The People and Place of the Kingdom
Notes
Transcript
“Peace be with you.”
Read: Mark 4:26-34
“Let’s Pray: Father may your will be done, Jesus may your word be proclaimed and Spirit may your work be accomplished in us we pray. Amen”
Jesus teaches his disciples about what the Kingdom of God is like. As we come learn what Jesus teaches us about the Kingdom of God we need to make sure we understand that the Church is suppose to embody the principles that Jesus lays out before us. Here in the Gospel of Mark we are given two parables about the Kingdom of God and reveals who the Kingdom people are, and what the Kingdom place is like.
I. The Kingdom People (v. 26-29)
I. The Kingdom People (v. 26-29)
A. People who Sow the Word v.26
A. People who Sow the Word v.26
26 And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil;
By this parable we come to learn our part in the Kingdom. To proclaim the good news to the world. We have been given the seeds of life which is Jesus Christ and we are sow that seed everywhere. This is what we have been invited to do. Jesus did it first to his disciples and from his disciples all the way down to us, continue on this ministry of proclaiming the good news that saves people from sin and from Satan. It is also implied that sowing seed is not only our job but it is specific job we must attend. It is a kind gesture to help others in various needs and challenges but if we do not sow in them the seed of the gospel we have left them empty and have offered them a fleeting help. The only power unto salvation is the gospel. Only the Gospel can being real and lasting change into the live of any person. It is not kind gestures, or acts of service that possess any power to save, only the word of God. Acts of service can remove obstacles from someone life temporarily but without the Gospel there is nothing more effective that can help them. You can feed the hungry but giving a full belly doesn’t offer them there greatest need which is forgiveness of sins and the ability to live life the right way. Note: This work is given for all who are in Christ and suggests that they understand where to find the bag of seed and the kind of seed they are to sow.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”
Application:
The People of the Kingdom want to sow seed. This man isn’t prompted, coerced, or there is no indication of a mandate. All we know is that this man knows what to do and he does it out of his own willingness. A man who casts seed upon the soil. It implies he already has the seed, and he know what he needs to do with it. Kingdom People are people who have the seed of the gospel and sow it where ever they go.
There are multiple fields that the seed of the word needs to be sown. Whatever field you currently find yourself in, begin there and sow with the seed of the word that you have and then watch God go to work. (I remember helping my Dad. He gave the all the prep work of grabbing the tools and holding the tools but he would perform the more advanced work of building and fixing. We get to work alongside God who makes masterpieces and what a privilege to be invited into His work and participate in what Masterpiece he is constructing.
B. People who trust God with their work v.27
B. People who trust God with their work v.27
27 and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know.
Jesus Sleeps. Like Jesus who we asleep in the boat while the storm was raging, who demonstrated complete faith in his Father while his disciples were freaking out, we too are to work and then sleep while the Father uses our work of sowing the seed to produce the outcome that He desires.
Evening then Morning. There was evening and then there was morning. This verse also draws our attention to the beginning of creation where God himself works. This implies that our going to bed and rising up in the morning should mimics a persistence that God demonstrates when He works.
Working with our Father. God the Father has established a family business where what he wants to accomplished comes to fruition through partnering with his family. He assigns us task, liking sowing seed, and then he makes our efforts fruitful. Our Father can do it all and by the command of his words, like he did in the beginning with no help. But When he created us in His image, He created us to work alongside Him to accomplish the things he envisions.
Application:
Our work is not motivated by outcomes. Since we are not responsible for the outcome of our work, the outcome is not what should motivate us to get to work. You may work for a long time without seeing any benefit or advantage. If you are driven to work based on outcomes then you may end up being discouraged. Our work is faith based. We trust in God to accomplish his will, and we have faith in our work that as we sow, He will produce a harvest.
Our work is to do what we have seen Jesus do. We carry on his ministry. Everywhere Jesus went, he not only healed and feed people and cast out demons but he also presented them with the reality of who He was and What he has come to do, this have been handed to us and its called the Gospel and we are to persistently sow it everywhere we go.
If we want to see God doing something then all we need to do is sow seed. We often say we would like to see God move or work in someone’s life. So if we want to see God move and work then let’s sow seed and when we wake up let’s see what He has accomplished. It may not be full ears of corn but we will see those little shoots sprout up from the seed we have sown.
C. People who Mature v.28
C. People who Mature v.28
28 “The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.
Jesus specifically describes the process of maturity that the crop endures.
This provides us great spiritual insights about Christian Maturity:
1) That you can have crops that are at different stages for each other.
2) That Christian Maturity is still a work of God and not a product of man.
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
You can’t make yourself mature any faster or slower. You didn’t cause your new life and you can’t cause your maturity, It is God who gives life and God who grows it. He is not only the author of your faith but He is its perfecter. Some crops need more nourishment and care than others, some need more attention, patience, etc. God knows each and every one and He promises that he will see it to completion.
The only part we share in our maturation is giving ourselves over to the means that God works his maturation.
1) The Word 2) the Work 3) The community.
This is why I don’t get bent out of shape when someone sleeps when I preach and teach. This is why I don’t get discourage if there are some who don’t understand. I am to preach and teach the word and those who are growing will take it in either as milk to drink or meat to eat, while others may not even be nourished at all.
D. A People who Jesus comes back for v.29
D. A People who Jesus comes back for v.29
29 “But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
We grow in maturity as we anticipate the whole purpose of our maturity, to be pulled up into the arms of Christ. We await our Lords coming by growing in our faith, being persistent in our work, and speeding up his coming by sowing more seed.
The Wedding Day. Another way to understand this is that while we wait for the wedding day will Christ will come and unite us to himself, we must prepare ourselves and make ourselves ready. This is the point of maturation. That we grow in beauty and become more equip to fulfill our new role of bride of Christ in the New age to come.
Living today what we believe about the future. If we believe that Jesus will return and usher in a new heaven and a new earth for all the Kingdom people to dwell and that it is true that we can begin living in the Kingdom now and in its fullness in future than what we do presently matters.
14 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. 8 You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.
Now that Jesus has shared with us the kind of people who reside in the Kingdom, Jesus now draws our attention to the type of place the Kingdom is.
II. The Kingdom Place(v.30-34)
II. The Kingdom Place(v.30-34)
A. A place that can be pictured v.30
A. A place that can be pictured v.30
30 And He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?
B. A place of humble beginnings v.31
B. A place of humble beginnings v.31
31 “It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil,
As a Small Seed. Humble begins. The life of the church demonstrates how humility leads to greatness, how being weak becomes strong. How decreasing is the way to increase. How dead brings life, How losing life is how one gains life. Jesus builds his church from the ground up in an unconventional way than the world would. That is his point in the small seed. That the greatest kingdom to ever exist and will ever exist doesn’t become the greatest by doing the same things the world does but in a sense in the opposite way. This is what will distinguish it from everything else.
How it started isn’t how it is going. The Church is a place that began from Jesus’ own humility and is carry along by the humility of all those who follow after him. The church should not forget how it all started. Church often get a bad wrap because the people don’t see or experience its humility. They call us hypocrites, judgmental, or whatever. All I know is they don’t call us humble. There were letters that were in circulation in the roman empire between public official named Plinty and Emperor Trajan about the Christians gathering together as the church. And what they would say about the church was nothing like what they say today. They made fun of the church for tending to the poor and needy, they made fun of the fact that the majority of their members were uneducated and made up of the lowest class members of society. They capitalized on their loyalty and unwavering allegiance to Jesus. When Plinty was tasked with a search and destroy mission against the christians he knew how loyal they were to Jesus and each other so his job was simple all he would do was ask them one simple question if he suspected someone of being a christian, “Do you deny Jesus Christ?” All they had to do was simply say yes and their life would not be taken and they would be free to go. Cause he knew any true Christian never wavers from their loyalty to Jesus. If they said no, they were imprisoned and taken to Rome to stand trial, if they were a roman citizen and be executed. Humility and an uncompromising spirit governed the Church and it should govern us today. But we aren’t asked that questioned that Pliny asked, “Do you deny Jesus.” For we probably would say no, and welcome our death. But other questions are asked of us and our answers often demonstrate the lack of commitment we have to Jesus. Instead of being asked to reject Christ, We are asked to make our lives more than just about Jesus. You can have Jesus, you won’t be killed for that, but instead will you add more than Jesus to your life? Will you say yes to not only Jesus but these things which are fun and inviting? and without any thought about how these things will strip us of some level of loyalty and commitment to Jesus and his church we say “yes” and Plinty winks to Trajan with a smug smile. Thinking, “We got them”. There are other ways to diminish loyalty and commitment that doesn’t involve killing. The attack on the Church is the same attack but just in different form. The Early Church gathered together as often as they could meeting before they had to go to work and then sharing a meal together after work. The only way to break these people up was to use their loyalty to Christ as a way to find them and kill them. Today Satan still is trying to kill the Church, but instead of burning them at the stake, He challenges their loyalty by keeping them busy and out of each other’s life. His strategy has change but the outcome is the same.
The Church is declining, while all other clubs and activities are growing by leaps and bounds. There is not test of loyalty for the church today, most churches meet for an hour or two one day and then the rest of the week is filled with others things. All I am saying that when you look at those who have gone before us and those who were apart of the church at the beginning they lived their live humility serving Jesus and each other more than their own interests.
C. A Place like no other. v.32a
C. A Place like no other. v.32a
32 yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.”
Large Tree among the forest. A city on a hill (Matt 5:14) , a strong tower (Prov 18:10) , an apple tree among the forest (SOS 2:3), the Lily among thorns (SOS 2:2). The bible is riddled with imagery of a distinguished kingdom, or community from the rest of the world. Men attempt to replicate it but only God can created such a kingdom. Some men will loath it and others will love it. It is a kingdom where only those who love God and love others will call home. What we believe, and what we do distinguish who we are and what we are becoming. This is what will establish us above the rest.
D. A Place that we call home v.32b
D. A Place that we call home v.32b
32 yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.”
A place for christians from all nations come to dwell together. The birds of the air nest, find residence within the shadow of the Church. The people who were sown by the seed of the word are those who nest in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is a place where God and His people that he has brought up from seed dwell together. Where God rules and reigns and where His people delight in Him. Though the nest in the shade of the Kingdom, they fly into the world to sow more seed and watch God grow His kingdom.
Application:
Application:
The Church can’t just be anything it wants to be.
The gauge for the Church to identify its growth is by how tall it stands out against the trees of the world. What impact is our church making? Are we trying to look more pleasing to the world or more pleasing to our King? Do we adopt the ways of the world to implement in the church or do we sow the Kingdom in God’s word?
Where does our allegiance and loyalties lie? Do we find more pleasure in shade of the places in this world or do we find the best shade (and Nest there) in the Church?
These parables about the Kingdom provides us the conversations we need to have as a church to make sure we are growing into the largest tree in our community. These parables provide us the picture of what we should become. They share with us the type of trust we need to have in God to bring salvation and sanctification to fruition in our lives.
This parable reveals that the Kingdom has a type of person in mind to be its citizens and the kind of place that those people call home.
Ultimately the Church should feel like Home to us and if it doesn’t then two issues may be present:
1) that we are not the Kind of Kingdom People we think we are
2) This is not the kind of Kingdom Place that it ought to be.