The Parable of the Generous Father

The topic I wanna talk on this morning is actually on a topic that I preached on with my first sermon ever, and it was on this passage. I was 19 at the time. I was working as a labourer, a builder's labourer, studying business and IT part time. And I remember having, I don't know if I read this passage first or thought about the theme of it first, but I had a great angle on this particular passage. The title to my sermon was "What type of soil are you?"

You can imagine that that sounds very interesting at all. What type of soil are you? And as I did my sermon prep, I did a lot of research on different types of soil. Rocky soil, volcanic soil, soil that was full of clay, fertile soil, dry sandy soils, you name it, I researched it. And that became sort of the structure of my sermon.

"What type of soil are you?" I asked the congregation. And also, "What type of soil are you working with?" This morning, I wanna say by the grace of God, I think I missed the point on that passage, and we're going to reinvestigate that this morning. I think I got it wrong that day because this highly visual, very profound parable of Jesus that he talked about different types of soil has a far more profound meaning.

In fact, a life altering message than I first thought. It's a story that instead of asking "What type of soil are you?", ask the question, "What type of farmer is involved in this passage?" Let's have a read of that in Matthew 13, verses 1 to 9. Matthew 13, verse 1. The heading of this paragraph is called "The Parable of the Sower."

Matthew 13, verse 1. "That same day, Jesus went out of the house that he was staying in at the time and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach and he told them many things in parables saying, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them.

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. Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain. Some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30.

He who has ears, let him hear." We'll jump ahead to verse 18 where Jesus gives an explanation of this parable. Verse 18: "Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.

He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another 60, and in another 30." So far our reading. It's a story of a farmer, some seed, and a very interesting farming technique. What is going on in this parable? We ask.

Now remember, a parable is a story with a meaning. That's what a parable is. It has a deeper meaning, a spiritual story tied to a physical image. Jesus often did his teaching through very tangible earthly stories like this that have a heavenly message attached to them, something that reflects eternal importance. Oftentimes when Jesus began his parables, he would begin in this way.

He would say, "The kingdom of God is like." How many times have you read that in the gospels? "The kingdom of heaven" or "the kingdom of God is like." Now oftentimes, the intangible realm of God, Jesus would say, is like a tree. Is like a man who finds a treasure, is like yeast in bread, and so on.

And today, the spiritual topic Jesus is talking about is how people enter this kingdom. How people enter this kingdom of God. Now he taught a lot about God's kingdom. Now he is teaching his listeners how you get into the kingdom in the first place. And Jesus, thankfully, not only tells the parable, but he also gives an explanation.

Sometimes in some of his parables, he doesn't. But this time, he does. He says that it's all about understanding and then believing who God is that matters when entering His kingdom. Understanding who God is before you can enter His kingdom. And the parable shows that some will get it, some will understand it, and there will be others that don't.

Now I mentioned that my first thoughts about this passage was concentrated on all the different types of soil, making sure that you have fertile soil. Good, rich, red soil that we find out towards Toowoomba, driving out that way. Beautiful, rich, fertile soil. And that the message of Christianity has to reach your ears and that once you have prepared your soil, you would gladly accept the gospel and that it would transform your life. But that was actually slightly missing the point.

The parable is not so much concerned about what type of soil you are, although I think you will naturally do some reflection on that as you read it, about what is the state of my heart. It's far less concerned about how you understand and far more concerned that you understand what the kingdom of God is. Author and pastor Joshua Ryan Butler in his book, and it's a great book. I recommend it. It's called "The Pursuing God."

He's a very sort of artistic. He's sort of a millennial like myself, an American guy. And he writes a really great book called "The Pursuing God," and he points out about this passage, the deeper underlying tone of grace actually found here. He says that the people listening to Jesus telling this story, instead of getting caught up in the different types of soils like I did, probably would have reflected on the farmer as well, the sower, when they heard this story. In particular, his farming technique.

We have a few novice gardeners here. We even have one or two farmers in our church. And I wonder, as we read this story, you know, that John Kampus is here that does his own little veggie patch at the back, I wonder if John thought about what sort of farmer in his right mind wastes precious seed by throwing it on the road, on rocky soil, or amongst thorns. What sort of farmer in his right mind does something like that? The audience Jesus was speaking to, and we know, would have been much closer to the soil than we are, sort of on the Gold Coast today.

Butler makes the case that Jesus' audience would have been thinking, "What sort of farmer plants a veggie patch that way?" Now the parable, although it mentions it, is not simply focused on the different types of soils. There is a spotlight on the farmer as well. Now like I say here, who is the farmer? Well, we see that later in this chapter in verses 24 through to 30, there's a parable of the weeds that Jesus sort of tells backing onto this passage.

And in that, Jesus says that the farmer there is the Son of Man. The Son of Man. Now when Jesus uses that title, he always refers to Himself. He is the Son of Man. So who is the farmer in our parable here?

Probably, with 95% sort of assurance, it's Jesus that's doing the sowing. And this parable is saying something not simply about the soils, but about Him as well. Why is Jesus seemingly so extravagantly wasteful with this seed that he cares about, that he wants to grow and bear fruit? Why is Jesus so wasteful? The answer is not because He's a bad farmer, but because He's incredibly generous.

He's a generous sower. What this parable is showing is how Jesus sees His mission. When we see Jesus pouring out the seed, it's an image of Him pouring out the gospel message. It's about Him going extravagantly more than we would expect Him to go in terms of getting the message out. Talking about His life, talking about His mission and His death.

And so He sows it far and wide, we see in this passage. Jesus is giving to all who will receive, even to those who don't. What we see is not simply a technique, but the character behind the one who is sowing. And He is shown to be absolutely generous, absolutely lavish, over the top. He is gracious.

He is liberal with His invitation. Come. Listen. Hear. Receive.

Accept these words that bring life and healing. Jesus showers His good news message all over the place, even upon the rockiest soil that don't deserve it, that probably won't respond to it. He casts the net wide. He plants that treasure in shallow soil so that it may be found. He comes to the door of people's hearts and He knocks.

And so the four soils do not so much represent the state that we need for our hearts to be ready, or that we, sorry, rather, or work on, should I say. The soil types are not postures for performing. They are postures for receiving. The gospel message that the farmer sows proclaims that the Lord Jesus is generous, and the crux of parable is not how to make God happy, but rather how we enter the happiness of God. Postures of receiving.

A God showing His happiness in the face of Christ. And so when we start asking questions like, "What kind of soil are you?" That question I asked many years ago now. It can lead to some kind of self defeating moralism like, "Boy, I really just need to work on being more fertile in my life. Have I prayed and have I prepared my heart enough?

Have I pleased God enough?" We start agonising about whether our soil is tilled well enough so that by chance, that one seed that gets thrown our way by God may fall in fertile soil, and we can respond to that. But Jesus says, "No." He is the generous sower. He doesn't economically, efficiently throw a single seed our way so that perhaps on a bad day when we weren't ready, we didn't get that seed.

It fell on the rocky part of our hearts and we missed the chance. No. The farmer is scandalously, almost embarrassingly lavish, pouring out huge amounts of the good news everywhere. So the parable we find is a parable of the character of the sower first. But then what about the different types of soil?

What about them? They do play a part in the story. The parable is not meant to make you ask "What kind of soil are you," but rather explains what type of soils exist in the world. You see, the truth is, even this morning, if you are made uncomfortable by Jesus' parable, if you are troubled by the implications of what this may mean for your heart, if you go away this morning thinking, "Am I open to the gospel? Am I open for Jesus Christ to come into my heart to take root and to be fruitful?"

If you find yourself wrestling and praying about these things, chances are you're already a receptive soil. Even non-Christians, if they find themselves here this morning, and if they sense their guilt, and I know I've witnessed friends coming to faith, they sense their guilt before they even know what they're guilty of. They sense they their need of a Saviour to rescue them. They know that there is more to life than this. These are all indications of a soil that is prepared.

Right after Jesus tells this parable, the disciples ask him, "What? Why do you speak in parables?" Jesus, why do you tell these? Why not just give a good three point sermon and then say amen? Jesus says, "Because God's people will understand these parables. God's people will understand what I mean, and then others won't."

Jesus says it in this way in verse 14: "Some will be ever hearing but never understanding. But blessed are your eyes, Jesus says, because they have seen, and blessed are your ears because they have heard." And then he explains the parable to them. Now why does Jesus have to explain the parable if he assumes, or if we understand that his followers would have understood it, should have understood it?

Well, the answer is simple. They didn't. Even the disciples then didn't understand the parable. In fact, many times in the New Testament, the disciples are shown to misunderstand completely the parables of Jesus. Is Jesus then saying that the disciples had hearts of rocky soil, of soil that's sown across the path?

No. Jesus is indicating that the disciples are part of the group who will understand. But this is the clincher: not that the disciples understood everything and therefore are saved. It's that the disciples go to Jesus to ask for understanding. They didn't understand everything.

They understood where to go to find understanding. That's an early initial indicator of prepared soil. The indicator of the state of their hearts was that they knew that they did not understand, but they want to go to the source of understanding, Jesus Himself. And we'll read and reflect on the parables of Jesus over the course of our lives. We'll come back to this parable probably in our lifetime again, and there will probably be things we learn again as we mature in our faith.

The things that make all the difference, however, is how we read them. How we read them. How we receive them. Do we read and reflect on these words sown into our lives to bear God's glory? That is the question.

So the application for this parable isn't "What type of soil am I?" or "How do I become more fertile soil?" The question is, "Do I have ears to hear? Do I have eyes that will see? Am I willing to go to be embraced by the generous Saviour who pursues me?" So the different soils don't indicate anything that you can prepare yourself.

Remember, Jesus was speaking here with Pharisees, tax collectors, prostitutes, teachers of the law there, the whole bag, the whole mix. Some of them would receive it. Some of them wouldn't, even after hearing this message. Now as you sit here this morning, friends, it is not four states that you can work on yourself, but four responses to the good news and how the good news will elicit those responses in your life. Here are the four responses, more in-depth.

And we won't spend too much time. We'll just go over them quickly. Soil along the path. The soil that falls on the road. The seeds that fall but don't penetrate the soil are like those hearts who are calloused against God.

Jesus says that they are hearts infatuated with other gods. They may not consider themselves spiritual at all, but they still have idols. They have idols of what people think. They have idols of what they want to pursue, what they think the meaning of life is. They are absorbed by everything in existence apart from God Himself.

This is the individual that never, not once, lets the kingdom of God and the gospel message invade their soul. The seed simply sits on top of the bitumen, stone cold, dead, and dormant. Jesus says, "Satan then quickly, quickly comes down, swoops up, and removes that message like birds sucking up seeds on the path." This is a terrifying indication of reality. It's a vision of the unregenerate heart, the heart that cannot and is not born again.

The heart that does not know God. Then there is the rocky soil, and these sort of are gradients. You can see they sort of move towards the good soil, right? The rocky soil.

The generous farmer is sowing seed that falls on rocky ground representing people who seemingly are glad to receive God, but then fall away quickly. Jesus says these are people that get excited. They declare how good God is, but only for a while. The life altering grace of God does not sink in. It doesn't take root in their soul.

And Jesus says in verse 21, "Since it has no root, he, this person, lasts only a short time." And this is the reason. "When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away." This is exactly how you know individuals never understood the gospel. Even if they seemingly took it up very, very gladly, they never understood the gospel because if they knew what the word meant, they would not give it up even when trial and persecution comes along.

The gospel is so amazing, so earth shatteringly revolutionary that if you understand it, no amount of trouble, no amount of persecution can take it away. The rocky soil indicates a heart that doesn't quite understand. Then the third soil is the thorny ground. This seed falls among thorns and thistles, and it is like someone who sticks around, who understands it, but there's no lasting, no huge transformation that takes place. This image seems to have a longer time frame.

They seem to last longer. It might be someone who goes to church, who attends Bible study, who identifies publicly with being part of the people of God. This type of seed sinks deeper beneath the surface than the seeds of the other two, but ultimately Jesus tells us in verse 22, "The worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. That's interesting. The deceitfulness of wealth, choke it and make it unfruitful.

Unfruitful." Now here we find a heart, I think, that understands, that genuinely understands and gladly receives the gospel, but their fruitfulness is limited and fragile. There's creeping doubt in their life. There is bitterness and anger. There is selfishness and greed, and these things choke the seed.

The heart still has so many hang ups, so many concerns. There are still big idols in their lives even though they've understood and accepted the gospel, perhaps. That's why I think this person is probably a Christian. This person has probably understood the life altering gospel, but the word of life sown by Christ, by its very nature, should increase our fruitfulness. It should explode with life, this seed.

But they still struggle with whatever, with sin. They still struggle to find joy in God, still struggle to find release and life. And so for some of us this morning, if you think you are here, I can't give you a three step process how to get out of it, but I can say pray for transformation. Pray for the one who can change your heart. Keep going to Christ like the disciples did.

Go to the source of this life again and again, and the promise is you can find fulfilment. You can find transformation. That's the soil with thorns and thistles. Then the last one, the good soil. This is someone who receives the kingdom and is transformed.

Jesus says that this soil gives rise to a good crop, he calls it. A crop that yields a hundredfold what was sown or 60 or 30 times what was sown. When this heart has been tilled by the work of God Himself, when this soil receives the gospel, then the empty hands of a posture that simply receives receives an overflowing amount. It overflows what is given to them, and they cannot then, when they mature, help but be generous in return. They can't help but love, these Christians.

They can't help but serve. They can't help but share this seed with others, this good word that they have received. When the enormity of God's grace shown in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, His blood shed for me, my forgiveness paid for in blood. When that is truly known in the heart, truly known in the heart, it cannot help but bear fruit. It cannot help but abound in grace to others.

The newborn heart cannot help it. God's generosity makes Christians generous people in all sorts of ways because they will yield a hundred. They will yield 60. They will yield 30 times what was sown to them. At the end of the day, it's actually a really hard sermon to give really good application for.

I was wondering about that this week. How do you give an application on this? Because this is not "What type of soils should you be?" This is a state of play statement. It's not the game plan.

This is how you should be. This is how it is. Some will receive this gospel, others won't. But one thing I can do this morning, one thing we can all do is to look at the sower. To look at the sower, Jesus Christ, who again and again, like He does this morning, goes out in to the field and sprinkles and sows and waits.

Our Saviour is so unflappable, so determined, so patient. The Bible says He is not wanting anyone to perish but come to eternal life. So friends, all I can say with these words going out is to come to Him. Even if your soil is questionable, even if you are beset by thorns and thistles, let Him make out of your heart the soil that will bear much fruit. Particularly today, particularly today, as we talk about our church and we'll meet after this service to talk about our next twelve months, what this church is going to be doing, what we're wanting to invest in.

When we think about these things, we have to remember we have a generous Saviour who has given us eternal life and has now given His disciples, us, this mission to take this message out there. It does change how we live. It does change what we invest in. It does change our hearts. I'm challenged this morning by the generosity of my Saviour.

And if He's been so gracious to me, what is stopping me from being generous to others? Especially when it comes to investing in the same mission that this great sower has been working in for so many years. As we wrap up, if you feel the hot warmth of the Holy Spirit bringing conviction, bringing challenge, pricking your conscience, laying open things, even your wounds, then thank God for that. Thank God for that because it is a soil that He is preparing. And there have been seeds sprinkled that now have work to do.

May that seed bear fruit in us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning that we may come and receive your lavishness, your abundant grace, seeds of life sprinkled over us again. Oh God, how our hearts need this. And Father, we know the fickleness of our hearts.

We know the fickleness of our life. We know the inconsistency and the hypocrisy of our minds, our souls, our hearts. But we know, Lord, that You are busy. We know, God, that You will not give up. We know, God, that there is work that You are doing in our lives.

Father, I thank you firstly for those who have received this message. Not simply today, maybe even decades ago. Thank you, Lord, for saving them. Thank you, Lord, for birthing in them, bearing in them eternal life. We thank you for the blood of Jesus that washes us clean as snow.

The saving grace that like rain pours out over our lives, quenching our thirst, but also producing fruit in us. And then, Father, for those this morning that may have never understood this message, who have never truly regarded You, Father, may they find their hearts prepared this morning, prepared to receive You, prepared to accept You at Your word for the first time. And, Father, let those roots grow deep. And then Father, for Your church, for Your people that are called to this mission, mission, that are called to bear fruit, fruit that will last, fruit that will multiply a hundredfold what we have received. Father, give us the strength.

Give us the passion. Give us the sense of urgency for a world lost. For neighbours with hearts seemingly as cold as bitumen, as impenetrable as concrete with Your word, with the gospel bouncing off them. Father, help us to have Your patience. Help us to take this grand vision of Your heart, Your character, and to use it as encouragement for our own lives.

Lives, for our workplaces, for our schools, for our universities. But then also, Lord, we pray for this church who stand together in this mission, who at times have people that are on fire and others that are supporting, and at other times, those roles are reversed, Father. I pray for this church. I pray that at times, we may be the one, we may be the church that brings this gospel to Nerang, to Gavin, to Southport, to Coomera, to Pacific Pines. Oh, can we be that church?

Use us, Lord. Prepare us for that harvest. Father, we thank you for Your word to us. We take it as nourishment, nutrients for our week, for our life here on out. Give us the strength, Jesus, through Your Spirit. Amen.