

Though it is true that parables teach things in a deep and more memorable way, they also take a lot more thought to come to.

If you’re not willing to work hard, you won’t be able to understand it.

No pain no gain.

So why does Jesus teach these deep truths in the parables?

To reveal the nature of the kingdom, well Jesus shows us straightforwardly why.

He says in … Jesus says, “hey I am teaching the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.

I am teaching about the nature of the kingdom.

I am opening it up to teach what it looks like.

I am revealing it, shining a spotlight on it.”

Now, the nature of the kingdom is this.

Separating the good from the bad: Those who are in the kingdom will hear that and their heart is softened.

But those who are outside will hear it and their heart will be hardened.

Does Jesus know that his teaching will harden those outside the kingdom?

Yes.

Does Jesus know that the same teaching will soften those inside the kingdom?

Yes.

Jesus is going to teach the nature of truth, and he knows that it will separate out the wheat from the chaff.

Parable of the Sower: Now, in Matthew’s gospel, the headspring, the fount from which all of this flows together is the parable of the sower.

This is the most important parable in the gospel of Matthew.

And because the gospel of Matthew has more parables than any of the other gospels, we might say this is one of the most important, if not the most important, parables in teh entire bible.

This is why this is one of two parables that Jesus interprets for us.

The rest he expects us to get right.

But he really wants us to understand it, so he tells us how to understand the parable.

Every other parable comes back to this.

In fact, I believe, every other parable in Matthew’s gospel comes back to the parable of the sower.

You might think of the parable like the opening score for a movie, which all teh rest of the music in teh movie pulls from and develops.

And so what I’d like to do is walk through the parable, and then show a little bit of how it connects with some of the different parables in Matthew’s gospel.

We won’t connect all the parables today, but I think by the end you will see that these different parables pull on and develop out of this parable of the sower.

The Son of Man as the Sower

A sower went out to sow: The setting of the parable is of a farmer who goes out to sow.

So immediately he is drawing on an image that should really connect well with those near him.

This is an agricultural society.

They know, “oh okay, a sower goes out to sow.”

They can connect to this.

And this is an image you should be able to relate to.

Because you and I drive through farm fields every day.

We go by farms all the time.

So think about this, there is something about the image of dirty, wet, moist soil, and plants growing, and weeds coming up, that is like the kingdom of God.

So, who is the sower representing?

Who is the person who is sowing the Word?

Interestingly enough, Jesus doesn’t tell us in this parable.

But, he will tell us in a similar parable that the one who sows the seed of the kingdom is the Master and his servants.

I think it is fair to assume that is the identity of the sower.

The shower is Christ himself working through his church, on mission to spread the gospel, to bring the lost home.

The parable of the lost sheep in develops this idea.

The sower in the parable is Christ working through his servants to spread the gospel.

He is on a mission to spread his seed across the face of the whole earth.

What does it look like today?

Well today, Christ works through the same way.

Every time that we gather together and sing his praises and read his word and take communion.

Every time I stand up at this pulpit, what is happening?

We together as a church are sowing the seeds of the kingdom.

We are cultivating the plants of Christ.

We are trying to help those fertile shoots grow up and produce fruit.

Every time you go and share the gospel with your friends and family, every time you open up your Bible, you are planting the word of the kingdom.

But all is not well.

Because the plant does not always take root.

In fact, there are three kinds of resistance in this parable.

The First Seed: Resistance from the Devil

This is the description of the first seed, that, “as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.”

So the first kind of the soil falls on ground that is hardened and ripe for the birds to come and eat them.

Because the soil is hardened, the birds easily snatch away the seeds.

When I was a child, I used to go visit my grandparents in Northern California.

And my grandfather would put out bird seed every morning.

But I distinctly remember that blue jays would come and try to take up that seed that was laid down for others.

ANd my grandfather would run out trying to chase off the blue jays.

Well, that is what happens here, the birds come and they try to snatch up the seed so that it cannot grow.

And Jesus, as he is interpreting this says, in … So, Jesus says, do you want to know what this says, well it says that like a bird comes and snatches up the seed that does not fall into the earth, so Satan comes and snatches the Word away from those whose hearts are hardened.

Satan knows where exactly to look for the seed that comes to the hardened heart.

This is the person who is hardened to the Word of God.

Who gets bored with it.

This is the person who has no patience for it.

This is the person who has no eagerness for it.

This is the person who never takes the time to consider whether or not the gospel is true.

This is the person who is immediately repulsed by God’s word.

We might line up this soil with the parable of the wicked tenants in … Their hearts were so hardened that they could not receive the Word of God.

Instead, they shake their fists at God.

And though Satan is not clearly mentioned in this parable, we see his fingerprints everywhere throughout this parable.

This person is obvious, he is easy to spot, easy to see.

But there are more subtle resistances ahead.

The Second Seed: Resistance from the Flesh

Jesus describes the second soil as it falls in the rocky soil in .

This soil appears to be genuine on the outside.

It quickly spurts up, because there is not much space to put down weeds.

But when the sun rose, it was scorched because there was no root and the plant withered away.

When I was a child, I used to go climb and hike in the granite mountains of Northern Arizona.

And in these granite rocks, sometimes you will have these crevices that fill up with soil.

And plants will start growing in that crevice.