Kingdom Growth (Mark 4:21-34)
Kingdom Growth
Mark 4:21-34
Introduction
· So far, I have strongly emphasized Mark’s presentation of Jesus as an enigma.
· Mark presents Jesus clearly. He is Messiah, Son of God and, as we have seen, the very presence of Yahweh himself in human flesh.
· Yet, this does not mean that his people recognize him. Even today, the clear revelation of Jesus often meets a stiff resistance.
· I have hit this point quite strongly so far, and for good reason: it is a message for today.
· The world sees Jesus. But it isn’t an accurate perception of Jesus.
· What do I mean by “world”? The realm where the “desires of the eyes, the desires of the flesh, and the pride of life” reign. Those in which the Spirit of God does not dwell. To them…
o Jesus is merely kind, gentle, meek, and affirming.
o He teaches a morality that only makes our lives better.
o He provides an example of “love”—which the world defines as unconditional affirmation.
o In other words, to the world, Jesus is not valuable. He is useful.
· But the love the world has for Jesus is a damning love.
o The Jesus sinners naturally see in Scripture is very much the same image we see in the water at the bottom of a well—a blurry reflection of ourselves.
o Sin twists us back on ourselves, making everything (including Jesus) about us.
· Because there is no understanding of Jesus, there is also no understanding of the Bible.
o Jesus is the point of the Bible. If you don’t receive him, how will you receive his word?
o This is the state of the Jews in the story, and it is the state of the whole world today: hearing, they do not hear. Seeing they do not see.
· We have to remember, Parables are not just stories, nor powerful illustrations, nor do they require whimsical interpretations. Rather, parables are a veil, a smog, a smoke screen, an impediment to understanding. Parables cast shadows over the eyes of the unbelieving.
· Jesus judges Israel because they have stubbornly rejected him. They have self-induced their blindness
o Romans 1.
· Yet, for those who trust Jesus, who gather around him (4:10), parables are a revelation, an unveiling, a cloudless sky of understanding.
· While we emphasized the negative aspect last week (not everyone hears), we emphasize the positive aspect this morning (Jesus reveals these things to us).
· The parable of the soils taught us that not everyone hears the word unto fruitfulness.
o Some hear dismissively,
o some hear emotionally and therefore shallowly and temporarily,
o some hear fruitlessly and therefore not savingly,
o and some hear with varying degrees of fruitfulness.
· Our ears betray our hearts. Every hearing of the word is conditions our hearts to respond to his word in a particular way.
· The apostles may, then, be tempted to hopelessness. What guarantee did they have that their kingdom work would succeed? That people would hear?
· Remember the context: the 12 were being trained by Jesus to be sent into Israel and to extend Jesus’ ministry. Yet the people they were to preach to didn’t change.
· It would have been tempting for them to give up hope on the kingdom.
· We have the same temptation.
o We sow thickly enough.
o We faithfully attend church.
o We raise our children to know the Lord to the best of our ability.
o We pray and read our Bibles.
o Yet it never seems to have an effect on the trajectory of the world, nor does it seem to sway the hearts of our loved ones and acquaintances.
· Haven’t you ever felt the sense of sinking hopelessness as you run into the brick wall that is the world’s stubborn refusal of the love and grace of Christ?
· Haven’t you ever felt hopelessness running aground repeatedly upon the shoals of your own rebellion against Jesus?
· What shall we do in the face of the world’s rejection of Jesus? What shall we do in light of our own remaining blindness?
· Jesus is giving us encouragement in these parables to not give up.
· Mark answers these questions by telling four more parables, teach us four truths about his kingdom that will help us be confident and persevere in the face of spiritual blindness.
I. Jesus Does Not Intend to Hide His Word (4:21-23)
· The first encouragement? Jesus intends to be understood.
· Jesus intends for his word to be revealed and understood.
o Initially to his disciples
o After his resurrection, to the world.
o At the end, fulfilled to the world in judgment and final salvation.
· I say Jesus’ “intention” because this is the point of the lamp analogy. Lamps are lit in order to give light. The purpose of the lamp is the light it gives, not the fact that it is lit.
· It cuts against the intention of light-giving to put a lamp where it can’t shine (under a basket, under a bed). Why light the lamp if you don’t put it on the stand?
o I.e., we don’t install light fixtures without light switches.
· This tells us of Jesus intention of revealing himself in these parables. Why would I light this lamp, why would I reveal myself in parables if I didn’t intend to bring everything out into the light?
· Lamps in the OT and NT are symbols of revelation.
o Isaiah 60 speaks of a light dawning on Galilee which is Messiah
o Psalm 78 speaks of giving light to dark sayings in parables
o John 5:35 calls John the Baptist a “lamp”
o 2 Peter 1:19 speaks of Scripture as a “lamp” for us.
· What is the purpose of revelation? To reveal. To make known. To give understanding, light, knowledge, life, faith.
· Jesus expands his point: This is the purpose of hiding anything. Nobody hides anything to keep it hidden forever. You hide things in order to bring them out. (v22)
o E.g., Engagement rings. Retirement savings. Christmas presents. Surprise parties.
· So the purpose of hiding is revealing. Parables for “those outside” hide the truth from those who don’t believe, in order that when the truth is brought out in the end, their ignorance is no excuse for unbelief. And parables for those who are “around Jesus” are given in order that they might give light.
· Jesus intends for us to understand these parables—but he does not intend for us to understand them apart from a saving relationship to him.
o Same principle applies to all of Scripture—Jesus wants us to understand the Bible, and see him in it.
· He underscores it by repeating the exhortation of v23.
· The Bible is understandable. It is clear. The Reformers insisted on this against the Roman Catholics in the 1500-1600s. Scripture is perspicuous. Clear. Understandable. But the Roman Church taught that it is dark and could not be understood without the aid of the church.
· Today, many scholars will tell us—are indeed actively persuading many pastors—that the Scriptures cannot be understood.
· Application: we can have confidence that we will understand the word. Revelation will not pass us by—that’s not why it’s given. Jesus intends for us to understand his word. If you are around Jesus and if you ask him for understanding, he will give it to you.
· Not only that, but if Jesus intends to reveal himself through Scripture, who are we to conceal him from others? We are to let our light shine, no? We do that through evangelism (verbal proclamation of the good news). We also do that through our good deeds (cf. Matt 5:15, let your light shine before men). We must use what we have, put it to use through teaching and through modeling.
· It also shows us that for those who do not trust him, he is surely willing to uncover the meaning of his word, and that the reason they do not understand is because of their own willful blindness.
o Augustine: “I believe in order that I may understand.” The world turns this upside down. Faith unlocks the Bible.
o Illustration about doubting Jonah.
II. Jesus Rewards Faithful Hearing with Understanding (4:24-25)
· The second encouragement? Jesus lavishes understanding on us.
· In other words, faithful hearing always prospers. Jesus calls all people to attend closely to what he says, and promises that if we pay attention, that he will bless us with more.
· Literally, “See what you hear.” Emphasizes the importance of faithful hearing of God’s word.
· What does it mean to “see what you hear?” Not just to show up to church, but to listen attentively.
· What does this mean? 4:20—If we are good soil, we hear and accept and bear fruit. This is what it means to “see what you hear.”
· Jesus explains with the analogy of the measures. This is a common grammatical construction in the NT and it refers to the principle of prosperity.
o Luke 6:37-38: judgment, condemnation, forgiveness, giving. That which we sow comes back to us. If you judge others, you’ll be judged also. If you condemn others, you also will be condemned. If you forgive others, you will be forgiven. If you give, it will be given back that you might give more.
· What is true with judgment, condemnation, forgiveness, and giving is also true of spiritual understanding.
· Illustration: The “measure” you bring to the store is the measure you walk away with. If I bring a 1 pound bag to get coffee, I can only put 1 pound of coffee in there. If I bring a 5 pound bag, I can fit 5.
· To whatever degree you faithfully hearing the word, he will fill you up—and then some (“and still more will be added to you.”).
· God so generously lavishes understanding on us that we cannot contain it in our peck-measure hearts.
· Yet this is not automatic. How does he do this?
o God graciously opens our eyes to understand part of his truth
o We “see what we hear” by receiving it and doing it
o God blesses our obedience with deeper insights into his truth
o We put those deeper insights into practice.
o Hebrews 5:13-14, “Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
o Perhaps we spin our wheels in godliness because we haven’t yet “seen what we hear”—receive and do what we already know.
o How does a musician become great? Training.
o Children are “unskilled.” They’re not good at things. To be a child in the word is to not be good at applying that which we know. We need to grow up by being trained. How are we trained? Constant practice. In doing what? Distinguishing between good and evil (“That was a bad thing, I need to repent. That was a good thing I need to do more of that.”)
· The more diligently you hear, the more fruit you will bear, the more blessed you will be.
· This is not a mechanical, input=output machine where you “sow a seed” of money and reap a harvest, where you do Bible study and magically begin to obey. Rather, it is the heart work of repentance and faith.
o One of the mistakes we make is that simply reading the Bible is enough to make us bear fruit. It is where we must start, but we then must “see what we hear” and proceed to actually do it.
· And if we don’t? “The one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
o If I show up to get a pound of coffee and don’t have any bag, the barista can measure out a pound, but I have no way to keep it.
o Eventually, Jesus stopped preaching to the Jews, and their ears were eternally deafened by death.
· Use it, or lose it.
· Application: See that you hear! Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and get to work. Don’t compare yourself to the holiness or achievements or usefulness of others, but work on expanding your bag—get a bigger measure by putting what you have to use. Use it, lest you lose it.
III. Jesus’ Kingdom Does Not Come by Human Effort (4:26-29)
· The third encouragement? It doesn’t depend on you!
· We are so prone to think that we can, by our own effort, speed up God’s timetable.
o We know the promises, but when the old paths do not seem to yield fruit right away, we begin to question God’s methods.
· It’s easy to get discouraged when things don’t move faster than we think they should. The church stagnates. Holiness wanes. We’re persecuted and suppressed. Error and heresy dominate. Friends abandon the faith. Will the kingdom ever be established?
· In our craving to hurry God’s faithfulness, dissatisfaction waxes in regard to the old paths of humble, homely patience.
o What have we done, then, but confuse our ambition for God’s promise? To confuse human institutions with the kingdom of God? To confuse persevering faith with frenzied, stressed, and human activity?
· We aren’t content with simple seed-sowing, torch-bearing, lamp-lightning, measure-using Christianity.
· Under the guise of entrepreneurial initiative in the cause of the kingdom, we become peddlers of God’s word—people who really don’t believe in the power and value of what they’re selling.
· This is why many abandon the church in search of other things. Why we leave off Bible reading and prayer and church attendance for more flashy, neon-lit paths of obedience. Why certain men hijack churches for political purposes, as though policy could implement the kingdom of God.
· Yet, can you rush the sequoia into becoming strong and tall? Can you make a crop grow in one night? No!
· So, Jesus’ answer to our restlessness is this: sleep. Be faithful today, then sleep deeply.
· Think of the farmer. He doesn’t know how seed grows, but he knows that it grows. And he understands that he doesn’t speed up the process, or guarantee the outcome by running around his fields screaming at the corn, or repetitively changing the color of his fences.
· So, he plants his corn, then sleeps. Then night and day, he rises and sleeps. And day after day after day he does the same thing. Rise, sleep. Night, day.
· All the while, the farmer does not make the crop grow by doing this. Rather, he waits for the earth to yield to crop “by itself” (v28). Of its own accord, not involving the farmer at all.
· Then, when the crop is in, he puts in his sickle and brings in the harvest. Not a moment sooner, not a moment later. The crop is ready when its ready, and when it’s ready, it comes in or the farmer loses the crop.
· This refers, Jesus says, to the “kingdom of God.” What is that?
o Historically, the kingdom of God was anticipated as a worldwide rule of God on earth through the nation of Israel.
o That has be accomplished in Christ’s work, but has yet to be realized physically on earth.
o Yet it has been partially realized by the establishing of God’s kingdom spiritually in us. Thus, the kingdom of God is a matter of “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17).
· Did you know that the kingdom of God will be perfectly successful without you? Whether personally or in the future, it doesn’t depend on you. Or us. Or anyone but God.
o We cannot rush his timetable.
· Yet this does not imply that we simply laze around, doing nothing in a passive, quietist way of living.
· Rather, it is what we might call a “relaxed urgency,” an unhurried yet serious work, a trusting and active waiting on the Lord, a persevering patience as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.
IV. Jesus’ Kingdom Has Small Beginnings but Big Endings (4:30-32)
· What is the fourth and last encouragement? It’s worth the investment.
· The kingdom of God starts small.
· Something with small beginnings can have very big endings.
o Every fortune 500 company began as an idea.
o The sequoia starts as a seed.
o Every church starts as a small group.
o The kingdom of God is the same way.
· So, Jesus points to the mustard seed. The smallest of the cultivated seeds grew big enough to provide shade for living things.
· We must not judge what the kingdom of God will become by the measure of what it is right now.
o Acts: Jesus and 12 others—one of which was an apostate—turned into 120 in the upper room, 500 at the ascension, 3000 on Pentecost, 5000 more later, and before the end of the first century, there were Christian communities is nearly every major city in the west. Today it has expanded to be a worldwide religion.
o Even now, the kingdom is a small deal compared to what it will be in the future.
· Jesus refers to the eschatological kingdom—the kingdom at the end of days.
· The tree that grows in order that birds can nest in its shade is actually a theme in the OT.
o Ezekiel 31:3-10
o Daniel 4:10-14
o In both these cases, the “tree” is a human kingdom that is eventually chopped down. All human kingdoms will come to an end.
o But the kingdom of God will be an eternal kingdom.
§ Ezk 17
§ Here – the mustard plant is never chopped down.
o Just as the “birds”/nations found blessing and protection under those other earthly kingdoms, so also will all nations find blessing and protection in the kingdom of God.
o Isaiah 2:2-4
· Application: do not be discouraged by the small beginnings of the church. Not only do we have 2000 years of faithfulness under our belts by this point, but we also have this lesson. The mustard seed does grow.
o But we’re Americans. We shop at Costco. We invest in the S&P500. We like it bigger, better, more innovative. All those things are great. But they condition us to think that something is real and good and true only if it is big and impressive and obviously prosperous.
o The kingdom of God is not like that. We must be content with the small, the ignominious, the irrelevant, because that growth will be nurtured into the greatest kingdom in history.
· Application: we are a little microcosm of that kingdom. And we’re a small bunch. A mustard seed. While this parable does not promise us that we will grow into this big church, or that we will last forever, it does teach us not to despise the day of small beginnings. What seems small and fragile now will one day be stable and strong, permanent and eternal. We have no need to fret about the church, no need to fret about the kingdom.
Conclusion
V33-34 – Jesus spoke many more parables, but only as they were able to hear it. He spoke often and clearly, yet the people did not understand him. But to the disciples, he explained everything.
So, are you listening? Do you hear? Is he explaining himself to your heart? Listen carefully. Pay attention. Look closely. Don’t miss it. And be encouraged.
Jesus does not intend to hide his word from us.
Jesus will reward our faithful hearing with greater understanding and fruit.
Jesus’ kingdom will not come about if we simply try harder—so we should sleep.
Jesus’ kingdom will be the grandest and most glorious in history—so we should invest in it.