If you don't have a Bible, you can find a text in your order of worship, and I'm just going to read the first nine verses, let's say. So I said, you hear the word of God. And he began to teach beside the sea, and the very large crowd gathered about him, and children can go to primary church, I forgot to say, excuse me, and I was saying, 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. He was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, listen. A sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on 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, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Another seed fell into good soil, and produced grain, growing up, and increasing, and yielding thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. And he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let's pray. Father, I pray this morning that You would come, and make the gospel clear to us, I pray that You would open the eyes of the blind, and the ears of the death, I pray that You be in my head, and in my thinking, in my heart, and in my understanding, and in my mouth, and in my speaking. And Christ's name, we pray these things, amen, and amen. Well, if you've been around for the past month or so, that right after Christmas, we picked up again in the book of Mark, starting at Mark III, VII, and we've been, basically, we're looking at the life of Jesus, and what's interesting about Mark, and I've told you this before, Mark is sort of what I like called the patron saint of those of us with ADHD, and he tends to pivot rather quickly from one thing to another. You hear the word immediately over and over in the book of Mark. And this week, we see something in the book of Mark that's another drastic pivot, and it's a pivot that you see in all three of the Gospels, the synoptic Gospels, at least Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and that pivot is just this, that Jesus, that all of a sudden it would appear, begins teaching imperables, and not only is he teaching imperables, but from this point on, he only teaches imperables. So something has caused Jesus to switch gears, and to not only teach imperables, but to only ever teach imperables all the way until he gets to the cross, and what is that? You see, this week, as I was studying for this text, it took me a long time, because those of you who know me well know that I'm big on asking questions, right? I think most conflict in church could be resolved if people would just ask questions instead of making statements. And I believe that when I study, too, I've shown many of the students here. I ask when I study a text, I go down, I probably ask 20 or 30 questions of a text, and sometimes the answers come to me, and sometimes they don't, and this week, as I was studying this text, I felt like Will Smith in the movie I Robot. If you've seen the movie I Robot Remember Will Smith is a detective, and he's trying to solve the murder of a scientist, and that scientist has left a holographic image of himself that Will Smith can ask questions of, so how come and say did this person do it? And the professor, the doctor will say you're asking the wrong question, and he's a hologram, so he can't interact. He either tells you that's the right question, or he says that's the wrong question, and the whole movie, Will Smith is asking the wrong question, and eventually he asked the right question, and that's crime assault. I was studying this, I thought the question that this text was answering all week long until yesterday afternoon, was why is it that some people respond to Jesus positively, and why do some people respond to Jesus negatively? And I kept hearing back, you're asking the wrong question. And finally it came to me, the big question that this passage answers, is not, why do some people respond, and why do some people not respond? The big question that this passage answers, is why parables anyhow? That's it. Why parables? The passage of Jesus teaches in parables. Text gives us an answer that on one hand seems to move us in one direction, but it's really the exact opposite direction. We're going to look at two things this morning, we're going to look at the purpose of parables, and then we're going to look at the point of this particular parable. And the first thing you have to do is you have to define what exactly is a parable in the first place. You know in the whole new testament, and even in most of the ancient Near Eastern literature, there's only one person who taught in parables exclusively, that's Jesus, and what is a parable? And I thought in order to help you get inside of what a parable is exactly, that I would actually tell you my own parable, okay, a picture in your mind, if you will, a very gracious, loving, humble, handsome pastor, who had three lovely daughters, and one day that pastor went to take a shower. And just as he turned on the water, another of one of the daughters turned the shower on and the other bathroom across the house. At the same time, one another daughter decided to start a load of laundry, and at the very same moment, another daughter decided to start the dishwasher. Great was his wrath in that day, right? You understand what a parable is now. A parable almost always involves the person telling it. The person telling the parable is actually usually the object of it. And the question you have to ask here, how are they the object of it? You probably figured out when I said handsome and pastor together, it was me. But also every parable has an insider dimension and an outsider dimension. You see the outsiders, if you're not in my family, you hear that parable, and on one hand, you can identify with it, you laugh about it, and you think, oh, you know, that's happened to me, and you laugh. You sort of have some connection, but if you're in my family and you hear that parable, you don't laugh as much maybe, because you know when he says great was his wrath in that day, that means something. In other words, insiders and outsiders look at the same story a little bit differently, sometimes a lot differently, and that's what a parable is. It's a story usually about the person telling it that points to some greater truth and people on the outside, if nothing else is sort of drawn in, and they can connect with it, but people on the inside, it actually means something deeper. So now the question is why parables? What's the purpose of parables? And to answer that question, you got to look at the context of chapter four, and of course the context of chapter four here is chapter three. And what's the purpose? Well, if you think about it, if you remember what happened to chapter three, we looked out at it last week, basically Jesus interacted with two groups of people. You had his family, and you had the scribes and Pharisees, and if you remember Mark makes this sandwich. He tells the story that he starts talking about Jesus' family, and then there's an interruption with the scribes, and then we go back to Jesus' family. And basically what happens is Jesus' family thinks he's crazy. Jesus' family thinks he's off his rocker, and they come to seize him and stop his ministry. On the other hand, the scribes think Jesus, they say at least that he is possessed by a demon, and that he casts out Satan by Satan in all of these things, and remember Jesus warned them about being guilty of the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Pharisees were guilty, and the scribes were guilty of basically being hard of heart. They were not only did they not believe in Jesus, but they were proactively out to not believe in him, if that makes sense. In other words, you can be forgiven for believing the wrong things about Jesus. You maybe think he's not as faithful as he really is, and that kind of stuff. That's one thing. It's another thing. To say Jesus is something completely different than what he is, and they proactively sought to not believe in Jesus, and their hearts were hard. And so how do you teach people? How do you reach out to people and grasp people who on one hand maybe think you're just nuts? And on the other hand, just hate you, and they think you're possessed by a demon, and they will do everything they can to not believe in you. You see, up to this point in the Gospels, Jesus has been teaching them, especially in the Gospel of Matthew. You see, he's literally teaching them about the law, the sermon on the Mount, for example. He says, you've heard it said not to commit adultery, but I say. You've heard it said not to murder, but I say, he's just teaching the law like any other rabbi would do. But there is something that makes him turn a quarter and say, I'm not just going to teach them plainly anymore. I'm not just going to tell them, you've heard it said, but I say, as of right now, I'm going to teach only imperables. And this chapter 4 of Mark, in verse 34, it says that. What is it that makes him do that? And the answer I think is actually pretty simple. How do you reach people who won't listen to the truth anymore? How do you reach people who are completely and utterly hard, and whenever you start talking about religious things, or spiritual things, they immediately shut down, or they immediately become aggressive, or they immediately become hostile. And the answer, of course, is parables. In other words, you can argue with Jesus' interpretation of Deuteronomy chapter 6, but you can't argue with a parable, it's just a story. You can argue with Jesus' interpretation of what he says about numbers, what, how he says that the mosaic law should be interpreted. But it's extremely difficult to argue with a parable, because if you argue with a parable, you come off looking like an idiot because it's a story. So why is Jesus telling parables now? It's because he's reached a point in his ministry where people's hearts are hard. The insiders certainly believe, but how do you reach those on the outside, where you've got to do it, use a different strategy. And that's what Jesus does. And so it begins telling parables, and the first parable he tells in all three gospels is this parable, the parable of the sower. And in fact, Jesus says a little bit later, we'll talk about it. He says, if you don't understand this parable, how can you understand any parable? You always get the feeling, if you've seen Napoleon Dynamite, Jesus, when he's talking to his disciples, you get the feeling that he sighs a lot, you know, they ask, you know, what does that mean? And he goes, you know, if you guys, if you can't understand this parable, you've got to do it. You can't understand anything. You don't get it. So what is this parable? We're not, I'm not going to explain to you this parable right this minute. We're going to do it later. If you're going to do what Jesus did, I'm going to tell you the parable, and then I'm going to tell you the reason, and then we're going to explain it, because Jesus does the same thing here that he does in chapter three. He makes a sandwich, and he sandwiches his explanation of why parables in between the parable and the explanation. But there are a few things I want you to notice about this parable before we go on. Let me read it to you. It says in verse three, Jesus says, listen, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it, 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, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and 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 30 fold, and 60 fold, and 100 fold, and he said, he who has ears to hear, led him here. The first thing I want you to notice about that parable, and just file it away for later, is how Jesus begins the parable, and how he ends the parable. Do you notice how he begins the parable by first saying, listen, and he ends the parable by saying, to him who has ears, led him here. That's not something you would say if you expect people to listen. In other words, if someone's so hard of heart that you think that there's no chance of reaching them, you don't say, listen, you say, scram, and instead Jesus says, listen, he opens his parable by saying, listen, and he ends the parable functionally by saying, listen. The other thing that's not easy to notice in the English translation here, and you can understand why is the word seed in English is a funny word, and that the plural, what is the plural for seed? It's seed, or it's seeds. You could do the plural of seed both ways, and in English, it makes it awkward to translate here, because in the first three soils that you see here, the word seed there is actually singular, okay? That's important for what comes later. He says, some seed, or a seed fell on the path, birds came and snatched it away. A seed, one fell in rocky soil, and it withered because it didn't have any root nowhere to go. A seed, the third one fell among the thorns, and even though it sprouted, eventually it was choked out and it produced no grain. Now, what's interesting is when he gets to the good soils, all of a sudden he's plural. He said, now, some seeds fell on good soil, and they produced a crop that was 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold. Why is that important? We're going to find out later, but what makes it important, among other things, is often times when you hear this parable preach, basically you're left with a very pessimistic view of the kingdom of God, are you not? That the sower is going along, and he's just scattering seed everywhere. Some falls on the path, some falls on rocky soil, some falls on good soil, and among the thorns, but out of all the seed that's sown, only a quarter of it, you can count on anything happening with it. Yeah, it's going to produce a lot, but most of the seed that is cast out is wasted, but that's not what it says when you look at the tenses of these, whether these things are plural or not. In other words, the seeds that fell in good soil are just as many as the seeds that fell in bad soil. Three seeds fell in bad soil, and produce nothing. Three seeds, at least half of the seed fell in good soil, and produce these incredible amounts of produce. In other words, 30 fold would have been a good harvest in those days, and 30, when they say 30 fold, that means it's 30 times the amount of grain they sowed, so if they sow one grain, they got 30 grains in return for it, 100 fold would have been unheard of. And Jesus says, but the harvest will be 100 fold, and then Mark changes gears on us again. And if you notice, he changes, not only changes gears, but he's in a different place geographically, that's how you know it's a sandwich. He's not out on the boat anymore, it's some other time, and disciples ask him about these parables. Let me read to you verses 10 through 12. It says when he was alone, those with him, those around him with the 12, ask 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, lest they should turn and be forgiven. So what's happening here? This is one of the most controversials often is passages in the whole New Testament. Why? Because as you read this, it almost seems that Jesus, although his whole ministry is reaching out to sinners, he suddenly is saying the reason I'm telling parables is to keep people out. Doesn't sound like that? And he says to his disciples, they say, what's the story? You know, what's the deal with the parables? And the first thing he says is to you, disciples, those who have believed in me, has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. Now, the first thing you need to realize, he says the secret is given you. Not a clue or a mystery for you to figure out, but the secret, and the reason the word secret is important here in the translation, is because a secret must be revealed. In other words, you can figure out a mystery, you can figure out things for which you need clues, but you can't figure out a secret, you either know a secret or you don't know it. If I know a secret and you don't, the only way you're going to get it is if I reveal it to you. And so Jesus says to his disciples, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. And what is the secret of the kingdom of God? Jesus would imply to them it's sitting right in front of you. The God sent his only son to bring the kingdom in. In other words, the secret of the kingdom of God is that the king is here. I know I don't look like it, don't smell like it, but trust me, I'm the one. And the reason you're disciples is because your eyes have been opened to that fact. You know that even though I look on the outside like an out-of-work carpenter, you know who I really am. Jesus has been revealed to you. And to those outside tough, is that consistent with Jesus' ministry? So those outside who cares, in fact to those outside, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell them stories that are just going to confuse them so that it'll make them even less likely to come into the kingdom of God. Does that sound likely? Does that sound like something Jesus would say? I hope you're saying they're going absolutely not. And this is one of those places where you need to interpret the Bible with the Bible. And since all three of the Gospels, the synoptic Gospels at least have this account, and they're obviously talking about the same event, it's helpful if you look at Matthew to understand why Jesus said that. Because when you look at Mark, it seems pretty stark. Mark says that Jesus says that to those outside, everything is in parables so that they may see but not perceive and may hear but not understand, unless they should turn and be forgiven. It sounds like a mark. The reason he's doing the parables is to keep people from seeing and understanding. Matthew says something a little different. In fact, if you look at the three Gospels, Luke's account of this parable is the shortest. Mark's is the second shortest, so the mama bear, if you will, the parables, but Matthew has a full exposition of this parable and the events. In the sense, Mark is just giving a shorthand. He's referring us to the verse that Jesus mentioned, but he's not really giving us an explanation of what Jesus means. And for that, you really need to look at Matthew. If you have a Bible, you can turn to Matthew 13. I'm going to look there very quickly. And it's the same context in verse 10 of Matthew 13, it says, then the disciples came to him. Why do you speak to them in parables and he answered them? To you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven but to them, it has not been given. But to one who has more will be given and he will have an abundance. But from one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing, they do not hear nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says you will indeed hear but never understand and you will indeed see but never perceive for this people's hearts has grown dull and with their ears, they can barely hear in their eyes. They have closed less, they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them. Why does Jesus teach in parables? He says to his disciples here. He says because he's talking about those outside. He says because seeing, they don't see and hearing, they don't hear. In other words, I was reading this and it reminded me of the far side cartoon where the caption it says basically what you say versus what your dog hears. And coming out of your mouth is like good boy, good boy, come here Rover and what your dog hears is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Jesus is saying for those outside whose hearts are so hard and hardened to the gospel, seeing they don't see and hearing they don't hear, what I say is put your trust in me that I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and what they hear is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the reason I teach in parables is because I don't teach in parables in order to bar them from the kingdom or make them harder. I teach in parables in order to draw them in. The parables are a window into the very truth of God. In other words, you think about Luke 15, none of the parables by the way are rocket science. They're just not. Every farmer would have understood the parable this so or it might have been yawning. Tell me something I don't know, Jesus. And then when he gets to the end, when he says the crop will be a hundredfold, that would have got their attention. But if you think through any of the parables, think of Luke chapter 15, the Pharisees are upset because Jesus hangs out with tax collectors and sinners and Jesus is only telling you parable. There's a man who lost his sheep, left everything to go pursue that sheep. And they would have gone, uh-huh, that makes sense. Who wouldn't do that? There's a woman who lost a coin in her house, cleaned up the whole house, find that coin, and they would go out and get over the course. Who wouldn't do that? And then there was a son who went and left his father and took the whole inheritance and spent it all in debauchery's living. And when the father came back, he ran out to meet him and embraced him. Who wouldn't do that? Right, cricket sound. He would have had him by then. It's like when people read the Chronicles of Narnie, whenever people often ask me, they'll say, you know, I have a friend at work who doesn't really, he's not religious and, you know, what should I do to introduce him to the gospel? They're always surprised when I say, given the line, the witch and the wardrobe. Expect something, I guess, a little more academic. Why in line the lich and the wardrobe? Because much like a parable, if you don't understand the gospel, you've never heard it before, you begin reading it and by the middle of the story, you're completely sucked into the story before you realize that Aslan is something more than Aslan. He's something more than a lion that he, in fact, is this guy named Jesus. And once you are sucked in, then you now can see things maybe for the way they really are. So the parables are given to help draw people in. Jesus is using parables, by the way, for the same reason that people use sermon illustrations today and movie illustrations and those kinds of things. That's true. If people who you know won't listen, they say, they don't talk to me about the Bible. When I was at Lillie, they say, I don't want to hear about any of the Bible stuff. And I say, cool, why, did you cry when Old Yehler died? Well, of course I did, who wouldn't cry when Old Yehler died? You're off to the races, because people can't argue with the story. Every movie that you see cannot help but trying to tell the story of the hero who dies. It looks like he dies and he comes back from the dead. Everyone's complaining about Avatar. What do you know? I mean, it's spoiled the movie for you, but the hero dies and comes back from the dead. You can't help it. So what's the purpose of this particular parable? Jesus says, if you don't understand this one, you can't get any of them. And I think the answer is a two-fold. One, if you can't understand this one, you can't understand any of them, because this particular one is so easy. In other words, I think Jesus, in some level, he's saying, you guys, this is like the easiest parable I'm ever going to tell. Right now. And everyone, I feel like in church that's been around for a while, I don't even need to preach through the soil here, because you know them, right? Let me just read real quick. He says in verse 13, he says, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? And the sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path where the word is sown when they hear Satan immediately comes. It 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 them fruitful. But those that are sown on good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, 30 fold, and 60 fold, and 100 fold. So if you've been in church at all, do I need to explain that to you? Pretty simple, is it not? We all know people who have heard the gospel, and they have just outright rejected it. Didn't bear any fruit. We know people who have immediately received it with joy, and then within months, it seems like they're completely gone because of the cares of this world. Most people in this room, I'm guessing, we sort of straddle number three and number four, do we not? That some seed fell among the thorns, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the cares of this world, choke it out, and they produce no fruit. But some seed fell on good soil, and that seed produced 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold. So you can think through it. You're saying, where do I sit in that? But I think there's something more important here in the context of the whole thing. It's the end. The 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold. This incredible crop that no one expects, that no one would even believe, what is Jesus saying in this particular parable? In the context of people accusing him, and people plotting to put him to death, and the context of his family saying this guy is crazy, let us get him out of your hair. What is Jesus telling his disciples? In the end, we win. You know, we can talk all day about whether this guy fell away, or that guy fell away, or the rocky stormers. This guy's the seed out. But at the end of the ages, the kingdom of God wins. At the end of the age, the kingdom of God is going to be the biggest thing that anyone has ever seen. In fact, it is going to encompass all things. And the reason that this parable is so important is because, like every parable, it points to the most important parable. And that, of course, is this living parable who's right in front of them. Jesus himself is the incarnation of a parable. Because if the purpose of a parable is to enable you to sort of enter in without being threatened, if the purpose of the parable is to enable you to identify, and then, as you identify, to investigate a little bit more, think about the person of Jesus. If you're a tax collector center, prostitute, or someone like me, who would seem more approachable to you? Someone who would come in majesty and glory and on a throne, or an out-of-work carpenter. For me, it's the out-of-work carpenter. It's the same thing, many of you, one of the greatest joys in life, many of you would probably find this hard to believe, but I don't dress as nicely on the weekend as I do on Sunday mornings. And I love being at the woodworking store or something. And someone who goes, hey, Pastor Tom, to see other people in the store look over and go, I just got a business card too. Why do I do that? Because people are so worried about what pastors think of them. I love that they don't discover that I'm a pastor until after they've already let out a string of cuss words. Now we can talk. I know who you are, you know who I am now. Same with Jesus. Jesus is a little parable pursued. Jesus comes and God has given his son and the person of Jesus so that we can identify with him, so that we can actually understand and if you're not a Christian and you want to know what God is like, here's this man Jesus who says, come check me out. Ask questions of me. Investigate me because the deeper you get in, the more you realize that all of that majesty and all of that glory is there, but you've got to be inside, not outside. And the question you have to ask yourself is, where am I? Am I inside? Do I know Jesus? Have I trusted him? Do I see his glory and his grace? Do I see what he's done for me on the cross? Or am I still on the outside? Listen and do I still hear a lot of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? That's for you to figure out. That's for the spirit to work in you. Think about that this week. Let me pray for us. Father, I pray that as we are considered this parable and others that you would make the truth of the gospel clear that Jesus ultimately is the object of these parables, but he is the parable. He is the one who's the great mystery that on one hand in him and through him and to him were all things created on the other hand. He gave himself up obedience unto death for our sakes. And I pray that you continue to help us understand that. In Christ name, we pray these things, amen, and amen.