The Parable of Parables

We can take great comfort and great courage in the fact that God’s Word, taught and proclaimed, is going to do exactly what God plans for it to accomplish in the world.

Note: This transcript was auto generated and may have errors.  If you would like to volunteer to review and edit our sermon transcripts before they are posted, contact Gail Peterson, gpeterson@calvaryefree.church.

[00:00:05] Well, there are some unique aspects to Jesus ministry that set him apart, and they caused people to flock to him to to scrutinize him, to be captivated by him. Uh, his miracles, his miracles of healing and providing are probably the most unique. No one had mastery over the physical world the way that Jesus did. His miracles are pictures of spiritual realities. So they they when he healed, he healed in a way that showed a glimpse of of things like spiritual salvation from sins or or the undoing of the broken creation or the ushering in the Kingdom of God. His teaching is another unique aspect of his ministry. Uh, not the fact that he taught, but the authority with which he taught. Uh, when people listen to Jesus, they heard him speak as God. Their other teachers would point to what God has said in his word. Like like I do like everybody up here does every week here at Calvary. Jesus didn’t do that, though. He simply spoke with divine authority. So his teaching and his miracles worked together to confirm that Jesus is truly God. When he speaks. We are hearing God’s Word. And I would argue that the most unique aspect of his teaching is when he taught in parables. Uh, parables also might be the most beloved part of all of Jesus teaching. Who doesn’t like a story, right? People love the parables. If you’re not familiar with the Bible or if you’re newer to the Bible, parables are stories with fictional characters that Jesus used to convey information about the kingdom of God, and some of them are very famous.

[00:01:58] Some of them are quite famous, uh, things like the stories like the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. You don’t even you don’t even have to be a Bible reader to have heard those titles before. Some of them are mostly known only to the church. So think of stories like The Lost Sheep, the lost coin, the Hidden Treasure. And some of Jesus parables are very obscure, and even people in the church don’t know them like the new and old treasure. And the ten virgins, the black sheep. Oh, come on church. I made that last one up. No one ever was like, yeah, the black sheep. I remember the poor black sheep. So disappointed. We’ve already seen a few of parables in Luke as we’ve been going through this book, like the story of the new and the old, wineskins and cloth that Jesus used to teach about the New Covenant or two weeks ago, Jesus used the story of the two debtors to teach about the sin debt that we have with God, and how someone who truly sees the tremendous amount of sin that he has will worship Jesus with great thankfulness. And all of these parables give us solid mental images that help us to understand who Jesus is, what he came to do, and the kingdom of God that that we enter when we put our trust in him.

[00:03:27] And that’s what parables do. But that is not all that parables do. See, the parables of Jesus have a dual function, and that dual function is the focus of our passage. Today we’re going to look at a parable of Jesus that is designed to teach how parables work. It’s sort of a parable tutorial. Now, just a little disclaimer here up front. Okay, a little, little disclaimer. This is a very complex parable. Okay. This is a this is a complex one. It speaks to God’s sovereignty over the effect that his gospel will have in the world. And I’ll just warn you up front today that this is going to be a very challenging sermon and hard to hear for a lot of folks, both for the sake of its theology and application. This this parable gives us insight into how God reveals the gospel to some people, but not to other people. It explains why people reject the gospel, why some might reject it right away, while while others only reject it after considering it, maybe even looking like they’ve been changed by it. It explains how someone can sit in church an entire lifetime, going through the motions of church, and not actually be a transformed follower of Christ. Did you know that you can do that? You can sit in church for an entire lifetime. And not know Jesus.

[00:04:59] And it’ll explain how all of those responses are not only known by God, but are expected by God. I imagine just that brief description is already challenging the theological assumptions of many of you here this morning. I have heard this very famous parable taught in a variety of ways, a lot of times skipping over the harder parts. If you’ve been around here long enough, you know we are not going to skip over the harder parts. My goal this morning is to do my best to help you see the complex theological understanding that Jesus gives to us. Because here’s here’s the thing, church, this parable might be the most helpful teaching from Jesus. We have to explain the impact of the gospel in the world around us. I find myself referencing this parable more than any other to describe what to expect when we do ministry. And even more importantly, this parable tells us what God expects as the church faithfully does its ministry. It’s one of those passages that I turn to again and again when I need the Lord to remind me of what he’s doing. We can take great comfort and great courage in the fact that God’s Word taught and proclaimed, is going to do exactly what God plans for it to accomplish in the world. So if your Bible, you can turn to Luke chapter eight. We’re going to begin in verse four today. You probably will want it open in front of you throughout the sermon.

[00:06:32] Uh, it’s a longer passage. You may want to refer back to it. We’re going to work through this parable, just like Jesus disciples who were there when they first heard it. First, we’re going to hear the story. Then we’re going to hear Jesus explanation of how parables work. And then finally, we’ll look at Jesus explanation of this story, of this parable he tells. You may have heard this parable referred to as the parable of the sower. Uh, sometimes it’s referred to as the parable of the seed. But you’ll see that in this parable. Those are two things are the constants the the, the sower and the seed. Don’t change. The soil type is the variable. And so maybe the best name for this would be the parable of the soils. As I read this, you can decide what you want to call it. What a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock. And as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundred fold.

[00:07:53] As he said these things, he called out, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So we begin with the image of a farmer, a sower going out into his field to to spread seed everywhere. He’s not really very careful with it. He’s not careful with the seed at all or doesn’t care where it goes. There’s, there’s there’s just one target that he’s aiming for. He spreads the seed liberally to every spot. Some fall on the path. Now the path would be hard ground. So not really part of the field at all. And of course, since it’s on a path, people will walk along and they’re going to trample on this seed. Sometime this spring, you will start to see those places where people will try to grow grass, and they are going to rope it off and they’re going to put straw down. So they hopefully you will not step over in there because they know that if you do, then you’re going to trample it and it’s not going to grow. And in Jesus parable, there’s an added danger to this. The seed will lie on top of the path that’s been trampled and exposed, and it’s going to allow the birds to come and eat it. So not a great start for the sower here. Some falls on the rocky soil. This is not a rock you don’t pick. Don’t picture it hitting an actual rock.

[00:09:18] Think of an area of a field that’s got a light layer of topsoil, and just underneath it, it’s all rock. You ever try to to dig a hole, you think, oh, I could, I could dig a hole here. And you put the shovel in and as soon as the shovel goes in, just like a little tiny bit, you hit what feels like a brick wall. That’s what’s that’s what’s going on here. Some of the parts of the field are just like. Just like that. The seed starts to grow. But there was no way for the roots to get past that rock. And so there’s not enough water and the plant dies. The sower is, oh, for two. Some falls into places where thorns are already growing. And at first this seems more promising because there’s already plants growing on that soil. But the crop the sower wants grows up alongside of those thorns, and the thorns win the thorns drink up all the water. They take all the moisture. The thorns choke out the crop. I pictured my yard this week when I was reading this and I remember my wife commenting last commenting last year. You know, if it weren’t for the weeds, we’d have nothing there at all. The crabgrass had taken over the grass I want choked out by the weeds. The sower now, of course, is zero for three. The first three places the seed went didn’t result in the crop that the sower wanted.

[00:10:46] But the fourth soil. The fourth soil here is called the good soil. And it makes up for the first three. The seed goes into good soil and it grows up, and it produces a yield 100 times larger than the seed itself. Now that might be hyperbole. I did did look a little this week into agricultural stuff, and there’s a lot to learn. It’s pretty confusing, actually. But basically it’s not impossible to get 100 fold crop, but it’s a pretty big crop. And that’s the point. This seed is the same seed that fell everywhere else, but when it goes into the good soil, it produces an abundance of the crop that the farmer wants. And then Jesus ends this teaching with he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And that seems like a very odd way to end a story, doesn’t it? It seems like a strange way. If your ears are in working order, they hear. If you just heard the story, didn’t you hear the story? Is this a comment on how ears work? Is just. Is Jesus just telling us to pay more attention? Well, there’s something deeper going on here that Jesus will explain in the very next section that we’re going to look at with his disciples. But I want to point out something that Jesus knows. Jesus knows that not everyone who heard him heard him. Jesus knows that not everyone who heard him heard him.

[00:12:25] And he knows that some of the people who heard him really heard him. He knows that in the crowd that day, there were people who had something. They had ears that could hear him. Clearly, he’s not talking about the physical ability to hear, which presumably everybody had. He’s talking about a different kind of ears that he knows only certain people in the crowd possess. Listen to Jesus explain what’s going on here. And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said to you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. So before Jesus was speaking to a mixed crowd, a mixed group of disciples and non disciples, all sorts of people. But now that he’s finished, he’s teaching his disciples and they’ve come to ask him the meaning of the parable. And his answer to that question shows the division between those who can understand the parable and those who can’t. And he explains the reason for the division. He’s saying, here’s why some people have ears to hear and why some don’t. On the one hand, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God. So the parable reveals the secrets of the Kingdom of God. This this parable, along with all of the other parables and teaching that Jesus did, reveals an aspect of the kingdom of God.

[00:14:13] So the kingdom of God is a spiritual reality that we can’t quite see, but is nonetheless real and really what it is. It’s the reign of Christ over His church. That’s the Kingdom of God. It’s the reign of Christ over His church on earth. And the kingdom becomes larger and larger. And as the church expands through the preaching of the gospel and and the salvation of those who comes to come to Christ, they join on with Jesus Church. They become part of his kingdom. They come under the reign of King Jesus. That’s what the kingdom of God is. Knowledge about this kingdom is what Jesus means by the secrets of the kingdom of God. They are they’re they’re secrets in the sense that they need to be revealed. They have to be shown to us. We can’t just figure them out on our own. They have to be revealed to us. And the way these secrets are revealed is that God has to give them to you. Do you see that little phrase there has been given? See it? That’s what theologians call a divine passive. It means that God is the actor, in that it’s a way of saying that God has done something, and in this case, God has revealed the secrets of the kingdom of God to Jesus disciples. That’s the first function of the parable. Okay, God revealing his kingdom to a certain group of people, the disciples of Jesus.

[00:15:47] Their pursuit of Jesus is proof that they have ears to hear what is given to them by God. On the other hand, there will be others who will hear the parables and they will just sound like parables. They’ll just sound like stories. And there are there are two ways that this group will hear but not hear the parables. And I, I like to summarize those two groups with who knows and who cares. Okay. So some some hear Jesus parables. They think, well, that’s a nice story. Kind of odd. What could this mean? Who knows? Well, we don’t know how to interpret this. We don’t know what these symbols mean. Who knows what they mean? Others will grasp the meaning of the parable and they’ll say, nice story. There might be something in there helpful for my life, but, but but really, who cares? It doesn’t actually affect me. They’ll see and hear, but they really don’t see or hear. And the reason they don’t see and hear the secrets of the Kingdom of God is that it’s God’s intention that they don’t see and hear. So that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. So that indicates purpose may not indicates result. So the purpose of the parable is to keep this group from seeing and understanding the secrets of the Kingdom of God. So Jesus is here.

[00:17:23] He’s quoting from Isaiah chapter six, where the Lord explains to Isaiah the type of ministry he’s going to give to them. You remember Isaiah says, I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know. You’re calling me, I don’t know, worthy of this. And God says, I’m going to make you worthy of it, and I’m going to give you a ministry. He’s going to give him a ministry that will result in the hardening of the hearts of the people. That’s the ministry that God has for him. It’s going to result in hardening. Isaiah is going to speak the truth to the people. He’s going to go. He’s going to call him to repent. He’s going to tell them about their sin and their rejection of God. And it is only going to make their hearts dull and their ears heavy and their eyes blind, according to Isaiah 610, lest they see with their ears their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed. So Isaiah was concerned about that ministry. He’s concerned that this was the ministry that he was going to be given, as you and I might be as well. You know, we hear from God, this is what you’re going to do, and this is what the result of it is going to be. And so he goes to the Lord. He says, how long, O Lord? Me mean, how long are you going to judge these people with the preaching of the word? Your word from my mouth? How long is that going to continue? And the Lord responds that this is going to last until the people are completely exiled from the Promised Land.

[00:18:52] Isaiah’s preaching will lead to the judgment of the people. It’s going to reveal their guilt, and it’s going to end in God’s just punishment. And that is God’s intention for Isaiah’s ministry. That’s that’s God’s dual purpose in the parables. That’s that’s why this is being quoted here. It’s the dual purpose of all gospel preaching. Some people are going to hear it, and they will be informed and they will be transformed. They’re going to they’re going to hear it, and they’re going to be informed by what they hear, and they’re going to be transformed by that truth. They’re going to follow Jesus more closely because of the truth that they hear, and others will be judged by the very same gospel. They will hear the very same message and be judged by that message. Their hearts will grow even more hardened than they were before. And both of these ends are God’s intention for His word. Both of them. The Word of God never fails. It does exactly what God intends for it to do. So, returning to the parable, it tells us what’s happening in the hearts when God’s gospel is at work with this dual purpose.

[00:20:18] This is Jesus speaking again. He says, now the parable is this the seed is the Word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear that, hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root. They believe for a while and in time of testing fall away. And as for those as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear. But as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. And as for that, in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. So this is a parable about the sharing of the Word of God. And that would include all the truth that God has revealed to us in Scripture that would include God’s good creation, humanity’s fall into sin through the rejection of God and and his authority. It include God’s law that’s been revealed to us. God’s grace and forgiveness to us in Christ. And of course, it includes the new relationship we now have in Christ, in the Kingdom of God. All of that would be God’s good word to us.

[00:21:47] And it’s all in view here as the sower sows the word. And the sower, of course, is primarily Jesus, but it includes everyone who shares the Word of God in any way, whether that’s like right now here on Sunday morning or later this week with your family and friends. Anybody that shares God’s word is is a sower in that sense. Sharing. Sharing the gospel is a constant in this story. It’s anytime it’s shared. The Word of God is an unchanging constant. The gospel does not change, but what’s different is who hears God’s Word. The person who hears the hardened path represents the people who hear God’s Word but are totally opposed. From the beginning they heard it, but there’s no reception of it. All they did was hear it, and then they rejected this, simply a rejection of the gospel. At no point in this person’s life has there been a time when he gave the gospel more than a hearing. And Jesus explains that these are people from whom Satan comes and takes God’s word, so that they will not believe and be saved. And if you’re thinking women, I thought you said that God is ultimately in charge of of who can hear and and who can see. Remember, Satan can’t do anything that God doesn’t allow. Remember the book of Job. Satan needs permission. God’s in charge. God and His mysterious will is allowing Satan some room in this world to maneuver.

[00:23:23] I think we would all agree that that is the case, and one of the things that Satan does is keep people from ever truly considering the gospel. This is the first soil. The Word of God is meant to fall on this soil. The rocky soil represents people who hear the gospel. And there is some response. There’s some initial emotional joy that may even look like salvation. But Jesus says this group won’t develop a root system. Their faith will be very shallow. You might say that the experience of joy at the thought of the gospel will be the extent of their faith. Because when that joy is tested, when that joy is not there anymore, or when it is tested by sorrow or persecution, or health issues or or loss or any other trial, they won’t remain faithful. As long as Christian faith is a blessing, they will claim Christ. As long as it’s helping you out. As long as you’re feeling good about it, then they will claim Christ. But any type of hardship is then going to reveal who they really are, what their faith really is, and that faith will be gone. This is why people who are mature in faith are often hesitant to to relax and to to count winds when a person first professes faith in Christ. Now get me wrong, I love it when people profess faith in Christ. I love that.

[00:24:53] I love it when I hear people repent and turn to Jesus. That’s fantastic. What we want, right? It’s great. I love I love baptisms as much as you do, but there’s a good reason to hold off on putting up the Mission Accomplished banner. Just because someone’s been baptized. You don’t end a journey at baptism. You start a journey at baptism. Confession is great, but fruit is the evidence. Fruits the evidence real faith endures past the party through the persecution and on into the presence of Christ. You want to know what what’s really going on in the world today with the decline of the church in America? The sun has come up on the second soil. Now that Christianity is no longer revered by culture, those who were in it only for the benefits are showing what their faith actually was. Now, I’m not claiming to be a prophet here, okay? I’m not. I’m not claiming to be a prophet. I’m just looking around at evangelical deconstruction in the mainline denominations and other churches who are scrambling to change their doctrine to stem the loss. I’m watching a generation of young people leaving the confines of churches where their faith was applauded, and rightly so. We should be encouraging. We should be applauding faith in the churches. But once these young folks leave those confines and they find out that what they were taught isn’t applauded by the world, they change their mind to something that will be.

[00:26:25] This is the second soil. The Word of God is meant to fall on this soil. The third soil is perhaps the scariest soil because the plant grows. There’s some growth in it. The third soil represents those who hear the gospel, and they even appear to receive the gospel, but they don’t bear fruit. These are your so-called nominal Christians. Christians in name only. They’re your good people. They’re your comfortable churchgoers, more concerned about their preferences than Christ’s mission. I told you this was going to be hard. This group does the religious thing. They they do the church thing. They put on the facade that the Christian trappings, they may even say things that sound pretty biblical, but remove the facade. And what you find is not a heart given over to Christ, but given over to pleasure, comfort, and the good life that that’s what they actually want. That’s their actual God. And you can spend an entire lifetime sitting in a church with a different God, and appear as though you are part of the kingdom of God, and your heart never has been. Did you know that a person can be in and around the church their entire lives and not actually know Jesus? I know it’s tempting to think that maybe this is a this is this third soil is a is a category of a truly saved, transformed person who’s just not very into Jesus. Maybe that’s it.

[00:28:05] But it’s clear from the parable that this category of people is as judged and condemned as the first two responses. Because let me ask you. When a farmer throws seed on the ground, what does he want? Produce. He wants produce. He’s not looking for fruitless plants. He’s looking for fruit. Within the context of this parable, the fruitless plant is as useless as the dead and nonexistent plant. Hoping for some category of carnal, worldly Christian is a false hope. And the scariest part of this category for me is just how self-deluding it is. We can delude ourselves into living for comfort and pleasure and still claim Christ. You can still say those things and actually be serving a different God. Read revelation three this week. If you have a chance, read revelation three this week all about the church of Laodicea, where Jesus compares this church to useless lukewarm water he wants to spit out of his mouth. Fruitless. Christianity is not Christianity at all. This is the third soil. The Word of God is meant to fall on that soil. Which brings us to the final soil. And this is the group that makes sense of the other for the Word of God, when it penetrates the heart and is the source of growth, results in fruitfulness. The person who is who is good soil hears the Word of God. And it doesn’t just doesn’t just bounce off them, it doesn’t just get choked out.

[00:29:48] This person holds tightly to God’s Word in a good and honest heart. And what happens is that there’s this this unwavering commitment to Jesus that doesn’t get sidetracked by persecution or by pleasure. The second and third soil issues are not a problem. They don’t mislead this good soil. And instead this. This soil bears fruit with patience. Do you see that little word there on the end? Look at it. A little word on the patience. It’s a very important word. Don’t miss it. That’s the word that means endurance. It means to bear up under something that the folks in this category experience all the same trials and temptations as everyone else. But there’s a steadfast patience to the one who has been transformed by the gospel of Christ. You go through those trials, you go through the troubles. You see the other pleasures that are available. And what it does is it makes you cling more closely, not less, more closely, to Jesus. These are the four responses to the gospel that we’re going to find in the world. And God is sovereignly in control of every one of them. I turn to this parable all the time to remind myself of what God is doing with his his gospel. And this is especially encouraging when the response to God’s Word is rejection or ridicule. When Christ, as his name is so often is, is the butt of the joke. When it’s when it’s the the punchline of the joke.

[00:31:27] Or when I see people who once talked so well of Jesus who are now openly antagonistic to the gospel. I’m talking about I’m talking about seminary friends and former pastors. I know they appeared fruitful a time. For a time. They appeared fruitful until they didn’t get what they wanted. When they didn’t get what they wanted, they walked away. And I say, God, how can that be? How can that be? And then I listened to Jesus words here, and I get it. This is exactly what God is doing in his mysterious plan. This does not fall outside of God’s power. This does not fall outside of what God is doing. God’s word hasn’t failed. Listen one more time to to to the words of Isaiah that we heard earlier. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. God’s word will not fail. It does exactly what God intends for it to do. I want to. I want to close this morning with what I think is going to be the greatest tension with this parable is this parable saying that there’s no hope for my lost friend.

[00:33:10] Is that what it’s saying? Is it saying that there’s no hope you might be wrestling with this, this, this feeling? If God’s Word is a gift that he has to give, and he uses his gospel to save some and to harden others, doesn’t that mean there’s really no hope? And I understand that. I understand that feeling. That’s a really that’s a hard feeling to overcome and to wrestle with. But I want to close by telling you why resting in the sovereignty of God gives me greater hope, not less hope. See, we serve a God who doesn’t hope. I hope God doesn’t hope. God knows if if we served a God, just hoping things would turn out the way that he’d like. There’s no sense in which we could trust that God or rest in that God. You ever you ever been driving down the road and you’re sitting in the passenger seat. You look over to the driver and you say, hey, you know you’re where you’re going, right? And have him turn back and go, aren’t you the one that knows where we’re going? And then you realize you’re you’re both on the road to nowhere. That’s not. That’s not if God said I did my part in salvation. Now, now it’s on you to change your heart and make it happen. And I sure hope you do. If God said that, there would be no good reason to hope anyone would be saved, but a truly sovereign God who accomplishes exactly what he plans to do with His Word.

[00:34:38] That’s a God we can rest in comfortably and confidently. And once my hope is firmly, firmly planted in the truth that God is in control, you know what I can do? Exactly what I’m told. I can do exactly what I’m told. Remember, the farmer sows seed everywhere. He’s clearly not interested in making sure it only goes to certain places. He is not worried about where it lands. He just wants to get the word out there. I can’t change a heart. Never have, never will. But I can share the gospel. You can’t change a heart. You never have. You have never changed a person’s heart. You never have. You never will. But you know what you can do. You can share the gospel. I don’t know what kind of soil a person is, nor am I asked ever to figure it out. Did you know that we’re never asked to figure this out? You don’t know what God is doing in the hearts of your kids. Are your friends? Or your parents. You can’t usher them into the kingdom of God by your sheer will, but you can share the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ all the time with everyone, and then rest in the confidence of knowing that God can be trusted to accomplish exactly what he intends to do with His Word. Would you pray with me?