What Kind of Soil are You? (The Crowded Ground Hearer)

Matthew 13:7 and 22

Now we meet the crowded ground hearer.  To the crowded ground hearer the Gospel matters, but it does not matter enough – the crowded ground hearer is preoccupied but not with the Gospel but with many other things. We need to note that the soil is well plowed and receptive to the seed of the word.  There is no shallow topsoil here, no rock ledge underneath – the seed is able to throw down deep roots.  The problem is that other things are growing in the same heart. Deep from within this heart the seeds of thorn plants or weeds also are present and they are numerous.  They outgrow the good seed and crowd around the good seed so that it is not able to produce any fruit.  The good plants are crowded and choked by the thorns. 

The seed that is sown is the Gospel and the life that is found in Jesus Christ and as it takes root in your heart it will produce a growing commitment to the kingdom of God.  As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ you are to be people of one overarching focus: that focus is to be on the kingdom of God.  Jesus commands his followers to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  The kingdom is God’s gracious reign in your heart and over your life that brings salvation.  The response of faith to this kingdom and its saving grace is that you seek his righteousness, which is a life of holiness manifested in fulfilling the two greatest commandments: loving God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself. 

Note that with the crowded ground hearer the thorns crowd out the good plants preventing them from bearing fruit.  What these various thorns do is compete for dominance over the ground.  This is a picture of the professing believer who finds that other concerns become more important than the Gospel and its fruit.  Other preoccupations rise from within the life of the professing believer that on a functional level become more important than the Gospel and crowd around it so as to choke it.  These thorns prevent the Gospel that is professed from bearing fruit.  You see the Gospel is intended by God to enable you to embrace the priority of the kingdom of God and as such the Gospel produces in your heart and mind a godly stewardship over the affairs of your life.  It enables you to properly manage, as citizens of the kingdom, your personal life, your relationships with your family, your job, your property and possessions, your money, your time, your hobbies, your schedule – all of your affairs in a manner that glorifies God.

There is a difference between a responsible stewardship before God over your life and its affairs and an inordinate preoccupation with your affairs.  In fact the first steps you are to take to exercise a responsible God-honoring stewardship over your affairs are the following:

1. Be sure that you are indeed believing in the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that you are captured by this wonderful grace of God for you in the offering up of his Son to pay the penalty for all your sins so that you might gain a righteous standing before God as his dearly loved son.  Here is where real happiness and contentment are to be found.  This is where hearts come to know peace.  Does this matter to you?
2. With the Gospel resonating in your heart – bringing encouragement, joy, hope and inward strength and stability – then you are to set your heart on being sure that you are indeed focused on God’s name being hallowed, his kingdom coming and his will being done – This is both what Jesus teaches should be the first thing on your daily prayer list and also the first priority of your life.  You should pray for these realities, concentrate on them and long for them.
3. With these two realities (The Gospel and the Kingdom) dominating your heart – your thinking and your desires - then you can indeed manage your affairs without them managing or controlling you.  Then you will have real perspective and the ability to establish the right priorities for your life and from those priorities make wise choices.

Yet in all our hearts there are thorns growing.  These thorns are competing gospels, yes even competing gods.  It is helpful to give the particular lists of these thorns found in each of the synoptic Gospels.

Matthew lists the cares of the age and the delightful deceit of riches or wealth; Mark lists the cares of the age, the delightful deceit of riches and the coveting of other things; Luke list anxiety, riches and the pleasures of life.

These may be summarized under three headings: the cares and anxieties of life; the deceit of wealth and the pursuit of other of life’s pleasures.  Yet they can be further summarized as anxious unbelief and misplaced covetous faith.  These are the thorns that rise out of your heart and compete against the seed of the word for the turf of your heart.  These thorns will so crowd around the Gospel – your profession of faith in Jesus Christ so as to choke your profession and leave you without any fruit.   What kind of soil are you? 

We must be on our guard because anxiety and covetousness are often subtle in their power to seduce us and to draw the life of the word from our hearts and minds.  The question that we need to ask is a simple one: are we managing our affairs from a heart of faith in Christ or from a heart filled with anxious care and covetous desires?  If you are not managing your affairs from faith in the word then your affairs are managing you.  May God help us to know our hearts and to do all that we can by faith to kill these noxious thorns.  What kind of soil are you?