Pastor Dan Eddy
Isaiah 55:10-13
and Matthew 13:1-8, 18-23
“What kind of plant are you?”
7-10-11
Visual: tomato seeds, a red tomato, tomato
plant and watering can
(Children’s
Lesson portion)
What does it mean
to sow a seed? Jesus just talked about that in our Gospel lesson I just read.
(Show tomato)
Okay here is a
tomato. Any of you ever eat tomatoes? They’re delicious, aren’t they? Where do
tomatoes come from? And please don’t say from the grocery store.
From seeds. (Show tomato seeds) See these tiny
tomato seeds. But how do these seeds eventually become this tomato?
First, you have
to plant them. Can I plant the seeds in the carpet? No. Do I plant them on the sidewalk? Wow about down on the beach? No. Where do I plant them? In the soil, right?
Not just any
soil…good soil. (Show the tomato plant) See
this tomato plant. See how black the dirt is and how moist it is? This plant
has been watered.
If you don’t
plant the seed in good soil, and water it…it will not grow a plant to give you
a good tomato.
So what does this
have to do with your relationship with Jesus?
Well when you
were baptized…the seed a faith was planted into you, just like it was a few
moments ago into Benjamin Richard Beale.
But if he or you
didn’t attend church…it would be like taking this seed and planting it on the
sidewalk. Have you ever seen a tomato plant grow on the side walk, carpet, on
the beach or hard ground?
It can’t. It
needs rich, black, moist soil. That’s why you come to church to grow up to be a
healthy plant; you grow in your faith… (Take
watering can) watered with the Word of God. That happens when you are in
worship, attend Sunday School, read the Bible or have your parents read Bible
stories. Some people think they can have
their faith grow without going to church on a regular basis. Well it might grow
a little but can die out because it’s not in rich soil being watered.
But when you let
your faith in Christ grow in the rich soil of the church…you do many good
things. Look at the tomatoes forming on the plant. That’s fruit. (Technically a
tomato is a fruit).
In a way you
produce delicious tomatoes when you write get well cards to people like some of
you did a few weeks back to the Dick and Doris Lesher as they were recovering
from surgery at the Life Care Nursing Care facility. They really loved those.
Or when you said Psalm 23 or sing in church. Or, when you
offer to help do chores at home without your parents even asking you.
So the seed is
your faith in Christ, the rich soil is the church, the water is His Word of the
Bible, and the plant is your growing faith. The tomato is the fruit of your
good works that you do…NOT to get to Heaven, but because you are going to
Heaven.
Let’s pray:
Dear Jesus
Thank you for
planting Your seed of faith in my heart
Let it continue
to grow well in the good soil of Your Church
So that I can
grow up to be a healthy plant
Producing more
fruit of good works
For Your glory
and honor
Amen.
You may go back
to your seats as I continue with the sermon.
(Sermon portion)
I.
Introduction….2007 drought, reservoir, and
weeds
In a few weeks,
Berta and I will be celebrating four years here at
One of our first
memories of the
I thought of
those images when I was studying today’s Old Testament text from Isaiah 55. In
verses 10 to 13, the Lord is speaking through the prophet a message of hope to
those Israelites who were enslaved by the Babylonians…something I preached on
last week. However, God Word wasn’t just for them; it’s for you today. This
chapter delivers an invitation, an offer of hope, to those who have lost it…for
those who hunger and thirst, spiritually.
Does
that sound like you this day?
Today my prayer
is that the Lord offers meaning and purpose for life with Him, warns against
the meaningless worldly ways, and points your faith again to our Savior in
Christ.
And one way to do
that is to see where you fit in this text.
Now what I told
the children this morning about the water of God’s Word, seed of faith, plants
of faith growing, fruit of good works all sound good, right? There’s only one
problem. Those blasted weeds.
II.
The problem of weeds
Verse 13 (ESV): Instead of the thorn shall come up the
cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
Among the
Israelites, cypress were considered noble trees. King Solomon lined the interior
nave of the
The key for you
and I to grow up as a cypress or myrtle is to keep the weeds away.
Weeds are a
manifestation of a sin-fallen world. I guarantee you there were no weeds in the
Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve’s fall into sin. Weeds will not be a part of
the life to come in the New Heavens and New Earth. But weeds are more than a
threat to our trees and plants. Weeds symbolize the problem we have with sin.
I’ve received gardening advice from Farmer Bob Schipul. He said farmers
know weed seeds may lay dormant for 10-20 years or more and then spring up in
the dry…when least expected.
When you stop taking in the water of God’s Word…the seed, the plant,
your faith, doesn’t grow and the weeds, the thorns, your sins and the
influences of a sin-fallen world are ready to choke your faith, as Jesus said
in verse 7 of our Gospel text.
Weeds creep into, infest, Sunday School programs with a lack of
students, attendance, teachers, and parental participation. Weeds affect biblical
literacy, Bible study attendance, and lack of participation in small groups in
a congregation. Weeds affect how many are here for Sunday morning worship.
Weeds affect how we sing, how we respond to the liturgy, how boldly we confess
our faith here and out there. Weeds turn the worshipper into a passive observer
rather than a hearer and responder. Weeds grow wildly in the dry parched dirt
of apathy.
Weeds take stewardship and turn it into an obligation. Weeds burnout
members whose service to the church has become less about God and more about
them….that includes pastors. Thorns prick to cause conflict, dissension, to
eventually bleed out into a spiritual death.
And any credible
landscaper or farmer will tell you the way you keep the weeds away is all in
how you prepare the soil.
How good is the
soil here in this congregation for God’s Word to grow in your lives? Or is it
shallow and sandy with worldliness? The
deep study of God’s Word the richer the soil.
Growing up on the
farm, Pastor Schipul said farmers today use both pre-emergence weed killer
and topical weed killer to stop weeds from sprouting or kill them when plants
are young. Children are raised in the Church to keep the weeds of life at bay.
Do you want to
know the only weed killer when it comes to your sins? Jesus Christ suffering
and dying on the cross. Jesus as the dead seed was planted into the ground of
the tomb of death, and the rain from Heaven brought the perfect seed back to
life. And because of that Jesus has packaged His weed killer in His proclaimed
Word, so that as you hear it…take it in through your ears and believe it…the
weeds recede. When you eat and drink in His Word in, with, and under the Bread
and the Cup…weeds die because forgiveness waters your soul in the good soil of
the Church. What gives you life puts to death sin.
When the pure
Word of God of the Bible keeps raining down from Heaven and we let it soak in
and not run from it…The faith reservoirs filled up…the plants in the rich soil
of His Church bring the spiritually dead back to life.
III.
Spreading our seed, our faith
And as our seed,
our faith grows, it matures to a healthy plant, which produces fruit and the
fruit has its own seed to be passed onto others. What a liberating experience
to know you are growing in your faith to help save others from the eternal
death of Hell.
Verse 13 (ESV) of
our text describes it this way:
“For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
When the Jews
were finally released from captivity…those who took the pilgrimage home were
being led by God and their attitude was one of joy, their spirit was one of
peace, and they expressed it in clapping and singing. Some of the Psalms
reflect this. This is where we get the idea of our Entrance or Processional
hymn. We are leaving the captivity of the world and process to our Promised
Land.
And this verse is
a vague description of what the next life will be like for those who have faith
in Christ alone…
Ever been around
believers in Christ who act this way? It’s contagious. They’re spreading their
seeds, sowing them among those who are died or dying spiritually…to bring them
alive in Christ. That’s what we do with our seed, our plant, our faith. It’s
like they’re giving and living a little bit of Heaven today.
So how do we keep
the weeds from infesting our lives? How do we pass on fruit to others? What
does that look like in our everday lives?
There are many
ways to do this, but perhaps this closing story can offer a daily starting
point. This week member Brian Howley sent me the following email:
Hi Pastor: Found this article on
Foxnews.com. It gave me insight as to how we can give glory to God in our
everyday lives. I’m going to practice it by not swearing at every other
motorist within 50 yards of me on my way to and from work.
The article is from
author Ian Morgan Cron…titled “What does
God want from us today?”
“’Be compassionate,’ God said. ‘That’s what I want you to
do today.’
“The compassionate person not only feels the pain of the
other but actively does something to alleviate their suffering as well.
“Why is compassion in such short supply these days? We
are so preoccupied with our own struggles that we become inured to the unseen
difficulties others are surely facing.
“I thought about the jittery, hollow-eyed kid working at
Starbucks who every morning fails to give me the correct change. I’m sure the
way I roll my eyes while he scrambles to repair the transaction isn’t exactly a
confidence builder.
“Then there is my employee, Jack, a fifty-five year old
man who spaces out during meetings. It drives me crazy when his eyes glaze over
signaling that I’ve lost
his attention. I don’t like how it forces me to wave my hands in front of his
face to refocus him. He apologizes and says it won’t happen again, but it does.
“Often the battles they are fighting are unknown to us,
and we are clueless of just how close some people are to giving up.
“Is it possible the bumbling teenager working at
Starbucks has been striving to achieve sobriety and one word of encouragement
from me might make his brave effort to stay clean that much easier? What if the
next time Jack drifted off I asked him if there was something troubling him,
and he shared with me the preoccupying dread of the daily visit he makes to the
nursing home
to see his father who no longer recognizes him?
“Is it possible a spirit of compassion would overtake my
self-interest, and I’d offer to go with him?
“Compassion, the impulse to proactively lighten the
burden of our fellow human beings as they contend with life’s battles, that’s
what God wants, not only from me today, but no doubt from all of us.”
IV. Conclusion
What kind of
plant are you? The one that came from the water of Heaven, the Word of God
producing the seed of faith through the waters at your baptism, planted in the
rich soil of the Church, to grow producing fruit to serve others.
What kind of
plant do you want to be? Growing and producing…or dying by being chocked with
weeds.
May
He (point to the cross) who supplies seed to the sower and bread for
food-supply multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your
righteousness. (2 Corinthians 9:10) Amen.
Now let’s ask God to kill some weeds by confessing our sins before Him
now.