“The Heart Responds” – FBC Morning Light (10/24/2024)

Good Thursday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading, we're reading in the three Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and in each of these, the parable of the sower is prominent.

The Parable of the Sower in Matthew, Mark, and Luke

Matthew 13, Mark chapter 4, and then Luke chapter 8, and I want to focus on Matthew's account of this. Yesterday we talked about the fact that a person's words, what a nature of his heart. If he's always speaking evil stuff, it's reflective of an evil heart.

If he's speaking good stuff, and that's the nature of the character of his speech and verbal demeanor, it's reflective of a good heart. Well, there's something else that indicates the state of one's heart, and that is how he responds to the Word of God, and that's the point of the parable of the sower.

Four Responses to the Word of God

And you remember this story, a sower goes out to sow seed, he sows seed on four different kinds of soil. You've got the soil that is by the wayside, birds come and eat the seed. You got the soil that's mixed with stones, it's a stony place.

The seed is sown and starts to sprout a little bit, but because it doesn't have any root, sun scorches it, passes away. And then there's some seed that falls among the thorns, and the thorns choke it out, and the seed can't produce any fruit.

But other seed, it says, fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. And the disciples want to know, what does this mean? What's this mean? And Jesus graciously shares with them the meaning of the parable, and he says that when anyone hears the Word of the Kingdom, so when the Gospel is proclaimed, when the Word of God is communicated, and that person doesn't understand it, well it's like the wicked one coming and snatching away what was sown in his heart.

There is total incomprehension altogether. The Word is not understood, and it's simply lost on the person. This is a common and probably dominant response to the Word. But then there is the response of initial acceptance, to some degree.

He who received, Jesus says in verse 20, the seed on stony places, is the one who hears the Word and immediately receives it with joy. Oh, this sounds really good! You know, Jesus will solve all my problems, kind of a response.

But when tribulation, he doesn't have any root in himself, when tribulation or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he stumbles. As soon as life goes back to being tough, which may not take very long, then he just forgets it all, just chucks it all.

And then there's those who receive the seed among the thorns. These are those who hear the Word, Jesus explains, and initially they accept it, and they're trying to incorporate it in their lives and so forth.

But the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and he becomes unfruitful. In other words, he's more concerned about making ends meet or more, concerned about having fun, concerned about just enjoying life now, here and now, and that all chokes the Word out.

He's not interested in it at all. And then finally, in verse 23, he says, he who received the seed on the good ground is he who hears the Word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces, some hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.

The Condition of the Heart

What's the difference between these four responses, the four possibilities of fruit production, and only one producing fruit? What's the difference? It's the state of the heart. It's the state of the heart.

The heart that is not fertile ground, in the book of Hosea, the prophet Hosea exhorts the people of Israel to break up the fallow ground. The heart that is not fallow, that has been broken up and is eager to receive the Word, that's the heart where the seed can germinate and grow prosperously, producing much fruit.

The way we need to approach this parable is to consider our own heart every time we encounter the Word. What's the state of my heart as I go to church on Sunday morning? What's the state of my heart as I open the Word and read it for myself?

What's the state of my heart even as I'm listening to a devotional? Does my heart receive it well, and does it produce fruit? That's the question. Our Father and our God, I pray that you would grant us good, fertile hearts for your Word, and may your Word in our lives produce much fruit, we pray, and we ask it in Jesus' name.

All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Thursday. Hope the Lord will bless you in it. Good day.