I do thank the Lord the sun is shining on us today. And because we have a great High Priest, it is ever shining, and He is ever reigning, and we are thankful for that.
Let us turn this morning to Mark 4. As Cain shared, what I am going to be touching on this morning is the parable of the sower. Now, that is in all three of the Gospels, so instead of flipping back between all three, I chose the one in Mark 4 that we will be looking at. But we will also make references to what it says in Matthew and Luke.
One of the challenges we have as we turn to this parable is that many of us are familiar with it. How many of us have ever read in our life the parable of the sower? If I asked a bunch of questions, most of us could probably already answer a lot of things related to this. So that is a challenge.
You know, because of that, if you look at the first two or three words, the Lord even sets the tone for it. He says, “Listen to this, and behold,” because sometimes we are a little hard of hearing, particularly when things are familiar. So from the very beginning, those introductory words of the Lord set a tone that, hey, this is important. The Lord says, “Listen to this and behold.”
Now, if you stop and think about it, if you were sitting there around the feet of the Lord, do you think He would have to tell you to listen? But the sad thing, brothers and sisters, is that we are sitting in His presence all the time. Because we get distracted by so many things in this life, He has to say, “Hey, wake up. Behold Me.”
He had to say that to the disciples, the ones He was sharing with, and He says it to us today. So let us heed His warning. Let us heed His advice. Let us wake up and behold the Word of God in a fresh way this morning.
Starting in Mark 4:3, He says:
Listen to this.
Behold, the sower went out to sow.
And it came about that as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up.
The other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil.
And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
The other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.
The other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.
And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
The Lord goes on to explain this parable for us, starting in Mark 4:13:
And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables?
The sower sows the word.
And these are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.
In a similar way, these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary. Then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.
And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, and the worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
And those are the ones on whom the seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”
I want to look at parts of two other verses in this chapter. First, part of Mark 4:11. This is a critical verse because it shows us the context in which all these parables are shared. These parables are not just shared happenstance.
The Lord says:
To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God.
Or in Matthew, it says, “To you it has been given the mystery of the kingdom of the heavens.” These are kingdom parables. This is a parable that is showing us and preparing us for something related to the kingdom of God.
The Lord uses various teachings throughout the Scripture, revealing the nature of the kingdom, showing us aspects of the kingdom, and preparing us for the kingdom. This is a kingdom parable. So that ought to ratchet it up a notch within our own hearts—the critical nature of this very familiar parable.
Also, if we look over in Mark 4:24, it says:
Take care what you listen to.
Or in Luke, it says:
Take care how you hear.
It is important that we take care how we are listening, take care how we are hearing what the Word of the Lord says. That is really the essence of this parable: that our ears would be attuned to really hear the Word of God.
So may we commit our time to the Lord, that where we are hard of hearing, we would give ourselves to Him, that our ears would be open to receive His Word.
Lord, we thank You for the tremendous privilege this day of being together in Thy presence. Lord, we thank You for the demonstration of how You have loved us to the uttermost, how You are ever making intercession to the uttermost, and, Lord, that You have given us Your Word that is preparing us to live to the uttermost.
Lord, we thank You that as we offer ourselves to You today, it is not by might, it is not by power, but it is by Thy Spirit. We look unto You, Lord, to breathe afresh upon us—for speaking, for hearing, for allowing the Word of God to richly dwell within us—to Thy name of praise and to Thy name of glory.
We offer ourselves to You in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This message started off as I was before the Lord about a word related to preparing us for the conference. As Kenny said, we have been praying a lot about being prepared for the conference, prepared for the conference.
The word came to me about the Word of God coming into our hearts, dwelling there richly, and bearing fruit. I think that is the desire of all of our hearts as we enter into this conference.
Today, as we are talking about bearing fruit, what is fruit? Fruit is the display of the life. It is the display of His life. We desire that, as we hear the Word of God, it would come into us, that we would respond to that Word, and that what we call fruit—or the display of His life—would come forth in our lives and be made manifest as the people of God.
Not just acquiring knowledge, but a display of His life amongst the people of God.
As I was meditating on this whole thought of preparing for the conference, the Lord spoke to my heart. He asked me a question. He said, “Mac, is it more important to prepare for the conference or to prepare for today?”
Is it more important that you be prepared to hear My voice at the conference, or that you be prepared to hear My voice any day?
As I reflected upon that, I got convicted. In a way, I was spending more time trying to prepare my heart for a conference next week—which is important—than I was preparing my heart to hear His voice today.
He says:
Today, if you hear My voice, do not harden your hearts.
What is the greatest way that we prepare our hearts for a conference, or for anything? It is by allowing our ears to be trained today, in daily life, in knowing His voice.
If our ears are not trained, if we are not walking in His presence daily and allowing Him to speak to us for fifty-one weeks of the year, how do we expect to hear from Him for one week? I am trying to be exaggerated to make the point.
But I think sometimes we have a tendency to get focused on something. We all have this tunnel vision: “Oh, I have got to hear His voice then.” And we do. But we need to hear His voice now.
So even though what I am sharing today is for the conference, it is not just for the conference. Really, and more importantly, it is for our daily lives. I was greatly convicted of the necessity of hearing the Word of God and allowing it to deal in my life every day.
Really, brothers and sisters, even thinking on the theme of the conference—“I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision”—how was that able to become real within Paul’s life? Because of Paul’s daily walk with the Lord.
Paul offered himself. He says, “I die daily.” In the dailiness of the transactions with the Lord, the reality of the heavenly vision—the reality of seeing the fullness of Christ—gripped his life. Every decision that he made within every day of his life was governed by that. That is how he was able to make that testimony.
That is what the Lord is looking for within our lives: that we bear fruit to His glory, that our lives reflect His life, that our lives together reflect the life of Christ being manifest every day.
Brothers and sisters, if we can enter into this on a daily basis, oh, how rich it is when we have opportunities to come together. There would be an added fullness to it.
So I was repentant this week, in that sense of how I had gotten out of balance and was focusing more on hearing tomorrow than hearing today. Would the Lord be training us in the days we are living in, that we would learn to hear His voice, respond to His Word, and allow that Word to richly dwell within us?
That is what He is looking for among the people of God. If we have that, what a glorious thing it would be.
I was speculating: just imagine a group of brothers and sisters who were walking daily in the fullness. We sang today of a full salvation, the fullness of His life.
If we as brothers and sisters were walking in the fullness of that life, I was thinking back on the beginning of the book of Acts, how they were together daily and there was a richness there—such a richness.
It is not that there would not be a need for a conference. I thank the Lord that at times He does have a conference, not out of a need, but because He desires to speak a word.
But it is interesting that we can find ourselves so often in a weakened condition. I find myself in a weakened condition. Because of my weakened condition, the Lord in His mercy allows us to go to a conference to strengthen us, to lift us up, and to get us continuing on.
But, oh, I wish that I could be one of those who would be faithful unto the Lord every day of my life, knowing His voice and allowing Him to deal with me in a full way, that there would be a greater display of His life amongst us as brothers and sisters. Would He help us?
As we look at this today, we do want to have the ears of our hearts opened, to really be able to hear the Word of God in the day that we are living in. Now, we can have many hearing disabilities.
It says, “He who has ears to hear.” We all have ears, but are we using them to hear?
We know how we can have ears, but people can say things and we do not hear. We have wonderful displays in this room of people who have ears but do not hear. You ask any wife about her husband. They have this SLA, you know—selective listening ability.
And also children: the mother and father can be speaking right there, but there is not a flinch like they heard a thing.
The words can be coming forth, but are we really hearing? We have ears, but are we using them to hear? So may the Lord help us with all of our hearing disabilities, so that we can hear richly and hear rightly what He has to say.
If you look back at this parable, just the fact that it is recorded in all three of the Synoptic Gospels adds to its importance. The Lord said it three times. Because He did not want us to misunderstand, He interprets it in each one of the Gospels for us: here is the parable; here is the interpretation.
As we said, it is related to this whole matter of the kingdom of the heavens. One little trivial point: this parable occupies more space in the New Testament than any other parable. By being shown three times, it occupies more verses than any other parable within the New Testament. There is an importance there. So we do need to wake up and listen to it.
As we look at this parable, there are some facts that are very clear because the Lord tells us who He is and what certain things are.
Who is the sower? The sower is the Son of Man. The sower is the Lord.
What is the seed that is being sown? The seed that is being sown is the Word of God.
So we have the Lord going out and sowing the Word of God. And what is the soil? The soil is our hearts.
We have to remember, too, that of the four types of soil, all four heard. Even the hard soil, if you look down in Mark 4:15, it says:
And when they hear, immediately Satan comes and snatches it away.
All four types of soil heard. But what was the response to that?
I think the question we have to ask ourselves, since this is speaking of the condition of our hearts, is this: How are the things that the Lord addresses within this parable applicable to our hearts? How are we hearing the Word of God?
We all can sit in a message and hear the words that are spoken. Then you start having fellowship with someone, and do you ever say, “Did they hear the same message I did?” I mean, they have something from over here and you have something, and sometimes it is even scary. They take it and apply it, and you say, “Whoa, I did not get that out of that message.” Who is hearing right? How do we know?
This is why we need to have our ears opened and cleansed, in a way that as the Word of God comes in, there would be that response that would bring glory to His name.
One other kind of background thing is this: as we are talking about these four types of soil, really, within each of our lives, we have all four types. We are all a work in process.
It is kind of like a plot of land. You have been working on this plot of land, and you have one area ready for planting. You have not had time yet to get over to another area; it is still hard. You have cleared out some of this.
So we all actually have some hard areas in our life. We have some rocky areas. We have some thorny areas. And praise God, hopefully we have some good soil. We are all a work in process. It is not that we neatly fall into one of these categories.
Really, everything we are speaking of is speaking to ourselves. It is not speaking to someone else. This is speaking to our own hearts concerning what the Word of God has for us.
First, let us look at the hard soil. The hard soil is the seed that fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up, took it away.
We can see how these are the ones who do not have any heart for the Lord. There is a hardness there. They hear, but there is just not a caring. There is no interest.
We can see how, even in the Gospels when the Lord was there, there were ones with no interest. You had the Pharisees there. They would hear, but it had no impact upon them.
So we can look at the hard soil as those who are unteachable—those who are unteachable, or who are so held by the traditions of the fathers that they cannot receive the living Word of God into their heart.
They are ones who believe they know the truth, and therefore, as soon as something starts to be shared about that, they say, “Ah, I know that. I can just rest now through this.”
Now, are there any areas in our lives like that? Are we teachable, brothers and sisters? Are we those that, when the Lord is speaking, the Word would find a place?
Sometimes we can hold on to a belief or hold on to something in a wrong way. Later on, we will talk about holding fast to the Word in a right way. But sometimes we can hold on to a belief or tradition in such a way that, even though the Word of God is trying to penetrate into our lives, we do not get it.
This is what happened with so many of the Pharisees. Thank the Lord, some of the Pharisees did respond and came to the Lord. But there were some who were unteachable.
I desire that, in the hour we are living in, we would be those that stay teachable to the Word of God.
Sometimes we are not teachable because of the messenger. As soon as somebody stands up, if we do not like that person, we just tune out.
Maybe we do not like the particular style in which they share. Maybe we do not like the way they look. We do not like their accent. There can be many various things. Maybe we had a bad experience with them.
But as soon as that person stands up, do we tune them out? “Now, I am not receiving. I am not listening to them.” Brothers and sisters, we need to be open to hearing the Word of God and hearing what our Lord is speaking to us in this hour.
If we have trouble with the vessel, may the Lord cleanse us. Maybe there needs to be something settled on a personal matter. I realize we have those types of things, but still, we do not need to allow that to hinder us from really receiving the Word of God and the spirit of what the Lord is trying to speak to us in this hour.
The second soil is the rocky soil. The rocky soil has a lot of rocks; there is not much depth to it. The seed is sown, and immediately it springs up. But when the sun comes, it withers away.
The Lord says these are the ones that, when the seed is planted, receive it, but when persecution arises because of the Word of God, it starts to fade away.
It is interesting: why is the persecution arising? It is because of the Word of God. As the Word of God is planted within us, there is a great battle. But these dear ones, because of the rocky shallowness of their life and their condition, as soon as the going got tough, they got going the other way.
It is like in John 6. There were those who were all excited about the Lord, and He started sharing about how He was the bread of life. They said, “Man, these are tough sayings,” and they turned around and went another way.
These are ones who receive the Lord with such enthusiasm, and there appears to be even a response of life. But instead of the seed going into the ground and taking root, this speaks of how they do not have roots.
The response of life is simply the sprouting of the seed. It is the life within the seed that we see. It is like a sprout that is just lying on the surface, not able to penetrate and form the root that would hold it during the tough times.
How often we can have such an emotional response. We can hear something; the Lord can speak to our hearts, but then we find it being challenged.
The Lord speaks to us and says, “This is the way I want you to go.” We have a sense that it is speaking to us. But then someone—maybe someone close to us, maybe another brother or sister—challenges that word. We say, “Oh, that word might cost me something. I do not want to lose that friendship. What might this word do in my life?”
One of the things the Word of God does is that it unites us, but also the Word of God divides.
Sometimes we can try to stand more against division than we can for unity. One of the things about the Lord’s ministry in the Gospel of John is that, when the Lord spoke the truth, what did it bring? It brought division.
The Word of God is very active. It is alive, and it separates; it divides soul and spirit. But at times we can be so desirous of unity—what we call unity—that, when we think something might bring a divide, we shrink back. We do not let it work, and maybe that is coming from God.
Now, we are not talking about the divisions of man. We can do that very easily. But at times a Word of God comes in to separate spirit from soul, truth from error. Are we willing to allow that to work in our lives?
Or does persecution and peer pressure, or love for one another in an ungodly way, or our own natural desires, not allow the truth of the Word to sprout forth?
Praise God, there were ones throughout the Scripture. Paul spoke some tough words to ones that he loved, and he allowed it to do a separating work between truth and error.
Brothers and sisters, do we have any areas within our life where there are a lot of rocks, a lot of things calling us to end up with superficial relationships? Instead of allowing those things to be purged out from within us, can the roots be formed deep to unite us together? Oh, how we need this. It is so essential.
One of the things about the roots and the rocks—the way the rocks get out—is that the Lord has a wonderful spade that He digs these rocks out with. It is called the cross.
We are going to touch a little more on that later on—how this cross works and gets those rocks out of our life. Yes, it will cost us something. It will cost us our own self-life. But there is an eternal weight of glory, and there is the joy of His life that He is wanting us to enter into.
The third type of soil is the thorny soil. The thorny soil is where the seed went in and started to grow, but then the thorns choked it out.
The Lord says these are ones who received the Word with sincerity. It actually takes root and starts to grow. But then the worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things choke it out.
Think about those things. The Word comes in, and then all of a sudden the worries of the world—the worries of family, job, school, everything—start to come in. All of a sudden that word gets choked. You were running well. What hindered you?
The deceitfulness of riches is this imaginary mirage that is out there: that riches are going to satisfy and answer every question of your life; that they will bring you satisfaction. Particularly in the hedonistic society that we live in, they promise they will take care of you if you just had a little more money.
I know we have told the story before, but back in New York at the turn of the last century, John D. Rockefeller was asked a question. He was at the height of his financial career. He had railroads, banks, steamships—everything that the world could offer. He was the richest man in the world.
He was interviewed by the New York Times, and they asked him, “How much money is enough?” He said, “Just a little bit more.”
This would be like asking Bill Gates today, “How much money is enough?” Just a little bit more. The deceitfulness of riches.
In the society we are living in today, there is a deceitfulness out there that is trying to lure us in.
Then I love the third one here. It is kind of the broad brush, in case anything gets left out by the worries of the world or the deceitfulness of riches. Then it says, “the desire for other things.”
Whatever your desire is. These can even be spiritual desires. Do you have a desire for a certain spiritual gift? Do we have a desire for a ministry? Do we have a desire for our service? What is the desire? Is it the desire of His heart? Are we desiring to look good among our brothers and sisters?
I will still apply it to the conference. What is the desire of our heart for this conference? Is it so that we can see and be with brothers and sisters? Praise the Lord for that. Is it so that people can see our service? Is it so that we can find some satisfaction in this?
Brothers and sisters, the desire of our heart should be His desire for this conference. The desire is that He would have a people who could sit at His feet to hear His Word, because the days are short.
Would we be in that position to hear? When we are in that position to hear and to really allow Him to work, one of the fruits that comes forth will be service to Him and service to our brothers and sisters. How we need Him in this hour.
We can see in the Scriptures, when we think about the thorny soil, the rich young ruler. There was a choice set before him. The Word of God was before him. The rich young ruler made a choice.
There was even one who was a fellow worker with Paul in serving God named Demas. Remember the final testimony of Demas in 2 Timothy? It said he loved this present age. He was drawn back by this age, left Paul, and went back to the world. How we need to be aware.
As I was preparing for this and preparing for the conference, I said I had made such a focus on preparing for the conference and hearing the Word of God. Then I had this other question come to me: “Mac, if this is so important”—and it is important; do not anybody take this as putting it down—“what did I speak last year? What was My theme last year?”
Nobody raise hands. How many remember the theme last year? “Sum up all things in Christ.” I did remember that one. I had to look up the next.
So this conference was so important, and you were hungering after My Word so much: What was the theme in 2005? “For such a time as this.” What was the theme in 2004? “I will build My church.”
Have we? I was greatly convicted. I had to look up a couple of those. I remember the months that I had labored in prayer for these conferences and desired to hear the Word of God.
Here, as I was looking at the hard soil, the rocky soil, and the thorny soil, had it borne fruit? Had I taken this Word and really allowed it to become living within me? Or had I just heard it? Maybe I did not even hear it. Maybe I heard it quickly, with an emotion. Maybe something started, but I did not allow it to come on to fruition.
I was greatly convicted of the impact of the Word of God upon my life in these last three years alone.
Brothers and sisters, we need to see how the Lord, in His great mercy, speaks to us again. I am glad His speaking to me is not dependent upon my faithfulness; it is upon His great mercy. He speaks to us in this hour that we could be a people trained to Him.
Really, what started my whole consideration of this matter of the parable of the sower was the good soil. If you said, “What is your burden?” actually, that is really my burden today.
If we look at this good soil, it says some bore fruit thirtyfold, some bore fruit sixtyfold, and some bore fruit a hundredfold.
I am sitting here thinking, okay, the sower is the Lord, so there is nothing wrong with the Lord. The seed is good—the Word of God. There is nothing wrong with the seed. And the soil is described as good soil.
So why is it that some just bear thirtyfold, some bear sixtyfold, but some bear a hundredfold?
You might say it is related to spiritual gift or spiritual capacity. No. There is an equality here. On this plot of ground, this plot of good soil, you have a good sower, a good seed, and good soil.
There is no disparity. There is no distinguishing of capacity. There is no distinguishing of gifts in this particular parable. What is the issue here? It is how we respond to the grace of God when He imparts His Word to us.
Some respond partially, some respond more, and some respond in fullness. Really, if you look at the meaning of a hundredfold throughout the Scripture, there is a fullness. It is not a partial blessing, but there is a fullness of blessing.
Today we even sang of full salvation—salvation to the uttermost, saved to the uttermost. That is the hundredfold. That is what God wants us to enter into. He is wanting us to enter into the fullness of His life.
When the Lord said to Peter—Peter had said, “Lord, we have left everything to follow You. What are we going to receive?”—He said, “You will receive a hundredfold in this life and in the life to come.” There is a fullness of blessing, the fullness of His life.
Really, I think this is what captured Paul—what the Lord was after in the days that he was living in. But, oh, how we end up settling for so much less. So much less.
The challenge we have as we hear is this: How are we responding, by the grace of God, to what has been entrusted unto us?
It is interesting: when we were studying 2 Peter 1, there is a verse there that says everything has been granted to us for life, that we might not be unfruitful—or, to put it positively, that we might be fruitful.
Everything has been granted to us for life that we might be fruitful. All of His precious and magnificent promises.
When we are saved, when the Lord has brought us into this calling that He has upon our life, there is a fullness that He has equipped us with, and there is a fullness that He desires for us to experience and enter into. But we end up settling for so little.
We become so content, complacent, and settled down.
Let me ask one more question. This says that this soil is good soil. Now, how does the soil become good?
If you really stop and think about it, we are talking about the condition of our hearts. All of our hearts are wicked. We were not born with good hearts.
This soil became good because they allowed the Lord to work life within it. They allowed the Holy Spirit to do a preparatory work—removing the rocks, softening the hard places, and removing the thorns.
Brothers and sisters, this is that first step within our Christian life that gets shared on so often: this whole matter of consecration.
As we consecrate ourselves to the Lord—not only once, but every day, every day in consecration—we are giving ourselves to the Lord. Like Enoch said, we are testifying that we are under new management. The Lord is in control. Not I, but Christ. He is determining my life.
By making that declaration, we are saying that we are giving Him permission, when the Holy Spirit searches and says, “Mac, there is a rock right there. I want to deal with that. Mac, there are some thorns here. I want to be touching those.” We are cooperating and giving the Lord permission to do that.
But so often when we give ourselves to the Lord in consecration, we can think, “Oh, that is it.” That is simply the beginning.
He prepares the soil. He makes it good soil. But we continue to daily offer ourselves to Him. As we daily offer ourselves to Him, we start to experience the goodness of the Lord. We start to experience His blessings.
But as soon as we experience His blessings, we have a tendency to settle down. We enjoy the blessings more than the Blesser.
But is the Lord satisfied? You see, if we enjoy the blessing—and maybe we could say that is the thirtyfold, just for discussion purposes—is the Lord satisfied? No. He is jealous for a full expression of His life.
Remember John 15. There is a story there about bearing fruit. There is one there that starts off with how they bore fruit. When they first bore fruit, what did the Lord do? Did He say, “Oh, this is so wonderful, you bore fruit”? What did He do? He pruned it.
Why? That you would bear more fruit.
What is this pruning? The pruning is the daily working of the cross as we give ourselves to Him. The daily working of the cross—the cross simply being, “Not I, but Christ; His will in my life.”
He prunes that. Why does He prune? Does He say, “Oh, you have got more fruit now. Is that the end?” No. He prunes again that you would have much fruit.
Now that He has an abundance of fruit, does He stop pruning? No. He keeps pruning until there is fruit that abides.
Not only fruit, more fruit, much fruit, but abiding fruit—that which is eternal in nature. That is the hundredfold of what the Lord is calling us into.
We see this so wonderfully displayed in Paul’s life. Think back on Philippians 3, where you have Paul’s testimony of his wonderful life.
Paul testifies in Philippians 3 of how he counts all things as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. All things as loss: his heritage, his education, his training, all of this wonderful background that he had been equipped with. He counted that as loss that he might know Christ.
But the chapter keeps going on. In Paul’s testimony, he continues pressing on—not only to know Him, but to know Him more.
We see the precious testimony of Paul in Philippians 3:
I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul was pressing on to a fullness. Now, remember the context in which Paul wrote this. When he said, “Forgetting what lies behind and pressing on,” he said he had not laid hold of it yet.
Some of us might question Paul there. He says, “I have not laid hold of it yet,” but he had been through his missionary journeys. He had written Romans, that great epistle of the Gospel and the fullness of our salvation. He had written Corinthians. Even as he was in prison, he had written Ephesians and Colossians.
Many think that Paul’s letter to the Philippians was his last epistle written while he was in prison because it anticipates his getting out. We do not know for sure, but it was written around the same time as Ephesians and Colossians.
So he said, “I have not laid hold of it yet.” Now, if we had been able to write Ephesians or Colossians, we would have the greatest website in the world. We would know it. We would say, “This is it. You need to come and hear me because I know the truth. I can tell you about the church. I can tell you about Christ as the Head. I can tell you about holding fast. You need to come and hear me because I have got it.”
Paul said, “No. I have not laid hold of it yet,” because he saw more.
Brothers and sisters, when we truly see Christ, there will be a satisfaction within our heart. There will be a seeing of Him in a way we have not seen Him before. But it will always be accompanied by knowing that there is something more of Christ.
If we become satisfied with what we see and think we have seen it, we can be guaranteed we have not seen the fullness of it. Really, we see in part. We see dimly.
For Paul, this was the practical working out in his life of being gripped by the heavenly vision, being gripped by a Person—the Lord Jesus Christ.
How could Paul say that he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision? Because he never thought he had it. He always realized there was more, and he kept pressing on for it.
We get some insight, we see something of the church, and we say, “Oh, I have got it. The church is this.” As soon as we start defining it, we have already lost it.
We have some experience; we touch the love of Christ, and we say, “Oh, I know the love of Christ is this. I have got it now.” Paul, in Ephesians 3, started trying to describe the love of Christ. He could not even touch it.
He said there is a height, there is a length, there is a depth, there is a breadth. We cannot even touch it. We see in part.
Oh, what a danger it is when we think we see. This is what we see in Paul: how he was pressing on to a fullness. It was something that had captured him.
Praise God, we do see in part, and we are thankful for that. We are thankful, Lord, for the revelation that He has given to us that we have been able to enter into. We see in part, but does that satisfy us?
Maybe that is sixtyfold at that point—the great revelation. We say, “Oh, we are at sixtyfold. This is pretty good now.” No. Paul was pressing on.
We can become content because we start looking horizontally. We say, “Oh, I am doing a lot better than a lot of other people. I am doing pretty good.” But what is our standard? What is the plumb line? What is the standard? It is our Lord Jesus Christ.
That was always the goal in Paul’s life: pressing on that he might know Him more and more.
Even as he wrote that last will and testament in 2 Timothy, Paul testifies that he was pressing on. Even at the end of his life, he was pouring himself out as a drink offering, all the way to the end, fighting that good fight of faith.
Paul went out with his boots on as a good warrior. What a testimony it is when we see one who has served the Lord faithfully so many years and they go out with their boots on.
There is no retirement in the house of God. There is no retirement in this kingdom of God. We keep pressing on. This is what we see in Paul: he pressed on.
Paul, within his life, bore fruit, and he allowed the Lord to deal with him daily. He said, “I die daily.” Through that dying daily, he not only bore fruit; he allowed that fruit to fall into the ground and die. He bore more fruit.
As he continued to deny himself, he bore much fruit. Paul bore forth a fruit that remained. We are still feasting upon the fruit of Paul’s life today because the fruit of his life was Christ.
The fruit, again, is the manifestation of the life of Christ. It is not us generating fruit. Our fruit is putrid. But there is a fragrance of the fruit of Christ that comes forth from Paul that we still feast upon.
There is a fragrance of the fruit of Christ as we touch it in our brothers and sisters. This is what the Lord is calling us to press on into.
How does this get practically made real in our life? How does this good soil, bearing a hundredfold, become reality within our life and not just a nice message that you can talk about on Sunday or some other time?
Let us turn over to Luke 8. In this Gospel, He only speaks of that fruit which bore forth a hundredfold.
If we look at Luke 8:15, it says:
The seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.
These are the ones that bore fruit a hundredfold.
As I read this verse, the thing that caught my heart and spoke to my heart initially so strongly was the simplicity of this verse.
We can make this Christian life so complicated, so mysterious, so difficult. But if we look at what the Lord is describing as the characteristics of the good soil—how it responded to the Word of God—we see there is a simplicity there.
In the simplicity, we see the essential character and nature that needs to be working within us.
Look at this again in Luke 8:15:
The seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word with an honest and good heart.
With an honest and good heart. We have to have the Lord search our hearts. We talk about preparing our hearts. We want to be able to receive that good Word with an honest and good heart.
An honest heart is one that has a right attitude toward God and ourselves. Sometimes we can have a right attitude toward God, but we are blind about ourselves. The Lord speaks into our lives, and we do not want to receive it.
So honesty speaks of having an openness, as the psalmist in Psalm 139 said:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me.
When Mark is describing this soil, he says it is the one who accepts the Word of God. He accepts it.
When you are honest and have that honest and good heart—and this is by the working of the Holy Spirit, the working of His life within us—we know our hearts are wicked, as we have said. But there is an accepting, an embracing, and an allowing of it to really work within us.
It is not hearing the Word of God and then applying our own agendas to it.
So often when someone ministers the Word of God, depending upon the way we are listening, if we have our own agendas in mind, we can take what they say and apply it this way. Or we can take what he says there and apply it another way to use it for our own self-interest and our own self-agendas. We can pick and choose.
Or else we can be connoisseurs. We can think that we know so much, and we end up critiquing the Word of God. Who do we think we are?
Sometimes I hear myself as I comment on a message. I hear others, and I have to honestly say, “Mac, who do you think you are?”
Now, we know that we are not talking about blindly accepting everything. We are talking here about the Word of God, the pure Word of God. There is discernment in all of that. We have touched on that before.
But what we are looking at today is this: when the Word of God comes forth, is our heart in such an honest place that, when the Lord speaks to us, we can allow that Word to bring forth fruit to fullness?
Where is it hardest for us to be honest? It is hardest for us to be honest about the things we really love, the things we really enjoy.
It is tough for a parent to be honest about their child. It takes a real work of grace. One of the quickest ways to bring division within an assembly is to start talking about other people’s children.
You want to see these peaceful little mothers, who sit around so calm and peaceful? You touch their son or daughter, and it is like that cat—the hair comes up. “What do you mean? My daughter is not like that.”
It is tough for us to be honest with things we really love. For a husband and wife, can we receive? Can we be honest there?
How about even the things the Lord has given us? Can we receive that? We talk about ministry, gift, service.
We are going to be touching on Abraham at the conference. How tough it was when the Word of God came to Abraham and said, “Offer up your Isaac.” Your gift. Where did Isaac come from? He was a gift of God.
Sometimes the things the Lord gives us, maybe we are holding on to them a little too tightly. To bring adjustment and fullness within our life, the Lord says, “You need to let that go.”
The Lord gives us something. We pray, we receive something, we receive a blessing, an answer to prayer, whatever. Then we start holding on to it.
The Lord, in His great love, says, “I want that to grow up into a greater and fuller blessing. So you are going to have to let go of it for a while and allow Me to raise it up.”
Then we can see the fullness of Isaac coming forth. If Isaac had stayed just under Abraham’s tutelage, he would probably have just been a pampered little guy. But through all that he went through, God was able to use him, and God was able to carry on that seed. There was a purpose in that.
How we need to see. We need to develop within us a kind of monitor, so that when the Word comes into our heart and all of a sudden we find ourselves deflecting it really quickly, or not applying it to ourselves, there should be a little “ding, ding, ding.”
“Oh, Mac, you are a little too quick to say that did not apply to you. You are a little too quick in throwing that over to brother so-and-so. That Word is speaking to you, Mac, and you need to allow it to work in your heart.”
So may the Lord develop this honesty within us.
The second thing it says is that he holds it fast. So often we hear the Word, and before we are out the door, the Word is gone.
We say, “I do not know what he said. I cannot remember what he said, but it was a good message. It really touched my heart.” “What did he say?” “I cannot remember what he said, but the message was so good.”
We need to hold it fast. This is the chewing on it, the meditating on it, the musing upon it.
There is a simple question: How many things can you hold fast? Most of us can only hold fast one thing.
Even if you try to hold fast to two things, they are going to start competing. It is going to pull you away, and then you have the cross. You are going to have to let go of one thing and hold on to Christ and His love.
Even when we are trying to hold on to two things, He is going to put us in a place where we have to make a choice of holding fast to Him and His Word.
One of the things I appreciate here is that it talks about having an honest heart, holding it fast, and then perseverance. I am so glad the Lord did not put in here, “These are the ones who understand everything I say.” I would be out.
How many times do you hear a word and say, “That word was of God, but I do not have a clue what that brother was saying”? Sometimes there are things that are shared that we do not get.
But we can still hold it fast. “Lord, I am holding this. I know this Word was true. I do not understand how it could be applied in my life. I do not understand all this teaching that there is. But there is a truth there, Lord, and I want to hold it fast.”
In Your timing, You as that good Sower, You as the Farmer, You as the One who is doing the tilling, will bring it forth to bear fruit in the season that You have desired it for.
We hold it fast. We allow the Holy Spirit to continue to breathe upon it, to water it. Those showers of reviving come, and we allow it to keep speaking to us.
Then, in that season, all of a sudden something comes out of your mouth, or a word comes during a time of fellowship. Maybe it was something that was shared six or eight months ago that you did not understand then, but you considered it, held it fast, and the Holy Spirit brought it about.
Whole family, as we go to a conference, as we hear any message, we are not going to get it all. The Lord does not expect us to get it all. He just wants us to be those who receive it.
As we receive it, we respond by giving it back to Him, that He can do the work of the Word that He speaks to us in a wonderful way. Thank the Lord for that.
Then lastly, it says he bears fruit with perseverance. There is a steadfastness here—patience in waiting for the fruit to grow and abiding under the trials of life.
As we hold this Word within us, the light of this Word starts to come about. There is a revelation of this Word that starts to develop within us.
The revelation comes not by our own mental apprehension of it, but by the Holy Spirit shining His light in upon us as we take the Word in. Then that illumination, that revelation, that inspiration can come about within us in a way that we can go on and allow that to come forth to a hundredfold.
This perseverance means that so often we are so impatient. But in this perseverance, there is a time process that goes on. As time works, there are trials associated with it. Through the trials, we see the fullness of this really coming forth.
As you look back upon the life of Joseph, there is a wonderful testimony at the end of Joseph’s life of how his father describes him:
Joseph is a fruitful bough,
A fruitful bough by a spring;
Its branches run over a wall.
Joseph was a fruitful bough. Joseph encountered a lot of obstacles in life, but he did not allow the obstacles of his life to hinder the fruit from coming forth.
As Joseph continued to be faithful and allowed the Lord to work in him, that bough—Joseph, a fruitful branch—went up over the wall. He actually allowed the obstacles of his life to display the fruit of God’s glory.
When you look at a wall that is covered with bougainvillea or any ivy, you do not even see the wall. You see the fruit. You see the plant.
Joseph was one who allowed those obstacles and challenges within his life to display the glory of the fruit of God’s life within him.
When we face those obstacles and walls, what do we do? In that book, Don’t Waste Your Sorrows, there was a little phrase that someone used about turning life’s disappointments into His appointments.
The disappointments of this life, the obstacles of this life, can be used as His appointments. Through this perseverance, as we continue on, it brings forth more fruit to show forth the glory of the Lord.
As we consider this whole matter—an honest heart, holding it fast, with perseverance—again, there is a simplicity there.
But sometimes, in the age we are living in, we do not like simplicity. We want a challenge. We want something to be complicated. That makes it more spiritual, you know?
The Lord, in His wonderful life, as He shows us more of Himself, brings us back to that simplicity and purity of His life.
As I said, the real burden upon my heart is this: as we look at this soil, the good soil—thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold—the Lord is desiring a fullness.
We all have the same Lord. It is the same Word. He has done a work of preparing the good soil. How are we going to respond?
Are we going to respond daily to His Word, to allow this fruit to come forth? Or are we going to be those who, once we enjoy His blessings, say, “Oh, this is good. All my sins are forgiven. I can just coast on away to heaven now”?
Or are we going to settle at the sixtyfold? “Oh, yes, I have seen this. I have seen that. I have just settled in on that.”
Or are we going to be those who continue to press on, as Paul did, to lay hold of that for which we were laid hold of? The Lord laid hold of us with purpose.
His desire is that we would each bear forth the fullness of the life of His Son, individually and together.
Would the Lord remove contentment and complacency within our lives, that we really could press on? Would He open our ears every day to hear His voice?
There was a phrase that some have used about putting our ears under the government of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit could train us every day.
We thank the Lord that we have this conference in a week or so. We really desire that the Lord would speak and that we would hear—not only hearing, but that we would respond.
But really, more vital, if I can say this in the right way, more vital to our going on in the Lord is our daily walk with Him: daily hearing His voice, daily pursuing Him together, and daily allowing the heavenly vision to become worked out and very practical and real within our life.
Daily allowing the heavenly vision—which is the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Head, the fullness of Him, the Head and the Body—to really grip us, and allowing the fullness of His life to be manifest within us in our daily lives.
This is what the Lord is looking for. The Lord is ever looking for His own life. The fruit He is looking for is the manifestation of His life.
So may we give ourselves to Him afresh every day in a spirit of true consecration, a spirit of not resisting the working of the cross, a spirit of cooperating with Him and responding with Him, that we could be those who bring forth fruit to the fullness of His glory and His honor.
Lord, we do worship You that today we can hear Your voice. We thank You that in the days we are living in, Lord, You can still speak to us.
We thank You that in the days we are living in, Lord, we can be those that offer ourselves to You. Lord, we do just give ourselves unto You, that You could be working within our hearts and our ears, that we would hear Your voice.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Lord, You are speaking. Your Word is good. We want that preparatory work to be done within us on a daily basis, that we could be trained to hear Your voice.
We do desire that You would do that preparatory work within us, that we could receive Your Word and respond to it at this conference also.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.