The Kingdom of God: Part I

All right, well again, good morning and welcome those who don't know me. My name is Brian, lead pastor here and excited to jump back into the Gospel of Mark. We're in week 11 and we're going to be in here for a while. I think I've mentioned this before, we've left it pretty, pretty open ended as far as when are we going to end this thing? And so we've, we've already made a couple changes to what the original schedule was. You wouldn't have noticed that, but we, we've shortened some and elongated some and anyways, really, really have been loving getting into Mark. So just again to kind of what's going on. And it's hard to recap when you go this slow because we've covered so much. But going back to the verse, very first verse of the Gospel of Mark, it's the beginning of the good news about Jesus. Mark is telling us about Jesus. It's Jesus's good news, not Mark's, about the Messiah, about the Anointed One, the, the Savior of the world, the Son of God. And Mark is recounting, he is again an interpreter for the Apostle Peter. And so he is writing down a lot of the stories and different things that. Not stories, the, the real life events that Peter is recalling. And then those are attested by other authors, several other New Testament, not just in our Bible, but even extra works that we have that attest the historicity, the truth, that Jesus is who he said he was. And so that's what we've been looking at. Does anyone have any idea what this is? What kind of car is it? Is a car. Yes, that's correct. Is a Ford Taurus. That's right, it's a Ford Taurus. Now more specifically, this is a 1998 Ford Taurus SHO. Now for those of you who don't know what that means, it's not show. It's not a Taurus show. Okay? That's wrong. It's an acronym sho. You know what, you know what that stands for? It stands for Super High Output. Do you know that this is a Ford Taurus. Now you might not have known why. I don't know why you wouldn't know this because I don't think I've ever shared this before. But when I was in high school, my mom bought one of these. She bought it, not this one, it was green. She went to a Ford dealership and they had all these Ford Tauruses. They were very popular back in the day. And she said, but I want a green One. And they said, well, that one's a lot more expensive. And she's like, I don't care, I want a green one. And so that's what she bought. Little did she know what in the world she was getting. This thing moved, right? And it was a Ford Taurus, right? This was a five seater. There was a 6 CD changer in the trunk and they have this little tiny spoiler on the back. I'm not sure why. The wheels were really wide and had dual exhaust and it had a sunroof. And this thing would go 145 miles an hour and could do a quarter mile in under 13 seconds. All right? This thing moved. And I don't, I don't know how I know that exactly, but no, no, I would actually take this to the track and, and legally, legally, I did it legally. And, and I would race this thing and I would. And I would beat Corvettes, right? And I would do the, the bullhorns out of the sunroof when I beat them, right? Taurus, Taurus for the, for the victory. This thing, it's what they call a sleeper car, right? People would judge this thing by its cover. You'd look at it and say it's a family sedan and then it would just smoke them off the line, right? It was the, it was the best. This was back when, like Fast and Furious was really cool. You know, this, this was, that was my era. Not so much. My kids will never do that. I won't buy a car like this either, right? We all have judged a book by its cover at some point. The point that I'm trying to make is that God, God doesn't do that. God doesn't do that with us. He doesn't judge us by what we look like, by our attitudes, by our merit, by anything. He simply knows who we are and still loves us. And so we're going to be looking at the Kingdom of God, part one. We're going to be looking at Mark 4, 1:20. I couldn't fit all of that in your handout, but Katie just read all of this. And so I've entitled this the Kingdom of God. Because we're going to be looking at parables. Then we're going to be here in Mark 4 for a little while and then, and then we're not going to. He's going to stop recording the parables of Jesus until like chapter 12 or something that. So, so in a year and a half, whatever, when we get to chapter 12, we'll bring parables back up but we're going to be doing like a three part mini sermon. And I've titled this what is the Kingdom of God? Rather than, well, let's just look at parables because that's what the parables are for. And so which, let me unpack that a little bit. So we get about 60 parables, different parables from the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels in Matthew, Mark and Luke. John doesn't have any gospels, but in Matthew, Mark and Luke we have about 60 different gospels between the three of them. And so we are going to be looking at this. Before I unpack that, let me just share a story that hopefully will help illustrate picture here. This is an etching, whatever you call it, from Rembrandt. And so there's. In the late 8th 9th century, the Vikings were starting to invade England. Okay. And while they were invading England, there's this battle that was called the Battle of Stamford Bridge. It's known as the Dan Danilu Daniela. I'm not sure how to say that. Anyways, they're going out and they're getting ready to fight the English and they're getting ready. They're on this battlefield. But the, but the Vikings don't do that. Vikings kind of stay in the tree line. And the stories have been told that these bears, not grizzly bears, I don't think they have grizzly bears. These bears came out of hibernation or came out of the woods and started attacking the, the Vikings and routed them enough so that the English could, could then win. And, and so the bears end up beating the Vikings. Ah, okay. That whole story was fake. Okay, it's not true. None of this is true. This was Chad GPT image of bears attacking Vikings. Rembrandt did not make this. I had to make it smaller because it's obviously horrible when you look at it in detail. And so I was trying to make it a smaller image. But did anyone pick up on that? Like this is all garbage anyway. Okay, it is all garbage. The point of that is I know a lot of you, unfortunately, sorry, are Vikings fans. And so if I just said, hey, today the Vikings have no chance against the bears. Well, you're not going to listen to anything else I'm going to say today, but I don't do that. I start off with a simple story, right? And I've done this before. We've talked about parables and it's always picking on the Vikings. And this is, this is one of them, right? So let's look at now the purpose of parables. Let's look at this. Let's dig into what this is. Let's go back again. He began to teach beside the sea and a very large crowd gathered about him. So he got into a boat and sat in it. On the sea. This was. Sorry. And the whole crowd was beside the sea and on the land. This was a pretty common practice if you think about it. You know, if you've ever been on the water or on shore, you can hear conversations right across the water pretty easily. The acoustics just bounce and reflect off of the water. And it just made kind of a natural amphitheater. You know, if you think of, of if you're on the water and it's going up and it is people all across kind of up on the hillside as that would go out. This was pretty common. They would do. And so that's what he's doing. He's not, he's, he's getting the boat maybe to get away from the crowd. No one's going to just like float in the water and maybe you could. It's the Mediterranean or. No, no, it's sea. A galley. That's why it's called the sea. And. But he does this and so he's, he's teaching and as he's teaching with them, many things in parables. So what in the world is a parable? Parable, literally, and I've talked about this before, but just to. To bring it up, it literally means to throw something alongside parabolas. It's a, it's to throw something along side for, for the purpose of clarification. That's a simple definition. To throw something alongside something else to bring further clarification. And so with Jesus, what is he attempting to illustrate? And as I've already alluded to with the title, it's always about the kingdom of God. That when Jesus says I'm going to share a parable or he began telling a teaching a parable, it's always what is the kingdom of God? Like what is the kingdom of God? What is he trying to communicate? It's always about the kingdom of God. Unless it's explicitly stated by Jesus. It's always about the kingdom of God. So let me just read again. I've got a couple of quotes in here from, from James Edwards. We're getting a little familiar with him. But let me just read this. Parables may reflect daily life, but they are not simple and easily understood. Many of Jesus parables are confounding, knocking hearers off balance. So they must see things in new light. Although Some of Jesus parables can and do have allegorical qualities. The allegory is not a simple equation between an element in the parable and a deeper reality that once decoded, causes the story to lose further significance. What he's trying to say here is don't look for a one to one on everything. Don't, don't read a parable and go, oh, this is this, and this is this, and this reminds me of this. And, and I think this is like that kind of people group. And, and we were looking at the seeds and it's like oh the, oh the, the thorny ground. That's them liberals, right? Or that's the, that's the maga hat where. That's not what he's talking about. Don't allegorize it. Don't do that. That's not the point of the text. The text is always about the kingdom of God. And it's actually quite simple. If we don't over allegorize it, we got to be very careful because it's easy to do that. He goes on to say an allegory can be understood from the outside, but parables can be understood only from within by allowing oneself to be taken 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. We have a beautiful example. The sun's coming in right now, this stained glass window. From this side it's reflecting. You can probably see some of the colors on the back wall. But when you go outside and look at it, you can't even, you can't even tell it's a stained glass window. It looks just like a gray sheet of something. It just doesn't look beautiful from the outside. You got to be on the inside to appreciate it. And that's exactly what James Edwards here is saying that there are insiders and outsiders and the only way to fully appreciate its brilliance and beauty is if you're on the inside, is if you know who Jesus is. And so this isn't a parable, isn't just simply a way to make a complex issue easy to understand. Okay, so think of allegory in the sense of. Or to make something difficult to. Or something difficult, easy to understand. Think of maybe the Chronicles of Narnia, right, Which I bring up way too often. But in that CS Lewis, right, You've got a one for one. You have Jesus and you have Aslan, you have the cross and you've got the stone table, right? There's a lot of allegories that are one for one. Or even more so would be Pilgrim's Progress, that it's very explicit in what's going on there. Whereas you can look at a story like maybe the Lord of the Rings. You can't. One for oneness, right? You can't go, oh, well, Frodo is Jesus. No, it just doesn't work that way. You can't do that. Then there might be a Jesus type figures or aspects of somebody, but that's not what's happening here. We got to be very careful with that. It actually parables confused those. It actually made them frustrated. It confused those who didn't have ears to hear. It was a riddle that confounded those who didn't really want to listen to Jesus. I love a good riddle. I love a good rule. I think actually what I like about riddles is hearing the answer right. I'm not really good at solving riddles, but I really like listening to them and I like hearing the answer. And so if it was up to me to solve a riddle of a parable, I'm in trouble because I'm not really that good at it. I need Jesus. And so this isn't though. And the gospel is not about intelligence. It's not about intelligence. We see little children seeing the beauty of who Jesus is, just like they could turn and look at a stained glass window and appreciate its beauty. It's not about intelligence. So purpose the parables and then let's look at the parable itself. He says, listen. Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed some feeds, some. Some seed fell along the path. The birds came and devoured it. The other seeds fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched. And since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding 30 fold and 60 fold and a hundredfold. That's the parable. That's what Jesus tells everyone. Well, what does it mean? What's. What is it? This is the kingdom of God. Well, in what way? Well, we've already, in the first three chapters, we've seen Jesus illustrate this over and over and over, that Jesus is the good news. Jesus is the seed that he is going to share the good news. The gospel with anyone who has ears to hear. And there are going to be some. Most people who are going to reject who Jesus is, and there are some who are going to believe. There is a surprising approach in this way of sharing the gospel, in that there seems to be a lack of strategy. There's not, there's not some master plan here of like, well, who's going to hear it and who's not. And these people seem a little bit more receptive than these people. And so no, no, it's just I'm going to share the good news. I'm going to share Jesus specifically, as we've been looking at Mark. I'm going to tell people who I am. I am the gospel. I am the good news. I'm going to share that with everyone. And he does. He shares the good news with everyone who has ears. And who does have ears, as we've seen already, is a demoniac, a tax collector, sinners, fishermen, zealots. There's no religious leaders up to this point. Why? Because they're dumb. They just don't. They just don't get the parables. No, as we all know, religious leaders are by far the most intelligent of us all. That's a joke. That was a joke. It's not true. It's not because of intelligence. They just don't have ears to hear. And then he says very clearly here in verse nine, he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Do you. Do you have ears to hear? Do you know Jesus, I love that he, in this moment, He. He turns what we've been looking and reading about with the Pharisees, of whose who's clean and who, who's on the in crowd? Who's the insider? He and, and who's on the outside? He flips it completely on its head here. I mean completely in that culture of who was clean and unclean and flips it. Who was in according to the religious leaders, Right? It was the morally upright. It was the religious, the faithful, the. The pure, ritualistically pure and, and, and, and internally pure. That's what they thought. Who was out, who was the unclean, the gentiles, the sinners, who is in with Jesus, all who hear his voice. He doesn't discriminate. He simply says, here's who I am, believe in me and I will give rest for your soul. Jesus says, I don't care who you are, believe in me. So let's keep going. We see here the private purpose. So I finished my outline and I realized that all of Them were almost all P's. And so I was like, oh, I'm going to go back and force the P thing to work. I'd never do this. But I just thought, why not? And it was the secret purpose. And so I could not think of a synonym for private. So I asked Gemini, I've got a Google phone. And I was like, hey, Gemini. Oh, don't. Okay. I said, don't do that. I said, I need a synonym for the word secret that starts with the letter P. And you know how AI is right now. And it's like, oh, that's a great question. Thank you for asking that. What a thought. What a thought provoking question. And it was like, okay, so you need a synonym for the word secret that starts with the word P. The word you're looking for is clandestine. No, no, that's not, that's actually incorrect. I will check back in with you in a year when you have upgraded your software. And then private popped in my head. Okay, it doesn't matter. Here we go. Here's the point. And when he was alone, those around him with the 12 again, there's that. That the word the 12 again. If you were here that week when we, when we preached on that, that should invoke. This is, this is a big thing that Jesus is doing with the 12 as they were known. And he asked them about the parables and he said to them to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. Here's the parable. There's something in here. What is the thing in here? It's about the parable about is about the kingdom of God. And this is the big aha moment, right? For the parable, the disciples as they're. They're following, is that everything that he just talked about about the soil and the seed, what's it about? It's about the kingdom of God. This is what it's like. It's about me sharing who I am with everybody. But only some will actually hear what I'm trying to say. It's about me. I am the gospel. I am the sower, the harvest that we read about in verse eight, the some 30 fold, 50 fold, 80 fold, or whatever it is hundredfold. That, that growth isn't reliant upon human beings. It's not reliant upon human activity, but on God's providential power. God is at work in Jesus and through Jesus and his gospel to produce a yield that has nothing to do with. With who, right? The prospects. Are they sinner? Are they known for Their sin, Are they a tax collector? Are they a trader? Are they? Has nothing to do with that or what they've done their merit. It's got nothing to do with that. And so he further clarifies this point to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside, everything is in parables. So that they may indeed see but not perceive, they may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. There's a, an illusion here, a quote of Isaiah 69 through 10. One commentary that I read said parables make better doors than windows. Meaning based on these verses, and especially what Jesus quotes here, is that windows that the parables are not windows that people can see through as an outsider see through and go, oh, that's what it, that's what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It's a door. It's a door that actually blocks some people because they hear it and they go, you're a fool, Jesus. You are, you are fool. You. You think that you're a big deal. You think that you are the savior of the world. Yeah, man, no, I'm out. And so the parable becomes this door, if you will, rather than a window. And so some of you might read these verses that's quoted here. They indeed see but not perceive. They may indeed hear but understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. There is clearly in what Jesus is trying to teach here a high view of the sovereignty of God and his power and authority and control. And yet we also see human beings and their dependence on Jesus of being able to hear. Why would Jesus even share the parable if there wasn't a human response that he was eliciting, that we need to depend on God and we need to hear completely what Jesus is saying. Have I, have I shared this picture with you yet? This is, this is my professor, John Dixon. And pray for me. I've got a test tomorrow and I am nervous, so I take it tomorrow morning at 10 o'. Clock. So prayers would be appreciated. But as my professor, this was the first day. And he starts off, the point of this is he walks out and he's got this table that all week I thought was just gonna snap with all the weight of these books, but it was leaning, but it never did. And he had all these books, about 90 to 100 books, big books, not little books, big ones. And he put his hands just like that over that and he said, beside my book and N.T. wright's book, every single one of these authors, not one of them is a Christian, not one of them. And yet I can look all of us right here and say that every single one of the authors of those books knows more about Jesus than any of us or all of us combined even. They're brilliant. They know the teachings of Jesus. They know and they believe that Jesus walked the face of the earth, but they don't think that he died for our sins. They believe in him. They know his parables. They know what he taught. They know that he started a movement that changed the world. But they don't see Jesus. They don't hear Jesus. That's the whole point of my class, was how do we bridge the gap, right? How do we get people who can learn about Jesus but then really hear Jesus? And kind of the big application is that only close fellowship with Jesus allows understanding of who he is, an understanding of parables, not careful study. It's not careful study. People have studied this and they miss it. They completely miss the point of dependence on Jesus because I am a sinner in need of a savior. You miss it. And why do I get it? Again, not because of intelligence. It's got nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the sower. Sowing seed has everything to do with him. And actually, Jesus illustrates this in John chapter 12. And Jesus answered them. They say, we want to see Jesus. And he says, the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain. He's kind of quoting his own parables. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. He's saying, I am the word, I am the seed, and I will be planted. I will die. Believe in me, hear me, follow me. So what's the point of the parable? And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? Okay, so this is the first parable that Mark's going to get to. And he's saying, this is it. Jesus is saying, this hinges. Everything hinges on this. Do you understand this? Because if you don't, you're not going to get anything. If you fail to hear this one, you're not going to get any of them. So what is he going to say? He says, the sower sows the word. It's pretty explicit that Jesus is the word. Jesus himself is the seed that's being sown, that God is the sower and he is the seed. He's the gospel. That's Going out into the world. But then he's going to shift, the language is going to kind of shift here. And this is why we can't over allegorize parables. Because Jesus does something that you shouldn't do in the sense of an allegory because he changes what the subject is. He says, and these are the ones now it's a discipleship along the path where the Word is sown. There's a different emphasis that's being added. So this is, and these are the ones where the path where the Word is sown. When they hear, and I highlighted the word hear, I wanted to add the emphasis of how many times Jesus is going to say here Satan immediately comes and takes the word that is sown to them. And these are the ones sown on the rocky ground. The ones who when they hear the Word immediately receive it with joy. Again, don't over allegorize this. Just listen to Jesus and say, this is what the kingdom of God is like. And they have no root in themselves but endure for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, immediately they fall away. This, and this is fascinating because during this time period and very shortly after the time of Christ, this is exactly what happened. There was a whole council before even councils were a thing in the early church of looking at somebody who. And we have documentations that when the Roman government after Christ, they said, hey, are you worshiping? Do you worship Jesus or do you worship Caesar? Oh no, no, I worship Caesar. I don't worship Jesus, I'm not a Christian. Oh, and they would, they would make them perform a public sacrifice to prove that they weren't followers of Christ. And if they did that, they would get a certificate like I am a card carrying non member of the Christian community. And so he's saying, but then there was a thing because there were people who said, well, I don't want to die and I don't want my family to die. So yeah, I'm going to kill a pig so that I don't have to have my watch my family die. And then after that, then they went to the church and said, I was wrong, I repent. So you're saying what's going on here? Right? So there's this whole thing, it's really interesting. And others are the ones sown among the thorns. And those who hear the Word with the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and desires of the things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfaithful. But Those that were sown in the good soil are the ones who hear the Word and accept it and bear fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and hundredfold. A response to the hearing of who Jesus is, is what produces the harvest. So let's. Just like this. Are you pasture or pumice? This is a stretch, right? We might be thinking, if we're in here, which I know I can, to think why I believe the gospel. I believe in Jesus. I believe that he died for my sins. I believe that he rose from the dead. I believe that. So I'm. I'm good soil. I mean, I'm really glad I'm good soil. I'm really glad that I. I heard and I listened to Jesus. Well, before we maybe start thinking about that, let's. Let's look at this. What are three steps to ensure that you really are good soil? Step one. Wrong. Yeah, you know me well enough. No, that's not. That's not the point. That's not the point of the parable. The point of the parable is complete and utter dependence on Jesus. This is God at work, not you. It's not about you. It's about complete dependence on God. What's wild is on Monday morning, when I was studying this passage, I got to kind of the end, and I was like, okay, I'm thinking about this. Okay. It's about utter dependence on God. And it's like, okay, well, okay, what can I do to become more dependent on God? And I'm thinking, how do I communicate to my people and my. My flock and myself? How do I. What. What are some steps that I can take to become more dependent on God? And it's like, wait a second. That doesn't make any sense. Hey, God, look at me. I'm now ready. I'm good soil. I'm now. I made myself ready for you. Soil doesn't work that way, right? If you have a yard, right? Yard's the worst. I don't get it. I don't like grass. I'm okay with dirt. I don't care. Right? Some people really care about grass, right? And there's spots and lawns that just don't grow grass. And if I just go, well, maybe next year it'll start growing. The soil doesn't change itself. God has to be the one who's going to toil and work in the soil so that it will become good soil. I can't make myself good. I can only have complete and utter dependence on who God is. God is the one sowing. So the question Is how do we respond? Because he's doing it right now. The gospel of Jesus Christ is happening now. And still some of us, no doubt, are looking for ways to improve. Improve my side, I just want to be a better person, depend on him. And again, the answer isn't, well, I guess we just need to listen better. I need to listen to God. No, the answer is Jesus died for your sins. That's the kingdom of God. Pray for him, the one who is sowing and toiling, that he would soil, he would toil. Don't soil your soul. Toil the soil in your soul. Okay, here we go. Last, last quote here. Parables cannot be understood apart from the one who tells them. Parables are not simply good advice. They are good news. For the life of Jesus is itself a parable, indeed, the greatest parable. If Jesus is the gospel and he's saying, this is what the kingdom of God is like, it's like me. He is the parable. And so what do we do with Jesus? Do we hear? Do we listen? Do we bend the knee to King Jesus, or do we put up walls? Practically speaking, if there were maybe some other takeaways when it comes to this parable, obviously utter dependence on God, that is the thing. And yet there are aspects of being a fully devoted follower of Jesus where we need to share the good news that we also are the ambassad of Jesus Christ to tell others about who he is. We are told to call. We are called to sow, to share the good news about Jesus. But who do we share the good news with? With the good soil. What does good soil look like? And I don't mean dirt. I mean, what is a. The good soil of a soul look like? Can I. Can I observe it with my eyes? Can I judge it by its cover? Obviously not. What does it look like? It's whoever has ears to hear. Well, how do I know his ears to hear? You sow the word of God, you teach Jesus indiscriminately. Jesus shares who he is and his gospel with everybody, and we need to do the same. Don't judge a book by its cover because we think we might know them. When we think we would see something about them and we might go, oh, they're that kind of person. They would never accept Jesus Christ as their savior. And we have little do we know that they have a V8 under the hood. No idea. One last illustration. Years ago, this was, I don't know, 14, 15 years ago, I worked at a coffee shop at Caribou Coffee Off Arden Hills, up in Arden, off of Lexington by the Cub up there. If you're ever up there, it's terrible. Now they added a drive through. Don't ever do it. Don't go in there. It takes 20 minutes to get a cup of coffee. It was way better when I worked there, for obvious reasons. No, I had a really good manager. We. When you. When you work at. Is anyone ever worked at Caribou or a coffee shop? Yeah. There's like any job, I guess, when you're in sales is you try to upsell, right. You're trying to get people to buy more things. And so we would have a friendly competition, which I would take as you know, I would. I was pretty competitive of. And I think it's every October they sell Amy's blend. It's raise breast cancer awareness and a fundraiser for breast cancer. And it's called Amy's blend. And it's these little Peabody something light roast, yada, yada yada. And we were always supposed to push it. It didn't matter who it was who came in the door. You're always supposed to say, hey, would you like to buy a pound of Amy's blend to support our fundraiser for breast cancer awareness or whatever. I didn't like doing that. I was a good salesman. I knew. I knew who was going to buy it and who wasn't going to buy it based on the way they looked. Right. I just kind of. I just figured it out and I was pretty good at it. But my manager didn't like the fact that I didn't ask everybody. And I remember Mike, he was. He was doing the. Making the drinks, and I was just doing the coffee and taking orders. And he and I. And he. And he observed a couple times, brian, you got to ask everybody now. I'm not asking everybody. Brian, the next person that walks to the door, you're going to ask them, all right? And wouldn't you know, comes in just some jacked dude, you know what I mean? Just ripped tats, sleeves all the way up. He's rocking the V neck. There's only a few men that can rock a V neck. And he was doing it. He just was like, this is a man, right? And I was like, I'm not asking him. I'm not doing it. But I did because my manager was watching me. And what did I say? I was like, you want to buy any coffee beans? And he was like, yeah, I'll take four pounds. Okay, that'll be $2,000. What are we talking about? Listen this is what it's not about a pitch. Maybe with selling coffee, maybe it can be. But there are some people who are good soil, and you just don't know. And there are some people that just need to hear Jesus. Do you know who Jesus is? And they might go, yeah, and they might say, I don't want anything to do with it. And you might give the most beautiful explanation. And let's study and let's read these historical books and this account. And they go, I don't want that. And there are some people that they are just fertile soil to the word of God, and we need to be willing to share the good news with everybody. So in gospel application, here, are you right now dependent on the sower? This is hard to do. It's very hard to do. It's easy to want to try to control my situation. I want to control this. I want to. I want to make that person fertile. So you can't do that. And we're going to see that over and over again next couple of weeks as we look at the Kingdom of God, part two and part three, that this is all of God and God in his doing. So are you right now dependent on the sower? Let's take some time to reflect on that. The worship team's gonna come up, they're gonna sing two songs, and we're gonna have a time of communion. We're gonna drink the juice that represents the blood of Christ that was shed for us to forgive us of our sins. I do nothing to earn his forgiveness of my sins. Through his blood, we eat the cracker that represents his body that's broken for us. And we do it in remembrance of what he did, his finished work on the cross. And so as we take these elements, we get to reflect and we get to remember, wow, God, my salvation is in complete and utter dependence on you. I am a nobody. And yet you said, I want you, and I chose you, and I died for you. I forgive you, I love you. You are mine. I add nothing to that equation. And we get to remember that in these elements, you don't need to be a follower. You need to be a follower of Jesus Christ to have these. Take these elements. So if you're just checking out Christianity, I'd encourage you not to take these elements, but you don't need to be a member of this church or any church. But if you say, yeah, Jesus is king. I depend on Him. I know I bring nothing to the table of salvation. It's all Him. I have utter dependence on Him. We'd love for you to take these elements with us and Worship team will sing two songs and then I'll come back up and close. Father, thank you just for these parables that we're going to see today and over the next couple weeks to look at this is what the kingdom of God is like. That the kingdom of God is Jesus Christ, who gives himself freely to all who have ears to hear. Would you give us ears to hear? Would you give us ears to hear? There's no, there's no, there's no steps, no three step, there's no ten step program that we can do here in this space to make us more receptive to who you are. You have to do it. So God, would you do that? We're asking you to do that. And we know that you are in the business of saving people. You are in the business of making us whole and making us renewed in who you are. That's why Jesus came. That's why he died. That's why he rose again. So would you do that again anew and a fresh. Even those of us who have been followers of you for many years that we would just taste and see that you're good and reflect on you and have utter dependence on who you are over us. We love you and it's the name of Jesus. We pray. Amen.