08 Oct 10/25/26 Matthew 13:1-17 “Let’s Fill Our Church!”
10/25/26 Matthew 13:1-17 “Let’s Fill Our Church!”
There are some people in our world that really don’t like autumn very much because the weather is starting to get cooler and we are reminded that soon it will be very cold. No matter what reason you have for not liking fall, I think that you might be failing to see the positive side. We just had a great season of color as we watched all the leaves change from green to yellow to red to gone. Then as the weather cools, we appreciate hot chocolate more. But one of my favorite things at this time of year is all the dinners that are served around the country. Lutefisk dinners are served this time of year. We have a couple of turkey dinners coming up. There are many more so watch for notices on the bulletin boards. We are celebrating our harvest just like people have celebrated for centuries. In our reading we have Jesus talking about a little different harvest. We have to always be on the lookout and invite all we see.
Henry Ford gave a lot of money away in his lifetime but he never gave money to schools because he did not think they spent the money wisely. Now there happened to be a woman named Martha Berry who had started a school in Mt. Berry, Georgia because she found that many rural children neither went to school or church. So she started this school and used the Bible to help them read and understand the stories. Of course she also taught math and writing but she didn’t have enough money to continue. So, she went to Ford even though she knew he did not give to schools and of course he turned her down. So then she asked for a dime for a sack of raw peanuts. Ford was a little perplexed and wanted to know why just a dime. Martha replied, “I want to show you what I can do with $.10.” So she left with $.10 and her students planted and replanted those peanuts until they had made $600. This was many years ago and was a lot of money! She then took the money back to Ford and said, “See how practical we are in the use of money at Martha Berry School?” Henry Ford not only gave Martha her $600 back but he added $2 million. Today Berry College is still operating with an enrollment of about 2000. That is what we are to strive for, to be fruitful for the Lord in some way.
A passage like this is always hard for me to preach because many of you have forgotten more about farming than I will ever know. The way we farmed when I was a child is almost foreign to most of us now. And the way they farmed in the time of Jesus, well that would be downright alien to us. When they planted, they would walk along in the field, spreading seeds by hand. When the text says a path, it was a path and not a road like we know today. It would be a path for one person to walk on and in special places, 2 might travel. If you are scattering seeds like that it sure would not be too hard to get some on the path and the rocky edge of the path.
There is something else I would like to clarify and that is the soil. People from this area are spoiled because we have black soil. I remember when Pastor Phil was speaking one summer about how he wanted to fill his pickup with black dirt and take it back to Missouri because they only had red dirt where he lives. Of course someone corrected him telling him it was black soil, not dirt but that’s another story. Most places in the world do not have black soil. Most places have sandier or rocky soil so it’s quite a bit harder to grow crops.
Now let’s go to the parable. As we can see, Jesus was always doing something because the crowds followed him where ever he went. If He was not healing, He was teaching. So today, Jesus pulls up a boat and He teaches to the people on shore. He might have done this because the voice carries much better over water.
Jesus begins by telling the audience about a farmer who goes out to plant his crop. We understand this just like the original crowd. In order to have a crop you have to first plant the seeds. But the question is, “Who is the farmer?” The original audience might have thought that this was just a story about a farmer but after 20 centuries, we know that the farmer is God. Part of the gist of this parable is that when God sows the seeds, the seeds go everywhere. They go on the path, in the rocks, in the bushes; everywhere. I would guess that most of the farmers in the area don’t go along with this. Why would you put seeds on the road? Luckily for us, we are not God. God has a plan and that plan is to bring everyone to salvation.
The other thing that we know 20 centuries later is that there comes a point where we become the sowers who cast the seed. God has empowered each and every one of us to cast the seeds. And we are supposed to cast them everywhere. When we were living in West Fargo a few years back, we were told that we really should not cast our Sunday school seeds to the apartment houses because they probably were not permanent residents. They had smaller incomes and we needed bigger fish to fry. This came from a church. Being I’ve always been the rebellious type, I went out there anyway. The seeds from God are to go to all places. It is not up to us where to sow them. It’s up to God.
Now we all know that if we are going to have a good crop for Harvest Festival, we need to have good seed. I would guess that even the ancients knew to clean the seed so they didn’t plant weeds. Today we have seed companies that sell us the best seed for the conditions or area. What Jesus is talking about here has nothing to do with this. For many of the people they only heard a farming tale. They couldn’t hear what was really happening because they didn’t know Jesus on a personal basis. What Jesus was referring to here is that the seed is the Word of God, the Bible.
Did you know that the Bible is the #1 best seller of all times? I would also guess that it is the least read best seller at least that is my personal spin on it. I could ask for a show of hands as to how many of you have read it but I won’t. You’ve already been convicted. You have in your homes Bibles that are the best seed that there can be for winning people over to Jesus. The Bible is authoritative. People pay attention to the Bible. Therefore when you talk to people, it’s good to quote the Bible. I can talk up here all day and it will be meaningless. But if I say that Jesus said in Matthew 13:16, “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.” Now I have your attention. Jesus tells us that you may be seeing and not see and hearing and not hear. In other words as I just said, it is impossible for you to understand Jesus or the Bible without having a personal relationship with Jesus. That is done you confessing to Him and asking Him to be Lord and Savior of your life. Here it is in black and white. The Bible is the best seed we have and your testimony is next.
It takes me a long time to set up a sermon. I’ll have to work on that. Anyway, now we come to the soils. The first seeds fell on the path where nothing can grow. These are the hard hearted people of the world and they are everywhere as we drift farther and farther from God. The word of God is cast to these people and Satan scoops it up, twists it and tries to use it against us. When I wrote a letter to the editor like I did a few years ago, much of the seed I cast goes onto the path. This can be seen by the reply that was printed. The writer tried to twist what I said so that he could claim his own agenda. He did not understand what I was trying to say. He could not understand. He does not know Jesus.
But what this hard-hearted person did not know is that God is everywhere and always working. By taking the time to reply to my letter, God was working in this man’s heart. God is working so that someday this man might be saved. This is the reason that God sows the seeds on the hard path. They may just take a hold and germinate into a Christian. This is why we are to always be putting on display our Christianity in some fashion. Use your God given talents and give the glory to God when you are done. Most of the time we don’t know who is watching. Just because someone is hard hearted today doesn’t mean that he will not be on fire for Jesus tomorrow. Do not forget to tend the seeds that fall on the road.
Then we come to the seed that falls on the rocks at the edge of the road. This is a combination of being stuck in our world view of things and Satan working to prevent us from knowing Christ. This is a huge danger when we have revival meetings without any follow-up. When people come upon Jesus suddenly, it’s exciting. There is nothing like the feeling of first coming to know Jesus Christ. I remember it well.
But this is what can happen. You have been trucking along following Satan and thinking nothing of it. You see once Satan has you, he does not give you much thought. He is truly over confident in a world that he has built where every worldly sinful thing is at your fingertips. Then suddenly Jesus comes upon you. You are excited because you did not know something this good existed. You love being with Jesus but you know nothing about it. Reenter Satan! He puts doubt in your mind. He helps you to think that his rotten ways are better than Jesus. It is not long before you go back to your old ways. There was no one there to help you so you slip back. You are the seed that springs up in the rocks but then finds that there is no water there so you shrivel back to the nothingness of Satan. I’m also a firm believer in spiritual warfare. Therefore when you leave here, make sure you have the extra protection of the Holy Spirit because I know for a fact that the devil hates what I’m telling you.
Then we have the seed that falls in amongst the weeds. This is very similar to the seed that falls into the rocks. In this case the new believer has a little support system. People are helping establish the person but it isn’t enough. What kind of world do we live in where Jesus is not enough? I think the answer is a greedy world, a world that does not know or care to know God.
Anyway, I think we see this quite a bit in our country. There is absolutely no way that a person who comes to Jesus and cannot find a support system in this country. Compared to other countries of the world, here there are churches everywhere. There is a big push going on where everyone is blaming the churches for declining numbers, for people falling away from God. They are in the weeds and are being choked out. I think this is too simple an answer. Yes, many pastors and churches are teaching the ways of the devil. So we need to try as hard as we can to reach people for Christ. The main problem is that everything Satan has to offer, everything the world has to offer seems more attractive because we have so totally lost touch with God. I think that this country should open its doors for missionaries to come in. We need it. We are a country where the seed is being choked out by the noxious weed, Satan. Send in the missionaries!
Then we come to the black dirt or as Pastor Phil was corrected, the black soil. This is where maximum growth occurs. This is where even if we do not have the best seed; there will be a good crop. We know all about this because we live in the Red River Valley where there is only black soil. We are just coming off another season of harvest. Now some crops weren’t the best and some were better than we anticipated. But all of them were better than what we harvested off the path, the rocks or the weeds. This is why I chose these verses for our Harvest Festival Sunday.
We have not only been blessed by having God in our lives in an area that at least considers God to be alive for the most part, but we also live in an area of rich, very rich soil. This is some of the richest land in the world. But God does not put us in places like this so that we can sit around and not do anything. It is our job to raise crops on this land and feed the world. We now also have some of the richest oil land in the world and the same goes for that. Just about all jobs in the area can be linked to farming and oil. We do a pretty good job of carrying our faith through these things.
The other reason I chose this passage is because many of us have building projects. Now this may be a news flash to some of you but we, you will not be here forever. However, these buildings projects should be around for a long time. You have to have goals for church building projects. I would like nothing better than to preach 3 or 4 times a Sunday. That hasn’t happened because we are sitting on all this rich soil, our churches, but we are not working the land. We are sitting by and watching.
People, God has planted these projects in our midst. We know this by the ease of how they happened. They just suddenly happened. Now it’s our job to go out and invite and invite and invite. People will want to come and see your new facilities. You have a tremendous opportunity in front of you. Just go out and do what we have been trying to teach you for the last 20 years. God could really care less about buildings. He cares about people. His command to you is to go out and spread His Good News to the people.
For this Harvest Festival, we should be rejoicing that Jesus loves us so much that He has given us this awesome responsibility. He loves you so much that He knows that you can help Him build churches. Let me suggest that we all adjourn for a nice turkey or ham dinner. And while you are visiting, invite people to come. You will be surprised at how God will work through you. Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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