Sermon Transcript
Well, we started a series last week on parables, and we’re gonna be doing this all summer long, and we’re calling this the stories that Jesus told. Jesus taught in parables, not always, but often, and we’re not gonna cover every single parable. That’d be impossible to do. What is a parable? A parable simply means to bring something from everyday life and to put it alongside something else for the sake of comparison, and Jesus did this all the time.
Consider this, consider that, and he would compare things often and almost always to the kingdom of God. And that’s kinda one of those phrases that you hear, the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? And Jesus talked about how when he came on the scene, he would tell people, the kingdom of God is in your midst. And so he himself was the kingdom, but the kingdom of God is more than that.
It’s more than just Jesus. It is the rule and reign of God over the hearts and lives of people. Jesus came to usher in this new kingdom. It’s not a political kingdom, but it’s a kingdom in which people can be transferred from our initial citizenship, which all of us are initially citizens of the kingdom of this world, but eventually the desire is that all people would eventually have their citizenship transferred into the kingdom of God. That can only happen through the grace and power of God by accepting the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Not all are part of the kingdom of God, but Jesus talked about the kingdom of God often. The kingdom of God is in your midst. The kingdom of God is not of this world. It’s supernatural. It’s eternal.
Last week, Pastor Dave talked about the parable of the hidden treasure and of the pearl of great price. He was saying the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price, you would trade in almost anything for these items, but the kingdom of God is worth far more than that. You should invest everything you have. Into that, and today we’re talking about a short parable in Mark chapter 4. Mark chapter 4, it’s in your notes, but you might also have a Bible that you brought, or it’s in the pews there, but Mark chapter 4, verses 26 through 29, just a short little parable about growth, and I was thinking on Father’s Day about growth, and I was thinking about how our kids grow, and it reminded me of a song that I’ve heard, I’m not sure if this is an accurate count, but I’m gonna roughly estimate about 96,000 times, is a song that I wanna play for you now, ’cause it was heard in our childhood all growing up and in our children’s lives.
So hit it, Mr. DJ. Are you excited already? Grow, grow, grow, everybody grows. Fingers grow and arms grow and hair grows and noses grow and legs grow and feet grow. All right, I can’t handle it anymore.
Turn it off, thank you. That. That was, yeah, that’s like an earworm that just sticks in your mind. When your children are little and they say, please put in the CD, that used to be the cassette tape, or if you’re older, perhaps the 8-track, whatever that may have been for you, and push play and it’s on repeat again and again and again, and this was that song. Grow, grow, grow, everybody grows.
Fingers grow and arms grow and hair grows and noses grow and legs grow and feet grow and even my toes. Grow, grow, grow, everybody grows. Foxes in their dens grow. Frogs grow and monkeys grow and dogs grow and cats grow and even the crows. Babies grow and friends grow and sisters grow and brothers grow and candles on my cake show it, everyone knows.
Grow, grow, grow, everybody grows. Did you have a song like that in your home whenever you were growing up or if you have children? That was our song. Kids love to be told, man, you’re growing. You’re growing like a weed, like you’re getting so tall.
Kids love to be told, man, like you’re growing so strong. Some of us might even have a wall in our home where you take the pencil or something, or maybe like a piece of tape, and you measure how they’re growing. We like the idea of growth. We like the idea of growing as people. I’m growing in my understanding of myself.
I’m growing in my understanding of who I am as a parent, as a dad, as a spouse. I’m growing at work. In various ways, I’m growing smarter and hopefully wiser. All these things excite us. The idea of growth is exciting.
You plant a garden, you seed your lawn, you do so with the expectation of growth. I wanna see growth. I want my neighbors to look at this and be so amazed at this. They want to see growth and I’m gonna show them this incredible growth. We want our businesses to grow.
We want our bank accounts to grow. We love growth. And the kingdom of God is all about growth.
Last week Pastor Dave talked about the kingdom of God being of incredible value, and one of the key principles that we need to understand about the kingdom of God is it’s all about growth, all about growth, and in fact, this chapter, Mark chapter 4, is surrounded and bookended by 2 parables that are also about growth, so Mark chapter 4 is the growth chapter, chapter as it talks about the kingdom of God being all about growth. You know that we’re supposed to grow, not just physically, not just emotionally, but specifically spiritually. When a person comes to faith in Christ, Colossians 2 tells us, so just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith and overflowing with thankfulness. We’re to bear fruit because Jesus is the vine and we are the branches and we are to remain in him and depend upon him as a vine or as a branch depends upon a vine in order to bear fruit. We’re to bear fruit.
The writer of Hebrews wrote to a group of people who weren’t growing in their faith and he said, you all should be much further along by now. You should be teaching others by now. You should be able to handle solid food and meat, but right now you can only handle milk. We’re supposed to progress, but sometimes we don’t progress. And so this idea of, okay, well growth is an imperative, and we like the idea of growth, so why do we need a parable about growth?
It’s because when you plant something, whether in the ground or you invest in something, you hope to see growth, but sometimes the growth doesn’t happen, and that’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to plant something and get something else that you weren’t expecting, or it’s frustrating to plant something and it doesn’t grow. In the same way that you thought or in the same time that you had expected.
If you’re a parent and you wanna pass along faith to your children, you’re like, I want them to have a vibrant, transforming faith, and so you plant, you plant, you plant, you invest, you invest, you pray, you obey, and yet sometimes you look and you’re like, I don’t see the growth. That’s frustrating. Maybe you’ve been praying for an unbeliever in your life. A spouse or a family member or a neighbor or somebody that you know, and you invest and you pray and you plant, plant, plant. Where’s the growth?
Sometimes the growth comes, but other times it takes a while, or you don’t even see it. If you know anything about mission work, missionaries experience this all the time. Ministers experience this all the time. The missionary, the father of the modern missionary movement, William Carey, served in India for 7 years before he saw his first convert. He labored for over 40 years.
He didn’t see a lot of fruit, yet he continued to just try to expect great things of God. Well, that’s hard to do because you keep trusting God when you’re planting and you’re investing and you’re sowing seed, and then you don’t see the growth and you say, what am I doing? What’s the use? Where’s the growth? Well, that’s where Mark chapter 4 comes in.
If you’re frustrated about not seeing the growth that you wanna be able to see, spiritually speaking, in another person’s life in whom you’ve been investing, or you’re not growing in the way that you want to as a Christ follower, I think that this parable has some great encouragement in Mark chapter 4, and I think it has some specific application for dads and for parents, so I wanna look at it, verses 26 through 29. Jesus also said, this is what the kingdom of God is like. Again, that’s how a lot of his parables are. The kingdom is like this. So he says, a man scatters seed on the ground.
Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he doesn’t know how.
All by itself, the soil produces grain. First the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. And as soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come. This would have been a very familiar scene to people in the first century, and it’s one that we can relate to. A person walking up and down rows, taking seed and just scattering, not being too deliberate.
You’re just scattering, throwing out seed. This could be anybody. You notice there are no adjectives to describe the sower, the one who’s doing the planting. We don’t know who this person is. There are no adjectives, there’s no descriptions, and that’s because The sower, the planter, is not the point of this parable.
It’s the seed. There are other parables that talk about the sower. This one talks more about the seed and the power of the seed. Specific, okay, so what is the seed? Well, Jesus often explained his parables.
He did in the parable right before this, the parable of the sower who throws out seed and it lands on various soil and some take root and others don’t. Some there’s quick growth, others there’s not, but ultimately The soils represent our heart. Well, in this particular case, the focus isn’t on the sower, it’s on the seed. What is the seed? In that parable, the one right before, he tells us.
The seed is the word of God. The seed is the word of God, specifically the gospel, the good news of the kingdom about how a person can become a part of the kingdom of God, how a person can experience eternal life. So when a seed is planted, the growth of the plants in this parable is the growth that happens in a person’s life when the seed of God’s Word is planted in that person’s life and there’s growth. Does that make sense?
So oftentimes you hear in our culture this idea of sowing a seed or planting a seed. We’re not talking about doing an act of kindness for somebody in this parable. We’re not talking about showing love or random act of mercy. Those things are important. Specifically, the seed represents the Word of God, the gospel, the message about the kingdom, and when that goes into a person’s heart and it breaks through the soil of a person’s heart, explosive growth.
So I wanna talk about a couple principles of kingdom growth that I think will be helpful for us today. They’ve been encouraging for me as I’ve studied them. One is this, you may have seen it in verse 28. One principle of kingdom growth is this, is that how does the seed grow? Did you see those 3 magic words?
The beginning of verse 28, how does the seed grow? All by itself. All by itself. The word that is used there is a Greek word from which we get our English word automatically, meaning the seed grows automatically, all by itself. It’s a unique word.
It doesn’t just happen all by itself. It’s something that describes something even more supernatural and divinely automatic than even just a seed growing, because that word is only used in one other place in the New Testament, and it’s in Acts Chapter 12, when the Apostle Peter had been talking about the good news of the kingdom, he was arrested, he’s in prison, and the day before he stands trial, an angel of the Lord comes in, his chains fall off of Peter, he’s led out of the prison, and it says he comes to the iron gates that lead out to the city, and they opened all by themselves. That’s the only other time that that word is used. How did that happen? Like, you mean that they just, like gravity or something that, no, God did that.
So the first principle of kingdom growth that we have to take to heart when it comes to spiritual growth is that growth is in God’s hands and we can say it like this and I apologize in advance for the cheesy rhyme. We can sow, but only God can make it grow. Thank you for playing along. Just indulge me, it’s Father’s Day, okay? This is your gift to me.
We can sow and only God can make it grow. Well, duh. It’s not as easy as that. You see, we think that we control this. We think that we control growth, and if I do this and this and this, it’s like a formula, well then the growth will happen.
If I’m a parent and I do A, B, and C correctly, Well then, I know what I’m gonna get. It doesn’t work like that. If I pray, pray, pray, if I plant, plant, plant, then I know what’s gonna happen. But we don’t control the growth. We can sow, we’re supposed to sow.
We’re supposed to share God’s love and specifically his word. Again, the seed is the word. The word of God, in word and in deed, modeling that, helping our children and other people to understand the kingdom of God. We are supposed to sow. We can plant, we can prepare the ground, we cultivate, we fertilize, we water, but who does the growth happen because of?
God. It’s divinely automatic, and that’s what happens in a person’s life when they grow spiritually. It’s because God makes that happen. That’s such an important thing for us. In fact, you notice the sower, he could plant the seed and then just go to bed.
He can just go about the rest of his day, why? Because he knows that when good seed finds good soil, good things happen. Not in the world, and not the way that our world works, but the kingdom of God works that way, because God’s in charge of the growth.
We know that it also said here that it grows all by itself. And the farmer, the sower, the planter doesn’t even know how. He can’t, not only can he not make the growth happen, not only can you and I not make the growth happen, we can’t even explain how it happens. We can’t explain it. You talk to a farmer, a botanist, a biologist, hey, how does growth happen?
And they’ll give you a bunch of scientific jargon and thoughts on how something might happen, but they can’t produce that. Only God creates life. There’s a mystery to that, and it reminds me of when Nicodemus, this Pharisee, came to Jesus at night and said, you must be from God because you’re doing all these miracles, and then Jesus says, Nicodemus, you need to be born again. You need to be reborn, and of course Nicodemus hears that in a literal sense. Can I enter my mother’s womb a second time?
And Jesus said, no, you don’t understand. This is how the kingdom of God works. You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. You must be reborn. You must have a new heart.
He said the Spirit is like the wind. We don’t know the direction the wind comes from or where it’s going, and the Spirit of God works in a person’s heart like that, through faith. You see that gardening and sowing seeds as a parent or in anyone’s life is an act of faith. It’s completely up to God, and here’s why I share this, and here’s why I think it’s important, is because until God’s word penetrates a person’s heart, the growth that you hope to see happen will only be external. It won’t be internal, because parents, you can’t change your children’s heart, and Christ followers, you can’t change somebody’s heart.
I can’t change a heart. I’m not capable of it. Only the word of God can produce faith. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Only the Holy Spirit can penetrate a person’s heart.
Most of the time our seed’s gonna fall on unproductive soil, but when it does take root, we can be encouraged because God’s going to produce growth. That’s how the kingdom works. You and I are not the Holy Spirit. We can’t manage our children’s behavior and actions in such a way that we can create a spiritual life for them. God has to be at work in them.
And so instead of praying for our kids to be safe and for them to have a good day, those are good things to pray for, we need to pray for God’s word, God’s truth to penetrate their hearts. To penetrate their hearts so that growth can happen. That’s in God’s hands. This is the second principle here. Second principle, and we also see it there in verses 28 and 29.
Did you notice that there’s gradual growth? There’s gradual process, there are stages of growth. It says the soil produces grain, then the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head, and at just the right time, as soon as the grain is ripe, it says, at just the right time, not your time, God’s time, then the production will come. Then the growth will happen. Let’s say it like this.
We said earlier we can sow but only God can make it grow. Well, let’s say this principle this way. Growth may be slow, but it will eventually show.
Growth may be slow, but it will eventually show. That’s how God’s kingdom works in a person’s life. We want instant results, microwave faith. And in fact, in the parable right before this one, in the parable of the sower, there was some instant growth, but it didn’t last ’cause it didn’t take firm root.
And so there were things that came and choked out the growth, and it just didn’t happen.
So growth may be slow, but it will eventually show. And it may be, friends, that you and I are simply the first in a long line of people to invest in someone’s life and to plant a seed, and somebody else is then gonna come along and do some more planting and cultivating, and somebody else then comes along and waters it, And then eventually growth happens, but it’s not in your time and it’s not in my time. I don’t know about you, but that encourages me, ’cause it takes the pressure off of me, and it makes me think of how the early church grew. It exploded in growth. One of my favorite passages is in 1 Corinthians 3.
Paul said this about how the early church grew. He said to the church of Corinth, I planted the seed, I, Paul, planted the seed, I told you about God’s word, the good news of the kingdom, you accepted it, I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. You’re not the point and I’m not the point. It’s God is the one who makes things grow in his time.
That’s how the kingdom of God works, and you may be investing and planting and investing and planting and you’re tired of the weeds. You’re frustrated, you want to see growth. And there’s another word of encouragement that came to mind as I was preparing for this message, and it’s in Galatians 6:9. It says, let us not become weary in doing well. Why?
‘Cause at the proper time, when? At the proper time. Maybe not your proper time, at the proper time that God has ordained, we will reap a harvest if what? If we don’t give up. If we don’t give up.
We persevere, we pray. We don’t see what we want, we pray, we persevere, we invest. Parents, one of the best things that we can do for our children is to plant the seeds of God’s word, not necessarily by breaking out the big family Bible and having some devotional around the dinner table. I mean, that’s fine if you do that. You know what’s even better than that is modeling.
Growth in your own heart. When you model it and you show it, your children see that and they begin to pick up on that. And you surround your children with other people who are growing. That’s where the faith community comes in. That’s why your children need a children’s ministry and a youth group, not to replace the parenting, obviously, but to support and to partner, because the more seeds that are sown, the more growth that can happen.
And if we don’t give up, we will reap a harvest because that’s the law of how the seed grows. That’s how God makes it work. You can’t wish it to be. God makes it grow in his own time and in his own way. So here’s how we wanna summarize this.
We’ve already had a couple cheesy poems and I’ve got one more for ya. When the seed takes root, there will be fruit. Thank you for the laughter there, Margie Fisher, I heard that. When the seed takes root, there will be fruit.
And you notice, it’s interesting, the sower is sitting here scattering seed. If you take like a seed packet and you read the instructions, okay, I’m supposed to intentionally and very, very carefully spread the seeds just so far apart, I don’t put them too close together, and I’m supposed to do this and that, and I’m supposed to mix it, and I talked to a guy in the first service who was telling me about how, As a gardener, he’s very, very careful and deliberate. Does this sower seem deliberate in what he’s doing? He’s just tossing out seed, seed, seed, just more and more and more, because the likelihood is higher that the seed will take root the more that the seed of God’s word is being planted in the people around you and in your own life. The quantity of seeds increases the likelihood of one taking root.
Again, if you understand the parable of the sower right before this, only one of the soils is productive. The rest of it is unproductive. You wanna see growth?
Trust in the one who controls the harvest and let’s not give up. You may be planting and praying and God wants us to persevere. So here’s my encouragement for us today.
Is to just sit alone with this parable and to think about this principle of growth. How did you come to a saving faith? Who invested in you, and how long did that take, and how long has it taken you to grow? And then to understand that that’s— God is at work in people’s hearts, and you may not even see it for a long time. You may not even perceive it.
You’re looking at a situation and saying, God’s not doing what I want him to do in this person’s heart right now, so I need to now take control of the situation.
Planting is an exercise in faith, it’s an exercise in patience, and it’s an exercise in confidence in the potency of the seed. Not you, the planter, but the seed itself, the word of God, because we’re told in scripture that the word of God is living and active, and if you’ve ever read a scripture and you go, eh, it doesn’t mean anything to me, but then later on in life, you read it, and you hear it again, and it comes alive to you. That’s what the Word of God does. It’s potent, it’s the power of God unto salvation. So we pray for the harvest, we trust in the one who can bring it, and we wait for the results.
When the seed takes root, there will be fruit eventually. So let’s not give up, let’s pray.
Father, I wanna thank you for this reminder, a simple reminder about planting and gardening and how the kingdom grows. Lord, you’re building a kingdom right now, and I pray that the kingdom would grow by more and more and more people coming to a saving knowledge of you, that people would profess you as Lord and as Savior so that the kingdom will grow, and I pray that the kingdom would take root in people’s hearts. Maybe someone here today has never said yes to your invitation to experience eternal life. God, I pray that they would say yes today. And if that’s you, you just simply pray and say, God, come into my life.
Forgive me of my sins.
Have your way in my life. And when that happens, the kingdom of God has come in your life. And Lord, we pray for that to happen for all of us.
We pray that this week you’d give us many opportunities to sow seeds and to scatter seeds of the good news of what you’ve done, trusting you and being patient. Lord, if anyone here is weary of doing well, I pray that they would trust in you, Lord, that if we don’t give up, we will reap a harvest. So Lord, we love you.
We pray all these things in the name of your Son Jesus. Amen. Amen.
