GOOD SOIL → GOOD FRUIT

Photo by Ralph Felzer

GOOD SOIL → GOOD FRUIT

You should lay the groundwork for this piece by taking a few moments to read The Parable of the Soils in Mark 4:2-20.  Go ahead, I'll wait!

Ah, welcome back!

I love pictures like the one above because they speak of possibility and hope.  We are at the front end of something big and unknown, a season of plowing and sowing and harvesting complete with all sorts of weather.  But the promise of growth and fruit is right there in front of us.  This scene reminds me, too, of the story you just read, The Parable of the Sower (although I prefer to call it The Parable of the Soils).  

Most people talking about this parable will focus on the enemy who steals the seed, the trouble and persecution that starve it, the cares of the world and other worries that choke it off.  But I want to take a different tack today.  I want to look more closely at the soil into which the seed is planted.  In all those examples I mentioned a moment ago, there is nothing at all wrong with the seed, the difference lies in the soil in which the seed is planted.

This land in the picture above is WAITING for a plow, it's READY to be sown.  In order for it to become what it one day needs to become, it first needs a plow.  What I want to focus on this morning is:  Are YOU ready to be plowed up and sown?  And how do we go about GETTING ready in the first place?

In order to answer these questions, let's back up and go to three other passages that may be helpful.  Then we'll come back to the Parable of the Soils.

At the end of Psalm 95, David says that we are "people whose hearts go astray" (v. 10).  While this may sound discouraging, this is a crucial point for us!  Once we acknowledge this, our way forward is wide open, but if we deny it, we won't be able to go anywhere spiritually.  

David begins by crying out, "O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the God of our salvation!  Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving!  Give glory to Him, praise His name!"  And then he says, "O that today you would listen to His voice!" rather than being stubborn like your ancestors before you.  THEY cried out to Moses, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt to this desolate wilderness?!"  In other words, why did you break up our old familiar life, our old familiar SOIL?"  (See the connection to our parable in Mark 4?)  Having the "soil of your heart" dug up can be pretty uncomfortable!  But the Israelites had come out of slavery, for goodness sake!  We are a people who crave the familiar, who shun the strange and the unusual, so when God shows up to till up the soil of our hearts, if we're honest with ourselves, we often find ourselves reluctant, afraid, resistant.  

David is saying that we have a chance to break the cycle of rebellion and brokenness that our forefathers established.  And the key to breaking that cycle is two-fold:  PRAISE & THANKSGIVING on the one hand, and LISTENING TO THE VOICE OF GOD on the other.  When we practice these habits, the soil of our hearts gets a little readier, a little softer, a little more receptive to the seed God wants to plant in us.

The next passage I want to look at is Romans 5:1-8, 10:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us…. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 

When we substitute a listening heart for the stubbornness of our forefathers, we learn that our hearts have gone astray, that we are broken people living in a broken world.  We don't have the luxury of starting from scratch–every single one of us was born into a world that was already broken and filled with suffering.  Paul now suggests that we relinquish our sufferings, hand them over, in fact, he says we should BOAST over them because they produce ENDURANCE in us, and in turn that endurance produces CHARACTER, and that character proceeds to produce HOPE.  And Hope does not disappoint, it won't let us down, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit–poured onto our hearts like RAIN ON A NEWLY PLOWED, A NEWLY SOWN FIELD.  (Do you see?  Here's the parable once again!)

Paul reminds us, just as David said, that we are sinners prone to wander, God's enemies, not the slightest bit less stubborn than our forefathers in the wilderness were with Moses.

What's more, Paul says that WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, Christ died for us!  He didn't wait for us to get it right or clean up our act, He didn't even wait for us to be sorry, or to repent!  What an AMAZING God!  This is the kind of love we have never seen or experienced from anyone else and so it is easy to think it's just pie-in-the-sky, too good to be true.  In fact, it's a gift most of us would shrink from not only because it seems too good to be true, but precisely because we agree with Him!  We DON'T deserve love like this!  It makes us uncomfortable to be loved like this; it confers a kind of obligation on us.  For example, many years ago, I got myself into trouble and bought a house I couldn't pay for.  I needed a co-signer before anyone would give me a loan.  My parents wanted to help out, but they didn't have the money.  Well, a friend of mine stepped up and volunteered to sign on the dotted line.  I can't tell you how grateful I was!  I literally couldn't express the depth of my gratitude.  All the same, something more than words was called for, something else, something more–what I call "the etiquette of grace."  A life of gratitude, not just words.  A grateful heart, a readiness, an openness, and a willingness to dedicate myself to a life that says loudly and clearly, "Thank You."  

We don't like owing people.  Even if all that's called for is gratitude, we get squirrely in the face of any debt we cannot repay.  And Jesus has done this incredible, miraculous, unwanted, unasked for thing in dying for us–before it ever even occurred to us to ask for it–or even recognize that we needed it!  But we have to ask the question:  How am I supposed to respond to love like this?  Once my eyes have been opened to the price He paid to settle my debt, how am I to live a life of sufficient gratitude?

The last passage to help us in our discussion this morning is the familiar story of the woman at the well in John 4.  Now, I don't want to look at the whole passage, but just one small part of it.  Jesus makes a promise to this woman:  "Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water'" (Jn. 4:13-15).  

Notice what Jesus does with the woman–He breaks her heart, just like the soil of the field is plowed up, in order to sow the seed of hope and life.  He reveals that He knows the hard facts of her life (that she's been married five times and is now living with a man she isn't married to), and she is broken ("Come, see a man who told me everything I have ever done!").  Being truly seen and known has broken her heart, but has also given her life, has watered her heart with living water!  She runs to tell all the people in the village, who come and see and hear Jesus for themselves.  And what's the result?  They say to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."  

What we see here is the fulfillment of the Parable of the Soils–we see right before our eyes people's hearts becoming good, rich, fertile soil (that is, READY soil!), hearts that "hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty, and a hundredfold" (Mk. 4:20).

So in all these passages we have gained light with which to come to grips with the Parable of the Sower.  Looking aside to these other passages has helped us see the parable more clearly, just as we enjoy the hope and brilliance of a sunny spring day without ever looking directly at the sun.

When it comes to having the soil of our hearts broken up, it's helpful to know that Jesus never asks anything of us that He hasn't already taken on Himself.  Psalm 129:3 prophesies:  "The plowers plowed upon my back so that it looked like a freshly plowed field" (Ps. 129:3).  The writer to the Hebrews says that Jesus "learned obedience from the things He suffered" (Heb. 5:8).  In a wonderful paradox, we see that at the very same time, Jesus is both THE PLOWED UPON and THE PLOW.  

Remember John 15?  Jesus is the vine, and He is in the business of making fruit.  He knows the process.  He knows the cost.  He sows, He plants, He prunes, He tends.  Our business is to stay with Him, to abide in Him, to let Him be about His business, to make room for Him to get at us.  

One of the key themes in Lent is "Rend your hearts and not your garments."  Jesus came and died in order that our hearts would be rent, that our hearts would be broken up.  It's all for our good, mind you, but it's not always pleasant.  On the other hand, it's not always pain and suffering either!  I would imagine it's rather unpleasant for the soil to be plowed up in the Spring, but I would also imagine that the soil takes great delight in being sown, in being rained upon, and basking in the warmth of the sun.  There's a whole lot more to revel in than to shrink from!  Praise and thanksgiving and gratitude break up the soil of our hearts and make it fertile, but they're not unpleasant!

The bottom line:  It isn't our job to bear good fruit, it's to be good soil.

If the seed of the word of God is to fall on rich, fertile soil in our own hearts, our hearts are going to need to be characterized by:

Praise and thanksgiving, not as a habit so much as a lifestyle

A listening posture before the Lord, attuned to His voice, willing to follow where He leads

An awareness of our great debt that leads to humility and gratitude–the etiquette of grace

A willingness, even an eagerness, to tell our story, so that the seed of the Word can propagate all around us, just as it did to the woman's townspeople.

"Lord Jesus, give us the grace to SEE the blessings You've showered upon us like rain and then to give abundant praise and thanksgiving for those blessings.  Teach us to be quiet before You, to listen for Your healing voice, Your affirming voice.  Show us Christ crucified, and show us the great debt we owe, that we are no longer our own but have been bought with a price.  And grant us both the opportunity AND the willingness to simply share our story with any who will hear.  In all this, Lord, we pray that You will make us good, rich and  fertile soil in order that we may bear fruit for You and bring great glory to Your holy name.  And in that name, Jesus, we pray.  Amen."

Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.