Parables - how they work (iii)

Mark 4.1-20

Jesus then showed this disciples the importance of the parable of the sower

Jesus told the disciples that if they didn’t ‘get’ this parable, they wouldn’t ‘get’ any of them (v13). That is because the parable of the sower explains WHY some people don’t hear Christ’s message in a way that makes them insiders in God’s kingdom. Here are the reasons:

1. Some people have lives that have been so filled up and preoccupied with self-centred and world-centred ideas that there is no longer any openness towards God. Their hearts are trampled hard. They are no longer touched or stirred by God’s word. Evil influences quickly come and peck it up – they remain unmoved.
2. Some people have hearts and minds that believe anything and never think deeply about things. They are shallow, not realizing that following Christ will mean a total change of their way of life. They think God is just going to add some happy thoughts to their lives just they way they are. As soon as trouble comes, or there is a price to pay for following Christ, their faith shrivels up and dies.
3. Some people have lives that want to try to fit faith in Christ alongside a worldly lifestyle. They want a Christian compartment in their lives. But the ways and demands of this world and the results of their worldly living simply choke out their faith and kill it of.
4. Some people have lives that have been fully prepared by some digging and ploughing which many not have been very pleasant – but who are now eager to be implanted with the word of Christ. They are not just thinking how to have a ‘nice life’ but have had their eyes opened to see have fully satisfying it is to have a productive life – one that reproduces the goodness of Christ over and over again. A life that feeds other lives. A life lived under God’s rule – a life in the kingdom of God.

The parable encourages us to repent of hardness, repent of shallow attention to spiritual things, repent of preoccupation with worldly things and to take in the word of God – so that our lives can start producing the goodness that maximizes Christ’s glory.

In Conclusion

1. Jesus intends to teach us. If you are a disciple of Jesus you will be teachable and fully committed to learning from his word. This parable of the sower shows that the secret of God’s Kingdom is planted in our lives through the Word of Christ – we must pay close attention to what we have heard in case we fall away!
2. Parables always have a central truth that they shed light on. In this parable, the central truth is that God intends to grow his goodness in the lives o people by putting out his word into all kinds of people. But only some hearts are willing and ready to receive it. Pay attention to the condition of your heart, repent of what stops the word of God from growing there - be willing to receive it. James 1.21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
3. Parables give understandings about the kingdom of God. Their over-arching theme is always about how God rules and orders events and people in a way that puts Christ as Lord. We know we are understanding God’s Word when it brings us face to face with Jesus Christ, because becoming an ‘insider’ is to become a friend of Jesus. He said to his disciples, John 15.12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. Are you an insider like this – or an outsider who hears the words but has no sense o what they mean?
4. It is a very serious and troubling thing if we are making no sense out of Jesus’ parables – it probably means we have put ourselves amongst the disobedient rebels for whom the parables deliberately hide what might save us - if only our hearts were softer.
5. The parable of the sower is the benchmark parable which we have to understand if we are going to understand the rest, because it is the simplest parable and the one that gives us a way to classify and understand our OWN hearts.