The Liberation of Letting Go

Matthew 13

The soil in my garden is not the best soil. It is a dry and dusty soil. Even when I water it the water slips through and does not remain. So I have tried to improve the soil over time. But finding good soil in this area of Morocco is difficult. I have had loads of dirt brought to my lawn and then gone to fields in Sale and gathered up the donkey manure into bags to mix with the soil. I have had bags of sheep manure brought to mix with soil.

The best thing I do is to make my own soil. I have a compost pile in the back of the garden. In that pile I dump all the grass, tree and flower cuttings. I also dump in that pile all the vegetable and fruit waste from our kitchen. I put all the used tea bags – without the string and tag – and coffee grounds in the compost pile. I dump egg shells. I am zealous for this waste and have been known to dig through the garbage to pull out what someone else put there so I can put it in the compost pile. When I run through the market in Youssefia, early in the morning, I look at all the vegetable and fruit waste rotting on the street and fantasize about coming with a shovel to scoop it up and take it home to put on my compost pile.

Just a couple weeks ago I had a couple men dig up the pile and sift what was there to remove rocks and sticks and things that had not yet biodegraded and we had thirty sacks of good soil plus another large pile to be used later. This soil was spread all over the lawn and flower beds. Over time the soil in our garden is getting better and better and the plants that grow there benefit from that good nutrition. The soil in our garden is much better than when we first moved into the house.

Each week in this Lenten period before Easter, we are taking a look at a chapter of Matthew and this morning we come to Matthew 13 which begins with the well known parable of Jesus: The Parable of the Sower.

This is a familiar parable and I don’t need to spend a lot of time on the details of it. The seed falls on four types of ground: on the path, on rocky soil, among thorns and good soil.

This is one of the few parables which Jesus explained to his disciples. The seed that falls on the path is like seed the devil snatches away. The seed that falls on the rocky soil is like someone who hears the good news and receives it with joy but as soon as it gets difficult to remain a Christian he falls away. The seed that falls among the thorns grows but is never able to prosper because of a preoccupation with the worries of this life and the search for material wealth. The seed that falls on the good soil is like a man who hears the word and understands it.

When you study this parable, it becomes clear that the best title for this parable is not The Parable of the Sower. The sower sows the seeds but it is the different soils that make the difference. The sower sows the same seed. He uses the same hand motion to sow the seeds. What makes the difference in how the seed does is the type of soil it falls on. This is a parable of soils.

And in this parable of soils. It becomes clear that we can choose what kind of soil we want to be. It is not that we are born as one kind of soil and this is our fate in life. We have choices to make and the choices we make determine what kind of soil we will be.

The first soil might be an exception to this. The devil snatches away the seed on the path. There may be some supernatural element in this case we don’t fully understand, but listen to the other soils.

The seed that falls on the rocky soil illustrates the person who becomes a Christian, experiences the joy of peace with Christ but then as soon as difficult choices have to be made, falls away. This person wants the Christian life to be all happiness and sunshine. They want to coast downhill, swim with the current. They don’t want to have to fight against the culture to be faithful to Christ.

The seed that falls among the thorns illustrates the person who becomes a Christian but then never really goes much further. Rather than run the good race, this soil limps along preoccupied with the material world and the worries of this life. This soil repeatedly chooses to focus on what the world has to offer and thereby misses out on the blessing that comes from fixing its eyes on Jesus and following him above and before all other things.

It is the good soil where good choices are made. The things of this world are enjoyed but the things of heaven are desired. When choices have to be made it is the eternal tug on the heart that determines the choice.

Which soil are you? Because you are here this morning I would assume that the devil has not snatched away the seed that was sown and that you are not rocky soil that only briefly supports a Christian life.

Which soil do you want to be? When you listen to this parable it may be you identify with the soil with thorns, as I do, but I think most of us would want to be good soil.

How can you be good soil?

Because we are preaching through a chapter of Matthew each week, I started to look through the other stories and parables in chapter thirteen and asked myself what kind of soil was being represented in each parable or story. (This would be an interesting devotional exercise, to go through the stories of Jesus and identify which of the four soils each person who interacted with Jesus was.)

The parables in this chapter speak about how to be good soil and I decided to focus on the parable of The Hidden Treasure.

A man is taking a walk one day and crosses over a field. Because it is a hot day he sits under the shade of a tree to rest. As he sits he picks up a rock and plays with it. He bangs it against the ground and hears a metallic sound which makes him sit up straight. He scrapes against the ground with this rock and discovers there is some large metallic object buried in the ground. He gets on his knees and digs away with a stick until he finds a metal box. When he opens the box, to his amazement, he discovers it is filled with jewels. It is a fabulous treasure!

What should he do? Remember that this is not a morality lesson Jesus told, only a parable. So he did not do what your or I as Christians should do. He did not go to the police and tell them what he had found. He did not go to the owner and tell him what he had found. But to illustrate the truth Jesus wanted to teach in this parable, he buried the box and sprinkled some leaves on the ground to make it look like nothing had been disturbed. Then he went to the owner of the field to inquire at what price he would be willing to sell his land and then sold everything he had so he could buy this field which would make him fabulously wealthy.

As I thought about this, there are two parts to the story. First, you have to be able to recognize that it is a valuable treasure. Not everyone who finds buried treasure will recognize its worth.

In a classic movie, Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, everyone is searching through the few items that were in a dead man’s travel bag for clues about where he had hidden his fortune. Over and over again they search through these items: a wallet with just a few francs, a diary, a letter addressed to his wife, a key to his apartment, a comb, a fountain pen, a toothbrush and a tin of tooth powder. Only at the end of the movie do they discover that the three stamps on the letter are very rare stamps worth a fortune.

There are some people who would dig up the metal box in a field and see nothing of value and throw it away. You have to know that the treasure is worth a fortune.

The second part of the story is that you have to desire the treasure so much that you are willing to sacrifice everything for it.

If you found buried treasure in a field, would you sell everything in order to buy the field? Would you sell the property where you were born including the large tree planted by your grandfather? Would you sell the family heirlooms? Would you sell what is familiar and comfortable for what is new and unknown?

There are a lot of reasons you might not want to sell everything to buy the field with its treasure.

Jesus said the kingdom of God is like the buried treasure. Life lived for eternity in relationship to Jesus is the jewel that is worth everything. Would you be willing to sell everything in order to have it?

You have to appreciate the value of the treasure you find and then you have to want it so bad you will sell everything to get it.

The story that comes to mind is the encounter between the rich young ruler and Jesus.

A wealthy young man, the pride of his synagogue, praised by the people of his community, took a walk one day across the field. He saw a crowd and sat down to hear what was being said. He picked up a rock and banged it against the ground and discovered that what Jesus was saying was impressive. He sat up and paid attention. He became passionate about this treasure he had found and he came up to Jesus and told him he wanted to follow him.

“Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. Then come follow me,” Jesus told him.

He found the treasure, appreciated its worth but then he found the price was too great and went away sad.

What do you think happened when he came home to his wife that day?

“Hi honey. I met this teacher we’ve been hearing about. Jesus, you know. It’s one thing to hear about him and another to see him. He has a wonderful charisma. He is an amazing teacher. I was so taken by him that I said I wanted to follow him.”

“Oh no! What did he say?”

“He told me to sell everything I have and give it away to the poor and then follow him.”

“He said, what?! Is he out of his mind?! You didn’t tell him you would do that did you?”

“No.”

“What a relief. Try to avoid people like that. They will just get you into trouble.”

Who comes to mind when you think of people who have sold everything to follow Jesus?

Jim Elliot popped into my head. Jim Elliot was born in 1927 and in 1956, at the age of 29 was killed while attempting to evangelize the Waodani people in Ecuador. He is well known because of a book his widow, Elizabeth Elliot, wrote titled, Shadow of the Almighty, which consists largely of writings from his journal and letters he wrote.

Listen to some of his quotes:

God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.”

“God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame for you.”

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Another man who came to my mind is Brother Yun from China, born in 1958 and who is better known as The Heavenly Man from the title of his autobiography. Because he refused to join the official, government-controlled church, he was imprisoned and tortured by government authorities. While in prison he preached to his cell mates and guards and with miraculous events many became Christians. He had several periods of imprisonment and suffered enormously because he refused to stop preaching Jesus.

Reading his book is a way of beating yourself for not sacrificing more for Jesus.

David Brainard from the 18^th century also comes to mind and there are others.

To be honest, my reaction is to admire these men but keep them at arm’s length. They seem too fanatic for me. I’m all for giving everything for Jesus but a little moderation is called for. Sacrifice for Jesus but don’t forget to have a nice meal every once in a while. Give your heart to Jesus but don’t forget to have a nice vacation and pick up some souvenirs that will look good in your house.

Jim Elliot resisted marriage despite his love for Elizabeth Howard because he did not want marriage and all the things that come with marriage to get in the way of his pursuit of God. He wrote in his journal on January 4, 1950:

“I have been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effects of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife, and he may have one legitimately. But with a wife comes Peter the Pumpkin-Eater’s proverbial dilemma—he must find a place to keep her. And most wives will not stay on such terms as Peter proposed. So a wife demands a house; a house in turn requires curtains, rugs, washing machines, et cetera. A house with these things must soon become a home, and children are the intended outcome. The needs multiply as they are met—a car demands a garage; a garage, land; land, a garden; a garden, tools; and tools need sharpening. Woe, woe, woe to the man who would live a disentangled life in my century.

He just seems a bit excessive. A great Christian, an inspiration, but too much of a good thing.

And then I think of the Apostle Paul who sold everything so he could follow Jesus. Was Paul also too much of a good thing?

I would love to have the power Paul had to heal and evangelize, but am I willing to pay the price of giving up everything and following Jesus?

So I settle for a lukewarm Christian life. Doing some good things but holding on tightly to the world’s treasures.

So what do you think the application for this message should be? Should I call for us to simplify our lives, sell off most of our possessions and live only for Jesus?

I can’t do that. I don’t have the moral authority to do that because I can’t do it myself.

When I was thirteen years old, I took a trip to Florida and stopped at the University of Miami where they have a pool with diving boards and platforms. I decided to climb up the ladder to the top diving platform. I looked up on the internet and it says that the high platform diving level is ten meters. I have a difficult time believing that because when I climbed all the way up the ladder to the topmost diving platform, it seemed to me to be much higher than that. I seemed to be looking from the top of the world down to what seemed to be a very tiny pool. I peeked over the edge and then with a sick feeling in my stomach went back down the ladder.

Selling everything and following Jesus is like this. The pool may look tempting but it is too big a jump for us to make. So let me take us down the ladder to the one meter board where it is not so difficult to jump into the pool and then suggest a couple ways you can begin to jump from higher heights.

Why should you jump? What can encourage you to give up the treasure of this world for the treasure of the Kingdom of God? The encouragement is that it is liberating to give away your money and possessions and to share what you have with others.

We talk about our possessions and our money as if we own them but the truth is that they own us. As Jim Elliot wrote in his journal, our possessions control us. They make demands upon us. We spend energy to protect them so someone else does not take them from us. We worry about who will get them when we die.

I knew a man whose family was descended from the Pilgrims who landed in the US in 1620 on the ship, the Mayflower. There is a lot of prestige that comes from being a descendent of these early settlers in the US and his family had passed down furniture and paintings and silverware and glasses and dishes generation after generation. All through the years these things were protected and this man was now the current custodian of the family furniture and household goods.

I remember sitting among all these things and listening to him as he talked about how worried he was that he would not earn enough to keep all the family furniture. He worried that the furniture would break. His possessions owned him and he was breaking under the pressure.

Possessions have the talons of falcons that sink into our flesh and won’t let go.

When we open our house to people who want to use it, sometimes things get broken. On a few occasions something has been taken. After something has been broken or stolen we ask ourselves if we should stop having people use our house and it is clear to us that the answer to this question is no. Having people use our house is more important than the loss of things broken or stolen. When we share our home and possessions we reduce the power our house and everything in it has over us. To allow someone to use our car breaks the power that car has over us. The car is no longer a precious object but just a car.

Our possessions demand that we honor them and keep them sacred. When we share them and give them away, they no longer control us and we experience the joy of liberation.

Our possessions scream at us so loudly to pay attention to them that it is difficult to hear God’s voice. When we put our money and possessions in their proper place we begin to hear God’s voice and sense his direction.

This is a liberating and not a masochistic experience.

Not many people in church history suffered or sacrificed more than the Apostle Paul and yet Paul was not a masochist. Paul did not enjoy sacrifice and suffering.

Paul gave up the comfortable life he could easily have lived. He went into city after city knowing he likely would be beaten for preaching the gospel and yet he talks in his letters time after time of the joy he experienced. In II Corinthians 7:4 Paul wrote:

I have great confidence in you; I take great pride in you. I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.

Nor was Jesus a masochist. The writer of Hebrews wrote in Hebrews 12:2

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus endured the suffering of the cross for the joy set before him.

If we were able to jump from the thirty meter diving platform and give everything up for Jesus, liberation and joy would be our experience and to the extent that we do not give up these things, we deprive ourselves of the joy that could be ours.

Let me end with a few suggestions about ways you can experience this liberation.

How can you share what you own with others? What do you have that you could give away to someone who needs what you have? Remember that when you die you will leave it all behind anyway. Allow yourself to have the pleasure of sharing and giving what you have. Force the talons in your flesh to let go by choosing to share and give. Pick one thing this week you own that you can share with someone else or give away.

Let me make an application that is not directly money or possessions oriented.

My son-in-law in Boston has been accepted into the PhD Health Policy program at Harvard. I like saying that. I’m proud of him. I like saying that better than if I had to say that he had lost his job and wasn’t sure what to do next and was working temp jobs until he figured out what he was going to do with his life.

Why do I prefer the first account? Because there is a lot of prestige in getting a PhD and especially in getting a PhD from a school like Harvard.

The world tells us what is prestigious and what is not. The world tells us what is valuable and what is not. But what does God think? Does God think getting into a PhD program at Harvard is as big a deal as we do?

It is clear that what matters to God is not what school you get into or how much money you make but how you are growing in faith and how you are growing in your obedience to him.

Why should you allow the world to tell you what your should value? Follow the world’s values and you may end up with wealth and prestige, but what then? As John Ortberg points out in his book, at the end of the game it all goes back in the box.

Parents do a disservice to their children when they take the world’s definition of success and force it on their children. When a child does not get top grades in school parents get nervous. Why should they be so concerned?

Don’t forget that school measures only a small part of intelligence. My favorite example of this is to ask what kind of intelligence you prefer when your car is stuck in a country road and it is approaching dark. When a car comes along and stops, do you hope it is someone with a PhD in Shakespearean literature or someone who is a skilled mechanic?

It is wonderful to encourage your children to open their minds to the world but our job is not to push our children into the world’s mold but to discover how God made our children to be and encourage them to grow in those ways. God does not design us all to excel academically. God has created us with many other kinds of equally valuable intelligence. Good parenting dismisses the pressures and expectations of the world and seeks only to encourage their children to grow in the way God created them to be.

When your children are older and having children of their own, what is it that really matters? I am a very fortunate father to have two daughters who love God and are pursuing a more intimate relationship with Jesus and who have married men who also love God and are seeking how to live a life pleasing to him. Nothing else really matters. At the end all the degrees and accomplishments and bank accounts will be left behind. Holding on to Jesus is all that will matter. If you are going to be concerned about your children, let this be your concern.

When we resist what the world values and we resist what the world has to offer us, we become good soil which will yield an abundant crop.

It may be too much to jump from the ten meter diving platform but take small steps to move from the one meter to the two meter board and then maybe to the three meter board and so on. As I work to improve the quality of the soil in my garden, work to improve the soil of your life.

If you are giving five percent of your income to the work of God in the world, take a jump and give seven percent this year. See what happens. If you are giving ten percent, try this next year to give twelve or thirteen percent. Stretch yourself and see how God will bless you.

If you can’t bring yourself to share your home or car, find smaller things to share. Pray and ask God what it is you have that he wants you to give away or share. Stretch yourself and see how God will bless you. Experience the joy of letting go.

Make choices that will put your money and possessions in their proper place as tools to be used, not objects to be worshiped.

Identify where the values of the world are dominating your thinking and then reject them in favor of the treasure of the Kingdom of God that will not perish, spoil or fade.

Experience the liberation and joy of letting go of the treasure of this world in exchange for the treasure of the Kingdom of God.