Jesus describes four kinds of soil in his parable to His disciples. How can we be the good soil? Pastor Jon Swerens speaks on how to listen and apply the Word to ourselves when it is preached to us.
Listen above or download the audio file here.
Transcript:
And when a great crowd was gathering, and people from the town after town came to him, he said a parable.
“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil, and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others, they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.
“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing, fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with repentance.”
Luke 8:4–15
Saints, welcome to Sunday number one of 13 during Pastor Nate’s sabbatical through to October. So during his time off, Jason and I are thinking, what would be beneficial to the congregation? What can we do to be a better, more faithful church body by the time Nate returns?
What I thought of is this: how can we be better listeners to the preached word? How can we better prepare, receive, and apply the preached word from this pulpit? I’m not saying we’re bad at it, but let’s figure out how to wring out every ounce of pure water from each sermon for ourselves, our households, and each other.
A Conspiracy of Silence
One of my concerns for you is found in Jeremiah 11. In Jeremiah 11, verses 9 and 10, Jeremiah says, “Again, the Lord said to me, ‘A conspiracy exists among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem’”. “They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers.” What was that iniquity? “Who refused to hear my words”.
That’s an interesting word, “conspiracy,” because nowadays we think of conspiracy theories that are fun to talk about. We have to see them for what they are, which is pretty useless. They’re entertainment because there’s nothing you can do about them.
But this verse tells us there is a kind of conspiracy we need to watch for. A conspiracy that can grow here, because it certainly is possible. The Lord was talking to the people of God in Jeremiah’s time. And you can say, “It could never happen here,” but it certainly can.
How did a conspiracy rise up in the men of Judah? They decided not to apply the word of God to certain areas of their lives. Externally, they looked like they still believed, but there were things that they were blocking the word of God from addressing.
How would that work here? It’s very simple. It becomes a sin that you just don’t want to deal with. If a husband sees his wife is dipping into gossip, he doesn’t want to deal with it. Then if you see it someplace else, you don’t want it to be mentioned because then you have to do something. Then suddenly, we discover we all have a conspiracy of silence. We all silently agree on it. And then that’s a topic that’s not addressed.
This could be other things besides gossip. We need to make sure that we do not shrink back from when the word addresses certain sins in our midst.
The Four Soils of the Heart
Thankfully, Jesus gives us a parable. He talks about the kinds of soil that he sees in the world of men. The sower went out to sow his seed. Some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on the rock, and it withered away because it had no moisture. Some fell among thorns and were choked. And some fell into good soil and yielded a hundredfold.
Does that mean whatever soil you have, you’re stuck with it? Are there four kinds of people in the world? No, this is a warning for us all. Because do you ever have a time when you have cares in the world that are kind of choking out your faith? Yes. Are there times that you feel like you have a time of testing, and your faith is hard to find? That is true. So let’s look at these four soils.
The first soil is on the path. Jesus says that those along the path are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. This is dreadful. This can happen if you come into the service with no intention of hearing the word. You’re going to come in, sit there, and let it bounce off of you.
How could that even happen to you? What if you’re angry at the preacher? You have to find a way to kill that anger, or you will become this soil that just lets the seed of the word of God bounce off of it and to no use. That’s Satan taking it away from you. The solution is to resist him. Forgive the sin, talk to them about it at another time, but take care of these little irritations.
The second soil is the rocky soil. Jesus says the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But they have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing, fall away. That’s tough. It’s the time when you most need the word, but the testing makes it hard to go to the word.
Peter, one of those disciples, later in 1 Peter, gives us a wonderful example of how to deal with that. He says to “resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of sufferings are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world”. The God of all grace will “restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you”. So the solution, when you’re going through hard times, is to stay firm in your faith. Do not let your soil become rocky.
The third soil is thorns. As Jesus explains, those who fall among the thorns “are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature”. The Apostle Paul says in Philippians 4, “do not be anxious about anything”. “But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”. How do you dig up the thorns that threaten to grow in your soil? Through prayer and supplication.
And then, of course, we have the fourth soil, which we should all attain to. They are those who, hearing the word, “hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”
The Preeminence of the Preached Word
I am preaching a sermon to you. We know from the Scriptures and our Westminster Confessions that the sermon must be from the Word. It must be applied to the hearts of the people listening. It needs to be done wisely, “applying themselves to the necessity and capacities of the hearers.”
The Word is central to our faith and our confession. The Reformers said there are three marks of a faithful church: the faithful proclaiming of the Word of God, the faithful handling of the sacraments, and faithful church discipline. Which one has to be first? It’s the Word of God. The sacraments and church discipline cannot stand on their own without the Word.
This is the most important talk of your week. The Westminster Larger Catechism, in question 160, asks, “what is required of those that hear the Word preached?” It is required that you “attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer.” We are to receive the truth “with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind as the Word of God.” We are to “meditate and confer of it” and “hide it in their hearts and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.”
I can see that there are three categories we can put all these commandments in: We need to prepare beforehand, receive during, and practice afterward.
Preparing to Receive the Word
So, let’s start with preparing for the sermon. We need to prepare ourselves and our family with prayer. Pray for conversions and edification. Pray for your preacher. Even the Apostle Paul was not above asking for prayer from his people.
Another thing is to come here prepared with a hearty appetite. Peter says to “long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow into salvation.” A good appetite means you’re coming with a teachable heart. One way to prepare is to look up the scripture references beforehand. Another is to build up your appetite by going to bed on time on Saturday. These are goals to work toward.
We must also remember that you are entering a battleground. Think of all the distractions you have, internal and external. Satan opposes you hearing the word. So, prepare, realize that you’re coming into a place where Satan does not want you to hear the word preached.
Receiving the Word
There are ways that we need to listen. We need to listen with a tender conscience, knowing that at any moment God is going to say something to us that’s going to prick our conscience. We are not spectators; you are participants. This is not a show. You are participating by having the Word implanted in your hearts from this pulpit.
Don’t expect to be spoon-fed. Part of the wonderfulness of the Word of God is that sometimes you get to go, “I don’t know what this means.” And you have to labor in your brain to make sense of it. That’s good work. We need to think, “How does God want me to be different on account of this sermon?”
We need to listen with attentive, submissive faith and humility. We need to come here thinking, “God might really get me good.” He’s going to poke his finger right there and say, “What about this, Jon?” And you have to deal with it.
Practicing the Word
After the sermon is over, we need to strive to retain and pray over what you’ve heard. The writer of Hebrews says, “we must pay much closer attention to what we’ve heard, lest we drift away from it.” How do we do that? Some of you take notes. I encourage you to take notes so you can refer back to them.
We all need to train our attention spans. The world does its best to get you to have a short attention span. The world thinks what we’re doing right here is foolish. So we need to do work to make sure we can pay attention.
One more thing is that you need to familiarize yourself with the teachings. Talk with your family about it. Make applications. If you’re single, talk to your brothers and sisters here. Don’t let the fellowship make the sermon just float away from your brain.
Finally, we are to put the sermon into action. James wonderfully gives us a promise here. He says, “be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves”. “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.”
But the one who “looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts…he will be blessed in his doing.” The Lord wants you to get something out of each sermon. He wants you to apply this to your life. He wants you to get rid of the thorns of the cares of the world and dig out the rocks that can happen when you’re confronted with difficulties.
Let’s not be hearers only, but let’s be doers of the word. So that way we can, as Jesus says, be like the good soil, “hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience.”
Amen.
Our Father, you really do care about your word. Please help us who are trained by the world to not be able to listen well. Please help us to listen better, to prepare better, and to apply better. Please give us good soil. Please implant the word of God into our hearts so we can grow in faithfulness and love you even more. We thank you so very much for all you do for us. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, amen.
Word and sacrament
Saints, what does Jesus do for us? He feeds us through his word, which gives us life. He feeds us through his own flesh and blood. Jesus speaks to us through his word and through these elements. The central part of this service is when God talks to you. You sit and receive. We need to be good receivers of God’s grace. Listen better because it’s God being gracious to you.
This supper is for those who have repented of their sins and have professed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, have been baptized, and are members here at Trinity or in good standing of another evangelical church. If you are here and you are Christ’s, then I say come.
Look what God has done for us. Here we are in a church; we can hear his word. We can have communion without fear. What a gift that he has given us. Let us always remember to be thankful for the grace that God has shown this congregation. Let us do what we can to hold fast to what he’s given us and not take any of this for granted.
Now hear the benediction from Hebrews 13 verses 20 and 21. “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.” Amen.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash