Latest / Harvest After Sunday / Parables & the Kingdom of God: Digging Deeper
Transcript
- Harvest Media: Welcome to the Harvest After Sunday podcast. I'm Natalie and I'm your host and I'm here with Stefan, pastor of preaching and teaching. And today we are digging deeper into Sunday's sermon on parables in the kingdom of God. We were in Matthew 13, one through 23, and we learned that parables reveal how the kingdom of God comes. They're not just moral stories. In this parable specifically, the sower is the messenger of the kingdom. is the message of the kingdom and the soil is the heart of the hearer so the response reflects what the soil was ⁓ you said if we embrace Jesus we'll have an understanding of the parables the way that he teaches by using parables and if you reject him or choose other things then you grow in confusion so the unbeliever won't understand parables because they're about the kingdom of God the kingdom of God is shared broadly but under narrowly and this I think is consistent with something we've talked about several times which is there's a tension present there that leads us to still urgently share the gospel but to surrender our expectations of how anybody responds to the gospel and I do want to focus on that second point for a few minutes that the kingdom of God is understood narrowly because even after the sermon and even after our discussion a few weeks ago ⁓ on predestination, I'm still grappling here with the concepts of divine sovereignty and man's responsibility. And I wonder if any of our listeners are too, because they still seem like they are in conflict here with this response. Yeah, I can completely sympathize with that tension because I feel it too. ⁓ And it's a tension that theologians and philosophers have tried to sort out for millennia because there is a very necessarily real issue of God's sovereignty like if God is not sovereign then He is a God who has to react to us But that is not the the picture of God that we get in scripture. God is a proactive God. He is a God who His eternal decree will stand and that decree was before the foundations of the world so We live in a world that has been ordained and decreed according to the sovereign will and and authority of God, yet there are things in the world that don't align with God's design for the world. So when we when we encounter that tension, it is right and good to see it. I think that it's unhelpful to explain it away by in the sense of picking one or the other. ⁓ And we've talked we've talked at length about this. And I would definitely if anybody's listening and hasn't listened to the podcast on predestination, I think that that's a really important. ⁓ important conversation because it frames a lot of these things in more time than we have right now but the fact that the the kingdom of God is is understood narrowly so it's it is not embraced by everyone who hears we can look at that and we can say One, that people are responsible for their decisions, for their beliefs, and God holds them accountable to that. We do not hold to theological fatalism, which is that there is no such thing as a choice, everything, all the way down to the minutia of your daily choices was... was predetermined and you are actually not an active agent in your daily life. That's fatalism. That is an extreme view on the divine sovereignty side that scripture very clearly says is not true. ⁓ Because we do make choices on a daily basis. We do reject or embrace the truth. I think that what we instead need to do is we need to pull back and say, so what is it that makes someone able to believe? What is it that makes that gives someone the ability to believe in the first place? And what is it that makes someone unable to believe? And the consistent theme that we see throughout scripture is that my inability to embrace the gospel is not because God said I'm gonna choose to condemn you it's because of my own sin And my ability to embrace the gospel Is because god said i'm going to choose to show you grace the I I may have done this on a previous podcast. I don't know but I think that uh that a lot of times we think that the way that god works is he everybody starts out neutral And he says, okay i'm gonna save this one and i'm gonna condemn this one. That's what's known as double predestination So i'm predestining you for salvation and I'm predestining you for condemnation and that is not biblical. The view that scripture gives us is that everybody starts sinful, condemned, worthy of judgment and rightly so and God would be just to save none and from those who are deserving of condemnation God says and I will save some. those who I will save I my grace will enable them to believe when otherwise they would not have believed and the the There are a few passages that help us just to see this I mean the the psalmist and then Paul quotes the psalmist in Romans 3 says, there is none righteous, no not one, there is none who understands, none who seeks after God. Okay, what is he saying? He's saying that because all of us are sinful, none of us of our own will follow after God of our own volition. So if left to myself, I wouldn't choose the gospel. Then, Ephesians chapter two, verse one, but you were dead in your trespasses and sins, but by God's grace, God made you alive. Okay, so Romans three is saying, if left to myself, I wouldn't choose God. Ephesians 2 is saying left to myself. I couldn't choose God because I'm dead in my trespasses and sins. I am no more able to raise myself to new life in Christ than I am to raise myself from the dead. Okay, so then how is it? How is it that I'm able to believe? John chapter 6 verse 44 no one comes to me unless he is drawn by the father. And that word drawn is really important. It is the same Greek word for a fisherman who is pulling a net filled with fish up into a boat. So it's this idea, and I don't want to say this too strongly, but it's this idea that I am drawn to Jesus almost against my will. Not like God brings me kicking and screaming and I don't want it, but it's that God actually works against my natural will and begins to work in me so that I will want Jesus. So that when I do come to Jesus, it's because I genuinely want him. So I, if left to myself, I wouldn't choose Jesus. If left to myself, I couldn't choose Jesus. The only way that I can is if God intervenes. So that's the divine sovereignty piece. But the human responsibility side of it is, and if I say, no, I don't want Jesus, I am still accountable to that because at the end of the day, what am I doing? I'm speaking from my own will that is bent against God. And I think for some people, the that answer is not sufficient because because they have a high view of the human will that I really am in a place of being neutral. And so I have these two choices before me and I'm going to choose one or the other from a place of neutrality. But we're not in a place of neutrality. We're in a place of being dead in our trespasses and sins. Neutral goes out the window. So when we start talking about the parable or the kingdom of being understood narrowly, we have to couch it in that broader discussion in Scripture of God is sovereign over salvation, left to ourselves we would reject the kingdom of God. God by His grace has chosen to work in the hearts of some to bring them to a place of repentance, and so then when we see someone embrace the kingdom of God, we can say that was by God's grace. This is why I'm glad we have a chance to do this because even coming in here I'm like no you referenced this and this on Sunday, and I'm still confused there at odds But hearing you explain it so let me see if I can kind of explain it back as one of those like you really understand something if you can Because that you've referenced Isaiah six they have closed their eyes like it's not that God would not let them turn to him It's that they don't want to it's not that it's hidden. It's they've rejected it and what you're saying that would be all of us but for the grace of God because then you said And that was my question, isn't it? God who even gives people the desire, it gives us the desire for him. You said the disciples get to see and hear the message of the kingdom and understand it because of the grace of God, not because of their own doing. Right. It's the kindness of a gracious God to open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, deaf to see and hear the truth. So we all would reject him and we would continue on rejecting him if not for his grace for some that allows their desire to change and be for him instead of their own will. That's right. Okay. And that's why Paul says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not of works that no one may boast. So You know, this, is where the original language is, kind of helpful to understand what the this is. And this is not your own doing the previous verse is there. The previous clause of that, of Ephesians two, eight and nine is four by grace. You have been saved through faith and this well, which, which of those three grace saved or faith is the this referring to and without getting technical the the way the syntax of the verse is there isn't one of those three that the this is referring to based on based on the rules of grammar in Greek it has to be all three that the the grace is not your own doing the saved is not your own doing and the faith is not your own doing this is all the gift of God not Works you didn't come to this on your own by your own doing by your own knowledge by your own learning None of this was from you. It's all the gift of God so that you and I can't otherwise We would be very Very prone to say I figured it out. Yeah, of course. God saved me because I figured it out and Paul is saying no, no, you you were blind God opened your eyes. You were deaf. God helped you to hear. And the very important follow-up question that I think any honest person asks is, then why doesn't he do that for everybody? I don't know. I'm not God. I don't know what God knows. So I don't judge what God does. God has told us what we need to know to believe him. And he's told us enough to know that we should be praising him for the way that he did open the eyes of some and we don't get to take credit for it. We can just say thank you that you would show grace to me. One of the one of the most impactful things that I heard was well that I read Charles Spurgeon a long time ago said I do not. I do not struggle with how it is that God could condemn a sinner to hell. I struggle with how it is that God would save a sinner like me. And that's the right heart. It's not, I don't understand why God would keep the kingdom hidden from some people. Jesus says why he keeps it hidden from them because they've closed their own eyes. What is hard is why would he tell us about his kingdom? Cause we don't deserve it. And so then when we look at the disciples, why would he, why would he pick them? There was nothing about those 12 that, that should have said, yeah, that's the all star team. They were actually the opposite of it. Instead we look at them as paradigmatic of the call of God to call those who you would not, who can't take credit for the call that God puts on them and all that you can say is that was your kindness. Learning so much about the kingdom of God even in this parable and point three the kingdom of God is responded to differently so we're we're talking about like the heart the heart is the soil and then the response to God and so ⁓ us make sense of some of the responses that we see. You touched on this a little bit in the sermon and I think it's important to spend a little time fleshing this out because it can be confusing to us. We don't truly know people's hearts. We don't truly know God's will. ⁓ So we're going to grapple with this. But when we see people that appear to be believers and then they deconstruct their faith or, you know, there's no fruit has the gospel really taken root where they ever truly saved? How do we grapple with these questions and thinking about people's responses to the kingdom of God? Yeah, and the tension in the parable is you have one soil that obviously doesn't respond. You have two that initially respond but don't bear fruit. In fact, the soil with the thorns, Jesus says, and it proved fruitless. The soil with rocks because of its shallowness of faith it immediately shoots up Because it can't shoot down it can't create roots in the soil and so it comes it goes up instead and then when the heat comes it withers and Because it withers quickly it produced no fruit and then the fourth soil are those who respond and produce fruit So you have these varying responses? And it's, and I mentioned this in the, in the sermon on Sunday, it's easy to look at, at the two in the middle and say, ⁓ there was growth. That's saving faith, but there was no fruit. So either the last three groups are all saved and the one that produces fruit just gets to experience more blessing in this life. Or the two in the middle that didn't produce fruit ⁓ were saved but lost their salvation. And so the only ones who stay saved are those who persevere to the end and produce fruit. third option is the first one is obviously not saved. The middle two appeared to be saved, but then later proved that they weren't. And then the fourth one was truly saved. And that's why it produced fruit. And I think the third option is the right one. And if we go elsewhere in the New Testament, we can see how that's the case. So if you go to Hebrews, chapter six, it's a, it's a passage that many people struggle with. ⁓ because at first blush, it sounds like it's saying that someone who was once saved and walks away cannot be saved again. So what he says in, in Hebrews, chapter six, in the beginning is, ⁓ that it's impossible for those who have tasted of the heavenly gift who have enlightened to the work of the Spirit to be restored to repentance again for they are crucifying again Jesus and so you read that and you go okay so those who those who were once saved but then walk away aren't allowed they're not And that word tasted in that passage is so important because it is the same word that's used. If you go to like an all you can eat buffet, we all do the same thing. You you go to golden corral or something. We all do the same thing, right? You get a plate, you go through and you, take a little bit of everything, right? Because there's only so much real estate in my stomach and the cost of admission is the same. And so I'm going to maximize. my appetite by not wasting time and space on things that aren't that good, right? So we get a bunch of different stuff. You come back, you sample all of it. And then what do you decide? You decide what you're going to go back for and actually go get for your meal. That mindset is the word tasted in Hebrews six. And what he's saying is for someone who has been in the church, has been around believers. They have they have seen the goodness of God they have they have been partakers in the grace of God by extension because they've been in the room as lives are transformed and as people are repenting and as marriages are changed and addiction is conquered like they've seen it all maybe they even benefited themselves in some ways where they would see some kind of marked improvement of their life and they've heard the truth of God Preached to them and they it has it has in some way shape or form resonated that this is in fact true when they've been around all that but they've just been sampling it and they don't commit to the whole meal they decide yeah that was really great but I'm gonna go somewhere else because I think out there there's something better that person can't be restored to repentance because that person never repented in the first place. Not true repentance. True repentance is not just sorrow. It's not just shame and grief. It's not just tears and wishing I hadn't done that. It is to say my way was wrong. God's way, your way is right. Let me walk in your way. Forgive me for walking in my own way. Well, if I'm just sampling the meal, the church and I decide to go have a different meal then I'm never I was never really in this thing in the first place in Mark chapter 11 the they walk past a fig tree Jesus goes over it's got leaves goes over checks it fruit there's no fruit And what does he say? May no one ever eat of your fruit again. Then he goes into the temple, turns over the tables in the temple. They walk by that same tree the next day and it's withered away to its roots, is what it says. ⁓ Why did he curse the tree? Because it had no fruit. That seems like the significant piece in this. then in the parable as well, not that a plant could grow. That doesn't signify the true faith. That doesn't signify salvation and belonging to the kingdom of God. It's the fruit. Right. So it could appear like life and it could appear like a believer. ⁓ But unless it's actually bearing fruit, that's what really reveals our heart response. That's right. And what we're going to get to to this coming Sunday is the next parable that Jesus tells, which is the parable of the weeds, where an enemy sows bad seed, which is weeds in the field along with the wheat. Well, the word that's used in that passage for, I'm gonna try to not give too much of a preview to the sermon, but the word that's used in that passage for weed is a word that's used to describe a bunch of different type of long-readed weeds. When you think about a wheat, plant as it grows, it's a long reed, and then when it's mature, the grains at the top open up and you can harvest them. Well, the weed looks just like the wheat as it's growing up. And it's not until it matures that you see which is which. And that parable on the heels of the parable of the four soils really reinforces it is the fruit that is produced by the plant that dictates whether or not we can say that that plant was in Christ or not. know, by plant we mean person. ⁓ The reformers were very fond of the phrase, we know that we're saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. ⁓ It is by faith alone that we are saved. But when I am saved by faith alone, it will produce in me. varying degrees of life change and that's why Jesus says it produces fruit some hundredfold 60 or 30 varying levels But some kind of life change where we can look at it and say yeah, like you're walking in new life You still live on this side of eternity. And so you still struggle against sin. You still struggle against the old self You still struggle with the world. You're still tempted by the enemy but we've seen, I can say I was one way, then I met Christ, and now I see things differently. And the two soils in the middle, the rocky soil and the thorny soil, those two can't say that. And that's why ⁓ rather than the parable of the soils being one by which we evaluate how saved someone is or it's not it's not a passage that is meant I think that's meant for us to to evaluate the present salvation of a person it is a parable that is meant to help us to look back in in 2,000 years of church history where many have confessed Christ and then have walked away or their lives look nothing like him and be able to say what's going on there and to be able to say it's not that the kingdom of God is not effective that's not what's going on there it is not that the gospel message is void of power that's not what's going on there it's that the heart of that person was this type of soil and so it makes sense. I can make sense out of the person who's divided in his heart because he really wants worldly gain and so he wants claim to be a Christian but now he's just pursuing worldly gain and has completely left Christ and I can look at it and say that doesn't cause me to doubt the gospel, that causes me to yeah, that's exactly what Jesus said would happen for the heart like that. think it's really helpful for you to bring up this idea of time, like looking back over 2000 years even, because I was thinking about that the more we unfolded this imagery about plants and fruit and Jesus sprinkles this all throughout the New Testament. And it's so helpful, the imagery. And I remember early on in one of our conversations, we talked about abiding in Christ and John 15 and just the imagery is so helpful to us because when you understand it, You understand that time needs to be allowed that seasons need to be allowed for fruit to be produced and revealed and there will be varying amounts at varying times ⁓ Circumstances will reveal the health or not and the fruitfulness or not Or it will choke it out and reveal, you know if it was truly a believer someone abiding in Christ or not and I think that's helpful for us to make sense of what we see when other people turn away from their faith and then also to reflect on our own lives and evaluate the season that we're in. And ⁓ if we're truly abiding, if we value Christ more than anything. ⁓ You said a quote in the sermon that really struck me. listened to it several times and I had a really emotional response when you read it. This was the quote, the longer you follow Christ, the lonelier the journey becomes. And ⁓ I think I really responded to that because the times that I've felt loneliest in my life are the times that I've felt the nearness of Jesus the most. And the more I choose to follow him now and look like him, the more I have to be willing to give up. I mean, I think we see this in the life of the disciples we talked about. They did give up a lot and sacrifice a lot with the more that they wanted Jesus most. And just like this is true for us, too, I think they go hand in hand. They could clearly understand the message of the kingdom. And then they wanted Jesus more. And the more that they wanted Jesus, the more they understood the message. of the kingdom and I see that ⁓ in my own life as well and I pray that for our church family that ⁓ by the grace of God we would desire him more than more and we would more clearly understand the message of his kingdom because we will it will potentially be lonely we will potentially have to give up a lot ⁓ but the fruit and the reward is great because there's nothing better than him yeah and it it will be lonely, ⁓ relationally. because the relationships that we once valued as we grow in the kingdom of God, as we understand it more, those some of those relationships that we once had will change or will end. I mean, that's why Jesus says if you put your hand to the plow and look back, you're not worthy of my kingdom. And anyone who's not willing to leave father and mother, sister and brother and follow me is not worthy of my kingdom. He's not saying you shouldn't love your family. He's saying you should love me more than even your family who you already love very much. And I mean I can, I wasn't exaggerating when I said on Sunday I've known hundreds of people who ⁓ seem to be walking with Christ and later and we have to, this is gonna, this is gonna. I think ruffles some feathers, but I think it's important to say, ⁓ we have to recognize that we're children of our age, the age in which we live, ⁓ just as much as, as anything else influences how we think the time in which we live does a great deal of, of conforming us to the patterns of the age. And we, in the last 150 years, have gone through a period in American Christianity that said, ⁓ if you simply pray this prayer, then you're saved. I think that the parable of the soils confronts that idea. I am not saying that people who prayed that prayer aren't saved. I'm saying that when we reduce what it means to embrace the gospel down to simply praying a prayer and we say nothing of the cost, we say nothing of the ongoing dependence on Christ, we say nothing of the call to follow him. We actually diminish the truth of the gospel you in such a way that it becomes easy for someone to think that they have been saved and think that nothing is expected. That's called easy believism, that I can simply believe and nothing else needs to change about my life. And I think that not only the New Testament, but then the faithful teaching of the church throughout the ages would say, you are missing something if you reduce the gospel message down. to that loathe of you of what it means to truly be in the kingdom. I'm not saying that salvation is dependent on us doing the right things, but that, we know we're saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. If I convey the gospel in a way that says, the faith can be alone, then what I'm saying is there is a way that you can be in Christ, yet have nothing to do with Him and how you live. And that is antithetical to the gospel. with somebody in the lobby after church on Sunday and he made such a great point because I was talking about how ⁓ it's not up to you and I for someone to believe if someone does believe it's because of the grace of God if someone doesn't believe it's because they don't want God in neither of those circumstances is their belief because you and I were just awesome at evangelism ⁓ And he's what he said was so good. And I said, I wish you would have said that to me before the service, because I would have said that my sermon. Well, now you can say it now. ⁓ And he said, if you do think that someone's repentance depends on you, then you will invariably water down the message to make it easier for them to embrace it. And I said, man, I don't know if truer words have ever been spoken like that. is so true and that's why we oftentimes encounter ⁓ what I would say is superficial faith because somewhere along the way someone watered down the message to that person enough where they thought that there's no call to follow Jesus only a call to believe ⁓ but belief will result in a transformation that will produce fruit. ⁓ there was a, Tim Challis is a blogger, he writes a lot of Christian content and very sharp guy and he said, he had some advice for people in ministry and he said, ⁓ try to grow something in your yard. and it will give you so much more patience with your church. ⁓ Jeannie and I have planted trees in every home that we've lived in and every time we've planted any kind of fruit tree, we're always anxious to see that first fruit on the tree. And before there's any fruit, you're kind of sitting there going, don't know, like, what are we dealing with here? And then you see the fruit and you're like, bingo, it's healthy, it's alive, it's doing what it's supposed to do. And I think that rather than using the parable of the soils to say, okay, so who in here isn't a real Christian? Jesus is saying, look for fruit. And when you see fruit, just know it's going to produce more. And you can know when you see any of that fruit, that that, that thing is alive. good encouragement for us individually and as a church family. Thanks for joining us for the Harvest After Sunday podcast, where we help you grow into the image of Christ by applying the in his word for his mission. We'll you Sunday.