The 4th Soil – What Does Jesus Value?

So, I was pondering the 4^th Soil and asking myself, “What does Jesus really value?” What makes the 4^th Soil so valuable to Jesus?

From Mark 4 and the Parable of the Sower of the Seed, you may remember the 4 Soils

• 1^st Soil – seed sown on the wayside and birds ate it up – No Fruit
• 2^nd Soil – seed sown on the rocky ground and withered – No Fruit
• 3^rd Soil – seed sown among thorns & weeds – weeds choked out the Fruit
• 4^th Soil – good soil – seed produced fruit 30, 60 or even 100 times what was sown – Abundant Fruit!

So, what is the 4^th Soil? What does Jesus value about this type of person? This type of heart?

So, I started asking myself, “Who in the New or Old Testament exemplifies the 4^th Soil?”

Ask yourself that question and find a few people from both the Old and New Testaments that you think are the 4^th Soil. AFTER THAT, keep reading. The part where you listen to the Holy Spirit and try to wrestle with the 4^th Soil and what it is – that is the most important thing you can do. It is way more important than anything I have to say.

#1 – Rahab the harlot, Rahab the prostitute is a great example of the 4^th Soil! What? She’s not your 1^st choice? : ) Well she is a great example of the 4^th Soil that bears a lot of fruit! Read Joshua Chapter 2 & 6. Get this… she has faith! She hears the Lord has given the land to the Israelites and she responds and hides the spies!

I know it’s unusual. But it also reminds me of my second example.

#2 – In Matt 21:31 Jesus says,  “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you [Pharisees]”

Isn’t that interesting? The religious but self-righteous and self-important Pharisees are dead soil. No fruit. They are possibly Soil #1. The Prostitutes are surpassing them! Why is that? So, what is this 4^th soil that is bearing fruit?

#3 The Woman at the well – John 4

Jesus interacts with this woman who has had 5 husbands and the man she is shacking up with now, she isn’t even marries to. This could just have easily been a man, who has 5 wives and was now living with a different woman. (This isn’t about being a man or woman). The interesting thing is that this woman responds to Jesus and goes and invites the entire village to come meet a man she thinks is the Messiah. She makes a faith statement earlier, “I know when Messiah comes He will explain everything to us.”

So, she is good soil – in fact, she is the 4^th Soil – bearing lots of fruit… witnessing to the entire village of Messiah!

#4 Zacchaeus – Luke 19 – a rich Tax Collection. After interacting with Jesus He responds in a very different way that the others. He offers to pay back anyone he has ripped off. This is different than Rahab’s response but it is a faith response. Jesus says, “He [Zacchaeus] is a son of Abraham.” So Zacchaeus is the 4^th soil. Very fruitful.

So let’s all just agree on 1 thing: The 4^th Soil is NOT a morally perfect life. It is not trying to “be good” or keeping all the religious rules.

Strangely, though, that is exactly what we assume the 4^th Soil is, don’t we? We assume it is a really morally upright person that Jesus is looking for. But that is NOT the 4^th soil as our examples show and we have a few more examples below.

So what is the 4^th Soil that Jesus values so much?

It is a person, no matter their station in life, no matter their morals or lack of morals, but a person who “responds” to Jesus or responds to God’s words…. Like Rahab, or the Woman at the well, or the prostitutes or the Tax Collector/Zacchaeus. It’s the exact opposite of the fake non-responsive Pharisees. The critical thing is that the Pharisees are NOT responding to Jesus.

Even if they were full blown hypocrites (which they were), if they turned and started responding to Jesus and engaging with Him, they would be the 4^th Soil. Jesus always left the door open for the Pharisees to repent and turn to Him. Acts 6:7 says many priests turned to Jesus. And you see some Pharisees in the church councils in Acts 15.

#5 Peter is a great example of the 4^th Soil. He has lots of successes and lots of sins. Competing with the other disciples in pride thinking He is the greatest on 4 different occasions. Peter tries to control Jesus and block His path to the cross. (Matt 16) Peter fails Jesus and falls asleep in Gethsemane. Peter denies Jesus publicly in front of everyone. But with all of Peter’s failures and sins, He is still the 4^th soil. Why? Because Peter responds to Jesus… imperfectly but genuinely. Peter is clearly not morally perfect but He does “receive” Jesus love and loves Him back… imperfectly.

#6 King David. Yep, David is the 4^th Soil… even though he has sex with Bathsheba when her husband is out on the battle field. Then David actually murders her husband to cover up the fact that David got Bathsheba pregnant! But the fact is that David responds to God. Clearly there is no one that is 100% good and morally perfect. There are people who do evil and reject God. And there are all the other people who also do evil and respond to God. Those who respond to God try to own their sin and change …. precisely because of God’s forgiveness and mercy.

So, the 4^th Soil is not “good” people. There is no such thing as 100% good people. There are only people. And people are a combination of doing good things and evil things. But the 4^th Soil are people who respond to God, regardless of the evil they have done, and accept His offer of mercy and forgiveness … and they become people who give increasing mercy and forgiveness to others.

The 4^th Soil – it is not what we thought it was. And what Jesus values is not what we thought.

Ps…. Now, before anyone accuses me of being against obeying Jesus’ commands… let me be very clear… doing what Jesus says is absolutely critical… but NOT for earning anything from God, not for earning salvation, not for getting God’s favor, not for keeping our salvation. Never! Obeying Jesus in a good and clean way stems from entirely different motivation than “trying to be good to get in God’s favor.” We obey all of Jesus’ commands “not to get saved but because we are already saved!” Simply because we want to grow up into His goodness since we have tasted His love. Obedience is critical, but the motivation must become more pure and less about earning.

Faith is what Jesus is interested in… responding to Him. Not earning forgiveness by supposed good works.