Sermon Preview: It's All About the Soil
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Matthew 13:18-23
You remember the old nursery rhyme that asked “Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow?” If you look up the origins of the rhyme, you’ll see that it has had associations with everything. It’s the “contrariness” of Mary that has proved to be the greatest mystery for some, but to others it’s simply the manner in which her garden produced profusely.
Gardens are intended to grow. No one plants seed without expecting some kind of harvest. But as many of us have discovered, much of what comes from our planting depends on the soil in which our seed was sown.
That’s the point in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, which we’ll be revisiting this Sunday. Though the parable occurs in all of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who “see” the Jesus story in roughly the same way), Matthew’s account differs a tad from the others in that he chooses to emphasize the quality of the soil in which the farmer casts the seed. Nothing of significance happens until the seed hits the good soil, and then explosive growth takes place!
The point of the parable is that we are responsible for making sure that our soils are sufficiently rich for the seed of God’s Word first to take root in us and then to explode in transformational ministry to others. Worship, of course, is an important part of taking such responsibility seriously.
So, join us this Sunday as we bare our souls before God so that His Word might do a remarkable work in and through us. Join us in anticipation of a glorious harvest, a harvest that produces thirty, sixty, and even one hundredfold.