Sermon for MHBC (23 January 2022). You can watch or listen on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, or our website. Live at 11:00am on Sundays. Also available as a podcast here or by searching “Monument Heights Baptist Church” in your favorite podcast app.
In our text this morning, Jesus tells three parables about the Kingdom of God. We will look at each of those, but first we need to review what the Kingdom of God is.
When we talk about the Kingdom of God, we aren’t talking about a location. Matthew often uses the phrase the Kingdom of Heaven and that has confused people into thinking that the Kingdom is a location in this place called Heaven. But the problem lies in how we hear the word kingdom. When Jesus’s audience heard this announcement, they heard that the kingship or the reign or the dominion or the government of God was upon them. So, the Kingdom of God is not a location or a place, but a reality, a new rule, a new way of doing things. Or, put another way, when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God has come near,” he means that the thing God promised to do all along is happening.
What did God promise to do? He promised to set apart a people for himself, to pour his Spirit into those people, and to redeem all creation with them. That is what we call gospel or good news.
So in these parables, Jesus is teaching us about how that happens. How does the Kingdom of God gain ground in this world? The answer is probably surprising, but the lesson we will take away is that we are to be faithful where we are.
Let’s take a look at the first parable. Look at vv. 21–23.
And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”
I’ll confess that this is one of the more confusing parables in Scripture. But we can untangle it. There’s a saying in real-estate, “location, location, location.” When studying the Bible that applies as well. “Context, context, context.” Read everything nearby and try to figure out how it fits together. Jesus has just taught and explained the parable of the four seeds. That parable asked us to consider what sort of hearers we are. How we’ve received the message of Jesus. Now we may think these riddles are meant to trip us up and make it hard to understand. But that’s not the point. The point is that they make the secret things of God known. The message of Jesus will be seen clearly by everyone.
Now what do we do with that? Jesus tells us in vv. 24–25.
And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: 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.”
So the closer we listen to Jesus’s teaching, the more we devote ourselves to it, the more grace we will find in our life. One commentator summarizes the purpose of this parable, “It serves here to encourage careful hearing, because the care expended in understanding and responding to Jesus’s parables will be proportionately rewarded. What you get out of them depends on what you put in.”[1]
So here’s a question: How attentive are you to Jesus’s teaching? When is the last time you read one of the gospels? Shouldn’t that be a daily practice for apprentices of Jesus? Shouldn’t we know what he taught? Now you might say stuff like this is puzzling or difficult. Yes, of course, it is if you only read it once and never make any efforts to figure it out. And I’m afraid Jesus has some bad news for those of us who would give up too soon. Look at the end of v. 25. Those who aren’t listening will have their little understanding taken away.
Have you ever met someone truly obsessed with another person? Say a celebrity or a president? What do they do? They read books and articles about those people. They often know how they talked and the things they said. They sometimes dress like those people.
Do you see the problem for Christians? Some of us call ourselves Christians and we don’t even know the things Jesus taught. How can someone be a Christian and not know the what Christ taught? It’s absurd isn’t it?
So what do we do? Be faithful. Listen carefully to Jesus’s teaching. Use the resources available to you. Use good Bible translations and study tools to figure out what Jesus says. Join a group of others who just want to figure out what Jesus says and then live it. And what will be the result? More than you can imagine. We will receive more than we deserve Jesus says.
Let’s take a look at the second parable. Look at vv. 26–29.
And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
So a farmer plants some seed, then he just passes the time and the seed grows. Is that really how farming works? You just put some seed in the ground and let them be? People say pastors only work one hour a week, maybe I should be farmer and just throw some seed on the ground for a few minutes every couple of months. No. Of course not.
That’s precisely the point. Sometimes the insight into a parable is what seems out of place. And here’s the point. The farmer doesn’t do anything. When it comes to the Kingdom of God, God takes the initiative. Not us.
This is incredibly freeing news for us. It’s not our responsibility to usher the Kingdom of God in. God does that. We are just partners or farmhands. This is particularly freeing when it comes to sharing your faith with other people. Sometimes we worry that we will say the wrong thing or we won’t have all the answers or we won’t be convincing. But that’s not on us. Our job is to be the farmer. We plant the seed as best as we can, but how it grows, we don’t know. God can use the shoddiest evangelistic presentation to change a person’s heart and often that’s exactly what he does.
There’s a reason I don’t manipulate people into saying a prayer of salvation or get people worked up into a frenzy for an emotional response. This parable explains the reason. I don’t make the seed grow. God does that. The spreading of the Kingdom is God’s initiative.
So, let this be an encouragement to speak openly about Jesus, to invite others to follow him. Don’t be afraid that you will mess it up. Do what the farmer did. Sow the seed and go to sleep, because God does the growing.
In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul uses similar language. The Corinthian church is arguing about which leader they follow. Some say, “I follow Apollos” and others say, “I follow Paul.” In 3:5–7 Paul says:
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
So don’t be afraid, you’re not going to mess it up. Read the Bible with someone. Talk about why you are a follower of Jesus. Here’s the key. Be faithful where you are, and God will use that.
Let’s look at the last parable. Look at vv. 30–32.
And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Now let me deal with the silly objection. The mustard seed is not the smallest seed in the world. Reading the Bible like that is so reckless. Why does Mark tell us it’s the smallest seed? Because it is the smallest seed known in the area and period of Jesus. That’s important for us so we can get the point.
And this small, imperceptible seed, eventually overshadows all the plants in the garden and it becomes a resting place for birds. Here’s the point. The Kingdom comes in unexpected ways and unexpected places. It is small and imperceptible in the beginning but it flourishes in the end. One commentator writes, “The kingdom of God does not come with sirens blaring and bombs bursting in air, but quietly and inconspicuously.”[2] Think about it. How does God enter the world? Not as a king but as a rural Jew in the first century. Who does Jesus hang out with? Not nobility or religious elites but outcasts and scandalous people. How does the Kingdom get actualized in the life of his followers? Not by forced submission or takeover but through death on a cross. And only after that that is power seen in the resurrection, the ascension, and the outpouring of the Spirit. But then how does the message of the Kingdom spread? Through suffering and persecution, through the death of Jesus’s followers. The Kingdom works in unexpected ways.
Now consider the reverse. When does the Kingdom lose traction? When so-called Christian leaders exert force and demands on the culture around them. When these leaders think the Kingdom comes through a social movement or a political candidate. When the church becomes an institution or a business.
But what in the world might this mean for you and me? Several things. First, we should not be discouraged when the odds seem stacked against us because that is the way of the Kingdom. Nobody expects the mustard seed to take over the garden. In the same way, nobody expected a Savior that would die on a cross in complete shame. So don’t be afraid going forward, don’t fear the world around, just be faithful where you are. And when we look back on history, we will all be astounded by what God has done. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be afraid.
Second, growth is slow and sometimes it is hard to see at first. I have vices and character flaws and sins in my heart that seem to clean my clock every few days. The struggle is hard and painful and sometimes I get so frustrated with myself. Listen, don’t discount what God is doing with that little seed in your heart. If that seed has found good soil, if we have heard the message and received it, it will produce fruit. Look for the growth because it is certain.
Third, Jesus is for the birds. Look, birds are dirty in the OT. They often represent foreigners and outcasts. The Kingdom isn’t for the religious, it’s for the broken, the poor, the messed up, the sad, the fractured, the addict, the divorcee, the widow, the orphan, the neglected. There’s really only one qualification. Do you know where to find shade? Do you know where to make your nest? Do you fly to Jesus? Jesus puts in this way in Matthew 5: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Blessed are those who know how much they need Jesus, because they inherit the Kingdom. What’s the first step in being faithful where you are? Go to Jesus.
[1] R. T. France, Mark, NIGTC, p. 211.
[2] David Garland, A Theology of Mark’s Gospel, p. 350.