Kingdom of God: Part III

All right, we are in the Gospel of Mark. This is week 13, believe it or not. We've got one more week of Mark, at least this year. And then we will take a break for Christmas. And excited about what we're gonna be doing for Christmas this year. We're kind of doing our own thing from the other locations. And so it's kind of fun to. To do what I want to do instead of what the man tells me to do. That's a joke. That's not true. But I am really excited about Mark. And what we'll be looking at today is we've already read. So let's just begin with this again. Going all the way back to verse one in the beginning. This is the start. This is the good news about Jesus. This isn't the Gospel of Mark. This isn't Mark's Gospel. This is Mark writing about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Jesus is the gospel. Jesus is the good news, that he is the Messiah, the anointed one, that he is the Son of God, and so he is the one that is projected. And Mark keeps putting Jesus forward. He even doesn't give a lot of his teaching. And the actual words of Jesus, he says, and Jesus taught them and then did something. And he. He's more interested in who Jesus is and what he's doing rather than the actual words that Jesus is saying. It's about who Jesus is. And so we are going to be here in the parables, as Autumn had mentioned. What are the purpose of parables again? It literally means to throw alongside something else. And so what is it? What is Jesus throwing alongside? He's throwing it alongside the kingdom of God. And he says it multiple times. We're going to hear it twice explicitly this morning. This is what the kingdom of God is. This is what it can be compared to the kingdom of God. And so that's we're going to be looking at. And I've read this last couple of weeks, but just from James Edwards. An allegory can be understood from the outside, but parables can be understood only from within. By allowing oneself to be taking into the story and hearing who God is and what humans may become. Parables are like stained glass windows in a cathedral or an old Baptist church, dull and lifeless from the outside, but brilliant and radiant from within. That you need to be able to have ears to hear that God needs to open your eyes to see who he is before you can comprehend and appreciate what's going on in the parable. So it's not simply a way to make complex issues easy to understand. It confused those, and it confuses those still that don't see Jesus for who he really is. They're riddles to those who don't want to listen to what Jesus is saying. And listen and hear is the key word. He says this the last couple weeks, just looking at whatever it was, 10 verses. The word listen and pay attention and hear has been used over 11 times, which is. You can see the emphasis that Jesus is trying to make. And he's going to wrap it up here as well in this week. So let's look at this. The Kingdom of God, part three. We've been looking at the parables, and the whole point of the parable is the kingdom of God. So when you open your Bible and you read about a parable, oh, I wonder what's going on. What's he mean by that? He's talking about the kingdom of God. It's always what it is. It's always the kingdom of God. That's what he's throwing alongside. And so specifically this morning, we'll be looking at how the kingdom of God it starts, is small and unassuming. It's humble and modest, yet it experiences exponential growth because of who Jesus is and what he does has nothing to do with us. Praise God. So let's look at this. I don't have any good Viking parables for you this morning. Although, man, I'm three for three with this, which is pretty impressive. But I know that's obnoxious. I know it is. I do apologize. I know it can be obnoxious if you're a Vikings fan. I do. I. A little bit of me is sorry. Okay, let's look at this. Jesus is the seed. All right, Jesus. This is about the kingdom of God. He's gonna say, this is the kingdom of God. And this passage, though, unfortunately, has been twisted mainly by televangelists in a way. Not that I'm better than them or anything. I just want to get to what Jesus is saying. And this parable is about Jesus, and it's about the kingdom of God. This isn't about plant a seed of faith and God is going to return to you tenfold and 50 fold and 100 fold. And if you don't receive that and you don't give the church some. Some seed of faith money, then you're never going to receive more from God. That's an atrocious way to read this text. This is about the kingdom of God. It's not about my kingdom. It's not about the church's kingdom. It's about the kingdom of God and what he's doing in the souls of human beings. Excuse me. So this is about the kingdom of God. So we don't have to try to find some hidden meaning. Let's just look at exactly what Jesus says. And he said. Jesus said to those, again, he's still maybe out in the boat. Maybe Mark is kind of taking different times where Jesus shared parables, but he's out in this boat in kind of a natural amphitheater and acoustics that would go where the crowd is set out. And he's teaching them in parables. And he said to them, the kingdom of God. That's what he's talking about. It's very explicit. Is as if a man should scatter some seed on the ground. What rabbis would do in that, in the first century and even before and after is that when they would. They would use common day analogies, that they would use an object lesson like autumn just did. Look at the seeds. That there most likely was a farmer up on a hill throwing some seeds. And so he could just say, look, see that it's actually the kingdom of God is like a man scattering seeds on the ground. And so again, going back to verse 14, we're not going to take the time to go back in the chapter, but it says that the sower sows the word, that Jesus is the word, Jesus is the good news, he is the seed, and he's going to sow the word of God indiscriminately. That he's not a respecter of persons. He doesn't judge a book by its cover. He shares the word with anyone who has ears to here. And there's a. There's a purposeful lack of strategy that goes on here that there's not some. Some exact amazing. Wow, look, I'm going to listen to this amazing strategy and we're going to go out and we're going to just take over the world. That's just not how it is. It's very unassuming, as we see from the seed here, that we're going to throw a seed over there and we're going to throw seeds over there, and then we're going to sit back and we're going to see if it grows indiscriminately or indiscriminately. Indiscriminately. Thank you. Back in 2004, this was 22 years ago, I was a freshman in college down in Greenville, South Carolina, and I had one of my Closest friends, John Almy, who's African American. And I'll never forget this. Just one of those moments that really, really impacted me. And we went to a fancy shoe store. This isn't it. I Googled fancy shoe stores in Greenville, South Carolina. This is what popped up. It was. It was like a standalone building that was like a haberdashery, you know what I mean? They tailored suits, and it was just fancy, right? And we walked in as two college students, a little disheveled. We just, you know, just kind of how it was. And I'll never forget the sales individual came up to me and my friend John, and. And they said, how. How can I help you? And my friend said, I'm actually. I need to buy some new shoes. And she said, I can tell it's a little out of your price range. This is probably more for your parents, like the store. And just. I mean, talk about. Just literally judged him by the way he looked. And then he said, I'll never forget this. Such a boss move. He says. He goes, do you work on commission? And she said, yes, we do. And then he said, is there anybody else that works here? And she said, yes. And he said, I would like to talk with them. So she went, got a different salesman. And then, in spite John, what she didn't know is that both of John's parents were surgeons, that he drove a Mercedes Benz, that his parents got him, that he had a credit card that he could do whatever he wanted with. And he. In spite of the whole. He bought $700 worth of shoes just. Just despite. He didn't need $700 with the shoes. He just wanted to do it. The whole point of that is you can't judge a book by a cover. And the whole point of this is I don't know where the seed's going. I don't know who's listening. I don't know. It could fall on thorny ground. It could fall on stony ground. It could fall on fertile soil. And those who have ears to hear, let them hear. And that's how we share the Gospel. And that's how Jesus, thank God, shared the Gospels, the Gospel, and who he is with us. Third point is, he knows not how. One of my favorite verses in the Bible, it says, he sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not how. Two things I want to point out just from this verse in Mark 4:27, number one is he sleeps. I mean, this is a. This is a powerful phrase. He shares the Gospel and then he goes to bed. He's got no control over whether a seed is going to take root or not. That's all that he can do. And that's all that we can do is we can share who Jesus is. And then we sleep. We would all. Myself especially, I think in this context, I would be a wreck if people's receptive, receptiveness of the gospel was hinged on my ability to communicate the gospel. I would never be able to sleep. There's always more I can do, I can tweak, I can refine, I can fix this, I can study this, I can do this. And it would never end. And if people weren't coming to faith in droves, I would not be able to sleep, I wouldn't be able to put my head on my pillow at night if it was up to me to convince somebody to get saved. I can't do it. All I can do. All you can do is just let them see Jesus. Show them Jesus. Show them the seed, show them the word, show them the light. That's what we can do. And then we show, we sow the seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then we sleep. We sleep. Number two is faithfulness. You may never know. You may never know in this life how you have impacted somebody. Eugene Peterson wrote a book called Long Obedience in the Right Direction. I've never read it because the title of the book is too good. You kind of get what the book is going to be about, if that makes sense. Long Obedience in the same direction in the sense of, hey, this is what it is. I'm being faithful and it's hard and it's, and it's rigorous and it's incredibly difficult at times. And I want to quit and I want to give up and yet I just remain faithful. And I keep pointing to Jesus and I keep living the way Christ has called me to live. And there are people who see it and they observe it and we might die and then they might come to faith. We might not have any idea who comes to faith in this life because of some type of impact that we've had. His analogies to the kingdom of God are in terms of agriculture and seasons. You might not see the fruit of your planting the seeds of the gospel, but the kingdom will. Jesus will see and he will harvest. The kingdom of God is never described at ever in a parable by Jesus as some quick fix. And just do this now in self help. It's utter dependence upon the spirit of God because it might not be you who sees the fruit First Corinthians 3. We read this very explicitly. If there was any human being in the history of the church who could claim that they've got a strategy, they've got it figured out. They know how to plant churches all across the known world. They see people coming to faith from all over the place, from all nations and tribes and tongues. It's the Apostle Paul that he sets out. He starts planting churches all over the place. He could have said, I've got this strategy figured out. Do it exactly like this. He doesn't. Even the Apostle Paul says, I planted Apollos another pastor in a neighboring town. Or that an elder that he had appointed Apollos watered. But God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. Most of us in this room, the gospel seed was planted outside these four walls. Someone else watered and hope lowertown gets to reap the benefit of you being a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. For some of you, the seed might have been planted here, might be watered by your small group, and then you're going to leave this church and you're going to go help somebody else out. Because that's what the kingdom is. That's what it looks like. You cannot schedule or predict a revival meeting. You just can't do it. I cannot say we're going to have revival now and God's going to show up. He just doesn't do that. I can't. I spread seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we got to see what God's going to do that he's at work going on here in verse 28. Says the earth produces by itself first the blades and the ear and the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe at once, he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come again. This is small, unassuming, becoming something that is big and beneficial for all. One last quote here from James Edwards. Says the faith that Jesus requires of disciples is to sleep and to rise in humble confidence that God has invaded this troubled world not with a crusade, but with a seed, at least. Love that line in an imperceptible fifth column that will grow into a fruitful harvest. I had no idea what fifth column was. I did a double clicky thing, and it wasn't linked to anything, so I had to manually Google what in the world is a fifth column. Does anyone know what this is? This is A group of people who secretly undermine their own country from within to aid an enemy. All right, so he's saying that's what Christians are. We're part of a country, we're part of a nation. But this is not what we're here for. We're here for another kingdom, and we want to support that kingdom. And I was trying to find some, you know, movie or a book or something that had rebels. I couldn't think of anything that might work because the rebels aren't the good guys in that story, at least in my opinion. It's. Anyways, it doesn't matter. But there's resistances all the time. There's so many. And that's what we are, in a sense. That's what Christians are. Are that we are part of this world. I'm part of. I am an American. But that's not. That's not my end goal. My end goal is to see the kingdom of God advanced, not the United States of America. Fourthly, we see this mustard seed. Autumn couldn't have said it any clearer. So it says this in verse 30. And he said, with what can we compare to the kingdom? Oh, I know, right? Maybe there's a mustard plant not too far that he said, I know what it's like. It's like that. What is the kingdom of God like? It's like this. Or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth. It's obscure, insignificant, unassuming, not much of a strategy. Why does he choose a mustard seed? Why not choose an acorn or the seed of a. Of a cedar of Lebanon? Why. Why not pick some huge, giant, majestic, powerful tree? We read in Psalm 80, verse 10, it says, the mountains are covered with its. With the shade of the mighty cedars, with its branches that there's these cedars of Lebanon. This is what King David built the first temple out of. And a lot of. A lot of these cedars that were given to him from. From the country that at the time that had all these beautiful trees. They were written about in the scriptures of these powerful, majestic trees. Why doesn't Jesus say the kingdom of God is like this? Because that's not the kingdom of God. That is, assuming that is powerful, that is mighty. He says, no, it's nothing like that. Actually, it's a mustard seed and it's going to turn into a big bush. That's the point he's going to say. Yet when it is sown. It grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants. Right. He doesn't explicitly call this a tree. This is a big garden plant. It's a big bush and it puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. Where am I? Oh, yeah, here we are. Mustard seed. There it is obviously small, and we have real ones. If you would like to see them in person, go ahead and pass it around. It's small, it's insignificant. And yeah, this was the biggest one I could find. I was trying to find. Show that. Can I find a big picture of a mustard tree or mustard bush? This was the biggest one. And it is big, right? A bird could easily build a nest in that. But it's not this big, powerful, majestic tree. It is the biggest of the garden shrubs, as Jesus says. That's the whole point. But one thing I did learn as I was kind of researching about the mustard plant, that I didn't know it is an invasive species, that once it starts going, it doesn't stop. It's hard to get rid of them, apparently. If you can see that, that's a dude walking in a field, a mountainside or hillside covered in mustard. Some people's worst nightmare, some people's greatest drink. Walk around in mustard. It's. It spreads that. What is the Kingdom of God like? It is like this small, unassuming, insignificant little seed, but once it takes root, it's going to take over everything. That's what the Kingdom of God is like. It reminded me. I've. We. We. We watched the Magic School Bus. There's the new version, you know, which isn't quite as good as when I was a kid, but there's the Magic School Bus rides again, I think is the name of it. And Mrs. Frizzle's little sister, I think, is now the new Dr. Frizzle or Mrs. Frizzle. And they go to the Galapagos Islands. And in the story, it's funny because I've listened to this in the van. The kids watch it in the back. I've never seen it, but I almost have it memorized. You know what I'm saying? And so Arnold takes this plant because he doesn't like the fact that he's got a new teacher and they go to the Galapagos Islands and it spreads like crazy. And then it's just chaos, right, because an invasive species took over. That's the whole point. That's the gospel. That's what the kingdom of God is like. And then finally, we see all nations. This is kind of a cool thing that I've just never picked up on before studying this passage. He mentions this. Jesus does so that the birds of the air can make their nests in its shade. This was one that, as I was reading that other commentaries point out other passages in the Bible that talk about what are the birds of the air. What does that mean? Why does Jesus even say that? He could just say it grows into a big tree or it goes into a large bush with the birds. What's going on? But when we look at our Old Testament and we look at other references to the birds of the air, it is a reference to all Gentile nations, all people groups, not just the Israelites. We see this in Psalm 104:12. It says, besides them, that is the nation of Israel. Besides the Israelites, the birds of the heavens dwell. They sing among the branches. This is an analogy of all people and all nations coming to Yahweh. And then in Ezekiel 17, this couldn't be more explicit, on the mountain height of Israel will I plant it. That it may bear branches and produce fruit and become here it is, a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird. And in its shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest. This is again, this analogy of all nations, all tribes, all tongues coming to Jesus. And all of the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree. The cedar isn't gonna be that big of a deal. But you know what will be? I will make the high, the low tree, and I will dry up the green tree and make dry trees flourish. I am the Lord. I have spoken and I will do it. And he is doing it and did it through Jesus. Jesus says, I am the one who will make this low tree, this tiny, insignificant mustard seed, become one where every nation and tribe and tongue will benefit from. It's from me, it's from Jesus. And then he ends it here with this, with many such parables. He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. So Mark here is going to kind of just. If you missed all of it, if you didn't understand the parables, again, to reiterate what Jesus has said 11 times. He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. That we have to be able to listen to what Jesus is saying and not make this about me, not make it about my church, not make it about. I need to look at what is the kingdom of God. And it is the good News of Jesus. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples. He explained everything. So I have two applications, two small points for us this morning, and it's this. Number one, do you have ears to hear? Are we able to hear it? Are we able to listen to what God is saying in Jesus through his teaching? Because one thing that I think that we like to do, those of us who grew up and have grown up and we've been in the church for a long time, that we. It's. It's. It's easy to say, okay, that's that verse and this verse and this parable. And it's for people who don't know Jesus. We have to remember that Jesus is teaching his disciples this stuff. He's teaching this to people who are fully devoted to following him already. We need the Gospel every day. It's not just a door again that we walk through, okay? I was not saved. Now I'm saved. I was dead. Now I'm alive. I was in darkness, now I'm in light. It is a path we walk on every single day. We need to continually listen to what Jesus is saying. Why? Because I am very quick to forget this. I am very quick to pray in a way, maybe not explicitly, but God, my kingdom come. I want my kingdom now. I want what I want now. I want these people healed now. I want this on my time, when I want it, and I want it now. Jesus prays, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And yet Jesus likens the kingdom of God to a seed being scattered, a light that exposes what's in the dark, a small seed that grows into unimaginable growth. Do we pray that way that his kingdom, his kingdom would come in that form? Or do we try to build what we think is better or best for us when and how we want him to do it? Do we have ears to hear? And then finally, sleep is a good word. A lot of us just had Thanksgiving. We were with families. I've spoken with a few of you, and I'm sure that there's some tension sometimes there that I want to want to talk. I want to share my faith. You know, they bring up politics and blah, blah, blah, and it just get awkward. I know that's difficult. It can always be difficult when you get together with family. But the truth is that we can share the gospel. We can share the good news. We can talk about Jesus. And then sleep, Sleep. Don't lay in bed with your head and Pillow. Oh, I wish I coulda, shoulda, I woulda. Like we talked about a couple weeks ago, selling those coffee beans. Hey, you want to buy some beans? Yeah, I'll take a whole bunch. It's. It's just Jesus. Get them to Jesus, Let him see Jesus and sleep, rest and then keep doing it. And maybe at some point it will take root. It'll take root, but it has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with your ability to communicate. It has everything to do with who Jesus is and his spirit's ability to convert somebody and to make someone go from darkness to life. So in the meantime, sleep and trust in Jesus because he's got this. We're going to have a time of communion. We do this every week at Lowertown. And so I've got the. The crackers that represent the body of Christ that's broken for us. We have the juice that represents his blood that's shed for us. You don't need to be a member of this church or any church, but if you're a follower of Jesus, I'd encourage you to take these elements with us as we remember the finished work of Jesus. So it's not Jesus. You said it's finished. But now I'm going to go do this. I'm going to fix this. I'm going to save that person. My kingdom's going to come. I can utterly depend on who he is and the finished work that he does on the cross. I bring nothing to the table. Nothing. All I do is say, look at Him. That's all we can do, is point to Jesus. So as we take these elements, we remember what he did for his sacrifice, for our sins. His body that's broken for us, his blood that is shed for us to pay for our sins. And he does so freely, without cost. The worship team is going to sing two songs and so feel free to grab these elements. There's a gluten free option on your right if that's a dietary restriction. Let me pray. And the worship team will sing these songs as we celebrate and remember Jesus Christ and his death and what he's done for us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for our time together this morning. Thank you for the kiddos who were able to be present and just be able to hear the teaching of your word. These things are small, they're unassuming. That's who you are, that's what you do. And you are so good and you make yourself known. And I pray that you would just help us to trust you, that we would have ears to hear first and foremost and that you would soften people's hearts. That as we share the gospel, as we point people to you, that we would just rest in knowing that you are in control of this. That there's nothing we can do to convince them to love you. That is something that you need to do from within. And so, God, we pray that your kingdom would come. We pray that your will would be done on this earth the same way your will has free reign in heaven. Would that just be true here? And would you give us the. The means and the power, the boldness to go into the kingdom of darkness, that the gates of hell cannot stand against your gospel? That you give us the boldness to go into the kingdom of darkness and just trash the joint? Just show Jesus and that you would just save as many people as possible because you are good and you are worthy. Would you just make yourself strong with them and with us as well? We love you and it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.