The Parable of the Sower

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I read a story recently, and I don’t know if it was a true story or not. It was a story about a plumber who was advertising his services and said that he charged $50 an hour for his work, but if you wanted to watch, it was $75 an hour. And if you wanted to help or offer advice, it was $100 an hour.

I thought, if this is a true story, this man is on to something. As we’ve probably all dealt with the frustration or the irritation of somebody trying to do our job for us or tell us how to do our job, it used to frustrate me to no end. It doesn’t happen here that I know of.

But it used to frustrate me to no end when I worked in the court clerk’s office. It was one of my early jobs just before I started pastoring. And I worked a particular desk where I handled probate and adoptions and guardianship filings.

Now, there was a lot to remember when you’re filing. It didn’t matter if you were opening a new case for somebody or if you’re just filing pleadings into an existing case. There was a lot to remember.

you had to use particular stamps and you had to use particular in particular spots and you had to sign it in particular places and put put little stickers in the right spot with a barcode so that the computer people knew where to scan it in. It was just a big mess. And and there was one of my one of my co-workers was particularly helpful or tried to be particularly particularly helpful.

There’s a lot to remember. So occasionally I would ask a question and say, what am I supposed this step and they’d walk over and look and see what I was doing and say, oh, here’s what you’re supposed to do. And then they would begin doing it.

I just asked what the next step was, you know, because there’s so much to remember. And next thing I know, I’m just, should I step out for a coffee break or what, you know, am I even needed here anymore because you’re doing my job. And I remember this person complaining at times that nobody else did any work.

Of course, the running joke, my favorite joke when I worked for the county was, do you know how many people work for Oklahoma County? And the answer was one out of four. But would complain, this person would complain that nobody else did any work.

And I thought, well, no, because you step in and try to do all of it for us. And it would be so frustrating, not only for us, but for her. And that’s usually the case when somebody steps in and tries to do your job for you.

It’s frustrating for you. It’s frustrating for them because they’re taking on responsibility they were never supposed to have. And it’s just a very frustrating deal. Now tonight, as we continue with our journey through the book of Mark, we’re going to look at the parable of the sower.

And as I read this again with fresh eyes and really looked at it in context of everything that we’ve read up to this point, I realized that part of what Jesus is doing in telling this story is preparing the disciples for what their job is coming up so that they don’t try to do the Lord’s job for him. Because a lot of times we will step in and try to do what’s really the Lord’s job. We think it’s our job, but we step in and try to do his job.

And then of course we end up frustrated because we can’t do the Lord’s job, right? I counseled with a lady one time. She and her husband came to see me and they both were just concerned that she was just angry and bitter and frustrated all the time.

And as we talked for a couple of hours, I finally came to the realization of what was going on. I said, no wonder you are so stressed out. You’re trying to do God’s job in all these little areas of life.

You’re trying to do God’s job. It’s one of those moments I thought she might take a swing at me, but she looked at me and said, I think you’re right. And that’s frustrating because we’re not equipped to do that job.

I remember getting so frustrated in evangelism years ago because I thought all of it depended on my abilities and my eloquence and my prowess at constructing just the right argument that if I can just arrange the words in the right combination, there’s got to be a magic formula in here that’s going to overcome everybody’s obstacles and make everybody get saved. And I was way older than I should have been before I realized the Holy Spirit has a role here too. And my job is just to do my job, which is what we’re going to talk about.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself. But my job is just to do my job and let the Holy Spirit do His. And so Jesus, as we get to the parable of the sower, part of what He’s doing is to prepare the disciples to just do their job.

And so tonight we’re going to look at Mark chapter 4. If you would turn there with me in your Bibles, Mark chapter 4, it’ll also be on the screen. Or you can look it up on one of your devices.

If you’re using one, there’s a link in our bulletin that’ll get you right there. And if you would, stand with me if you’re able to do so without too much trouble as we read from God’s Word. Mark chapter 4, starting in verse 1.

Jesus tells a story. It says, And again, he began to teach by the sea, and a great multitude was gathered to him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. Such a huge crowd has gathered around to see and hear Jesus that just to get a little bit of space, he had to get on a boat and speak from the boat.

The boat was his stage, and the people gathered on the shore. That was the crowd. He then taught them many things by parables, and he said to them in his teaching, Listen, behold, a sower went out to sow.

And it happened as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground where it did not have much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away.

And some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. And he said to them, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Now verse 10, it says, But when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parable. By the way, that doesn’t mean alone. That doesn’t mean he was all by himself talking to himself.

It means he was alone relative to the massive crowd that had been there. So he’s speaking to a much more intimate gathering of followers at this point. Those around him with the twelve asked him about the parable, And he said to them, to you, it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.

But to those who are outside, all things come in parables so that seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should turn and their sins be forgiven them. And this is a reference to the book of Isaiah in chapter six, talking about people looking and seeing, but not really being able to perceive what they’re seeing or hearing and not being able to understand what they’re hearing. And he says that this is the case so that otherwise their sins would be forgiven, which seems like an odd thing for him to say.

Verse 13 though, he says, 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 by the wayside where the word is sown.

When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. These likewise are the ones on stony ground who when they hear the word immediately receive it with gladness and they have no root in themselves and so endure only for a time. Afterward when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.

Now these are the ones sown among thorns. They are the ones who hear the word and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things entering in choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground.

Those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. And you may be seated. Now, many times I have heard this preached, and sometimes I will hear it presented as a message about getting your heart in order.

And maybe there’s some principles from this that we can take and say, you know, we want to be good soil for the Word to grow. But that’s really not the point that he’s making here because he’s talking to his disciples. And I’ve told you before, I’ve begun to understand some of what Jesus is talking about much better as I’ve been preaching through Mark passage by passage.

Because when you don’t take these as stand-alone stories, you begin to understand what they mean. this is a response to this and this in light of what just happened over here. And when we look at what he’s talking about here, with the parable of the sower, Matthew makes it abundantly clear when Matthew records the same story that this happened, this teaching of the parable of the sower, happened the same day as what we looked at last time with the scribes and Pharisees blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

That instance where Jesus performed miracles and they looked at the miracles, they heard the teaching, they saw all the evidence and had to have known deep down in their hearts who Jesus is and that the Father had sent Him and that He was the Messiah, He was the Son of God. They had access to all of this evidence. They had seen it and had to have known and yet they looked at Him and said, we don’t want to believe that and so we’re going to accuse Him of doing these things by the power of Satan.

They had gone to the most extreme place of rejection of Jesus that anybody could go. They had gone to an extreme that we can’t today because we don’t see those things right in front of us. But they had had direct eyewitness access to everything Jesus had done and said.

And in spite of what they knew to be true, they had accused Him of doing it by satanic power. They had gone as far as anybody could go in rejecting Jesus Christ. And this happened the very same day. This is just a little while later.

Part of the crowd follows Jesus out and he begins to teach and he begins to speak. But he speaks in parables and he says he does it so that they don’t understand. And so we need to understand that this parable likely came as a response to the scribe’s rejection of Jesus.

These two things are connected. And the very fact that he spoke in parables at all is because he was surrounded by people who had rejected him. I don’t think those scribes all went home.

Some of the people in the crowd were among those who had rejected him and had rejected him so firmly. That’s why he says in verse 11, speaking to his disciples later on, to you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things come in parables. And we see in verse 10, he did not explain the parable and what it meant to anybody until later on when he’s alone with a smaller group of people, including the 12 and a few other followers that were close by.

He didn’t try to explain it until then. And what we need to see here is that those who rejected his light, those who rejected his truth, those who rejected him and were so firm and were so determined in rejecting him, with all the evidence they had, with all the truth they had, they didn’t get more. There came a point where Jesus said, you’ve had all the truth you’re going to get and you’ve rejected it.

It’s sort of what Jesus talked about in Matthew chapter 7 about not casting your pearls before swine. The pearls, the valuable truth of the gospel, Jesus basically says, I’m not wasting my breath because you’ve already gone as far as you can go in rejecting this. And so these are the people that he’s describing.

These ones who’ve rejected him, who’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit. They’re who he’s describing in verse 12 when he quotes Isaiah and says, seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should turn and their sins be forgiven them. What he’s saying here is if they really did see, if they really did perceive and understand, if they really, if they really grasped the gravity of what was taking place in front of them, they would turn and their sins would be forgiven.

but they are so hardened in their unbelief that they have determined they’re not going to hear. And at that point, if somebody’s not going to hear, if somebody’s not going to listen, if somebody’s not going to look and pay attention, don’t you at some point say, I’m not wasting my breath on this anymore. I have friends that I disagree with on things.

Hopefully you do too. It’s not usually a good idea to only surround ourselves with people who think exactly like we do. My pastor growing up used to say, if you’re in a relationship with somebody and you are exactly alike and think exactly alike, one of you is unnecessary.

But I have friends that I disagree with on particular issues of politics or theology. And sometimes you can just argue with somebody for so long. You know, if I haven’t straightened you out in 10 years, I love you, but we’re not going to talk about this anymore.

And they probably would say the same thing about me. You know, at some point, don’t you just say, I can’t waste my breath anymore. I’ve had people come to me about issues that they’re dealing with in life, and I’m saying, here’s what you need to do.

Here’s the answer, not just from my opinion, but God’s Word says you need to do this. And yet we’re having the same conversation over and over and over, where I feel like I’m just wasting my breath at some point. At some point, you just stop wasting your breath.

I mean, God can get a hold of them, but I can’t. Now, Jesus is God, so he didn’t have that same problem. But Jesus knew.

Jesus knew. They have determined they are not going to see or hear. And so I’m done talking to them about it.

They don’t get any more truth to just trample underfoot. And so this was a judgment against the religious leaders. When we see Jesus start to speak in parables, when we see Jesus starting to obscure some of the meaning of his teaching, it’s not because Jesus is trying to be cool and mysterious.

It’s not because Jesus is telling them, you figure it out. It’s not because Jesus wants to leave his teachings vague and open to interpretation. When Jesus starts obscuring the meaning of what he’s saying and speaking in parables and only explaining those parables to a few people, it’s because there’s judgment on somebody.

And part of the judgment of God on those people is that he’s not going to cast his pearls before swine anymore. Now, when it comes to the gospel, be careful about doing that. Be careful and prayerful about doing that because Jesus knew they were at the point where they weren’t going to turn.

We don’t. Just because you get frustrated with somebody, don’t quit praying for them. Don’t quit sharing the gospel if the Lord opens the opportunity.

But don’t just get frustrated and say, well, you didn’t accept it the first time, so I’m just moving on. Follow his leadership on that. Jesus had an understanding of people that we don’t.

But this was a judgment. Let’s be very clear. These parables were a judgment on the hard-heartedness of the religious leaders.

But it also was mercy toward his followers because it was to prepare them for what was about to happen next. It was preparation in light of what had just happened because in just a little while, Jesus was going to send his followers out to proclaim his word. As a matter of fact, in chapter 6, he begins to send the twelve out.

We’ll see that hopefully in a few weeks. He began to send the twelve out. Well, people were going to react to them the way they had reacted to Jesus.

They had just seen people, people who should know better. They had just seen the religious leaders. They had just seen the scribes.

I mean, it was their job to copy the Scriptures. They were familiar with every letter of the Scriptures, and yet they couldn’t see God’s truth right in front of their faces. So the disciples had just witnessed a group of people, even those who should know better, rejecting Jesus and His Word as definitively as anybody could, and they needed to know that this was just a natural part of the work.

And part of what keeps us away from evangelism is I think sometimes we start to doubt ourselves because we don’t see the results we think we ought to see, and so we think, well, I’m just really bad at this. I’m not going to do it anymore. When Jesus was preparing them to understand that’s just part of it, that there are always going to be people who reject his word.

There are always going to be people who reject the truth. They had seen it firsthand. They had even rejected the truth when it came from Jesus.

And so Jesus warned them. As he’s looking at what has just happened and he’s preparing them for what they’re going to face, he’s giving them a glimpse of what the responses are going to look like. Not everyone will receive Christ. I hate even saying that because we want everybody to know him.

We want everybody to understand his forgiveness. We want everybody to experience the power of his resurrection. We want everybody to spend eternity with him.

And yet he made it clear not everybody will. There would be many people who would reject him. Jesus himself said there’s a broad way that leads to destruction and there’s a narrow road that leads to finding him.

And he said many would find the way to destruction and few would find him. Not everyone will receive Christ. And this bears out in the parable that he shares. He illustrates for us four different types of things that will happen when we share the gospel, when we proclaim his word.

Because the seed that the sower is scattering is the word. Jesus says that. It’s the truth of his word.

It’s specifically the message of who Jesus Christ is. But four different kinds of things will happen. And he talks about the seed that fell on the road.

And that’s that we can get no response. Have you ever shared the gospel with somebody and it’s like you’re not even having the same conversation? Have you ever had a conversation with somebody where it didn’t feel like you were having the same conversation?

Okay, we’ve all been there. That happens a lot when you’re sharing the gospel. Now, sometimes it may be a rejection of Jesus.

Sometimes it may just be that they’re not to that point of understanding yet. But for some people, the word seems to have no effect on them whatsoever, at least in the moment. Now, we don’t know what’s going to happen to that seed long term each time we plant it.

And so we have the responsibility still of sowing the seed. But for some people, it’s going to be like casting seeds, and some of it falls on the roadside. They didn’t go out and garden like I do when I have a small, for me it’s a small area, for farmers it’d be a small area, where I go out and plant individual seeds, individual plants.

Because I have a limited amount of space and I have 53 types of things that I want to grow. So I’m very strategic about where I place them. But to grow acres and acres of crops, you go out and you just scatter it far and wide.

Some of it falls on the roadside. And it’s there and it gets eaten up by the birds and it doesn’t grow. Surprisingly, seeds don’t grow in the road.

Except the weed ones. Weeds will grow anywhere, but stuff you want to grow won’t grow anywhere it seems like. And so these seeds just lay there and nothing seems to happen.

For some people, in some instances, and by the way, I don’t think Jesus is saying that somebody’s stuck in one of these categories. You may sow the seed there 15 times before it grows. But when we go out and sow the seed, somebody may just not respond at all.

It may seem like the Word does nothing in them. And by the way, I would put hostility as a reaction in this category. I know hostility is a response, But as far as the word appearing to do anything in them, anything good in them, there’s no response.

And so I would say these are the people that shrug it off. These are the people that don’t have time to hear it. These are the people that get mad.

But the word seemingly does nothing in them. And then in verses 5 and 6, he talks about seeds being scattered on rocky ground. And he says that they grow fast, they start fast, they germinate fast, But eventually they shrivel up and die because there’s no root.

And I’ve learned there with some seeds, you do need to follow the directions on the back of the package because you can bury them too deep and you’re waiting forever for them to come up if they come up at all. So a few years ago, I thought, well, I’ll get smart and I’ll just minimally bury them. More shallow than you’re supposed to.

And man, they came up fast. Then it was a lot easier for the wind to blow them down because they weren’t deep enough for the roots to have the right support. He describes here in their place, in the place where they lived, the part of the world where they lived, there was rocky soil. So there were just areas where there was a little bit of soil and rocks underneath it and a seed might sprout up quickly, but it can’t get its roots for moisture, for nutrients, for support, down into that rock.

And so at the first sign of the sun, those plants are scorched. And in verses 16 and 17, He talks about how these kinds of plants, these kinds of people will wither away when difficulties arise. And this would be a shallow response.

I’ve known people, I had good personal friends that have been through experiences like this, where they go to a revival at church, they go to camp, they go to a Bible study, and they hear the Word, they hear the Gospel, and it seems to do something, and they get all excited. And then a few weeks, a few months later, it’s like it never happened at all. And you’re left thinking, what in the world happened here?

It was a shallow response. Not calling that person shallow, but Jesus described how the roots in the rocky soil can’t really take root and do what they’re supposed to do. And he said for some, there would be this immediate response, this excitement, this joy, only for the first sign of difficulty to come along and the plant withers away.

Then in verse 7, he talks about a seed growing up among the thorns or the weeds. And I noticed this summer when Carly Jo was in the hospital and then Abigail was born, there were periods of time where I was away from my garden a week at a time. And we hired Aaliyah to go out and water, but I told her she didn’t have to pick weeds or anything.

Next thing I know, I’d get out there from one Saturday to the next, and I’d need a machete to get out to the good plants because the weeds had just taken over. And I lost a lot of plants. Some of y’all had monster zucchini where you know I didn’t lose all my plants.

but I lost a lot of good plants because they got choked out by the weeds. And this will happen sometimes too with a person. They’ll make a profession of faith and they’ll be excited.

They’ll seem to be on fire for the Lord but lo and behold, not too far in something else shiny catches their eye and they’re on to the next thing. Now he says here in verses 18 and 19 he describes it in verse 19 as the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things entering in. and he says they choke off the Word.

For some people, there’s going to be a fickle response where they seem to be growing, and then something else comes along and it chokes out that profession of faith. But lest we get too discouraged, he says there are also the seeds that grow in good soil. And that’s transformational. That’s the power of God and His Word.

That’s the power of God to work through His Word to make something transform and make something truly amazing happen in us. For some people, God has prepared the soil. He’s prepared our hearts to receive His Word and to produce more fruit than what’s naturally explainable.

Because you notice here, He says they sow the seed in the good soil and it produces 30 or 60 or 100 fold. Now it doesn’t matter what I do to my soil. I have never had a crop like that.

It doesn’t matter what I do. I’ve never planted anything that I’ve had a crop like that, that it came back 30-fold or 60-fold or 100-fold. And I’m sure they hadn’t either.

What he’s describing here is the kind of fruit that only the power of God can produce. And so even though not everyone will receive Christ, he was telling his followers that there are going to be some who reject Christ, there are going to be some who don’t seem to respond at all, there are going to be some that are just a flash in the pan, but there are going to be some that are going to receive the Word and God is going to do something that you cannot explain apart from His power. And all of this, I think, sets them up to understand that the success or failure of the crop is out of their hands.

And for us, the success or failure of the crop is out of our hands. The planting is our responsibility. And we get so hung up on the response.

Oh, I did that for years, I told you. If I could just formulate the argument the right way, I could almost argue people into heaven. I never saw that work once.

Or we tell ourselves, I’m not going to do this because I’m no good at it. Clearly, I’m not gifted in this area because that person said no. Or this person that I love and care about, they seem to have trusted Christ, and yet look at what happened afterwards, so what am I doing wrong? And we put it all back on ourselves and think, well, clearly, I’m just not cut out to be a sower of the seed.

Clearly, I’m not cut out to be a proclaimer of the Word. But if you notice from this parable, it has absolutely zero to do with the work of the sower. He’s out there spreading the seed no matter what.

It has to do with the condition of the soil and it has to do with the work of God. This parable was to reassure them because they had just witnessed a pretty spectacular crop failure. If anybody knew and understood the word, it should have been the scribes and Pharisees.

And yet they were so hardened in their rejection of Jesus. It was a spectacular crop failure. They had just witnessed.

And they were going to see many more in the future. Many of these guys were going to end up getting murdered by the people that they went to share the word with. I mean, you and I think we have a tough time evangelizing.

These guys were going to pay the ultimate price because people were going to reject Christ. And so this was given to prepare them and get them to understand that there are just some kinds of soil that do not support a successful crop, at least in that moment. And the responsibility is not placed on the sower. Now, what we don’t take away from this is that we can look at people and identify and say, well, you’re weedy ground and you’re stony ground.

You’re the street over there. You’re the gutter. You’ve got birds standing nearby.

We can’t look at people and determine that. That’s not our job either. Our job is to go out there and throw the seed out.

The responsibility for the crop in this parable was not placed on the sower. And even if we argued that the sower should work and prepare the soil like any good gardener would do, the soil still produces supernatural results that you cannot explain just because the sower did something good. You can’t explain the 30-fold, 60-fold, and 100-fold increase by anything but God’s intervention.

And so I think this parable boils down to the very simple principle that it’s our job to spread the Word. It’s our job to tell others about Jesus. It’s our job to spread that news as far and as wide as we have the opportunity to do it and to realize that we’re not off the hook for doing it just because not all the seeds grow.

Jesus warned us that was going to happen, but he also takes responsibility for the growth of the crop. And sometimes too, we can plant a seed and what may be stony ground today may be good soil tomorrow. We never know what God will do with that seed.

But this parable reminds us to just do don’t try to take on God’s job and think it all depends on you to get it just right. Because if you’re anything like me, if you think you’re going to be a spectacular failure at something, you don’t want to try it. I almost didn’t learn to ride a bike for that reason.

I fell off the first time and I was done. I guess I just thought you’re supposed to be an expert the first try. We do that with evangelism.

But when we see people reject the gospel, that’s not on us. Our job is to sow the seed. Our job is to scatter the seed even if we don’t always see the fruit.

And so folks, just take this as a reminder tonight of what our job is. Take this as a reminder that it’s our job to sow the seed. It’s our job to share the gospel.

It’s our job to talk about Christ, to tell people what He’s done for them. By the way, that doesn’t mean we don’t prepare at all because you have to have the seed in the bag when you go out there, right? You should have some idea of how to tell people about Jesus.

But don’t try to do the Lord’s job and frustrate yourself because every seed you sow doesn’t grow up into a major crop. We just need to focus on our job and let Him do His.