00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Well, good evening. I invite
you to open up your Bibles to Mark chapter 4. That's found
on page 998. I apologize up front. My voice
is not well, so I hope I can project enough where you can
understand and hear. but I trust that God will do the work in
your hearts as we go into his word. Just a reminder, Mark's
gospel is a quick-moving account of Jesus' life, ministry, particularly
dealing with his healing and restoring and freeing ministry
among people. But here we find ourselves this
evening in one of the few passages in Mark's gospel that deal with
Jesus' teaching ministry. And here we have this evening
in chapter four, a select few of Jesus's parables and stories
to help us understand his ministry, particularly the nature of his
kingdom. So in these first 34 verses of
Mark chapter four, Jesus taught about the nature of the kingdom,
the very kingdom that he came to establish here on earth. So
with that in mind, would you give your attention to this reading
of God's word? May he teach us more about his
kingdom. Starting in verse 26. And he
said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed
on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and
day, and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not how. The earth produced it by itself,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts the sickle, because
the harvest has come. And he said, what can we compare
the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like
a grain of mustard seed. which when is sown on the ground
is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. Yet when it is
sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants
and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can
make nest in its shade. With many such parables he spoke
the words to them as they were able to hear it. When he did
not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples,
he explained everything. This is the reading of God's
word. Let's pray. Father, as my voice is weak,
I pray that your voice would be made strong. Use the words
that we've just read to understand the nature, the depth, the power,
the majesty of your kingdom. And as we marvel at it, we are
thankful that we can participate in it, and we are able to observe
your good work. So do this, we pray, in Jesus'
name, amen. Just got a question for you.
Do you ever find yourself managing your own unmet expectations? We have these expectations about
how life is going to go, and often our expectations are unmet.
Whether it's the college that you choose, the school you go
to, and you say, eh, it didn't work out quite how I planned.
Maybe it's your marriage, or you had this great idea of what
parenting would be like, and then the first child comes along,
and you say, ooh, this is much different than I expected. Maybe
it's your job. Whatever it might be, we find
ourselves managing our unmet expectations. But what happens
with the more that we understand, the more knowledge that we gain,
the more realistic expectations we tend to have. And so the question before us
this evening is, what are our expectations about the kingdom
of God? In Jesus' day, there was a clear
divide between what Jesus taught about the kingdom and what the
religious leaders expected in the first century. They expected
some type of maybe political revolution or some type of national
resurrection, just bring Israel back up, put it on top. But what
they got was a healer, and in this case, a storyteller. There was a clear divide between
Jesus and the people. They saw their Messiah in a particular
way, and yeah, they loved Jesus' healing ministry, but they wanted
much more. It was different, much different
than Jesus' teaching about the kingdom, how Jesus described
the kingdom. And sometimes we get it confused as well. We can
look back at our past, Thinking about how God's kingdom is being
established in my own heart, in my own life. Maybe I look
at my present situation, or maybe the situation of the church,
where you say, yeah, God, you said your kingdom's gonna go
forward, it's gonna advance, it's gonna expand, and yet, we
hear time and time again of churches closing, fields stopping their
ministry. Maybe even when we look back,
we look out to the future and we think, man, if we keep going
this direction, is there really a hope? And so what we need to
do, despite all our experiences in the past, despite all our
expectations about the kingdom, we need to look to how Jesus
describes for us and gives us our expectations about the kingdom. So, what should your expectation
of the kingdom of God be? Well, first, we'll see in this
first parable, ordinary scattering leads to mysterious growth. Ordinary
scattering leads to mysterious growth. This parable, this first parable
that we've read here this evening, is unique to Mark's gospel. That
is, we can't find this in the other synoptic gospels. We don't
find this in the parallel gospels. And in this parable of the scattered
seed, you'll notice at the end of verse 27, there was this ordinary
sowing of seed, the scattering of seed. But then there's this
mysterious growth that takes place. He begins with this parable,
Jesus, the kingdom of God is like a farmer who scattered seed,
cast seed on the earth, and when night comes, When the day is
done, all he can do is go to bed and trust that the seed is
doing its work in the ground. After a hard day of work and
labor, he's completely left helpless to know what's going to happen.
All he can do is wait. And so he gets up, works, goes
back to bed at night, He doesn't know what's going on underneath
the ground, and yet, the seed is doing its work. And in the
end, he hopes that the seed will yield a harvest. The farmer lacks
any control over the germination process and the growth of the
plant. But then, as Jesus says, then
there's this most imperceptible breakthrough. First, a single
blade. And the more we discover about
this world, the more we understand about seeds and soil. Science
teaches us all kinds of things about it. But how a plant, somehow
how a plant in this tiniest of seeds, the smallest of seeds,
contains this great mystery of how this beautiful plant grows. This little seed that perceives
to be dead is transformed into a fruit-bearing plant. Sure,
this farmer can cover the seed with soil. He can do what needs
to be done. He can water it, uproot the weeds. He can water it, fertilize it,
and all kinds of things. All these things are important.
But when causing the seed to sprout and grow, he has no control. All he can do is trust the one
who created the seed that he'll cause it to grow. Trusts, he
prays, and he waits patiently. And what Jesus says, this is
the nature of the kingdom of God. As we're reminded in the
first parable in the beginning of this chapter, the seed is
the word of God. And as the word of God is spread, you can't do anything other than
to spread the word. We can't make the word take root. We can't make and cause the word
of God to reign in the life of a person. But that's where we
manage our expectations. Sometimes we have these unrealistic
expectations of how it's supposed to happen. We spread the word,
we tell people about Jesus, we read the word ourselves, believing that there'll be this
great harvest. Maybe even trying to produce
a harvest on our own. But that's not the nature of
what God says is the kingdom. We can't make the seed sprout.
We can't cause belief in the life of a person. Interesting story, we were having
dinner with the elders and wives just on Friday evening and Herb
was telling me about his new job. as a pumpkin farmer. And I don't know if I should
get my information from him. I probably should have took to an Anderson
first. But one of the neat things he told me about the pumpkin
seeds that they sell is that they have over a 90% success
rate in the germination of their seeds. And from what he was telling
me is that 75%-ish is the legal kind of standard, right? You
want to have 75% rate, but theirs have 90% success rate when they're
planted. And I think sometimes we have
these unrealistic expectations, but that's how the kingdom of
God works. that we expect the 90%. When we don't get the 90%,
we get disappointed, frustrated, maybe even get angry. God, why
aren't you doing your work? We don't understand why it is
that when one person hears the gospel, and there can be somebody
hearing the same message sitting next to them, One is converted
and the other one remains indifferent, maybe even hostile to the truth. Why is it that one individual
believes, one community is transformed, one family, one nation is transformed
by the gospel and another is not? But that's the nature of the
kingdom. It's mysterious. And the work of the seed is revealed
over time. But that doesn't put us off the
hook as God's people. We're called to scatter the seed
and Paul uses the same imagery beautifully in 1 Corinthians
where he says, I planted, Apollos watered, but most importantly,
God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor
he who waters is anything but only God who gives growth. That's what Jesus is talking
about here. It's the seed, the mysterious nature of the seed
that does the work, the word of God. We're called to be faithful
in spreading the seed. And this happens with us evangelizing
the world, telling people about Jesus, but this also works in
our own lives. As you continue to struggle against
sin, keep implanting the seed in your own heart, Keep getting
in the word, learning from it. Let God's word
to do the work in your own life. And notice how mysterious this
growth is, and how powerful the seed is. Look at verse 28. The
earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then
the full grain in the ear. It's interesting, Jesus says,
the earth produces it by itself. It's this meaning of automatically
or without visible cause, or maybe even better, apart from
any human help. What Jesus is saying, now that
the seed is where it belongs, now it can do what it must do
and when it must do it. Yes, the farmer waits and observes,
very little perceptive changes when it sprouts. It's amazing
how powerful the seed is. So it is with the kingdom of
God. As Christians, we can be faithfully
ministers or proclaimers of Jesus Christ, scattering the seed year
after year, giving illustrations like Jesus did, inviting people,
exhorting people, comforting people, urging people, talking
with people. But at times it feels like our
labor's in vain. But then all of a sudden, there's
a sprout. There's a change in the hearts
of people. So telling people about Jesus
may feel like a fruitless task, but our job here is to just keep
tossing, keep sowing, keep spreading, keep praying for the sprouts
and the produce, because there's going to be a time when there's
going to be a great harvest. So this is the message of the
gospel. The power is in the message. Actually, the power is in the
reality of the message. The power is in Jesus Christ
and his spirit working. And the growth is often gradual
and imperceptible, but as Jesus says here, it's inevitable. When
God's word is planted, when it goes into the soft soil of the
heart, it will do its work. And so the eyes aren't everything,
but there's something going on underground, and this should
bring great encouragement to us. You don't always see it the
way God sees it, but the seed is powerful and it will bear
fruit. And as Isaiah says, when God's word goes out, it does
not return void. John Stott, pastor theologian,
once said this. God has only commissioned us
to preach the gospel to all nations. The results belong to him and
they're mysterious. So let's move to the second parable. What should your expectation
of the kingdom of God be? It's this, it will move from
the minute or miniature to mighty, to the mighty and welcoming.
This is a little parable or an illustration by way of contrast. I'm going to read it one more
time. And he said, with what can we compare the kingdom of
God or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain
of mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is the smallest
of all the seeds on the earth. Yet when it is sown, it grows
up and becomes larger than all the other garden plants and puts
out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nest
in its shade. So Jesus begins here with a question.
What can we compare the kingdom of God to? Or what parable should
I use? Now if I was to say that, I'd
be using all my mental strength to muster up an illustration
for you to understand. Just give me a minute and I'll
come up with an illustration so I can explain this to you,
but that's not what Jesus is saying here. Really what he's trying
to do is raise interest, not because he lacked what to say,
but he uses this rabbinic tradition, trying to draw interest and then
the attention of the audience. And so as the crowd hones in
on what Jesus says, the next words that came out of his mouth
may have been underwhelming. The kingdom of God is like a
mustard seed. A tiny little seed. The smallest
of seeds. The ones the birds love to eat. Seeds so small that a bird could
swallow many of them at a time. But he says this small seed becomes
the largest of garden plants. 10, 15 feet tall. And not only a garden plant,
but a place where birds come. Birds that would often eat these
seeds now find rest and shelter in its branches. And Jesus says
this is what the kingdom of God is like. From the minute, the
tiny, the insignificant beginnings, it grows into the mightiest of
garden plants. This is the story of the Bible.
Starts in the Old Testament. An obscure person, Abraham, called
out of Ur. Pretty significant on the world
scene, and yet God promises to make him a mighty nation. And the Israelites, an insignificant
people, spent hundreds of years as slaves an insignificant people in a
land conquered over and over again by foreign armies. And
then you come here to the New Testament and the Jews think
they're something special. We've never been slaves. And
then they forgot their whole history. Insignificant. The history books aren't really
filled with stories about the Israelites. And then we have this Jesus. born in a place called Nazareth? Bethlehem? Comes from Nazareth? Does anything good come from
Nazareth? And then he has these faithful but few followers made
up of fishermen and tax collectors and all kinds of insignificant
people. And yet, within 40 years, of
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel spread
through the known world, reaching the cultural center of the world
in Rome. And churches were established.
And it hasn't stopped since. The church is expanding, reaching
the nations of the world, all of which we get to be a part
of. people from every tribe and nation calling on the name of
Jesus. And as insignificant as the world
may think we are, God is growing it into a mighty plant, a magnificent
plant. Not only is this small seed grows
in this plant, it becomes this place of shelter where birds
rest. In this picture, we have the hint of the grace of God
to all people. The Old Testament uses this imagery
occasionally, talking about the birds coming and nesting, the
nations of the earth. I think this is a beautiful picture.
The nations of the earth coming and finding rest in the God of
Scripture. I'll give you a couple of passages
if you want to look them up. Psalm 104 verse 12, Ezekiel 17, Daniel
chapter 4. Just look these up. They're beautiful
pictures of these trees where the birds of the world come and
find rest. Out of the most insignificant
beginnings, invisible to human eyes, God creates his mighty
kingdom, which embraces the peoples of the world. which becomes a
shelter to the nations of the world. And this kingdom will not be
destroyed. Actually, it will thrive and
expand. Great development from small
beginnings. And so Christ's kingdom, no matter
how much it's despised at first, how much people think it's insignificant
in the eyes of people, is moving forward. And that's the story
of the book of Revelation. God is victorious as there's
a promise of wide and firm expansion. This will happen because this
is God's kingdom. The nations and cultures attempt
to overthrow this kingdom. Think about China. I can't remember,
I didn't write it down, but what year did all the missionaries
were sent out of China, and yet what happened? The kingdom of
God continued and expanded. So what is your expectation about
the kingdom of God? Do you really believe that God's
kingdom will prosper? That it will prosper in your
life? that it'll prosper in this world, that it'll expand, it'll
be a mighty tree where all can find refuge. Do we believe that
this little message of the gospel, the seed of the gospel, is powerful
as we take it out and we proclaim it to people? Do we really think
that it can transform lives, communities, nations? For the
kings of this earth will say Jesus Christ is Lord. So as we conclude, what is your
expectation about the kingdom? I just want to think, this is
the way that my mind thinks, logically how Jesus goes through
these parables starting at the beginning of Mark 4. The kingdom
of God is like scattering the seed and it falls on different
hearts, conditions of hearts. Some who receive it, some who
reject it, some We're carried away by the cares of this world,
but we're called to scatter the seed. And as we take the seed
out, we're called to not take this light of the gospel and
hide it under a basket, but to put it on a lampstand that all
can see it. And when we scatter this seed,
it grows mysteriously beyond our comprehension, beyond our
abilities, But it grows in a powerful way in this tiny seed of the gospel. We could turn into this magnificent
tree, a refuge for all peoples from all corners of the earth. This should be our realistic
expectation of the kingdom of God. Amen? Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we thank
you for this teaching, that your kingdom is advanced by your means
through the spread of the gospel, the gospel seed. And Lord, we
thank you that it's taken root in our lives, how you've transformed
us through this message of grace. We pray as we take this message
out that there would be a great influx in your kingdom. but not,
Lord, to our glory, but to yours alone. In your name we pray,
amen.
Kingdom Growth
Series Mark
| Sermon ID | 126252250487008 |
| Duration | 26:50 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Mark 4:26-34 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.