Mark 4:1-20
We find ourselves in a passage this morning that is familiar to many of us in here, but one that should challenge our hearts and minds while providing encouragement as we seek to show Jesus to a dying world. Our passage this morning is broken into 2 halves, with a brief transition in between.
Read Mark 4:1-20
Big Idea: We are responsible for scattering the seed, but God is the one who determines where it lands.
I want to start with this middle section. The disciples and a few others were listening, but they weren’t quite understanding the parable fully. Like, “Yes Jesus, we know about farming and where seeds will grow and where they won’t.” So He’s like “listen, you are the privileged ones who have been given the keys to the secret of the kingdom of God. You get a front row seat to the true nature of the Christ, of the true message of the gospel being manifest in the world.”
But, those on the outside looking in aren’t privy to the truth like you are. And then we see this verse that is a very difficult one to process. Jesus says that they will be told in parables so that they won’t understand in case they should turn and be forgiven. It sounds like there is an intentional veiling of the truth so that some won’t ever understand. In fact, the Greek word here means “to prevent any possibility that,” or “with the intention of preventing something.” Again, the veiling of the truth is an intentional thing with the purpose of preventing forgiveness. So what exactly is Jesus saying here?
Remember that context is very important here. Jesus is speaking of the religious leaders who, remember last week, had come dangerously close to the eternal sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They had seen the power of Jesus in the miracles He was performing, but their hearts were being hardened along the way.
One pastor said this when speaking of the nature of the receptiveness of the human heart: “The sun that melts the wax also hardens the clay.” See each person had been exposed to the power of Jesus, but their hearts all received it in different ways. Those who Jesus is speaking of here are those who have willfully rejected the truth of the gospel, with no desire to understand the truth!
By rejecting the truth, they had in effect blinded themselves, and as one commentator says, “the parables are so adjusted that they blind the one who wickedly rejects the truth, and enlighten the one who desires it.”
Now, one thing to keep in mind as we move through this together. The sower was throwing the seed everywhere. It wasn’t up to him where it landed. His responsibility was to cover the whole ground, in hopes that there might be good soil even where he might not see it.
The headings of your Bibles might say “The parable of the sower,” but I think a better heading should be “the parable of the soils.” And this is what we are going to focus on this morning.
4 Types of Soil
1.. The Path (No soil) (4)
The path would have been another way of saying the road. So picture a field with a dirt road running alongside it. That ground would have been very compact from all the foot traffic. It’s so tightly packed that oftentimes water can’t even penetrate the surface. It would have been impossible for anything to grow. The seed sat above ground, and immediately was snatched up by the birds. It never even had a chance of penetrating below the surface.
2.. The Rocky Soil (5-6)
The ground that Jesus is referring to here, in the region where Jesus was teaching, would have had a limestone base that was almost like an expansive plate right under the thin layer of soil. That plate would be heated by the sun, and would cause the seed to prematurely germinate and sprout upward, but the root system would not be able to take hold because there was nowhere for it to go. Because there was no root system to provide stability and life, the heat from the sun would very quickly cause that sprout to wither and die.
3.. The Thorny Soil (7)
When Jade and I moved into our house in Morrisville about 7 years ago, our backyard was mostly wooded, and there was this kind of ground ivy that had overtaken most of it. I remember wanting to clear it, and when I went to pull up the first bunch, the long vine part just kept going. I would pull it up from under the topsoil, and it would be connected to another vine going this way, and another going that way, and I’m telling you sometimes it was like 8-10 feet long before I found the root. It was this maze-like network that had stopped anything else from sprouting up.
This is kind of what Jesus is talking about here. The specific plant He is mentioning would sometimes grow up to 6 feet above ground, with root systems that were so expansive that it would choke out anything else from growing. So when a seed was sown in the midst of these thorns, any small root that would start to take hold would be strangled by the thorny plants.
4.. The Good Soil (8)
This was the good stuff. This was the clean, fresh soil that was ready to receive the seed. Nothing was going to hinder that seed from growing. It was soft, easy to move, and provided plenty of space for the seed to grow in a healthy way. Once planted, the seed would be watered, the roots would spread, the sprouts would stretch towards the sun, and grain or fruit would be produced. Some plants would produce more fruit than the others, which is an interesting point that we’ll address here in a few moments.
This parable, Jesus says, is a foundational truth on which all other parables will be built. If you can’t understand this, then you won’t understand all the others. You must get this!
Let’s draw some correlations and then talk about the meaning of each of the soils:
Sower = The one preaching the gospel
Seed = The gospel
Soil = The heart of the one receiving
1.. The Path – The Hardened Heart (15)
The listener hears the words of the gospel and it doesn’t penetrate their hearts at all. As quickly as they heard the words, the words are gone. Their hearts are calloused, emotionally hardened, indifferent and unsympathetic. There is no desire for truth. Even if a seed has landed on the surface during a church service, by the time they get to the car Satan has already taken that seed and tossed it in the wind, and thoughts and conversation are already beyond what they just heard.
But there is hope even here, because even the hardest ground, with some work, can be softened and tilled and prepared for a seed to grow.
2.. The Rocky Soil – The Shallow Heart (16-17)
I saw this all the time in Student Ministries. Here’s the thing about the rocky soil: time will tell whether or not the seed has taken root, and if the sudden growth is truly genuine. See what we saw all the time, especially at camps or retreats, was a really good preacher, giving a really good message, and then some really good emotionally driven conclusion that has everyone FEELING something. And then the altar call would happen, and a hundred teenagers would go to the front, weeping. And I loved this, but I was also aware that a lot of those students were responding based off of an emotion, rather than off a real deep life-changing experience of conversion.
Some of those students are still walking with Jesus today, and some of them want nothing to do with Him. And the way that we see the genuineness of faith is by watching when the trials come. Just like the sprout that withered under the heat of the sun, when faith is tested, will the root system be healthy and solid enough to withstand?
So life is good! Jesus makes me feel good. I like the idea of heaven! I like the idea of freedom. I like listening to worship music, it makes me happy. I like going to church, it makes me feel good. But then, the diagnosis comes. Downsizing within the company comes, and my job is among the first round of cuts. Things get really hard financially and I don’t know how I’m going to put food on the table. And when things get tough I don’t have enough depth of trust to get me through. Instead of trusting God I run from Him. I doubt that He can help me. I turn to people, to a substance, to anything that I think will fix my situation, but I don’t turn to God! In fact I blame God. He’s not good. He doesn’t love me. The feeling I had is gone, and I have nothing substantial to hold onto.
So it is with the heart that is driven by emotion.
3.. The Thorny Soil – The Divided Heart (19)
Or we could perhaps call this the distracted heart. The seeds are sown, but Jesus lays out three areas of distraction that choke out the gospel really taking hold in our lives.
Cares of the World
Worry - What will tomorrow bring? What if this happens, or that happens? Will I have enough money? What will they think about me?
Deceitfulness of Riches - We put so much weight in money and material possessions, that they can very quickly become an idol.
Desires for Other Things - Anything else that isn’t Jesus!
Jesus is not King! Jesus doesn’t hold the place of prominence. Jesus is set on a shelf and dusted off when we need Him. But I just don’t care enough to make Him my primary focus in life.
4.. The Good Soil – The Open Heart (20)
This is the heart that the Holy Spirit has been preparing. He has been softening the soil and preparing it for harvest. When the gospel hits this heart, it receives it with readiness and willingness. The seed is planted deep in the heart, and connects its root system to Jesus. He is the vine, we are the branches, we are fused together with Him.
And when this happens, the evidence lies in the fruit that is born. Interesting too that Jesus said it could be 30, 60, or 100-fold. Everyone has a different journey ahead of them. Everyone will handle walking the Christian life differently. Some will bear more fruit than others, but the important thing is that fruit is the evidence of true gospel life-change.
Application
And like Jesus said to the disciples, this is the foundation on which the rest of His parables would build. In Mark 1, Jesus said the reason that He came was to preach. The reason that He came is because He had a new message of salvation for the world. If the disciples couldn’t understand this as the mission, how could they understand the deeper teachings on discipleship, wealth, and sacrifice?
Maybe you can relate to one of these. Maybe one of these soils hit you deep, and you realized that yes, that is me. Maybe:
1.. The Path - And you couldn’t care any less than you do about what I’ve said this morning. And the things of God don’t matter to you. My prayer for you is that the Holy Spirit would break your heart. That He would remove the veil from your eyes and let you see the true nature of Jesus.
2.. The Rocky Soil - Maybe your faith is an emotionally driven faith. Maybe you got caught up in an emotional moment years ago, but you just can’t seem to figure things out. Maybe there’s a surface level belief, but when the hard times come, you run from the Lord and into the arms of things that don’t ultimately fulfill you, instead of running into the arms of the One who created you.
3.. The Thorny Soil - Maybe you love Jesus, but you also love a whole lot of other things just as much, and it’s hard to really find discipline in your life. Maybe the distraction is the pursuit of money. Maybe the distraction is a person. Maybe the distraction is self-image. Whatever it is, when things seem to be going well spiritually, Satan dangles this other thing in front of you and you become distracted.
4.. The Good Soil - Maybe you have a really good relationship with Jesus. There’s depth, and there’s growth, and there is fruit to show for it. Praise God for that.
And if that is you, then let’s not forget the Big Idea here this morning.
Big Idea: We are responsible for scattering the seed, but God is the one who determines where it lands.
