Good morning, church family.
As Alex said, we're going to read from Matthew chapter 13, the first 23 verses.
Starting at verse 1.
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea,
and great crowds gathered around him, so that he got into a boat and sat down.
And the whole crowd stood on the beach.
And he told them many things in parables, saying,
Other seeds fell among thorns, and the 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.
Then the disciples came and said to him,
Why do you speak to them in parables?
And he answered them,
To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven,
but to them it has not been given.
For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance.
But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables.
Because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
Indeed.
In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says,
You will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive.
For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see,
and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
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 his 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 or 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 the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word,
and it proves unfruitful.
As for what was sown on 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.
Welcome, everyone.
My name's Matt, if I haven't met you before.
It's great to see you here.
If you haven't seen me up the front, if you have only been here for a few months,
you wouldn't have seen me up here before.
I'm from the congregation, and I'm not one of the ministers here,
so Dave Bottencorner and Dave Calderwood would normally be the ones up here giving these sermons.
But I and a couple of the guys in the congregation are going to be taking us through Matthew chapter 13,
this coming few five weeks.
So today I'm going to be doing the parable of the sower,
and it's probably the most recognisable one out of the parables that you would see in this chapter.
Adam is going to be taking us through the weeds in verse 24,
and Simon is going to be taking us through the parable of the mustard seed in verse 31.
Andrew Wilkinson is going to be taking us through the hidden treasure in verse 44,
and Gareth is going to be taking us through the parable of fishing net in verse 47.
So the good news is, if you don't like one of our sermons,
you won't have to hear us again for a long, long time.
Look, on a serious note though,
I pray that we'll be an encouragement to you over the coming weeks,
and that we can bring these parables to you faithfully.
I have a question for you.
Do you ever feel like the gospel in Australia is somehow failing?
Do you feel like the good news of Jesus is under attack in our society?
I often feel like people these days are just becoming harder and harder to their gospel.
Their hearts just kind of becoming more and more resistant to the words of Jesus.
Do you guys feel like that?
I don't know if that's just me.
I think I feel like that.
Sometimes I feel like Satan is winning a battle for hearts and minds in Australia.
You know, I kind of look back at Australian history and see over time we're just becoming more and more secular as we go along.
Do you feel like the gospel in Australia is failing?
You see, telling people the message of Jesus can be really hard.
People these days seem to not really want to hear the message of Jesus.
And I think there's a couple of different categories here.
Some people hear about Jesus and they think,
Oh, that's too hard.
I have to go to church on a Sunday.
I've got all these rules.
You want me to follow the Ten Commandments?
All these rules that I have to do?
I can't do this thing.
I have to do all these other things.
That's ridiculous.
I think that's one type of reaction.
Another one is that they think it's too easy.
Like, hold on, you're saying I literally just have to accept and believe?
Like, where's my list of rituals?
Shouldn't I be praying three times a day?
Or shouldn't I be eating certain foods and avoiding others?
I mean, come on, guys.
Like, this can't be what this is.
What about this?
I think some people in our society think Jesus is a joke.
Now, not a show that I particularly recommend you watch,
but Family Guy depicts Jesus in this way.
He does this miracle and there's this great scene where they depict Jesus
doing his miracles and it goes like this.
Jesus gets up in front of the crowd like this and he goes,
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
And that's their portrayal of Jesus.
An absolute, absolute joke.
And then I think there's people who think Jesus is even on the other end
of the spectrum.
He's too serious.
Can't believe you've done this.
You did this.
I told you not to do this.
I asked you to do these things and you have not done them.
And I think that's another perception of Jesus, that he's very serious.
I think not only that, but sometimes you can wonder,
how do people even come to Jesus in our society at all?
There are so many barriers getting in the way of someone coming and accepting Jesus.
Isn't there?
I mean, just look at our society and the perception in the media,
the way that our friends and family who aren't Christian talk about Jesus.
How on earth does anyone come to Jesus in Australia?
And I think for me it's made worse by this nagging feeling that I sometimes get,
where I go, I know God is all-powerful.
I know God can do whatever he wants to do.
So why, when I tell someone the gospel and I hear the gospel,
does it not just sweep through our society, every heart changed, every mind believing?
Why is this even a competition?
Why is there other religions in our world?
Why is not everyone just coming to Jesus?
You see, I think I would probably expect, if I was God,
that I would have a moment like we see when Elijah's talking to the prophets of Baal
and you've got the two altars and this big rain of fire comes down
and it's clear to everyone that God exists, that he's real,
and that he is the one in control.
That's what I kind of want to see, don't you think?
It's just this huge, undisputable sign that God is the one in control.
Is the gospel failing in our society?
Why do so many people reject the message?
Well, in this series, not just today, but I suspect throughout the other talks as well,
we're going to see that the gospel is doing exactly what God intended it to do.
It just might not look like we think it should.
See, reactions will differ.
People will see the gospel and respond in different ways,
but ultimately, God's gospel is doing exactly what he intended.
Now I'm going to pray and then we'll properly get into the actual parable.
So let's pray.
Dear God, thank you for the time that we can spend here together thinking through this parable.
Thank you so much that for many of us here,
you've given us minds and ears to understand and we have accepted your kingdom word.
God, I pray that you would give me the words to speak and for those listening, clarity to hear and understand.
Amen.
Okay, first let's step back a bit.
Let's zoom out and look at the context of Matthew.
And Dave, both Dave's have been bringing us Matthew for a number of weeks now.
And really the way that Matthew works is Jesus comes to the world and he says,
Okay, Israel, you've got the Old Testament.
You've seen throughout the Old Testament that there's prophecies,
there's people and things pointing towards this guy who's going to come and bring the kingdom.
Your history shows that someone's going to come.
And Jesus says, I am that person.
I'm the one who's going to bring the kingdom to this world.
And so we see that that happens.
And then we get to this point in verse 10 where he sends out his people into the world.
He sends out his disciples into the world.
He's been doing a lot of miracles and healing people.
And that's kind of the start of the kingdom coming.
He sends them out into the world.
And they go out and they say,
Look, we're getting differing responses here.
And you can see it coming out in different stories as we go through,
not just in chapter 10 onwards, even beforehand.
People respond very differently to the message of Jesus.
And so we get to this point where they're starting to see rejection.
And in fact, if you look at the end of 13, which is the part that we're doing today,
you can see that he goes to his own town, Nazareth.
And people who have grown up with him since he was a baby,
like this is not like society now where everyone just constantly moves cities, towns, whatever.
Move to Tamworth, Jimmy and Nilm.
Very unusual.
You often stay where you were.
They all know him very well.
So I don't know why I had to get Jimmy and Nilm there.
That was not in my script.
Sorry, Jimmy and Nilm.
I can't even see where you are.
You can hear Jimmy's laugh.
But this is not like that.
They all know him.
And they still reject his message.
And so we're going to see this common theme over the next five weeks
where Jesus and his disciples explain his kingdom message to people.
But there's wildly different reactions to that message.
And it's a message that divides people into people who hear and understand
and those who don't.
And a way of thinking like this is it's a bit like olives or blue cheese or oysters,
maybe anchovies.
You either get it or you don't.
It's very unusual that someone be in between.
By the way, for the record, blue cheese is great.
Oysters are great.
Olives and anchovies are disgusting.
But again, very polarising.
And so we come to chapter 13, verse 1.
And we're met with this pretty unusual scene.
That's the context that we get up to in here.
We get this unusual scene where all these people have come to see Jesus speak.
Huge crowds.
So much so that he gets on a boat and kind of goes a little bit out into the lake
and everyone's on the shore standing around.
And he tells this odd story.
Now they've all come to see him do miracles
and maybe tell them some word about God.
But he talks about this story about this guy who,
a sower who goes out into the fields
and he spreads seed around.
And he's not a particularly picky sower.
He's not trying to pick which soil.
It goes on every soil.
So we've got the path,
which is the first one,
and the birds come and eat it up.
And then we have the rocky ground.
The thorny ground is the third one.
And then the fourth one is the good soil.
And some of these plants grow and some don't.
In fact, it's only really the plants on the good soil that grow.
And that's it.
Now probably pretty fairly,
a lot of people in the crowd at this point are going,
what on earth is he talking about?
Jesus hasn't explained it at this point.
Literally that's it.
We have the context of what we've seen in the next coming verses,
what he's talking about.
But the people in the crowd,
you know,
like I'm a gardener.
Sorry, I'm not a gardener.
I'm not very good at gardening.
I can mow.
I can whippersnaip and I can hedge.
That's about it.
Even I know that if you plant seeds,
not in good soil,
they won't grow.
And imagine them back in the day.
They knew a lot about farming.
What on earth is Jesus talking about?
In fact,
it's not just the average Joe listening in the crowd who feels that way either.
The disciples,
his own disciples come to him and say,
why are you speaking to them in parables?
Just say it how it is.
Why are you talking to them in this way?
You see,
after all,
parables don't make a message that is difficult to understand,
easier to understand.
If we said that,
we would have to say that everything Jesus said up to this point
is pretty inaccessible to the people he's teaching
and somehow you need to have a parable to explain it.
It's not like that at all.
And I'm going to illustrate that by telling you a parable of my own.
Okay.
A man once bought a Russian doll.
Does everyone know what a Russian doll is?
It's one of those things you,
like,
break in half,
a doll that you split in half and there's another doll inside.
Keep going,
there's more dolls inside each doll.
Okay.
A man had a Russian doll.
It was made up of ten dolls.
Okay.
Now he hand-painted seven of the dolls.
He did not hand-paint the third and the ninth doll.
But the tenth doll,
he smashed into eight pieces and buried it in the backyard.
He who has ears to hear,
let him hear.
Now,
I would be very,
very surprised
and wonder how you'd read a copy of my sermon
if you knew what I was talking about.
But I am,
of course,
talking about the 2019 Cricket World Cup
where Australia
had nine group matches,
lost the third and the ninth match,
got to the semi-final
and spectacularly lost to England by eight wickets.
That's what my parable means.
Yeah,
at this point you're going,
why do they let him up here?
Now,
the point of this is to illustrate
that parables don't make a difficult message
easier to understand.
And Jesus explains to his disciples in verse 11,
if you've got chapter 13 open,
verse 11,
to you it has been given
to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.
But to them it has not been given.
But to the one who has,
more will be given
and he will have an abundance.
But from the one who has not,
even what he has
will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables,
because seeing they do not see,
and hearing they do not hear,
nor do they understand.
In this section,
Jesus is saying to the disciples
and the believers
who have been given the mind to understand
and recognize Jesus' words and parables,
he's showing them
that this is a unique way of teaching them.
It helps them build a connection
with what Jesus is saying
in a way that telling it straight
doesn't do it.
Now, Dave Bott sent me a great quote,
I think,
that really summarizes this.
It's from a guy called Eugene Peterson
in a book called
The Contemplative Pastor.
It says this,
it says,
parables sound absolutely ordinary,
and I think we can agree
that this one does.
Casual stories about soil and seeds,
meals and coins and sheep,
bandits and victims,
farmers and merchants,
and they are wholly secular,
which means they're not religious.
Of his 40 or so parables
recorded in the Gospels,
only one has its settings in church,
and only a couple mention the name of God.
As people heard Jesus tell these stories,
they saw at once that they weren't about God.
So there was nothing in them
threatening their own sovereignty.
They relaxed their defenses.
They walked away perplexed,
wondering what they meant.
The stories lodged in their imaginations,
and then like a time bomb,
they would explode in their unprotected hearts.
An abyss opening up at their very feet.
He was talking about God.
They had been invaded.
See, parables drop the defense of the listeners
in a way that just saying it straight up
does not do.
And what's also clear here
is that Jesus is saying
that the Gospel and the Kingdom message
is not meant for everyone.
It's not meant to be part of his plan
that everyone
hears a parable and hears the message,
understands and accepts and believes.
But God's plan for the Gospel
is doing exactly what it is meant to do.
You see, we're to expect rejection of the Gospel.
Jesus' parables won't become clear to everyone.
But you see, I tend to want that to happen.
I want everyone in the here and now
to be swept off their feet,
to instantly understand and believe.
I want every friend that I tell
to just be weeping in gratitude
for what I have shared with them,
for every family member
to come and see the great news
and understand why I care about this so much.
But that's not God's plan.
His plan is different to ours,
and that includes allowing people
to respond differently
to the Gospel message.
And so after the disciples come to him
and kind of ask,
why on earth are you speaking to them in parables?
Jesus explains,
he then actually explains
what this parable is about,
the sower and the soils.
And it turns out that the parable
is actually talking about the same thing
that he's just explained.
So the parable presents
four different receptions of the Gospel.
And the kids talk,
look, I nearly thought I'd get up here
and just say,
see kids talk and then sit back down,
because it explains it so well.
The birds of the path,
the rocky soil,
the thorny soil and the good soil,
they all represent different ways
that people respond to the message of Jesus.
And you can see on the outline,
I've tried to do a bit of a fancy alliteration thing
and summarise them
into the responses driven by the devil,
responses driven by difficulties,
responses driven by distractions,
and responses driven by desire.
So Jesus explains,
the sower goes out
and he spreads the seed,
we see that in verse 19,
that it's the words of the kingdom,
and it lands on different soils.
It's not selectively spread,
it's spread everywhere.
And the first place
that we see the seeds land
is on the path,
and the birds come
and they eat it up.
And Jesus explains
that this represents people
who hear the message
and immediately reject.
They're so prejudiced
against the Gospel,
they don't want to hear it.
For whatever reason,
their hearts are not open
to the message of Jesus.
And I think conceptually,
this is probably a very easy one
for us to understand in our society.
We do see that we talk about Jesus to people
and it's like,
you can tell,
there's just no chance
that they're going to accept this message.
There's so many things
that prejudice them
against that message.
The second is the rocky soil
in verse 20.
And these people initially
hear the Gospel.
They hear it
and sometimes
they're quite excited about it.
They think maybe
they've found something.
But then over time,
difficulty comes in.
Maybe it's suffering of some kind,
maybe it's a death,
maybe it's people
making fun of them
for maybe thinking
about becoming a Christian.
And so difficulty
pushes their hearts away
from the message
and they reject the Gospel.
The third one
is thorny soil.
And that's where
people hear the Gospel again,
pretty excited,
thinking maybe
this could be something
that is actually
the meaning of life.
But then things
start to get in the way
and we know
what these look like.
I'm not going to go
through an extensive list.
We know things
that tempt us away
from the Gospel.
And so slowly
these things come along
and the Gospel that once
looked really attractive
suddenly starts to turn
into like a burden.
It's actually holding me back.
I want to do
all these great things.
But I have this
Christian thing
and then it becomes
an issue
and our hearts
are drawn away
through temptation
and through distractions.
Now these first three soils
all say the same thing.
It's about hearing the Gospel
and rejecting the message.
You see,
I think we can be
a little bit tempted
to think about this
like it's grades
of hearing the Gospel
and understanding
where you go,
you've got the path,
don't want to be the path.
That's the far end
of the spectrum.
Look,
if you have to be
something
and it's at least
not the path,
at least just try
and be the rocky soil.
And then,
you know,
thorny,
you know,
still not great
but better.
And then at the end,
good soil,
fantastic,
that's what you want
to strive to be.
It's not like that at all.
These three fall
into the same category.
It's people who
reject the Gospel
and those three
are in contrast
to the fourth,
the good soil.
This is people
in verse 23
where the Gospel
is received
with joy.
It's heard,
it's understood,
it's accepted
and becomes the truth
in people's hearts.
You see,
this parable
explains
that there will be
different responses
to the Gospel.
And not only
should we expect it,
it's God's plan
for the world.
God's Gospel
is doing
exactly
what He intended.
The Gospel
has been given
and understood
to those
who God
chose for it
to be given
and to
and understood
by.
And so when we
look around Australia
or around our world
and we see
the Gospel
not being received
in the way
that we might wish,
we shouldn't
despair
and get this
sense of
feeling like
the Gospel
is not doing
what it's meant
to do,
that we as Christians
are not
representing it
in the way
that we should.
we should not
worry that the Gospel
is not a strong
enough message,
like somehow
it's not persevering
in the way
that it used to
or that somehow
we need to change it
so that it will
reach people
how it might have
once upon a time.
We shouldn't
feel the need
to dress it up,
to add things
to it,
to make it better
or maybe
the opposite end,
to take things away.
You know,
there's some things
like,
you're telling me
I'm a sinner
and then I've got
a problem with God.
I mean,
that's pretty offensive.
We don't need
to take things
away from the Gospel.
You see,
in everything,
everything that happens
with God's message
is His plan.
I want it all now.
I want to see it
sweep through our world
right now.
But that's not
God's plan.
God's plan
is to choose
His soil
and to see
an abundant harvest
come from that soil
as we see
in verse 23.
See,
in everything,
we can have faith
that the outcome
is exactly
what God wants.
See,
when we tell
others the Gospel
and they reject it,
we don't need
to feel shame
that somehow
we've done
something wrong.
That was God's plan.
When we see
people
accept the Gospel,
I don't need
to be surprised
that somehow
someone
this message
got through
in our society.
That's God's plan.
That's exactly
what He wanted
to happen.
And in fact,
if you're a Christian,
God chose
your ears
to hear.
He chose
your eyes
to see.
If you're a Christian,
God chose
your heart
to hear
and understand.
He chose
you to turn
to Him.
He chose
you to be
the good soil
and how much
can we rejoice
that we are
on the right side
of God's plan?
God's plan.
See,
it's about
what God
has done
for us.
This parable
is not about
shooing away
the birds
or trying
to filter
out the rocks
or weed
up the thorns.
It's not about
us trying
to be a good soil.
This is about
what God
has done
for us.
And yes,
we have difficulties.
Yes,
things get in the way
and distract us.
But if you
believe the
message
that Jesus
came
and died
and rose
again
so that we
could be
restored in
relationship
with Him,
then you're
the good soil.
If you don't
yet call yourself
a Christian
here today,
then hear the
seed of the
gospel now.
We are God's
creation.
We chose,
we chose
to rebel
against Him.
We rejected
Him and decided
we didn't want
to live with
God as our
King and our
Ruler.
We wanted to
do it our
own way and
our state
before God
was helpless.
We were
rebels.
We lived as
enemies of God.
We wanted to
live our own
way but our
actions,
those actions
are leading
us to
eternal death
and separation
from God
forever.
You see,
our hearts,
we don't
turn to
Him.
We don't
turn to
Him on
our own
and the
punishment
for that
is too
great for
us to
handle.
So God
sent Jesus.
This is the
amazing thing
is that we
didn't do
something for
this.
The problem
was our
making but
God took it
on Himself
to fix it.
He took
the punishment
for our
rebellion,
our rejection,
our hate
for Him.
Jesus died
an agonizing
death with
nails in His
hands and in
His feet,
keeping Him
to a wooden
cross.
God's own
Son and He
didn't deserve
that death.
His heart
was solely
for God.
but in
doing so
He took
our
punishment
and where
that punishment
for us
would have
meant death
forever,
an eternal
separation
from God.
Jesus beat
death.
He took that
punishment and
paid it in
full and He
came back
alive.
And it
shows that
that punishment
has been
completely
taken for
us.
Our
relationship
with our
Creator and
King is
restored and
we have Him
as our
ruler if
only you
choose to
let Him
take that
punishment
for you.
Because there
is a choice.
You don't
have to let
Him take
it for
you.
Do you
accept and
believe the
message that
is given to
us by
Jesus?
If you
do, then
you are a
good soil.
You are
the good
soil that
He talks
about in
this parable.
And if
not, then
your rejection
of Jesus
will mean
that you
rightfully
take the
punishment
that you
deserved
anyway.
But either
way,
regardless of
everyone in
this room and
how we
respond,
regardless of
how anyone
in our
society and
the world
responds to
the gospel,
it's exactly
what God
meant for it
to do.
I'm going
to pray
for us.
Dear God,
I just want
to thank you
so much for
sending your
son Jesus.
Thank you
that he is
the one by
which we
can be
saved.
Thank you
that you
didn't leave
us to our
rejection and
rebellion of
you, that
you didn't
leave us
to an
eternal
death.
Thank you
that you
sent Jesus
to take
that punishment
for us.
Thank you
that because
of you we
can be
good soil,
that we
can have a
relationship
with you,
that we
can be
your children.
God, I
just pray for
us here
today.
I pray that
we would
take encouragement
from what you
have done
for us.
I pray that
you'd help us
to remember
just how much
we can be
thankful for
what you
have done
by sending
Jesus.
Thank you
so much
that regardless
of what
happens in
our world,
that you
have planned
each and
everything.
Thank you
that our
people respond
regardless of
the responses
that the
gospel makes
happen in
our world.
Thank you
so much
that it's
all in
your plan.
Thank you
that we
can take
comfort from
that.
Thank you
that when we
tell our
friends and
family, we
know that
no matter
what happens,
it's in
your hand.
Amen.