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13:18-23
The Seed that fell on good soil

 

Rev. Daehyun Shin[2005/11/20]
The Lord's day Morning Thanksgiving Sevice

Sierra Vista United Korean Presbyterian Church

 

There are many kinds of seeds. The beauty of the seeds is not in themselves, but in their products and outcomes. So, normally you don’t eat the seed except for nutritional value. Mostly you sow it on soil. When the seed is germinating, its form is disappearing. It grows, becomes a plant or a tree and produces fruits. Thus, “a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it is dropped into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains” (John 12:24). 

The message of the kingdom of God is like the seed. It cannot be there to remain as it is. It should be preached like the seed to be sown. The word of God should not remain as alphabets and books. It should be read and proclaimed, “This gospel of kingdom will be preached in the whole world” (Matt 24:14). The word of God has to be ‘alive’ by being sown. 

So every preacher is a sower. They are sowing the seed in the listeners’ hearts. The congregation is the field that the seed falls on. Some may have been sown for less than a year, some for 3 or 10 years or for more than 20 or 30 years. What would have been the picture of them like if they have heard God’s words for that long? What are they now supposed to be like? Everything that the word of God fell on should be like the picture of Genesis 1:11, 12, “Then God said, ‘Let the land produce....’ And it was so. The land produced…. And God saw that it was good.” 

Why some of us are not so good as God expects to see? One may hear the word, but does not bother about its message, whether to forget or not to understand. He is like the seed sown along the path (v 19). He is not a worshipper, but an audience. Another may hear the word with instant joy, but he does not want to be challenged about his faith. As he is asked about his faith he may hide it or deny it. He is not a worshipper, but ‘an instant inside enjoyer’. He is like the seed that fell on the “rocky places” (v 20). Yes, the world is not soft or mild about our faith. It is a hard place to live with. The other may hear the word, but his mind is totally in other business. His priorities are never firstly on God as he faces life matters, mostly money-involved matters. He is not a worshipper, but an idolater. He is like the seed that fell on the thorns, “some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Tim 6:10). 

The one who is like as much as God expects to see is the person who hears the word of God and understands it. He has a harvest. How can he understand it? How can he be different from other hearers? He knows that God’s word is the seed with life in it. He knows that once he receives it he should be ready for it to germinate. He yields his heart to the process of the seed-growing which happens in his life. He follows where the word of God leads to. He puts the demands of God’s word on the first priority. This is how “all who follow God’s precepts have good understanding” (Ps 111:10). He who understands the word “produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (v 23).

 
In this harvest season we cannot give thanks to God with an empty heart, secondary heart, or chocked heart. Are we still receiving the seed without having harvested ever? When was the last time that we gave our ‘thanksgiving” offering to God? Let us have ‘the obedient heart’ to God’s word. This is a preparation to be a good soil for the seed. Let us be not just a receiver of God’s blessing, but humbly be the field of the seed so as for it to grow, and eventually let us be ‘a thanks-giver’ to God.