Seeds and Soils

A. Background

1. Last Week

Last week our series in Matthew moved us into chapter 13, which contains the third major teaching section in Matthew. But unlike the way Jesus has typically taught, this section of teaching is all parables. We saw last week how the parables might seem familiar to us, but to Jesus’ disciples they were strange and unexpected.

We also saw how the parables were not just helpful stories designed to help the crowds better understand Jesus’ teaching. In fact, the opposite was true. The parables were an act of judgement against the unbelieving crowds, designed to leave them increasingly uncertain about what Jesus was talking about.

Stuck in rebellion and disobedience, the people had been listening to Jesus without really listening—in other words, without understanding. And the parables guaranteed that this situation would continue. They’d keep on hearing without hearing as what little truth they had was removed from them.

At the same time, the parables were designed to reveal more truth to Jesus’ disciples—those who really did hear him, which is to say, they understood and believed what He taught them. But like we saw, this understanding of the parables only happened because, at least at the beginning, Jesus gave them explanations of what the parables actually meant.

That was all last week, when we considered verses 10-17 and the question of why Jesus used parables.

Today we come to the parable itself. And our goal here today is to truly hear, which is to say, truly understand, what Jesus has communicated to us. That’s the command He gave at the end of the parable in verse 9: “He who has ears, let him hear’” (Matthew 13:9). And He enables His disciples to obey that command when He says, in verse 18, “Hear then the parable of the sower:” (Matthew 13:18). And he goes on to explain it.

And we praise God that through the writings of Matthew we have access to Jesus’ explanation so that we can truly hear, which is to say, understand, this parable of Jesus.

2. Sowing & Planting in the Prophets

But there’s one more piece of background we need before we go any further. See, Jesus’ parables didn’t necessarily come out of nowhere. He wasn’t just making them upon the spot. The imagery that Jesus uses in this parable has a rich background in the Old Testament prophets.

This language of sowing and planting is first used in this way after the Exodus to talk about God establishing His people in the promised land. In Exodus 15:17, after the Red Sea closed behind them, Moses sings to the Lord, “You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain.” Psalm 80:8 says, about this same event, “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.” This similar language is used other places as well. (i.e. Psalm 44:2.)

So when God promised David in 2 Samuel 7:10 that he “will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more,” He’s talking about them being secure in the land he promised them.

As the people descended further and further into sin, the threat of exile loomed, and this language of “planting” came to be used by the prophets as a way to speak about the second Exodus, the return from exile back into the land.

“I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,’ says the Lord your God” in Amos 9:15. “I will sow her for myself in the land,” says the Lord in Hosea 2:23.

Jeremiah especially uses this language. “I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up” says Jeremiah 24:6, and similar language is used several other places in his prophecy (31:27-28; 32:37, 41).

The end of exile was the great hope to which the prophets looked. They spoke of the day when God would plant His people in the land under the faithful rule of the Son of David. And in the time of Jesus, they were still looking to that promise. Sure, they were back in their own land, but you could hardly say they’d been planted there. The Romans ruled over them, God’s presence was missing from the temple, and their leaders were corrupt. They might have got out of Babylon, but Babylon hadn’t gotten out of them.

Those years before Jesus came show us that exile is more of a spiritual reality than a physical reality. Being planted in the land isn’t so much about whether you live in this place or that place, but whether you are enjoying the presence of God and the rule of His king.

And this rule of God’s saving king is what the people hoped for, and what they would have heard when John announced that “the kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” especially when he went on to quote from a key passage in Isaiah 40 about the end of exile. John was announcing that God’s people are finally going to be planted.

Now there’s one more passage we need to consider from the prophets. Because a key question we want to ask is, “How is God going to do this? How is God going to plant His people in this great second exodus?” And the answer is, through His words.

We see this in Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, in which the words he speaks from God are the means by which the people people come back from the dead to receive the Spirit and be placed in the land.

But perhaps the best place to see this is in Isaiah 55. Some of you are going to be very familiar with verses 10-11: “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.”

We love this passage because it says that God’s word does something. It does what it intends to do. But we so often stop at verse 11, instead of asking, “in this passage, what is God promising His word will do? What is the purpose for which He is going to send His word in this context?” And the answer is found in the next two verses.

“‘For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands’” (Isaiah 55:12).

This is talking about the return from exile. Throughout Isiah, “going out” means going out from Babylon, from the place of exile, back home. They will be led forth back into their land with joy. And God is going to accomplish this with His word.

So, just reviewing here, the language of “planting” speaks of the end of exile—God establishing His people in safety under the reign of His anointed King. And He’s going to do that by means of His word.

And now we can put the pieces together. When Jesus begins this parable with “A sower went out to sow,” this is a familiar word-picture. We’re going to see that this parable has some intentional overlap between the idea of the Word of God being sown, and people themselves being sown and planted. That’s exactly the idea we’d get from the prophets, where God plants His people in the land using His word.

And the final clue here is verse 17, where Jesus said, “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” (Matthew 13:17).

What did the prophets and righteous people long to see, if not the return from exile and the establishment of the throne of David?

Do you think we’re on to something? Do you think we’re seeing that this parable is not simply about how different people responded to Jesus’ message, but in a deeper way is about the kingdom of God, and how God was finally bringing an end to the exile through the ministry of Jesus? And how this could be true despite the unexpected fact that so many of the people refused to embrace God’s anointed king when He finally did show up?

I want to suggest that the answer is yes. This parable tells us the story of the kingdom, what God was doing through Jesus, and why Jesus even needed to use parables in the first place. And with that introduction, let’s now look at the parable itself.

B. Body

1. Path (vv. 4, 19)

We start with the hard ground in verse 4. “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them” (Matthew 13:4).

This is how planting worked in that day. They didn’t have air seeders. They went walking up and down a field, throwing fistfuls of seed to cover the area they wanted to plant. But of course, because they weren’t pushing each individual seed into a hole in the ground, some of the seed scattered where the soil wasn’t good.

And this is a picture, as Jesus says in verse 19, of something else. “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” (Matthew 13:19).

Let’s pay attention to a few things here. The word of the kingdom, at that point, would have referred to the things that Jesus had been teaching. “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 4:23).

And verse 19 compares the word of the kingdom to seed that is sown in someone’s heart. And if they don’t understand it, the evil one—the devil—comes and snatches it away like birds eating seed on a path.

“Understand” in the context of this passage doesn’t just mean what happens in your head. This is the same word from verse 15, the same word the Lord used in Isaiah 6 when He spoke about understanding with your heart. This means getting something with your whole person. Those who understand Jesus perceive what He’s saying, and they embrace it and they respond to it.

This means that spiritual blindness or spiritual deafness can occur at any point in the process. Sometimes, people just didn’t understand in the most basic sense what Jesus was saying. His words made no sense to them. Other times, they understood them but refused to believe them. Still others believed in some basic sense but, like John tells us, they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God and so refused to follow. They didn’t grasp how absolutely worthy He is.

And when people heard the words of Jesus but did not understand them, they are like hard ground. A path that’s been beaten down by people’s feet until it’s packed tight. You know that you can’t throw seed on ground like that and expect it to grow. It just sits there on top doing nothing but being bird food.

And so it is that when someone’s heart does not believe the words of Jesus, even what little they did receive gets snatched away by the devil so that there’s no chance at all that it will ever bear any fruit.

2. Rocks (vv. 5-6, 20-21)

There’s a second situation described in verses 5-6: “Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away” (Matthew 13:5–6).

This is a pretty good description of what would actually happen in this kind of scenario. As a plant grows up, it’s also growing down, pushing roots into the soil. But if it can’t do that, because of rocks, then all of its energy goes into the part above ground. The spring up really fast, and it all looks great.

But because they have no roots, they don’t last. As soon as the sun beats down on them, they have no water to draw on. So they shrivel up.

And Jesus explains this in terms of people in verses 20-21: “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” (Matthew 13:20–21).

Notice something important here. A lot of people read this parable and assume that the soils represent different kinds of people, or different kinds of human hearts. But here in verse 20, the people aren’t the soil. People are the plants. “As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.” The rocky ground isn’t the person, the person is what was sown on rocky ground.

And yet this happens in response to the word. This plant grows up in response to receiving the word. Just like verse 19 spoke about the “word of the kingdom” being sown in someone’s heart.

The picture we’re seeing here is that the Word is sown and the plants that grow up represent people, or at least their spiritual response to the word. I point this out because it shows how well this fits with the picture we saw from the prophets. This parable is about God planting His people by means of His word.

And in this second case, this person initially receives the word with joy and grows up really fast. But they have no depth, no roots. They have no resources below ground to draw on. Psalm 1 says that a righteous man “is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3). When trials and suffering comes he doesn’t shrivel up because he’s rooted and drawing on God’s resources.

But this plant in the rocky soil has no roots. He shows great promise withers when trouble hits. As soon as suffering or persecution comes along, whatever appearance of spiritual life they had dies away and they shrivel up.

Jesus had many of these temporary disciples in His ministry. They were happy to follow Him until things got hard. And there’s been many millions like them throughout history. Fair-weather Christians, showing incredible promise at the beginning but fizzling out when trouble comes.

Here in North America we’ve seemed intent on making as many of these disciples as we can by telling people about all of the wonderful things Jesus is going to do for them without also telling them about His call to take up their cross and follow. They’re not prepared to suffer for Jesus because nobody told them that was even a thing. And so when trouble hits, they wilt and die.

3. Thorns (vv. 7, 22)

There’s a third kind of plant here. Verse 7: “Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.” Once again, this is what often happens with real plants. This is why farmers spend so much money on herbicides, and you gardeners spend so much time weeding. Weeds often grow up faster than plants, competing for nutrients, covering them in shade, and squeezing them out.

And Jesus explains, in verse 22: “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” (Matthew 13:22).

Notice again that the plant is the person who has grown up in response to the word. But some other things have grown up too—the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches.

Jesus has taught before on how worldly concerns and a desire for wealth are in direct competition with being His disciple. “‘No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money’” (Matthew 6:24). “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:23).

Jesus’ comments about money and wealth would have been challenging to His first listeners, who probably held to some form of the prosperity gospel. Riches to them was a sign of God’s blessing. Jesus’ announcement that riches could actually get in the way of following God was a powerful statement that His kingdom was going to be different than they expected.

And many people weren’t willing to have their expectations challenged. Think of the rich young ruler, who chose his possessions instead of Jesus. Choked out by the deceitfulness of wealth. Or think of Demas, who abandoned the apostle Paul because he was “in love with this present world” (2 Tim 4:10)

This is an issue that has come up again and again throughout history, and once again seems to be a particular challenge to us here in North America. How many people do you know who have been interested in Jesus but pulled away from fruitful discipleship by dollars and jobs and stuff?

I’ve lost track of how many people headed towards missions derailed by buying a house and settling in to the suburbs. I’ve lot track of how many people have justified disobedience to Jesus’ commands because actually obeying Him would have been a financial disaster.

Obedience to the commands of Christ gets harder and harder as their possessions accumulate and their heart revolves more and more around their treasure here on earth. And it’s made worse and worse as we fail to tell potential disciples that they may have to choose between being rich and following Jesus. Or worse, tell them that Jesus will help them be rich.

And the weeds grow up, and the plants are choked out, and the fruit never grows.

We should recognize what we’ve seen here in our passage so far: we’ve seen three basic explanations for why the ministry of Jesus has not been has “successful” as people might have assumed. Three answers to the question, “If God is redeeming His people from exile through the ministry of Jesus, why have so many people rejected Him? Why is he talking in parables in the first place?”

The answer is that some people have just not understood what He’s said at all. Others jumped on board but hopped off at the first sign of trouble. Still others heard the word but could not be fruitful followers because earth mattered to them more than heaven. ## 4. Good Soil (vv. 8, 23) But that’s not where it ends, does it? Verse 8: “Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:8). This is the sower’s goal. Good seed on good soil that grows up and produces more seed itself.

Not every plant produces the same amount. Some are more fruitful than others. But these plants all produce fruit and they all grow.

And as Jesus explains in verse 23, this last kind of plant is a picture of true disciples. “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’” (Matthew 13:23).

True disciples are those who have been sown and planted by the Lord, as the prophets foretold. They have been given life by the word of God, as Peter will tell his readers: “you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;” (1 Peter 1:23). Or as James will say, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth” (James 1:18).

And what marks these true disciples apart from the others is that they understood what they heart. All four types of seed-and-soil heard the word. But it’s only with this last type of plant that Jesus uses the word “understand.” Because, like we’ve seen, “understanding” means more than just perceiving something with your mind. It means a whole-hearted embrace of the truth that results in a life change.

That’s why Jesus immediately connects “understanding” to “bearing fruit.” This one “hears the word and understands it. He indeed [or therefore] bears fruit and yields.”

In Matthew’s gospel, “bearing fruit” has referred to the words and deeds of a whole-life obedience to God’s will that marks out a true disciple of Jesus.

• “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).

• “Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10).

• “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:16–17).

• “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33).

And those who truly understand the word of the kingdom are those who embrace it and bear fruit. Like plants, not every disciple will bear the same amount of fruit. Jesus doesn’t expect that they will. Disciples aren’t supposed to compare themselves to others and worry that they aren’t bearing as much fruit as the next person. They are to be faithful and bear as much fruit as they can. As much obedience, as much good works, as much service to God and people as they can with what God has given them.

And as they do that, God’s ancient words to the prophets are fulfilled. His people are being planted. The exile is ending. And it starts with the smallness, even the hiddenness, of seed. Not with great fanfare, but a humble Messiah, born as a baby, who grew up to be a homeless itinerant teacher. His words, like seed, are easy to miss and easy to dismiss. Like seed, His words falls all kinds of places where nothing happens and no crop grows. But like seed, when His word falls on the right soil, when people hear His word and understand it, that word produces spiritual life that bears fruit and endures. The people of God are rebuilt as an assembly of Jesus-followers, given life by His words and bearing fruit for Him in all that they do.

C. Big Questions

1. Questions for Plants

My understanding of this parable has been significantly shaped by Dr. Wes Olmsted, from whom I took a class on Matthew that has been so helpful to me as I’ve prepared and preached these sermons.

Writing about this parable in our class notes, Dr. Olmstead wrote this: “We are confronted with the realization that, for Matthew, it is not only that the only kind of ‘hearing’ that counts is ‘understanding’; it is also that the only kind of ‘understanding’ that counts is that which bears fruit in ‘obedience’! We must, therefore, ask ourselves… ‘Is the word of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed taking root such that I am being sown?’ Do I ‘understand’ (in the full Matthean sense) the word of the kingdom? Does opposition threaten my commitment to the kingdom? Am I seduced by the enticements of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth? Have I hardened myself to the point where I will not let the truth penetrate?”

Those are the questions that this parable asks us this morning. As we ask those questions, we can’t help but point out that, when the seed was first sown on rocky ground or among the thorns, those plants didn’t think they weren’t going to last. They thought they had understood the word of the Lord and had truly been sown in good soil.

But time proved whether or not that was true. And so it is key to ask ourselves—do I have roots in the Lord? Am I drinking deeply from His word, and responding to it in obedience, such that I’m prepared for suffering and even persecution?

Am I pursuing single-hearted devotion to Jesus and not allowing the cares of this earth to choke that out?

The good news is that, if these questions are pricking your heart this morning, you don’t need to just sit in fear. Let those questions motivate you to pursue a deeper and purer walk with the Lord. Ask him to clear the stones and cut the thorns and till up the soil such that you receive the words He says with true, full, whole-life understanding.

2. Questions for Sowers

Second, there’s some questions here for sowers. In other words, those of us who participate in the same work that Jesus did of spreading the word of the kingdom.

That could be and should be all of us. All of us have the privilege of prayerfully speaking the word to others, proclaiming that Jesus died for our sins and rose again as king and inviting them to believe and follow Messiah Jesus. As you’ve done that, you’ve no doubt been discouraged at times by the poor way your efforts have been received by people.

One of the big questions this passage asks us is, what makes us think we’ll be more successful than Jesus was? Are we prepared for people to respond to us the same way that they did to Jesus? Are we prepared for the path and the rocks and the weeds?

That’s not a discouraging question. It’s actually encouraging, because it reminds us that it’s not our job to control results. It’s our job to proclaim the small but powerful seed of the word. And when people do respond and believe, the glory goes to God and not us. We don’t make seed grow. “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:5–7).

This passage also makes us wary about over-celebrating the way that people initially respond to the message of the gospel. Think about it: out of the four groups here, three seemed to hear the word and show signs of growth. But only one truly understood it and went on to bear fruit.

Here in North America we’re all about numbers. This many people came forward at the evangelistic meeting! This many people gave their hearts to Jesus! Numbers, numbers, numbers. And yet we know that the long-term numbers are so often different than the short-term numbers. You can find all kinds of anecdotes about how few people who report a decision for Jesus at a mass event actually persist in Christian faithfulness. And yet, knowing this, we so easily drum up those numbers because they sound so good.

Dr. Olmstead again wrote, “now, as then, we can expect varied responses to the good news of the kingdom and now, as then, the initial response is not as important as the final result. It’s not so much about the starting blocks as it is about the finish line.”

We see this concern about the finish line all over the New Testament. Think about how Paul’s first missionary journey ended with him visiting the different towns he had preached in, “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). And then there was his second second missionary journey, which was not supposed to be a missionary journey at all but started with these words: “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are’” (Acts 15:36).

And you can read about the Apostles’ heart for the different churches in their letters, especially 1 Thessalonians or 1 Peter which we just walked through last year.

Paul did not labour just to make converts but to “present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). Faithfulness through suffering was a major priority to the New Testament and it has to be with us. We need to give up our obsession with numbers. We need to preach a realistic gospel, calling people to lay down their treasures and pick up their crosses and walk after a suffering saviour to their own death.

We need to shift our focus away from getting decisions to making disciples.

That’s one of the reasons we celebrate the Lord’s supper together. Each time we celebrate the Lord’s supper we proclaim His death “until He comes.” We remind ourselves of His promise to return. We help each other keep growing through suffering, through temptation, bearing fruit in every good work, growing together.

As we eat and drink we remind ourselves that this is not just about the starting line but the finish line. We ask that as the gospel looks more and more beautiful the cares of this wold and the deceitfulness of riches will get weaker and weaker. We pray for the Lord to drive our roots deeper and deeper into the nourishing truth of the gospel. Let’s do that now together.