Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 A Kingdom of Hearts

To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.

Christmas Morning Service and the Coming Sermon Text

Good morning, Recast Church. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I am glad—first, I'm going to move this over. I feel like I'm off-center. There we go. Feel a little bit better there.

Glad that you're here, and I'm glad that you've joined us on this pretty cold, wintry Sunday morning. Hopefully, you had no problem on the roads on the way here. I can hardly believe that it's one week before Christmas.

Anybody else feel like it's kind of come up on you pretty quickly? Anybody with me on that? Am I alone? No? Yes? No? It's next week. Like, next Sunday is Christmas. So, hopefully, you've got most of your shopping done, and you're doing all right in that way.

Next week, we're going to be having a Christmas morning service here, regular time, 1030. It's going to be a bit of a different service, a little bit more informal. About 45 minutes is what we're shooting for next week.

There's going to be no children's program at all. So, we're going to make it more of a family-oriented service, more singing, more informal, story time for the kids, that type of thing. Now, I want to point out, though, in always surrounding these kinds of things, there's a potential for you to feel guilty if you don't make it to this or feel like we're not taking attendance or anything like that.

Don't feel guilty if you've got your own family traditions or things that you're going to be doing next week. But do know that we would love to have you here if it works out into your family schedule and works for you.

I believe that you'll be blessed if you take the effort together to remember the birth of our Savior. And what are you going to do at 1030 on Christmas morning anyways? By that time, you probably opened all the presents and are looking for something to do anyways.

So, come on in, and we look forward to celebrating the birth of Christ together. This morning, we're going to be jumping into a familiar text that many of us have read or heard many times. Maybe not everybody, and so I don't want you to feel awkward if this is a new story for you, but I think many of us, it's familiar.

And have you ever had a friend tell you a joke that you already knew, and you've ever had that? I figured that was kind of a common experience, and that's kind of like the privilege that it is as a pastor sometimes to get up and share with you a story that you already know.

And my goal is not necessarily to look for a different angle to make it like, wow, Don did a great job making it come alive. It's the Word of God, it's truth, and you've probably heard some truth from this before.

But the fact of the matter is, when you hear a joke that somebody has already told you before, some of us confront that type of scenario politely and let the person finish. Maybe you even fake some laughter and go on.

Maybe some of you even find it funny the second time around, I don't know. Some of us let the person know we've heard it before, then you leave it up to them whether or not they continue telling it or not.

And then others either quickly and rudely finish the joke for the person, or even let them know it wasn't funny the first time around. So it just kind of depends on your personality, how you respond to hearing something multiple times.

But let me encourage all of us to sit under God's Word this morning as we read this, as we study it, as we look at it together, and look for what the Spirit might say to you fresh and new through this text.

I want to point out that the reason this text has been poured over so often by so many, it's been a topic of conversation and the subject of so many sermons in the past, is that it's simply the skill with which Jesus taught that really draws us in.

We're going to see in our text to an agricultural society, which we are not, we're a technological society, but to an agricultural society, Jesus used a very common illustration to speak about his kingship.

Now there's so many angles I could use to introduce this text about the parable of the soils, but the one fact that I think is most important for us to understand before I read this text this morning, is that Jesus came to earth to be a king.

Came to earth to be our king and to bring for us the seeds of his kingdom. So those who sat and listened to this teaching on the shores of Galilee 2 ,000 years ago, believed that God was going to send a king who would set his people free.

That was their hope. That was what they were looking for. They had significant expectations on that king. What he was going to be like, how he was going to roll, the things he was going to do. They were confident he would arrive in power and authority.

They even imagined that he would be a powerful military leader who would probably set them free from the oppression of other nations and set them free from the oppression of the Roman occupation that they were currently under.

But as we all know and we celebrate year after year after year, that Jesus arrived in humble circumstances. Not in the way that the religious leaders were expecting. Not in the ways that the Jews were expecting their messiah to arrive.

And then the way he rolled throughout his life. He ministered to the downtrod and then the needy, the lowly. And here in our text we find his initial teaching from Matthew's perspective about his kingdom.

How he introduces his kingdom to his followers. And we find that he did not come to win battles. He did not come to win wars. He did not come to ascend to political power and authority. But instead he came to bring a message of the kingdom that wins hearts and souls of people one at a time.

So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 13. We're going to be looking at two different sections of scripture. Matthew 13, 1 through 9. And then I'm going to also read verses 18 through 23.

I'm going to be combining those two because in the first section Jesus gives us the teaching and then in the second section he actually interprets it for us so that we can see how he interpreted, how he taught with parables.

And then we'll cover that middle section in a couple of weeks after Christmas. So, but please follow along as we read Matthew chapter 13, 1 through 9 and then 18 through 23. This is God's word to us. If there's anybody who doesn't have a Bible on their lap or a means to navigate to a Bible, if you could just raise your hand.

Mark's got some back here and he'd just like to bring you a Bible so you can follow along as we dig in. But recast, this is, this is, I just am in awe every morning, every Sunday morning when I get up here and I get a privilege of reading God's word because this is, this is God speaking to us through his written word.

This is what he desires for us to know this morning. Matthew 13, 1. That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him so that he got into the boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach.

And he told them many things in parables saying, a sower went out to sow and he sowed some seeds, he sowed some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil.

But when the sun rose they were scorched and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns and thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

He who has ears let him hear. And then over to verse 18. 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 the heart.

This is what was sown along the path. 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 and 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 this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful.

As for what was sown on good on the 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.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer this morning. Father I thank you just for the opportunity that we have to hear your word father that you saw fit to put down truth for us in writing that we can go back to it time and time again and learn from you by the power of your spirit that makes these things come alive for us that you willingly laid stories alongside of our lives for comparison and for contrast that we might really deal with this on a personal level and not just merely as some great story or some great teaching that happened and even an academic pursuit for us but father that you lay your mind down to a desire to communicate to our hearts and to transform us and change us that we would hear this teaching that we would take it on board and even identify where we stand in relationship to you based on the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Father I know that there's a lot of busyness going on right now it's a busy month and there's a lot of things ahead of us this week there might even be some busy things going on today that could distract us that could pull us away and father I know that there's a lot of good things out there but father I pray that over this next hour or so that you would really grab our attention by your power by your majesty by your glory and that we would be moved to worship you in spirit and in truth this morning that our emotions would be engaged in the worship of you as we encounter you as you are father give us a vision a fresh vision of you this morning that we would rejoice from hearts completely given over to you and I ask this in Jesus name amen amen yeah you can go to be seated um encourage you to get comfortable if that chair that you're sitting in gets uncomfortable during the during the message you can get up in the back and stretch out if you need to.

Um there's more coffee and juice and donuts um as long as those are as long as those last. Um feel free to get up and get more of that if you need to. And um keep your bibles open to Matthew chapter 13 verses 1 through 9 and again 18 through 23 that's the those are the that's the portion of scripture that we're looking at and I hope that you can see that the things that I'm saying are coming from that and I'm going to walk us right through.

The Parable of the Soils and the Kingdom Message

I'm just kind of talking through um what God is impressed on my heart from this and and thinking through what I think we all need to take from it. Um we're going to start off in verses 1 through 3 and really that's just setting the context often in the gospels we're looking at kind of a theological history a theological biography of the life of Jesus.

So he moves from place to place. And sometimes the text tells us that he's he's changed venue. In verses 1 through 3 tell us about that change in venue. Um it tells us that it was on the same day the same day that he was just confronted by the pharisees in a house in a in a packed out house.

Uh he was talking with them and they were challenging him and basically saying that he was performing miracles in the work of satan. And you can go back and hear those previous messages over the last few weeks that I've done talking about chapter 12.

But now uh there's a shift and that's one of the reasons that they change the chapter shift here is that he switches locations at the same point um that he the same day that he was talking with the pharisees in the house.

Now he goes outside walks down to the shore of the sea of Galilee which probably it's quite likely that he was in Capernaum during this time and Capernaum is on the north shore of the sea of Galilee and a seaside town a lakeside town if you will.

And so he walked out of the house went down to sit on the shore of the sea. Maybe he just wanted a little bit of time to reflect. Maybe he just wanted to try to get away from the crowds for a moment to pray or whatever.

But Jesus had a habit of wherever he went the crowds went with him. And so they're sitting on the shore of the sea of Galilee he gathers another crowd and so he sits in a boat and um other other gospels tell us that they push the boat a little bit out into the water.

And what they did is they basically created a fairly natural amphitheater for him to be able to um speak to large crowds. And so the echo coming off the water he was able to talk to a large crowd standing on the beach.

And there the text now tells us that he shared many many parables with the people he taught using parables. Now the word parable is not something that we use really outside of scripture. It's not something that we it's it's a it's a greek word parable.

We just completely took it out. Uh and now some of you might blank black out for just a minute when i say the word parabola because you didn't like math like i didn't like math i'm a i'm like words a lot.

I didn't necessarily like maths and so um parabola does anybody know what i mean when i say that it's kind of like that arc that you had to graph and all that stuff. For who knows why like maybe someone in the room uses i'd like you to come and tell me if you actually use any of those formulas in your work.

If you ever like figure out like how a parabola fits on a graph or something. If you do that let me know. But um and i'd like to i'd like you to talk to my son too because he's got some questions about why he has to learn some of this stuff too.

But anyways um that's that's another that's another thing altogether. But um the word parable is a related word you see the similarities. It's kind of got a similar notion and actually has the idea of throwing something.

Uh parabola is the idea of the arc of something that's thrown in the air and so does parable now you're going well what's thrown in the air. The actual word parable has the notion of something that is thrown alongside of something else.

Like that's literally what the word means in greek something that is thrown aside. And the idea is a story that is thrown aside of real life. It's thrown aside your life in a way that you're supposed to look at the story and line it up with your life and go hot.

What's the connecting points here. How does this work. And what does it look like in association with my life. How does it fit in with the real life stuff. And you're supposed to draw some conclusions about your life because you've come in contact with a parable a story that is teaching you something about the way that life works or something about the way that your life should work.

Jesus used parables extensively in a couple of weeks we're going to see jesus giving specific teaching about the reason he used parables. The gap that i'm not covering this morning in the text is a gap in which jesus is actually going to talk and teach us about why he taught in parables.

I think that's worthy of a sermon in and of itself. And so i'm talking about a specific parable this morning. But then in a couple of weeks after christmas we're going to actually cover that and look at that together.

But i want to focus our attention this morning on the first of the stories that jesus threw alongside the path of our life. He wanted this original crowd and he wanted you and i here where we live to understand this story and then lay it alongside of our lives for comparison.

And in a sense i hope that it's not just the parables that you lay alongside of your life. I hope you do that with all of scripture. It's all intended for that for a variety of reasons. I believe that the main difference between the way that a believer and an unbeliever approaches scripture is not in basic understanding.

Now can an unbeliever understand the words of scripture. Absolutely. Anybody who has basic english skills can understand an english text. They can get the significance not into the significance. They can get the meaning of the words.

They can understand that when it says um god so love the world that he sent his only son they can understand the mechanics of that and understand what the text is saying. All under all can understand grammar and syntax.

Maybe some of you just blacked out on that but um with help and maybe maybe you need a little bit of assistance with that. But with the right tools you can understand what the text is saying. But recognizing the message is speaking something into my life is the real difference.

Recognizing that it means something to me that i ought to change and transform into the likeness of the story that is thrown alongside versus just me standing above the text academically analyzing it and going.

Okay yeah i get it. I can understand that. And and kind of like an exercise in your brain and that's it. But this is meant to be an exercise of our will and an effect in our hearts and in our lives. Do you understand that.

So that's the purpose of all of scripture in a sense. But these parables are specifically designed to try to draw us into a story that we can go oh i i can see these connections. And there's a little bit more skill and masterful teaching that's involved in jesus telling us these stories.

How many of you like stories. You just kind of like them. I mean there's connecting points and there's intrigue. And there's uh maybe you read fiction from time to time just because you like good stories and things like that.

And i i would recommend that i think it does broaden our thinking and to try to draw those analogies and those comparisons are beneficial and helpful. But ironically um this parable is a parable about parables.

It's a parable about the way that you receive them. About the way that you receive truth about the way that you understand what is indeed being taught from scripture. We cannot be satisfied with mere mental understanding.

But we must move on to fruitful application. And that's what jesus is illustrating for us. How do you process a parable. How do you process teaching from god's word. Well there's something about the way that our hearts are designed that's going to have an impact on that.

And that's what the parable is now in ancient times i want to point out that rather than planting in straight rows like we do today we've come a long ways in understanding and fertilizing soil and getting it right up to the right content to grow certain crops and all of that stuff.

And we've got efficiency about how far plants need to be planted apart from each other to grow consistently to have a good yield and good produce back then they would they would they would plow up the field.

Then they would just cast the seeds out by hand walking along and throwing seeds. And then they would plow it over again. They'd plow their field twice. Once to open the soil. One cast the seeds another time the opposite direction to close it up again and get some of those seeds under the ground.

Hope that something grows. That would be the way that it worked. And those of you who maybe some of you maybe have spread salt already this year but you recognize that it might be difficult sometimes when you're throwing salt out on your driveway or out on your sidewalk or wherever your place of employment whatever.

When you throw salt out does it always land exactly where you want it to does the salt always only land exactly on the icy patch that you're trying to dissolve. No no it doesn't. Right like it just bounces all over the place and it goes wherever it wants to.

And you can try your best to get it only in those isolated spots. Some of you know that little spinner thing anybody ever used one of those. They're all you guys are all in michigan. Right. Like you've used one of the you know what do you even know what i'm talking about.

It's like a tumbler and you spin it and it spins and it throws the salt all over the place. That thing never gets the salt where you want it to go. Right. You know what i'm talking about. You want the salt right there you got to stand way over here and try to try to get that thing figured out.

So um if you don't have a clue what i'm talking about you're not really missing that much. So it's it's okay. You can maybe get the little picture in your mind or something i should have thrown a picture of that up here.

But um so this everyday farmer here in in the story that jesus is telling us has seeds that fall on the pathway. It falls in places he doesn't want the seed to go. But he's okay because he's got plenty of seed to sow.

So he's like i'll get some i'll get some seed where it needs to be and some of it's going to be wasted. I recognize that. But as he's casting it out some of it falls on the pathways the hard packed soil around the edges of his field.

Well it falls on that surface there. And then he has some fall on shallow soil where the rock is close to the surface and although he's tried to plow it up his plow has probably hit some rock from time to time and it's kind of rocky soil.

And so the rock is this is not rocky soil like there's a lot of rocks in it. This is rocky soil like as in very shallow soil where the bedrock comes right up there and so it's just there's just rock right beneath the surface.

And then he has some seeds that fall among the unplowed thorny area where there's actually thorns growing. And he has a good amount of seed that falls of course on the good plowed and prepared soil that he has plowed up.

So that's the picture. That's the whole imagery. Um and there's uh so many ways that we can frame this parable. I mean as i was studying this week so many different angles to teach it from so many different ways and ways to formulate thoughts about it.

We could look just strictly from the perspective of results. For example the seeds that fall on the path never get a chance to grow. Instead they are according to the text devoured a pretty dramatic greek word that means devoured like it's it means totally consumed and and taken up.

In this case it's the birds that do the devouring. But we can picture what that means those seeds are are gone. They're plucked away and removed from the whole field. From the scenario the seeds that fall on the thin soil sprout up quickly because of the thin warm soil.

Because the soil is thin they grow up quicker. It's it's sudden and and they grow up faster but without any depth. When the heat of the sun hits them they bake and they wither away. And wither away is again a very strong greek verb in our text to wither away.

The seed that falls among the thorns get a chance to grow and they take some root. But eventually as you might know weeds grow faster. As part of what makes them a weed is they grow faster and they consume more sunlight and they make more shade.

And they choke out the good plants that the farmer wanted to plant. And choking out i don't know if you notice choking out i can't think of a time when that's a good word. Um it doesn't work really well in agriculture.

And it doesn't work good in cage fighting either. So you never want to never want to get choked out. Um but the seeds that fell on the good soil produce grain in varying measures. So we can see simply by looking at this opening without even looking at jesus interpretation if you're looking at it from a purely agricultural perspective and understanding what the illustration is having seeds fall on the path on the rocky soil or in the thorns is bad.

But having the seed fall on the good soil is good. Right. You see that. And and you can get that. And you so you know that some components like three quarters of this illustration looks bad. Right right off the bat.

And one quarter of it looks pretty good. And it produces a yield. And it's beneficial. So so far the agricultural lesson is probably not adding a lot to the farmers in the room. Okay to the people who were in jesus's time who are listening to this.

I don't imagine that anybody there is really learning a lot about good farming practices. I don't imagine that anybody there had their notebook out taking copious notes on jesus farming. You know is this planting strategies 101 for the ancient jewish.

Uh you know college. And they're all there for the agricultural college. And they're all learning how to plant. Oh okay. So some will fall on the path and it won't grow. And the birds will eat. This is stuff that they knew.

You know he was not teaching them new understanding. They observe these things in their everyday life. They they knew this already. But this is a parable a story thrown us alongside of their lives in a way that would impact them in the way that they understood things thrown alongside of their life so that they might take something new into them.

And jesus clarifies as much that this is a parable by verse 9 letting us know that those who have ears need to hear this message now again. This is a figure of speech. He's not. He's not saying talking like that because people in ancient israel lacked ears or something like that.

That's not that. That's not the the reason he says this. This is a phrase challenging his listeners to dig a little bit deeper to try to understand this parable. He wants them to stretch their mind. He knows that not everybody is going to get what he's what he's talking about here.

Now many of us get it because we've been taught it before. But if you were listening to this for the first time and you didn't have an explanation that has been given to you before you would have to wrestle with it too.

You would have to try to figure out what does he mean by this. What. What are the components here. What is the seed. What is the soil. What is all of this. And and you'd have to think about that he knows that not everyone is going to get it.

It's a bit like those insider campfire games that people will play when where some of the people understand the game and what the rules are to it and others don't. And you're trying to figure it out. Does anybody even know what i'm talking about.

Anybody play those like at camp or whatever. Maybe two of us. But i want everybody to note the difference here. This is kind of significant here. There's a distance between verse 9 and verse 18 where jesus is going to teach in a gap there of verses 10 through 17 which we're going to take again in a couple of weeks talking about parables.

But i want to talk about that gap. That gap matters. The things that he says in there are significant for us. It's intentional. I wanted to bring it together because it's not very fair for me to just teach on the parable and then miss the jesus's interpretation later.

I wanted to bring those two together but in that gap jesus taught specifically about the use of parables. And why. And as much as i would like to tell you that jesus uses parables to stretch the mind of his audience.

He's using it as a teaching tool because he he just was a good teacher. Now many of you have had a good teacher and and hopefully you are to some degree a good teacher. But a good teacher kind of puts the cookies up a little bit on the on the shelf that like if your students are here then you put things a little bit above them and then let them stretch their minds and reach out to it.

Right. Like that's kind of what a good teacher does. And so is that what jesus is doing just kind of trying to cover the truth just a little bit so that they're they have to really exercise their brains to get to this.

Well i would like to think that that's what he's doing because that's kind of that's kind of just like oh yeah he's the master teacher. He's amazing look at how he stretches the minds of his people and and that it just isn't the case.

And we'll talk about that again more in detail. Um in a couple of weeks. But jesus teaches in parables as a sort of sorting out the soils. Good soil will get it. Good soil will apprehend the teaching.

Good soil will wrestle with it and seek fervently after understanding good soil will will reach out to the seed and will embrace the seed and will will will figure out the seed and will nurture the seed.

And we're going to talk in just a moment about what the seed is that it will seek understanding will come under the teaching and will apply the teaching and will grow. And the seed in their lives will produce a harvest.

That's a good soil. But notice that there are three other types of soils and jesus is highlighting that many will not accept the seed. And there is a variety of reasons why people do not embrace the seed and grow to maturity and grow to replication which is one of our core values at recast right the r and the e in recast is replication that we would reproduce in the lives and replicate in the lives of others faith and belief.

And our goal is in the long run to plan other churches that would replicate the cause of the kingdom in other places. But in verse 18 jesus now alone alone with his disciples. There's been a movement again and by the time we get to 18 he's alone with his disciples and he walks through with them the explanation of this very parable.

And in this we have the only explanation of a parable. And i believe that that jesus gives to us he tells the story and then interprets it for us. And i believe that it serves as a model for us to understand how he used parables in his teaching.

The seed is the message of the kingdom. He tells us directly the seed is the message of the kingdom. Now to our modern ears message of the kingdom may be a bit foreign or even mysterious to us. We don't think in terms of king.

We've got a president and we've got uh you know congress and and judges and all of that stuff. But but we don't really have a king. And so what is the message of the kingdom. What is what is that meaning.

What is the seed. But a simple way to clarify in your mind whenever you hear kingdom mentioned in the new testament. When you see that word i want you to think kingdom. What does it start with king. This is a message about the coming king.

Who is the king jesus. Jesus is the king. The kingdom message is about it's a message about king jesus. The seed then is the message of the good news that we have a king who is in the process of bringing forth his reign in righteousness in grace and injustice.

The seed is the gospel that salvation is found in the king that god has appointed for us the one that he sent 2 ,000 years ago that we celebrate at christmas. What is the soil. Then the soil is the heart of individuals hearing that message of the kingdom.

It's our hearts it's your heart and mine. And he's he's drawing out an illustration for each one of us in the room. Everybody here he's identifying is like this. I don't know that he's exhaustive in his potential responses to the kingdom.

And i'm not sure that he intended to be but he's he's definitely showing us four common responses to the gospel message. The soil is the heart of individuals hearing that message. Remember that the heart in jewish understanding was the place of the will the emotions the thought.

I even a couple of weeks ago or maybe it was just last week made an association or a difference between the head and the heart about believing in your head and trusting in your heart. And i'm not sure that that's a particularly helpful uh differentiation because we know that there is this um this organ in our chest that pumps blood.

And we we use the word heart like i love you with all of my heart or whatever. And we'll use that as a figure of speech. But to differentiate too much between the head and the heart is i think a little bit confusing because the fact of the matter is we are one one immaterial unit going on in here and in that in that unity there is thinking there is will there is desire there is emotion.

A lot of times we'd like to push off our sin on our heart. Oh you you naughty heart you're doing bad right now. But in our minds boy in my mind i'm doing okay i'm i'm pretty solid here or vice versa. And i we like to play off parts of ourselves when when in fact we have no freedom to blame the other ourselves because we're all we're all one.

And so our will and our emotions the heart is all of that rolled up together how we make decisions what decisions we make what we think about how we feel things all a part of us. And that's the heart.

That's the soil that jesus is talking about. And there are four different types of soils meaning there are four different types of hearts that result in different responses to the message of salvation.