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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
If you’ve ever run a business or have been so closely affiliated with the operation of that business, then all of this makes very good sense to you in that there is a paradigm to business in order for it to be successful, profitable, and beneficial to the owner and to the stakeholders. And that is, you focus your resources in an area that bears the most profit or benefit. You do not focus your resources in an area that’s not going to bear fruit. You’re throwing good money after bad. So you focus your resources only in that area that’s going to prove to be profitable.
There’s another business part of the paradigm: location, location, location. Where you place your business, where you do your business, is critical for the success of your business so that you can continue to bring those people in. Well, that brings in another point. The marketability of your business is very tied to the target audience that you’re trying to reach. If your target audience for jogging wear are young people, you would not put your jogging business in a retirement community necessarily. It’s all about profitability and efficiency, utilizing the limited resources that you have in order to turn the benefit and profit for that product. That is how the business world works. And if it’s not followed, most businesses fail.
Well, how does this apply to this morning’s parable? That is the parable of the seed and the sower. It is carved into the front of the pulpit right here, with Jesus being the sower. And then beneath him, in four quadrants, are the four soils upon which the seed falls. How does this business paradigm, about which we just spoke and which we’re very familiar with as consumers, jive and connect with this parable? Is it that we always avoid the paths in sowing God’s seed? That we always avoid the shallow soil in sowing God’s seed? That we always avoid the areas where there’s thorns and thistles in sowing God’s seed? And that we only sow the seed in good soil and in good soil alone? To do otherwise is to be foolish. Is that the meaning? The answer is, it’s not the meaning.
You can do everything correctly. You can be in your person correct and right. You can do everything in the right manner, the right way, the right presentation. You can, in your interaction with other people, present the most beautiful and most eloquent presentation of Christ dying for them. You can, in your life and in every aspect of your life, be perfect in every way. And still, most, most people will walk away and will die. Now, that seems completely fatalistic. And yet that’s what that parable says, isn’t it? That parable talks about God being so recklessly with abandon, throwing out seed, and most of that seed never ends up doing anything. Businesses don’t run that way in today’s world or in any time in history. And yet God does.
Remember in the Scriptures when Jesus would preach? Man, he would gather crowds, wouldn’t he? Crowds, hundreds, thousands of people would gather around to hear him preach. And yet most would walk away because the seed was scooped up by Satan. And you have seen that within your own life, haven’t you? Someone who comes to church a few times and listens and then moves on. Huh. Then what are we to learn from this? Satan is always at work. And he is always at work in most people. He does not sleep, and he is vigilant in scooping up that word of God.
So then why are you sitting here and believing? Why hasn’t Satan scooped up the seed from your heart? The second one: well, you know about some people who did believe in Jesus for a time. But then tribulation or struggle came upon their life, and they said, “I’m done with it.” How about you? You have scoffed at the cross that God has laid upon your back many times, and you have cried out, “Unjust, foul, it’s not fair, God.” Why did God not just let you die in the faith? Why did God not just wash His hands of you?
What do we learn from that? It is a sin for us to consider that Christianity is… It says, “Why does not God rid Himself of you and me, grumblers as we are?” The third soil are those who do grow up and are believers, just like those who grew up and then died because of the heat of the day. These also grow up and are living, and yet the cares and concerns of this world, the anxieties of this life, plague them and choke their faith. None of us sitting in the pews here and none of us standing up here have not been struggling or fighting with anxiety, worries, or cares about this life: about our person, about our family’s person, about our own sustenance. How are we going to pay the bills? How are we going to find the jobs? How are we going to make it work? None of us are without those worries and concerns.
And yet, why does God not let the thorns and thistles in your and my life choke out the faith that God has given us? Do we think we really were hewn from a different quarry than the rest of the world? Are we so proud and pompous to think we did not come from the same tree of Adam and Eve?
And then there’s the fourth soil, those that produce the fruit and harvest, some 30, some 60, some 100. Why do you produce fruit? Brothers and sisters, we are so ADD in spirituality, it is amazing that we can even be believers. We are so distracted by so many things in this world and within our bosom and within our heads that it’s an amazing gift of God that He can even produce fruit out of such people as we. And yet He does. He produces the fruit in us. Why?
The parable is about many mysteries of the kingdom. The mysteries of the kingdom are things that are not explained by our reason or our senses. They are explained by… Only in proclamation. And they are only received by faith. The mysteries of this parable are very clear. Jesus comes to us in ways that are lowly, that are humble. And here’s the difficult part to grasp. Jesus comes to you and to me in ways that are resistible. Resistible.
Then why have you and I not resisted and walked away? And why have we not gotten to the way of God? And we have had hearts broken by watching others who have, others whom we love and are dear to us, others whom we do not know even. Who are not. Why? That is a mystery indeed. And one upon which we sit in the pew and say, “Lord, you are gracious and merciful, full of forgiveness, slow to anger, abounding in love and steadfastness toward me and my house.” That indeed is the mystery of this parable. It is God’s work in us, and it says very clearly, He comes in lowly and humble ways, and that are resistible.
The second mystery of this parable is that Jesus the sower, He casts His seed with reckless abandon, and not according to the world’s efficiency. He casts His seed with reckless abandon and not with the world’s efficiency. If He would choose to have sown His seed with worldly efficiency, why in the world would you have been a believer? Are you efficient? Are you from a different plot of land than the rest of the world? Does your heart bear soil that is any different than anybody else’s?
That is how God works. We cannot look out there and determine, “This person has this kind of soil within their heart; this person does not.” This person has too many thorns and thistles, therefore they are not worthy. This person, too many cares and concerns, and the thought of suffering for the sake of the kingdom is completely averse to their point of view; therefore, they are not worthy to get the seed sown upon their hearts.
What we see in the mystery of this great parable is that God is not like the world. He sows seeds. Period! Wow. You and I are one of those who believe. What an amazing thing indeed. I’m so glad He does not work with worldly efficiency, because there’s nothing efficient within me. In spite of me, does God produce fruit. In spite of what’s been done to me, God produces fruit. In spite of what I’ve done to other people, God still produces fruit. Wow.
The final mystery is that God’s success is completely not successful according to worldly standards. He is completely the most unsuccessful entrepreneur in the world who has ever lived. And yet you are His child. He is so unsuccessful that most will not believe. And you are the one who does. That’s grace. And grace always triumphs over efficiency. It always triumphs over our understanding. It always completely blows away any thought of ourselves. And it leaves us in great humility and beholdenness toward God. And God says, “Good, that’s what my grace does.”
If that’s what has been done to you, and He has promised you, has He not, “I will be with you always to the very end of the age,” then you can be sure that all of your work, your service to other people, your proclamation in word and in action will not go unkept. It will accomplish it. Did you hear what God said to the prophet Isaiah? He said, “So shall my word that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty. It shall accomplish that which I purpose,” God says, “and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Notice he says, “Not you.” You have no part of that statement. “You” is not in that statement. “I” is in that statement. And “I” is God, the Almighty One, who created faith in your heart in spite of you, in spite of your parents, in spite of all that’s been done to you by this sinful world, and you’ve done to yourself by your own flesh. God does it.
We have seen results, have we not? We have reaped and seen results where we never sowed anything. And so shall we sow today. And someone else will get the great joy of seeing produce from something they never sowed either. Do not fear. God will accomplish it through you. In spite of you and not because of you. God will do it. And His word is so powerful and effective to do it. Thanks be to God for such grace. And thanks be to God for such a God as that who, with reckless abandon, found you.
In the name of the one whose grace triumphs over all man’s efficiency, Jesus Christ, the sower of the seed. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus till life everlasting. Amen.
