Christ's Call for Incremental Revival Part 1
Eric Durso
The Gospel of Mark • Sermon • Submitted
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You want to live fruitful lives, don’t you? You want to experience the joy of leading your neighbor to the Lord. You’ve been praying for your prodigal child, and you dream about the day she calls you, sobbing tears of repentance and asking forgiveness. The day hasn’t come. Perhaps you want to be a part of a church that sees bursting revival. But everything around here is pretty underwhelming.
Which is more common - a person responds to the gospel with genuine repentance, or a person responds with tepid indifference? How many of you have shared the gospel with great hope, only to be rejected? How often have you felt excitement about ministry, only to get frustrated at that seeming lack of interest? Have you ever invested time and energy into a relationship - hoping to do spiritual good - only to be dismissed? Have your expectations been dashed - and your heart discouraged?
Put yourself in the disciples’ sandals. They’ve been hearing Jesus preach about the kingdom. They’ve begun to see his power. The religious leaders reject him - ultimately accusing him of being possessed by Satan. His own family thinks he’s crazy. Massive crowds are hyped up about him, but don’t really know him. And then he tells this parable about sown seed on the soils, and only 1 in 4 represent those who respond rightly to the kingdom message.
In other words, it’s not going quite like the disciples had expected. It’s in this context that Jesus begins to explain the nature of kingdom work and kingdom ministry. Here, Jesus will reframe their expectations about how the kingdom advances.
Read Mark 4:21-34.
I think Jesus gives us the answer here, and I think we can sum up the answer in two words: Incremental Revival. This text reshapes the disciples expectations away from the big, extraordinary, spectacle ministry, to the ordinary, obscure, and seemingly insignificant.
Incremental means we take small, seemingly insignificant steps of obedience. Nothing extravagant, nothing to write home about.
Revival refers to the belief that those small acts lead to glorious results - not immediately, but over time, and most emphatically, toward the end.
Incremental revival: we prayerfully give ourselves to the small, seemingly insignificant acts of faithful witness, and trust, that over time, God uses it for great and glorious purposes.
This is valuable for us. Grace Rancho must not be a flash of excitement in 2020. We want to be plodding faithfully, growing in health, counseling the hurting, equipping disciples, training leaders, sending teams, sending missionaries. And if we are to move that direction, we’ve got to have a biblical understanding of how kingdom work works.
So let’s pretend we’re all Jesus disciples (we are), sitting around wanting to serve his purposes (we are). Some of us desire to be used greatly, but feel so disappointed at our ordinary-ness. Some of us long to be part of a big movement - but then you look around and realize we’re a puff in a windstorm. There’s nothing extraordinary here - we think. What are we going to do? How do we remain encouraged? How do we persevere?
Incremental Revival starts when Christ’s disciples spread the word.
He’s teaching on how people respond to the word of God. That’s what the “seed” has represented. Now, the metaphor has changed - instead of the word being “seed” he’s saying the word is like a lamp. Just as a seed is meant to bear fruit, so a lamp is meant to shine.
You don’t plant the seed just to bury it, you want fruit. You don’t get a lamp just to cover it, you want light. And you don’t hear the word just to listen, you need to apply it. Verse 22 makes that clear: the word that was hidden was meant to be revealed.
Look at verse 23-24 “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear:” The only imperatives are this and verse 3.
But look at the end of 24: “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Here’s what he’s saying: “The amount of value you set on the word will be returned to you in fruitfulness - and some. If you value the word highly, you will get more of it. You’ll get more in your head, more in your head, and it’ll flow out in your life. But if you don’t value it, you lose it. Even what you have will be taken away.”
In other words, this is another call to hear, apply, and spread the gospel message. Be like good soil that produces fruit. Be like a lamb that’s shining brightly. Value the word highly so that it works powerfully in you and through you. Your life is to bear fruit and shine brightly!
The ones who receive the light become light shiners. The soils that receive the seed because seed sowers. Any people who truly hear the word spread the word.
This is what’s communicated in the verse first of the next parable: verse 26 “And he said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.’” The man with the seed represents the typical Christian who has heard the word and is now sharing it.
Christ’s design, even from this early point in his ministry, is that all of those who truly hear his word become those who spread that word.
Mark 8:34-35 “And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and folly me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”
You know what that means? It means there aren’t classes of disciples: We’ve got some who abandon their lives for Christ and his gospel, and some who don’t. Discipleship is all in. And what, precisely, are we all in for? To hear God’s gospel message and spread it.
Consider these texts:
Ephesians 4:15 “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way”
Ephesians 6:4 “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Col 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom”
Romans 15:14 “I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.”
Heb 3:12 “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Heb 10:24 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.”
Let me summarize: every Christian has the great privilege, joy, and responsibility to be involved in the scattering of the seed of God’s Word. God has spoken to us. We hear. And we speak to others about what we have been taught. This is God’s Work.
Here’s what this means: Though every Christian is different, all are called to use the gifts, talents, and abilities God has given them to labor to spread the gospel. As some have said, “A Christian without a missionary heart is an anomaly.”
Jesus challenges our 21st century paradigm here. How often have we fallen into these errors? The way I serve Jesus is by showing up at this (program/event/ministry). Or “The way I serve Jesus is by works of service - I stack chairs, I do the sound, I clean up, I feed the hungry, I volunteer at the shelter.” Now all of these may be valid forms of service, and we commend them. But they are not what Jesus is speaking of here. Jesus is talking about verbal ministry. Jesus talking about people who hear, believe, and then share.
This is the sower sowing the seed. It may be hard to visualize what I’m talking about. Here are several ways I’ve seen seed scattered by our church.
The most obvious one is whenever the preacher from the pulpit tells how people can be saved. I’ll do it right now, so if any good soil is here, you can receive and be saved:
God made you for himself. You have sinned and fallen short of what he made you for. But God desires that none should perish, that all should come to repentance. Jesus, the son of God, came to save sinners. He offered his life as a payment for sin, rose from the dead victorious over it three days later, he’s alive right now and will save all who repent and believe. Will you?
One church member shared a sermon with her non-Christian friend and asked if she would be willing to listen to it and ask any questions she might have. Seed.
Some have invited visitors into their homes after church and over a shared meal, asked about their relationship with the Lord and built the conversation around Christ.
I’ve seen three men get together early before church, opening up Scripture to read through it and pray together. Seeds scattered.
I’ve heard about a family building relationships with their neighbors, sharing meals with them, committing to pray for them, inviting them to church.
An older Christian invites a new Christian into his home to talk through what it really means to follow Christ. Sowing more seed.
A father opens the Bible with his family around the dinner table, and then prays that his children would receive it by faith.
A mother comforts her struggling daughter, reminding her of the comfort in Christ.
One couple is struggling in their marriage, and another couple asks if they’d be willing to meet weekly for encouragement in the word.
A church member’s mother dies, and the church member is asked to speak at the funeral, and she shares the gospel with a bunch of unbelievers.
A growth group puts together a generous gift for some neighbors who just had a baby, and they include a kind letter and a gospel tract.
Friends, there are countless more! Isn’t that encouraging? We are seed sowers. The seed sowing isn’t just evangelism. It’s every time we give away the gospel we’ve heard. It’s happening now, it will happen after church as people discuss the sermon, it will happen throughout the community this week in growth groups, it will happen in one-on-one meetings, it will happen in families around dinner tables, with children at bedsides.
Incremental revival begins when all of Christ’s disciples embrace their calling as a seed sower, a word-spreader, a truth-speaker.
Some of us may have heard of William Carey, one of the more popular missionaries. He’s called the Father of the Modern Missionary movement. But before him, in the 1700s, there were a group of people led by Count Von Zinzendorf called the Moravians who were incredibly fruitful. They sent hundreds of missionaries out - some to the Caribbean, some to North and South America, to the Arctic, to Africa, to the Middle East and India. One historian locates 2 fundamental reasons why, through not large, they were incredibly successful:
First, they were deeply committed to pray for the evangelization of the world. And second, they were the first modern group of Christian to fully recognize that “the missionary enterprise was the primary work of all Christians, not just a few selected specialists.”
Oh how many churches have lost that! But they have fantastic programs! O Church - that’s it! Pray, pray, pray the the evangelization of the world, of the neighborhood, of the community, and then say to yourself, “this is my work.”
Incremental Revival Seems Insignificant
Look back at verse 26. “The kingdom of God is like the New Year’s Day parade!” No. “The Kingdom of God is like an army advancing!” No. It’s a guy, alone, throwing seeds at some dirt.
Verse 31, The Kingdom of God is “like a grain of mustard seed” - this small round seed. Jesus makes the point that it’s really small. It’s insignificant. It’s hidden.
And notice what the seed scatterer does. He sows. And then he sleeps. And he rises. There’s nothing significant about him. If this guy were a normal farmer, we’d read about the early mornings before the sun is up, the long days cultivating the field, the late nights. But this farmer - all we read is that he sows and then sleeps.
In other words, it’s all so ordinary. It seems so insignificant. There are no quick results. There are no immediate returns. This isn’t, drop a quarter in and receive a prize. The kingdom of God is not like the Slot Machine. There’s no immediate payback. There’s no fanfare. There’s no big crowd cheering on the sower. He just sows seed. It seems insignificant.
Listen: your labor for the kingdom will seem insignificant. You will sit at the table and try to lead the family in devotions, and your four year old’s burp will catapult everyone into the land of distraction - not that my family has ever experienced that. You’ll share a tract with your neighbor and it will sit unignored on his shelf. You’ll get an opportunity with a man at the gas station, and you’ll never see him again.
Or you’ll have an opportunity to share your testimony with some youth in our church. Or you’ll take a few weeks to read through Ephesians with another church member. Or you’ll volunteer to teach our children. Or you’ll make an effort to talk about what you’re learning with a friend. Or you’ll initiate prayer after service with a brother or sister. And you’ll walk away and think, “Man, what in the world did that accomplish?” It will seem insignificant.
Are you frustrated at how slow and invisible your ministry is?
Jesus calibrates our expectations. The gospel advances through things we think are insignificant. Through ordinary, seed-sowing Christians. It’s incremental.
A couple years ago it rained so hard out here the waters were flooding over the curbs, and the roof of our church was leaking all over the place. That wasn’t caused by a raindrop. But it was caused by over a trillion raindrops. I looked it up - a rainstorm over one square mile contains about 1 ½ Trillion raindrops.
Let me ask you this: is one raindrop powerful? Can one raindrop flood a city? Can one raindrop cause a leak? No. But a trillion can.
Here’s what Jesus is saying: that little conversation you had with your neighbor, that subtle encouragement you gave to your spouse, that hospitable welcome you gave to the visitor, that little tract you handed to your friend, that time at dinner reading the Scripture - each one of those, in and of itself, is very small. It’s like a raindrop. But when you think about all the little drops, in all the little areas of life, you realize we’re experiencing a shower.
The work seems insignificant, but Jesus is using it to advance his kingdom.
I often tell you that one of the favorite things I do as a pastor is new member interviews. I hear the stories of how God saves sinners.
One of our members didn’t know Jesus Christ as a teenager. One of her teachers took interest in her and shared the gospel with her and her friend. It didn’t make an impact - at least not at first. But years later, the good news of salvation, of forgiveness of sins, of reconciliation with God - it came back to her, convicted her, and drew her to repentance and faith.
As I was listening to this story, I asked, “Did the teacher have any idea that you eventually became a Christian?”
She answered, “No.” She didn’t even know. Friends, tis the season for sowing. Not harvesting. Not yet at least.
We are seed sowers. Our work isn’t to produce any fruit, we can’t. It’s to sow seed. And listen: we try and be faithful, but our work will feel very insignificant, and we 98% of the time will not see the fruit of our hands. But this is how God works. This is how the incremental revival occurs. So take heart, church. Hear, obey, and spread the word. And then, like the sower, go to sleep and rest. God is at work.