We're back in Mark this morning, back in Mark chapter four. So I would invite you to turn there, please. Last week, we studied just one parable. That was the parable of the soils. And this week, we're going to study three more. And you'll see how those fit together. And many people believe that these parables that Mark chose to include here serve to reinforce the message of the parable of the soils that we studied last week. If that is the key parable, then these are to explain further how this fits together. read together and then study this morning. Mark chapter four, starting in verse 21, going to verse 34. Hopefully we had a chance to find it. Would you stand with me please? I'm gonna read the passage for us. You follow along. And he said to them, that of course is Jesus, is a lamp brought to be put under a basket or under a bed? Is it not to be set on a lamp stand? For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret, but that it should come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And he said to them, take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you. And to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given. But whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. And he said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself. First the blade, then the head, after that the full grain and the head, But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. And he said, to what shall we liken the kingdom of God, or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds of the earth. But when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs and shoots out large branches so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade. And with many such parables, he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. But without a parable, he did not speak to them. And when they were alone, he explained all things to his disciples. Let's pray together, please. Our Father, we are grateful to be able to come together around Your Word again, and know that there is power in Your Word. There is power to save. there is power to change us to be more like Jesus, and that's what we're asking for this morning. You've given your word, you have spoken, you have promised in Isaiah that when your word goes forth, it will accomplish what you send it to do, and we ask, Lord, that you would do that this morning, that you would grant understanding by the help of your Holy Spirit, that you would anoint me to teach your word, that I would be accurate and I would be clear. And Lord, that we wouldn't just take in this information to become smarter somehow about the word of God, but that we would take this in with the intent to obey, to do what you show us to do, whether to forsake some sin or to do some new action, or simply to love and thank and appreciate you more. Father, you show us what we need to do and give us ears to hear and hearts that are ready to be transformed, ready to obey, eager to hear from you. Please get glory to yourself through what we do in this time, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, you may be seated. How many of you like the idea of a money back guarantee? Like if this product doesn't work out, I'm sending it back. I like that. Some grocery stores have their products and it'll be a money back guarantee or even a double your money back guarantee. I don't know about you, I don't normally take people up on that, even if I don't like the product. But it's nice to know you're buying this appliance, you're buying a car, and it comes with a warranty, it comes with a guarantee. Well, God's word comes with a guarantee. There's a sense in which this passage spells out that The kingdom of God is guaranteed to grow by the power of God. He is backing it up with his word. He's backing it up with his power. We know from 2 Corinthians that God is the one giving the increase. God is the one growing the kingdom. God is the one applying his word to our hearts. So the growth of God's kingdom according to these parables, occurs in his timing and at his rate of growth and his extent of growth. And it's all according to his plan and by his power. Without his power, without his backing, without his guarantee, none of this occurs the way we're reading about it in Mark chapter four. I have sort of an outline for you, because I see this as three parables, not everyone calls this first section a parable. But I believe we have the parable of the lamp, verses 21 to 25, the parable of the growing seed in verses 26 to 29, and the parable of the mustard seed in verses 30 to 34. Those are the three sections, pretty straightforward. You may even have section headings or divisions in your Bible that show something similar. But I would like for us to dig into these parables to see what question each one of them answers. Normally at the beginning of the service I give you here are the one, two, three, or more main points. I'm gonna give those to you as we go because I would like for us to answer a question that I believe is implied by each of these parables. So for the parable of the lamp, I believe the question is how does God's kingdom grow? The parable of the lamp is gonna answer for us how does God's kingdom grow? Number two, the parable of the growing seed answers for us, when does God's kingdom grow? Under what circumstances does it grow? And then number three, the parable of the mustard seed, where does God's kingdom grow? In what areas geographically or in what areas does God's kingdom grow? So how, when, and where does God's kingdom grow? I believe we're gonna see those three questions answered as we work back through this. That first parable is the parable of the lamp, and it describes what happens to the word of God that has grown and borne fruit in our lives, because that was what last week was about. Those of you who are here, or if you've studied the passage on your own, We saw that the seed is sown and there are different responses in different people because there are different soils. And what that really means is there are different hearts, different attitudes toward the word of God when it is taught, when it is preached, when it is read, when it is shared. And there is good soil, a good heart, good ears to hear. And we saw that that group produces fruit 30, 60, 100 fold. So then what happens after that? This is the rest of the story, if you will. This is telling us what happens once that seed has taken root in the good soil and begins to bear fruit. Because what is part of the purpose, I think you could say the main purpose, of that harvest, yes, you harvest it when it's ripe, when it's ready, And I have potato farmers in my family, and I remember that they would sell some maybe to a chip plant. They would keep some to plant. Some of your harvest goes back into seed. It reproduces. That's the way God intended for it to work. Some of my kids have been interested in planting stuff at different times. At one point, Connor decided he wanted to plant an orange seed in a little pot, and we have the plant. It's about this big after a year or so, and maybe someday it will grow enough that we get fruit off it. I don't know. God designed reproduction to be part of the process. So the word of God takes root in the good ground. And there is fruit, and that fruit reproduces itself. And I believe that's part of what we're seeing here. Let's look at these verses again, verse 21. And he said to them, is a lamp brought to be put under a basket or under a bed? Is it not to be set on a lampstand? For there's nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should be come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Now I have another question for you. How many of you have a lamp at home in your room? You have a lamp somewhere in your room, okay? Most of you, many of you. How many of you keep that lamp under your bed? Nobody has a hand up. I think Rochelle and I stayed in a hotel once that had like little lamps on the sides of the bed, which was kind of interesting and weird. But normally we don't put lamps under the bed. Why not? Why not? The purpose is to get the light. If I have a lamp under my room, it's so I can see. It is so that maybe I can read in bed or something. So I have that lamp there and I want the light to get out. That's the purpose. Now, by the same token, how many of you have a nightlight somewhere in your house? Maybe it's in your room, maybe it's not. Okay, we do, we have nightlights. Those are the kind of light you would put under a bed, maybe. You would do something down low to the ground. It's not necessarily put up high. So that really is what's going on here. It's strange to our thinking, but when it says lamp, this would have been a very small clay bowl, and it had a spout that would hold a wick, and it would have a few ounces of oil. So that was their nightlight. And there were even times that they would put it under a mixing bowl or something to make for less light, like a nightlight for us. But the main purpose of that lamp was not to be covered up, and you certainly wouldn't put it under the bed, especially if it's gonna catch fire to your bed, that doesn't make good sense to me. You wouldn't do that because what's the purpose? Normally you're going to put it on a lamp stand. Well, again, what does that look like? You may have a candelabra or a big lamp stand in your mind. For most people, common folk, it was just a shelf in the wall. And you put it up there, up high, so that it would provide light to the room. Maybe if you were wealthy or had fancy stuff, then you would have a separate stand for it. But that's what's going on here. To put it under a basket or under a bed would be to hide it to decrease the effect of its light, but normally you would put it on a lamp stand so that it could provide light to that room. Now, if we apply this, a lamp that doesn't provide light is pretty useless. Some of you young people are just used to using flashlights on phones, but we used to have battery-powered flashlights, and if you didn't make sure the batteries were good, then you go to turn that flashlight on when the power goes out, and it does nothing. It's useless. Nothing to you. And that's the idea that light should have an effect. Light should shine. That's really basic, right? Matthew 5, 14 through 16, these are the words of Jesus. You, he's talking to the people listening, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." What is Jesus saying? He's saying, you are going to reflect my light. Because we read all those passages in John and 1 John earlier in our scripture reading, talking about that God is light, in him is no darkness at all. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He came that people would have life and light. But now he's talking to the multitude listening, and specifically more to his disciples and saying, you are the light of the world. because he wasn't going to stay on earth in bodily form forever. He was gonna be represented. And our job is to reflect that light. How does the passage say that happens? Verse 16 says, let your light shine before people so that they will see what? Your good works and do what? Glorify your Father in heaven. That's interesting to me. Because Jesus is talking about this idea of light in the context of these parables about the word. And what makes it interesting to me is that we would expect the word, okay, we need to speak the word, we need to share the gospel, and we do, we do. But how does Jesus say that they're going to see the light? By what? good works, they're not gonna hear it from your lips, though they will at times, more than anything else, they are going to see your good works and glorify your Father. Your neighbors, they see you come and go. Your coworkers, your fellow students at school. More than anything you get to say to them, they are seeing who God is, what a Christian is, based on the way you are living your life. How are your batteries? Is your flashlight shining? Is there oil in your lamp? Because yes, part of spreading the gospel seed is talking. But part of it is living out God, his love before others. Jesus went on to say, there's nothing hidden which will not be revealed. Light is intended to be revealed. We don't know it's there if it's not visible. John MacArthur said, Jesus' teaching was never intended to be just for an inner circle of followers. It would be the responsibility of these disciples to communicate the gospel to the kingdom, to the world at large. And then there's this repeated statement. Should sound familiar from last time. If anyone has ears to hear, Let him hear. Y'all are doing so well this morning. How many of you have ears? I think everybody put a hand up. If not, then you're probably asleep. If you have ears to hear, then hear. Thank you, I see that hand, you have ears, I like it. What did Jesus mean by that? What did we say hearing means? There are two parts to hearing, biblically speaking. This is a review from last week. It's understanding, and we're supposed to give attention and intention. I am focused on what I am hearing, I'm listening on purpose, and then I'm listening with a purpose to do what I'm told, to obey, to follow through. And that's what he's telling, and who's he telling now? The first time was to the crowds, it was to the multitude. Now he is specifically saying to his disciples, If you have ears to hear, then listen up. One paraphrase of that is, are you listening to this? Are you really listening to this? Are you paying attention? That's what he's saying. Verse 24 says, then he said to them, take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you, and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Just reading that through, there are a lot of words there and it's repeated and it almost seems confusing. So let's take it a step at a time. Take heed what you hear. Someone said the more we hear and obey the word of God, the better we are able to share it with others. To live it before others, if you will. The moment we think that we know it all, Even what we know will be taken away from us. When he says with the measure, he's talking about the way that you hear. The attitude with which you hear. The measurement here is your hearing. And this hearing test isn't just can you hear these different frequencies, these different beeps in this ear and that ear. This kind of hearing test is are you doing what God's told you to do? Are you living the truth that he has revealed to you? Is it changing your life? Are you growing? Are you bearing fruit? If not, then there's a disconnect somewhere. There's something wrong. Whoever has, to him more will be given. If you have learned spiritual truth, then you're going to learn more spiritual truth. Here's a way in my own life, and I think in yours too, we can tell. Let's say that I am sitting down to read God's word, and I'm reading it, and my mind's wandering all over the place, and I'm almost finished, and I don't really know what I read, and it just didn't mean anything to me, didn't say anything to me. Well, we talked about last week, there's nothing wrong with the seed. The seed of the word of God is reliable. There's power in it. We'll talk more about that in a few minutes. The problem is my heart. It's my mind. Maybe I'm distracted. Maybe I'm proud. Maybe there's some sin in my life that I need to confess. There's something wrong, because the problem isn't the Word of God. The problem is me. And I may not even know what the problem is. There are some days... See, I'm a pastor. I've been saved for 40-something years. I've been in the ministry 20-something years. There are still days that I read my Bible and it just, okay, I'm going through the motions. Or I'm really trying and I'm just not getting it. So if that happens to you, then know that you're normal. But there's also something wrong. There's some sort of disconnect. There's something that's not happening the way it's supposed to. Something's being short-circuited. And we need to ask God, Lord, what's wrong? Sometimes the problem is I haven't asked God to help me read his word. Because that's a great way to start. If you're gonna sit down and read the Bible, then, Lord, would you please show me what you want me to do with your word today? If I don't start there, then it's probably gonna be a lot more of an exercise, just going through the motions. But beyond that, search me, oh God, and know my heart, and show me if there's some wicked way in me so that I can confess and forsake that sin. Is it making sense? Whoever has, to him more will be given. So if I've sought God, Lord, please speak to me. There's no known sin in my life. There's some days, thankfully, that it's just jumping off the page. I've never noticed that. I've read that so many times, and I've never seen that before. And that happens to you as well, I trust. The Holy Spirit illumines something. It was there all along, and I've never noticed that. Lord did that on Tuesday. I was with a group of pastors and somebody was reading a passage that's very familiar to me. And it just stood out. And the Lord speaks to us because his word is alive and powerful and sharp and it pierces to our innermost being. Now, a number of us were working through the book of James this summer, so I hope this passage is familiar to you. This is James chapter one. This is how he described what Jesus is saying here. Verse 22 of chapter one, be doers of the word and not hearers only. Because if you're a hearer only, if you're only hearing and not doing, you're deceiving yourself, you're lying to yourself. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. Now, you all know this. We've talked about this before. You've studied it, some of you. How many of you looked in the mirror this morning at some point? You've looked in a mirror today. Okay, most of you. If you haven't, that's okay. But most of us do so. We wanna make sure there's not food in our teeth and some of us have enough hair that we need to do something with it so it doesn't look like I just got up out of bed. And what do we do? We see what's wrong in the mirror, if anything's wrong, and we fix it. Because if I look in the mirror and There's some smudge over here. Doesn't matter. And I do nothing about it. I don't try to wash it off. I don't try to take care of it. Then I'm gonna walk in the door and somebody's gonna say, what is that? And other people are gonna notice it. Why? Because I had the truth. The mirror was in front of me showing me there's something wrong. You need to do something. And I didn't do anything. And that's what it is when we hold up the mirror of God's word. And he shows us right there, the Holy Spirit saying that. I said, no, there's something wrong with the mirror. There's nothing wrong. And it says he walks away, he does nothing, and he forgets what he's like. Because he ignored the truth that he had. This is James saying the same thing that Jesus is saying. That if you have the truth, and you apply the truth, and you obey the truth, then more is gonna be given to you. What does he say? That one will be blessed in what he does. On the other hand, if I ignore the truth that I have, I'm not reading the Bible, or I don't really care what it says, or I'm just doing it to check off a box, he's unchanged. He's forgetful. There's no transformation taking place in that person's life. So what is our first main point? What is the point? What is the answer to our question? God's kingdom grows as believers hear and obey the word and reflect God's light to others. We have the parable of the lamp, that's where this started and he kind of went into some other things but we're still talking about the lamp and receiving according to how we listen. So how does God's kingdom grow? God's kingdom grows as believers hear and obey the word and as we reflect God's light to others. Who's the source of the light? God is the source of the light. And what are we doing? We looked at it in Matthew. We are reflecting his light by living the Christian life, doing what he's commanded us to do, loving others more than we love ourselves. This next parable, starting in verse 26, this is only in Mark. This is Mark's only unique parable of the 30-something, almost 40 parables recorded in the Gospels. This one's only in Mark. And this seems to correspond to last week's parable of the soils, but this time the focus is on the seed rather than the hearts. It's talking about the seed. What does the seed do? How does the seed grow? So we're calling this the parable of the growing seed and it describes the slow and steady growth of the word of God in his kingdom. Verse 26 says, and he said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground and should sleep by night and rise by day and the seed should sprout and grow. He himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself, first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come." Verse 26, some people believe are the words, and he said, resume the previous discourse. So he gave this parable, remember, to the multitude, and Mark took things a little bit out of order last week to show us he explained the parable to them. So there's some people who believe this is picking up where we left off back in verse, whatever verse that is, verse 20. And here it says, a man. A man. Do we know who it is? Does it matter who it is? Frankly, no. Because the focus of this parable is on the seed itself. The seed has the power to grow. So what is the seed? Let's be consistent. What did we learn last week? The seed, going back to verse 14, the sower sows the word. So we're talking about the word of God. That's what the seed represents. And it will sprout and grow. When the word of God reaches people's hearts who are receptive, the good soil that we talked about last week, then there is growth, there is fruit. We've covered that, we've been talking about that. And that's what a farmer expects if you've ever gardened. You plant something and you hope that eventually it's gonna sprout and it's gonna grow. How? Anybody here? You're a botanist, and you can explain to us the ins and outs of germination of a seed? Because the youngest person here may have already done a little school experiment. You take that clear plastic cup, and you get some dirt, and you put the lima bean seed or whatever in there, and you can see it burst open and start shooting up. You see the roots go down. Anybody with me? Have you done this? OK. Sometimes you worry me when you stare at me. I've seen this. Our kids have done this. And it's an exciting little experiment. So we understand that it happens, but we don't really understand how it happens. I don't. I can't explain to you. How does that seed, which doesn't have a brain, know it's time to germinate, it's time to pop open and start growing a plant? And you can say, well, it's the water and it's the soil and it's the temperature. Yes, it's all those things, but there's no brain inside that. That's not how God designed it. Somehow it happens. That's what God designed. I can't explain it, so I'll stop trying. But it says the farmer doesn't know how it works. He knows that it works, so he sows his seed and he expects the crop to come up and he's ready to harvest it when the time comes, but he can't explain it. And I can't explain how a seed sprouts and grows And it says that night and day he goes about his business and it's growing and he doesn't necessarily know how. Some of us with kids at home, teenagers or young kids, there's growth taking place and you don't always notice it until you look down and all of a sudden those pants are really short. But when your kids, if I don't see you for a couple weeks, and all of a sudden, wow, he really shot up, she's really growing, we notice it. But it's imperceptible, it's almost invisible to us when we're around it. And I think there's that element here as well. The earth yields crops by itself, and that's, by itself is where we get our word automatically from the Greek. So, One person put it this way. Literally, automatically, the earth bears fruit. And once that process has begun, it's going to be completed. So we have the blade, and then we have the ear, and then we have the grain, and then we have the harvest. So without any human effort, does he make sure it gets water? Hopefully. Does he weed it? Pick rocks out? Yeah, probably. But he's still not making it grow. As we become adults, we don't want to grow anymore. But as a kid, you kept measuring yourself and measuring yourself. I wanna grow, I wanna grow. Can you make yourself grow? Jesus said we couldn't. He said, what man among you can add one cubit, 18 inches, to his stature? Nobody. We can't make ourselves grow. So this is an automatic process of the seed. What is the seed? The word of God. There's an automatic process that's taking place of growth of the kingdom through the growth of the word of God in our hearts. When the time comes, he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come. So when it's time, he has to harvest his crop. And typically, in scripture, the sickle represents judgment. We saw this in the book of Revelation. Revelation 14, 15 says, So what is going on here? The seed is the word of God, and the farmer sows it. Who? I don't know, doesn't really matter, because he sows it, and what we're focused on, there is power in that seed of the word of God. And it grows, and it accomplishes what God wants it to, and it works in our lives for a time. And then there comes an end. Our days are numbered. There are a certain number of days that we are going to live on this earth. Jesus may rapture us first, that would be fine with me. And Hebrews says that it is appointed to man to die once, and after that comes the judgment. So the word of God is gonna produce what it's gonna produce, and it's gonna happen automatically in a way that we can't even understand. But then there's a day of judgment coming. The Word of God is going to produce things, and when I say it's imperceptible or almost invisible, some of you may be thinking, I'm not growing at all spiritually. I'm reading my Bible, I'm praying, I'm gathering with other Christians, I'm trying to disciple someone or someone's trying to disciple me or both, and it just seems like nothing's happening. It may be that you just can't see it, because the promise here is that the power is in the Word of God, and it's gonna happen. It may not happen on the timetable we want, Just like you look at some young people, and they want to grow, and they want to be taller than you, or they want to be taller than their sibling, or they want to be as tall as their sibling. You can't make it happen, but over time, it happens. And so, by faith, you believe the Word of God. And by faith, you believe that God is going to do what He wants to do to grow you through the Word of God, in His timing, in His way. So for the second parable, we have the idea, the question was, when does the kingdom grow? And my answer, based on this, is that God's kingdom grows constantly. It may be slowly, it may be steadily, it may be imperceptibly or invisibly, but God is going to cause the growth, and how's he gonna do it? He's gonna do it through his word. That's how he's chosen to do it. I was listening to a message, a podcast this week, talking about in 1 Corinthians it says that God has chosen the foolishness of preaching. So at my best, what I'm doing up here is foolish, but the reason is that the power is in His Word. and he's gonna change lives through his word. That's what he has chosen. He said, go make disciples of all, teaching them whatsoever things I've commanded you. How does that work? That involves talking, living it out together. He's gonna honor his word. That's what he's chosen to do. So God's kingdom grows constantly, slowly, steadily. Sometimes we can't even see it, but he's the one causing the growth. And that brings us to the last parable for today, the parable of the mustard seed. This parable describes the small start, but incredible, you could even say disproportionate growth of the word of God in his kingdom. We're up to verse 30. Then he said, to what shall we liken the kingdom of God, or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like the mustard seed, which when it is sown on the ground is smaller than all the seeds of the earth. But when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs and shoots out large branches so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade. So Jesus starts off now with two rhetorical questions. I don't think he was really expecting them to answer, but he's saying, how should we describe the word of God? With what should we picture it? Well, he has an answer and he's going to offer it to us. And his answer involves a mustard seed. Now, mustard, of course, is an herb. use it in cooking and that kind of thing. Back when everyone was at home during COVID-19, our kids decided they were gonna plant a little vegetable garden or fruit garden. So we had strawberries, we had broccoli, we had a few other things. But they also had, we didn't know any better. So they got some plants, there was a mint plant and I don't remember, maybe basil something anyway. But when you plant those type of herbs in a garden, they tend to take over everything. Some of you are nodding, you've experienced this before. It's that idea. So you've actually seen something similar to this, but this is even more so, because it's a mustard seed. It says it's smaller than all the seeds, and that's not necessarily the smallest in all creation, but the smallest that they would have known about at that time. It's the smallest one. It was a proverb among them. The smallest thing to talk about would be a mustard seed. So you have a mustard seed, and it was the smallest that they knew about compared to all the other seeds. But what we have, that little tiny mustard seed, I learned this week, it's an annual plant. So this is not a tree, a shrub that's gonna come back year after year. It grows. And in a matter of three to four weeks, it can grow really big. I'm not saying that's one plant, but a single seed can grow to a 12 to 15 foot bush in a matter of weeks. It is unbelievable growth. It is disproportionate growth to the size of that one little tiny seed, and bam, you have what looks like a tree. At the beginning, you have a tiny seed, but it explodes as it grows. It becomes enormous. And this talks about the kingdom of God beginning small. We've read in the Gospel of Mark so far, John the Baptist was saying, the kingdom of God is coming, I am making way, preparing for the king. Jesus came after John was imprisoned and he said, the kingdom is among you, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent, the kingdom of God is here. So it began in a person, Jesus. He brought about the kingdom because he is the king. So when he arrived, incarnate, he's here as a human, still God, and he's bringing about the kingdom. And how did he choose to begin his kingdom? Well, we saw it a couple weeks ago. He called those he wanted, and he called 12 disciples. And 11 of those disciples continued and were apostles. So this little core group of 12, and then there were others who believed and followed him, maybe up to about 500. And we read when the day of Pentecost had fully come in the book of Acts. And Peter preached that sermon, empowered by the Holy Spirit. We have thousands of people getting saved. So we start with one, 12, maybe 500, thousands. Some people think that the church at Antioch may have had 100,000 people, 100,000 believers in Antioch. It was a mega church, the first one. And where did it start? With Jesus calling disciples, teaching them his words, teaching them how to live, teaching them how to love one another. And it grew in an amazing way. And we read, as we did in Revelation, that the everlasting gospel at the end will be preached even by an angel in the heavens. So that everyone alive at that time will have an option and an opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel. Not everyone will. But the kingdom is spreading. Now what do we do with the other part of this, the birds of the air? Some people believe that that's a description just to tell us how big this plant is, that it grows super big and so big that its branches can be homes for birds. Maybe. There are others who believe this is showing that Gentiles will become part of the kingdom, and we are, praise God. But, if we're gonna be consistent, Jesus taught this on the same day. and he just taught the key parable, and what were the birds in the first parable? Anybody remember? You wanna look back? Well, let's go to, I didn't even write down the verse. Here we go, verse 15. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown, and when they hear, Satan comes. So Satan is what Jesus said the birds represent. Well, how does that fit over here? The kingdom is growing with explosive growth, unbelievable growth, How does that fit in? Well, even as the kingdom grows, Satan is looking for opportunities to attack. He's walking about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and he's on the prowl, especially when there is growth. Think, Jesus chose those he wanted, and part of God's ultimate plan was that he had 11, and one was, eventually, demons, specifically Satan, possessed. So any place God is working and building and growing his kingdom through his word, Satan is gonna try to counterfeit, he's gonna try to send in false teachers, he's going to try to wreck the plan. And that, I think, is being consistent with earlier in the chapter, I think that's what's being described here. Start super small, the kingdom of God, unbelievable growth, and even as it's growing unbelievably, Satan is trying to destroy and infiltrate what's going on. So I said that this has a question to it, and our question was, where does God's kingdom grow? And I don't mean it grows in a tree, that wasn't the answer to this. God's kingdom grows throughout the earth, and God manages the growth. And I didn't put it on there, but frankly, Satan is trying to get in on the act and ruin the growth. Let's finish this up, verse 33. So many such parables. This tells us that Mark has chosen a few representative parables of the many that Jesus taught. These are the ones that he chose to put in right here. I believe it's chapter 10. We're going to get to one more batch of parables in the Gospel of Mark. It says, without a parable, he did not speak to them. Well, that may be a little bit of a generalization or an exaggeration. It's not saying that all Jesus ever said was parables, but that when he taught, he always included a parable. maybe often, but perhaps always, he included a parable. And then, when they were alone, he explained, and literally it means he kept on explaining about the kingdom. Why? Because the disciples didn't get it sometimes. I personally am so thankful that they occasionally asked him, well, what does that mean? There are other times they said, yes, we understand. Man, I wish you hadn't done that, because I would like to have gotten a little bit more of Jesus' interpretation of his own words. So take comfort. The word of God is gonna accomplish what God wants it to do, what Jesus has sent it forth to do. It's gonna grow when and where and how he wants it to. And even after we know all that, if we don't understand, pray and ask God's help and he will interpret his word, he will help us to understand it. So God's kingdom grows as believers hear and obey the word and reflect God's light to others. God's kingdom grows constantly, slowly, steadily, often imperceptibly, but God is causing that growth. And God's kingdom grows throughout the earth as he manages that growth. I'd like to end with two verses from 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 3, 6, and 7. Paul's writing and saying, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then, neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. We have a part in this, that reproduction part that I was talking about earlier, that God has done a work in my life and I desire to share the good news with others. I desire to share his word with others. But it's not what I'm doing, per se. It's not what you're doing. There's the planting, there's the watering, but who is growing the kingdom? Who is the power behind the word? It's God himself. He is the one, it says twice there. God gives the increase. Anyone here in the room, anyone online today, if you have never put your faith in Jesus Christ, as your savior, not just I know about Jesus or I believe in Jesus, but I have a sin problem and I believe Jesus is the one who can do something about it. He's inviting you to find life and light in him, and you can do that today by calling on him. Believers, are you doing anything with that seed of the word of God that has taken root in you? Is it spreading to others through you? How well are you reflecting God's light to other people? And as we just saw in 1 Corinthians, are you planting? Are you watering? Are you allowing God to use you to advance his kingdom, to grow his kingdom? Because he will give the increase. Let's bow for prayer. Father, we desire that you would do this work in our hearts. Your word says that everything is open, exposed before your eyes. You see into our hearts even right now. You know what people are thinking. And Lord, you know where you are convicting right now, where the Holy Spirit is leading somebody. And so I pray that that one would be obedient, would respond, would be a doer and not just a hearer of the word today. because you've said that that person will be blessed in everything he or she does. May that describe us. Continue to work your will in our lives through your word that your kingdom would advance and that you would get the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.