The Gospel of Mark Part 18
The Gospel of Mark • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Some initial thoughts:
These next two parables expand on the teaching that we have already read about from Jesus.
We have studied the parable of the sower, seed, and soils extensively (4 weeks on that parable alone), and now Jesus takes us to yet another level.
These parables place the truths He has already taught us under the microscope.
Remember, Jesus has been teaching about the “Kingdom of God” - He told those around Him that they were to be given the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.
Continuing in the agricultural theme, these parables specifically examine both the Power of the Kingdom and the Prosperity of the Kingdom.
I. The Power of the Kingdom
I. The Power of the Kingdom
26 And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, 27 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. 28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
As a note of interest, this parable is exclusive to Mark’s gospel.
Notice that we have a sower and we have seed and we have soil…but this is not a retelling of the parable of the sower, seeds, and soils, so we must resist reading that parable into this one.
This parable is less about the identity of the sower or even the seed or the soil…it is more about the POWER that causes the seed to grow.
In fact, the sower, seed, and soil all form a backdrop to the story…they are all supporting characters…they form a framework upon which the parable is built…they are the supporting cast to the star of the show, who is none other than God Himself, who is putting His power on display.
This parable is about the power by which the kingdom of God is growing.
There are things happening on a spiritual level, a spiritual plane…that we can neither see nor fully understand.
Just like a seed is planted and left there in the soil to go through the process of germination, so the growth of the kingdom of God cannot be realized or halted by human power.
It is God at work to establish His kingdom, in spite of (not because of) what mankind chooses to do.
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Just like the farmer in the parable that could not fully explain all the minute details of a seed’s transformation into a plant, so we are unable to explain God’s all of God’s ways…His power…His heavenly plans…They are for Him alone to oversee and administrate.
Ephesians 3:20 (NKJV)
20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
Just like seed is hidden in the soil, out of our line of sight, beneath the surface…so God is doing things behind the scenes, out of our sight or even our ability to comprehend even if we could see!
God alone reserves the right to His kingdom plans:
Acts 1:6–7 (NKJV)
6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.
Not our authority…not our power…but it is all HIS power and authority.
Let’s look again at our text:
Mark 4:27 (NKJV)
27 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.
Notice that the sower here is only in the background. His contribution to the appearance of the kingdom of God is minimal.
He’s just chasing the sun! - When it goes down, he sleeps…when it comes up, he rises…night after night, day after day, months, years, decades, and the millennia of human history…all stretch out over time as we fill our time with all the things that come with time, even good things that God has given us to do, but it is not our power that makes the kingdom come about - it is happening without our intervention, power, or even our knowledge beyond what He has given us in His word.
The Pharisees once asked Christ about the coming of the kingdom. This was His reply:
20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
God’s kingdom begins as an internal, spiritual kingdom that will one day be an external, physical one.
The Pharisees thought that because they could not see the Kingdom, it must not be here, but Jesus corrects their thinking to point out that the Kingdom has always existed, just not visibly.
Mark 4:28 (NKJV)
28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.
The phrase “by itself” is one word, “ah-TOW-mah-toss”, meaning spontaneous…of his own accord.
This is also the word used to describe the gate that opened for Peter when the angel freed him from prison in Acts 12:10.
The farmer does not go out and wrap his hands around the seed, and somehow bring his own power to bear so that it grows better.
He cannot force the seed to grow a certain amount of yield, or to grow faster so that he gets more growing seasons out of his fields…he must simply WAIT.
The seed, in essence, grows ITSELF…it is a spontaneous, automatic process inherent in seeds…they grow into plants.
When a seed is sown in a field, it sets in motion forces that will inevitably result in a harvest.
And it is the ENTIRE growing process that happens this way:
Mark 4:28 (NKJV)
28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.
At no point in this process does the farmer intervene.
It’s not like the seed does its spontaneous working only while it is under the surface of the soil…the growth from seed to grain is all determined by the life in the seed.
God’s kingdom only grows and reaches fruition by the power of God.
The Kingdom of God is a SUPERNATURAL kingdom!
29 But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
The farmer now comes out of the background again at harvest time.
He has scattered seed, but could not provide any of the power or energy necessary for growth or fruition.
He simply takes part in the harvest.
Again, we are not really given the identity of the sower in this parable, and rightly so, for that is not the purpose of this teaching.
Jesus’ main point is HOW the kingdom grows, so the identity of the individual players is of little consequence.
The point that Jesus is emphasizing is the POWER of the Kingdom of God, not all the details of the individuals in the story, se we need to take it for what Jesus intended and leave it at that.
But, can we draw some APPLICATION for ourselves here in the 21st century church-age time?…YES!
We can see ourselves as the sower and the reaper:
35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!
The apostle Paul also used this kind of figurative language:
READ <1 Corinthians 3:1-9>
The church at Corinth had become divided.
They had forgotten that the power of the church, just like the power of the kingdom of God, come from God, and not from man.
Notice their obsession with specific teachers within the church, including Jesus Himself.
This was not only a statement of division, but one of exclusivity.
They were saying, “I will only follow the teachings of this one apostle to the exclusion of all others!
That would be like us saying, “Only read from the Pauline corpus of the New Testament”…or, “Only study the writings of John, but never read Peter or any of the Gospel accounts.”
It is an unbalanced approach to Scripture, elevating one particular portion, not just above others, but to the exclusion of all else.
These Christians had forgotten that the power of Scripture does not lie in the particular human writer, but in the Author and Finisher of our faith…the power of Scripture lies in the power of God.
<READ 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 again>
So, even in the church age context, it is God that gives the increase, not humans.
Let’s conclude with these words from Paul (and from the Holy Spirit):
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
II. The Prosperity of the Kingdom
II. The Prosperity of the Kingdom
30 Then He said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? 31 It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; 32 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.”
Once again, we are presented with an agricultural parable, one that Jesus’ listeners would have been very familiar with…a mustard seed.
In the first parable, we saw the POWER of the kingdom of God, in other words, “How does the Kingdom of God grow?”... but now we see the PROSPERITY…the amount of growth of the kingdom of God…in other words, “Into WHAT does the Kingdom of God grow?”.
In essence, in the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus is teaching a lesson of CONTRAST.
How that something can start out so tiny, yet end up a massive force, towering over all else.
The specific seed mentioned here was probably the “black mustard” seed, which was extremely small…about 1mm in size, but could grow up to heights of 8-10 feet tall.
Mark 4:31 (NKJV)
31 It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth;
Some have argued that Jesus spoke in error here, as there are other seeds that exist which are smaller than the 1mm mustard seed.
But Jesus was using a common expression of that day, used to express something that was very small in comparison to something large. (we do the same thing today: “Scarce as hen’s teeth.”
Also, it was likely the smallest seed that the common people in His audience would have been familiar with at that time…He was not addressing a gathering of botanists…He was teaching a crowd of first century people with first century agricultural knowledge.
Once again we have a sower, seed, and soil…but the emphasis is once again different!
Jesus is emphasizing the tiny, humble beginnings of the Kingdom of God.
And notice what that tiny, 1mm seed becomes:
Mark 4:32 (NKJV)
32 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.”
We won’t spend much time on the meaning of “the birds of the air”…in the parable of the sower, seed, and soil, the birds of the air represented Satan, but to do so here would take away from the main point of the message.
Remember, the main point here is the GROWTH…the PROSPERITY of the Kingdom of God…it starts as something so small, something that a bird could easily eat, and it transforms into something so large that a bird can roost in the branches!…What a contrast!…What a transformation!
God specializes in taking small, insignificant, and unlikely things (and people) and doing a supernatural work in their lives to create something amazing and miraculous to occur.
The question that is asked is, “How can something so tiny make any difference in this big world?”…that is a question that God loves to answer!
Take the nation of Israel, for example:
Deuteronomy 7:7–8 (NKJV)
7 The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:22 (NKJV)
22 Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.
And the Messiah would also come from obscurity:
Micah 5:2 (NKJV)
2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
And Jesus’ obscure condition lasted fro His entire life on earth, right up to His death on the cross:
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
The Church was also born in obscurity…12 men (including Judas’ replacement, Matthias), turned the ancient world on its head:
Acts 17:6 (NKJV)
6 But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.
All throughout Scripture, we see God using the smallest things to overcome the great:
27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are,
And why does God do this?
29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.
Only God can take a tiny nation like Israel, surrounded by enemies whose stated goal is to erase them from the earth, and continue to survive.
Only God could have come as a helpless baby, born into poverty and obscurity, and grow into a Man that would die for the sins of the world.
Only God could have chosen such a rag-tag group of men, discipled them for only a short three years, and then empowered them to “turn the world upside down.”
Only God could take a former blasphemer and persecutor of Christians and make him the most dynamic missionary to have waled the earth.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.
Conclusion:
The Kingdom’s POWER is from God, not from human agency.
The Kingdoms’ PROSPERITY is from small to great, contrary to human ideals.