Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning, what a pleasure it is for me to be opening up the word of God again with you this morning and to look at Jesus’ own words in the Gospels.

We are in this series which we are calling, “Stories from the King” where we are looking through Jesus’ parables.

A parable is simply a story that illustrates a truth.

Jesus’ parables have metaphors and allegories, and analogies to communicate these truths.

As we will see today these parables were sometimes hard to understand.

We know this because Jesus’ own disciples often did not understand these parables, and Jesus had to explain them in private to them.

Not only were these parables needing deciphering, but they also were the subject of a complex theme.

The Kingdom of God.

What is The Kingdom?

Let us begin there, what is the Kingdom?

Jesus in our passage and in most of the parables is teaching on the Kingdom of God.

I think before we look at our passage in detail, we need to develop growing understanding of the Kingdom.

We also need to understand why the concept of the Kingdom is a complex one.

In the Bible we see the Kingdom being described in the following ways:

the kingdom has come near

the kingdom can be entered

the kingdom is in the midst of us

the kingdom comes

the kingdom is prepared for us

the kingdom is sought after

the kingdom has keys

the kingdom is able to be locked from men/women

a scribe is not far from the kingdom

We can look at this list and conclude that the Kingdom is a bit more complex than what some of us might think.

These are just some of the ways the Bible references the term.

We also use the term in a variety of ways.

We use the word Kingdom to reference a territory, like “the United Kingdom.”

We use it to describe a group like “the Animal Kingdom.”

We also sometimes use it in reference to a time in history like “the Middle Kingdom” in relation to ancient Egypt.

So we can see how when we think of the Kingdom of God, some of us may have a different idea in mind when we think of the Kingdom.

Our question should be, what does Jesus mean when he talks about the Kingdom?

There is actually much debate among theologians as to the definition of the Kingdom, but I found there were overall agreement that the Kingdom is both present and future.

There is also much agreement that the Church is not the Kingdom.

Jesus is not saying the Kingdom of God is the church, because of the various ways it is used, it can’t mean the church.

It has to be bigger than that.

I believe the church is part of the Kingdom, but we can’t define the Kingdom as the church.

A better definition of the Kingdom could be:

“God’s Reign or Sovereignty”

The Lord is reigning now, and will reign for all to see in the future when He comes for His people.

Jesus calls this concept of the Kingdom (or his reign) a secret.

Some other bible translations say “the mysteries of the Kingdom of God”

Mark 4:10–11 (ESV)

10 And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

11 And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables,

Perhaps you are sitting here today thinking, well if it’s confusing that the disciples themselves couldn’t understand, what hope is there for us to be able to really understand what Jesus meant.

As I thought of that of that same question in my studies, I thought of an experience I had early on in my marriage.

Laura and her family are big Star Wars fans.

Before becoming a fan of the franchise myself, I didn’t quite get the whole concept or storyline.

For example, one of the movies I had seen prior to my joining my wife’s family mentioned what the Jedi called “the force.”

You see it on t-shirts and such but you watch a movie and you think well, it’s the power of the Jedi, but then you see the bad guys using the force, then you learn in another movie, that the force is described as being all around.

Now I don’t want to draw a parallel between the force and the Kingdom, rather what I am saying is that my experience was that I had a greater understanding of the force and a greater appreciation for the storyline after watching all the trilogies.

After taking it all in I then could see the connections between each of the movies and come to an understanding of “the force”

We have the completed Word of God, which the original hearers did not have.

The disciples needed Jesus to explain it to them, but we have the completed words of the Living and True God to lead us through these concepts.

So with that, let us look at the mysteries of the growing kingdom from our passage.

I have identified three mysteries from our passage that I hope bring clarity to.

The Mystery of the Sower

They Mystery of the Seed

The Mystery of the Harvest

The Mystery of the Sower

Read again with me Mark 4:26-27

The kingdom or “reign” is as if a man should scatter the seed on the ground.

The parable right before this one is the one of the soils which we heard from Pastor Gary last week, where Jesus also explains to the disciples and to the readers what each element of the parable of the soils meant.

In his explanation, he says, Mark 4:14

That is what the sower does.

He sows the word.

The word being the good news of the Gospel.

We are the sower who must scatter the seeds!

Notice a couple of aspects about the sower.

First, he does not know how the seeds grow.

He goes about his day (and night) and he notices that the seeds sprout and grow but “he knows not how.”

The sower is a bit ignorant with how the seed grows.

This is how we are to partake in the growing of the kingdom by being a sower of God’s word.

We spread the word.

That’s our role and that’s it.

Look what Paul says to the Corinthian Church.

1 Corinthians 3:5–7 (ESV)

5 What then is Apollos?

What is Paul?

Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.

6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

This leads to the second aspect of the sower which is that we share the Gospel by spreading the seeds, we, as the sowers, tell people that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father, no one enters heaven except through Him.

We call people to repentance and acceptance of faith in Jesus

BUT we do not and cannot save people.

God does that.

God brings about the growth of His Kingdom, but our role is to scatter the seeds.

One of my professors at Emmaus, actually, Cindy Davis’s dad, Jack Fish.

Used to tell the story of his salvation in class.

He shared how he heard the Gospel through the TV.

He heard and saw Billy Graham present the gospel at an event and he watched it from TV and that moment placed his faith in Jesus for salvation.

That seed was sown in the life of Dr. Fish and He has in turn, influenced and taught the Bible to men and women for decades at Emmaus.

Billy Graham the great evangelist was a model sower.

He spread seeds all over the country and the world by scattering seeds of the gospel where ever he went.

Billy Graham did not save Cindy’s dad, His ministry was not to save people, but to bring the words that save to those who need saving.

This is what the church has been commission to do.

Let me remind you of the commission Matt 28:19-20

This is our task, if you have placed your faith in Jesus for salvation, this is your purpose, the orders from our heavenly King have come down and they are clear, make disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them about Jesus’s teaching.

To teach them the parables.

This is the mystery of the sower, we are the sowers tasked to spread the Gospel.