The Key is in Your Heart

And I want briefly to recapitulate the lessons of that parable and then apply them to our theme, “If You Want God’s Best.”

You probably remember the parable. It’s about a man who went out to sow seed in a field. And the seed fell on four different kinds of soil.

First of all, some fell beside the beaten path. And because the ground was hard, beaten down by the feet of those that passed by, the seed never even entered the soil, and the birds of the air came and ate it up, and it produced nothing.

The second area in which seed fell is described as rocky ground. And the seed went down a little way, and then its roots met the rock, and it started to grow up too quickly, but it had no depth of root. And so when the sun became hot, it withered, and it too produced nothing.

The third kind of soil was called among thorns. And there the thorns grew up together with the seed and eventually choked it. It didn’t get enough air and enough nourishment, and so it too brought forth nothing permanent of good.

Then the fourth kind of soil is what is described as good ground. Now, I don’t want to deal with the first three kinds of soil in these talks. I want to focus on what I regard as the climax of that parable, the objective to which Jesus is working, which is the good ground.

I trust that I’m speaking to people whose heart is good ground. I want to read to you what Jesus said about the good ground and the seed that fell on it. And this is recorded in Matthew chapter 13, verse 23, where Jesus says this,

“But what was sown on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.”

Notice, this is the man who produces a crop. And the two key factors in producing a crop are these: He hears the word, and he understands it. And that’s true of everybody who represents the good soil. But though all the people who represent good soil bring forth a crop, there’s a very important difference in the kind of crop that they produce. Some produce a hundred times, some sixty, and some only thirty times what was sown. In other words, for each seed sown, some produce a hundred seeds, some produce sixty, and some produce thirty. So there are three levels of yield: a hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold.

And it interests me to observe that the hundredfold is more than the sum of the other two. The other two, sixty and thirty, amount to ninety. So one kind of yield produces more than both the other two together. And somehow I find this a principle that runs through the Word of God. The people who really make it through to full productiveness are much more productive than the people who are only partly productive.

Now, I particularly want to focus on the hundredfold. I regard that as representative of the people who want and achieve God’s best. And I want to read a comment that Jesus makes in another version of the same parable in Luke chapter 8, verse 15, which is again an interpretation and application of the same parable with particular reference to the good soil.

And this is what Jesus says here,

“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”

Now, in that description, there are two factors which are vitally important, and both of them are related to our theme of wanting God’s best.

First of all, there’s the kind of heart. It’s described as noble and good. And an alternative translation for ‘noble’ is ‘honest.’ So really the first requirement is honesty, or openness, or sincerity. Not covering anything up, no double dealing, no double standards. That’s the first requirement. And then the other aspect of the response is a threefold response for these people. They hear the word, they retain it, and by persevering, they produce a crop. I think those three factors are extremely important, and I want to emphasize them in connection with our theme: hearing the word, retaining it, and persevering. And I want to suggest to you, persevering is a key to the theme that we’re discussing, “If You Want God’s Best.” The principle unfolded in this parable confronts each of us with a personal decision.

And I cannot overemphasize the importance of decision in the walk of faith. So many people don’t realize that the course of our lives depends ultimately on the decisions that we make, not on our feelings, but on our decisions. And the decision that confronts each one of us in the light of that parable is this: How much do I intend to produce? Will I be satisfied with thirty times? Do I intend to produce sixty times? Or am I aiming for God’s best? Do I intend to produce one hundred times?

And I want to suggest to you as you listen that you’re confronted with the necessity to make this decision. The very fact that you’re hearing this teaching automatically confronts you with a decision. Do you want God’s best? Are you going to aim at a hundredfold, or are you going to be content with sixty or merely thirtyfold? Now, what you achieve will depend on the response of your heart.

I pointed out earlier that there are two sides to our relationship with God. One side is what God makes available to us; the other side is how we respond to what God makes available. And that’s what’s going to be decisive in your life: how you respond. And then in the parable that we looked at, in the interpretation in Luke chapter 8, we saw there were three aspects to the successful response: first, hearing God’s Word; second, retaining it; and third, persevering in what you’re doing.