"A Sower went out to sow ..."
Notes
Transcript
The Background
The Background
Jesus is travelling about, preaching … the Word, the Good News … and He was doing Great things!
A crowd is starting to grow around Jesus … as He preaches, teaches - the Word // The Good News …
that was this: In a world of adversity and pain, of hunger and fear, of worry and woe - the One promised had arrived!
Jesus!
The crowd contains every kind of person!
Some are there, because they had heard that Jesus heals!
Some are there, because they are starting to hear of at least the possibility (from their perspective) that a message of hope is being preached.
Some are there, because they were bored as the day started, and thought, we might as well go to see what’s happening down the road!
Some have been dragged there by a friend, or family
Why are you here this morning?
But the crowd is there - a growing crowd - for whatever reason … and I reckon, on this day they are quite disappointed,
Because on this day, Jesus will do no miracle;
He wopuld not make a political speach, telling about His plans for the overthrow of the Authorities
He would simply tell a story!
And then He tells the story
and at the end of a rather unremarkable story - He says: “Now listen Up!
Let those who have ears to hear, hear (note the word order and structure!
Jesus is saying, “Not all who hear the word are listening ...
and not all who listen, unless they listen with the hope of learning something, will be saved!
Let me say that again:
Jesus is saying, “Not all who hear the word are listening ...
and not all who listen, unless they listen with the hope of learning something, will be saved!
That is the meaning of this parable!
It is not a story, it turns out, that Jesus is telling so that people will more easily understand!
On the contrary!
Jesus tells these stories so that people will find it harder to understand!
Jesus’ parables are what we might call a flirtations system (as Alistair Begg calls it.)
Jesus is looking over the crowd,
and He knows that many are not really there to hear the Good News, that the world is being restored to its former - and future - glory,
they know it all already! And they will determine how they will go about this business of hearing and doing - there way
not the way of some carpenter who is going about telling fancy little stories which they do not understand anyway!
But … they turn up … just in case, you know ...
After all, turning up and being seen does not demand that I need to change my life in any way
(at least not my real life, the one lived when we are not in the Jesus following crowd).
They are, in fact, like the crowd in Romans 1: 18-24
Do you understand yet?
This is a parable about people who will not make it into God’s Kingdom!
All because they have worked out how to become part of the Kingdom on their own grounds!
Listen to the parable:
3 “Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow.
Jesus tells a story!
Why? (Why these parables with which we are going to keep ourselves busy the next few weeks ...
10 When he was alone, those around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables.
11 He answered them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables
12 so that they may indeed look, and yet not perceive; they may indeed listen, and yet not understand; otherwise, they might turn back and be forgiven.”
Let those who have ears to hear, listen:
The seed is the Word of God!
The Preaching is God’s means of establishing growth in the church
and the times in which we live is in rebellion against the word
and those who deny the Word
turn away from the word because the world has something to offer more attractive
use the word for their own agenda and distort it, again to serve their own thinking and importance
---- they will be given over to their own desires and lusts and will not grow!
Those, on the other hand, who will humbly pray: “Teach us Lord - they are the fertile ground!
They will produce fruit, thirty, sixty and a hundred times
Fruit, B&S, that can be seen
that does not grow for only a little while,
or which never even comes up at all, because the soil on which it fell is too hard
or which soon dies, like Dolly, the sheep, cloned - because people thought they could be the maker of life (God!)
The parables are given us to show us the reality, that not all who are evangelized, are saved!
The test is in the growth, in understanding, and then turning away from a self-made kingdom - To God’s kingdom of self sacrifice and love.
9 Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”
Amen