What the Instruction Could Not Do
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So now there isn’t any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. God has done what was impossible for the Law, since it was weak because of selfishness. God condemned sin in the body by sending his own Son to deal with sin in the same body as humans, who are controlled by sin. He did this so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us. Now the way we live is based on the Spirit, not based on selfishness. People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit. The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn’t submit to God’s Law, because it can’t. People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God.
But you aren’t self-centered. Instead you are in the Spirit, if in fact God’s Spirit lives in you. If anyone doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, they don’t belong to him. If Christ is in you, the Spirit is your life because of God’s righteousness, but the body is dead because of sin. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your human bodies also, through his Spirit that lives in you.
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That day Jesus went out of the house and sat down beside the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he climbed into a boat and sat down. The whole crowd was standing on the shore.
He said many things to them in parables: “A farmer went out to scatter seed. As he was scattering seed, some fell on the path, and birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where the soil was shallow. They sprouted immediately because the soil wasn’t deep. But when the sun came up, it scorched the plants, and they dried up because they had no roots. Other seed fell among thorny plants. The thorny plants grew and choked them. Other seed fell on good soil and bore fruit, in one case a yield of one hundred to one, in another case a yield of sixty to one, and in another case a yield of thirty to one. Everyone who has ears should pay attention.”
“Consider then the parable of the farmer. Whenever people hear the word about the kingdom and don’t understand it, the evil one comes and carries off what was planted in their hearts. This is the seed that was sown on the path. As for the seed that was spread on rocky ground, this refers to people who hear the word and immediately receive it joyfully. Because they have no roots, they last for only a little while. When they experience distress or abuse because of the word, they immediately fall away. As for the seed that was spread among thorny plants, this refers to those who hear the word, but the worries of this life and the false appeal of wealth choke the word, and it bears no fruit. As for what was planted on good soil, this refers to those who hear and understand, and bear fruit and produce—in one case a yield of one hundred to one, in another case a yield of sixty to one, and in another case a yield of thirty to one.”
For God has done what the instruction could not do.
We live in an age of information and instruction. It's almost cliché to say at this point, but never before have ordinary people had such immediate access to so much knowledge. We carry libraries in our pockets. We can ask almost any question at almost any moment and expect an answer within seconds.
Want to learn a new skill? You’re bound to find hours and hours of content on YouTube ready to teach you.
When I was going through school as a kid, I had CliffsNotes and SparkNotes if I didn’t feel like reading three chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird one night. Now we have things like Blinkist, ready to give you the key ideas from any given book in fifteen minutes or less.
Gone are the days of card catalogues. Hell, gone are the days of crawling through page after page on Google. Now, you can just type a question into ChatGPT and you’ll have an answer to your question that at least seems plausible.
Of course, whether or not its output is actually correct is another matter altogether.
There is no shortage of information. There is no shortage of data. There is no shortage of instruction. And that’s not, necessarily, a bad thing.
Wisdom is good.
Instruction is good.
Teaching is good.
Christians of all stripes ought to believe that. After all, our faith begins with a teacher. Jesus didn’t gather consumers. Jesus didn’t gather producers. He gathered disciples.
And yet.
For all the information that we have.
For all the instruction and teaching that we have, literally sitting in our pockets and at our fingertips.
Are we actually any wiser as a culture today than we were generations ago?
If we take a good, honest look in the mirror, has all of this information made us more discerning?
Am I alone in having that experience of knowing exactly what I should do…
…and still not doing it?
I know I should be more mindful of my spending habits.
I know I should move more.
I know I should reach out to that friend I’ve been meaning to call.
I know I should turn off my phone and go to bed earlier.
I know I should forgive.
I know all of these things and more, and yet..,
Knowing isn’t the same thing as becoming.
Knowing isn’t the same thing as becoming. Information can tell us where life is found, but it can never give us life.
We keep on assuming that the answer is just one more piece of information, hidden away in the right podcast.
The right church.
The right budgeting app.
The right exercise plan.
The right Bible reading plan.
The one, simple trick that will allow us to hack our way into becoming the people we want to be.
But we don’t. Not because the advice is wrong or the teachings are, necessarily, bad. But because there are some things that instruction, all by itself, simply cannot accomplish.
God has done what the instruction, weakened by the flesh, could not do.
Not because the instruction was wrong, but simply because there are some things that only God can do.
Now, you may have heard it said that Paul’s central argument throughout his letter to the Romans goes a little something like this:
The law was bad. Jesus is good.
Because the law failed, God sent Jesus.
But there’s just one, small problem with this summarization of Paul’s argument. He never actually says that.
In fact, Paul goes out of his way to say exactly the opposite.
The law is holy and righteous. The torah—the teachings and the law and the instruction—is good.
Your word, O God, is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path…accept my offerings of praise, O God, and teach me your ordinances...I do not forget your law…your decrees are my heritage forever and the joy of my heart.
The psalmist sings of the goodness of the Torah—of God’s teachings that have been passed down from generation to generation. Paul never says that this instruction is deficient or wicked. Notice what he does say:
God has done what the instruction, weakened by the flesh, could not do.
Weakened by the flesh—notice where the weakness lies. It’s not in the instruction. It’s not in the law.
It lies in us.
Or, to use Paul’s language, σαρκός, the flesh.
Before I go any further, I’m going to pause to name that flesh is one of those church words that has accumulated a lot of negative baggage over the centuries.
Throughout Christian history, some have misunderstood Paul to mean that our bodies are somehow less holy than our souls. But Paul never says that. In fact, Paul's entire hope rests on the resurrection of the body. So when Paul speaks of "the flesh," he isn't talking about skin and bones. He's talking about a way of being human that turns inward on itself instead of outward toward God and neighbor.
When Paul talks about “the flesh”, he isn’t talking about your physical body, per se. He isn’t saying that your body is bad or that your physical, material existence is somehow less spiritual than our souls.
No, when Paul speaks of “the flesh,” humanity trying to manufacture life on its own terms. Humanity trying to become its own source of security. Its own sense of meaning. Its own source of salvation.
And that, friends, is where the instruction reaches its limit.
Because instruction can tell us where life is found.
Instruction can tell us what flourishing looks like.
Instruction can point us toward justice.
Instruction can teach us to love our neighbor.
Instruction can describe and paint a picture of the very Kingdom of God.
But instruction cannot make us into the kind of people who live that way.
Knowing isn’t the same thing as becoming
Instruction can diagnose, but it cannot heal.
Instruction can point toward life, but it cannot breathe life into dry bones.
Instruction can say, “love thy neighbor,” but it cannot reconcile enemies into family.
Only God can do that. Only Christ can do that. Only the Spirit can do that.
Paul doesn’t say “you finally figured it out,” or “humanity eventually became wise enough.” He doesn’t even say “the instruction has finally started working.”
No, he simply says, God has done.
God has acted.
God has moved first.
God has accomplished in Jesus Christ what humanity, left to itself, never could. Not by giving us more information or more data or more law. But by giving us God’s own Son. By breathing into us God’s own Spirit who animates our very beings.
And if that’s true—if life is ultimately something God creates and freely gives rather than something we manufacture—than maybe we’ve been asking exactly the wrong question about Jesus’ famous parable al wrong.
Because for as long as I can remember, I’ve almost always heard this parable preached the same way.
In which kind of ground are you planted?
Are you on the path where seed gets trampled or eaten by birds?
Are you on the rocky ground where your roots can’t grow deep and you wither and die?
Are you among thorns that will grow up alongside you and choke the life out of you?
Or are you in the good soil? Soil rich with nutrients wherein you can be rooted and grow and yield a bountiful harvest.
In which kind of ground are you planted?
On the surface, that seems like a perfectly reasonable question. After all, Jesus himself explains what each of the soils represents—I mean, how often do we get that level of clarity in Jesus’ sayings?
And yet, if that’s the first question we ask—if we come away from this parable asking, in what kind of ground are we planted—haven’t we quietly slipped right back into the same trap Paul has been warning us about?
If the point of the parable is simply, make sure you’re planted in good soil, that’s just another instruction.
Try harder. Be more faithful. Be less distracted. Grow deeper roots and don’t let the worries of the world choke you out. Become the kind of person who bears fruit.
And look, that’s all good advice.
But knowing isn’t the same thing as becoming
Instruction can tell us where life is found, but it cannot give us life.
If we reduce this parable to just another self-improvement project, we risk overlooking something far more important. Something far more transformative.
After all, seeds don’t choose where they’re planted, right?
Oh sure, plants have evolved all sorts of mechanisms to aid in the propagation of their seeds. Seeds can by carried by the wind. Consumed by roving animals and eventually…deposited…deposited elsewhere. But ultimately, seeds don’t get to choose where they’re planted.
No seed gets to wake up in the morning and say, “Today, I’d like to land in that rich, fertile soil over there.”
Seeds don’t make themselves grow and good soil doesn’t simply happen.
Anyone who has ever planted a garden knows that good soil doesn’t simply appear. It has to be worked and turned over. Stones have to be picked out by hand. Weeds have to be pulled, and compost has to be mixed in. And sometimes, the field even has to lie fallow for a season to recover and rejuvenate—for microbes and worms to break down and decay and generate rich nutrients for the next season.
No matter how lifeless earth may look, everything important is happening beneath the surface.
Good soil has to be prepared, and I wonder if that’s the point that Jesus wants us to notice and pay attention to.
Not, “make sure you’re planted in good soil.”
But instead, “who is the one who prepared the soil in the first place?”
Friends, Jesus isn’t giving us yet another checklist. Instead, he’s teaching us to recognize the hidden work of God. Faith is learning to trust the work that God is doing before we can see the harvest.
Because if God is the one who is preparing the soil—if God is already at work beneath the surface of our lives—then eventually something good begins to grow.
The parable says that seed sown in good soil bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
But who, exactly is this harvest for?
A stalk of wheat does not get to break bread.
An apple tree doesn’t get to eat its own apples, nor does a grapevine get to drink its own wine.
Fruit always exists for someone else. The whole purpose of the harvest is that it is gathered, shared, and given away. That’s where Paul’s argument has been leading all along. That’s what life in the Spirit looks like. Life is lived in the sharing.
Paul isn’t telling his readers that the Christian life can be reduced to private spirituality or personal self-improvement. The Spirit doesn’t simply make me a better version of myself.
No. The Spirit creates a people.
The Spirit creates a people who can finally become what the instruction had been pointing toward all along.
A people who forgive because they’ve first been forgiven.
A people who love because they’ve first been loved.
A people who reconcile because they’ve first been reconciled.
A people who share because they know life itself has first been shared with them.
Not because they’ve mastered another lesson or discovered the perfect system.
Not because they’ve finally become good enough, but because God has already begun the hidden work in each and every one of us.
And because God continues to do this hidden work in us, we find that our lives bear fruit to be shared beyond ourselves.
Fruits of love and of joy.
Peace and patience.
Kindness and goodness and faithfulness.
Fruits that feed not just the body but nourish the soul.
That’s the good news friends. God is already at work tilling and preparing the soil of our lives and we are therefore free to stop manufacturing life for ourselves. We are free to receive this growth that God provides. We are free to trust it.
And then, like every good harvest, we are free to share it with the world.
So may the one who began a good work be faithful to complete it in us.
The work continues. Amen.