God’s Purposes Will Be Fulfilled

Helen Almanza
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

July 10, 2011

The Scripture we heard today is a parable that many of us know.  It is the Parable of the Sower or farmer who sows seeds in 4 different kinds of soils. Jesus is the sower and the seeds are the word of God.

The first soil is hard ground, the 2nd is rocky ground, the 3rd is thorny ground and the 4th is fertile soil.

Each of these soils grows the seed as best it can, but they all fail with the exception of the fertile soil. That fertile soil brings in an unimaginable harvest, “a hundred, sixty, thirty times what was sown.” (13:23b)

It is God’s final harvest and clearly it tells us that victory of the Kingdom of God is certain and absolute. Despite our pitiful efforts as described in the hard soil, the rocky soil and the thorny soil, God still brings in the Harvest. The message of this parable is not an exhortation to work hard to bring in the harvest, rather it is a parable of judgment. There will be a Day of Judgment and God’s harvest will be beyond imagination. Matthew tells us that The Son of Man who accompanies his church throughout history and he is the Sower. The harvest is God’s doing not ours and God is faithful.

Although our responses and action as believers do not effect the final coming of the kingdom, the choices that we make are ultimately important to us.

  In other words, our choices determine which side we are on at the final harvest at judgment time.  Can we as believers   assume that we are the “good soil?”  Or is it possible that we might not be?

Not the good soil??? What is it that I am saying? How could I, how could you, not be “the good soil?”

 Perhaps it is best to look at what Jesus tells us about the kind of person each soil represents.

The seed sown along the path cannot get into the soil.  It is too packed and hard. Jesus tells us that when anyone hears the message of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. How is that possible?  How could anyone not understand the message that we are to love the Lour our God and our neighbor as ourselves?  Perhaps understanding means more than just hearing.  Could it be that action is required?

  A well-beaten path is usually a path where many people are going and going somewhere in a hurry. Today, the well-beaten path could easily be the asphalt on which we drive our cars and we know about the hurry there.  People on that path have places to go and people to see.

How hard it is to have time to understand the Word of God when we meet ourselves coming and going.   Seed cannot take root on a busy street with people rushing here and there.  There is not a moment of rest and it will hardly provide soil in which the eternal seed can grow.

I think people on the go may be the most in danger.  It is not that they are going to places they shouldn’t go.  They are just going.  Anyone here have 3 children or grandchildren who are each in a sport and whose games are all at the same time in different places?   If you are, you know what I mean – you are a person on the go!

Is anyone here a working Mother/Father who has to get dinner on the table, listen to the day’s activities, get tomorrow’s lunches and clothes prepared and everyone in bed on time?  You are on the go. 

Does your job take up your weekends as well as the week?  Are you a volunteer who has responsibilities related to a good cause, but it leaves you with little time for yourself or for God?

When do we talk to God?  When do we listen to what God has to say?   When do we read the Bible?    Can we really be receptive “soil” if we are unable to hear God’s Word for at least 15 minutes a day?  If not, we are in great danger of our hearts becoming like asphalt and the Word of God will fail to take root.

Each of us has many thoughts and desires that seek to dominate our hearts, our desire for recognition and prestige, sex, the urge for power.  I dare say that many of us we spend more time thinking about these things on a daily basis than thinking about God.

We pray, but as we pray do we have other things running through our mind?  Perhaps we think of the meeting that is coming up, the emails we need to send or the plans for the family reunion.  When we pray like this it is like summoning the birds to come and get the seed.

The Word of God is demanding.  It demands

•       stretch of time in our day in which it is our only companion

•       Can’t look at “text for the day” and swallow it as we have our hand on the doorknob.

•       God doesn’t want a twitter, text or e mail

•       God wants us to ponder the Word of God in our hearts

•       Takes time to contemplate the Word, to think about it and apply it to our daily lives. 

•       Only then can it become part of us.    

Contemplate? We might say we don’t have time for contemplation! Yet we do contemplate all the time, don’t we?

•       the stock market,  our bonds

•       sex – you probably the studies on sex and how often we think of it

•       where we will get the money for whatever project we have going

We worry

•       have dreadful pictures in our mind about what is going to happen to our loved one, the world,  our job.

In the crush of the clutter in our brains each day, would we even hear if God speaks to us?

All of us here are believers but does God’s Word go unheeded as we use our cell phone and computer to call others, twitter and text?  How much time do we spend using technology compared to spending with God?

We must be aware of the thoughts and forces that pull at our mind and hearts. When the word of God or the seed of God is being scattered we must be aware of those birds.  Martin Luther is thought to have said, “We can’t stop the birds from flying over our heads, but we must take heed lest they build their nests in our hair.”

The second kind of soil Jesus describes is sparse and is among the rocks.    It only has a thin layer of soil in which the Word can germinate.  Jesus tells us these are the people who have received the Word and they are enthusiastic at first.  The Word has touched them or some might say they have been converted.  Perhaps they have been inspired by a sermon.  But for the Word of God to take root it must be able to go deeply into a man’s soul.

When the interest is not in Christ but in a particular preacher or in the thrill of the music, this is not of Christ himself who compels us

•       to change our lives and

•       to repent

The seed withers and dies when our relationships with our neighbors, our colleagues, our families, and our lives are not changed. When everything remains as it was, when the Word of God does not make any difference in our lives, perhaps it might be much better if we had not heard it. 

When Christianity only brushes us, there is no depth, no root.  The person who lets Jesus only halfway into his heart is far poorer than someone who has never heard the word.  They do not receive the peace that passes all understanding.  The soil must be worked  and fertilized.  There are many competing interests and if the root is shallow, It will not flourish.

The third soil has many thorns in it. The seeds are choked out.   The pleasures of life can choke out the seed among the thorns.  It can also be choked out by the cares of life.  Something besides the Word of God springs up.  Our sins, dependencies, and secrets can keep us from finding peace. We are unable to surrender completely to God.  These are the thorns that prevent the seed from producing fruit.

Some say that each of us has a price for which we are willing to sell our salvation and ourselves.  Some say that we have a hidden axis around which our lives revolve.  Where is this axis in our lives?  What is the awful price for my heart?

At the Men’s Wednesday AM meeting I heard a story that was hard to believe. Later, one of the men brought me the Sports Illustrated article in which it had appeared.

A very famous college football coach who is well known to most fans for his expertise in winning games as well as for his devotion to Christ. He is currently under investigation by the NCAA.

Part of the article is an interview with someone who knows the coach really well.  He says that the Coach starts each day with a Bible study whether it is regular season or at the summer camps for students hoping to play football one day. The students are usually children without much money who have had to mow lawns and otherwise scrape up the money to attend

  Every afternoon, the Coach would hold a drawing for some kind of athletic equipment. The students thought the drawing was on the up and up.  It wasn’t. It was fixed. Coach always made sure that only the really good players who might one day think of coming to his university would win.  He cheated and he cheated poor youngsters.

 The Word of God in the AM and cheating in the afternoon.

What is the soil that the Word grew in for him? Is it the soil among the rocks where it is shallow or is it the soil among the thorns where the Word has been choked out ?  Has he sold himself and his salvation for the price of winning in the future with players who will remember the gifts they received?  Is winning his axis?  Is this the awful price for his heart?

The fourth soil is the good soil.  It is this soil in which people who hear and hold fast to the Word.  Hearing and holding fast is the test.  They take the Word seriously.  Jesus breaks the chains that bind them. They see their neighbor as the brother of the Savior.  They help others and place their cares in the hands of the Lord.  They believe the Word and are committed to the poor.

These are the four soils.  Which soil are you?  Which soil am I?

Is it possible that each individual has some of all 4 kinds of soil within themselves? I think maybe so.    At certain times in our lives, we are hard soil, rocky soil, thorny soil and fertile soil all in one.  How can I move to be fertile soil at least most of the time?  

The question to ask is to what birds, thorns and superficiality am I exposing the Word of God in my life?  What are the threatening forces in my life?

Jesus tells us      

•       weed out the thorns!

•       see that the seed doesn’t fall on the path

•       guard against being so shallow so that the Word can’t take root

•       Be the good soil that

•       Holds onto the word in stillness

•       Gets rid of hardness and callowness

•       Doesn’t squeeze God into the few cracks and crevices of our daily lives but give God a space of daily quiet

•       Has us examine ourselves so that we repent of our sins and give maximum effort not to repeat them

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. God cannot be had cheaply.  We come to God only when we allow ourselves to be mobilized and we march to do His Word. It is not easy and it means saying goodbye to many things, but it is the only way to find God’s peace.  If we do not work and sweat and daily fall in line for service to God is exposing his inner self to ruin

Bonhoeffer tells us that God’s grace is not cheap.  We must pay for it with all we are and all we have.  It is an exciting thing to be a Christian.  It always goes the limit.

Remember.  We do not bring in the Harvest.  Only God can do that Our choices determine which side we are on at the final Harvest at judgment day.