Dr. Roger Parrott, Belhaven University Chapel Series

The parables of Jesus were his way of helping us understand the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, which day by day is a process.

It's not something you just get all of a sudden because it's so dramatically different from the world in which we live.

The kingdom we live in is distorted by power and sin and corruption.

And that is so different from the kingdom of heaven where we see the world through God's eyes as he designed it.

And so it's a process day by day to see, to love, to follow every day a bit more and see the world upside down from the way we understand it as we've talked about.

Because kingdom life and kingdom world is upside down from the world we know.

It's not just a little bit different from the world we know is totally different.

And if you think the world as we know as dominated by sin, which it is compared to the holiness and purity of God, they are complete opposites.

And so the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, is completely different.

And that's what Jesus is trying to help us understand through these parables.

And so today we're going to look at, at the parable of the sower and four types of ground that Jesus describes of the kinds of people hearing his word.

So you had the story read to you in a beautiful way this morning.

Jesus attracted this crowd wherever he went because they were aware of his miracles.

And so they kind of pushed him to the edge of the lake.

So he got in a boat and the scripture says he sat down to teach them.

Now, in those days, a rabbi would sit down to teach something important.

Today we stand up when we want to say something important.

It was completely opposite then they would sit down.

And the interesting thing about the story as you heard it today, there wasn't one religious word in it.

He didn't pray ahead of time.

He didn't say, now I'm going to give you a sermon.

He just began to tell a story.

And that shows us how accessible Jesus is to, to his message.

He just told a story.

He told a story about a sower, a farmer.

And chances are, as he was sitting there in that boat and looking at that crowd, there might have been one in the distance that he was watching do this.

And in those days, they didn't have the machinery we had.

And so a farmer would take a bag of seed, it was probably wheat, and have it in a big bag at his side, and he would take big handfuls of it and, and began to scatter it across the ground.

He'd move A few steps.

And scatter some more.

And scatter some more.

And he was sowing this seed into the ground.

And Jesus said the seed fell on different types of soil.

And he defined four distinct types of soil.

Now, it's interesting that in our modern culture, often we get kind of analysis and tests that define people into four groups.

Maybe you've done some of those, you know, the four temperaments, or maybe you've done where it's a color dominant or an animal or whatever, you know, modern business and psychology, it's currencies.

Temperament sorter is really the kind of the standard in that arena, which are artisans and guardians, idealists and rationals.

So you're one of those four.

You know, when I was teaching in business, long, long time ago, I teach principles of management at the college where I was.

And I would focus on Merrill and Reed's study of social styles model, which also divides into four categories.

So I'm really familiar with that.

So I think about Jesus defining these four categories.

I think about how today's society, we define four categories of people.

And if you look at that study, it kind of lays out like this versus the analytical side.

Then the driver, the amiable, or the expressives.

And you're dominantly one of those four in both your strengths and your weaknesses.

The analytical, they're careful, they're logical, they're thorough.

But then on the negative side, they're slow to take risks, they're overly cautious and often can be perfectionists, so they don't get anything done.

The driver category, they're decisive, they're results oriented, they're efficient, they're pushing.

But they can also, on the negative side, be impatient, they can be blunt, they can steamroll other people in a bad way.

The amiables are loyal, they're empathetic, they're team oriented, they like to work in groups.

But they've also got problems.

They avoid conflicts, they're often indecisive, they're too accommodating.

They're trying to just get the lowest common denominator, make everybody happy, and nothing gets done.

And then you've got the expressive, who are charismatic and creative and persuasive, but they're also impulsive and they're disorganized at times, and sometimes they're unrealistic.

And so you got these four categories of people that there's researchers defining.

If you take the test, you dominantly fall into one of those other categories.

I've taken that test and I'm primarily an expressive.

There are parts of Driver in me, there's parts of analytical, somewhat amiable, but mostly it's the expressive side.

You can go take the test too.

We offer it on our campus, but there's a mix in there of who you are, but there's dominantly one side.

Now, here's when I was teaching business, the key message of this four dominant styles of leadership is that any of the four can be successful.

Don't have to be one style to be successful.

Any of those four can be successful.

And back in the days when I was teaching it, when primarily we didn't have a lot of cable, everybody's watching television, same television shows.

So I was using examples of television detectives who each had four different styles, and all four of them solved the crime.

And so everybody can be successful in that quadrant depending on their style, but also everybody in those can be failures.

And so that is kind of how the theory lays out.

And the important part of the theory.

You don't have to be a certain style to be successful within an organizational structure.

Well, Jesus gives us four types of people too.

But.

But in the kingdom of heaven, only one is successful.

The other three are failures.

Again, the kingdom of God is upside down from what we're used to understanding from our sinful perspective.

And so Jesus gives us these four types of people.

And it's not built on your personality or your strengths.

It's on the nature of your heart, heart and your mind.

That's what Jesus cares about.

Not what you can do, but who you are.

And so he told this story about the sower.

And in the sower there are four types of people.

He said the first one is those who the seed fell on hard ground.

In some of the scriptures, they call it pathway land.

And basically in those days, the Middle east, they didn't have fish fences between their farms.

And so a farmer would have a stretch of land.

Again, they didn't have machinery, so they couldn't take a big piece of land.

They have a stretch of land.

And there would be a pathway between this stretch and your stretch of land which is over here.

And I don't walk in your field, you don't walk in mine.

We walk in a pathway in between.

And so that pathway was beat down hard.

Well, when the sower comes out and he's flinging this wheat seed all the way around, some of it's going to fall in that pathway.

There's no way to be that precise with it.

And Jesus uses this as the example of somebody who has a hard heart and a closed mind.

They're cynical, they're selfish, they're unwilling to learn.

You know, I hire a lot of people through the years and the number one thing I look for when I'm looking for a new employee is a teachable spirit.

If they don't want to learn, I don't care how gifted they are, they're not going to be successful in our organization of Belhaven.

So a teachable spirit.

Jesus is saying these people don't have a teachable spirit.

But it's even worse than that.

He says the measure of their heart is that they not only don't believe in Christ, but they love sin.

They love sin.

And this is what Romans 1 talks about when it's written.

They know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway.

Worse yet, worse yet, they encourage others to do them too.

That's the measure of a hard heart, a closed mind, living in a sin controlled life, even when you know it's wrong.

And justifying yourself by encouraging others to join in your sinning.

Because if others are sinning with you, you don't feel as bad about who you are.

That's hard ground.

And Jesus says, you're throwing the seed on that ground and nothing will grow.

And so you look at that and if that's you today, you say there's no hope.

No, there is hope.

And we're going to get to that at the end of what I want to share with you today.

So that's the first kind of ground that Jesus shares is the ground that's hard.

The second is shallow ground.

Now in the Middle east, the ground often has a layer of shale rock underneath it or just rocks of different kinds underneath the soil.

So the soil might be this deep and then it comes to hard rock.

And the farmers through experience would know you can't really plant anything in there because it won't survive for long.

It's kind of like Jesus said, this ground, this shallow, it starts with an excitement of faith.

I want to follow Christ.

I want to do the right thing.

But there's no depth to who we are because the roots can't go down and be established.

You know, the wheat roots run about three to four feet into the ground.

Now, wheat's about that tall seed, so the roots in the ground are about as tall as it is above.

And if it can't go down that far, it can't get rooted.

It's a faith that fades under pressure.

It's a faith that's strong when everything's Going right.

But when it gets tough, it reverts to the old way and goes back to clinging to sin.

There's not enough character in that person to withstand the Son as and the storms that come that allow the crop to grow.

So shallow ground was the second.

The third kind of ground Jesus talked about was thorny ground, thorny ground.

The seed falls on the ground, he says, and it'll grow.

But bad stuff grows up with it.

The weeds grow up with it.

It all gets mixed together.

And there are a lot of Christians who live this way.

They want to be a believer.

They want to follow Christ.

They've been trying to do the right thing, but they allow the sin of life to grow up around them, and the joy of salvation gets choked out.

The good and the evil are so intertwined, it's hard for the good to really bloom and grow.

And part of that is there's never been really true repentance.

If you're dealing with a sin in your life and that sin controls you and dominates your life, until you see that sin in light of the death of Christ, that horrible, gruesome crucifixion on the cross, to realize that's the pain of sin.

Until you see that the sin will continue to grow up around you, you've got to come to true repentance for sin in order to get the weeds out.

So the thorny ground he talks about, and then he talks about the fruitful ground, the prepared ground.

Somebody's gone in and done the work to dig out the rocks, to clear out the thorns, to prepare the ground, to make the ground soft.

So when that farmer throws the seed, it's going to come down in the soil and it's going to root and it's going to grow.

And after a while, you know, when the weed, excuse me, the wheat gets rooted and starts to grow up, there's really no room for the weeds to come up because this wheat will overtake it.

And that's what a fulfilled Christian life is.

We need to be ready to be seeded.

As Jesus said, it's the one who hears and understands.

But keeping it that way, keeping that ground fertile, is constant work.

You don't go in and fix up a garden and kind of get all the stuff ready and you plant it and you walk away.

It'll fall apart.

It won't grow.

The weeds will take over.

You've got to stay after it.

And that's what Jesus is saying here.

To be fertile ground, you've got to stay after it.

So these are the types of four people that Jesus describes, those in the hard ground, shallow ground, thorny ground, and fruitful ground.

Now, the interesting thing about this is all four of them had the same seed.

The same seed was thrown in all four types of soil.

The seed is the word of God.

The seed is the spirit of God.

It is always good.

There was nothing wrong with the seed that fell on the hard ground or the shallow ground or the thorny ground.

Nothing wrong with the seed.

They had the same son.

They all had the same son, which is God's grace.

And even people who aren't Christians still benefit from from a grace of God that permeates our world to a level.

And in that grace, they have that even though they're not growing.

It was the same water that fell on them.

If it rained, it fell on all four types of ground, didn't it?

It didn't just fall on one, it fell on all four.

That's the forgiveness of God.

And two of the soils, the hard ground and the shallow ground couldn't soak it up.

And in the thorny ground, all the weeds took all the moisture and the soil couldn't grow.

But they all had the same opportunity.

And then it really was the same soil, although it looked very different.

It was the same soil.

It had the same minerals, the same organic material, the same nutrients.

You see, the lesson is about the soil.

The lesson is not about the sower.

The seed is all powerful, but the soil really matters.

Jesus also promised when the soil is tended and prepared, it will be fruitful and the harvest is for sure.

It's just a different preparation for a life that's going to be fulfilling and productive and enjoying all that God designed it to be.

And a life that's going to be destroyed by sin over time.

Yeah, it's kind of like going to class.

If you come ready to go to class, you're going to learn.

You come in, you put your phone away, you get out your notebook, you've read the material ahead of time.

You want to learn about this.

You study, you take good notes, you're going to get A's, you're going to get good jobs, and life's going to take off in your career from that or the exact same class A another person could come who doesn't want to learn.

So they come in and they just kind of got to get through it.

And so they flip their phone during class, they kind of fall asleep a little bit.

They don't really put the effort into it, and they get a D maybe to get by and their career shows it.

Eventually, in the same way, exact same opportunity, but the soil was totally different.

Jesus is telling us, prepare.

Now.

I want to give you six quick takeaways from this scripture beyond the soil differences.

The first is this.

The disciples didn't understand the message.

They didn't get it.

The disciples said, you know, why do you teach in parables?

We don't get it.

This is the simplest of all the parables we're going to look at this year.

They don't get any easier than this one.

This is parables for beginners.

This one, okay.

But they still had to have it explained to them.

And not all the parables explained.

In fact, very few of the parables are explained.

This is one of the times Jesus took the time to really explain his parables.

And to me, that's encouraging.

And here's why it's encouraging.

Because we know what those disciples were after.

The day after the resurrection.

We talked about that.

That they had this courage to go to the whole world and share the gospel, even if it meant they were going to be persecuted for their faith, which they all were.

They still wanted to because they so knew Jesus was who he said he was.

He was the Son of God.

Contrast that with right now with these disciples.

They don't even get the simplest parable Jesus is trying to explain.

You see, faith is a progression.

You don't just jump to that.

You have to grow to that.

That's why Jesus used this example of the farmer and growing as the foundation.

But for our faith, prepare the ground, and then you slowly grow into that level where you can be a follower of Christ with that kind of intensity and significant reach.

A person's initial response to the gospel doesn't have to be their permanent response.

So if you see people on campus and you go, man, I wish I could be like them.

Look at them growing their Bible.

They're always caring about, talking about the Lord and what God's doing in their life.

I'm just not there.

That's okay.

You can be there.

If you prepare the soil, if your heart and mind is open, God will use you.

So the disciples didn't get it, but eventually they really got it because they understood what the kingdom of heaven was all about.

Second takeaway I'd take is that the enemy steals.

The evil one comes and snatches away the seeds that were planted in their hearts.

In Luke, when he tells this parable, he said, the birds come in and they pick up the seed and they take it away.

And the message here is that the enemy, Satan.

Evil is present and active in our world.

Evil's not on the sidelines.

Just as God is active in our world for good, evil is active in our world for sin.

And the easiest time to hurt us as Christians is when we are new in our faith or when we're re energized in our faith or we get a new insight and we say, yeah, I'm going to do this right.

I'm going to get in a good pattern here.

That's the easiest time for the devil to attack.

That's why when Jesus said they threw the seed down, that was the easiest time for it to be destroyed by the birds or be taken away.

Satan is active even in the Garden of Eden.

Even in the Garden of Eden.

Satan's telling Adam and Eve.

Did God really say that?

You think he really meant that?

That you can't eat that tree?

Why would he do that?

He put doubt in their mind right from the beginning.

Satan puts doubt in our minds.

You're having a tough time.

Things are hard with your family.

Well, God didn't fix your problems.

Why are you relying on him?

You see the pain in the world.

Well, why is there so much suffering in the world if God's a good God?

Satan puts these questions in our mind to make us question, and he will do it the most.

He will attack you the most.

When you feel lonely, that's the time you are most vulnerable.

And I'm most vulnerable.

When we are lonely, we have to be ready to hear God's love and forgiveness and unity and acceptance.

And that's why community of other believers is important to us.

So we don't have that loneliness where you get attacked.

The enemy comes to seal the joy of our salvation.

And we see that in the story as the seed is planted.

Third thing we see is the thorns are really our biggest challenge.

Other seeds fell among the thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants.

Wheat and weeds will grow together for a while.

And it doesn't look too bad at the beginning.

You kind of don't see the weeds.

They kind of mix in.

Eventually the weeds will take over every single time.

And there are a lot of Christians who live that way.

I'm going to follow Christ.

I'm doing the right thing.

I'm a Christian.

I believe in God, all the right stuff.

But, you know, there's some sins in my life, but yeah, I got them handled.

Don't worry about it.

I got that sin handled.

It's okay.

It can be there beside me.

It's not Going to take over.

Well, Jesus is saying, yeah, it will.

It may take time, but it will.

And God will eventually separate the wheat from the weeds, he says, made that very clear.

God is very patient in his judgment, but his judgment is certain.

It will come.

So weeds either have to be pulled or they have to be poisoned.

There's no other way.

And if you live with the weeds in your life, it's eventually going to choke out your joy.

Scripture says kingdom of heaven is like the farmer who planted good seed in his field.

But that night, as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away.

When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew up.

The farmer's workers went to him and said, sir, a field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds.

Where did they come from?

The enemy has done this.

The farmer exclaimed, should we pull out the weeds?

They asked.

No, he replied, you'll uproot the wheat if you do.

Let's let both grow together until the harvest.

Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.

We live within a sinful world.

It's hard to escape sin.

But the kingdom of God is calling us to separate out ourselves from that sin.

Weeds grow around us, and if we let those weeds grow, they will take over.

You say, well, I got it handled.

It's okay.

Well, God's not okay with that, because God knows what will eventually happen.

He is not okay with that.

And judgment will come.

We might grow among the weeds, but we'll never produce much fruit.

And that's the goal.

It's not just to grow, it's to produce the fruit.

But weeds suck up all the moisture.

They drain out all the nutrients.

And that's what sin does in our lives.

It takes all the energy out from us of the good things and destroys what could be fruitful.

Weeds have to be pulled or poisoned.

But too often we think, I'll just cut them back.

I'll just keep them under control and I can handle this.

But kind of like texting and driving, when you say, I won't do it, and you just do it a little bit, eventually you're going to crash.

It's not something to play around with.

We've got to deal with the weeds in our lives.

Well, weeding is kind of a forever job.

It's never totally done again.

You can't prepare a piece of ground plant and walk away.

The weeding has to continue, and that's what the parable is saying.

To grow up fully and get all that God has for us in the kingdom of God, you've got to stay after it.

Well, the fourth takeaway I'd say is endurance is the key to faith.

You know, both Peter and and Judas failed.

They did so in the same weekend.

Same weekend.

They both failed, but Peter endured and Judas committed suicide.

Here's an absolute of life.

You will fail in your Christian life.

You will fail at some time.

So the question is, what then?

Do you give up?

Do you question everything?

It wasn't for real to begin with.

You will be tempted in your Christian life.

That's an absolute.

Jesus was tempted.

Everybody's tempted.

And you have to decide now what you're going to do when you fail or when you're tempted.

Don't wait until that time comes because the real test of life is not today.

The real test of life is 50 years from now.

Do you have the endurance to really grow up and be fruitful?

The fourth takeaway I'd have is you've got to prepare the ground.

Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.

A healthy garden needs work.

If it's ignored, the weeds will take over.

So you got to have a desire to love God for who he is.

You got to have a desire to hear the Word and study the Word with openness.

Root yourself in scripture and in prayer and in community with other Christians.

Weed out the distractions, whether those be sins or people who pull you away from the focus that should be your life.

Bear the fruit that blesses others.

You know, faith multiplies when you bear fruit in your life.

Your faith multiplies as you give it and sow it into others.

Preparing the ground is a lifetime work.

It's not a one time thing.

And the sixth takeaway I give you is God can break up hard ground.

God can break up hard ground.

To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given.

But they have an abundance of knowledge.

But to those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.

The disciples didn't get this parable when Jesus told it to them.

They couldn't see it.

If you can't see it today, ask God to help you.

If you ask God to help you, he will.

Whether you got a life that's hard ground or you got a life that's shallow, or you got a life that's thorny, if you ask God to help you, he will break you down, you know, putting extra seed on bad ground.

Doesn't do him any good.

You can throw more seed on a hard packed ground all day long and nothing's going to grow.

It's not going to happen.

You got to break up the ground.

That is key.

If you ask God to break up the ground in your life to make you more open and more fruitful, he will do it.

It may not happen how you expect and God won't ever force you to come closer to him and God won't ever force you to live and see in the kingdom of God.

But if you're willing, God will bring it to you.

If you're not doing that, you're missing the best of what life has to offer.

Invite him to break up the ground even if it's hard packed ground and you say I don't want to have anything to do with Christianity.

I've been burned too many times.

I'm not interested.

Have the courage to ask him to show you New if you know the story of Paul who wrote half the New Testament is the guy who hated Christians.

He wanted to kill Christians.

He was as anti Christian as it could get until God broke up his hard ground and he became the greatest theologian of the early church and the one who set the course by writing half the New Testament.

God will break up hard ground.

You know why?

Because remember our verse of the year.

I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

God is planting in your life for fruitfulness.

He's planting in your life for purpose and fulfillment.

And don't seek settle for less than the kingdom of God.

Let's say our benediction together.

No eye has seen, no ear is heard, no mind is conceived.

What God has prepared for those who love Him.

God bless.

Have a great day.