Feb. 4, 2001

Luke 8:4-18

How to Be Productive: Prepare Your Heart

  1. Introduction
    1. Illustration - In The Ascent of a Leader, Bruce McNichol and Bill Thrall write this story: A woman has a dream where she wanders into a shop at the mall and finds Jesus behind a counter. Jesus says, "You can have anything your heart desires." Astounded but pleased, she asks for peace, joy, happiness, wisdom, and freedom from fear. Then she adds, "Not just for me, but for the whole earth." Jesus smiles and says, "I think you misunderstand me. We don’t sell fruits, only seeds."
    2. Context – God is in the seed business. Let’s turn to Luke 8 to see what that business is.
  1. Scripture Passages
    1. Let’s read together Luke 8:4-18 - While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5 "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6 Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown." When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." 9 His disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10 He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, "‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’ 11 "This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. 16 "No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. 17 For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. 18 Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him."
    2. Today we’re going to take a look at how the condition of our hearts affects God’s ability to speak to us, and therefore our productivity for the kingdom of heaven.
  1. The Sower and The Four Soils
    1. First, let’s take a look at the context. Jesus was traveling from town to town, and a large crowd gathered around Him. It would seem from the context that this was a constant thing. Apparently the disciples must have been thinking about these people coming from all over the place to see Jesus even as He was moving about, because Jesus took advantage of this opportunity to teach them about the crowds. So He told the people this interesting parable.
    2. Jesus often used situations from everyday life to teach His disciples and the people about God, and this was no exception. He starts out in verse five by emphasizing the Sower. In the Greek verse five contains three verb forms of the word "to sow." So the emphasis to start with is the fact that the Sower is sowing the seed everywhere. Jesus Himself was sowing seed as an agent of God. The seed, the word of God, was scattered wherever it would fall. The results depended on the kind of soil that the seed landed on. The disciples were dense, so they didn’t get it. Jesus explained the parable to them.
    3. The first seed fell along the road, where Jesus says it was trampled down, and the birds ate it up. He told them that the people along the path hear the word, but their hearts are so hard that it doesn’t sink in, allowing the devil the opportunity to come along and snatch it out of their hearts. Their doom is sealed because their hearts are too hard for the word of God to be able to reach.
    4. Next the seed falls on the rocks. There is enough soil for it to sprout, but then it dies because there isn’t enough moisture. These people allow themselves to receive the word of God "with joy," but they don’t let it become a deep part of who they are. It has no root in their soul because they do not water it, so when the trials come their newfound faith dies.
    5. The next seed fell among the thornbushes, which in Israel are very large and very nasty. The thorns grew as fast as the seed, and the Greek says that the thorns "choked off as to exterminate it." The thorns are allowed to grow so thick the seed doesn’t have a chance. The word of God is allowed to be choked to death by the worries, wealth, and pleasures of life. The Greek says that they are "choked until dead" and that they don’t "bear fruit to maturity." Pity the man who allows these things to choke out what God has in store for him!
    6. Finally the seed falls on good soil. These are the people who have a good heart. As a matter of fact, their heart is such that the Greek uses two different words meaning "good" to describe it. The Greek goes on to say that "hearing the word they hold it fast and they bear fruit in patience, endurance, perseverance." What a great word picture! When I think about someone holding something fast, I picture them clutching it and hanging on for their very life. It has to be the same way with the word of God for us. We have to prepare our hearts so that, when God decides to cast a seed in our direction, we will receive it, hold fast to it, and allow it to grow to maturity.
    7. Let’s go back up to verse nine for a minute. The disciples didn’t understand the parable. Jesus told them that they were being given the knowledge, Greek "experiential knowledge," of the mysteries of the kingdom of God. In other words, Jesus was telling them stuff about the kingdom and how it works that had never before been revealed to man. But He added that He told the parables so that others wouldn’t get it. Why? I believe that it was because they needed to experience Jesus for Who He was in order for the knowledge to make sense, but they weren’t willing to make that step of faith. It’s interesting that Jesus quotes a passage from Isaiah, the message God gives Isaiah to give the people of Israel during the vision he had of God in the temple. God tells Isaiah that the inability of the people to understand was part of the punishment for their sin. Maybe that is a sobering reminder to us in the midst of this parable that we too will be punished if God finds our hearts unwilling to receive and hold fast to His seed.
    8. Illustration – 98-year-old Charles Fackler was to receive France’s Legion of Honor medal for service in World War I. Bill Fackler, his son, later said, "It was a sad occasion. We had everything organized for that day. The presentation was to be at 2 p.m. He died at quarter to 12. He missed it by two hours." Let’s make sure we hold fast to that seed, the word of God, that God sows in our hearts. Let’s make sure that we don’t give up on it. That is one of the main lessons we can learn from this parable. But there’s more.
  1. The Lamp
    1. Jesus makes what appears to be an interesting transition in the middle of His thought. He goes from talking about the Sower, the soils, the inability of the people to understand Him, the seed, and the heart to talking about a lamp. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to us, but Jesus did this for a reason. He was carrying His thought to a conclusion.
    2. Jesus has just finished talking about how people with good hearts produce a crop by persevering. Then He tells the disciples HOW these people persevere: they let the seed shine. On the surface that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but if you think about it shining seed makes perfect sense.
    3. The people with the good hearts retain it and produce a crop by persevering. In other words, they allow it to become such an integral part of their lives that it permeates every part of their lives. So if you want to kill the seed, you hide it. If you want it to become a intimate part of your life, you let it work its way through all of you. Then it will shine! People will see the effects of the seed in all you say and do. That’s what Jesus is getting at.
    4. The motives of the heart will not stay hidden. God knows them all. Jesus includes a warning in verse 18: Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Why? Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him." Has what? Seed. The word of God. If you hold fast to the seed and let it permeate every aspect of your life, allowing it to shine forth in all you say and do, you get more seed. Why? Because you’ve proven trustworthy with the seed you’ve been given. And whoever thinks he has seed, even that pretense will be taken away. The Greek for "thinks to have" can also be rendered "seems to have." Appearances can be deceiving. There is a marked difference between the appearance of trustworthiness and actually being trustworthy. There is a difference between appearing to shine the light and actually shining the light, because shining the light will reveal the truth condition of our hearts.
    5. Illustration – William Wimmer writes: On a warm, summer night, my wife and I were traveling in our car with Micah, our 3-year-old son, who sat in the back seat. After many miles of driving in the darkness, we came to a stop in a remote area. The brightness of the traffic light revealed all of the dirt, dead bugs, and insects on our windshield. Micah said, "Look how dirty!" My wife and I didn’t think much of his comment until a moment later when we drove on – away from the light and back into the darkness. Upon reentering the darkness, we could no longer see the mess on our windshield, and Micah quickly piped up and said, "Now the glass is clean!" Before the law came, the dirt within us hid under the darkness. But when God gave the law, its light shined on the windshield of our hearts and revealed the filth of sin we’d collected on our journey. The law, then, is a light that shows us how sinful we really are. It cannot cleanse us or make us whole. But it does starkly highlight the true situation of our souls – and thus can lead us to Christ. The word of God will always reveal to us the condition of our hearts. It will always point us to Christ, the One Who cares deeply about the condition of our hearts. It’s up to us to decide what we are going to do about it.
  2. Conclusion
    1. So the question all of us have to ask ourselves is this: what is the condition of our heart? What does God have to say about the condition of our heart? Do we value the seed enough to want to have a good heart?
    2. God is always more concerned about the condition of our heart than anything else. Why? As the parable tells us, the ability of the word of God to change our lives depends on the condition of our heart. If we want to be productive for God’s kingdom, we have to have a good heart! There is simply no way around it!
    3. As we’ve been looking into God’s word, His Spirit has been speaking to us. What has God been saying to you through His Spirit? Is there a problem with your heart that is keeping His word from impacting your life? With every head bowed and eye closed, we’re going to take a few minutes and prayerfully consider what God has been telling us about our heart.
    4. With every head still bowed and every eye still closed, if God has been telling you that your heart is not right, come forward and pray.
    5. Let’s pray.

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