May 14, 2023

The following transcript has been electronically transcribed. Any errors in spelling, syntax, or grammar should be attributed to the electronic method of transcription and its inherent limitations.

 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Now, from Jesus's interpretation down to verse 18, and others are the ones sewn among 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 unfruitful.

So as we turn now to the third of these bad soils, we turn to the thorny soil, and the thorny soil is going to represent for us in many ways, the most difficult of the four soils to really get our minds around to understand. And perhaps the most difficult of the forced soils for us to submit to what God has to say to us.

So the thorny soil will prevent, will present for us a thorny problem. And I hope you appreciate my pun there, worked on that a long time. So the thorny soil represents for us, a, a type of soil that is, as I said, the third of the bad soils. And these, this parable of the, the, the thorns, these thorn bushes represent for us one of the most ugly aspects of creation, do they not?

God has created for us a wonderfully beautiful world. He has created for us a wonderfully complex and beautiful world for us to enjoy, particularly this time of year. It's so easy to enjoy the beauty of his creation, but of all his creation, I think that there are some things that stand out in my mind that I could quite frankly do without if, at the risk of sounding irreverent, there are a few things that I wouldn't mind if God would take out of our creation, for example, I think that we'll find universal agreement on some of these things.

Mosquitoes. Would any of us complain if mosquitoes just vanished tomorrow or ticks? Throw some ticks in there with and just take them all away. Might as well. Throw house flies in there as well. House flies, ticks. Mosquitoes, I don't think any of us would complain if those were immediately gone from creation.

In addition to that, I think I could put on that same list humidity. If humidity were to go away, particularly high humidity over 50%, then I don't think any of us would necessarily complain about that. But to top all that list off, I think that we can easily put thorns in there. Thorn bushes are some of the most hated parts of creation.

Why God created thorn bushes. I'm not quite sure, or perhaps he didn't create them in the way that we know of them, but, but the thorn bushes that we know of are part of the fall. Perhaps God somehow changed the nature or the character of the thornbush at the fall, because as we remember from Genesis chapter three, the thorns along with those two, primarily the two aspects of the, the curse that are pronounced upon the earth and upon mankind.

One was, Pain of childbirth, difficulty of childbirth. And the other that stands out for us is the thorns. The, the thorns will grow. And you must fight the thorns because the thorns will overtake everything. Nothing, to me is as, is as hated. And the, the world of vegetation as is a thornbush, a thornbush just screams to us, don't you dare touch me.

If you touch me, I will hurt you. There is no way you're going to pull me out of this ground without inflicting pain upon yourself. So a thornbush stands for us as a tremendous example, of course, of the fallenness of this world. This. Ugly thornbush that takes over things and, and makes such a difficulty in passing through areas in which thorn bushes are growing up.

And I know some thorn bushes will have some wild blackberries on there, but you know what? I would gladly sacrifice all the wild bl blackberries to do away with all the thorns. So the thornbush represents for us not only the symbolic fallenness of the earth. Of course, we remember as Jesus goes to the cross, wearing that crown of thorn symbolically on his forehead carrying the sin, which he was to become on the cross on our behalf.

But also it just represents just the fallenness of the world around us. And so now Jesus, in turning to this third soil, now turns to the soil that is consumed with the thorn bushes. So from, once again, from verse seven, other seed fell among thorns. So the other seed that fell among thorns, we see this phrase repeated over and over.

The seed fell among this type of ground. The seed fell here. The seed fell here. That represents for us the hearing of the word as the seed fell. That says to us that the people that Jesus is speaking of here, metaphorically, they heard the word. And it says, this other seed fell among the thorns. Now that word other, other in the Greek is the word allo, and it means another of the same kind or other of the same kind.

So the Greek language distinguishes for us another of the same kind from another of a different kind. It's two different words there to mean another of a different kind. Each time the parable uses the word that says another of the same kind. So all of the seed is the same. There's no special seed.

There's no particular seed that's better at growing. All the soil gets the same seed. And so also this soil gets the other seed of the same kind. And it fell, we're told among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. So this, this idea, these thorns growing up and choking the seed, This is something that begins of course from Genesis chapter three.

As the curse is pronounced upon the earth, the prophets will pick up on this theme of thorns and how the thorns will choke out the seed that someone wants to grow. For example, Jeremiah will say to, so your seed, not among the thorns, but instead, plow up your ground. And so not among thorns, Jeremiah will say, but in this case, the seed is, is sewn.

Where we, we read among the thorns and we read that the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. So as the thorns grew up, we're told that they choked the seed. That word for choke means to suffocate or completely stamp out. It's the same word that we find, for example, as uh, we read the story of the pigs, that the demons were cast into, the demons were cast into these pigs, and the pigs leap off.

The cliff into the water and they drown. Same word, or they were choked or suffocated under the water, or the same word shows up in, in Acts chapter 15, where the apostles right to the gentile believers and, and they choose this type of middle ground. They say not to eat meat that has been strangled or choked.

So it means not just a, a reduction in air, it means a total choking out, a total suffocating out. So the seed that fell among the thorns as the thorn thorns grew up, it choked it. So now let's quickly look down to the interpretation. Jesus's interpretation, once again down to verse 18, and others are the ones sewn among thorns.

They are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires of, for other things. Enter in. And choke the word, and the word prove proves unfruitful. So for the first thing I think to see about this particular soil is that this soil apparently had nothing lacking in order to sustain growth.

It wasn't the hard pack soil of the first soil, it was apparently broken up enough to receive the seed that life comes forth, the, the plant starts to grow. And so we also see that the, the soil has enough nutrients in it to support the life of the thorn. So there's nothing that is apparently lacking from the soil.

There's no lack of depth of soil, as we saw in the second type of soil. So there's nothing inherently about the soil that is to prevent. The growth unto yielding this fruit or the grain, except the fact of what else is in the soil, which is we're told the thorns, and now the thorns. Jesus says in his interpretation, they represent these things.

These are the ones who hear the word, but number one, the cares of the world. And number two, the deceitfulness of riches. And number three, the desires for other things enter in. And those things choke the word. So in Jesus's interpretation of this, he interprets the thorns to be these three things that come along and take the seed, which has now sprouted into a growth into a plant, and they choke the seed in such a way that it proves to be unfruitful.

The three things we're told are, first of all, the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and then thirdly, the desires for other things. So as Jesus describes these three things, just a brief look at what each of these would, uh, would signify for us. First of all, the cares of the world. So this, this word, the cares of the world, oftentimes it's translated anxieties.

But it doesn't necessarily mean something negative. This is, this is another word. We'll see other examples of this, but this is another word that is neutral. It's, it's amoral. So when Jesus uses this word cares, he's not speaking necessarily of a sinful care or a sinful anxiety. He's just speaking of a care of a concern, if you will.

He calls it a care of the world. Now that word world is the word that, uh, in the Greek is eon. We get our word eon from it. It's, it means not so much the world as it means the this age. We see that word used often as Jesus describes this present age. You know, there's two ages. There's this age and the there's the age to come.

This age. The cares of this age is what Jesus is. Speaking of the concerns of this age, so again, it's oftentimes translated anxiety as we see in Matthew six, verse 31. Do not be anxious about anything about what you'll wear or what you'll eat, or Luke chapter 10 in verse 41. The same word is used to describe Martha who has many anxieties or cares.

The same word shows up in Philippians four, verse six. Do not be anxious for anything. But in everything with prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God. But then we also see it in places like Philippians two and verse 20 to describe Timothy, where Paul says that Timothy, there's no one else like Timothy who has a genuine concern for you.

So there's these cares or these concerns, sometimes anxieties, and they are the cares, Jesus says of this present age, the present age in which we live. Which is the age of a fallenness. We live in a fallen world, in a fallen age with fallen hearts. We live in a world in which the God of, of this world dominates in many ways.

He dominates many things. It happens in this world, and this is the age that we live in, and this age creates for us a number of cares and a number of concerns. Many of them good, many of them. To be expected. Many of them, if we neglected them, we will be neglecting necessary responsibilities. But nonetheless, it is necessarily cares that are inflicted upon our thoughts, upon our times, upon our emotions.

It might be concern over this problem at work or this friction with a coworker. What am I to do about this? How do I resolve this or this problem that I'm having with a, an elderly parent or a teenage child? How do I handle this? How do I resolve this? Or perhaps it's a financial problem, a, a, a difficulty that you're experiencing.

Maybe it's a health difficulty. How do I deal with this? How do I, how do I deal with this problem that I'm having with my spouse? Or what about a problem within the church? Maybe there's a, a concern, a care within the church. Jesus says, this is. Typical. This is descriptive of life in this age, but Jesus says that the cares of this age are part of what come in, and they choke the word out in this particular soil.

Secondly, we read the desires for other things. I'm sorry, I skipped over the deceitfulness of riches. Secondly is the deceitfulness of riches. So the deceitfulness of riches, the Bible speaks to us of the deceitfulness of riches. It des it describes, for example, second Timothy Paul talks about the deceptive characteristic of riches of wealth.

So the word here is just a typical word for riches or wealth or an accumulation of possessions, and it's put together with this word for deceitfulness or uh, enticement or allurement. Deception is the idea. Literally the word means to not shoot straight. So it's the idea of maybe you're plowing a row and it's not plowed straight, it's plowed, crooked.

Or, or, or in our modern vernacular, this person's not shooting straight with me. There's a deceptiveness, there's, there's an enticement there. There's an attempt to deceive. So the deceptiveness of riches, you know, the Bible never condemns wealth. It never condemns. Riches. Riches and material possessions are once again amoral.

They are without moral good or moral bad. They are just possessions. And so the Bible doesn't condemn possessions as a whole. But what the Bible does warn us against repeatedly is. The allurement of them. The love of possessions, the worship of possessions. That's what the Bible warns us against.

Repeatedly. Jesus will say, to use the example of just what an impossible thing salvation is. He will compare this to a camel passing through the eye of a needle. And the context of all that is the salvation of a wealthy person, the repentance and the forgiveness of a wealthy person because those, those wealth, that that material possessions, that entices a person's heart to feel as though this life is really better, that I really don't need a savior, I really don't.

Don't stand and need a salvation because my possessions and my wealth insulate me against the perception of much of my spiritual need. So the Bible will speak of that often the deceptiveness of riches. But you know, riches by their very nature possessions, by their very nature are deceptive. How do riches deceive us?

Well, riches will deceive us in at least three ways that I can think of. First of all, riches are deceptive because they promise what they don't deliver. Riches will always promise what they don't deliver. They'll promise happiness. They'll promise satisfaction. They'll promise purpose in life. They'll promise a sense of wellbeing, and they never deliver that.

Now, that's not to say that wealthy people can't be happy. Wealthy people can't have purpose. Wealthy people can't be satisfied. But it is to say that if they are happy and satisfied and with purpose, it didn't come through their wealth. But that's what wealth promises it. Wealth, it promises happiness and satisfaction and purpose, and it never delivers it.

Secondly, riches are deceptive because not only do they not promise what they deliver, but they also deliver what they don't promise. They never promised to deliver, deliver to us heartache, stress, and strife within our family. They never promised to deliver a, a, a, a sense of moral corruption, but that's exactly what they often deliver.

So they deliver what they don't promise. They promise what they don't deliver, and then they claim to be what they're not, which is to say, abiding and everlasting. Don't riches proclaim themself to be everlasting. If you could just have this, if you could just get these possessions, if you could just acquire this amount of wealth, then this would carry your throat.

And how often does the Bible speak to us of just how easily wealth is lost, how fleeting wealth can be said that one can have wealth one day and the next literally have nothing. The Bible speaks, for example, the Propheta speaks about working and earning wages and putting them into a pocket with holes in it.

And so that's the nature of wealth. It promises what it doesn't deliver. It delivers what it doesn't promise, and it tells us that it's everlasting and abiding, and it oftentimes is not. So the deceptiveness of possessions, the deceptiveness of earthly things. And then thirdly, Jesus is the desires for other things.

Now, if you're in the King James, then that's translated the lust of the eyes or the lust for other things. And that's a word that once again, the word itself is, is a moral, it's without a moral positive or a, or a moral negative. It just simply means desires. The context in what's pre, which is presented to us, tell us whether it's a negative or a morally evil desire, or not a morally evil desire.

So oftentimes lust would be an appropriate translation, but in this context, Jesus is just speaking of just a desire. We see this word show up in plenty of places like Matthew chapter five and verse 28, in which it clearly means a desire that is an evil desire when Jesus speaks of the lustful intent of the heart.

When one looks at a woman or a man who's not their spouse with lust, or for example, Luke chapter 15 in verse 16, it just speaks of, of a hunger in the parable of the prodigal son, the one who was longing to be fed from the food of the pigs. It just speaks of a, of a desire in the stomach, a longing to eat.

Or Luke 22 in verse 15, Jesus uses this word to say, I have earnestly desire to eat the Passover with you or Matthew 13 in verse 17. Uh, many prophets and righteous people longed or, or earnestly desired to see what you now see. So Jesus is speaking here of a desire for other things, a desire for earthly things, a, a, a want.

Literally the word here means literally a, a desire for the remainder. What's left over, what didn't get taken up. So literally what Jesus is saying is an earthly desire that desires all of it. The desire is everything. You, you know what that's like to maybe have some things, but then you want them all. You know how that's part of the fallen heart that sometimes we just can't be content with having things or even a lot of things.

If there's things that we don't have, we want the rest of them. That's what this word is getting at. The remainder that that which I don't have the desire to have, what I don't have, it's a desire for that which God has not specifically given to us. So it's a desire for earthly things. And these three things together are what Jesus characterizes as the thorns.

These are the thorns that grow up and choke the seed, choke the plant that's coming up from the seed, the word. So what does Jesus mean by using these three descriptors for the things, the thorns that that grow up and choke? The word, I don't think Jesus's intent here is to describe to us three avenues of the sinful heart.

Three things that we are to chase down in the sinful heart. Instead, I think really the focus that Jesus is putting on this is, is not the things themselves so much as the result and the result is fruitlessness, and that's really what Jesus is getting at the result. The resulting fruitlessness is his point.

So the desires for earthly things, the lust or the desire for possessions, the deceitfulness of possessions, and the cares that are characteristic for life in this age, those three things together, if we think about this, those three things together really summarize all of the human, human experience. All of the human experience, every earthly desire, everything here on earth really can be put into these categories.

Cares and concerns, desire for possessions and desire for other things. Those things really just cover the full gamut. And so I think what Jesus is getting at is not specifically to say, no, here's a thorn and here's a thorn, and here's a thorn. His point is all of this in this context, all of this for this person, for this soil comes together to produce.

And here's the point, the produce fruitlessness, that's Jesus' point is that this seed grew up into total complete fruitlessness. In Luke's account from Luke, chapter eight, verse 14. Luke uses a word here that's translated that this fruit, that or this, this plant does not mature. Now that's a word, and that form that's found nowhere else in the Bible.

That's the only place it's found. But that's a word, and I'm going to be sensitive here for, uh, any of mothers that may have suffered a miscarriage. That's a word that means to carry in the womb until birth, to carry to full term. And so the word that Luke is using, he's describing the seed that grows and doesn't falter before birth, but is carried all the way to the birth of the plant, which is to say the fruitfulness of yielding grain.

And so the idea here is that these plants sprout up to growth, yet they never reach fruitfulness. They are fruitless. So what we should now do is notice a few things, a few, I think, critical things to really see in the parable in order to get to what Jesus is, is presenting to us. I think that it's necessary, first of all to see.

First of all, that Jesus presents a picture for us of not only the, the soil that wasn't lacking in nutrients, it wasn't hard packed, it wasn't too shallow, it wasn't lacking in nutrients. That's not what created the fruitlessness. But instead, it's not what was not there that created the fruitlessness. It was what was there, which is to say the thorns.

So the parable presents to us a picture of these plants that are growing. And here's the key alongside thorns. You know, I think for most of my life, I pictured in my mind this soil being a thorn bush over on the side of the field and the farmer's scattering seed everywhere, and he gets over to the edge and there's some thorns over here on the edge, and he just throws seed in there too.

It, but that's not the picture that Jesus paints for us. When we look at it carefully, Jesus is not saying that the seed was cast into a mature thorn bush. Jesus says the thorns grew alongside it. In other words, when the seed was sewn, the picture that I'm given here is that the ground appeared just like the rest of the ground.

It wasn't a ground that already had thorn bushes growing up. Instead, it looked as though it was just like the rest of the ground ready to receive seed. So perhaps it means that the farmer has come along sometime prior to this and pulled up some rose or some, not rose Bushs, but thorn bushes, pulled up the thorn bushes, but didn't maybe get all of the roots.

And so maybe there's still some root down underneath the surface that he didn't see. Or maybe it means that perhaps the wind has blown some seeds from more thorn bushes onto that part of the ground. And the farmer wasn't aware of that, but to him it looked just like the other ground. But as things started growing, there was the seed that was growing, but also thorn bushes that were, or thorn thorn's, uh, plants that were growing up alongside it.

So the growing is, uh, growing together. The second thing to see is that the plant's fruitlessness was due to the failure to rid the soil of the destructive remnants that were present prior to sowing the seed. That's what, that's what destroyed the fruitfulness of the plant, was the failure to rid the soil of the elements that would grow up and render the seed fruitless.

So the pulling up of the, maybe the roots of the thorns that were there before, or the, the removal of the seeds of the thorn that maybe we have blown onto that part of the, of the field. I think that could be equated with repentance, with the removal of the old cares and the old desires of the old sinfulness.

The, the act of repentance. The seed represents the word and the receiving of the word and the belief of the word and the springing to life. Well, the removal of the thorn bushes would represent the repentance, the necessary true confession and repentance that rids the soil of those things, that if they're left there, they will grow and prevent fruitfulness from the seed.

So that's, that's the second thing to see. But then here's the third thing to see, and this is really, I think where the rubber meets the road. The good plant we're given no indication in the parable that the good plant. Withered. The plant that was sewn by the farmer were given no, in no indication there that that plant did not continue to live.

The second soil, the shallow soil were, were specifically told in that soil that the plant withered, the sun came out and the sun coming out was the occasion for the death of the plant. It wasn't the cause, but it was the occasion. And so that plant withered and died we're given no indication here that this plant ever died.

And so what was shown here is a picture of a plant that, for all intents and purposes, looks like the other plants, looks like a plant that one would expect some grain to grow on. So they would expect heads of grain to form on this and for these plants to be part of the harvest. Yet, even though it looks that way, it is shown to be fruitless.

And that's really, I think, One of the central keys to seeing Jesus' meaning in this parable, because this plant represents for us well, something Jesus talked about elsewhere. Remember in the, in the parable of the wheat and the tears, and so there's this field and the farmer sows the field, but then an enemy comes along and sows tears in the field, and then they come to the farmer and they say, Hey, we've seen some tears growing.

Do you want us to come and pull these out? And Jesus says, no, let them stay until the harvest and then we'll separate them out. So what the parable, the Wheat and Tears is saying to us is that there are those who have an A sustained, long-term, perhaps permanent attachment to Jesus, for whom there's no life in them.

That's what Jesus is getting at here. That there are those who have an abiding attachment to Jesus and they demonstrate an abiding attachment to Jesus. Yet there is no life in them. So this abiding attachment again, now we see this because the what comes, what springs up is this plant. Now remember from last week we saw that the plant represents the professing of faith.

The the word is sown. What comes up to life is a profession. I believe I received this word, I believe it. Last week we saw that the plant sprung up. There was this profession, I believe, but yet the sun comes up and because there's no root in the plant, the sun, which represents trouble and pressure and tribulation in this world, it causes that plant which had no root to quickly say, oh, I don't think I believe in this God.

The God that would, would allow this, the God that would let this go on the God that would not send relief from that type of son. And so that plant quickly dies, the profession stops. That person who once said, I believe no longer says they believe because the son has forced from them the confession, the profession of faith in Jesus.

This represents the same thing. Also a profession, a receiving of the word, and it comes up to life. I believe Jesus is the Christ I believe. I believe the scriptures. And then that that profession continues. It abides, yet it never produces a fruitfulness. So there's two ways to understand this type of soil.

There's two types of interpretations. One would be that this type of soil is teaching us of something that we might call the fruitless Christian. Or to put it another way, you probably have heard this term before, the carnal Christian, who has heard that term, the carnal Christian. I have had that term presented to me.

In fact, I remember many years ago sitting down with someone and they explained the carnal Christian to me, and they did it with a diagram. You've probably seen the same diagram. It's a circle with a chair inside the circle, and the circle represents you and your life. And the chair represents the throne of your life.

Who is king, who is Lord of your life. And then inside the circle, they'll write the name Jesus. And they'll say, this is the carnal Christian. Jesus is in their heart. He's their lured. He saved them, but he's not on the throne of their life. That's the Colonel Christian. Jesus wants to be on the throne of your life.

And so then they'll take that and they'll write Jesus sitting on the chair. To represent the one who is no longer the Colonel Christian. But now Jesus is the sovereign acting Lord of their life. That's the doctrine, if you will, of the carnal Christian or the fruitless Christian, and it's nonsense because the Bible knows nothing of carnal Christian.

The Bible knows nothing of three types of people. The Christian, the non-Christian, and the carnal Christian. The Bible knows only of two kinds of people in existence. They are the believer in the follower of Jesus Christ, and they are the lost unsaved sinner. That's the only two types of people the Bible knows.

So the Bible has no understanding of salvation outside of Christ being the Lord of your life. The Bible knows nothing of accepting the salvation of Jesus and yet still have yet to make him the actual Lord of your life. Or to put it in terms of the parable, the Bible knows nothing of the fruitless Christian, of the Christian whose life does not produce fruit.

So let's just look to once again the words of the parable. This is a fruitless plant. It professes Jesus. It has an attachment to Jesus, yet it never produces fruit. What does the Bible say of the one who doesn't produce good fruit? Think of the words of John the Baptizer when he says the acts is lay to the root and it's ready to chop off all who?

What? Produce bad fruit. No. All who do not produce good fruit. So the ax is ready to chop down not those who pro, not those who only produce bad fruit. The ax is ready to chop down those who produce no fruit. The ax is ready to chop down all who don't produce good fruit. A few chapters later in Matthew seven, Jesus verbatim repeats John's words.

The acts is laid at the root, ready to chop down all who do not produce good fruit. Likewise. Think of Jesus's words in John 15, and there he's using the imagery of the vine. And there Jesus says, all of those branches who do not what produce fruit, will be cut off and cast into the fire. The scriptures know nothing of a so-called fruitless Christian, nothing of one who professes faith in Jesus and has received salvation, and yet their life does not produce fruit.

So Jesus here is describing the tear. The tear is the one who maintains an attachment to Jesus without conversion. The tear is the one who maintains a certain attachment to Jesus, and that attachment may be lifelong. Yet that attachment is not one that springs from life because it is not fruit producing.

It is merely an attachment to Jesus. Now, here in the context of the Western Christian Church, when we think of someone who has a longstanding, long abiding attachment to Jesus, do we ever think in terms of maybe that person doesn't have life in Jesus? We don't. For us, in our context and our culture, attachment to Jesus or attachment to the church is synonymous with salvation.

Now, the point of this parable is not to give us ammunition for our spiritual guns. So that we can seek out all the tears among us and shoot them. Jesus said in the parable, no, leave them until the final day. That's when they'll be sorted. The purpose of the parable is to, first of all, twofold, to warn us against attachment to Jesus without conversion, but then secondly, also to teach us of how we can root out the remaining thorny soil in our heart.

So the fruit that Jesus speaks of, everything hangs on the fruit, does it not? The result is fruitlessness and everything hangs on the fruitlessness. The Lord of the harvest. We see from the scriptures, the Lord of the harvest has no fruitless children, does he? Matthew, chapter 21, verse 41. This is the parable.

Remember Reverend Jesus tells the, the story of the wicked tenants who are leasing the vineyard. And there's these tenants, they've leased this vineyard, and as payment for the vineyard, they're supposed to give the owner of the vineyard part of the crop. Remember that story? But they refuse to give him part of the crop, part of the harvest.

And so the owner sends messengers to say, Hey, just in case you forgot, payment is due. And they all, the messengers that they send, they beat him up and they send them away empty handed. Finally, the owner says, I will send my son. Surely they'll listen to him and instead they kill him. And then when Jesus concludes that parable, the people that he's telling the parable to get it, and Jesus asks the question, so what will the owner of that vineyard do?

And they answer correctly, they say, He'll cast those wicked tenants out and he will put tenants in place that will pay him his due, teaching us that the Lord of the harvest will receive fruit from all of his children. The Lord of the harvest has no fruitless children. Remember from a few weeks ago the triumphal entrance Sunday we turned to Mark 11 and we looked at the occasion which Jesus curses the fig tree, and we won't go back through that whole story, but remember the whole point there was Jesus entered into Jerusalem and he was hungry, and he sees from a distance the fig tree en leaf.

And so the leaves entice him, come to us and get some food, and he goes, and there's no figs, and he curses the tree and the tree dies once again showing us the Lord of the harvest has no fruitless children. So all of this points us to something that's very heavy. And the, the heaviness that it points to is all put onto this one word: fruit.

Can you feel that? Can you feel the weight that has now been loaded onto this word fruit? Because fruit stands for us as the difference maker between the plant that looks like the other plants, but really is dead. And the one that we'll look at next week, the good plant that has life, the presence of fruit is the whole difference, the absence of fruit.

That's everything that can you feel the heaviness of, of understanding what Jesus means when he says his children will bear fruit. It is an understatement to say it's crucial that we understand what Jesus means. When he says fruitlessness means that you're not part of my kingdom. I, I mean, it is, it is beyond critical that we understand what fruit means and what it doesn't mean.

So what does Jesus mean when he says that these plants grew up and did not produce fruit, or did not produce grain? What does he mean by this fruitlessness? I've had it explained to me as, uh, the successful evangelism as efforts. You know, fruit is, is other people that you have been used by the Holy Spirit to lead them to Christ.

I've had it explained that way. Uh, many times it's explained as in, in terms of the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. You know, when those characteristics are being exhibited in your life, then that's showing that you're producing fruit. So I've had ano explained a number of different ways, but on such a crucial question, I can think of no more crucial question on such a crucial question.

Shouldn't we turn to the scriptures and ask the scriptures, what do you mean Jesus? What do you mean when you say fruit? So if we were to look to the scriptures, particularly the Old Testament scriptures, because remember Jesus, Jesus is a rabbi, he's a Jew. And for Jesus, the, the scriptures are, what do we think of as the Old Testament?

There? There was no New Testament written when Jesus spoke this parable. And remember, the Jews were a storytelling people. And so the Old Testament is full of stories and stories. These parables, they, they use an earthly reality to teach a spiritual truth. And in doing so, they use lots of what metaphors.

And so using lots of metaphors, we find that the Old Testament is chock full of metaphors, spiritual metaphors. And one of them is the metaphor for fruit. So if you look to the scriptures, actually both Old Testament and New Testament, we look to the scriptures and we say, what do you mean scriptures by fruit?

We find that all kinds of things are meant, everything begins when God says, be fruitful and multiply. And then we see the scriptures speaking of fruit of the womb, fruit of the livestock, fruit of the ground, fruit of your hands, fruit of your labors, fruit of your tongue, fruit of your mouth. Fruit of a righteous man, fruit of a wicked man.

And that's just a small sampling. The scriptures are literally chopped full with the metaphor fruit. And so when we ask the question, well, Jesus, what do you mean by fruit? What do the scriptures mean by fruit? Cuz we want to know Jesus. We have to know. We need to know Jesus. What do you mean by fruit? And we ask of the scriptures, well, what do the scriptures mean when they say fruit?

We find that the spiritual metaphor is all over the place, but there's one thing that's consistent in all of those metaphors. Every time you find fruit of, in the scriptures, there's one thing that's consistent. The fruit is always exactly what was expected. Never once does it have to be explained. Oh, this is what I meant by fruit.

Fruit of the womb. Who, who wouldn't know what was being talked about with fruit of the womb? We know that that means a baby. What is fruit of the ground? That means the, the, the crops coming up. Fruit of the livestock. Fruit of the tongue, fruit of the mouth. What's that? That's our words and the effects that our words have in each and every instance.

The fruit is always exactly what would have been expected to be produced by the thing that's being talked about, and that's what Jesus is saying. In essence, Jesus is saying that the fruit that is necessary is all that the scriptures teach us should be expected of one who has been given a new nature.

Now that narrows it down, doesn't it? Basically all that the Bible says, no, it doesn't. It doesn't really help us much at all because does that mean that, that our lives have to exhibit everything that the scriptures teach that should be exhibited in the life of the Christian. In fact, if that's the case, We're all in trouble, right?

So let's think just a little bit further. Let's think of the, the characteristics, the nature, the fruit, so to speak, that the scriptures teach us should be expected of one. Who has received life in Christ. Let's think of the, some of the more fundamental ones I can think of. Nothing more fundamental than love for God.

To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. Or think back to the time we were in Ephesians one and we saw where Paul gave there the two fundamental foundational traits of genuine believers. One was faith and the other was love for the brethren. Okay? So some very fundamental things. We also could talk about the fruit of the spirit.

We can talk about a lot of things. Just some very fundamental things. But still we're, we're left in the same place. That's to say, Listen, if I take this scripture seriously, if I take Jesus seriously, and I hope everybody in the room has taken Jesus seriously, if we take Jesus seriously and we say, okay, Jesus, I get it.

The fruit is absolutely indispensable eternally. So I want to know how to look to my own life and know if I'm not producing fruit, I want to know if I am, I want to know. And as I wrestled with this, and as I searched the scriptures, here's what I came up with. If your heart is not burdened by the knowledge that you do, things that are not like your master, if your heart is weighed down by your remaining sinfulness, if you look to yourself, to your life, And there is something in you that's distressed when you see that you are, are failing to be like your master in this way or in that way, or you've come up short in this way.

If that disturbs you and it disturbs you on a consistent basis, not just once and you put it away and forget about it, but that disturbs you on a consistent basis, your life is producing fruit. I think that's the clearest, most graspable way I can put it to say, if your life in the ways in which you are not like your master, if they disturb you, if they bother you in your soul and you can't just put it aside and forget about it and go on with life, but it comes back.

That is what the scriptures are saying to us is the life that is producing fruit. Because you know what? The tear doesn't care that it's a tear that rhymed. The tear doesn't care and they don't, tears don't care that they're not like the master weeds don't care that they're not producing wheat. You know what the weed cares about looking like the rest of the weeds that that's what we get from the parable of the wheat and the tears.

It's just they're attached to the field, attached to the other plants, and it doesn't care about fruitfulness. It's just what it wants is to be attached to everything else part of the field. That's what the TA wants. That's all the TA cares about is this external attachment to Jesus. But the true plant cares about fruitlessness.

The true plant is convicted. A fruitlessness, what does Jesus say? Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted, and that is the clearest indicator that that I can point to that can definitively show each person, am I a tear? Am, am I? Am I a plant that it has the fruitfulness, has been choked out by these thorns, or does my life produce fruit?

Because if it concerns you spiritually and does so on a consistent basis that your life is not producing enough fruit, or that your life is failing to produce fruit in this area of struggle, or perhaps that area of struggle, or you long for more spiritual victory over sin, your life is producing fruit.

If all that you care about, if your soul is satisfied by external attachment to Jesus or his people, you're a terror. There's no other way to put that. If your soul is content with mere attachment to Jesus, you are a terror and your life is fruitless and Jesus is in John 15, you'll be cut off and you'll be cast into the fire.

And so seeing this, seeing that this fruit is what is rightly to be expected, this is what should be expected This, this is to look to a person and see the nature and know the character and then expect this fruit. This is what Jesus say. This is why the Jesus can so emphatically and repeatedly. Connect together fruit with the knowledge of the character.

Remember how Jesus, he does this numerous times? A good tree cannot produce bad fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Why can Jesus say that? Because what he means by fruit is that which you would expect to be produced by that tree or the character or the person. Nobody expects apple trees to produce bananas.

Nobody expects great vines to produce pomegranates. They expect great vines to produce that which is consistent with their nature, which is why Jesus can say repeatedly the fruit. The fruit shows you the nature because the fruit is the natural product. What one, one would expect from the production of that character, of that nature.

So now, Back to the, back, to the parable again. So we know that each of these soils is presenting for us two truths. First of all, it's presenting to us the truth of, of the type of person in this instance, the thorny soil person, the thorny soil person whose heart is content with mere attachment to Jesus.

They don't deny Jesus. They, they would, they would not say that Jesus is not real, that the Bible's not true, that God does not exist. They, they profess Jesus. Yet their soul is, is content. We're just merely growing in the field without producing fruit. So that's the thorny, so person and the, the lesson for us, there is once again a very clear-eyed, wide-eyed gaze into our own.

So soul asking ourself the hard question, is my life producing fruit? Am I consistently disturbed? Do I consistently long for my life to produce more fruit? Do I consistently yearn that the bad fruit in my life would continue to be killed, that the thorns in my life would continue, continue to be killed?

Or am I just okay with things as they are? So that would be the thorny soil person. But now let's finish by talking about the Christian, the true believer who has remnants of thorny soil in their heart. How do, what does the parable say to us about that? What does a parable say to us about what the true Christian should gain from this in order to do battle against those thorns that remain in our hearts?

So the parable is teaching us that once again, all of us have remnants of thorny soil in our hearts. All of all of us have aspects of our heart that are enticed by the deceitfulness of riches. Does anybody want to deny that? Does anybody want to, to deny that riches are not enticing? They're enticing to everyone.

Possessions are enticing and they're deceptive. Does anybody deny that you live a life that's carefree? Nobody. Nobody should live a life that's carefree. We all have cares. We all have concerns and troubles. Last week we talked a great deal about the pressures of the world, and so we experienced these. We also experienced these desires for other things.

Is Jesus saying that we should have no desire other than him? That's not what he's saying. So we all have this aspect, this aspect of the, this remaining, this part of the, the, the field of our heart, so to speak, that's thorny in which the, the seeds of the word are growing, but they're growing alongside some thorns.

What are we to do? How are we to do battle against those thorns? Because we started by saying something, something about the, the thorn plant to begin with, right? How a thorn plant says to you. Loud and clear. You better not lay a hand on me. I mean, if, if a thorn says anything to you, it says, touch me and it's going to hurt you for days.

My thorns are going to go deep into your flesh and it's going to take you days to get them out. So how is it that we do battle with these remaining thorns? I think the first thing to see is to clearly see what these thorns represent for us. So again, Jesus uses this, this threefold description, the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desire for other things.

And I think that we can take that. And, and if I, if I may, I think I can take that, which we said earlier just is a way of describing all of the human experience in this age. But I think I can take that and I can rephrase it into three categories that, that I hope would make even more sense to us. And those three categories are this, comfort, security, and peace, comfort, security and peace.

May I suggest to you, That every earthly desire falls into at least one of those categories, usually two, comfort, security, and peace. Everything that entices you in this world, whether good, bad, or neutral. Everything that you desire under the sun, in this life, in this age, on this earth, every natural thing that you desire falls into the categories of comfort, security, or peace.

And that's what the thorns say to you. They say to your heart, we can give you this. We can give you comfort, we can give you security, we can give you peace.

And those things fall into a myriad of, of actual realities of, of how that's actually played out. But that's how if, if you study your own heart, you'll see increasingly that that is what your heart. Longs for your heart, yearns for those three things, comfort, security, and peace. Now, you can rephrase those any way you want.

You can apply those any way you want. But I would challenge you to find one desire, one thing that impacts your life, that doesn't fit into one of those categories either. Des desire the desire for comfort, meaning also pleasures, earthly pleasures or comfort as in the absence of discomfort or the absence of pain.

Something hurts. You want it to stop hurting. Something makes you sick. You want it to stop. Something's creating, creating aches and pains. You want it to stop. Something's inflicting pain on a, on a relationship that you have with someone in your life. You want it to stop comfort, security. All of us have a deep longing for security.

I mean, that's largely what possessions are about. Possessions are, are here to bring you comfort and pleasure, but they're also here to provide security for you. The sense of being safe, safe with maybe a safe income, a secure income or a secure future or security in the home or, or security from bad people, on and on.

You could go. Security, also, peace. That's what the, the human heart longs for probably more than the other two, is peace, a sense of peace. We don't like un peace, we don't like to be disquieted, we don't like to be upset. We long for peace. And so along comes all the things of the world and in Jesus' parable that would include basically everything in the created world can come along and offer to you one or more of those things.

And they can say to your heart, I will give you this.

And that's what the thorns are representing for the believer, these earthly things that say to us, I can give you this. Now, what's the Bible's solution to that? The Bible's solution is the doctrine of justification. Now, the doctrine of just, of justification in case, uh, we're not familiar with that. The doctrine of justification just means how the Bible tells us that we are made okay with God, that we are made right with God.

All of us have a deep need to be okay with our maker, to be right with our maker. We all know that it's deep in our hearts and many people deny it, but it's still there. And you may suppress it, you may quell it, you may press it down, but it pops up somewhere else. We need the approval. We need the acceptance of our maker, and that's our most desperate need in life.

And that need can oftentimes manifest itself in the need for comfort, the need for security, or the need for peace. All those are just offshoots of the bigger need, which is to be right with our maker. Now, the Bible tells us that we're made right with our maker because Jesus, the Son of God, lived the perfect life in our behalf, and then goes to the cross, pays the penalty for our sin.

And by faith, his righteous life is accredited to us. Our sinfulness is given to him and he's punished for it. And by faith we receive his righteousness, and that's how we're made right with God. But the human heart is fallen, and we have this pesky thing called remaining sin. And that remaining sin says to our heart, over and over, it whispers to our heart, if you have me, you're okay.

If you have me, you'll be okay. And that's comfort, security and peace. All of those things come to us in that form to say, if you have me, you're okay. If, if you have possessions, you'll be okay. If, if you have freedom from sickness, you'll be okay. If the the doctor's report comes back, good, you'll be okay.

If you have the security of this or the security of that, you'll be okay. If you resolve this problem in your life, you'll be okay. And that's what the thorns say to us. Over and over, you'll be okay if you have me. And the Bible's answer for that, for the believer is to say, all that I need is to be okay with my maker.

And that's done through the doctrine of justification. And so the Bible teaches the Christian the true believer to battle the remaining thorns in their life by reminding themself and meditating upon the doctrine of justification of how we are made right with God and by teaching our hearts, I am right with my maker through the work of another.

I don't look to myself to see if I'm okay with, with God or not. I look to another, I look to Jesus, looking to him. That tells me I'm all right with my maker. And that produces within us a peace, a security, a comfort that wells up underneath all those other thorny desires and pushes them out and produces fruitfulness.

Now I'm just take another minute. Or two or three. And I want to show us how the New Testament, the New Testament's answer for all of the problems of the believer that the believer faces. The New Testament's answer for all of them always includes reminding ourself of justification. So the New Testament tackles a lot of issues, a lot of interpersonal issues, a lot of conflict issues, a lot of, a lot of issues in life because the, the New Testament is written to real people, real Christians who had real problems.

But the New Testament's answer for all of our problems never hear this clearly. The New Testament's answer for all of our problems never was disconnected from the doctrine of justification. One example that shows this, I think very clearly is the example from Galatians chapter two. Galatians chapter two, Paul is writing to a church.

And I think that in Paul's mind, I think Paul is hoping and praying that this is a church that's been overcome with thorns, but it's possibly a church that was a shallow soil church to start with. But I think Paul is hoping and praying that's really just a thorny church because it's a church that has been consumed with distractions, consumed with things that are threatening their profession.

And so the whole letter is a, is to this church that the church is saying there's something else. If I can have that, I'm okay. There's, if I can have that, I'm okay. Does anybody know what the, that is in Galatians, the Galatia? Is that the church is saying if I can have that, I'm okay. Anybody remember what it is?

Circumcision. I mean, see, it can be anything. Anything that the world says to you, if you have me, you're okay. And so for the Galatians or for the churches in Galatia, that thing was circumcision. If you can have me, you're okay. I know you got Jesus, but, but if you can have me too, you're okay. And so Paul's writing to a church that I think in his heart he's hoping that this, this is just a lot of thorn bushes that I got to, I got to cut through.

And so how does Paul attack that problem? The problem of the Galatian Christian's thinking that there's something else that they need. Do you remember that instance in chapter two where Paul speaks of his rebuke of Peter? Has that passage ever thrown you for a loop? Be honest. Has that passage you remember what happens in the passage?

Paul recounts to the Galatians. That time that Peter was up there in the church at Antioch. And he was eating, sharing table with the, with the Gentile believers. And then some Jewish believers from Jerusalem came up. And you remember Peter withdrew from the Jewish, from the Gentile believers. The same Peter that saw the vision of the sheet come down three times the same Peter went to Cornelius and all that.

That same Peter was sharing table with Gentile believers. But then the Jewish believers came and Peter wanting the approval of the Jewish believers withdrew from the Gentile believers. And Paul Reuben to his face, calls him a hypocrite, says that you are spreading hypocritical ideas to these other believers.

And Paul rebukes him to his face. Have you ever read that and thought less of Paul? Be honest. Have you ever read that and thought, I hope nobody ever does that to me. I hope there's never some sort of sin in my life, and a brother has to come along and rebuke me for it. And then he writes a letter to tell everybody about it, and that letter ends up in the Bible and millions of people have read it.

You ever hope that never happens to you? And you ever ask why? Paul, did you tell us that? Shouldn't I have just been something between you and Peter? Well, the difference is Paul is writing scripture and the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to include this account because this is the perfect illustration for how the doctrine of justification teaches our heart to rip up the thorns.

Take a look with me. This is on the back page of your notes now from verse 11. This describes the problem. We just went through that where Peter was eating with the Gentile believers, but then he withdrew from them. Now look at verse 15. We ourselves, or verse 14, I'm sorry, but when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said, TO Cephas (or Peter) before them all: If you though a, a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? Now, here it is, verse 15. We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentiles sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

Because by works of the law, no one will be justified. Now, verse 16, right there is the New Testament's clearest, most profound statement of justification by faith alone. Have you ever read that and asked why is it right there? The conclusion of this whole rebuttal of Peter, the whole interaction between Paul and Peter, it's there because this is how Paul dealt with that.

He said to Peter, Peter, you're forgetting how you're justified. You're forgetting what makes you okay with God. What makes you okay with God is not the approval of those Jewish believers. What makes you okay with God is Christ Jesus and your faith in him. Don't forget that, Peter. You've forgotten that and forgetting that has allowed this thorn to come up that's saying to your heart, Peter, if you just have me, you're okay.

If you just have me or you're okay. If you just have the approval of those Jewish believers, you're okay. And Peter fell for it. And Paul's answer is, remember how you stand before God? It's not the hi. By having the approval of people, it's not by sharing table with the right people and not sharing people with the wrong people.

You have the approval of God because of Jesus Christ and faith in Him alone. And if you see that pattern, if you see that and you teach yourself to see that in the scriptures, you will begin to see it all over the place in the New Testament. That is the New Testament's answer for every strife. The Christian faces, every struggle, every thorn that would come along and say to you, if you just have me, you're okay.

You. You really need me and you'll be okay before God. If you just teach your heart to see over and over and over, the scripture never addresses, or the New Testament never addresses a problem in the church that the doctrine of justification is far away from that. And so this is how the new, the scriptures teach us to address the remaining thorns in our hearts.

Those things that would come along, the cares and, and deceitfulness of riches and, and the, the allurement of possessions and the need for security and the need for comfort, and the desire to have the approval of people and the desire to have things on earth tell our heart, you're okay if you got me. The scriptures teach us.

You do battle with that by reminding of your yourself of how you're okay with God, what makes you okay before your maker. And it's not what you possess, it's who possesses you.