Pastor Ralph Douglas West - The Cause of Spiritual Failure | Luke 8:4-15

0:00 This is the day the Lord has made. We rejoice and we are glad in it. Come on, celebrate the Lord's goodness today. I bet you if you turn that microphone up or the monitors, it's not going to break nothing.

0:26 Yeah, I promise you that. Thank you choir for encouraging us this morning. The Lord's grace and his mercy. One of my members said to me, I thought it was very nice and I appreciate that. They said, the last, this is the third summer, said, we've seen you more the last three summers than we have in 34 years. And I told them I appreciate that. I knew what they meant.

1:17 I told them I don't have nowhere to go and nothing to do. So I actually enjoyed being home and being around the church and looking at all of you. Don't worry, I'm un-stringing that bow.

1:38 You don't have to worry about that. Luke chapter 8. Actually, it was no intention of mine to preach this morning. I was reading through a series of sermons by James Stewart that awakened a question that nagged at me, and I thought that I would say something about it. I had not seen it from this angle before. Jesus is working out of a transcript from his own life.

2:15 It's in Luke chapter 8, beginning at verse 4. When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, a sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock And as it grew up it withered for lack of moisture Some fell among thorns And the thorns grew with it and choked it Some fell into good soil And when it grew it produced a hundredfold As he said this he called out Let everyone who has ears to hear listen.

3:19 Then his disciples asked him, what does this mean? He said, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. He said, to you who belong to the church without walls, it has been given to you to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but to others I speak in parables so that looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand. Now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved.

4:23 The ones on the rock are those who when they hear the word receive it with joy but these have no root. They believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away.

4:45 As for what fell among the thorns, these are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and the riches and the pleasures of life. and their fruit does not mature.

5:05 But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patient endurance. This is the word of God. You may be seated.

5:27 The cause of spiritual failure. Thank you. That's what I want to tag this text, the cause of spiritual failure. Luke is writing the words of Jesus and the Jesus words come across like a transcript that describes his ministry. It's a notation of his experience. When you read what we've read, you have some questions that surface. Couldn't Jesus' ministry have been richer? Could it not have been more productive, more positive than what we read? what is it about even the ministry of Jesus where crowds of people gather around and then they go away? I hadn't paid attention to that, had you? I'd always thought that the crowd that gathered around Jesus initially when they were enthusiastically following after him initially when he inaugurated his ministry was the same crowd swelling as Jesus moved toward the cross.

6:58 I'm not really giving attention over these years of studying how the crowds thinned out even on Jesus. crowds gaggling Galileans that gathered to follow our Lord's words were in abundance initially and the closer he got to the purpose of his coming the cross things started thinning out now if that was Christ's question where are they it might be the question that falls from our lips where are they the question is has Christ's ministry failed has God failed finally?

8:01 By all evidence this morning, we could say that God has failed, Christ has failed, the church has failed. Finally, we finally met a battle that God could not win. it was easy for us to shout when we talked about Israel the Babylonians the Assyrians and we stood 4,000 and 2,500 years in the distance and we said go get them God when we met our Red Sea God failed That's what this text addresses Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about Do me that, at least engage me with that much integrity Don't pretend like you do not know what I'm talking about Two years ago, God was winning Two years later, look around God has failed Thank you.

9:16 Why? That's why I want you to look at this case with me. Who's to blame? Who's at fault? So let's begin with Jesus' own transcript of where does the fault lie. Let's start with the sower. The sower is Jesus Christ himself, so has the sower failed. he's a minister to the Galileans has he failed I'm asking you has he failed we don't know yet don't answer too soon That's the question that we ask.

10:13 So the crowds are gathered and now the crowds are disappearing. In his own lifetime, that is what happened to him. And for those of you, and I would hope by now you would know that I would never stand up and hadn't thought through something. You remember a crowd gathered with Jesus and they followed him because he was able to give them bread. He declared, I am the bread of life. and while he was giving them bread he asked them to follow him and then he told them where and when he told them the destination that he would arrive across and death they started disappearing on him and he had to turn to his disciples and ask this question will you also leave me Thank you.

11:16 Peter said, well where shall we go to hear words of eternal life? what about in church history when you consider what God in Jesus Christ has done the great revivals the souls some of you would tell your story of how you remember when you came to God, can any of you remember the day that you came to know Jesus Christ? Yeah, some of you can. If you can't, you ought to go back where you first received it. in history not just church history in black history you look back and you consider that while revivals were taking place in cathedrals and in beautiful church sanctuaries and edifices those black bodies worshiped in what Robert Abato refers to as the invisible institution under trees by the river beds and that God was as real to them with no walls as he was to those who were dressed inside of beautiful sanctuaries.

12:38 And now what has happened? Has the sower failed? I don't know. Maybe a pagan can answer that question for us better than we can. When Jesus was about to be crucified, Governor Pilate said, and I want to borrow his words, I find no fault in him. And those of you who have been

13:22 and those that are planning to visit London, Hyde Park is an area then and now where people stand on the stump and they declare their ideologies, then and even now. And one afternoon as it is then and now, An atheist took the stomp and went after the founder of Christianity, Jesus. Held up verbal caricatures and said things about Jesus to a very secular, attentive audience. And out of that secular, attentive, non-Christian audience, who initially was cheering him on until he got to the founder of the church, As long as he was talking about Christians and Christianity and the Bible, people applauded.

14:18 But when he started talking about the founder of the church, Jesus Christ is who I'm talking about. People came to the front and said no more. And another agnostic stood and just simply said three cheers for Jesus. and the people started cheering because there's something about the credibility and the faithfulness that even those that don't believe in him know that Jesus got a pretty good track record If an agnostic can give a cheer for Jesus,

15:00 how much should those of us who say that we are blood washed and spirit filled. So I think we can eliminate cause number one. it is a failure so maybe it is the soil that's that's that's of the sower the sower maybe it's the soil there Jesus Christ on one hand Got to be the soil. If it's not anything else, it got to be there. well, what about the seed? That's the way it is. It's the seed. We can stop. It's the seed.

15:54 The seed is the message of Jesus Christ. The seed is the content of the gospel. The seed is the cross of God. these are things that as we memorize what is taking place on the political social and cultural scenes please do yourself the good that if somebody asks you what do you believe that you could use words like gospel and explain it it is the good news of Jesus Christ it is the content of God. It speaks of what God did for you on Calvary. These are things that if you've been in church and you come to the Lord's Supper, that what you participated in is the reenactment of what God did for you through Jesus Christ to open access to him.

16:54 Something must be wrong with that message. It doesn't seem to be very popular anymore. More and more, the more you talk about the message, Christ, his word, people get bored of that. And so we run to learn how to what? grow a garden, how to smile. and how to be nice. And nothing's wrong with that, by the way, but that's not the gospel. the gospel produces that, but that's not your raison d'etre.

17:48 God didn't just create you to walk around and save a whale and plant trees. He's called you to worship and love him and through that to love one another. The gospel. So what has gone wrong?

18:10 Maybe the message of Christ. And for those of you that don't know me, I'm really not a negative person. I'm really not. I'm a human optimist. I believe in the best and the good of all humanity. But I do work through a philosophy of mine that I established when I was just a boy. that if I was going to hear the gospel, I wanted to hear the gospel. If I was going to go to church, I wanted to go to church. I didn't want people to call it church and it turned out to be something else. Because if I want to have a party, I know how to have a party. And if I want a party, it's going to be a real laid out. It's going to be the real deal. It's kind of like people say, well, it's Christian jazz. I don't want to listen to no Christian jazz.

19:02 I want to listen to jazz. And when I come to church, I don't want it called church music in the name of church music. I want to have some flat out praise God from whom all blessings flow. I'm working out my own. So the message, the message has failed. The sower, we know it's not his fault. So he gave us a bad message. and the message has failed? Or has the church misinterpreted the message? But not just the church, institutions that train people for the church. Or maybe we have become our own interpreters. Like Jefferson, we have our own Bible. We keep the part we like and we take a pen knife and cut the parts that we don't like.

20:02 That was a rave over the last couple of weeks of a very popular prosperity preacher that said, I never listened to the article or the announcement. I heard others respond to it. And I was interested to hear the response from a couple of people. Where this person said that he repented for teaching on tithing.

20:37 But what caught my attention was not that he said it, but the Christians that weighed in and they said, that's why I don't do it no more. I said, we're always looking for something. I said, if the message of Christ, that God loved you so much, that he sent Jesus Christ to come into your darkness, to lead you into a marvelous light, to find you in your sinking and put you on a solid rock to stand. Whether you call it tithing or grace giving, that ought to be enough for you to tangibly express your love to God for what God has done for you. Period. That's all I have to say about that. I only use that as an illustration of the message. And there's something, well, the message.

21:42 Is the message broken? Well, I'm going to just move on because the sermon has been over with. I'm trying to get somewhere. There's nothing wrong with the message. The seed, nothing wrong with it. We as messengers, we might mess it up, but there's nothing wrong with the message of the Lord Jesus Christ.

22:09 Preach Ralph West. When Thomas Carlyle and Emerson were walking across the Scottish moor and they were looking at that uncultivated vegetation. The poet Carlisle said to the S.S. Emerson,

22:31 Christ died on a tree, you know. And from that tree, that friend looking at his friend said, and because of that tree, Don's score, old Kirk was built A manna where the two had met years earlier That we have forged a friendship And a relationship Because Christ Jesus died on a tree Some of you can pick up that story You met your wife you met your husband because Christ died on a tree.

23:17 There are those of you that have great friendships because Christ died on a tree. Well, I owe my relationships with people for the salvation that Jesus Christ has provided for me. You don't get that? you're making me this morning concerned that if you don't understand Christ in your life is your hope of glory where maybe the message has failed. But I don't think that it has. I don't believe that the message has failed. I don't believe that the sower is not his fault, and I don't believe that the seed, that it's the seed fault.

24:17 Let me close. There's one more. Cause the soil. the soil is the picture of the human heart and some see the message sown by Jesus Christ has fallen into the heart and into the mind of soil that is hard this is the picture of the path where people have walked through the garden and they have made it hard and when the seed is sown, it cannot take root. It's inertia. is impervious prevents it from taking root.

25:15 These are the minds of men and women who know everything. These are the minds of men and women that when they hear truth like that, they come with the intention of always trying to undermine everything that God has done or what God is doing. These are the people who say, do you really believe something like that? These are those kinds of people Whose hearts have become hard They're the people of the wayside And these are those that you meet and you say and how long have you said you've been a Christian?

26:15 You've been a Christian that long. and you've read and you've studied and you know this to be true and you don't do it? Hard. some fail on shallow ground. now it's sometimes referred to when mark tells the story stony it's an interesting kind of soil it's shallow the seed falls in it but there's a layer beneath it that prevents it from going further it's a strange kind of soil it looks promising by the way it is it sprouts up fast you know it it comes up you say look at that But the first sign of difficulty.

27:33 Runs them away I heard a very popular and very prominent young man who's been put in a beautiful church said and I he said my generation we just ain't putting up with it not like y'all generation he said We work a job and it don't work. It ain't because we lazy, he said. But our generation just ain't putting up with y'all, what y'all put up. If we get a job and it don't work, we leaving.

28:21 If our marriages ain't working, we out. If the church, we gone. I said, Lord, I wouldn't want to be a member of that church. I can see that you don't mind being part of that. I want to be with somebody that says I didn't give up because God didn't give up on me. Don't try to shout now. You should have shouted earlier. Thank you Lord. Stick to it, Mrs. By the way, it's not a generational issue. It's a hard issue. That's like those of you that marry.

29:04 If you already have an exit before I do, then don't. because anybody here who has survived any amount of years of marriage they would tell you there are enough doors that you want to exit out that you want to quit that you want to give up but it's something about a testimony when you stay with something that you're able to stand up and say if God can do it for me the Lord can certainly do it for you preach Ralph West I see that most of you agree with my young friend You want to get out Well let me just tell you now Don't get in it then Because if that's your resolve I'm getting out of it Don't get in it Nobody's making you do it Don't get in it But if you get in it You stay in it And if you got to get out of it You make sure that it was no other way out but out but by the grace of God he is able to keep you longer than you believe that you can be kept I'm done now I'm done shallow looks promising the young ruler comes to Jesus and asks good master what must I do to inherit eternal life and Jesus told him and he looked promising until the Lord said what he said to him and he walked away sad. He looked promising for the disciple to say wherever you go I'll follow you and Jesus says good I need somebody else to come along. Foxes have holes and birds of their have nests but I don't have anywhere to promise you. He says when you get a place I'll come.

30:59 Let me tell you something To be a Christian is tough Salvation is free Discipleship is discipline It costs something to be a believer Of the Lord Jesus Christ And who would want to be a Christian That it don't cost you nothing I don't want to belong to anything that doesn't cost me something. I'm done. some of it fell on thorny ground thorny you know what thorny is it grows but it grows among weeds and the weeds choke it out i'm not making any of this up by the way if you just read these stories jesus not only explains what i said he gives you the content of what i'm saying he says is thorny.

32:03 And what do weeds do in a garden? It chokes out the growth. It grows, but it chokes it out. Jesus said, for a lot of you, it's the soil of thorny soil. That is, it's not that you're not growing, you're just growing along with so many other stuff. You're distracted by this advertisement. You're distracted by this consumeristic commodity. you are distracted and choked out by these issues and the difference is they have more prominence in you than you give to the seed in the soil.

32:44 You're just choked out. Choked out growing but just choked out. My time is up. So what then, this sounds like a terrible parable.

33:05 It does. That's why I said new insight. I had preached it before. And I said, oh my Lord, this is horrible. This is a story of failure. No, it's not. Now drawing in, I'll give you this in just about two minutes. No, it's not. the next time you read that when you read it Jesus has set up these questions for you to ask is the fault on the sower no is the fault of the seed no is the fault of the soil yes but no the soils are presented as a reminder that there are good hearts that have taken in God's word and that word has changed not just their life but the life that is around them.

34:03 And what does it produce? Not just 30, not just 60, but hundredfold that God's word gets a hold of a heart and makes that life productive. do we have evidence?

34:26 The evidence is the soil that he's talking to when the disciple says, we don't understand. And Jesus explained it to him. And after his death, the most vacillating of all of the apostles, the big fisherman, Peter, who could never be sturdy or stable of anything, he lived up to his initial name, Simon Jonah, that he was capricious. but after crucifixion and the power of the Holy Spirit you see the big fisherman for the first time stirring fix fitted and firm and when he preached and he now had become a sower and he was throwing out seed it fell on good soil and that day 3,000 people responded to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the scripture said and God added to the church daily such as should be saved What you say that ain't exciting to you?

35:31 I almost called y'all out of your name. Don't you know you were part of the Pentecostal crew that on that day God had your name with the seed in it? Some of you have children that don't know Jesus. You ought to go out there and clear up the weed and soften up the soil by praying for them and reminding them that there's a God that has a plan bigger than just your professional career. Bigger than just your investment. God has a plan for your whole life. that's the story of Christ looking over his transcript he says you know Wes don't spend so much time on the failure of the soil put your eye on those that have received God's word and rejoice about it when I wake up now and I get up and I see you on Sunday morning I'm grateful to the Lord that you have let good seed fall in your soil now go out into the world now you become a sower of the message and you make that world a better place you make it a better place you make it a better place you do it in school many of you going back to school as student or possibly teacher or professor go back and make a difference but the soil is hard i know remember how difficult you were at one time and god was able to get in there and dig it up and plow through it and spade it and fertilize it

37:39 And now look at you. Sometimes I can't even believe it's me preaching or talking or teaching. And I say, boy, look at what the Lord has done. And I'm just a one talent person. I don't have no major gifts of any kind. But I'm thankful that God plowed and pharaohed and dug and put seed in me. And what I decided to do, although I'm just one talent, I'm going to use that one talent every way that God knows how to use that talent. You're his soil. Receive his seed. And let God bring 34, 60, 100. And then you can stand up and people say, why are you always looking like that? As Dean Wright used to say, we'll walk across campuses and look at him walking like he got an appointment with himself. Then you can stand there and people look at you say, look at them. They always act like I got an appointment with themselves. You can tell them, say, no, no, I'm just standing and reflecting, thinking and praising.

39:05 that God took somebody like me, soil that was hard, rocky, and thorny, put seed in it, and look at me now. Don't look like what I used to be. To God be the glory. To God be the glory. Amen. Yeah, to God be the glory. I'm shouting with you. Yeah. May God be the glory. Would you pray with me today? Our Father, you know, for so many times as Christians, we come in rooms like this and we take all effort for granted. The prayer that's prayed and if it's too long, we complain or the scripture, do they have to read that much of it? We sing, do they have to go on?

39:59 The preacher's longer than 30 minutes. When is he going to sit down? Remind us Every response of that kind Identifies what kind of soil we are when we hear truth and don't want to receive it we're hard wayside when we respond just because somebody else respond but don't last we're just thin shallow and even when we've been in you for a long time and we're always letting the cares of the world that there's always something, someone more important in you then we're thorny help us to be good soil good soil not just for us now but good soil for our sons and daughters our husbands, our wives, our best friends our grandchildren so when they look and say why do you do that we can teach them while we pray so Lord we ask of you help us be good soil our world is in a lot of trouble and you've already given the hope for that world now teach us that we don't have to change the world if we go out and proclaim the message be who you called us to be.

41:33 We then become the change agents. We take that salt and light into the world, into our schools, our institutions. That's where the difference is made. We thank you for that. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Even for those today that will respond to the gospel because of the soil and the seed. In Jesus' name, amen. Give God praise with me today. with your church and quickly as the door of the church is open here's what I want you to do those of you that are in this room those of you that are watching uh via the web I want you to respond now the choir is going to sing our leaders are standing and while they're standing they're there to receive you not to walk for you but just to receive you and by doing that here it is Pastor Wes, I have received God's message to seed that has been sown by the sword, Jesus himself.

42:35 And I want to respond positively to God's message. Do that today. The door to church is open. We're waiting on you. Come on.