Introduction, Outline, & Prayer

Today, we will look at the last two parables that appear in Mark 4. We’ve been in this chapter for a while now and most of it has been made up of parables, stories that use simple ideas to teach complex ideas. Jesus says these final two parables teach us complex truths specifically about “the kingdom of God.” As Christians, we sometimes take biblical terms for granted—terms we’ve heard and used so often that we’ve grown either numb to or forgetful of the amazing truths they communicate. If we’re not careful, familiarity can dull our amazement and cause us to use terms assuming that we or others know what we are talking about. Sometimes people jokingly refer to this as speaking “Christianese,” meaning Christians speak their own language that seems like gibberish to those who are not Christians and, sometimes, even to those who are.

If we had a “Christianese” dictionary I think words like “glory,” “justification,” “grace,” and “worship” would all have entries. I think the phrase “kingdom of God” might also show up. I’ve mentioned it in several sermons—it’s even the subtitle for this series, “Mark: The Kingdom of God Is at Hand”—and, yet, I haven’t really explained what it means. So, I want to apologize for speaking “Christianese” from the pulpit. To correct this, the first point this morning will seek to explain what the kingdom of God means in the Bible as a whole and in Mark. After that, we’ll dig in to today’s passage and look at both parables that reveal how God’s kingdom grows. We’ll look at The Automatic Kingdom in point 2 and The Unexpected Kingdom in point 3. But first let’s read the passage and pray.

“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.’ 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.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.” – Mark 4:26–34

Point 1: The Kingdom of God

There are three necessary ingredients for a pizza: crust, sauce, and toppings. If one or more are missing, you don’t have pizza. Sauce and toppings without a crust isn’t pizza. What about crust and sauce without toppings? Nope—those are breadsticks. What about crust and toppings without sauce? Nope—that’s flatbread. Similarly, there are three necessary ingredients that need to be present in order to have a kingdom. If one or more are missing, you don’t have a kingdom. First, a kingdom must have a sovereign—a king, a ruler, someone who has the highest, decisive authority. Second, a kingdom must have subjects—citizens who live in submission to their sovereign. Someone who claims to be king but doesn’t have anyone to lead or rule over isn’t a king. Third, a kingdom must have a state—territory, land, a place where the sovereign rules over his subjects that they both call home.

So, when God claims to have a kingdom, He means that He has all three of these elements in place. The first thing we notice about God’s kingdom is that it is God’s kingdom, He is the Sovereign and no one else. The crown and throne belong completely and only to Him. It is not the “democracy of God” in which decisions are made by the majority rule of citizens with God’s guidance or input. It is the “kingdom of God” in which He alone is King of kings, Lord of lords, the Most High to be blessed, praised, honored because, as we read in Daniel 4:34–35, “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’”

Second, God has subjects. Just as it is not the “democracy of God,” it is also not the “dictatorship of God,” in which He cares only for His power and not for His people. Jesus, as King, serves us, redeems us, rescues us, blesses us, and makes us His subjects, pleased to live under His rule because He is a just, loving, and gracious King. We aren’t native citizens of His kingdom and we cannot even apply for citizenship because apart from His grace we have declared war against His kingdom by our sin. Our only hope is to be brought into the kingdom by the work and grace of God, as we read in Colossians 1:13–14, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

But what about the state? What boundaries does God’s kingdom have? Where does it exist? “Thus says the Lord: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 66:1–2). The answer is, there are no boundaries. The universe is the state in which God rules.

That’s a brief summary of what the Bible as a whole teaches about the kingdom of God but what have we seen specifically in Mark so far? Two things. According to 1:15, it is at hand in Jesus Christ. According to 4:11, the secret to understanding it is only attainable by the grace of God—no human ingenuity, wisdom, insight, deduction, or inquisition can uncover the secret or solve the mystery.

Point 2: The Automatic Kingdom (vv. 26–29)

So, Jesus Christ is like the gate to the kingdom and God’s grace is the key that unlocks the gate. These are fitting descriptions for the most powerful kingdom imaginable, aren’t they? So, what is the next description we find? Something revealing the kingdom’s power, beauty or majesty? It’s abundance, joy, or extravagance? A description of how invincible, eternal, or infinite it is? Let’s see: “And he said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.” According to the Gospel of Mark, God’s kingdom is present in Christ, attainable by grace alone, and… like a farmer? Jesus didn’t speak “Christianese”—don’t miss that. He spoke in plain, everyday language. He knew the glory and majesty of His kingdom better than anyone and was still willing and able to compare it to something typically considered inglorious and mundane.

The main characters in the story are the farmer, the seed, and the earth; however, I don’t think Jesus meant to compare the kingdom to one of those characters but to the process of growth that involves all of them. In this parable, Jesus compares the relationship between the farmer’s actions and how the seed grows in the earth to our actions and how the God’s kingdom grows on the earth.

Farmers plant seeds for a specific purpose; they want to harvest what they have planted. But how the seed grows from first sprout to final harvest is out of their control. There are certainly things they can do to help it happen, even more so today. They can put up barriers that protect plants from animals and the elements. They can apply water, fertilizer, pesticides, and other substances that help plants thrive. But one thing farmers cannot do is cause the seed to grow. A seed does not grow according to the will power of the one who sows it but, as Jesus points out, “by itself.”

The Greek word translated “by itself” sounds exactly like the English word “automatic.” All the power and potential to grow into a mature, fruitful plant exists within the seed itself, no outside coercion is effective or necessary. God’s kingdom grows in the same way. More and more subjects are added to God’s kingdom by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and this process depends entirely upon God. His kingdom does not require our will power, persuasion, or wisdom to grow. We scatter the seed, we share the good news of the kingdom brought near to us in Jesus Christ, and that message will take care of itself by the work of the Holy Spirit. In that way, God’s kingdom is “automatic”—it contains within itself all that is necessary to grow and multiply on the earth. We will live our lives, rising and sleeping day and night, while the kingdom seeds we have scattered will sprout and grow in ways we can neither explain nor imagine.

Application: scatter and pray

If the growth of God’s kingdom depends entirely upon God’s power, and if God enjoys showing His power in response to our prayers, then the most important thing we can do between springtime and harvest time is pray.

Point 3: The Unexpected Kingdom (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.’”

Jesus tells a similar parable, this time emphasizing the dramatic and unexpected difference between a seed and what it becomes. What begins as the smallest seed on earth becomes the largest plant in the garden. But we need to be careful to pay attention to the context and purpose of Jesus’s statement here.

The mustard seed was a common symbol for little things, sort of like an ant in our culture. So, let’s imagine that I speak a similar parable using the ant instead, “The ant is the smallest insect on earth and yet still the strongest.” If my purpose in saying that was to make a scientifically accurate statement about the insect kingdom for publication in an encyclopedia, then I would be wrong and my statement false because there are smaller insects (and probably stronger ones too). However, if my purpose in saying that was to make a proverbially relevant statement that small things can still be strong and important, then I would be right and my statement true, regardless of how scientifically accurate my information was. I think you would get that right away too, I doubt anyone would come up to me after service to rebuke and correct me because you would know I was making a proverbial point.

If we approach Jesus’s words here as though He were attempting to proclaim a scientific fact, we will commit one of two errors. We will either say the Bible is not the infallible, inerrant word of God since it clearly contains something contrary to observable scientific data or we will say that any scientific data claiming that mustard seeds are indeed larger than other seeds is false and should be rejected. We should avoid both of those claims because both ignore the context and purpose of Jesus’ statement.

Again, His purpose was to compare the kingdom of God to something that has a dramatic, unexpected difference between its beginning and its end. Something that seems so small and insignificant has a drastically disproportionate size and importance in the end. Let me point out four examples of how we see this in the kingdom of God.

A mustard seed birth

Jesus’ mother “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). A woman in labor is refused a room in an inn but offered a first century barn to endure labor and delivery where she is forced to lay her minutes old son in a feeding trough for his first night’s sleep. That was a mustard seed moment. Fast forward 30 or so years, that Son had become so famous that He had to teach in a boat a little off shore to prevent the crowds from crushing Him in their eagerness and zeal. That largest plant in the garden moment first required a mustard seed birth.

A mustard seed death

Or, take His death. This man who proclaimed Himself Lord, Messiah, and God was betrayed and abandoned by His closest friends, rejected by the people He came to serve and save, unjustly tried, condemned, humiliated, and mocked by the political and religious leaders, crucified on someone else’s cross, and buried in someone else’s tomb. When the hero of the story dies—especially in so horrific and unjust a manner—that’s definitely a mustard seed moment. But fast forward three days and “[God] raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:20–21). That largest plant in the garden moment first required a mustard seed death.

A mustard seed salvation

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” [mustard seeds] “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:1–9). Greatly loved while dead sinners, made alive with Christ, raised up with Christ, seated with Christ, given front-row seats for God’s eternal display of immeasurably rich and kind grace toward us in Christ, none of it worked for, all of it given by God… who could have possibly such a largest plant in the garden moment coming from dead and undeserving mustard seeds like us?

A mustard seed calling

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:26–29). God chose the mustard seeds of the earth, the foolish, weak, low, and despised so that heaven would be a garden filled with large plants boasting not in themselves but in Christ alone.

Application: trust and endure

What you are now is not what you can or will become in Christ.

To the non-Christian: If you feel like a mess, like a weed not even like a garden plant, God transforms.

To the Christian: Don’t spend time pining for what life used to be like, but for what God promises life will be like.