2. Four Categories

Jesus went out of the house and down to the edge of the lake where people could approach him. He made himself available. He took his good news to the people. In order to get his message out to as much of the large crowd as possible, he got into a fishing boat and had the men push it just off shore so that his voice would carry clearly across the water to the crowd standing silently on the shore of the lake.

He has done this for you – no-one here can complain that he has never brought his message out of the house and laid it on them.

Jesus used parables to teach them. A parable is a story which illustrates an important truth. Each main feature of the story represents an idea so when you hear the parable it makes the truth come alive – as long as you are open to it. If you are not open to it, the parable actually hides the truth from you! (We will come back to this later in the series).

One of the parables he told was this one about the sower of wheat or barley. He was illustrating for them the purpose of his mission. He was saying that he was like a farmer sowing seeds so that he could reap a harvest. He was saying that he was sowing his message (the Word) so that he could reap a productive harvest. That harvest is people who are bursting with life and godliness. But he was also teaching them that not every person who hears his message receives it successfully, because of the condition of their hearts.

Jesus Christ has been sowing in your area for some time. He has been sowing the very information, witnesses, advice, examples, wisdom and help that you need for successful living. Successful living is a life that pleases God; a life that he can bless. Success is not to be measured in the amount of money and stuff you collect; not in the fame you get for getting picked for the Auckland Blues; not in the name that your children make by getting big jobs – success is measured in the degree to which you are safely nestled into the very centre of God’s will where you get everything you need for life and godliness.

2 Peter 1.3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises [this is the seed – the message], so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.