Cultivating a Kingdom

Well, good morning. Let me add my welcome to that you've already received. I think I've met everyone, but my name is Derek. I'm one of the elders here. We give Stephen a break every now and then, so it's my privilege to be able to preach this morning.

Introduction

Does anyone remember the Dr. Seuss story about the Sneetches? I do. This thing made an impact on me somehow as a kid, but I still remember it. Sneetches were these yellow furry creatures, but a few of them had these stars on their belly. And somehow they decided that that made them special and better than the others, and the others felt inferior to the ones that had the stars on their belly.

One day, Sylvester McMonkey McBean shows up with a machine. This machine puts stars on the bellies of Sneetches. And so all the Sneetches that didn't have stars lined up, paid their money, got a star on their belly. And then the original star-belly Sneetches started to not feel so special anymore. So guess what? Mr. McBean had another machine that took stars off of bellies. And so the original star-belly Sneetches paid him money to have their stars taken off. And for a moment, all was right with the world again—they were the special ones.

Then the original non-star-belly Sneetches that had now had stars paid money to have their stars taken off. And then you see what's happening here: they literally started lining up to both machines and handing money out, putting stars on and stars off until the entire town was out of money. Mr. McBean packed up his two machines and rolled out of town with all their money, and the Sneetches realized that it wasn't the star at all that made them special.

This is a parable. Today's text marks a transition in the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus changes his teaching style and begins to use parables as his primary teaching tool. As was read for us a minute ago in verse three, he told them many things in parables.

"Parable" is a compound word in the original Greek with para—a preposition that means "alongside," where we get "parallel" from, two lines alongside—and the other word is ballein, which means "to throw" or "to cast." So it's a story that's cast alongside by way of illustration. Parables normally carry a single idea or lesson, sort of an overarching simple idea like the Sneetches.

This opening parable that we're going to talk about today is unique in a couple of ways, in that Matthew includes for us not just Jesus' telling of the parable to the larger audience, but also Jesus' own explanation of the story, likely to a smaller group of maybe just his disciples. In that explanation, Jesus reveals that it's not just a simple idea or story like most parables, but this one he interprets more in what we might call an allegory, where every detail actually has some significance. The story is a little more complex in its meaning.

That's the parable we're going to talk about today. It marks a bit of another transition, not just in the teaching style, but also in his audience. Up to this point, other than the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' teaching has been primarily directed at the Jewish leaders. A lot of those interactions have happened inside the synagogues. But some of them, like the text we had last week, were out in the open where the disciples took the grain on the Sabbath and they were confronted by the Pharisees for doing work on the Sabbath.

In the verses between that story and this one, Jesus calls the leaders—here's the way to win friends and influence people—a brood of vipers, an evil and adulterous generation, and he pronounces their future judgment for rejecting him. So this transition is both in message, style, and delivery, but also in audience. Maybe those are tied together. With the Pharisees, the discussion often centered around a particular Old Testament text that they would have been familiar with. However, they were misunderstanding what Jesus and God would have wanted them to know out of that text. As he transitions to presumably a more common audience, likely with less schooling in the scriptures and potentially even some Gentiles, a different approach was necessary. Thus, the parable.

Matthew tells us in 12:14–21:

"But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 'Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name Gentiles will hope.'"

So we see this transition of audience even prophesied. You heard the initial telling of the parable in the early verses in chapter 13, and we will spend the rest of our time this morning looking at the explanation that Jesus gave in verses 18 through 23.

Before we jump in, I wanted to make a couple of quick observations about the earlier text. First, it says that it was the same day. So maybe even that crowd that it said followed him is the one that's now sitting on the side of the sea that we're going to talk about. It's possible. We don't know exactly the sequence of events, but it said that he withdrew from the Pharisees and that this great crowd followed him. This crowd, potentially, was that same day.

It says that the crowds gathered around him so that he had to get in a boat. They were along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, but the crowd was pressing in on him. The only way he could get some space to teach was to get in a boat and put offshore a little bit, while they all sat or stood along the shore. As is the tradition in the synagogue, the one teaching would sit while the ones listening would stand, and we see that here. Jesus sits while the people on the shore stood, and he starts with the Parable of the Sower. As I said, we're going to look together at verses 18–23, where Jesus tells us what the story means.

Let me pray for us real quick.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful that you have gathered us here this morning. Let us not lose sight of what this means: that we are the gathering of your bride. This is something that you have ordained for us to do—to gather together, to encourage, to worship. This is a holy thing we do here today, and you have promised to be here amongst us. So it is my prayer that your Spirit would be about his business, your business that you have given him to do in the hearts of your people, and that what you would find here are people prepared to hear what it is that you might have to say. What you would find here is a humble servant who brings nothing to this other than a voice. It is my prayer that you would be honored and that we would leave here different than we came, in Jesus' name. Amen.

1. No Understanding

The first section I'm calling "no understanding." It comes from verses 18 and 19. Jesus says this here:

"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 what was sown along the path."

Here we see that the seed that is being sown is the word of the kingdom. So what does Jesus mean when he says "the word of the kingdom"? I think it means everything that he's been teaching up to this point is the word of the kingdom.

If we were to think back about the things he said, we remember things like: this kingdom is not like other kingdoms. It's not a worldly kingdom. It is not an earthly kingdom, because its primary oppressor was not Rome, but sin. And the King is not a human person, but God.

So this kingdom is, by way of review, a promised kingdom. It is the fulfillment of what Old Testament Israel was only a taste of. It is a spiritual kingdom seeking to unite the people of God under his perfect rule and authority and presence. It is a transformational kingdom in that its citizens are different: they turn the other cheek, they care for the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant, and they value others more than themselves. It is a present and future kingdom: it has a current reign in the hearts and minds of its citizens, but they await a future when this spiritual reality reaches its fulfillment in a new heaven and a new earth.

It strikes me that Jesus, as he is telling this story in this boat on the Sea of Galilee, is also demonstrating that same story. He is asking a group of people gathered that was so large he had to get in the boat to even be able to teach them, asking them to consider responding to what he is teaching. In telling this about the sowing of the seed of the word of the kingdom, he is actually, in fact, sowing that very seed. As he does, it is likely that in this crowd, we will see all four of those responses.

The first response is the seed that falls along a path where the soil had been compacted, so the seed does not penetrate, but just sits on top. It says the birds—who Jesus tells us represent Satan—come and snatch the seed away. This represents a group of people who failed to understand the type of kingdom Jesus was talking about.

It seems likely to me that in that moment, some of the primary people he was talking about were those very Pharisees that he had just withdrawn from. But also those who were looking for freedom from Roman rule, or if we were to bring it forward to today, those who feel like any restriction to self-governance or self-determination is oppression, or those who are unable to see and consider the possibility that there is more at work than they can see—who have come to the conclusion that since there is suffering or sickness, division or injustice, there must be no God. There is the same lack of understanding of what the kingdom of God is, and they are unable to see anything that looks different than the way they've constructed it in their own head.

1 Corinthians chapter 2 says:

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."

This is how the enemy works. He likes to cloud our understanding. We look all the way back at the original temptation in the garden: "God's withholding from you. He doesn't want you to know the things he knows." He tries to cloud the understanding of Adam and Eve.

We see it still today in the way the world understands Christianity. You see people that say they can't be Christians because God condones slavery, or God thinks women are second-class, or God only accepts Republicans, or how can a loving God allow suffering—whatever misunderstanding they have. The issue is not with the seed, but the soil, which in this case creates an opportunity for the seed to be snatched away before it even gets going because of a lack of understanding, a hardening of the heart. It isn't an intellectual problem; it's a spiritual one.

2. No Growth 

The next section I call "no growth." I'm looking at verses 20–22. Jesus goes on:

"As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful."

I've always struggled a little to discern the difference between these second and third soils. You're thinking, "What do you mean? It's right there in the text." I see the words and I understand the words, but as I think through it and try to understand what's going on in the mind of these two different people, the underlying issue seems to be the same, or at least similar to me.

Let's look specifically at what Jesus says. He says the second soil is rocky ground, so there is only this thin layer of soil on top of rocks. The ground heats up, so the seeds germinate quickly, but it has no place to grow, no roots, no water, no nutrients, and the sun scorches it and it dies. I have had hundreds of pounds of grass seed in my front yard go through exactly this process. Again, the issue is not with the seed; the issue is with the soil, its preparation, and its care.

Jesus says the stress that is applied to the seed is tribulation and persecution because of their initial response to the word. When I was in high school, staff from a national campus ministry arrived at our campus for several years and began to develop relationships and share the gospel to sow the seed. I was one of those that responded, along with so many others. Yet not all of us remained when the pressure to participate in so many of the things that teenagers so often find themselves tempted to do arose, or when some found themselves as the only one in their friend group considering these things, and fell away.

I think we see it too often in kids who grew up in the church, were taught maybe the correct behaviors of a good Christian kid, but failed to develop an authentic faith independent of their parents. In college, the lack of depth is exposed, and the reality that this newfound faith requires a reordering of your life becomes too much, and they fall away. Or maybe it's like somebody going through recovery who relapses—the thought processes and patterns can be a challenge to reorder, and they fall away.

The third soil Jesus describes as one that falls among the thorns. He says the thorns here represent the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches that choke the word. Again, like the second soil, the issue is not with the word, but with the soil.

This one, in my experience, seems more like young adults. I've known many who were active in their faith and in their church as college students and in the years that followed. But careers, spouses, cars, houses, kids, soccer, and dance conspire to demand their time, attention, and energy. I've heard it so many times: people will step away from serving the church, saying, "Life's just super crazy right now. I've got to step away, but I'll be back." Then their attendance drops from two or three times a month to once a month, and then before you know it, you're standing there going, "Hey, we haven't seen the Smiths for a while," and they're just gone. It's more of a fading to me in my experience than a turning.

This reminds me a little of the story that we'll get to later in our journey through Matthew of the rich young ruler. A rich man comes to Jesus and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus says, "Well, you've got to follow the commandments—don't murder, honor your father and your mother," and all those things. He goes, "Well, I've done all those things. What else do I need to do?" Jesus says, "Well, just one more thing: you need to sell everything you own and give it to the poor." It says that the man was sorrowful because he had many possessions.

Jesus was not exposing a new requirement—it's not required for all of us to sell everything we own in order to be part of this kingdom—but what Jesus was exposing was a man who had a disordered life. It's the same requirement he's had for all of us: that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and not allow anything to compete for our affections. This rich young ruler was unwilling to allow the love and pursuit of God to dethrone his heart's desires: the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches.

Our faith is not antithetical to our career or family by any means. In fact, in its fullest sense, it informs, undergirds, and supports those things. But when we allow our faith to be just one more thing on our calendar, just one more demand among many, it too often becomes the easiest to shed. It is a failure to reorder.

That's what I mean when I say the second and third soils are similar. The pressures may be different, but the issue is largely the same: a disordered life where we allow the things of the world to take the rightful place in our heart and mind. The pressures that expose the disorder may be different, but the result is similar.

3. No Regrets 

Lastly, I call it "no regrets." Verse 23:

"As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."

When the seed is sown on good soil, the seed does exactly what it was created to do: it germinates, grows, and produces fruit. I am not a farmer, nor a gardener of any kind, so I speak not out of personal expertise here, but one of the commentators I read said that in the ancient Near East, a tenfold harvest was considered exceptional. So you see the imagery. I think what Jesus is saying is that this seed can produce a harvest that's beyond our comprehension.

Again, at risk of being repetitive, it isn't that the word here is different. It isn't that the seed here is somehow different or better. It's the same word, it's the same seed, but it's the condition of the soil.

So what is the fruit that is born from this? In John 15, Jesus describes himself as a vine and those who follow him as branches. The true branches are those that bear much fruit, and that fruit is to follow his commandments. Then he says this in verses 12 and 13:

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."

Paul says in Galatians 5:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

I think what we see here is that the fruit is a life that is reordered, that pursues God and his priorities first, and allows that to inform the rest of life.

Whenever we read these stories in the Bible, one question we need to ask is: in whose shoes are we to put our feet? Or maybe even better: in whose shoes am I to put my feet? It is important for us to understand Jesus' message to us. Are we to see ourselves as part of the crowd that is hearing this parable and considering what soil we might be? Or are we to put our feet in the sandals of the disciples, who had already been sent out once two by two and would be sent out again to the uttermost parts of the earth, and then to see ourselves not as the soil, but as the sower?

You might be surprised—probably not if you know me—the answer is both. I think we're supposed to do both. See, even among the disciples, even among the closest to Jesus of the twelve, there was one, Judas, who allowed the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches to choke the word. But then the others, whose heart and life in the service of Jesus took them to far-flung places, for most of them cost them their lives.

Takeaways

So let me suggest some takeaways for this morning.

First: tend your soil. It is important that I put some guardrails around this, because I don't want you to hear me say that you're responsible for your own growth. Paul said the fruit we produce is fruit of the Spirit, not fruit of effort, not fruit of obedience, not fruit of sacrifice. But that does not mean that we don't participate somehow. If we fill our minds with junk, if we're failing to prioritize properly the things of God—the reading of the word, prayer, and the gathering of the saints—then we're not cultivating the proper conditions for the Spirit to actually produce the fruit. So tend your soil.

Second: pray for the soil of others. This is not directly from the text, but my own synthesis of scripture and my own experience. We may not be able to tend the soil of others. In fact, parents, as much as we want to ensure the faithfulness of our children, we are not capable. We can help them by teaching them to tend their own soil, we can hold them accountable, we can provide opportunities, and maybe most of all, we can tend our own soil and demonstrate a reordered life to them. The same goes for other family and friends that we so want to be part of the kingdom. So if we can't guarantee it, then we pray. James tells us that the prayer of a righteous person has great power, and somehow God, in his wisdom and sovereignty, has invited us into his work in the lives of others through prayer.

I want to pause for a minute and address one of the great questions this parable raises: what is the spiritual condition of soils two and three? It seems relatively simple to me to say that number one had no authentic faith, and number four, sort of by definition, has an authentic faith. So the mystery then is: what is the spiritual condition of soils two and three?

I'm afraid too often that our own experience in our own family will tend to color how we see or want to see and answer this question about the spiritual condition of soils two and three. I grew up with my dad believing he was a man of faith. I remember the day he went to the altar. I remember seeing his chair with the lamp next to it and the Good News for Modern Man Bible that he had sitting on the table next to his chair that he would read. And yet, ten years ago, he sent a letter to me and my children saying that he just could no longer believe the things that the Bible said.

He died yesterday.

I have no idea. I have no idea. Some of you who don't know me may be like, "What the heck are you doing here then?" Well, he lived in Seattle. I've been there three times this year and said my goodbyes. He's been on a ten-week trajectory here where he was in kidney failure and gave up dialysis. So this was not unforeseen. What was unforeseen was how long it took. But again, I've been there three times, and my sister's out there. So please understand why I'm here.

Again, I have no idea. I think in some respects Jesus doesn't actually address that question in this text directly—what the condition of these soils two and three are—so we don't know for sure. But if I stitch together other messages of Jesus where he says things like, "They will know you are my disciples if you love one another," there is to be evidence of a changed and reordered life.

With that said, there is nothing here that says somebody who has initially rejected the gospel won't later respond. I told you about the campus ministry at my high school, and I'm constantly amazed not only by those who initially responded and fell away, but also those who seemed to not respond in high school and yet today have thriving relationships with the Lord. In many respects, I think the answer to this question is not ours to know, because if we did know how people were going to respond, it might affect the way we approached them. That's not what Jesus asks of us.

This brings us to our final point: sow broadly. You see that Jesus, in our parable as the sower, sowed seed that he knew would not grow or respond or bear fruit—not just in general through his whole ministry, but even specifically in this story. There's this hillside full of people, and again, as we said, it seems unlikely that all of those people were soil four people. Jesus knew that, and yet sowed. It seems unlikely that every person that Jesus healed through his entire ministry grew up from then on with a thriving faith in him, yet Jesus healed them anyway.

How much more should we, who do not know, sow broadly? We should pray for those who do not know, we should live openly our own faith as evidence of our own transformation, and we should share our faith with others and love them despite their response. It is up to the Holy Spirit to draw others to him and to produce fruit. We are but to be faithful vessels of the truth and share willingly, to be sowers of seed.

So tend your soil, pray for the soil of others, and sow broadly. Pray with me if you would.