How Much Are You Worth?

Mark 4

We’re going to be in Mark 4 this morning.
What I want you to keep in mind as we read Mark 4
is that Jesus is teaching a kingdom principle.
And the people he’s talking to on the shoreline –
a lot of them are farmers.
They will understand the parable of the Seed very quickly.

A old time minister made a trip to Israel a couple years ago,
and one of the places he visited was Jesus’ childhood hometown - Nazareth. On the outskirts of modern Nazareth
they found (and rebuilt) an ancient watch tower.
In addition they added a model of a traditional home of the era, plus a workshop and other buildings that would have existed in days of Jesus.
But what caught his attention was the remnants of some ancient farmland.

If you were fortunate enough back then to have inherited “bottom land” down in the valley
you might have become a wealthy man.
But this section of Nazareth was built into the hillside
and had “terraced” farms.
People in this area only had “farms that were little bigger than a good-sized garden.

This land had a mixture of shallow ground
where there was rock just about an inch under the soil,
as well as some sections where the ground was fertile
and would yield a good crop.
Seemingly everywhere there were a fair amount of weeds
and though you might pull a lot of them...
there’d still be a fair amount still growing alongside the crops.

In addition, the owner would access his particular plot by a path that ran between his land and his neighbor’s.
Now, with the right tools, you MIGHT be able to make ALL the ground useful. But Nazareth was a poor community with limited resources, so farmers did what they could with what they had.
As a result, the “farmers” threw their seed everywhere,
hoping some of it would grow.

Their land was precious (since there wasn’t much of it),
but the seed was comparatively cheap.
So as Jesus told the parable,
he described the four types of ground every farmer had to deal with. Only a ¼ of the ground was useful –
and it was apparently hard to tell which land would be fertile,
and which was not.
But the fertile land would give a high yield and was worth the trouble.

And when you think about the parable of the Seed,
when Jesus describes what happens to the Seed,
he’s describing what happens to it in real life.
Mark 4:Verse (3) Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
“Hearken” and “Behold” – he’s using two Words to communicate that whatever you are doing you need to stop right now and listen to what I’m about to say.
Pay attention.

Notice also that the sower “went out”.
This was a purposeful decision.
What is my point?
When it comes to sowing the Word,
it’s not something we do haphazardly.
We do it on purpose and WITH PURPOSE.

When you do something on purpose you make time for it.
It’s not a passing fancy.
You make time because you are doing it for a reason.

Verse (4) And it came to pass, as he sowed,
some fell by the way side,
and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.

When a sower sows he reaches into his bag and flings out the Seed. He’s scattering the Seed.
He does not go back and plow the ground until later.

Verse (5) some fell on stony ground,
where it had not much earth;
and immediately it sprang up,
because it had no depth of earth:

(6) But when the sun was up,
it was scorched;
and because it had no root, it withered away.

(7) And some fell among thorns,
and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

(8) And other fell on good ground,
and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased;
and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty,
and some an hundred.

(9) And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear,
let him hear.

In the New Testament it says that
“I (Jesus) am come that they might have life
and have it more abundantly.”
And in Timothy it says
God wants all men to be saved
and come a knowledge of the truth.

Remember back in Mark 4:9 it says
“let them who have ears to hear, let them hear”?

Let them hear. EACH OF US has ears, right?
So, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US
are either making a decision to hear or not hear.
Why are their eyes seeing and their ears hearing?
It’s because they are letting them see and letting them hear.

So when we read these verses in Mark 4,
Jesus is not the one preventing them from seeing.
Jesus is not the one preventing them from hearing.
They are not seeing and they are not hearing
because of the hardness of their hearts.

Satan can steal the Word when we refuse to hear.
Do you see this?
What does Jesus say in verse 9?
“He that has ears to hear, let him hear.”
In other Words, let him hear and let him hold on to it.

So, if this is the criteria for hearing
then what we see here in verse 15
are those who have heard the Word but refused to hold on to it.

15 Some people are like seed along the path,
where the word is sown.
BUT… As soon as they hear it,
Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

(16) And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the Word,
immediately receive it with gladness;
(17) And have no root in themselves,
and so endure but for a time:
BUT afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth
for the Word's sake, immediately they are offended.

Again, these individuals did not trust the Seed.
One of our greatest problems as Christians
is that we read the Bible but we truly don’t believe what we read.
When we don’t believe what we read,
when persecution comes and people come against you
and disagree with what the Bible says,
you are not going to fight for what the Bible says.

The person who has not root in himself
has no scriptural foundation.
Why?
BECAUSE He has ears but is not hearing.

(18) And these are they which are sown among thorns;
such as hear the Word,
(19) And the cares of this world,
and the deceitfulness of riches,
and the lusts of other things entering in,
choke the Word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Again, they did not trust the Seed.
They did not trust that the Word would do for them
what the Word says it will do.
And so the world came in and replaced the Word.

There are many of us in the Body of Christ today
where the world has replaced the Word.
We may not know it because we still go to church every Sunday. We give our offerings and participate in the worship.
And so we think everything is okay.

BUT verse (23) tells us
If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

Remember that one of the reasons that the Word did not produce was because there was NO ROOT in the person.
There was nothing that allowed the Word,
the Seed, to take root.
The more that you spend time in the Word,
confessing the Word, and worshiping,
you’re starting to build a place in you
where the Word can take root and then sprout out of you.
Several years ago this advertisement was placed in a New England area newspaper:
"Unknown item for sale.
We know it's valuable; we just don't know what it is.
If you can identify it, we'll sell it for $250.”

Sometimes it’s hard to decide what something is worth.
I have been told that when you’re selling something
you can ask whatever you like.
But something is only worth
what someone else is willing to pay you for it.

ILLUS: Years ago,
a man was browsing at Music City Thrift Shop Nashville.
He found an old yellowed rolled-up document that had the Declaration of Independence written on it.
It was priced at $2.48, so he bought it.
But he was curious about it because it looked so old,
and so he did some online research
and then sent it to someone he trusted to evaluate it.

It turned out to be one of the 200 “official copies”
of the Declaration that had been commissioned
by John Quincy Adams in 1820.
The firm that examined it
determined he could sell it for about $250,000

The man ended up selling it to an investment firm
for almost ½ a million dollars.
So, how much was that old yellowed scroll worth?
Well... it was worth whatever someone was willing to pay for it.

Now, here’s a question: What are YOU worth?
Jesus compared your worth to a lost sheep,
a lost coin
and a lost Son.
The Bible says you were worth so much
that God gave His only begotten Son
that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life.
That’s how much you are worth to God.
But not everybody agrees.
Sigmund Freud (the founder of psychoanalysis) once said:
“In the depths of my heart
I can’t help being convinced that ALL my dear fellow-men,
with a few exceptions, are worthless.”

And in the days of Jesus,
the Pharisees would have agreed with Freud.
They often condemned Jesus for hanging out with the losers in society saying: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” Mark 2:16

And even today, there are way too many congregations
that will allow only certain kinds of folks
to come to their church buildings and sit in their pews.

So, the question today is this:
Do we agree with God (as to value of men and women)
or with Sigmund Freud?
And how do you know if you agree with God or Freud?

Well you can tell by understanding how much the lost and the struggling are worth to you.
What does this parable tell us?
Well, first – it’s telling us that the sower is doing his job.
He’s throwing the seed EVERYWHERE
and he’s doing what he’s expected to do.
He’s not wasting his time
and he’s not wasting the seed.
He’s doing his JOB!

But who’s the sower?
Who is this person in the parable
who’s throwing all that seed around?
Well, we’re not told, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.
I think it’s YOU... and it’s ME.
It’s the Preachers, the Elders, the Teachers,
and everyone else who makes up the church.
Anybody who LOVES Jesus is the sower of the seed.
So, it’s YOUR job.
And it’s MY job to sow the seed.

Some may ask: what exactly is that seed?
Well, Jesus said: “The sower sows the word.”
Verse 14 of the text.

So the seed is THE WORD. But what “word exactly?”
In Verse 17 (shortly after Jesus had been tempted in the desert by Satan) we’re told
“From that time on Jesus began to preach,
‘REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’”

Later, when Scribes and Pharisees complained about Jesus eating with tax collectors,
Luke 5:32 tells us that Jesus said
“I have not come to call the righteous
but sinners to REPENTANCE.”

And when Jesus rose from the dead
he talked with a couple of men on the Road to Emmaus
and we’re told: “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written,
that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that REPENTANCE and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Luke 24:45-47

And then, when Peter preached his powerful sermon at Pentecost and 1000s of people were baptized into Christ,
we are told that Peter’s sermon was so powerful that the crowd asked him what they needed to do to obtain God’s forgiveness.
And do you remember what he told them?
That’s right: “REPENT and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38

So, what’s the WORD? The word was REPENT!!!!
Change! Turn toward God!
Quit trying to pretend you can do your life without God!
The seed we have been asked to sow ... is REPENT!

If we don’t sow THAT seed,
if we don’t call people to repent of their sins,
then we’re not going to have the harvest Jesus called us to have.

ILLUS: There’s a magic team called Penn & Teller.
Penn Jillette is the BIG guy. He’s also an atheist.
Some time back he said this:
“I don't respect people who don't evangelize.
I don't respect that at all.
If you believe that there's a heaven and hell
and people could be going to hell
or not getting eternal life or whatever,
and you think that it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward....
How much do you have to hate somebody
to believe that everlasting life is possible
and not tell them that?”

Why did Penn say that?
Because, after a show somebody offered him a Bible
and told him about Jesus.
Penn didn’t convert to Christ at that moment
(he’s still an atheist last I knew),
but he was very gracious with that man...
because he RESPECTED a Christian
who cared that much about him
to tell him about Jesus.
He understood that if heaven and hell were real
you really had to hate someone
if you weren’t willing to tell them about Christ.

ILLUS: If you are a faithful sower of the seed –
just like the guy in Jesus’ parable –
you’re gonna be scattering the seed EVERYWHERE.

Folks, we ought to be using social media to talk about Jesus every chance we get.
We ought to be sharing videos and articles and pictures about what Jesus means to us and how important it is to place our faith in God.
It’s free, it’s easy
and it’s one of the most significant ways we can use
to “cast the seed” into the world around us.

But too often Christians don’t do stuff like that.
Too often, they’re like a farmer that walks into the field and throws a couple handfuls of seed out on the ground
and he just walks away because he thinks he’s done his job.

But you know he hasn’t.
Frankly - you haven’t done your job until you are committed to throwing as much seed on as much ground as you possibly can.
You are part of a team.
And if you don’t do your part, the team suffers;
the seed doesn’t get spread to every place it could bring a harvest;
and people that didn’t have to go to hell... go to hell.

So how much is the salvation of those around you...
worth to you?
And how determined are you to tell the lost about your Jesus?

CLOSE: I want to close with the true story of a Christian who was his honeymoon in the Bahamas.
He said a man walked up to him and said,
"Would you like to buy some cocaine?
You can tell everyone how much you really enjoyed the Bahamas."
He replied with a curt "No!"
But then he began to think about how Jesus would have responded if someone came up to him selling drugs.
Later that day, someone else came up to him selling drugs and that gave him a chance to share Jesus with them in a most creative way.

After the drug dealer told him that he had the "good-stuff,"
the Christian asked him, "What have you got?"
Once he said "Cocaine!" the Christian man said the following:
"Is that all you have?
I'm disappointed!
I was hoping you would have something better than that.

You see, I've got the real thing!
What I have is all natural, pure and very powerful.
And it makes me feel great all day and all night.
And get this, it may be illegal in some countries,
but not in this one, so you can't get arrested for having it!"

By this time the drug dealer was very curious and asked this guy... “what is this incredible "stuff" you’re was talking about?”
The Christian replied,
"I'm talking about having Jesus in your heart!
It's awesome what he will do for you
when you get him inside of you!
No drug in all the world is as good as having Jesus in you."

The man STOPPED SMILING and got this real serious look on his face and said, "I want what you have. How do I get it?"
Would you know what to tell him?
Here’s the deal.
Too often people immerse themselves in all kinds of things they consider important.
Their jobs, the political affiliations,
various forms of entertainment
or even drugs and alcohol.
But somewhere in the backs of their minds is often a feeling that this can’t be all there is to life.
Somehow what they’ve made the focus of their lives isn’t quite as satisfying as they once thought it would be.
If you listen to them closely you can hear their dissatisfaction.
It’s at times like these that you have the opportunity to talk to them about that which can really satisfy.
It’s at times like these that you can make them hunger and thirst for Jesus.
Times when you can convince them Jesus is better than anything they’ve ever had.
Those are the times to cast the seed.

INVITATION