The Seed of the Kingdom

Mark 4:26–32 ESV

26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” 30 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, 32 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.”

Opening Remarks

A number of weeks ago we looked together at the parable of the sower in verses 1-20 of chapter 4. That parable acts as a master key which unlocks the meaning of the two parables we are looking at today; though in the parable of the sower it was not infact the sower who was the focal point of the parable, nor was it the seed but it was the soil. In these two short parables in verses 26-32 the focus is not on the soil but rather on the seed.

I will take time today to unpack both parables as best as I can by the grace of God, I’ll be focussing primarily on the first one which is found only in the gospel of Mark, whereas the parable of the mustard seed is found in Matthew’s gospel also.

This first parable, the parable of the growing seed, is one that ought to bring us great encouragement. It is a comfort to those who labour in preaching the gospel, sowing the seed of the good news about Jesus Christ.

Did you know that a recent survey in the USA showed that 1500 pastors leave the ministry every month? That’s 18,000 a year! Only 1 in 10 who enter into pastoral ministry actually retire as a pastor. Indeed, for some they leave because of moral failure or burn out, but discouragement is doubtless one of the leading causes of pastors leaving the ministry. They spend hours and hours preparing for Sunday, lots of time in prayer and study in order to preach the word to the congregation and perhaps feel it’s making little difference, they don’t see it having much impact and so they reason; what’s the point? I’m not effective here.

The same is true of many who minister out on the streets, handing out tracts, open air preaching, sharing the gospel with passers by. They can easily become discouraged and lose confidence. What they are doing seems to be having little impact at all, maybe they’re not called to be out witnessing to strangers, perhaps it’s best left to the professionals?

This parable speaks a soothing and encouraging word to all those who feel this way. It’s not a parable just for ministers, nor is it a parable just for evangelists, but it is a parable for all those who belong to Christ, for all those who have an interest in His great commission; to go and make disciples of all nations.

Every Christian is called to be a seed sower. To the undiscerning eye the work is unnattractive, the seed we are sowing looks feeble, small, like the mustard seed. Often the elements are against us, the dry cracked soil of unbelief doesn’t fill us with confidence as we begin to scatter our little seeds. There are plenty of voices of discouragement both from without and within; ‘you’re not cut out for this’, ‘see nobody cares, no one wants to hear about your Jesus.’ But in the eyes of The Lord, this is the most noble of all works. To stand for Him and with Him, preaching the gospel and taking whatever comes our way for His glory, this to Him is a noble and worthy task.

“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.

Becca and I rarely find TV shows that we both enjoy and can watch together! But recently we found one that we both loved. It was Clarkson’s Farm, where Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame takes on the running of a farm for a year. It was hilarious! Farming turned out to be much harder than he had anticipated but also more enjoyable too. In the first few episodes there is a rush for Jeremy to get his seed sown in the ground, his team have to press home to him how urgent the task of sowing is, that if he delays or doesn’t do his sowing dilligently the harvest will be affected badly.

Without him sowing the barley and wheat seed, the only thing that his fields would grow would be weeds. And the same is true of human hearts; naturally speaking without the seed of the gospel, all the human heart will ever produce will be weeds, no crop, nothing worth harvesting, all it’s good for is to be burned. No field ever spontaneously produces a good crop of barley or wheat, and no human heart every spontaneously produces faith in God, the seed of the gospel must be sown first. So we can’t be complacent, our task is urgent, we must scatter our seed. Without our sowing, no harvest will come. Unless the gospel is preached, no one will be saved. This part is our responsibility.

We are to scatter our seed on the ground. Unless it’s in the ground it remains a seed. The seed is no good to anyone sat in our pocket, it has to be sown and we are the ones who must do that. The seed of the gospel is to be sown in the ground, out in the fields, liberally scattered, not planted in plugs in a greenhouse. What do I mean by this, well, the scattering of the seed is done out there, in the world, in the open, not in secret or only in a church setting. Perhaps you scatter that seed by joining the outreach team on Thursdays handing out tracts, praying for people, or speaking with them about Jesus. Perhaps you will scatter the seed by taking that opportune moment with a friend or a family member to invite them to church one Sunday, or to an Alpha course, or by sharing the gospel through social media or maybe you will join the HCC Kids team and share the gospel with our children. The point being, there’s no private and painless way to sow the seed of the Kingdom. Just as Clarkson couldn’t sow his fields from the comfort of his bed, so we can’t sow seed without actually ‘going out’ in some way.

He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.

The sowing of the seed is our job, the growth of the seed is not. Verse 27 says that while the seed sower sleeps his seed is growing! What does this mean for us? It means this, that in evangelism our job is to share the good news, to share Christ, that’s it. It is at this point that we can be satisfied, we can rest our heads confident that God will act upon the seed we have sown. We needn’t fret thinking that we ought to be doing more, trying to manufacture that growth ourselves, this growth, the new birth is something that only God can bring about.

We are to expect to see results from our evangelism, we ought to have faith that God will cause His seed to grow, though we don’t expect to always see this growth happen instantaneously. The farmer doesn’t fret and worry when he doesn’t see his fields instantaneously transformed into crops as he sows. Neither should we fret when we don’t see people instantaneously respond with faith when we share the gospel, the seed has been sown. Rest, pray and leave the growth to God.

Sadly many ministers do fret when they don’t see instantaneous and spectacular results and begin trying to manufacture the growth themselves. They hype the message, exchange the humble mustard seed for something a little more robust and attractive, they whip people up into an emotional frenzy, offer an altar call and get everyone to parrot a prayer and hey-presto, a harvest of souls for Jesus! Immediately the evangelist is posting on his social media, selfies with the new converts; ‘20 souls saved today in my meeting!’ But how many of those people truly knew what they were choosing? How many just ran to the altar because everyone else did? It’s not to say that no one can come to true saving faith this way, but rather that this method of evangelism is really just pragmatism. It’s trying to get God’s job done for him and making a real hash of it. We just end up with lots of disappointed, confused people. Trust God to do His part, you stick to faithfully sowing the gospel.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

In verse 28 we see that once the seed has germinated it grows in stages, first the blade, then the ear and finally the grain. This is a beautiful and pure explanation of what is known as the doctrine of sanctification. This doctrine simply states that the life of a Christian is a life of growth. The Holy Spirit enters in and through His power and guidance we grow incrementally to be more like Christ, we grow in holiness, in knowledge of the truth, in faith, in good works, in prayer. Each Christian is sanctified in this way, no one Christian pops up fully formed. Yet each Christian grows in these things, albeit at a slightly different pace. One Christian can be more or less sanctified than another Christian but a Christian cannot be more or less justified than another. This is the difference between the doctrines of sanctification and justification. The crop with just the blade is every bit as alive as the crop which has the full grain; just as the newborn Christian is every bit as saved as the mature Christian. But the more mature Christian is more fully developed than the newborn Christian. This is why it’s so important for us to have friends in the faith who are more mature than us to encourage us and to give us an example to follow.

We also have to rejoice when we see the tiny blade of grass poking above the surface of the soil. We rejoice when that person we have been witnessing to makes a profession of faith; we don’t reject them because maybe their language is still occasionally a bit crude, or because their doctrine is a bit squiffy! We meet them where they’re at, we nurture them with prayer, we encourage them to come to church, to find fellowship, we help them study the scriptures. As we do those things, God brings the growth.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

We know that when this growth is finally complete there will be a harvest. The Reaper will come to carry His harvest off to the place He has prepared.

Revelation 14:14–15 ESV

14 Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.”

Matthew 3:12 ESV

12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The Apostles went out of this world all crying in unison; “Jesus is coming back. Be ready!” All of the good fruit in our lives is being prepared for that purpose. It is being prepared for Him on that day! This small church community is part of Jesus’s global crop and we are being readied for His return. Once that day comes there will be no more sowing of seed, there will only be the unmasked glory of Christ, no one will need to be told that He is Lord, they will see that He is Lord. As seed sowers, let’s be dilligent to keep sowing seed as that day approaches, let’s continue to pray that the Lord might let us see our seed growing into a crop, that we might see some fruit for our labours in Wolverhampton. Let’s not be discouraged or feel inadequate. Though the seed we have looks small and insignificant to the world it is able by God’s grace to produce a mighty harvest even through us!

God’s people when they went down into Egypt numbered just 75. A tiny, vulnerable remnant, seemingly at the mercy of the world. But just a few hundred years later they went out numbering in the millions.

The Church began with just 120 ordinary people in an upper room. Men and women, mostly unlettered, not highly influential or rich in any worldly sense. And 2000 years later roughly 2.5 billion people name Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour.

This mustard seed of the gospel which we have to sow may not look like much to the world, indeed we ourselves may not look like much to the world or even in our own eyes, but God has always used the few rather than the multitude, He has always used the weak above the strong and He has always blessed His word to acheive it’s purposes and it will not return to Him void. When we scatter His seed, we may have confidence that He will bring forth a mighty harvest.

Pray.