Matthew 13:1-23: How’s Your Heart?

March 30, 2025

Sunday message · The Book of Matthew series

Phillip Santillan · Matthew 13:1-23

Pastor Phil Santillan preaching The Myth About the Parables of Jesus (Matthew 13:1-23), sermon video thumbnail

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Message Summary

Continuing through the Book of Matthew, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:1–23. Jesus’ teaching on an upside-down kingdom, where the last are first and the humble are exalted, has drawn excitement, confusion and outright hostility, and tension is building. Here Jesus explains those mixed reactions with a story that itself draws mixed reactions, offering what Phil calls a spiritual MRI, a tool for examining our hearts and how we receive God’s word.

After clashes with the religious leaders, Jesus sits by the lake, and Phil jokes that, like parents hiding from their kids in the laundry room, he is found anyway. Jesus tells of seed falling on a path, rocky ground, thorns and good soil. When the disciples ask why he speaks in parables, Phil assures anyone who has left a sermon confused that they are in good company. Drawing on R.T. France, he explains that a parable is not a simple story but a challenge that demands thought. Quoting Isaiah, Jesus says the people’s hearts have grown callous. “It’s not about Jesus being unclear,” Phil says. “It’s about our hearts being hard.” The disciples may have felt like outsiders, but Jesus calls their seeing and hearing a blessing.

Jesus then explains the soils. The path is a heart so hard the truth cannot penetrate, like planting on a steel floor, so the evil one snatches it away. Phil names pride, bitterness, indifference and walls built from past hurt. Rocky ground receives the word with joy but, like a firework, fades when following Jesus costs something. Anyone who thought following Jesus was about feeling good and living their best life now will bail when hardship comes. Jesus calls his followers to embrace sacrifice and hardship as joy and to die to themselves daily, or, as Clarity once put it, to embrace the awkward.

Thorny ground is choked by the worries of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth. Rather than seeking first the kingdom, as Jesus urges in Matthew 6, hearts full of thorns trade the treasures of heaven for the pleasures of here and now. Good soil hears, understands and bears fruit, the fruit of a changed life that depends on Christ like a branch on the vine (John 15). The test is fruit, not perfection, and D.A. Carson notes that even soil producing only a small crop is still called good.

Phil asks: how is your heart? Is it hardened by pride, bitterness or unforgiveness? Is it shallow, bailing when things get tough? Is it crowded by busyness, ambition and anxiety? Citing Tom Wright, he says stones may need moving and thorns uprooting. The work is hard, but Revelation 14:13 promises rest one day, and until then believers press on like Paul in Philippians 3. Phil adds a word about sharing the faith: hard-looking soil is no reason to stop sowing, since many hearts once hard were softened by grace. The work is worth it, he closes, because Christ has taken hold of us, so let us take hold of Christ.

Questions about the parable of the sower

What is the parable of the sower about?

Jesus tells of seed falling on a path, rocky ground, thorns and good soil, then explains that the seed is the message of the kingdom and the soils are the hearts that hear it (Matthew 13:3–9, 18–23). Pastor Phil calls the parable a spiritual MRI: a tool for examining how our hearts receive God’s word. The difference lies not in the seed but in the soil.

What do the four soils mean in the parable of the sower?

The path is a hard heart where the evil one snatches the word away; the rocky ground receives it with joy but falls away when trouble comes; the thorns are hearts choked by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth; and the good soil hears, understands and bears fruit (Matthew 13:19–23). Pastor Phil names pride, bitterness and walls from past hurt as things that harden hearts.

What does the good soil mean?

Good soil is the person who hears the word, understands it and bears fruit, producing a crop a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown (Matthew 13:23). Pastor Phil says the fruit is a changed life that depends on Christ like a branch on the vine. The test is fruit, not perfection: even soil producing a smaller crop is still called good.

How can a hard heart become good soil?

Pastor Phil says the work is hard: stones may need moving and thorns uprooting, whether pride, bitterness, unforgiveness, busyness or anxiety. But many hearts that once looked hard were softened by grace, so hard-looking soil is no reason to stop sowing. Believers press on, like Paul in Philippians 3, because Christ has taken hold of us.

The Book of Matthew series