The Message that fails to fruit!

Introduction

Well, hey everyone, welcome to church. There are some sermon outline sheets for our youth up the back, and so if you want to go grab one of those now, you’re very welcome. They’re just on the chair up the back there. One of the main things that we’re trying to do with youth church and with NextGen Sunday is to help our youth students get ready to be in church with everyone else for the rest of their lives, and so that’s why we do this. If this is your first time here and it seems a bit strange, we don’t do this every week, but we do it every now and then because we love our youth, we love the kids in our church, and we want to see them love Jesus more and more. With all that in mind, let’s pray, and then we’re going to get into Mark chapter four. Let’s pray together.

Father, thank you for your word, and thank you for the power that it has to change our hearts and shape our lives. We ask now that it would do just that, that as we listen, our hearts would be drawn toward the Lord Jesus and that our lives would be shaped to live in a way that brings more honor to him. Amen.

Once upon a time, there was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. He took a great breath and sang out, “Wolf, wolf, there’s a wolf chasing the sheep!” And the villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. When they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces. “Don’t cry wolf, shepherd boy,” said the villagers, “when there’s no wolf.” They went grumbling back down the hill. Later on, the boy sang out again, “Wolf, wolf, there’s a wolf chasing the sheep!” And to his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him chase away the wolf, and when the villagers saw no wolf, they sternly said, “Save your frightened song for when there really is something wrong. Don’t cry wolf when there’s no wolf.” But the boy just grinned, and he watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.

Later on, he saw a real wolf prowling around his flock, and alarmed, he leapt to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, “Wolf, wolf!” But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn’t come. At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn’t returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill to find the boy, and they found him weeping. “There really was a wolf here!” the flock has cried out. “Wolf, why didn’t you come?” An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village, and he says, “We’ll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning, but nobody believes a liar, even when he’s telling the truth.”

You might recognize that story. It’s a famous story, The Boy That Cried Wolf. It’s one of Asop’s fables. Asop was a Greek storyteller who might have existed; nobody knows if he did or not, but his stories are real, and his stories are very well known, and the reason they’re well known is because they are memorable, simple stories that take a moral lesson and make it more clear, more understandable. Remember the last line: nobody believes a liar, even when they’re telling the truth. That’s true, isn’t it? That’s helpful. Asop takes that truth, and he illustrates it, he explains it, he draws you into it. So, armed with this story, we could pull this into our lives. If there’s a professional athlete who keeps pretending to get tripped over or faking injuries to get a foul, then maybe when the real foul happens, they’ll be ignored. Or if there’s a school student who fakes sickness to keep missing school—that would never happen, I’m sure—maybe when the real sickness happens, they’ll be forced to go anyway. Or maybe there’s a YouTuber who’s faking to get content, to fake things to happen, maybe when they capture something amazing that actually happens in real life, people won’t believe them. That is a valuable lesson to learn, and Asop, he illustrated it and made it clearer, and he made it more understandable, and that’s a good skill to have, isn’t it? Preachers try and do this all the time. We try to use illustrations to explain a point, to make it clear, to make it all understandable.

So this is what Jesus is doing in Mark chapter 4, right? He’s telling a made-up story with a lesson. He’s using an illustration to make something clearer, more understandable, right? I mean, if you look up the definition of a parable in the Miriam Webster dictionary, here’s what it says: a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or religious principle. That’s what Jesus is doing, right? No, that’s not what he’s doing. That’s not what he’s doing at all. The purpose of a parable is not to make something clearer, is not to bring about understanding. A parable is not an illustration; it’s actually the opposite. The purpose of a parable is to make something less clear, to challenge understanding, to push people to reconsider and second guess themselves. Parables don’t explain; they disrupt, and through that process, if there is someone who has ears to hear, they can gain a sharper and fresher and truer perspective about God’s kingdom from Jesus’s words. So that’s the journey we’re going to go on today as we look at this passage. We’re going to dive into Jesus’s intentionally murky waters, and then when we come up for a breath of air, we’ll have a sharper, fresher, truer perspective about God’s kingdom. So grab your Bibles, Mark chapter 4, we’re going to start in verse 10.

The Secret of the Kingdom of God

Jesus has just finished his story, his parable, and his disciples come and ask him, “Jesus, this parable, what does it mean?” And so, verse 11, Jesus says, “You, my disciples, you are able to understand the secret of the kingdom of God. It’s been revealed to you, but I use parables so that the scriptures might be fulfilled.” And then he quotes some verses from Isaiah chapter 6. Now, whenever verses from the Old Testament are quoted, it’s wise for us to look at the whole chapter where those verses come from, and that’s especially true here. In Isaiah chapter 6, the whole chapter, God’s people are not doing a good job at following him, which is standard classic Old Testament; this is how it always is. At the start of chapter six, God has a message for his people. It’s a message of judgment and a message of hope. Here’s a summary of God’s message: you, my people, have been unfaithful. You’ve neglected me and my law. You’ve neglected each other and the poor and the widow and the orphan, and your failure is not only great, but it’s increasing. You were like my beautiful vineyard, but your good grapes have turned sour, and so I’m going to go get the garden tools and rip you up. I’m not giving up on you. I’m not going to break my promise to you. In the future, you’ll be restored, but right now, judgment’s coming. That’s God’s message.

God Needs a Messenger

God needs a messenger, and he needs a prophet, and so he says, “Who will go and deliver this message for our people?” And Isaiah is there, and he says, “Hey, I’ll do it.” And God says, “Great, thank you, you’ve got the job. Just so you know, they will all ignore you.” In fact, more than that, your message will make them even more stubborn. It will galvanize them against me. It will seal their fate. When this message reaches people, it will only find hard hearts and make them hard up. So, Isaiah, this message is going to push people further away. Good luck.” And that’s the bit that Jesus quotes. Have a look, Mark 4:12, he says, “When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand. They won’t be forgiven.” Do you see what Jesus is saying here? When he tells a parable, if the person listening has a hard heart, they’re not really interested in Jesus. These words are confusing; I got better things to do. Then that person’s heart will become more hard; they will be pushed further away from Jesus, just like God’s people in the time of Isaiah.

But if the person listening has a soft heart, they are interested in Jesus. Yes, his words might be confusing, but I’m convinced that there’s something here for me. There’s something important for me to know and understand. Then that person’s heart will become more soft, will be pushed toward Jesus. Parables push people either further away from Jesus or further toward Jesus, and the way they achieve this is by being unclear on purpose so that people are forced to think more carefully about them, to invest time and effort into trying to understand them. They have to widen their imagination to try and grasp what’s going on, and then they can either walk toward Jesus or away from him. Parables are like a filter that separate those who are drawn toward Jesus or against him. Parables are like a thermometer; they measure how hot or cold someone is toward Jesus. Parables push people.

Parables Push People

I’m going to do something we don’t often do here. I’m going to use my piano in the middle of the sermon. Here’s the plan. I’m going to play a chord for you all, and I want you to just think about how you feel about this chord. Here it is. Here’s the chord. That’s my chord, and I’ll play a few more times so you just kind of lock it in your head. That’s the chord. What do you think about the chord? Gross. Good answer. In the 1500s, the medieval church, they called that the devil’s interval because why would you ever disgrace the Lord by using that in any music? That’s my chord, and there’s other chords that are much nicer. We could have played some nice things. That’s very happy, or that’s very sad, but not that. That’s the chord. That’s the one I want you to have in your head.

For some of you, you will be thinking, can you stop playing that, please? It’s gross, and I’m not really sure about it, and I don’t understand it, and I don’t really want to be here anymore, and that’s how some of you will be feeling right now. For others of you, you might just be interested in this chord, like you don’t quite understand it, but you’d like to hear about where it’s going, what it means, what’s happening here. This is just like a parable now. I played this chord a few weeks ago. It’s the first chord in the song. I played it at the opera house in the main recital room on the main grand piano that’s the size of this stage. It’s not because I’m good; it’s because the Lord is kind. I felt like a fraud when I was there, but this is a song that I play, and the first chord is that. If you were to keep playing, actually, maybe it starts to make more sense. There’s the chord again. Actually, that’s not too bad. That’s quite nice, isn’t it?

For some of you, you might have heard that chord and said, “Not interested. I don’t understand. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to listen to the rest of it. I’m done.” And it pushed you further away from the music. For others of you, you might have just been interested. You don’t quite understand it. What’s going on? It sounds weird, but I’m interested to see where this is going. Jesus’s parables are just like that. That’s exactly how this works. When some people hear it, they’re pushed away from him, they’re repelled by him, and they miss out on him, and they miss out on the music. But when others hear it, they’re pushed toward him, they’re drawn in by him, they get to enjoy the whole song, they get to enjoy Jesus. Parables are unclear on purpose, and then they push people. That’s why Jesus uses them.

What’s Unclear About the Parable?

A helpful next question to ask is this: what’s unclear about the parable that Jesus has told us? What are we supposed to think more carefully about? What are we supposed to reconsider, widen our imagination for? Because at first, it might seem quite simple, especially because Jesus is very kind, and he actually explains what he means in this parable. It’s very nice when he does that, but I want us to try and consider what it would be like to hear this for the first time. Imagine you are a Jewish farmer 2,000 years ago, and you’re living and working on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. That’s where you live, that’s what you do, and you know for sure that God has promised prosperity for the Jewish nation. You talk about it all the time, you read about it, you sing about it, you sing about it with your family all the time. You know this is true, and yet the Romans are in charge, and they are taxing you and your friends into the ground, and some of your friends have had to sell their stuff to pay taxes, and other of your friends have had to sell themselves over as slaves to pay their taxes, and your traditions are being crushed by King Herod, the puppet king. It’s his job to blot out Jewish culture and replace it with Roman culture so that the glorious Roman Empire can keep expanding. There have been some Jewish rebels who have tried to raise an army, tried to overthrow things, but it hasn’t really worked, and how could it work? The Roman Empire is massive; it’s the superpower. Imagine that’s you.

God’s Kingdom Doesn’t Arrive With a General

One day you’re in town, and you hear about a new teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, who performs miracles and teaches with authority, and you hear a story about how a paralyzed man was lowered through the roof, and Jesus said to him, “Your sins are forgiven.” Everyone was surprised, and then Jesus healed the man as well. It’s all very exciting. You start talking, and then one day you’re out harvesting your beans and corn, whatever you are harvesting, and you hear that he’s in town, and so you drop everything, you spill the beans, you rush to go and see him and listen to him, and could this really be God keeping his promises, and it’s really time for the Jewish nation to prosper? You race to town, and Jesus is starting to speak, and here’s what he says: let me tell you about the kingdom of God. He’s like, “Yes, this is it!” There’s a farmer with some seeds, and he throws it on some soil. Like, what a farm? Like, I’m a farmer, I use seeds. Where’s the chariot? Where’s the sword? Where’s the victory? Where’s the spilling of Roman blood and the glory and the gore and the release of slavery and the reclaiming of land? Where’s all this stuff? We are so used to hearing this parable and others like it that we’re just not surprised as we should be. Later on in chapter 4, Jesus says that God’s kingdom is like a mustard seed. What do you mean, Jesus, a seed? I eat seeds for breakfast. Imagine how disappointed that farmer would be if he listened to that parable with a hard heart, and he was pushed away from Jesus, if he decided for himself that the solution to the Roman problem had nothing to do with seeds and farming but everything to do with armies and chariots. Imagine how disappointed he would be if he decided that that chord Jesus played was too dissonant, too unclear, too confusing, and he was repelled away from him.

Imagine how intrigued the farmer might be because if he’s just listened with a soft heart, he’s heard about Jesus of Nazareth, he’s heard the stories, he’s heard about the healing, he’s heard about the paralyzed man, and you know it’s true that I eat seeds for breakfast, but it’s also true that a seed can grow into a mighty tree, and so maybe I need to hear more from this teacher. You see how this works? This is why it’s unclear. What’s unclear about this parable? What are we supposed to think more about, reconsider, widen our imagination for? God’s kingdom doesn’t arrive with a general but with a farmer. There’s no sword and shield, but the sharing of God’s word, the gospel, and God’s word isn’t arrows, but it’s seeds. You see, the gospel is presented with this. The gospel is not presented with an image of strength but as weak, and that is exactly the point. The weakness of the gospel is its strength. The weakness is the secret to its power, and that’s seen most clearly at the cross because it’s at the cross where Jesus’s death is our victory, and where Jesus’s humiliation is our forgiveness, where Jesus’s love for enemies is our invitation, and where his suffering is our peace. Jesus’s weakness crushes death and Satan. You see, the gospel is just like a weak seed, and yet it grows to be strong. Its weakness is the secret to its power. That is the unsurprising reality to God’s kingdom.

The Weakness of the Gospel is its Strength

We’ve dived into Jesus’s intentionally murky water into this strange parable where kingdom victory is about farmers and seeds and where the weakness of the gospel is revealed to be its strength, and so we’re ready now to come up for breath and to have a sharper, fresher, truer perspective about God’s kingdom. Finally, we can now map ourselves into this story. That’s what we’re supposed to do. This is what Jesus expects us to do. He tells us that there are four soils, and each, and God’s word is the seed spread into each soil, and so the natural question for you to answer as you hear this story is which soil are you? The parable doesn’t really leave space for you to pick two or kind of say you’re this one a little bit, that one. It just pushes you to identify as one of them, and so which one are you? There’s the footpath where God’s word is heard, but immediately the seed is snatched up by Satan. There’s the rocky soil where God’s word is heard and starts to grow, but the roots aren’t deep, and so when problems or persecution come, that’s game over. There’s the thorny soil where God’s word is heard and starts to grow, but among the weeds and too quickly, the message is crowded out by the worries of life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, and so there’s some initial growth, but there’s no fruit. Then there’s the good soil that grows and multiplies. Which one are you?

Which Soil Are You?

Perhaps even more importantly, which one would you like to become? Which one would you like to move toward, or which one would you like to continue to be? You’re not locked into the answer now for the rest of your life, and so which one would you like to become, move toward, continue to be? The first three soils where there’s no growth happening, they actually share the exact same problem. It’s a problem of depth. God’s word isn’t deep enough. The seed on the footpath, that’s obvious; it doesn’t enter the soil at all. The seed on the rocky ground doesn’t go deep enough for the roots to grow and be strong. The seed on the thorny ground, it goes in deep, but only to the same level as the thorns. The other concerns of life are just as deep, just as important, share priority. It’s only in the good soil where the seed goes in deeper. Only in the good soil where can a small, unimpressive, fragile, weak seed can then unleash its power and grow to multiply.

If you would like to become the good soil or move toward the good soil or remain in the good soil, the answer is to take God’s word deeper into your life, to listen and reflect and talk about and apply over and over again, working it into your life and your heart and pushing it deeper and deeper. That’s what we do if we want to be the good soil. We need to take God’s word deep enough to endure problems and persecution and to grow through them, and we need to take it deep enough to dethrone and deprioritize the lure of wealth and other concerns in life. We need to take it deep enough that it grows and it multiplies, that the gospel message you receive goes out from you to be received by others. If you would like to become the good soil, to move toward the good soil, to remain in the good soil, the answer is to take God’s word and put it deeper and deeper into your life and your heart, and that is how God’s kingdom works. That’s how God’s kingdom flourishes, not by strength, not by sword, but by weakness and by his. So, which soil are you, and which soil would you like to be? Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.