• Never really settles in
• The birds eat it up (the evil one snatches it away)
• Seems most tragic because this person never really knows Jesus

The seeds on rocky places (vs. 5-6, 20-21)

• Not much soil
  • Not much receptivity. Thin spiritual interest. Probably came to church so that the kids could have a good moral upbringing or because spouse dragged him/her in.
  • Some participation. Some sense of emotional or intellectual ascent, but no firm decision to grow or follow or seek.
• The seedling springs up quickly (the Word is received with joy)
  • So something springs up. Maybe even something nice.
• Then the sun comes up (trouble arises)
  • But when the hot sun comes (dry seasons) faith is scorched and loses its sense of life.
• The plants are scorched (persecution starts)
  • Then comes persecution. The question is calling some place where the scorn is too much.
• The plants wither (the person falls away)
  • And the plant withers. The person falls away from God.
• Because the person has no roots
  • Because the faith is not rooted in the deeper things of God, a knowledge of the Word, coupled with a practiced yearning to follow Jesus.
  • Not a theological state of fallenness, but a relational one.

The seeds among the thorns (vs. 7, 22)

• The plant grows up (the person hears the Word)
  • Like the last person, the seed takes hold and a plant of faith grows up.
  • Unlike the last person, the soil is deep enough for the seed to take root.
• Thorns grow up (the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth)
  • But so have the thorns taken root. Worries of life. The deceitfulness of wealth.
  • The person has a standing faith, and it's even growing at times when it can get sun and nutrients.
  • But, it is always borrowing space and borrowing food and struggling to stay healthy in the midst of so many other influences.
  • No one weeds the garden. No hard, determined work to cut out the thorns, so the person will always have faith but a sadly embattled one.
  • This is the story for most of us. Some of us don't even know the degree to which the worries of life and deceitfulness of wealth war with our faith instincts. The outcome is unfruitfulness.
• The thorns choke the plant, making it unfruitful.
  • A life of faith that has very little influence.
  • Others lives around us are virtually unaffected and unmoved by the brand of faith they see us live.

The seeds on good soil (vs. 8, 23)

• The seeds fall on good soil (the person receives the seed, hears and understands)
  • The soil is rich and ready.
  • The seed is received and its arms delve deep, well fed and resourced.
• The plant (life) produces a crop, yielding 100, 60 or 30 times what was sown.
  • The plant grows up. The life of faith is one of profound influence.
  • Other people see and hunger and want and receive and grow and change and they become fruitful also.
  • God's Kingdom marches on like a forest of ever growing, ever seeding, trees.

He who has ear, let him hear (v. 9)

• Never has this phrase been more apt. If we have ears to hear, we have more fertile soil.
• If we don't hear this, or buck against it, we really don't have ears to hear, and we are destined to a withered or fruitless faith.

Is your faith a dull habit or an acute fever?

• From The Signature of Jesus, by Brennan Manning "In some people, religion exists as a dull habit. In others as an acute fever. Jesus did not endure the shame of the cross to hand on a dull habit. (If you don't have the fever . . . a passion for God and his Christ, . . . fall on your knees, and beg for it; turn to the God you half-believe in and cry out for his baptism of fire."
• The dull habit is safer from a worldly perspective.
  • No one will harass you. Some will think us wise.
  • We can dabble in two worlds, gleaning our favorite parts from each and leaving the unpresentable parts for others who are more radical religionists or more radical sinners.
  • The sad thing is that Jesus has a great distaste for this kind of thing.
  • Choose now who you will serve. Revelations 3:14 - "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation."

"Is yours a faith that snaps shut on a man's heart like a trap; it captures the man and makes him from that moment forward a happy love-servant of his Lord?"

• A.W. Tozer talks about Paul and Martin Luther and the heroes of faith in these terms: from A Treasury of A.W. Tozer "The faith of Paul and Luther was a revolutionizing thing. It upset the whole life of the individual and made him into another person altogether. It laid hold on the life and brought it under obedience to Christ. It took up its cross and followed along after Jesus with no intention of going back... It snapped shut on a man's heart like a trap; it captured the man and made him from that moment forward a happy love-servant of his Lord. It turned earth into a desert and drew heaven within sight of the believing soul. It realigned all life's actions and brought them into accord with the will of God... Faith now means no more than passive moral acquiescence in the Word of God and the cross of Jesus. To exercise it, we have only to rest on one knee and nod our heads in agreement with the instructions of a personal worker intent upon saving our soul. The general effect is much the same as that which men feel after a visit to a good and wise doctor. They come back smiling just a little sheepishly to think how many tears they had entertained about their health when actually there was nothing wrong with them. They just needed a rest. Such faith as this does not perturb people. It comforts them. It does not pull their hip out of joint so that they halt upon their thigh; rather it teachers (sic) them deep breathing exercises and improves their posture... We prove our faith by our commitment to it, and in no other way... Many of us Christians have become extremely skillful in arranging our lives so as to admit the truth of Christianity without being embarrassed by its implications. We arrange things so that we can get on well enough without divine aid, while at the same time ostensibly seeking it. We boast in the Lord but watch carefully that we never get caught depending on Him."
• What a picture. Tozer compares the kind of faith to something sad and common. And as it doesn't perturb them, so it doesn't really affect them. Unfruitfulness.

Is it possible for God to dwell passively in our hearts?

• From A Treasury of A.W. Tozer "God does not dwell passively in His people; he wills and works in them (Phil 2:13) and remember, wherever He is, God always acts like Himself. He will do in us whatever His holy nature moves Him to do; and unless He is hindered by our resistance, He will act in us precisely as He acts in Heaven. Only an unsanctified human will can prevent Him."
• One of my readings raised this question: Is it possible for God to dwell passively in our hearts? and yes, it's a good one.
  • I believe the answer is "yes" and "no." Yes, Jesus is a gentleman and won't always pound his way into a position of greater leverage in our lives.
  • Sometimes he waits, the Spirit is grieved, even thwarted, and our potentials are dormant. So sad. Like a plant with roots or a plant among thorns. Faith is barely alive, but gratefully, still alive.
  • And "no," I doubt He's ever completely passive; always whispering, always prodding and helping and wishing and cajoling until I awaken again and realize that I've been born and then reborn for greater things than a dull faith habit.
  • Phil 2:13 ("for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.") suggests that God wills and works within us. To be passive is to fight against Him.

The trouble with instant Christianity

From The Best of A.W. Tozer compiled by Warren W. Wiersbe "The American genius for getting things done quickly and easily with little concern for quality or permanence has bred a virus that has infected the whole evangelical church in the United States and, through our literature, our evangelists and our missionaries, has spread all over the world. Instant Christianity came in with the machine age. Men invented machines for two purposes. They wanted to get important work done more quickly and easily than they could do it by hand, and they wanted to get the work over with, so they could give their time to pursuits more to their liking, such as leafing or enjoying the pleasures of the world. Instant Christianity now serves the same purposes in religion. It disposes of the past, guarantees the future and sets the Christian free to follow the more refined lusts of the flesh in all good conscience and with a minimum of restraint. By "instant Christianity" I mean the kind found almost everywhere in gospel circles and which is born of the notion that we may discharge our total obligation to our own souls by one act of faith, or at most by two, and be relieved thereafter of all anxiety about our spiritual condition that we may discharge our total obligation to our own reason to seek to be saints by character. In automatic, once-and-for-all quality is present here that is completely our of mode with the faith of the New Testament. In this error, as in most others, there lies a certain amount of truth imperfectly understood... By trying to pack all of salvation into one experience, or two, the advocates of instant Christianity flaunt the law of development which runs through all nature. They ignore the sanctifying effects of suffering, cross carrying and practical obedience. They pass by the need for spiritual training, the necessity of forming right, religious habits and the need to wrestle against the world, the devil and the flesh. Undue preoccupation with the initial act of believing has created in some a psychology of contentment."

God forgive us!

"Now begins the glorious pursuit"

To know Him, yet still pursue Him. This is the soul's paradox of love.