“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
We are going to pick up right where we left off this morning. Let’s do a quick review just so we know that we are all on the same page and understand what we are talking about. This morning we started talking about “The Parable of the Sower.”
Have you ever heard people say, “Everything happens for a reason?” It is true, everything does happen for a reason and that reason is found in this parable. We are going to discover over the next few weeks some very important truths:
➢ This parable explains what God does, how He does it and why.
➢ It explains what Satan does, how he does it and why.
➢ It explains what happens to you, what you should do, and why you should do it.
➢ The answer to every problem that affects mankind, including health problems, premature death, financial problems and relationship problems, is to be found in this one parable.
I am going to give you a recap of what this parable is all about. We must understand these simple truths to understand this parable and all the other parables that Jesus teaches. Just to be sure we got it all:
➢ The seed is the Word. God’s ONLY tool is the Word of God. Everything He does, He does through the Word!
➢ The sower is God. He is scattering seed daily and Satan is trying to pick it up.
➢ The ground is you. The ground determines all the results of the sowing.
God is scattering seed, or also known as the spoken word, or rhema word, in several ways.
1. The written Word of God is seed. That one is the obvious one.
2. The Word can come to you not only by it being written down, but also through the foolishness of preaching and teaching.
3. Another way God scatters seed is through the Holy Spirit speaking to your spirit.
This is where we left off this morning. We need to look at our text. Paul says:
I. THE MIRACLE-WORKING WORD
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ (The Word of God): for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
➢ The Greek word for power is dunamis, which means miracle-working, supernatural power, intent and ability.
➢ The Greek word for salvation is soteria, which means rescue, safety and deliverance.
If you need rescued, if you need to be made safe, if you need to be healed, if you need to be set free or delivered in any way, the Gospel, the Word carries that power. This dynamite, miracle-working power, is available to anyone who believes. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, it doesn’t matter what economic standing you have with the society. Every person can access the power of God to receive deliverance and protection. Remember, there is a condition. It is available to every person that believes. We must believe the Word, the Gospel! If we will choose to believe the Word, it will set us free and deliver us!
➢ Believe in the Greek is pistis and it means faith, trust, confidence or belief.
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ (The Word of God): for it is the (dunamis) power of God unto salvation (soteria) to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
In order for the Word to work in our lives, we must have faith! That means we must believe it! That means have faith, trust, confidence and belief! Living by faith is a lifestyle, but a lot of people want to treat living by faith as an emergency measure. When we receive bad news, when we make a bad investment or when our children make bad decisions, we want to run to God. We want to crank the lever of faith as if God were a jack-in-the-box that pops up when we call. We think that living by faith is like pulling up to the window at a fast food restaurant and put our order in for a miracle. It doesn’t work that way.
Romans 1:17, “The just, those that have been declared righteous, shall live by their trust, confidence, reliance and assurance on God.”
In other words, we shouldn’t do anything differently when we get hit with a problem. When we live by faith, we are not moved by what we see, we are only moved by what we believe. So, when bad news comes on the scene, we don’t really live any differently because we are walking by faith and we are trusting God and have confidence in His character that He will see us through this struggle.
The miracle-working Word will work for you if you will believe it, but it doesn’t work for everyone and that is because we have a problem.
II. THE PROBLEM OF HARD HEARTS
We read this parable in Mark 4:3-20 this morning.
This parable is also explained in Matthew 13 and Luke 8. More than one writer recorded what Jesus said, so we get something a little different from each perspective but the truth of the parable is the same in each gospel.
Why does Jesus decide to speak in parables? The disciples had the same question.
Matthew 13:10, “And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”
Jesus’ response is found in:
Matthew 13:11-14, “He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive.”
Jesus goes on to give the reason these people cannot understand in the first part of verse 15, “For this people’s hearts have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed.” Grown dull actually means that their heart is hard.
➢ The problem is not that you don’t hear the Word the problem is that you hear it and then decide not to receive it and act on it.
That is when the human heart becomes hard. Remember, in the Parable of the Sower, the seed was sown on four types of ground: “By the wayside, among thorns, on stony ground and on good ground. Every person actually heard the word.
The problem is that sometimes the Word of God that you hear is not the Word that you want to hear. For example Jesus says, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” I don’t want to hear that Word. I don’t want to pray for my enemy. I don’t want to do good to people that constantly mistreat my family and me. However, if I don’t obey Jesus, my heart becomes hard. The next time I hear that Word it becomes even harder to listen and obey. We must always receive the Word. This parable is all about us preparing our ground for the seed that is dropped.
II Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
The Bible says this will happen in the last days. Do we see this happening now? Absolutely! We are in that day right now! People have teachers, but they are selective in their hearting. They don’t want to receive the truth. They just want to hear what will make them happy and feel good about themselves. God doesn’t change. God’s Word doesn’t change no matter how society does. Our hearts have grown hard to the truth. We don’t want to receive it. What condition is your ground in?
We just read Matthew 13:15, “For this people’s hearts have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed.” Let’s finish that Scripture: “Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.”
Jesus gives His desire at the end. His desire is always the same. He says, “If they would just turn from their ways and open up their ears and open their eyes to the truth, then I can heal them in every way they need healing.”
Jesus is very clear here. They are making this decision all by themselves. If they would only hear and see, they would receive revelation and deliverance. God desired that they be converted and changed. God wanted to heal and deliver them. God wanted them to be made whole, but they didn’t want to hear, see and do God’s Word. God said that since they wanted their own way, He would allow them to have their own way. God doesn’t work like men. Men want men to see things their way. They will continue to try to convince people to see things. God doesn’t work that way. God will back right off if you don’t want Him. He will protect your right to choose.
I pray over the next few weeks that we dive into God’s Word and prepare our heart to receive His Word when He speaks. Whether we hear Him through His written Word, through the foolishness of preaching or through the Spirit trying to lead and guide us. I want our hearts to be softened here at Calvary and be led by the Spirit.
