"Why Do We Fall Away"
Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:1-8, 18-23
Sermon Transcript for March 6, 2005
By Rev. Mike Beck
Earlier in our journey through Lent, Rev. Dan preached two messages. The first was on conversion, which is simply our acceptance in faith and repentance of what God did for us in the death of Christ on the cross. Conversion can happen in an instant. But then he preached a message on the theme of discipleship, which is the re-making of our lives to where we become like Christ. The process of discipleship is a lifetime journey.
In this season of Lent, we are invited to pause for a period of time and reflect on our journey of faith. Perhaps there are those hearing my voice now who have never been baptized, have never publicly professed their faith in Christ. The conclusion of this season of Lent is a time for you to do that. Let me know if that is true of you. For those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, Lent becomes a season where we examine our lives anew and then, through that examination, in acts of repentance and obedience where we have gotten off track in our journey with Christ; we desire to be restored in the fullness of that relationship. There are so many people who begin the journey of faith with the best of intentions. But, although they start well, they often fall away. We had a term for those years ago as Methodists. We called it “backsliding”. And in revival meetings, people at the conclusion of the message would come forward to an altar of prayer to recommit their lives to Jesus Christ.
There is a much-debated theological question that goes like this: “If we have accepted Christ as Savior, can we fall away to the point that we lose our salvation?” Now you are wondering how I am going to answer that. There are Scripture references to answer that question in the affirmative and in the negative. So for that reason, I choose to leave the answer to that question to God. But I do know this for certain. As we fall away from a close relationship with Christ, two things will happen. We will lose the joy of our salvation and also we will lose our impact for Christ that God intended us to have. There is a wonderful verse in the Upper Room discourse. It is found in John 15:16, where Jesus said to His disciples: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.” I think we often forget that salvation is not so much to keep us out of hell, as it is to get some of the hell out of the world that God loves so much! I think that might be worth repeating. Salvation is not so much to keep us out of hell, as it is to get some of that hell out of God’s world that He cares about so much.
Jesus, a master storyteller, tells a parable that reveals why people fall away from their faith. Why, perhaps, they start well but they fail to finish. It’s kind of related to this little Christmas gift that I’ve referred to before that Austin Ramsey gave to me a couple of year’s ago. It simply says, “In God, as in life, it’s the follow through that counts.” And there is a ton of truth in that. This is a very easy parable to understand. The sower without question represents God; the seed represents the gospel message; and the soil refers to the condition of the hearts of those people who hear the Gospel message. So as we briefly look at this parable, ask yourself this very important question: “What is the condition of my heart today?” Would you pray with me, “Heavenly Father, through your Holy Spirit that is present with us right now, even seated next to us in our pew, speak your word of hope, but perhaps also a word of correction that we might follow you more closely. In Christ’s name, Amen.”
The Hardened Heart: The first kind of heart that Jesus refers to we might call the hardened heart. Persons that have a hardened heart fail to be impacted with the message of God. They hear it, but to use a phrase—“It goes in one ear, straight out the other”. Their lives have become calloused. There is no sensitivity to the things of God. Their lives are like the hardened path where the seed of God’s message finds no place where it can take root. And some of you have neighbors that are like that. But before we move to the next kind of heart, I invite you to ponder this. Those of us who have grown up in the church all of our lives, our hearts can become hardened as well. And you say, “Reverend Mike, how in the world could I have a hardened heart when I sit in the pews every Sunday morning?” And the answer is this, “We have become too familiar with the Gospel.” Some persons who come faithfully to church every week, can begin to just go through the motion of religion. And when we do that our hearts slowly become hardened to where we are not sensitive to the new thing that God’s Holy Spirit is wanting to do in our life. For you see, in the crowd that day when Jesus told this story, there were the Pharisees. They were the religious leaders of the day. But they were so caught up in outward appearance and in ritual that Jesus said, “Your faith has become dead and lifeless even though you are doing outwardly all the religious things.” John Wesley said he never feared that Methodism would ever die, but he did fear that the people called Methodist would become, hear me carefully, “a life-less form of religion but denying the power thereof.” The hardened heart!
The Shallow Heart: A second kind of heart that Jesus spoke of is what we might call the shallow heart. Hear the explanation of this in verse 20 and 21. “The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the Word and at once he receives it gladly, but when trouble or persecution comes because of the Word, he quickly falls away.” It’s easy to get a good start in the journey of faith. But if we are going to continue to grow in our relationship with Christ, it takes commitment on our part. It will take spiritual discipline and it will take the same essential ingredient that you practice every day to maintain relationships with others that are close to you. What is that ingredient – time! That is why we call our boys on the phone and they call us. It is why with good friends we take time to go out for dinner because that relationship is important. And, therefore, to keep it alive we invest time. Friends, the problems of life are going to come to all of us. Temptations are going to be with you every day. I think it was Peter who said in one of his letters, “Satan roams about like a roaring lion”. And do you know who he is looking for—undisciplined Christians! And he wants to have you for lunch!
For your faith to stand the test of time, your roots have got to go deep. I’m always fascinated when I’m in a big city and I see a high-rise building being constructed. If you are around when construction begins, it’s amazing to realize how deep they dig that hole, how much concrete and steel go down beneath the surface. And when the building is finished, you never even see it. But without it, the skyscraper won’t stand. And why do we think in our Christian life it is any different? A lot of people ask me, “I look over at so and so, and they seem to be so excited about their faith. And to me I just can’t muster that enthusiasm. Reverend Mike, why is it?” Well, Jesus said in this parable it has everything to do with the root system of the Christian life that is down beneath the surface that we never see. But it is what is giving that person the vibrancy in their walk with Christ.
I had the privilege a couple of weeks ago to be with some men here in our church out at Phoenix for a week of golf. Golf courses in Arizona are amazing. They build them right in the middle of the desert with these lush green fairways. And then if you get off the fairway, you are out in the desert with the cactus plants. I got some balls deposited up there. Some of them I didn’t dare go try to get because I was afraid of the snakes. But when I was out there I learned one thing about cactus plants. You can easily push them over because they have very shallow roots. Contrast that, those of you who live in the United Methodist Community, may remember, I think it was last fall, that great big oak tree on the north end that a storm toppled. I talked last Saturday with one of the maintenance men who said, “Mike, you can’t believe how deep a hole we had to dig to get the roots of that tree out of the ground.” So it is when we spend time in the Word, time in prayer, when we get involve in a small group, when we get involved in ministry in the area of our giftedness, that our root system begins to go deep and it will keep us from falling away.
The Crowded Heart: There is a third kind of heart that Jesus referred to and I am guessing that it is one that many of us can relate too. It’s, we might call it the crowded heart. In our hectic world, the crowded heart is what causes many to fall away. Listen to Jesus’ words in verse 22, “The one who received the seed that fell upon the thorns is the man who hears the Word, (but then listen carefully), “the worries of his life and the deceitfulness of wealth choking making it unfruitful.” Nobody ever has that happen intentionally. But here is what happens. There are so many urgent things that we have to attend to, that in tending to the urgent, we neglect the important. Now I’m not a gardener, but I do know that there are two things that a gardener has to do if he wants his garden to produce a good crop. Number one, he’s got to pull out the weeds. And in this parable, the weeds are those things in your life that you know are not pleasing to God. You’ve got to pull those out so that the seed can grow. But, secondly, hear this carefully; at times you have to thin the plants. When we were living in New Palestine, I had a little garden and I planted a strawberry patch. I love strawberries! And the second year I got a bumper crop. The third year I got a good crop. But the fourth and fifth years, the berries started getting smaller and smaller. I scratched my head; I didn’t know what was happening. And my neighbor, who was a gardener, came over and said, “Mike, your strawberry patch has gotten too thick. You’ve got to go in and thin in out. You are going to have to go in and pull out some of those plants. That’s why your berries are getting too small.” And the same thing is true of our spiritual life. Our lives can become so full and they can become full of good things, but they result in our no longer having time for the things of God. All of us, who take on the name of Christ, need to watch lest our hearts get too crowded for this seed to grow.
The Receptive Heart: And then there is a fourth kind of heart. It’s the kind of heart God wants us to have, and that is the receptive heart. The soil of that kind of heart has been intentionally cultivated. I’ll tell you where you can find those kinds of hearts here at Grace—the people who take time to be a part of a Sunday School class, or the ALPHA course, or Disciple Bible Study, or Wednesday Bible studies, or Christian Believer. Tonight there will be 25 to 30 people here at Grace in Disciple Bible Study and Christian Believer. And I guarantee the people in those classes, the soil is loose, the roots are going deep and they are not going to fall away. For they have been, and I use this word again, intentional about their relationship with Christ. And that kind of heart is reflected by what we might call the “Three R’s of the Christian Life” – that kind of heart receives the message, and then, secondly, it responds. We respond, as the writer of James says, when we not only hear the Word, but we do what it says. And then, finally, it reproduces itself in the lives of others. I love to have people come to me as Beaulah Schrader did this last week and said, “Reverend Mike, I’m still reaching out to my neighbor. I believe one of these days she’s going to be here at Grace at church with me.”
So, what is the condition of your heart today? Let’s pray, “Lord, we don’t want to fall away in our relationship with You. If our hearts have become hardened, then soften them with the harrow of Your love. If our spiritual roots are shallow, then grant us the self-discipline to re-set the gauge of life’s plow so that we might turn up that rich, fertile soil that lies beneath the surface that can let our roots go deep. And if our hearts, Lord, become crowded, then hand us a how and show us what needs to be weeded out. Our heart’s desire, Lord, is that we might hear Your voice, respond to it, and then be used by You to bring forth a harvest of good fruit to advance Your Kingdom. So it’s in the name of Jesus, our Savior, who also wants to be our Lord that we pray. Amen.”
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