Parable of the Sower :: Mark 4:1-20

Well, thank you all for being patient. If you would, go ahead and turn in your Bibles this morning to Mark chapter four.

We're going to be examining the parable of the sower today. And as you're turning there,

I want you to think about the last time that you had an opportunity to share your faith with somebody.

Maybe a time that you got to share the gospel. And as you're thinking about that, some of you, it might be hard to think about the last time you shared your faith with somebody.

And it's convicting, right? Because we're called to share the good news about how to be reconciled and be saved with our creator.

So think about that time that you shared your faith with somebody. Maybe somebody responded and said, huh, that's cool.

I don't, you know, I'm glad you go to church and you have this salvation experience, but that doesn't really affect me very much, right?

Have you ever met somebody that responds in that way? Maybe somebody had a lot of questions and wanted to know more and more and more of why you worship

Jesus and ask questions about who he is. And maybe you've seen people actually give their life to Christ, make a profession.

This person now went to church, right? But over time, maybe you saw that they began to fade away from the scene.

They didn't pray as much anymore, read their Bible, and they eventually just left the church, left the faith altogether, right?

I want us to think about why people respond so differently to the word of God.

So I believe this morning when we examine the parable of the sower, our Lord Jesus is going to give us the answer for why people respond so differently to the truth of God.

And we're gonna understand that it's the condition of man's heart. When we're born, we don't have a heart that desires to love

God and seek after him. In fact, the Bible tells us the heart is deceitful and wicked above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.

Jesus also tells us that all the wickedness, all the sinful things that we do stems from a heart that loves evil.

So we understand that man's condition is not good when we are born into this world. So that being said, please look with me this morning at the first nine verses where we read the parable of the sower.

Verse one says, again, he began to teach beside the sea and a very large crowd gathered about him.

So he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.

And he was teaching them many things in parables. And in his teachings, he said to them, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured it.

Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil and immediately it sprang up since it had no depth of soil.

And when the sun rose, it was scorched and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no grain.

And other seeds fell into the good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding 30 fold and 60 fold and 100 fold.

And he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And so we understand that Jesus is giving us a parable, right?

And so a parable, we understand, is usually an earthly story that illustrates some heavenly meaning, right?

A parable is a story cast along side of truth to illustrate a higher meaning.

And so it's so important that when we're studying a parable, we need to have the parable explained to us, right?

Without that explanation, you could apply a parable in a hundred different ways and you don't really know what it's even talking about.

So I want you to think about this too. A parable that goes unexplained is simply a riddle, okay?

So now Jesus is utilizing a parable in a twofold manner. He's using a parable to reveal truth to those that desire to know more and more about what his teaching is, those that are pursuing

God. He uses a parable to begin to help us think about what it means or the heavenly meaning attached to it.

He's revealing truth. And he's also using parables to conceal the truth from those who are indifferent and don't really care about the things of God and actually are hostile.

So that being said, instead of me just parsing out and explaining every little thing that we just read, fortunately, our

Lord is going to explain this parable for us this morning. But I wanna simply just point out a few things in the scenery that we read in the parable of the sower.

So we see a sower is going out and he's tossing seeds, right? And he throws it on four different grounds.

And Jesus is the master storyteller, right? He understands this is an, a lot of people would be farmers and they would understand what he's talking about.

But I think Jesus really grabbed their attention because there's four types of soil, right? And there was only one good soil.

I guarantee the listeners would have been like, why is the sower sowing, you know, seed along the wayside, like on pavement?

Why would anybody ever do that? Well, he's trying to teach them something, right? So please listen carefully this morning as we listen to the words of our

Lord. And so he goes on to explain the spiritual meaning and he tells us the purpose of the parable.

Look with me at verse 10. And when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables.

And he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside, everything is in parables so that they may indeed see, but not perceive and may indeed hear, but not understand lest they should turn and be forgiven.

So in verse 10, Jesus was primarily with his disciples, but it seems like he had a small gathering with him still, but he is no longer talking to the multitudes of people.

And so this small group of people with the disciples asked him, why are you speaking in parables to everyone now?

And now Jesus' answer is really intriguing to me. He says, to you it has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those who are outside, everything is in parables.

So he uses a phrase here, the kingdom of God. And really briefly, we see this all throughout the

New Testament, and then we see in Matthew's account, we read that it's the kingdom of God, and we see in Matthew's account is the kingdom of heaven.

So these are just simply talking about the same thing. The point is, the kingdom of God could encompass a lot of things, but in this story, he's talking about the heart.

He's talking about the sphere of salvation. So this would involve a spiritual rebirth.

This would involve repentance and faith. And Jesus is saying, look, when we're talking about the kingdom of God, we're talking about where is your heart at?

Where is your heart in relationship to me as the savior? And you gotta think, this truth is being revealed to those that desire to know more, and it's being concealed to those who are being hostile to the things of God.

And so that's when we get to the question, who is the work of salvation a mystery to?

Now, the immediate context are those who are outside, right? So we start thinking about those, that multitude of people that's no longer with them, and we think about the people of Israel that are being resistive to Jesus's teaching.

And I believe Jesus, when he quotes from Isaiah chapter six, he's driving a point even more upon them to show them that they hate the things of God.

Isaiah six, he quotes and he says, that they may indeed see, but not perceive, and they may indeed hear, but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.

So the context back in Isaiah's time is that the people of Israel being resistive, right?

So Isaiah was being used as an instrument of God against the people of Israel. Isaiah's ministry was mainly in terms of judgment, and the same thing is being applied here in Jesus's ministry as well.

So Jesus was talking openly to Israel, he was speaking clearly, he said, the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe the gospel. How did Israel respond? Well, they responded just like their forefathers did.

They did not care, right? They did not care about the truth that Jesus proclaimed, and they put up these strong barriers, right?

So Jesus, here in Mark four, begins to have a shift in his ministry, he's no longer gonna speak openly to them, but in parables, and guess what?

He's not gonna explain the parables to the people of Israel. This truth is going to be concealed.

They may hear the message of Jesus, but they're not going to understand. So I think the point is, we see a striking parallel for today.

We understand that we see this people of Israel being resistive to Jesus, but guess what? That goes around all around us today.

People are hostile to the things of God. We are born with this sin nature, not desiring to seek after God and to know his truth.

This is scary to me, because I see it in church all the time, we just play a game, right?

We see a lot of people hearing the words, but it's never penetrating the heart. Matthew's account, he says it like this,

Jesus does. Indeed, these people that are outside, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, but blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.

And Jesus' point is that those people that are outside, right, they can't discern the truthfulness of God's word.

And once again, this is because we have a sin nature that's bent towards indulging our flesh.

But if you are someone here today that loves Christ, loves God's word, loves gathering together with the saints, then you too are blessed, right?

Then God's word is being revealed to you. And so that just reminds me that Jesus is an amazing savior, that he doesn't leave his people in the dark.

So for a moment, I want you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 11. I won't have you turning all over the place this morning, but I do want you to see just a few verses,

Matthew chapter 11, verses 25 through 28, because Jesus is talking about the same principle that he is, by his grace, revealing his truth to an undeserving people, and for people that don't wanna know, that are being resistive to the truth, he is concealing truth from them.

So in Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. So in the context, when he's talking about these things, he's talking about the things of salvation, he's talking about the truths related to the

Messiah, and then he says, these truths are hidden from the so -called wise and prudent

Pharisees, right? Remember, they heard Jesus' teaching clearly and openly, but they understand that Jesus is gonna go against their pharisaical system, right, their system of legalism, so they're not really trying to understand what

Jesus has to say, and he says that he thanks our Father in heaven from hiding these truths from these so -called wise and prudent

Pharisees. But he is revealing truth to someone, to little children, and he's not necessarily talking about little children physically, but he's talking about spiritually, right?

He says in verse 27, all things have been handed over to me by my

Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the

Son, and this is the key part, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

This is why Jesus said to the disciples, blessed are your eyes, for they see in your ears, for they hear.

Jesus is in the business of granting people the ability to understand spiritual truth, and it is by his grace.

Now, the truthfulness of God's word is to be proclaimed to all people. That's why in verse 28 here in Matthew 11, the very next breath,

Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Jesus is not just giving us an invitation, saying, hey, if you think this is a good idea, come check it out. He's giving a command for everyone to come, but we all know the reality.

Not everybody does come to the saving message of Jesus Christ. Some people are resistive.

Some people hear with their physical ear, but they couldn't care less, right? And that breaks my heart because Jesus is gracious to open hearts and to give us understanding of our sinfulness before holy

God and to convict us of our need of a savior. In Luke chapter 24,

Jesus appears to a number of his disciples after his resurrection, and this is what he says to them.

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, in the prophets, in the

Psalms must be fulfilled. And this is what he says. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

And Pastor Stephen, he oftentimes references Lydia in Acts chapter 16, and it's a wonderful little story about a woman who experienced the grace of our

Lord where we read, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by the apostle

Paul. So you see here that we are a people that do not desire God, but Jesus is an amazing savior, and he opens people's minds to understand spiritual truth.

God is actively at work at changing hearts and making them ready to receive the gospel.

So if you would, turn back with me to Mark chapter four. I wanna look a little bit at this quote from Isaiah chapter six.

So once again, we read, they may indeed hear, but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.

So I want you to think about this idea of forgiveness. This is the whole point of why we share the gospel with people, right?

So we can have our sins forgiven before God, right? One day when we stand before God, you're either gonna have all of your works, all the times that you've broken

God's laws, and you will answer for that. Or you can receive the finished work of the savior, right?

And have all of your sins forgiven. So the apostle

Paul consistently preached this message throughout his missionary journey. In Acts 13, he said, therefore, my brothers,

I want you to know that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sin is proclaimed to you.

So sin, we hear this word a lot in church, and maybe sometimes we don't fully understand what it's talking about. But sin is missing the mark, right?

We have all missed the mark of God's holy, righteous perfection, right?

We've all sinned and fallen short of this divine standard. So it's our sin that separates us from God.

And so the amazing gospel truth is that Jesus did die for sinners. That's why we read in John 3, 16, that whosoever believes in Jesus, God's one and only son, will not perish, but have everlasting life.

And I hear a lot of talk and debate about that verse, but it's so simple. God loved the sphere of humanity that was made up of all kinds of people, both

Jews and Gentiles, right? And he loved the sphere of humanity so much that he sent a savior.

So you have to understand, everyone who believes, repents, and puts their faith in Jesus will have all their sin covered.

It's a good place to say amen. So also, this is something that we always wanna emphasize, is that Jesus is our substitute, right?

Because a lot of people think, how does this even work? Well, Jesus became sin, right? In the sense that he bore all of our sin and guilt before the

Father, and he paid the full punishment for God. And in exchange, we received his righteousness.

His righteousness is his perfect obedience to the law. So if you don't know this verse, or if you're not familiar with it,

I pray that you would write it on your heart. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. For our sake, the

Father made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Now, I don't wanna just throw lofty terminology at you, but this is penal substitutionary atonement.

We need a substitute, someone to take our place, to take on the full wrath of God.

You can either stand before God and take on the punishment yourself one day, or you can say, no,

Jesus did that for me, right? You can't bring any of your works to the table, we may say. But just inward trust alone in the

Savior. So this is such a wonderful message. Why would anybody reject it, right?

Remember, you've maybe shared your faith with somebody. Maybe you struggle at sharing your faith like the rest of us.

Maybe you can't even think about the last time you did. What about those people that reject it?

Jesus tells us that there is a heart problem. And so Mark chapter four, verse nine, he says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

And this is usually a phrase that is said after a parable or a really hard saying.

And it's really neat because to be human essentially means to have ears, right? If we don't have ears, it's kind of an unnatural occurrence.

So the idea is that this saving message is for everybody that has ears, right, to listen to this.

But you know what? There is a huge difference between having ears and having ears to hear.

So this really helps us understand the next set of verses, verses 13 through 20, where we're gonna see and contrast the different types of hears, right?

Because just because someone may hear the message right here doesn't mean that their heart is receiving it and understands.

So let's look at the parable of the sower explained by our Lord. Verse 13, and Jesus said to them, do you not understand this parable?

How then will you understand all the parables? So let me pause real quick right here. That's a really interesting verse.

Hopefully when you're studying your Bible and you look at a parable, look at the other gospels to see if it actually has the same account because you have

Matthew 13, Luke chapter eight, and Mark chapter four here that all talk about the parable of the sower.

When you study it all, you kinda get a fuller picture. So this verse, verse 13, is unique to gospel, or is unique to Mark's gospel account.

He says, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all parables?

So Mark is telling us here that this is the key parable. In order to understand all the other parables that come later, you gotta get this parable right.

So if I've lost you at any point, let's try to dial it back in because Jesus is saying, if you miss this parable, you can't possibly get the other ones right because this is the most important one.

And I love the parable of the sower because it's so foundational to so many doctrines that we study.

We're gonna look more about what it means to evangelize. This parable's gonna teach us more and more about the condition of man's heart.

We're gonna see aspects of God's sovereignty, man's responsibility. We're gonna see aspects of spiritual warfare and faithfulness.

And this list can go on and on and on, and this is all wrapped up in this parable. So look with me at verse 14.

The sower sows the word, and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown.

When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.

And these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.

And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while. Then, when tribulation or persecution arises on the count of the word, immediately they fall away.

And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30 -fold and 60 -fold and 100 -fold.

So if you would, look back with me at verse 14, where Jesus tells us the seed is the word.

And like I said, back in Luke's account of this parable, he says it very more specific. He says, now the parable is this.

The seed is the word of God. So we see that the word is directly related to the gospel message.

This is really something that we learn in the book of Romans, that it's the gospel that is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.

The word, you can't be saved without hearing the word of God preached. That's why we understand that faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of Christ.

So God will work. His spirit will start to regenerate and change hearts. But we gotta understand from our perspective, we must be faithful to preach the gospel, to share the good news with other people.

Yes, we live the gospel, we show them, but if you never tell them, they're never gonna understand why you're living the way that you do.

They may see you as a good person, right? But we're not good people, right? The only one who is good,

God in the flesh, he saved us. And we must talk about that and share that with other people.

So something else that we see in this parable is this sower is not manipulating and changing the gospel seed, right?

He is faithful to sow the right gospel, right? He doesn't manipulate it and change it into this health, wealth, prosperity gospel or change it just slightly so more people respond.

No, wherever we're going, we're called to sow that baby. We tell them about who the right biblical

Jesus is and there's gonna be people that respond that aren't very happy about that. But you know what?

We love on him anyway and we trust God. I think about the apostle

Peter and the apostle John in the book of Acts, great examples for us, right?

They couldn't help but to preach the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and said that there is no salvation under any name except him by which we must be saved.

How did the people respond when they heard this message? Threw them in prison, right? We live in a very comfy place here in America, right?

Here in the South. There may become a time where we're preaching a message that we're gonna have to actually count the cost.

We may lose things that are near and dear to us but you know what? We're called to be faithful. And so when the

Sanhedrin said to Peter and John, you can't preach this message anymore, they said, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge for we cannot but help to speak what we have seen and heard.

And so when you have been saved by grace, man, it changes everything. You can't help but to share it with somebody.

Sure, it may be hard at times but you know what? If you've really been changed, you can't help but to talk about it.

So we must be faithful to share the gospel seed and something that Brother Phillip talked about last week is we must be quick to pray, especially for the lost people that we are sharing the gospel with, right?

If they're being resistive, right? Or if they're being just kind of flippant or don't really care, you know what?

We need to pray for them. We need to specifically pray that the Holy Spirit would do a mighty work in their heart and like Pastor Stephen mentioned earlier, to take out that heart of stone and to give them a new heart, a living, beating heart that desires

Jesus. So that being said, look with me. Let's consider back in verse 15, the four soils.

The first one being the wayside soil or the seed that is sown along the path.

Verse 15 says, these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear,

Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. So you notice that last phrase, sown in them.

It's in Luke's account where he says it like this. The ones along the path are those who heard.

Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so they may not believe and not be saved.

So very clearly, sown in them, he's talking about their heart, right? We saw earlier, he's talking about some people have ears to hear, but they don't really understand.

They don't perceive the depths of what is being shared with them, right? And so here, we're talking about a wayside heart.

Somebody, it's like the seed just bounces off, right? It can't possibly be rooted. And so this type of heart is a heart that Satan is proactively looking for.

Did you know the Bible tells us that Satan is like a roaring lion trying to devour whomever he can, right?

There's a spiritual battle that is going on that we cannot see. So that's why the

Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, he says, even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of Christ who is the image of God.

Why is Paul telling us this? He says, because there is a spiritual battle, right? As Christians, we need to be soldiers of Christ and not get entangled with the things of this world, but be ready, looking to what's to come, right?

Looking and focusing on that which is eternal. So I think very practically, when someone has a wayside heart that hears the gospel seed, they respond like we said earlier, meh, whatever, that's cool for you, but how does that really affect me?

And I gotta confess something to y 'all. Sometimes I can get fired up when we're talking about God's word because I've been changed, right?

I get excited about talking these things and I wanna be obedient to my Lord, and it bothers me when

I take the time to share with somebody, and they respond in this way, right? It just kinda gets under my skin a little bit.

I don't know if y 'all have had that experience, but you know what? I don't need to be frustrated at them, right?

They're lost, right? They're not the enemy, right? The Bible tells us that our enemy is not against flesh and blood, but it's against Satan.

It's against all these dark forces. So rather than me getting frustrated at a lost person acting like a lost person,

I need to pray for them, right? We need to pray for the people that God puts in our lives.

And we need to equip ourselves with the full armor of God by renewing our minds with God's truth, right?

We need to be a people that spend time in God's word and also people that pray, right?

I just, we really need to think about these things, and I need to remind myself when people respond in such a way like, how can you deny this great message?

There's a spiritual war going on. So let's transition on to the rocky ground in verse 16.

And these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy, and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while.

Then when tribulation or persecution arises on the count of the word, immediately they fall away.

So you notice that the condition of this individual's heart is rocky, or it's stony.

And this person immediately receives the good news with joy.

And that kind of strikes me as odd when you hear the good news of what

Jesus did, but he did this because of the bad news that we're all sinners and lawbreakers before holy

God and we deserve eternal just punishment, and your initial response is joy? It's like they don't understand the whole purpose of the law to show us that we are sinners, that we deserve eternal hellfire.

Really, that should break our spirit. That shouldn't immediately cause us to be like, oh yeah, I'm a sinner, look at me, that's awesome.

We should look at that and be broken because we deserve what is coming to us ultimately.

So it strikes me as odd when a person initially receives the gospel with joy.

It makes me think that they have a misunderstanding, right? Maybe they are under the impression that Jesus is going to make our life better in some way.

He's gonna make me happier, right? He's gonna somehow enhance my golf swing or something like that.

And we gotta understand, that's not what the gospel is about. It's to have our sins forgiven.

And so if somebody doesn't understand the right gospel, if they have an inadequate understanding of what the true gospel is, they will be a false convert revealed to us as the stony ground.

And how much more should we be accountable to share with them the right gospel?

We share with them a wrong gospel that doesn't say, well, we are contributing to their false conversion.

So the point is, is when we understand the right gospel, this should break our spirit knowing that we have broken

God's holy law and that we deserve just eternal punishment. I'm reminded of what the second beatitude says, blessed are those who mourn.

Why would we mourn? Because we are sinful before God. We have broken his divine standard, right?

Willingly, not totally out of ignorance. We want to do those things. So our initial response to the law of God should break us to our core.

But that beatitude does go on to say this, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted, right?

We understand as Christians that joy does come later, right? We've been given the comforter, so we can be comforted, right?

We understand that there's joy in spending time in God's word and in prayer and fellowship with the saints.

So yes, we initially are broken over our sin, but oh man, when we have experienced

God's saving grace, that brings us great joy. So verse 17 goes on to talk about the rocky ground and says, and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while.

Then when tribulation or persecution arises on the count of the word, immediately they fall away.

So we learned something else here about the stony ground. Not only do they superficially receive the gospel with enthusiasm and this emotion, but they have no root in Christ.

And what happens? They fall away, right? They're not rooted. These people endure for a while, but what comes in, tribulation, persecution, and it's like they're like, oh,

I didn't know I was signing up for this. I thought my life was gonna be better in some way. I didn't know all this persecution was gonna happen on the count.

I'm out, right? Do you see how they did not understand the right gospel? In fact,

Jesus talks about counting the cost in Luke 14, and he kind of concludes and says this.

So therefore, any one of you who does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Jesus is simply saying, you must be all in. I don't want just a little bit of your heart. I want the whole thing.

You must love me and be willing to reject the world, give up whatever it takes to follow after me,

Jesus is saying. If you're wanting to just add Jesus in your life or say, okay, I'll do it sometimes, no.

You cannot be a disciple of Jesus. He wants your whole heart. And when your heart's all in, you're gonna be willing to give up whatever it takes.

This means that a true disciple, like I said, is willing to overcome, go around any barriers that come in.

The true Christian is rooted in Jesus and welcomes trials and tribulations because we understand that this is going to make us more and more like Jesus.

These things that come into our life by God's providence are going to strengthen our faith.

That's why later in Mark's gospel, he says, you will be hated by all for my namesake, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.

And once again, Luke's account of this parable says, the stony heart has no root, for they believed for a while and in a time of testing, they fall away.

And I've heard people try to make the case, see, they believed, right? They were saved and then they somehow lost their salvation.

And I'm just here to tell you that that is impossible understanding of this text, given what all the rest of the

Bible teaches. When the Holy Spirit comes into a person's life, changes their heart, begins a good work in them, it's

God who's going to bring you to the end of your sanctification and one day glorification.

But what is possible is for a person to believe the facts about Jesus without having a relationship with him at all.

And this proves that they are not rooted in Christ. The book of James tells us that even demons believe facts about God.

So someone who merely professes to believe in Jesus and later falls away, only proves that they had a kind of demon faith.

They believe the facts, but do not submit to Jesus as Lord and do not count the cost of discipleship.

I'm wanting to key in that to be rooted in Christ means you understand what you're signing up for. You must be all in.

Jesus wants you to love him far more than anything else that this world has to offer. So if you will, look with me at verse 18.

We're transitioning on to the thorny ground. And others are the ones sown among thorns.

They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful.

So this ground is very similar to the stony ground because this ground too has made superficial commitments.

They maybe were emotional, but there's three things in verse 19 that I want you to be aware of.

He says, the cares of the world, deceitfulness of riches and desires for other things, right?

This is the thing that kind of pulls this professing Christian away.

The Bible warns us so often to guard our hearts from what the world has to offer.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.

For all that is in the world is the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life. It is not from the father, but it's of the world.

So I can't plead with y 'all enough to think about this. And it's hard at times.

I see what's going on in the world and sometimes I'm interested. I think back to what

God's word tells me. No, think about eternity. Jesus said, if you gain the whole world, what is that worth?

What does that profit to you? Nothing. You forfeit eternity, right?

And you will spend eternity answering for your sin against God. And so I think some people may read this passage and kind of get it twisted a little bit and think, oh, well, all riches and all money are bad.

And that's not true. It's the love of money. That's the problem. Where is your heart at?

Jesus said, wherever your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. So you can be good steward of what

God has given you, but stay close to Jesus. Look to him. Keep yourself accountable with other

Christians. And so the key is staying close to Jesus Christ. And shout out to my youth group a little bit.

We've been studying the gospel of Mark a lot and we've been talking about the rich young ruler. I feel like he's a good example in so many ways and often it's negative.

But we read that he had a thorny type of heart, right? He had his heart set on riches.

Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven.

Come and follow me. Well, a lot of y 'all are familiar with this story. He didn't just say, oh, sign me up.

That sounds great. He left sad. He couldn't do it. Jesus exposed the major barrier of his love for riches and that was preventing him from following after our

Lord. The text goes on to say, when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.

That's a little convicting. Because I'm wondering, okay, if I was talking to Jesus and he said, give up X, Y, or Z, how would

I respond to that? Well, I pray by God's grace that I'd say whatever it takes, Lord. And I know that that couldn't be of me, but that would have to be a work of God in my life.

So I want you to begin to think about where do you stand as we are analyzing these four different soils?

Where is your heart? If Jesus called you to give up something that you love, would you be willing to do that?

With this young ruler, we see the cares of the world in this man, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things choking out the word.

And ultimately, he proved to be unfruitful. So let's transition on to finally some good news, right?

We got the good soil. So look with me at verse 20. But to those who were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30 -fold and 60 -fold and 100 -fold.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the good soil. This represents a heart that has been regenerated by the

Holy Spirit. This is the Holy Spirit working on a person's heart and in God's sovereign plan, a faithful Christian comes and preaches the gospel and they are ready.

They are convicted of their sin and they see only one thing in their sights and it's their Lord and Savior, Jesus.

This is so, so wonderful. The key difference between the good soil and the other three types of soil is that the good soil produces fruit.

And I think in the immediate context, you see you got a sower, right, he's sowing seed. And God will bless that.

He may bless it 30 -fold or 60 -fold or 100 -fold, other people responding to the gospel message.

I think we can make another point of application here. What is the fruitfulness of your life?

What is the trajectory of where your life is going? What is the fruit of your life look like?

There will be genuine evidence of someone who is born again and is a true Christian.

You may ask, what does some of that authentic evidence look like? You will have a greater and greater love for God.

There will be repentance from sin. There will be genuine humility, a devotion to God's glory, continual prayer, separation from the world, spiritual growth, obedient living, a hunger for God's word.

And there will be transformation of life. Are we gonna do these things perfectly? No, we're not.

But where's the desire? Do you desire these things? And let me say this, if you don't desire these things, that's not good.

That means that you are being resistive, that you are hardening your heart. And my fear is that maybe

God is concealing his truth from you. So if you're interested in these things that we're talking about, don't resist.

Open yourself up, right? Don't listen to the things of this world.

So how can you have these things manifested in your life? Well, we notice the first three soils did not produce fruit, and it's because they had no root.

True Christians are rooted in Jesus Christ. And Pastor Travis, a couple weeks ago, he preached on the six realities of being in Christ, and he read early on a scripture that is crucial.

In John's gospel, Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. No roots, no fruits.

We must count the cost of what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus.

To be rooted in him says, I'm all in. I don't care, I don't care about anything else that this world has to offer.

And sometimes we get accused of preaching long or having really long Bible studies. You know what? When you're changed by the grace of God, these are the sweetest words that you could possibly listen to.

We can spend a little bit of extra time in it, amen? So I am wrapping up.

I don't know what time it is, but that's okay. One of the key fruits of living faith in a believer's life is that they continually persevere through the most intense types of scrutiny, right?

And now, this isn't human, right? This is the work of God in our life. And I just wanna share real quick. 2017 was a dark year for me because I tore my

Achilles tendon. And basketball player, right? Not really much anymore. But I think we could kind of look at that and be like, man, that was awful.

This is an awful time. I can't do all these things that I want. You know what? That was a huge time in my life where God was molding me.

Spent time in His word. I look back to that year and I'm thankful for that, you know? So I just wanna encourage you with that.

If you're going through something in life that's hard or difficult, God is teaching you something if you're in Christ, right?

If you're an unbeliever, there is no hope outside of Christ. So I want to draw three more principles or just three more points of application.

And we're gonna kind of do this rather quick. But probably the most natural question that we walk away from the parable of the sower is, where is your heart?

Which soil does your heart reflect? The Bible tells us to test ourselves to see if we're actually in the faith, right?

If we're listening to a Paul Washer sermon, right? Some people are like, man, it makes me doubt my salvation all the time.

But guess what? If you're a false convert, he's doing the best thing that he possibly could do is really make sure you're re -examining your heart, right?

If you are someone today that has ears to hear, I just wanna encourage you with what the Bible says.

Let us lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely to us.

And let's run this race with endurance, looking to Jesus who is the author and the perfecter of our faith.

Friend, just put all of your trust in Jesus. He will make your path straight. Number two, a major point of application

I wanna make, and this is perhaps the main thrust of this parable is evangelism, right?

Going out and sharing the good news with other people. Now, we can be bold in this because we serve a sovereign

God, amen? Apostle Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither he who waters or he who plants is anything but only God who gives the growth.

We can step out into this world, preach the gospel, share God's truth, and we have a promise that his word will not return empty or void.

It will actually go out to accomplish its purpose. So let's be bold. And lastly,

I want to encourage us all to pray for lost souls, right?

Salvation is a work of God, right? So let's not stress ourselves out. We can't talk them into anything, and if we did, that just means that we're talking them into a false conversion.

We sow the true gospel seed, and we trust God, and then we pray for them.

We pray for close friends and family and anybody that God puts in our lives, and we pray that the

Holy Spirit would take out that heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Let's pray.

Holy Father, I pray that we would be burdened for lost souls,

God. Lord, I pray that we would also reexamine our own hearts,

God, if there's anybody that's been here that is a professing Christian, but they are playing some game, they might can fool us, but God, we know that they cannot fool you.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to set aside any pride, anything that would be a barrier, that we would just simply open ourself up to you and your truth.

Lord, I pray that we would take these truths seriously and that we would live each and every day for your glory.