Disciple 4: Hope Pictured

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Mark 4:1-34

N:

Opening

Good morning, and welcome to Family Worship here at Eastern Hills. I’m Pastor Bill Connors, and whether you are here in person or joining online this morning, I’m glad that you are here to worship the Lord with the Eastern Hills family. If you were here yesterday, we had a great celebration as we witnessed Brandee and Terrell Houlihan tie the knot of marriage. We pray for them as they start their new married life.

For those of you who are in the building this morning, I’d just like to remind everyone that we are still asking that everyone three or older keep their masks on for the duration of the service. We do this out of love and care for one another, and so that everyone in service feels safe and comfortable. I appreciate how everyone has pulled together in this way throughout our worship times together since reopening, and the positive attitude with which we have done so.

Our annual focus on North American missions begins today. During the months of March and April, we receive the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, and our goal as a church is $15,000. You’ve already been blessed by a video showing one ministry that this offering supports. This week is the Week of Prayer for North American Missions, and we have several events planned for this week. Tomorrow, March 8, we will have a prayer service with a little brunch here in the foyer at 9:30 am. Then on Wednesday, we will have our day of focused prayer for North American missionaries from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm, and you can sign up on the sheet in the foyer, or email Donna Treece to sign up for a 30 minute time slot for that day. We will again each do our praying that day wherever we find ourselves, rather than coming to the building. Then on Friday night, March 12, at 7:00 pm in the choir room, we will have an additional time of prayer and learning about our missionaries serving throughout North America. Come and be a part of these events and join in praying for our missionaries serving in the US and Canada.

Today, we are in our fourth of eight planned weeks of study in the Gospel of Mark, focusing on the hope of the disciple, or follower, of Jesus. Our focal passage this morning comes from Mark 4, the first 12 verses. We will go over verses 1-34 throughout this message, but we’re just going to start with these. Let’s stand in honor of God’s holy Word as we read Mark 4:1-12 together:

Mark 4:1–12 CSB

1 Again he began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him. So he got into a boat on the sea and sat down, while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore. 2 He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, 3 “Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow. 4 As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly, since the soil wasn’t deep. 6 When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce fruit. 8 Still other seed fell on good ground and it grew up, producing fruit that increased thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.” 9 Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.” 10 When he was alone, those around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables. 11 He answered them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables 12 so that they may indeed look, and yet not perceive; they may indeed listen, and yet not understand; otherwise, they might turn back and be forgiven.”

PRAYER (remember Brandee & Terrell, Dee Hutson)

Many of us have learned lessons from stories or fables that had a moral or other message hidden in them. The Tortoise and the Hare, The Grasshopper and the Ant, The Lion and the Mouse are all fables that have a moral or a lesson hidden within them. This method of teaching is a great vehicle for learning and remembering truth. Sometimes, though, we might miss the message being conveyed.

When I was young, probably about 11 or so, I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I really enjoyed the book: the story of Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy Pevensie, the Kings and Queens of Narnia, the White Witch, the Great Lion Aslan, and how Edmund betrayed his brother and sisters, and in fact all of Narnia, and how Aslan had to take his place at the Stone Table… Lewis himself defined its meaning for us in one of his letters, where he said:

“… [Aslan] is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?’”

It was a great story, and it’s greater meaning is fairly plain to the one who is paying attention, but I never understood what it meant. If someone at the time would have shown me Scripture and told me that Jesus had lived and died for me, like Aslan had for Edmund, I would have told them they were silly. Why? Because I looked, but didn’t see. I listened, but didn’t understand. My eyes were darkened, I didn’t have ears to hear.

But now that I have come to believe and understand the Gospel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe makes great sense because I can see it through the Gospel’s lens. And while Lewis’ tale isn’t a parable, exactly, I think most of us can think of a book or a story that had the same kind of illustrative symbolism that we find in Jesus’ teaching in parables in today’s passage.

A parable is used for comparison. The Greek word literally means “to throw alongside.” Parables are small stories from everyday life that are used to help us understand a spiritual truth. They sometimes are no more than just an extended metaphor or simile, and it’s dangerous to make them total allegories: where every little thing in a parable means something spiritual. They generally have a central truth, and that central truth may have multiple applications to life.

This is what we find in our focal passage this morning. We just read what is often called the Parable of the Sower, but which I think is more accurately called the Parable of the Soils: the hard, the shallow, the thorny, and the good, because the sower and the seed are the same in all four cases.

I’m not a farmer, and I’m not going to say that I know really anything about growing things. Some have a green thumb. I have the black thumb of death. But I can read history, so I can tell you that in ancient Israel, the way that they planted was perhaps the reverse of what is usually done today. Instead of preparing the ground and then sowing the seed, they would sow the seed, and then plow it under the soil. As a result, there was a great deal of inconsistency in where the seed would land, and in whether or not it survived and thrived.

Very quickly, the seed that landed on the footpath just stayed on the surface. The birds came and ate it up. The seed that landed just on the side of the path fell where there was a layer of soil, but underneath was rocky. Since it didn’t go deep, it broke through quickly but couldn’t put down roots, and couldn’t get sufficient water or nutrients to keep from being withered by the sun. The seed that fell among weeds or thorns grew alongside those weeds, but got entangled in them and was kept from producing fruit. But the seed in the good soil grew to maturity and produced an incredible crop: 30, 60, or 100 times what was sown. For context, in that time an exceptionally good harvest was 6-7 times what was sown. This harvest is miraculous.

We get the picture, and many of us probably have some idea of what the central truth to this parable might be, because this isn’t the first time we’ve heard it.

Jesus explained this parable this way:

Mark 4:14–20 CSB

14 The sower sows the word. 15 Some are like the word sown on the path. When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them. 16 And others are like seed sown on rocky ground. When they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root; they are short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away. 18 Others are like seed sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.”

So what is the central truth of this parable? It’s that the state of the heart will determine our response when we hear the word of God.

We tend to view this parable from the perspective of salvation, and that is a perfectly valid application, one we will look at in a moment. But for now, try to “unhitch your plow” from only that application and see what Jesus is saying about receiving His word in general.

I believe that Mark organized his Gospel on purpose so that this parable and its explanation are used to help us understand the other three parables in this chapter, which we will look at one at a time. But we skipped verse 13 right before His explanation, and in it, we see that this parable is key to understanding Jesus’ other parables.

Mark 4:13 CSB

13 Then he said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand all of the parables?

So the Parable of the Soils: the fact that the state of our hearts will determine what happens when we hear the word of God, helps us to interpret the other parables that we find in this chapter. And in these parables, we find pictures that help us understand Jesus’ mission, the Kingdom of God, our role in that Kingdom, and the hope of the Gospel. Before we get into looking at the parables in this chapter, we need to look at some other honestly difficult verses found throughout this chapter that will help us understand what Jesus was doing:

The use of parables

Jesus used parables on purpose, and that purpose was a dual purpose in tension. For those who would believe, Jesus’ use of parables caused them to think, to consider the meaning of His words. For those who would not believe, even if Jesus were to come right out and say things as they are, they would have refused to believe it. There’s a tension in Jesus’ early ministry between His being visible and hidden at the same time. We saw it with the leper in chapter 1, and while we didn’t study all of chapter 3 in this series, it was there as well in verse 12.

So after Jesus gave the Parable of the Soils, his disciples asked Him about it, and Jesus gave them a quote from Isaiah 6 in response:

Mark 4:10–12 CSB

10 When he was alone, those around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables. 11 He answered them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables 12 so that they may indeed look, and yet not perceive; they may indeed listen, and yet not understand; otherwise, they might turn back and be forgiven.”

Jesus says that the secret, literally the mystery of the Kingdom of God has been given to His disciples, those who believe. There was a hiddenness of Christ that was being revealed gradually, step-by-step. Many just weren’t ready to hear the message of what Christ was really doing. Even His apostles didn’t understand everything He said about His ministry and about the Kingdom, something that we see many times in the Gospels.

But there are those who would not believe the secret of the Kingdom even if it were made crystal clear to them—like a child closing their eyes and covering their ears and screaming (they did something very like this in Acts 8 at Stephen’s testimony), they would refuse to even look or listen. So Jesus gives the message of the Kingdom in parables, so that those who remain hard-hearted to the word of God would look and listen, so they would have no excuse, but they would still not perceive or understand. Otherwise—if they would just look and perceive, if they would just listen and understand—they would be able to turn back from the path that they are determined to stay on.

This leads us to the next little interlude statement, found in verses 24-25:

Mark 4:24–25 CSB

24 And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear. By the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and more will be added to you. 25 For whoever has, more will be given to him, and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”

Here, Jesus is saying that the more we listen to His word and engage it, the more truth about Jesus will be revealed, and the more truth we will be able to handle in the future. However, if we don’t engage the word now, even what we think that we know or remember will fade away. This is why Jesus says, “Pay attention to what you hear.” The word for “pay attention” includes the idea of thinking about, considering. Parables help us to keep thinking about what we hear about Jesus, His ministry, and our faith in Him, so actually help us keep this command.

Think about it from a more modern perspective: there have been times when you’ve heard a sermon (maybe one from me) that had a fitting illustration or story. In a way, these are modern parables. The story gave you a framework to compare the point of the message to, so you were more easily able to recall it and think on it after the sermon was over.

Mark ended his telling of this selection of Jesus’ parables by saying this:

Mark 4:33–34 CSB

33 He was speaking the word to them with many parables like these, as they were able to understand. 34 He did not speak to them without a parable. Privately, however, he explained everything to his own disciples.

Again, back to the secret, the mystery of the kingdom of God being revealed to those who have faith. And those who would understand understood and became His disciples. Those who would not understand didn’t.

The great thing about Scripture for us is that the gradual revelation of the mystery of Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry is already completed, and we get to look back on it with better vision, seeing more clearly what Jesus was teaching His disciples through these parables. For us, we know that Jesus’ ministry was to “seek and save the lost” as He said in Luke 19:10. If you are one who has never trusted the work of Jesus to save you, then you are one of the lost who needs to be saved.

As I mentioned before, one way of applying the Parable of the Soils is that only one kind of soil produced a crop. The rest just wasted the seed. Likewise, there is only one way to be saved: surrendering your life to Christ. Incredibly enough, it is ceasing to live our lives for ourselves that we find true life in Christ, salvation, and forgiveness of our sin. This is because our sin separates us from God, because any sin makes us imperfect. But because God loves us, He sent His Son, Jesus, to live perfectly in our place, to die sacrificially in our place, and to rise triumphantly in our place, so that if we belong to Him by faith, then we will live forever with Him… we will be saved. This is Jesus’ mission: a mission whereby we find hope through the message of the Gospel, found in the word of God.

Keeping in mind the Parable of the Soils, and the purpose of parables, let’s look at the other three parables in this chapter of Scripture:

The Parable of the Lamp

That message of hope—the Gospel—is a light. It’s a light that those who hear the Gospel can bask in, and those who believe the Gospel can shine. This is why Jesus compared the message of the Gospel to a lamp in Matthew 5, and also here in Mark 4:21-23:

Mark 4:21–23 CSB

21 He also said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed? Isn’t it to be put on a lampstand? 22 For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be brought to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen.”

It would be silly to light a lamp and hide it under a basket or a bed that cut off all of its light. Lamps are meant to shine out and illuminate the truth of what is in their vicinity. It reveals what is hidden, and allows what is concealed to be seen.

So the central truth for this parable is that the word of God is meant to be spread by those who understand it, in order to reveal the truth.

In this way, the word of God is really supposed to examine us by the Spirit, even as we examine it. In this way, first of all, the light of the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ must be continually applied to our own hearts, so that we would walk in its light, that the dark parts of our hearts would be revealed, and so that we would know how to please God.

Ephesians 5:8–10 CSB

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—9 for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth—10 testing what is pleasing to the Lord.

The other point of application of this parable that I want to consider this morning is that if we have the light, we are meant to shine that light. The person who claims to be a follower of Jesus but who is completely unwilling to share that message of the hope with other people should be concerned about the true state of their hearts. The seed that lands in good soil bears fruit. The light that is actually on a lampstand sheds light abroad.

Since we have the light, we need to shine the light into the dark places of the world around us, and we need to do so with perseverance, as Paul said in verse 1 of 2 Cor. 4:1-6:

2 Corinthians 4:1–6 CSB

1 Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy, we do not give up. 2 Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone’s conscience by an open display of the truth. 3 But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake. 6 For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Can you see the connection to the soil of the path in the Parable of the Soils in this passage? All we can do it keep sowing that seed, and trust God for the results. Which takes us to the next parable in this passage:

The Parable of the Growing Seed

We need to remember that ancient Israel was a largely agricultural society, so many of Jesus’ parables are agricultural in nature. This parable is closely related to the Parable of the Soils, but the central point and the applications aren’t the same. Before we read it, on a personal note I have to say that I think that of all of Jesus’ parables, this one is my favorite.

Mark 4:26–29 CSB

26 “The kingdom of God is like this,” he said. “A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day; the seed sprouts and grows, although he doesn’t know how. 28 The soil produces a crop by itself—first the blade, then the head, and then the full grain on the head. 29 As soon as the crop is ready, he sends for the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The sower/reaper in the parable didn’t do the work of growing: God did. But he played the part that God would have had him play in the process: He sowed the seed, and was ready when the harvest was ripe. The farmer could not control whether or not the seed germinated and grew. His place was availabilty and trust.

The central truth here is that the Kingdom of God: the righteous rule and reign of God on the earth, both in the future, but specifically now in and through the lives of His followers— is happening all around us. God is at work. We do not determine what God is doing. Our role in the process is availability and trust, with obedience when our availability is called into action, much like Paul and Apollos:

1 Corinthians 3:5–9 CSB

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

Apply: What is your part in this process? We can’t save people. That’s God’s job. We can’t grow people. Also God’s job. But we can be a part of the process: We can plant the seed. We can water. We can weed. We can be there for the harvest. Like what Paul said, our faithful participation in what God is doing around us will be a blessing.

So God is growing the Kingdom all around us by His power and strength, even as He uses us in our individual roles as He calls us. But what is the growing Kingdom like? For that, we turn to the Parable of the Mustard Seed:

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

In this last parable in this section, Jesus gives us the image of a mustard plant as an image of the Kingdom of God:

Mark 4:30–32 CSB

30 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use to describe it? 31 It’s like a mustard seed that, when sown upon the soil, is the smallest of all the seeds on the ground. 32 And when sown, it comes up and grows taller than all the garden plants, and produces large branches, so that the birds of the sky can nest in its shade.”

I’ve never actually seen a mustard plant myself, but I read that they normally grow to about 4-5 feet in height. Hardly something that has “large branches” and large enough that its shade would be worth resting in. But apparently in the Middle East, mustard plants can grow to remarkable size, especially when many grow together in one place. Look at this picture of mustard plants.

The fascinating thing about that, and what Jesus brings out in the parable, is that the actual seed of the mustard plant is tiny. Here’s a picture of it next to a penny. Compare it to a penny.

Central Truth: The Kingdom of God started small, and continues to grow.

In Matthew 16, we see the beginnings of the church: the outposts of the Kingdom of God on earth. And what did the church start with? It started with the testimony that Peter gave in answer to a question from Jesus:

Matthew 16:15–18 CSB

15 “But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

Application: We are a part of the kingdom, and as such, we have a part to play in being a blessing, providing shade and shelter for others, in storming the gates of Hades to share the Gospel with those who are lost and perishing without it: without eternal life, without hope.

Closing

Coming full circle this morning, I ask: how has the soil of YOUR heart responded to the parables that Jesus taught here in Mark 4? Has Satan already come and taken it away by distracting you with some notification on your phone or tablet, thoughts of lunch or the nap you’re going to get this afternoon?

Have you received a word from Scripture this morning, maybe about the fact that God has called YOU to be a light in dark places, making the truth of the Gospel known? Tomorrow, you might face persecution about that word—will it wither if that happens?

Have you been growing in your walk with God, but today you were challenged in a way that you’re just not ready to say yes to? Is the word implanted in you being choked out by the worries of this life?

James 1 tells us in verse 22:

James 1:22 CSB

22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Brothers and sisters, we are to be people who live out the word, not just people who show up and hear it. How will you live out what the word has said to you?

To those of you who have never believed the Gospel: today you have heard about what God has done so that you can be made right with Him. Jesus died for your sins and mine, so that we could be forgiven. He defeated death and rose again so that we can have eternal life if we belong to Him by faith. What kind of soil has that message found in your heart this morning?

Invitation

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading: Esther 6 today. We’ll finish Esther on Thursday, and then start Proverbs on Friday.

Instructions

Benediction:

2 Peter 3:18 CSB

18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.