Christ, His Truth & Our Response

Transcript

GRM 959
4/30/2006
Christ, His Truth and our Response
Matthew 13:3-23
Gil Rugh


It is God’s intention that His people, the people that He calls to Himself, have the focus of their lives personally and corporately on His Word. That was true for Israel in the Old Testament as we looked at it, it is true of the church as the New Testament unfolds it. For example I Timothy 3:15 says the church is to be the pillar and support of the truth, a place where the truth is to be disseminated to the lost and to the saved. To the lost so that they might hear and believe, to the saved so that they might hear and grow in their life in Christ.

I want to follow-up on that by talking about the response to the Word of God. I expressed to you some of the trends that concern me in the move away from an emphasis on the Word of God and the clear, propositional teaching of the Word of God. Part of the problem comes when we lose sight of what our responsibility is and what it is not, what our responsibility is entrusted to us by God, and what God has reserved for Himself and what only He can do.

I want to look in the gospel of Matthew with you and we will start in chapter 10, just to set something of the framework of where we are in the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. The earthy, public ministry of Christ and the offer of the kingdom to Israel is drawing to a close. In fact by chapter 12 and its ending, no longer will Jesus be clearly teaching the people and offering them the kingdom. The events will be set in motion and the leadership will have determined that Jesus Christ must die. You see things beginning that direction in chapter 10. Jesus begins to warn His disciples about coming persecution. This is not what they were expecting, they looked to Him as the promised and prophesied Messiah of the Old Testament. They looked to Him as the one who had come to establish the kingdom and to rule in righteousness over the earth, to establish Israel as the central people with Jerusalem as the capital. Now in chapter 10 Jesus tells them of coming difficulties. Verse 16, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Verse 17, beware of men, they’ll hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues. Verse 21, brother will betray brother to death, father his child, children will rise up against parents, cause them to be put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. Moving toward events that will culminate in the 70th week of Daniel and the coming tribulation that will immediately precede the return of Christ to earth.

Down in verse 24, the disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, a slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, how much more will they malign the members of his household. Verse 28, do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul. But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Verse 37, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worth of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He who does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. This is not what the disciples were anticipating—taking up their cross, humiliation, scorn, rejection. But Jesus now tells them, this is what is before you.

In chapter 11 John is in prison—John the Baptist, the prophesied forerunner of the Messiah, the one who came to prepare the way for the coming of the king of Israel. This would even throw John the Baptist into confusion. He thought he was preparing the way for the coming king. He will send his followers to Christ and ask, are you the prophesied One or are we looking for another? I don’t understand. How can I be in prison, the one who is preparing the way for you, the prophesied king. There is condemnation pronounced in chapter 11 on the unrepentant cities. Verse 20, He began to denounce the cities in which He did most of His miracles, because they did not repent. Difficult times, but the chapter concludes with a gracious invitation, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

You come to chapter 12, you have the unpardonable sin talked about in chapter 12:31-32. It’s in the context of verse 14 where the leaders of Israel went out and conspired against Him, how they might destroy Him. Now the leaders of Israel are talking about His execution, He’s got to die. A generation craves for signs, Jesus said, verses 38-41, but the only sign that will be given is the sign of Jonah the prophet. For the Son of Man will be three days, three nights in the heart of the earth. Not talking about ruling and reigning in glory, talking about suffering and dying and being buried, and then being raised from the dead. And it’s the spiritual relationship with Him that matters, not the physical. And the chapter concludes, who is my mother, who are my brothers? He who does the will of my Father in heaven, that’s my family.

So you come to chapter 13 it’s in this context of the transition in the public earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. He has been rejected by the nation Israel. Chapter 12 compared Him with the Old Testament prophet, priest and king. And He has been rejected. So what you have in chapter 13, Jesus now begins to teach more in parables. He’s used parables before but now He focuses on that way of teaching the multitudes. And the disciples wonder why He’s teaching them in parables. Some people say, well Jesus taught in parables because He wanted to make the truth simpler and more clear. Just the opposite is true. Jesus taught in parables because He didn’t want the people to know what He was saying. Look at verse 10, the disciples came and said to Him, why do you speak to them in parables? Jesus answered them, to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to them it has not been granted. They are under judgment. Verse 13, I speak to them in parables because while seeing they do not see, while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled. And then He quotes from Isaiah. Deaf ears, blinded eyes, hardened hearts. But He will explain it to the disciples. You understand the parables didn’t even clarify truth for the disciples, Jesus had to explain the parables to the disciples. They didn’t know what He was talking about either with the parables. So here was this beautiful little story that no one knew what it meant, no one understood it. Jesus will explain them to His disciples. And what He’s going to do is talk to them according to verse 11, to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to them it is no. Mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Remember the word mystery refers to something that had not before been revealed, something you could not know apart from revelation from God. I want to tell you new, additional material about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom that had been prophesied in the Old Testament, the kingdom that the disciples were looking toward. I’m going to tell you about material relating to that kingdom.

It’s not a new kind of kingdom, it’s not different from the Old Testament kingdom, but it is additional information on that kingdom. What He’s going to talk about is the period of time between the first coming of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ. Now the Old Testament talked about the first coming of Christ, talked about His suffering and death. Isaiah 53 one of the outstanding portions in all the Bible, prophesying in detail the rejection of the Messiah, His suffering and death and burial and so on, it also prophesied His glory. The same prophet Isaiah, chapters 2, 9, 11, 66 talked about the Messianic reign in glory of the coming Messiah. The problem is the prophets didn’t sort it out. Jesus says that’s why they couldn’t understand what they were writing. They talked about a Messiah who would suffer and die and a Messiah who would rule and reign in glory. And they saw them just two events. It awaits the New Testament where new revelation is given and you realize the period of time of some 2000 years now that separates the first coming to suffer and die from the Second Coming when He will rule and reign in glory over the kingdom that He will establish.

Now what these parables do in chapter 13, relating to the kingdom, is tell you about what will go on during that time between the first coming of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ. It covers that whole period. So it covers the period of time in which we are living. He’s really talking to the Jews at this time, but it relates to us because we live in this period. He’s telling the Jews about what must take place before the kingdom will be established.

We know it starts with Christ because He’s going to start out with the parable of the sower, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. Then He’s going to talk about a parable of the tares and wheat down in verse 24 and that will have a sower in it. And then down in verse 37 He gives the interpretation, the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. That relates to the parable of the tares and the wheat, and I take it that identifies the sower and I would assume it’s the same sower in the parable of the soils. So we begin with the earthly ministry of Christ sowing the seed, and it carries us to the end of the age because we are told down in verese 40, just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness, throw them into the furnace of fire. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

So you see this period of time carries us all the way to the time when Jesus Christ will return, send his angels to gather all the wicked out, cast them into hell so that He can establish a kingdom in which the righteous will enter. That parallels what He says in Matthew 25 in interpreting the parables there. Then after the judgment that condemns the wicked to hell, the hell prepared for the devil and his angels, He tells the righteous, enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

The parables in Matthew 13 carry us from the first coming of Christ in His earthly ministry all the way down to the time of the Second Coming of Christ. We’re going to concentrate on the parable of the soils, if we have time I’d like to say something about another parable, but we’ll see how things develop. There are three factors of importance in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13—there is the sower, there is the seed and there is the soil, sower, seed, soil. We want to have those correctly identified.

We’ve already identified the sower, it’s Christ. Matthew 13:37, the sower is the Son of Man. However, it won’t be limited to Him because this covers the period of time from His first coming, when He was on earth, all the way down to His return in glory, when He will separate the wicked from the righteous and cast the wicked into hell and bring the righteous into the kingdom. So it will also include those who act as His representatives on earth between the first coming and the Second Coming. Remember Jesus said to His disciples after His resurrection in John 20:21, as the Father has sent Me, so I also send you. In Acts 1:8 Jesus said to His followers, you shall be my witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Turn over to II Corinthians 5:18, note what Paul has to say here. He’s talked about the gospel that he preached, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and so on and our identification with Him. Verse 17, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature. Old things passed away, behold new things have come. Now all these things are from God, now note this, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the minsitry of reconciliation. So those who have experienced God’s reconciling work in Christ are now entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation, which is what? Namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. In other words, by God’s grace we have come to know and believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. He was raised because that penalty had been paid. Our trespasses are cared for, we are cleansed from all defilement and all guilt when we believe in Him. Now He has committed to us who have been reconciled the word of reconciliation, to tell others of the message of Christ. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us. So you see we stand, we beg you on behalf of Christ, in Christ’s stead, be reconciled to God. It’s God making an appeal through us. We beg you, be reconciled to God. We have the same ministry. You understand it in the context I’m talking, as Christ.

When He was identified as the sower in the parables in Matthew 13, giving forth the Word of God that He had received from His Father. Now that Word that has been entrusted to us, that came through Him, and then through the apostles. And we give out the message of Christ, and we beg men and women on behalf of Christ, as though God were the one making an appeal to us, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That’s the beautiful plan of salvation. You and I are sinful, defiled, hell-deserving people, but the Son of God has stepped from glory and suffered and died on the cross to pay in full the penalty for my sin. When by His grace I turn from my sin and place my faith in Him, I am cleansed from my sin. He doesn’t count my trespasses against me, verse 19 says, because their penalty has been paid. And now the righteousness of God is credited to my account.

So in the parable of the soils, as you come back to Matthew 13, it starts with Christ and that ministry of the truth concerning Him in a fuller and more complete way. And then that ministry is entrusted to those, starting with those original disciples who would experience the reconciliation to God through their faith in Him. And now it comes down, and here we are gathered together. Why? Because someone who heard the message of reconciliation and believed then turned and passed that message of reconciliation on to us. if we would stand up, find out that in places all over this country and perhaps some of you in other places in the world heard the message of reconciliation and believed. That process has gone on for some 2000 years. So the sower is Christ and then over this period of time those who belong to Christ and thus serve as His representatives, entrusted with His message. Paul told the Corinthians that we have this treasure, the treasure of the gospel in earthen vessels, so that all the honor and glory might be His in the salvation of the lost.

The seed, verse 19, when anyone hears the Word of the kingdom, the message about the coming kingdom, the message about Jesus Christ as the Messiah who will some day come to rule and reign who by His death on the cross made provision for people to be born from above, born again, be cleansed from their sin, have the righteousness of God and thus participate in the kingdom. Luke 8:11, when this same parable is interpreted, we are told that the seed is the Word of God. That’s what we’re talking about—the Word of God, the truth concerning Christ that is given out. You understand, and the picture here, the seed has life in it. It amazes me, sometimes on an archaeological program perhaps on television they’ll talk about that they opened a tomb and they found a lot of things in there, also some seed. This seed can be thousands of years old and they take it, they plant it, it germinates and grows. I mean it’s remarkable, there’s life in that seed.

Turn over to Mark 4. There is a parable that Christ told just after the parable of the soils that Matthew does not record, but Mark does. And in Mark 4:26, He was saying, the kingdom of God is like a man who cast seed upon the soil. So in that sense it is similar to the parable of the soils, the sower casting seed. But note this, he goes to bed at night, gets up by day and the seed sprouts and grows. How, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself, the blade, the head, the mature grain in the head. There is something marvelous and amazing, there is life in that seed. And a man doesn’t do anything but put the seed in the ground. And there is life in the seed. In a way that you really can’t understand, I mean you put my body in the grave and 2000 years later dig it up, we see pictures of tombs like this and mummies and everything else. They are dead, they aren’t coming to life. Now I realize there is a coming resurrection, but they’re just dead. But you take that seed that’s been there, put it in the ground, it grows. So in the Word of God there is life, Romans 1:16. Some of these passages we looked at in our previous study. I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Hebrews 4:12, for the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, it’s alive. This book is different than any other book that has ever been written, and any other book that lives. This book has life. The message of this book can transform a person. When the seed of this book penetrates a heart, it transforms a life from the inside out. So that if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things have passed away, behold new things have come, as we saw in II Corinthians 5. James 1:21 says receive the word implanted, which is able to save your soul. I Peter 1, you are born again by the living and abiding Word of God. The Word of God is living, it produces new life. This is crucial. We must understand, this is the way God works. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

If you were here for our previous study I talked to you about some of the concerns and the drift that is taking place in the evangelical world, away from a focus on the Word of God and the clear teaching of the Word of God. Replacing the propositional teaching of the Word of God with narrative and story. We talked about some of the problems with that. Part of the difficulty comes out of good intentions on the part of believers and realize that there are things we want to learn and be open to. Some of these movements start out of a concern that the evangelical church has calcified, it has just closed itself in and is no longer reaching out with the gospel. And that ought to be a concern, and we do become comfortable in our own little environment, our own little world. Many of you are part of adult Bible studies that meet in homes through the week. And think about it, you have your own comfortable group, you’ve been together for awhile. If two or three unbelievers show up next week, all of a sudden…….our group, we just don’t mesh the way we did. Now we’ve got these outsiders and we don’t know what to talk about, we don’t know what to say. And we’re uncomfortable with them and they’re uncomfortable with us. Nice to have you here, but it will be even nicer if you don’t come back next week. It just unsettles our group. We like each other. The can become that way with our……..well some of you sit in the same place. I know because I look around, sometimes I say I wonder where…….they’re not here this week. Or I’ll say in my mind, these things go by and I’ll say what are they doing over here, they should be sitting over here. Is there something wrong? Maybe they had an argument with the people that sit next to them. Some of you know what it’s like, you walk in and get ready to sit in your seat and somebody is there. OOOOOOHHHH! Choke them. I mean how am I supposed to listed to the Word of God with somebody sitting in my seat. And it might be an unbeliever, they didn’t know that they should have waited until everybody is seated and then take an empty seat. Or come down front, that’s safe.

So all that to say I appreciate the fact that in some of these movements there is a concern that we want to carry the gospel to the lost, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And no one ever gets saved who doesn’t hear the gospel. So if we just close ourselves in and revel in one another’s company and the enjoyment of the Word and let the lost go to hell, we have failed to appreciate we’ve entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. So we do have to reach out, but understand when we begin to focus on our culture and external things, they style of our service, the style of our music, the kind of whatever, we can easily move apart as though we could change hearts. And the real problem is people don’t like if you wear a tie, or they don’t like it if you don’t wear a tie. Or the unbeliever won’t come if you sing hymns. Some of those things don’t matter, so we can make a difference, we do make changes, we have. I mean we’re not sitting on the ground, we’re sitting on seats in a comfortable building and so on. There have been changes in music.

But what we cannot change is the Word of God. The ministry must be about the Word, that’s why we’ve spent the last two messages focusing on what the Word of God said about that. We’re not going back over that. But you understand what is unique here is the supernaturalness of the Word. When you begin to think it’s because we haven’t made the adjustments in the culture, then we’re going to begin to drift off track. Because we think now people will receive the Word because of these things. Jesus is going to address that matter in the parable of the soils.

The soils represent the human heart. So we have the sower starting with Christ and the followers of Christ. We have the seed which is the truth concerning Christ, and we have the soils which represent the human heart. Matthew 13:19, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. So the soils represent the heart, and in the parable of the soils there will be four kinds of soils dealt with—the hardened heart or the hardened soil, the shallow heart or shallow soil, the cluttered soil or the cluttered heart, and the fertile soil or the fertile heart. These are different responses to the Word of God. You’ll note, there can be no issue here with the sower because we start with Christ, no problem with the seed because it’s the Word of God and it’s what He used. The issues becomes the heart and Jesus is only going to deal with it here on the human level and what we are responsible for. He doesn’t talk in these parables about the work of the Spirit in changing a heart, that comes with other areas of revelation. So here we deal with the human heart as man is responsible for his own condition, and he is identified in Matthew 13:13-16 in which He quotes from Isaiah. They are responsible for the condition of their heart.

Let’s just walk through these in summary fashion. First the hard heart, verse 4. The sower went out to sow, he sowed, some seed fell by the road and the birds came and ate them up. The interpretation is verse 19. It’s an easy parable for us because Christ interprets it. Hear then the parable of the sower, when anyone hears the Word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown by the road. And this is the path by the field, and he sows and the seed comes along and falls on the beaten path. And that path just gets beaten down rock hard. And it doesn’t penetrate. And so the birds come and they eat the seed up. And so there is nothing that happens in that heart with the seed.

Turn over to Luke 8, and Luke tells about this parable as Christ told it. Luke 8:12, verse 11 says the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God. Those beside the road are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the Word from their heart so they will not believe and be saved. A work of the devil, he doesn’t want people to hear the Word and if they hear it he doesn’t want them to respond to it in faith. He doesn’t want them to believe and be saved. So the birds here represent the work of the devil in trying to snatch away the seed as it’s given out.

Come over to II Corinthians 4, we were in chapter 5 a little bit ago—if I had thought of it I could have told you to leave a marker, but the practice of getting there is good. In chapter 3 Paul has talked about the ministry he had, he talked about it in chapter 2, the end of the chapter. At the end of chapter 2 as you know, a passage that greatly impacted my life and ministry here, that we give off the fragrance which is the knowledge of Christ in every place where we are. And God is pleased with that fragrance, whether people are perishing or whether people are being saved. It’s not the result that pleases Him, it’s the faithfulness in giving off the knowledge of His Son that is pleasing to Him. That’s what determines whether I am successful, or that you are successful—whether God is pleased. Verse 17, we are not like the many, the hoi poloi, peddling the Word of God, acting as hucksters with the Word of God, willing to make whatever adjustments or changes that need to be made to make it more salable. We have a pure product that’s only to be given out as it is.

In chapter 3 he talked about the ministry of the new covenant, which is the ministry of the work of Chris in providing for the new heart, salvation that the new covenant talked about in the Old Testament. You come to chapter 4 Paul says, therefore since we have this ministry as we have received mercy we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame. Not walking in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. One thing about Paul, he had to change from different cultures. He preached to Jews, he preached to Gentiles. That’s a totally different world. We’re going to come to this in I Corinthians 8 when you have to deal with the matter of idols and food sacrificed to idols and so on. That wasn’t an issue for the Jews. We’ve entered a different culture, if you will, with the Gentiles, their idol worship and how that pervades everything in their lives and affects your involvement in society. But Paul says, I don’t adjust the Word, I don’t go from Jew to Gentile and now decide I’m in a different culture, this is going to require a whole different plan. Wherever he was, he was preaching Christ. That doesn’t mean with Jews he doesn’t pick up with passages that will particularly relate to Jews or with Gentiles, that particularly related to Gentiles. There is no adjusting of the method or the message, but the pure Word of God.

But, note verse 3, if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but we preach Christ. In verse 7, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, treasure of the message of Christ. You see a different analogy but the same point. I preach the gospel, but for some people the gospel is veiled, a veil comes down over their eyes because the devil doesn’t want them to see the truth of the gospel and believe it and be saved. That’s the same picture you have with a different analogy. The devil coming and snatching away the truth so that people don’t respond in faith. I am aware I preach the gospel and some who are listening are not believers. It’s a serious matter to delay responding because the devil does his work well. I can think of people I have talked to that have been open to talk to me about the gospel that today if I tried to talk to them they would be terribly offended and upset . What has happened? A hardened heart. And so Paul would tell the Corinthians, today is the day of salvation.

Come back to Matthew 13. You have the hardened heart. I mean why do you present the gospel sometimes, the clear truth of the Word of God and nothing happens, there is no response. And you watch some over time and it seems like you’d never talked to them. The answer is simply they have a hardened heart, the truth of the Word of God did not penetrate and the devil has snatched it away. That’s the hardened heart.

The shallow heart, verse 5, other fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. Immediately they sprang up because it had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. The rocky soil is that thin layer of soil that’s over the rock. And since the soil is so thin, when the seed falls on it, it doesn’t go down and immediately springs up. And that person has an immediate emotional response to the Word. Oh this is what I’ve been looking for, this is what I’ve needed, I’m going to trust Christ.

But you come down to verse 20, the one on whom the seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the Word, immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, it is temporary. When affliction, persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he falls away. And affliction and persecution will arise because of the Word. Jesus said if they hate me they’ll hate you. The Jews understood what this meant. To place their faith in Christ, now they’re ostracized from family, from friends, put out of their jobs, whatever. Some of you have experienced that with you own family, the separation that has brought about. Persecution comes and they cave in, they go back, they don’t have any root. Nothing of lasting value has occurred.

Back in Matthew 11:6 Jesus said, blessed is he who does not take offense at me. Hebrews 10:39, the writer of Hebrews warns those Jews, some of whom were contemplating returning to Judaism, and the writer to Hebrews says, we are not of those who go back to destruction. You understand, you turn back from Christ there is no place to go for salvation, He is the only Savior. There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus.

So those you share the gospel with and their response is overwhelming. In the many years of my ministry here I can think of numerous people who seemed to respond with such enthusiasm, such joy to the gospel. But over time pressure built and they evaporated, they’re gone. I sometimes sit and think, somebody will come to mind and I say I wonder whatever happened to them. Doesn’t mean everybody who leaves here is lost, but those who turned away from the faith. I remember standing up here, I’ve shared with you many years ago, a group of young people, and they had made a profession and they were coming out every week and after church Sunday night we’re talking. And we’re talking one night and he says, yes, when my girlfriend and I woke up this morning we turned over, grabbed our Bible for devotions. I said, back up—devotions, good. Before that, where were you? Well so-and-so, he mentioned her name, when we woke up. You woke up and met in the living room. No, when we woke up in bed together. Wait a minute. You profess Christ, you’re not married, you can’t do that. Understand, that’s immorality, it’s fornication, it’s sin, you can’t do that. You know within about a week and a half the whole group was gone. What they thought they wanted, they didn’t want. Superficial. If this is going to mean I can’t have what I want, it’s its own form of persecution. The shallow heart.

The next kind of heart, I’ve called it a cluttered heart, others have called it a cluttered heart. It’s the seed in verse 7, that falls among thorns and it gets choked out. And down in verse 22, the one in whom the seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the Word. The worry of the world, the deceitfulness of wealth choke the Word and it becomes unfruitful. Mark 4:19 says, it’s the desire for other things. Luke 8:14 says the pleasures of this life. Maybe that better fits the story I told you. Some people don’t mind adding Christ to their life. Christ will not become an add-on to your life, He must become your life. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Jesus said if you love father or mother more than me, you cannot be my disciple. You must give up all your possessions, I’m not willing to be an add-on. Oh yes I’d love to have Jesus as my Savior, I need that. Then I can be a Christian homosexual or a Christian pornographer, or a Christian fill-in-the-blank. I mean I just want to get the fire escape from hell and that’s probably good psychology to have that kind of relationship, and then with everything else my life………. Understand, everything else in life goes one way or another. He has to become…. That’s why He said take up your cross and follow me. You know what that means? That means everything else goes and you join with me as one scorned and rejected, despised.

The cluttered heart. You know we live in an affluent society. Difficult. You know people don’t mind if Christ is presented in such a way—you just take Christ in your life and that will make everything you have in life better. What do you mean? You’ve just got to add this…….. If you start taking this pill then your life is going to be better and you don’t change anything else, you just do everything you always did. You just now have a pill that makes you feel better, and instead of a pill, you add Christ and He becomes the pill that makes you feel better. Sorry. Christ will not become an add-on, He becomes a stumbling block. That’s why Christ presented it as hard as it is. Count the cost before you decide you’re going to become a follower of mine. It will cost you everything. Don’t be a fool. You wouldn’t go to war with an army until you considered whether your army had a chance. Don’t say you’ll become a follower of mine until you’ve considered. You must let go of everything to take hold of Me. I sometimes see in my mind, some of you know my dad could draw, and drew cartoons. Picture a man with his arm full of everything, and yeah, just put Christ on right here, that will be all right, then I’ll have everything. And sometimes we present Him that way because we want people to think they can have Christ. Then we think after they have trusted Him, then. I’m not saying you give up to get saved, but true salvation involves letting go of everything to take hold of Christ. In a cluttered heart, the seed falls there, but soon it is strangled.

Back up to Matthew 6:19, do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal. Now note, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Verse 24, no man can serve two masters, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he’ll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, wealth. Turn over to Matthew 19:23, Jesus said to His disciples, truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Not talking about a certain gate in Jerusalem, this is an impossibility, not a difficulty. Because without God, it would be impossible, verse 26 says. With people this is impossible. It’s possible even for a rich man to get saved. If you’re a rich person and saved you ought to fall on your knees and thank God for added grace. And we with the abundance we have in the society in which we live, we should be on our knees. God’s grace has saved us. You understand, you can’t have the clutter of this world, my heart can’t be filled with the desire to be rich, the desire to have, and be filled with the love of Christ. That’s the cluttered heart.

Those three hearts are just different kinds of unbelieving hearts. Now you’ll note here, the Word of God does nothing lasting in any of those three hearts. It’s not a problem with the sower, it’s not a problem with the seed. It’s a problem with the heart. Now we begin to look at it and say, wow, people aren’t lasting. That must mean something must change. People aren’t responding with the hard heart, must mean we’re not effective with our culture, we need to make changes. You understand Jesus gave these parables to say what would be going on among His faithful followers until He comes again, and He hasn’t come again. I can’t change a heart, you can’t change a heart. I can’t make a hard heart or a soft heart, I can’t make a shallow heart or a deep heart, I can’t make a cluttered heart or a clean heart. I can’t make hearts that won’t respond to the seed of the Word of God fertile. Only God can do that. That’s something between the individual and God, and I begin to scheme in my ministry and my thinking of what I’m going to do that will make people receptive, I’ve crossed the line to set myself in opposition to God. Because there are certain things God has entrusted to me, there are certain things He’s kept to Himself. So when I determine I’m going to do what God says is His work, then I’m in conflict with God. Good intentions don’t count, they don’t get you to heaven, they don’t make you pleasing to God. Obedience pleases God.

There is a fourth kind of heart, it is a fertile heart. Verse 23, the one on whom seed was sown on good soil, this is the man who hears the Word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. That’s the person who is truly saved. We don’t all grow at the same rate, we don’t all produce at the same. But every believer produces, every believer, the Word of God has a lasting effect and impact and an ongoing effect in the life. If I take the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, some produce more, some manifest more clearly the character of Christ. But where there has been a heart that has received the Word savingly, if you will, believing it, that life is changed. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away, behold new things have come. We bear forth fruit, a hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold.

Now the point of this parable is the responsibility to giver forth the Word. I think the church gets off track today because it takes its eyes off its responsibility and looks at the results. And thinks that it will become responsible for the results. So if we could get more people to come here they would belong before they believe, as I shared with you last week it's sort of the model now. It’s not you believe and then belong to the church, you belong to the church and then you believe. And as they observe us and so on. I realize some people come and after being here a while and hearing the Word, then the Spirit of God works and they are saved. But it is always the Word that is doing the work. And so we need to concentrate our energies where God says they must be.

Number one, we must be reconciled. Only those who have been reconciled to God through faith in the Son of God have been entrusted with a ministry of reconciliation. Some people who claim to be believers give up the ministry of reconciliation rather easily because they never truly have received reconciliation. And that’s the next parable. We’re not going to take the time to go there, but it’s the parable of the tares and the wheat. And the devil is a quick learner in some things. He is a good counterfeiter. And so he sows tares among the wheat in the world, and note the tares and the wheat don’t grow together in the church, they grow together in the world. Some have misunderstood this parable and not taken Jesus’ interpretation. Verse 38, the field is the world, the field is not the church. And they have taken that to mean we ought to have unbelievers as part of the church as well as believers. No, it simply means in the world there will be those who profess to be believers, who look like believers, and I can’t tell. And they may come into the church as well. And God will sort them out.

But my responsibility is simple. As one who has been reconciled, now I share the truth. The church of Jesus Christ, their ministry is simple. But there aren’t as many people responding today, what do we do when we’re not effective reaching our culture? You know some things haven’t changed. You have a sower with the seed and the seed is the Word of God. What about the culture? What did Paul claim he did? He gave off the fragrance of the knowledge of Jesus Christ in every place, according to II Corinthians 2. So among the Jews he gave off the fragrance of Jesus Christ, the knowledge of Him. When he’s among the Gentiles he gave off the message of Jesus Christ. But what if it’s not working? Well maybe you’re sowing seed on a hard heart or hard hearts. You understand three of the four soils represent hearts that don’t respond savingly. I’m not saying that indicates three-quarters are going to say no, probably a larger number is going to say no, since Jesus said the gate to life is narrow and the road is narrow. And there are few that find it. And the gate and the road are broad that lead to condemnation, and there are many that go that way. I assume that we’re going to sow this seed and give forth the Word of God to far more people than will respond. Sometimes it will seem like such a small number. As soon as we think it depends if we can get more people then we are changing the focus—we’re saying the problem is not the heart. The problem is we have to change to reach our culture. We saw where they used to say you have to change the method but not the message, and now you have those in the evangelical world saying now we must change both the method and the message, and we must move from propositional style to narrative style and we’re going to tell the story. And then the Word of God is only one of the ways that God uses because we all tell our story and as people hear our story and then see us living our story all of a sudden now the Word of God is getting moved and moved and moved and moved.

So we as the people of God are to be focused on the truth. And in that ministry of truth we give off the Word of God which has life in it. And I can’t control what happens. I can beg you to be reconciled to God, I can try to the best of the abilities that God has given me to explain His Word as clearly as I can so that the Spirit might open your eyes. But I can’t make you believe, I can’t change your heart. Some of you have listened to me for years and are lost. I can’t do anything. I pray for you, I pray for those who have sat here week after week and maybe year after year. Lord, they are lost, but Lord, I can’t do anything about that. Only He can. I’m not responsible for that. That’s why I shared with you the difference that passage in Corinthians made—we are a savor of Christ to God among those who are perishing and among those who are being saved. All we can do is be faithful, all you can do is share the truth, share the message of Christ. Oh I do, but people haven’t been saved. Well, let God do His work, you do your work, so that we can hear well done, good and faithful servant.

What kind of heart do you have? Don’t ask whether you attend this church, whether you work in this church, whether you give your money. What kind of heart do you have? Have you truly had the Word of God penetrate your heart so that it has so changed you that now it is producing the character of Christ in your life, the fruit of the Spirit. And you are not the person you used to be, but you are a new creature. And you see that, your family sees that, your friends see that, and you are a testimony to the grace of God and the power of His salvation.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the richness of your Word. We are in awe that you should speak and entrust that message to us. Lord, we are here as trophies of your grace and we know that our hardened hearts were softened by the ministry of your Spirit. We’ve been reconciled to you through faith in Christ. Now we are privileged and honored to share the message of reconciliation with others. Lord I pray we will not be ashamed of the gospel which is your power for salvation to everyone who believes. We would be bold to in love, with passion, to beg men and women and young people to be reconciled to God, for He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We pray in His name. Amen.