The Garden of the Lord
Notes
Transcript
I went to visit Audra and Oscar Bruno last week. The Brunos share, with my wife, a passion for gardening. If I had some PowerPoint slides I could show you corn stalks nearly as tall as me, and rows of greens nearly ready for the pot. What makes them so fruitful is that the soul was well-cultivated and nourished. My wife does similar work in our back yard and at the St. John’s campus with help from congregants and her home-school collective. Seeds can’t help but to grow when you have enough water, sun and good soil.
Lord God, bless Your Word wherever it is proclaimed. Make it a Word of power and peace to convert those not yet Your own and to confirm those who have come to saving faith. May Your Word pass from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip, and from the lip to the life that, as You have promised, Your Word may achieve the purpose for which You send it, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “ ‘ “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’
Someone might be thinking, “Why does Pastor Campbell share this passage, which is not in the reading today?” That’s a fair question, just as was the question that the disciples asked. Many times I was told that Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables as a judgment in order to keep them in the dark! How many of you have been told that at some point?
And yet, I am charged to preach the Gospel on the premise that God desires all men to be saved, as it is written in 1 Tim 2:4 where God encourages us to pray, saying,
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
and that He is the only one who can do so, as it is written in Isa 45:22, where God says “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”
Surely, based upon these exceeding great and precious promises, we should believe, teach, and confess that God is not seeking the death of sinners, but there salvation. Surely, we should live as people who, having experienced ourselves the great love that God has for the children of Adam, that He sent His Son to be our Savior, now want others to have that same experience.
The Parable of the Sower has something to tell us, something that is so important that the Lord Jesus Christ took the time to explain it. this is not the case with any of His other parables. While it can be said that the meaning of some of the parables can be discerned, and that, as children of God, the Holy Spirit teaches us what the Word of God declares, still, in this instance, Jesus took the added step of explaining the parable.
So I submit to you that Jesus wasn’t casting a judgment on the crowds so much as making an observation about them, and then, in His great love, using stories to try to give them a picture of what He was saying before in straight teaching, but hey were unable to receive, due to the hardness of their hearts. God so loves you that he will, in the words of a 90’s Winans’ song, “go the extra mile for you!”
The parable is pretty straight-forward: a sower goes out into the field to sow seed. The seed falls to the ground, which is in four different states of being, the footpath, rocky ground with little depth of soil, soil that was occupied by thorns, and “good soil.” In fact there are only two outcomes - unfruitful and fruitful, although each outcome has a measure of different manifestations. On the one hand, there were more varieties of unfruitfulness, but on the other hand, the fruitfulness more than made up for the unfruitfulness.
We tend to focus on the unfruitful seeds, and we look for evidence that we are or are not like them. There isn’t anything wrong with that, as far as it goes, but if you spend all of your time looking at your heart, you will become either discouraged or deceived for
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Self-examination that leads to repentance is a good thing, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.
As a pastor, my job is to help you in this matter, preaching and teaching in such a way that you will be led by the light of Christ to see the path that you are called to walk, and to avoid the stumbling blocks that would try to bring you down:
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
Our primary weapon is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” as Paul tells us in Eph 6:17. In prayer for you, and preaching and teaching to you, we lift up that sword to cut down everything that would seek to make you unfruitful unto every good work, as Paul wrote to the saints in Colosse:
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
As God’s word encourages me to sow the seed of the Word into your lives, it also encourages you to share that word that has borne fruit in your lives with others. He doesn’t ask you to trust in your talents or zeal or eloquence. Instead, the Lord Jesus Christ encourages you to trust in Him, as He encouraged Peter to trust in Him when He told him to get out of the boat and come to Him. God is the One who gives to our neighbor “a good and noble heart” in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, for
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
God answers your appeal through confession and absolution, by which we appeal to you to remember your baptism, which cleanses you from every sin. Having cleansed you, He empowers you to go in peace, to love and serve the Lord in a world filled with people that will not always receive you in the spirit in which you seek to serve them:
Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
What we do, as God’s children, it isn’t about producing record growth, or becoming famous for the results that God blesses us with. It’s about receiving God’s word as a refreshing rain to water the soil of our hearts. It’s about giving the Holy Spirit space to feed us and cultivate the ground of our hearts to that it is not rocky and choked with the thorns of this life.
It’s about bearing fruit, not as the world defines it, in terms of numbers or revenue, or influence, but as God defines it:
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
God makes us a promise, if we are willing to let Him cultivate our hearts, if we will allow the Holy Spirit to work in us both to will and to do for God’s good pleasure:
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
God is an excellent farmer, His seed is living and powerful, and He can transform our hard, sin-filled hearts and make them like the heart of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Having done so, He is able to keep you from falling and present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds thorough Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.