A Harvested Heart

Transcript

Hey, welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. Following the scripture reading from Pastor Ryan Lister, Pastor Thomas Terry delivers his message entitled, The Harvested Heart. This message continues the series, Follow the Son, which is teaching through the gospel of Mark. Thanks for joining us. Here’s Ryan. So this morning, we’ll be hearing the word of the Lord from Mark chapter four, verses one through 20.

Again, he, that is Jesus, began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land, and he was teaching them many things and parables, and in his teachings he said to them, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.

— Mark 4

(ESV)

Other seed fell on the rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil, and when the sun rose, it was scorched. Since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain, and other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold, and he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear, and when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables, and he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see, but not perceive, and may indeed hear, but not understand.

Thus they should turn and be forgiven, and he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word, and those are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them, and these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while. Then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away, and others are the ones sown among the thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

The Parable Explained

But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. Trinity Church, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Doesn’t Ryan sound so good when he reads scripture? It’s like, man, I’ve got to come up after that. Well, last year, Greg Laurie, who is a prominent pastor in Riverside, California, posted on his Twitter account that 8,670 people gave their lives to Christ over a three-night evangelistic event called the Harvest Crusade. This is an annual event that’s been going on for years, but this year was a bit different because this year had over 100,000 people in attendance. According to CBN News, the first night of the event brought 28,000 people to hear the gospel, including a profession of faith by 2,100 people. The second night drew 34,000 people, with 2,675 professing their faith in Jesus Christ.

And finally, on the third and biggest night for attenders, the crowd rose to 38,000 people, with more than 3,895 people professing their faith in Jesus Christ. When I see numbers like these, when I hear these kind of numbers, I’m left with joy, excitement, and hope. As many of you know, I’m from Southern California, and so I’m well acquainted with the ministry of the Harvest Crusade. And I’m very thankful for Pastor Greg Laurie, for his zeal, and for his passion for evangelism. In fact, Heather and I, before we were married, we used to attend Greg Laurie’s ministry on Wednesday nights at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa. Because I’m from Southern California and have attended these events on multiple occasions, I have a unique vantage point. I have witnessed firsthand people who have made a profession of faith at these events. I’ve seen the tears, the hands raised.

I’ve heard the prayers. I’ve seen the slow walk down from the bleachers to the field as many gave their lives to Jesus. I have known people personally who’ve made a profession of faith at these specific events, who heard the message of the gospel, a very clear presentation of the gospel. And in that moment, they responded to it. In that moment, they were moved by the message of Jesus. But after a few weeks, when the emotions of the moment fade and the sentimentalism passes, they end up falling away from the very faith they once professed at these events. How does this happen? Surely it’s not the message because there are also countless of other people at these events who hear the message and respond to the message and make a lasting profession of faith. Those whose lives are radically transformed by the power of the gospel.

How does the same message not impact all people in the same way? Why does it stick for some but not for others? Why are there varying responses to the message of Jesus Christ when the entire crowd is listening to the same preacher preach the same message at the same time? This is not a question that’s unique to Southern California or the Harvest Crusade. It’s not a question that is unique to our modern evangelistically sophisticated culture. This is the same issue that’s been around since Jesus himself was spreading his message. In fact, this is exactly what happened in our text this morning. Jesus, through the art of parable, answers this question as to why there are varying responses to the same message of Jesus. And so this morning, what I want to do is go through this passage verse by verse. But I’m going to do this a bit differently.

I’m going to change the order a little bit. Not because I believe that the order in scripture is bad, no way. But because I believe that this order might be a bit helpful for us as we walk through the text and as we apply the text. So in verse one, I’m going to set a bit of context. Verses two through eight, we’re going to look at this parable of the sower, the seed, and the soil. Then we’re going to move on to verses 13 through 20 to look at the conditions of the soil and the outcome of the heart. And then we’ll move back to verses nine through 12 to look at the sovereignty of God and human responsibility. Okay, so we’re going to bounce around a bit, but in the end, I think this will be helpful for us. Okay? So let’s look first at verse one to set some context.

Again, Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. Again, Jesus and his disciples moved from the city of Capernaum back to the sea of Galilee. This is constantly happening. If you remember last time Jesus was at the sea, the crowd was so massive and so chaotic, it was overwhelming. People came from everywhere because they wanted healing from Jesus. They wanted to see Jesus casting out demons. It was so crazy that Jesus was being pushed in on all sides from the crowd. So Jesus has his disciples get a boat ready so that they can escape the crowd if and when things get too crazy. Well, this time the scene is a bit similar in some ways, but it’s also very different.

This time when Jesus arrives at the sea, the first thing to notice is that he’s not casting out demons and he’s not healing. He’s back to the business of teaching. The crowd is perhaps the biggest crowd so far in Jesus’s ministry. It’s significantly larger than the last time Jesus was at the sea. What’s interesting here is that Jesus again calls for his disciples to get a boat. But this time it’s not because he wants to escape the crowd, but he uses the boat as a means to engage the crowd. So Jesus gets into his boat and sits on the sea. The boat becomes equal parts barricade from the crowd and pulpit for preaching. He uses this boat as an instrument to communicate to the large crowd while minimizing the potential threat of the crowd as they push in on him. So Jesus sits in his boat and begins teaching while all these people hang out along the

shoreline listening to his message. And what is he teaching to the crowd? Well, he’s teaching about the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus was always teaching. But this time it’s broken down in the form of a parable. This parable of the sower, the seed and the soil. And we see this in verses two through eight. He taught them many things in parables and in his teaching said, listen, a farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seeds, some fell along the path and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow, but when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root. Other seeds fell along thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. So they did not bear grain.

Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying 30, some 60, some a hundred times. So Jesus is teaching the crowd about the kingdom of God. And as he’s teaching the crowd, some are connecting with this message. Some are conflicted by his message. Some are a bit confused and some are just cold towards the message. As Jesus is preaching, inevitably there are varying responses to his message. So he begins to teach in parables. Now what’s a parable? A parable is a teaching style that uses figurative language. It’s a communication style that uses word pictures that would be relevant to a particular audience. Here Jesus uses this word picture to connect with a first century culture. See everyone in the first century culture would know about farming and agriculture because that’s pretty much how everybody lived. Jesus teaches them the parable of the sower, sowing seeds in various different soils.

So Jesus says, listen, and when he says, listen, that can be translated, look, listen and consider this story of the sower, the seed and the soil. Jesus says, listen this way because he’s accentuating the essence of using multiple senses as you engage with this truth. It’s as if Jesus is capturing the attention of his audience, pulling the audience in and then begins to paint this picture with his words. Imagine a farmer who is walking through his field with a bag of seed around his shoulder. As he’s slowly and rhythmically walking back and forth, he continues to reach his hand in the bag to grab seed as he scatters it across the field. The farmer can’t possibly know the conditions of the soil, so he indiscriminately throws the seed over every square inch of the field in hopes to produce a crop. Some seed is scattered across the path, but it’s a walking path.

The part of the field that has been beaten down, impacted and hardened over years and years of constantly walking back and forth along this walking path. The feet of the farmer, the hooves of the animal and sometimes the wheels of the carriages hammer the surface of the walking path, making the top of the soil as hard as concrete. And as the seed is spread and hits the walking path, it merely bounces off the ground and rests on the hard surface of the soil, never making its way into the soil, never to germinate. So the birds come along and feast off the seeds. Some of the seed landed on what appeared to be soft soil, but what lies underneath the soil was hard rock from the riverbed that flooded the field four harvests ago. The seed made its way into the shallow soil. It did begin to germinate, but the rocky underlay prevented the seeds from taking root.

Because the root failed to penetrate through the rocks, the seed was left with a nutrient deficiency. It seemed to grow at first, but it didn’t grow deep. And so when the plant began to peek its head above the ground, the heat of the Palestinian sun began to burn the plant’s potential and it burned before it ever had a chance to sprout. It withered and died because the roots never had enough nutrients to survive the Palestinian sun. Other seed fell along potential soil. On the surface, it looked promising, but deep beneath the surface were ravenous weeds with sharp thorns. As the seed began to grow, so did the weeds, but the weeds were stronger, more aggressive. The weeds didn’t like similar plants growing in its path, so the sharp thorns choked the life out of the plant, killing its potential. The farmer couldn’t know the condition of the soil when he sowed his seed.

He couldn’t know where the most responsive soil was. So it was only after some time had passed when the farmer realized the various poor conditions of the soil. And just when the farmer started to feel like his field had failed him, he saw that there was in fact some good soil in the field. The kind of soil that was perfect for growing crop, the kind where the seed hits the fertile soil and begins to germinate, where the roots sank deep into the soil. Because the roots were deep, it sprouted. And because it had sufficient nutrients, it grew healthy. It wasn’t scorched by the Palestinian sun, instead it absorbed its bright light. It used the bright light of the sun to flourish and produce a crop that was upwards of 30, 60, and 100 fold. The farmer was diligent. It was good seed. It was the same seed.

He threw it indiscriminately, but the condition of the soil determined the success of the harvest. So Jesus paints this profound picture, this vivid imagery as to why there are varying responses to the message. And the parable pretty much preaches itself, if you understand it. Jesus spoke to the crowd in a way that was relevant to a first century culture, using images of agriculture. But most people in the crowd didn’t get it, including his disciples. And so Jesus brings clarity to his disciples concerning the meaning underneath the parable. And what we’ll see as we go through verses 13 through 20 is how Jesus uses this image of agriculture to illustrate the condition of the soil and the outcome of the heart. Verse 13, then Jesus said to them, don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? Before Jesus starts to unpack this parable for his disciples, he begins with this mild

Four Conditions of Soil

rebuke that’s framed in a rhetorical question. It’s like Jesus is saying to his disciples, you are my followers. You’ve heard everything that I’ve been talking about. You have been made insiders. You are privy to the things of God. You’ve heard me speak over and over again about the kingdom of God. Don’t you understand the parable? Jesus here is confronting their spiritual absent-mindedness. He’s saying, you’re my chosen people. I’ve called you. You don’t understand this parable? This parable is about people hearing my words. If you don’t understand my parable, how are you going to understand any of my parables? This parable here, in many ways, is a parable about understanding my parables. But despite their spiritual dullness, Jesus begins to break the parable down soil by soil. Verse 14, he says, the farmer sows the word. The farmer sows the word. Jesus reveals that the farmer, the one who sows the seed, is the preacher, the teacher,

the one who speaks the word of God, which means that the seed is the word of God. And what we’ll see is that as the message is spread, or as the message is preached, it lands on various different soils of the heart. And he shows us in this parable four conditions of the soil of the heart, three of which fail to produce fruit. He starts first with the hardness of the surface in verse 14. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Jesus begins by stating something so important to his disciples, and so important for us to understand, and that is this. Every time God’s word is preached, every time God’s word is taught correctly, there is an element of spiritual opposition.

If you have ever wondered whether there is spiritual warfare connected to the preaching of God’s word, you look no further than what Jesus illustrates here. The word is preached, and we see that Satan is waiting to snatch it up before it takes root. And how does Satan snatch it up? By distracting, deceiving, causing you to doubt its reliability, causing you to critique it rather than respond to it, or accusing you, making you feel guilt and shame when you hear it so that you run far from it to escape the truth. Satan sometimes uses our own sinful desires to keep us from taking in God’s word, lying to us, telling us that delighting in his word and living according to it will never satisfy us. In this context here, Jesus is speaking directly about the scribes and the Pharisees, whose hearts have been hardened to the message.

The soil of their heart is so hard they can’t receive it, and so Satan has come along and snatched it up. Remember when the Pharisees were plotting to kill Jesus? What was Jesus grieving over? The hardness of their hearts. And this should tell you something, that even theologians, people who know the Bible, can have hardened hearts. These Pharisees were more critical of Jesus than responsive to Jesus. But this is more than just about these Pharisees. Jesus has more in mind. See there are all kinds of people whose hearts are hardened towards God’s word when it’s preached, and hardness can play itself out in a variety of different ways. Hostility, indifference, irrelevance. Sometimes the word is preached and people are just straight up hostile towards it. They hate God’s word. They hate it because they don’t like being told how to live their life. See the truth of God’s word is a spotlight that exposes the darkest parts of our hearts

and people hate that. So they become hard and hostile towards it. These are the people who mock Christians, those who ridicule the message of Jesus and the messengers of Jesus. This is the Portland landscape. But it’s not just hostile people with hard hearts. There is a hardness that comes from indifference and apathy to God’s word. These might be very nice people, but when they hear God’s word they immediately write it off as if it’s not important. They respectfully refuse to believe that it’s not true. They’re indifferent to the spiritual realities of it because it challenges their comfort. It challenges their philosophy of life. And so even though they might be gentle people, their hearts are hard towards the truth because they see no value in it. And then there’s the hardness that comes from irrelevance. These are the people who think that the Bible is not modern enough for our enlightened and

sophisticated world. And the truth be told, this is one of Satan’s greatest weapons against the church. Satan loves churches that are more pragmatic than biblical. Churches that reject the infallibility of God’s word. Churches that think some parts of the Bible are outdated and irrelevant and so they shouldn’t be addressed. They’d rather focus on self-help, love, and psychology. They might preach pieces of God’s word, but they don’t preach the hard parts or the offensive parts like sin and repentance and judgment. Satan has convinced all types of churches to overemphasize the pursuit of cultural relevance so that they defer not to the scriptures, but to culture. Hire congregations with hard hearts so that when someone finally comes along and preaches the truth of God’s word, it’s rejected. Their hearts have rejected the truth of God’s word because when they reject the word in part, they reject the whole of it.

This is how Satan snatches up the message from both professing Christians in the church and non-Christians outside of the church by coming alongside peoples whose hearts are hardened and making sure that the message doesn’t sink in. In fact, their hearts are hardened towards God because their hearts are soft towards human wisdom, worldly wisdom, tolerance, and human autonomy. Satan comes alongside and eats up any hope of fruit. And you can know for sure that wherever there is a hardening of the heart towards Jesus and his message, Satan is somehow in the mix, keeping the message far from their hearts. Then Jesus addresses the shallow soil where the seed is destroyed by the heat of the sun. Verse 16, others like seeds sown on rocky places hear the word and at once receive it with joy, but since they have no root, they last only a short time.

When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Here Jesus addresses those who hear God’s word and get really excited. They hear the message that Jesus, the son of God came in human flesh to die for our sins, to make us right with God so that we might experience the forgiveness of sin and lasting peace. They hear that message, which is the truth and they want it. They eat it up, they respond with joy, but then the circumstances of life begin to take a toll on them. They experience trial after trial. Maybe it’s persecution. Maybe it’s chastisement from friends and family and coworkers. Maybe it’s physical suffering, the declining of their health. And so they say to themselves, this is not at all what I signed up for. This is all bad. I became a Christian because I wanted peace and it seems like all I’m experiencing here

is trouble. Since they become a Christian, it seems like everything has become way too uncomfortable. See what they fail to realize is that Christians were never promised a comfortable life. Instead they were promised trials, persecution, and hardships. Yes, Christians experience peace with God, access to God, and the grace of God, but trials by design, if you let it have its way with you, produces character. Romans 5 says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into his grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope for the glory of God. But not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. You see, brothers and sisters, a heart that is receptive to the Lord’s message grows us most profoundly through trials and pain. And you see God’s masterful use with this illustration of the seed, the very instrument God uses to grow us is the seed of trials, suffering, persecution, and hardships. And I know it’s not comfortable. I know it’s painful and it’s hard. Trials are not the types of things that we would welcome with joy, but it does make us believers better. The trials make you a better Christian. And listen, I know they’re difficult, they’re heavy, they’re hard, but the weight of these trials that we go through are only for a moment. Romans 8, 18 says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Our trials and our suffering are only for a moment because we have a future glory that awaits us. This kind of soil makes people excited for a moment, but they eventually bail out when things get hard. When the heat of life gets too hot, they bail out because they didn’t have strong enough roots to begin with. Their roots were spiritually deficient. So instead of absorbing the sun and growing, they’re burned by it. And so they wither and die. And Jesus addresses the third failed soil, the seed that gets choked out because they had too much stock in the hope for security. Verse 18, still others like seeds sown among thorns hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires of other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Jesus is saying some people hear the word, they embrace it, they begin to live like they

believe it. It looks so promising. Only then to become distracted by the hope of security. It’s a slow distraction. Their eyes slowly shift away from Jesus and the hope of eternity, and they start to focus on the cares of this life only. Their future hope is washed away by their present expectations and desires. They become preoccupied with money and things, success and influence, opportunity and advancement. And this pushes them into all kinds of evil. First Timothy 6.10 says, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. This hope for security for them has become their everything. They start making all their decisions with the present and earthly security in mind. If they could just hustle a bit more, maybe get a bit more money, then they’d become content.

They’d be happier. They’d be more satisfied with their life. The more money they make, it seems the more security they would have. So money becomes their master. All their decisions, all of their time, all of their focus is on making more money because more money means more security. But Matthew 6.24 says, 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 6.19-21 says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Jesus is saying a heart of receptivity will love God and find lasting hope and security

in him and in his word more than he loves his money and the false sense of security that money pretends to offer. The love of money and the pursuit of earthly security causes for the message of Jesus to get choked out because it’s got to be one or the other. One will always win. Now listen, money is not the root of all kinds of evil. It’s the love of money. Money is not a bad thing. We make it bad when we make money to be more than what it was meant to be. When we make money our everything, that’s when it becomes all bad for us. This is one of the most dangerous things about the prosperity gospel. This is what makes it so evil because it attempts to synthesize the love of money and the love of God, but you can’t have both. It’s dangerous because it causes people to place their hope in money rather than the

promises of God. And the truth is people buy into the prosperity gospel precisely because they believe that God will give them money, which they know in their heart is their God. That’s why they buy into it, but you can’t serve God and money. They are mutually exclusive. You will either hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. So the life-giving message of Jesus and their future hope gets choked out by their present reality. Then Jesus gives us the condition of the humble soil, the soil that is fertile for the gospel, where the heart is responsive to the message. This is the good soil that grows us from root to fruit, and we see that here in verse 20. Others, like seeds sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop. Some 30, some 60, some 100 times what was sown.

The Receptive Heart

There is a soil that is fertile for the soul, that produces lasting fruit. The soil of the heart that is receptive, the soil of the heart that is humble and dependent and has expectation, having a receptive and humble heart that is ready and dependent to receive from God produces lasting spiritual fruit. And brothers and sisters, this ought to challenge the way we approach hearing God’s word. Are you coming with a heart of receptivity, humility, dependence, and expectation? Are you coming here to hear God’s word because you desperately need it, because you can’t live without it? Is God’s word a delight to you? Is it the balm for your broken and parched soul? Does God’s word bring you the most comfort when you are going through trials? Do you come to hear God’s word so that you would be mastered by it? Or do you come to critique God’s word?

Do you come to get, to hear from God’s word out of some spiritual obligation, well I gotta go and sit through this message because that’s what Christians do, we go to church and we listen to somebody preach for 30 minutes, or in my case, 42 minutes. Are you coming here because you think your family needs to hear God’s word more than you need to hear it? Are you coming here to hear God’s word with no intention to respond to it? If that’s why you’re coming here, then you’re in a bad place. You’re in a really bad place, and you need to beg God. You need to ask God to give you a heart that is receptive to his word. You need to ask the Holy Spirit to help you. Brothers and sisters, this is why we pray for the help of the Holy Spirit every single

time we open up God’s word. We don’t do it because it’s cute, or because it’s some sort of tradition or it’s routine, we do it because we are in desperate need of God’s help. We need it. When God’s word is preached, when it’s taught properly, and even when it’s spoken in the most casual setting, there is opposition. Satan is working against it. Our flesh is working against it. The world’s wisdom is working against it. So we must be wholly dependent on the Holy Spirit to help us, and humbly receptive to hear and to respond to his message. So Jesus gives us this parable, this word picture about the sower, the seed, and the soil to instruct us about God’s word, to help us understand the varying responses to it so that we might come to him in humble dependence, asking to cultivate a heart that receives

Divine Sovereignty and Human Response

his word and responds to it appropriately. And then he says something profound here in verse 9, he who has ears, let them hear. And what Jesus is saying in these seven words, he who has ears, let them hear, is something both comforting and controversial. Jesus here puts together what most Christians pull apart, the sovereignty of God and human responsibility. Jesus is saying here, if you want to know my words and truly understand it, then you need ears to hear it. Your ability to know his message, to take it in and respond to it, is owing to God giving you ears to hear it. This here is God’s sovereign work of opening the ears of people. It’s God’s sovereign gift, giving us special spiritual insight so that we can hear and heed his word. Proverbs 20.12 says, the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both.

And this proverb has less to do with God making the ear and the eye, though he did, this proverb has everything to do with God granting us the spiritual sensibilities to use our eyes and ears to see the mystery of God’s grace. God universally calls everyone to see and hear. Everyone ought to hear and respond to the truth of the gospel. Everyone should tune their ears spiritually to the truth of the message, but the sad reality is that many will not hear, many will not listen, many will not pay attention, and many will not respond because they don’t care. Their hearts are hard. The message demands too much from them. They think the world has more to offer than Jesus, so they close their eyes, they close their ears, and pretend God is not real, that God does not speak, and even if by some chance

God is real and he does speak, then the message isn’t really relevant for me. And we could just look at that and we could think to ourselves, wow, how arrogant are these people. How arrogant that they would act that way. But don’t forget, this was you too. Praise be to God, that he intervenes, that he opens our obstinate eyes and our unresponsive ears to call us to himself. We didn’t see, we did not hear the truth until God gave us the eyes and ears to hear it. This means our understanding of God and our standing with God is owing all to God and his grace. And this should humble you. This should humble you. This should significantly alter your affections for Jesus. You love him because he first loved you. And then you get this example here of human responsibility in verse 10 with the disciples.

When he was alone, the 12 and the others around him asked him about the parables. See the disciples were struggling to understand the message. They didn’t quite get it entirely. And notice what they do. They approach Jesus. They are active in pursuing and deciphering the truth. They didn’t have the ears to hear the message. So they asked Jesus, help us to understand. And Jesus helps them to understand. Listen, are you here this morning struggling to understand the message of Jesus? Are you confused about this call to follow Jesus? Are you not quite sure what it means to follow Jesus and to submit under his lordship? Ask him to help you understand. Go to him and ask him to help you and he will do it. He will help you. Ask him to open up your eyes and the spiritual realities of who he is and what he’s done

for sinners like you and me, and he will do it. We just saw him do it. Jesus explained the parable in a way that helped his disciples understand. That’s his character. And what we see in verses 11 and 12 is the reason why he taught in parables in the first place. Verse 11, he told them, the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything is said in parables. Jesus again addresses this issue of insiders and outsiders. And so the parables are about revealing and concealing to the insiders and the outsiders. For the insiders, Jesus reveals the mystery of the kingdom of God. The secret that the disciples were privy to is that the power and presence of God’s kingdom has entered human history in the person and work of Jesus Christ. They see the healings, they see the exorcisms, they hear his teaching with the authority

and clearly they see this is the Messiah establishing his new kingdom. And the reason they see it clearly is because God has chosen to reveal it to them. But from the outsider’s perspective, the message and the ministry of Jesus is concealed through parables. They see what’s going on, but they can’t really figure it out. They hear what Jesus is saying, but they don’t comprehend the weight of it. And the reason why is because God has chosen to conceal it from them. And this is by God’s design, so that insiders will spread his kingdom and so that outsiders won’t alter God’s divine purposes. And just to be clear, when Jesus references outsiders here, the immediate context is the scribes and the Pharisees, and for the moment, Jesus’ own family. Remember last week when Jesus revealed through his teaching that both the scribes and Jesus’ family were considered outsiders, while those who do the will of God are considered insiders.

Jesus in his parable is revealing to insiders and concealing to outsiders. So Jesus then pushes in on this truth in verses 12, by quoting from Isaiah 6, 9. So that they may be ever seeing, but never perceiving, and ever hearing, but never understanding otherwise they might turn and be forgiven. Listen, this is a very hard passage, but it’s a necessary one to understand. Jesus was blinding them to the truth, so that these scribes and Pharisees, in the hardness of their heart, will inadvertently bring about God’s redemption plan by sentencing Jesus to death. Jesus closes their eyes and closes their ears to accomplish his divine purposes through the sin of outsiders who would eventually crucify him. See this is the brilliance of our God, even when sinful people unjustly put him to death, God uses it to bring about his sovereign will. This too is the sovereignty of God and human responsibility.

Humans are responsible for the most insidious act against God, but God sovereignly uses it to bring about the most amazing act of redemption for humans. This is the divine mystery of God. This is a beautiful paradox, that God so loved the world that he sent Jesus, his only son, to die by the hands of sinful men, to save sinful men from their sins. Jesus takes upon the wrath of God that we deserve, so that we might be made right with God and enjoy him forever. Listen, he was crucified for us, but he was crucified by us. Do you see what he did? Do you understand what he did? Do you want to understand what he did? Then ask God to help you see. Ask God to give you the ears to hear and understand. Ask God to open your eyes so that you can see the beautiful mystery of the gospel, and

he will do it. If you want Jesus, if you want him, ask him to reveal himself to you, and he will do it. And if you want him this morning, if you want to see Jesus, if you want to hear Jesus this morning, then you can do that right where you are. Ask him to forgive you of your sins. Embrace him as Lord and Savior. Turn from your hard heart. Turn from your indifference. Turn from your posture of irrelevance. Yes, there is a cost to following Jesus, but the gain far surpasses the cost. Embrace him by faith this morning, and he can be yours. And let the seed of God’s word find the good soil of your heart by responding to it with receptivity, humility, dependence, and expectation. Let’s pray. Lord, this passage, that we must be humbled, everything we see about you, everything we

hear about you, the very fact that we have turned our hearts towards you is owing to the fact that you were a merciful and gracious God to us, that you gave us a heart that would beat for you, that you gave us eyes to see the beauty of you, that you gave us ears to hear the beauty of the gospel. We did nothing to earn it. We did nothing to deserve it. But in your kindness, you loved us, and you met us in our deepest need. I pray, O Lord our God, that our hearts would be good soil before you, soft and fertile, that we would always approach your word in a posture that is humble and dependent, full of expectation and ready to receive so that we can be mastered by your life-giving words, the very words that cause us to grow, the very words that we cling to bring us back to Jesus in this

life and in our future life. We pray these things in Christ. Amen. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.trinityportland.com.