Good morning. It's good to have you all here.
I want to begin this morning by telling you the story of David and Svea Flood.
In 1921, they sailed to become missionaries in Central Africa.
They had great zeal for the Lord.
They desired to go beyond the safe mission compound
into the places that had not yet been reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They were rejected by the village that they chose to go live near.
They could only talk to one boy who would come out and sell them chicken and eggs twice a week.
They suffered repeated attacks from malaria.
Their co-workers found it too hard and left.
Svea gave birth to a daughter, but weakened by her childbirth and malaria, she died.
David despaired, returned to the mission compound,
handed his daughter over to other missionaries saying,
I'm going back to Sweden.
I've lost my wife.
I obviously can't take care of this baby.
God has ruined my life.
He looked at his life, his hopes, his dreams of the kingdom of God.
Dashed.
And he turned his back on God, a bitter man.
Have you ever felt that disappointment?
Have you ever wondered,
God's kingdom doesn't look the way I think it should?
We feel this way on a global level today, don't we?
We look, we read the news, we hear of war and famine.
We hear of violence and sex trafficking and misogyny and factional strife across the globe.
And we think, God's kingdom?
It's hard to see.
We here in the West have a particular flavor of this
because the idea of a Christianized West advancing
no longer seems to be true.
Now, we need to be careful of this narrative
because as a historian, I studied American history 200 years ago
and America was not necessarily super more Christian than it was today in some ways.
And yet, there is a truth that broadly,
our culture was more shaped by values that come from a Christian worldview.
And yet, today we live in Connecticut
where 3% of the population will attend church regularly.
And it's true that we live in a culture
where the values that have often been shared
between the church and a society are changing.
Some may be improving,
but others are not.
And in the midst of this, we may be afraid.
Where is God's kingdom?
Is it losing?
Maybe you've experienced personal disappointment.
Maybe you grew up with a lot of zeal with David Flood
but have suffered hardships.
You've come to faith out of a hard life,
expecting relief,
and you found that following Christ has not insulated you
from the trials and sufferings.
Perhaps you're here this morning exploring Christianity,
wondering,
what is it that God has to offer in His kingdom?
Where is the kingdom of God?
What can I expect of it?
It's a question, you know,
that the people in the first century,
particularly the Jewish people in the first century,
the nation of Israel asked,
as they lived under Roman rule,
as they lived a disenfranchised state,
as they wondered,
where is God's kingdom here?
They had known the kingdom of David and Solomon in the past,
its greatness, its glory,
the temple,
the palace,
the army,
everything.
And much of that was gone.
Yet there were still those in the first century
who expected the kingdom of God to come
immediately, impressively,
visibly,
with political change,
overthrowing Rome,
and restoring the glory of a nation Israel.
It was in that context that Jesus came
and ministered to us.
And it's in that context that our passage this morning happens.
We're continuing in our surf,
in our walking through the gospel of Mark.
This is actually our second to last one before Advent.
Goodness gracious.
So this is,
we're almost gonna,
we're gonna take a break after next week.
But we're in Mark chapter four in the Pew Bibles.
It's page 788.
If you wanna turn there with me.
And as you turn there,
what we're gonna see is two parables.
Two parables that Jesus tells about the kingdom of God
that answer some of the questions
that we've raised this morning
about what is the kingdom of God like.
So Mark chapter four,
we're gonna read verses 26 through 34.
If you're there with me,
let's go ahead and read it.
It'll be on the screen behind me as well.
Let's go ahead and read these passages.
This passage together,
these two parables,
and then we'll explore it for a few minutes.
And he, that is Jesus.
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 parables shall we use for it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed,
which when sown in 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.
And 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.
Let's pray together.
God, we ask for your help this morning
that we would understand this word.
Lord, thank you for preserving it for us.
And we pray that by your spirit,
you would give us ears to hear
and hearts to receive your word.
Lord, help me that I would speak as I ought.
And Lord, help us to sit under your word this morning,
we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
In this passage, there are two parables.
They're the centerpiece of it
that describe what the kingdom of God is like.
And at the end, we see themes
that we're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about
because it's what we've seen already in Mark.
It said, Jesus is speaking parables
as a way to speak to both the crowds
and disciples at the same time.
And privately, he would explain them to the disciples,
but publicly, he would speak in parables
as a way of calling their attention to,
calling them to pay attention to his words
and sifting out whether their hearts
were really in a place to receive his word
or whether they were in fact sitting in judgment of him
or other things, which we've seen as this,
we've seen that the different people in the crowds
are responding differently to Jesus' teachings.
But he uses parables in a particular way
to put forth truth, but in a way that
for those who have ears, let them hear,
is the phrase that he uses.
And so we're gonna just spend our time today
looking at these two parables that answer the question,
what is the kingdom of God like?
And in the first parable in verses 26 through 29,
we see that the kingdom of God
is a sure and certain reality.
Now, this is the second of three agricultural parables.
Pastor Nick preached last week on the parable of the sower,
which is a longer parable.
And this parable, verses 26 through 29,
is actually the only parable unique to Mark.
All the other parables were recorded as well
in the other synoptic gospels, but not this one.
So that, it is what it is.
So something for you to chew on.
As we look at it, the point of the parable is this.
As the man sows the seed, it grows.
Certainly and surely.
Right?
He goes out, according to the parable,
he goes out and he sows the seed.
And then, as you see, he sleeps and rises day and night,
and the seed sprouts and grows.
He knows not how.
This is not a picture of careful cultivation.
He's not going every day and doing things
to help this growth.
He just says, the time passes and growth happens.
In fact, if you look at verse 28,
it says, the earth produces by itself.
This is, the earth produces automatically,
is the English version of the Greek word there.
On its own, it does this.
And this is a remarkable thing.
Right?
The kingdom of God advances on its own without our help.
And as it happens, it produces,
it progresses towards its desired goal.
Right?
Verse 28 says that it starts with,
first the blade, then the kernel,
and then the full ear of corn.
This is the picture that we're getting from Jesus.
And so, it not only acts automatically,
but it acts towards its purpose,
towards its end goal.
And Jesus is saying,
this is what the kingdom of God is like.
The kingdom of God is a sure and certain thing.
The seed that is sown is most likely the word of the gospel.
This is what we see back in verse 14 of chapter 4,
as Jesus is telling his first parable about the seed.
We need to be careful.
You don't always steal from one parable
to find meaning in another.
But it seems like it's a pretty reasonable,
that the seed is the word of God being proclaimed,
being spoken of in the nation of Palestine.
And so, it reminds you, if you were,
it reminds us of Isaiah 55
and what God says there about his word being spoken.
Isaiah 55 10 says,
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return, but there water the earth,
do not return there, but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.
It shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
The kingdom of God is a sure and certain thing
because God is going to bring about
what he is going to bring about.
It is, after all, his kingdom.
It is the kingdom of God,
not the kingdom of men,
not even the kingdom of the church,
but it is the kingdom of God
that Jesus is talking to.
And he is reminding us that the kingdom of God
is inevitable.
Why is this good news for us?
Well, because I think that we often
struggle with fear.
We are afraid that God's kingdom
isn't really going to happen.
Certainly not without our help.
Now look, we need to not overstate this
because Christians are called to faithful labor.
We are called to spend our lives,
to pour it out,
to serve God in every way that we can,
the way that God has enabled us
and gifted us and planted us
in different places to serve him.
We are called to do that
and to sow the word of the gospel
wherever we are is a calling that we have.
But we are not called to produce the fruit.
We are simply called to sow the seed
and God will make it happen.
You don't have to make the kingdom of God happen.
It is not up to you.
And this is good news when we're afraid
because when we're afraid that it's up to us,
it does all sorts of things to us.
We're going to come back to that in a minute.
Let's look at some other places in Scripture
where we're reminded that this is true.
The Apostle Paul, the great church planter,
the one who did all the work in establishing the church,
it seems like, in the book of Acts.
And yet in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6,
what does he say?
He says,
I planted, Apollos watered,
but God gave the growth.
So neither he who plants
nor he who waters is anything,
but only God who gives the growth.
So we're reminded that what we're doing
even here in church
is not building our own little kingdoms.
I'm of Paul.
I'm of Apollos.
That's what was happening in Corinth
was conflict as personalities,
human actors in God's kingdom
were claiming some kind of lordship
or factional rule.
And Paul said,
no, it's not like that at all
because none of us can do
the thing that we most want to see happen.
We want to see God's kingdom happen,
but we can't do that.
Only God can cause the growth.
And what great news that is
because it means it's not up to us.
We can preach the gospel with freedom,
with joy, with abandon.
We can live with anticipation
that God is at work in the world
and that God is going to do
what he wants to do
in this season,
in our lifetime,
and throughout the scope of history.
But we know that this has a progression
and an end
because the seed sown
will produce fruit.
And God said,
the kingdom of God is inevitable.
It will happen
and it will be brought about
in the end.
And this is good news for us
globally, organizationally,
as a church.
It's also good news for us personally.
So the Apostle Paul
reminds the Philippians of this
in Philippians 1, 6.
I am sure of this,
that he who began a good work in you
will bring it to completion
in the day of Christ Jesus.
Maybe you fear
that the kingdom of God
is not going to happen in you
in this lifetime.
That somehow it's up to you
to get yourself over the hump.
That somehow it's up to you
to get through the trial
or the hardship that you're facing.
Paul reminds us that
it's God
who has taken hold of you.
God who has planted
the seed of the gospel
in your heart.
And he will bring it to completion
on the day of Christ Jesus.
And what great comfort that is.
Friends, when we don't have this comfort,
when we don't have this confidence
that the kingdom of God
is sure and certain,
both out there and in here,
we often live in fear.
And do you know what happens
when we live in fear?
We grasp.
We grasp for power.
We grasp for control.
We try to force things to happen.
We become desperate
because we think it's up to us.
And when we don't see things happening
on our time frame in art,
we then think,
well, the kingdom of God's not enough
and God's not enough
and I have to make this.
So I'm going to go out into the world
and find what works
and I'm going to put all my trust
in those things
because God isn't doing.
We end up relying on ourselves
and our techniques
and our strategies
rather than looking to God
to build his kingdom.
And I think Jesus knows this
because I think that's why
he goes to his second parable.
If the first parable
is about the certainty
and surety of God's kingdom,
the second one is about
the surprising nature
of God's kingdom.
It is surprising
because it is small in appearance
and great in impact.
So he uses this image
of a mustard seed.
This is verses 30 through 32.
He uses a mustard seed.
Okay, for those of you
who are technical,
it's not the smallest seed
in the world.
Oregano seeds are much smaller.
But they're like
one to two millimeters wide
and there are 15,000 seeds
in an ounce of mustard seed.
Okay, so just,
it's really small.
And just like today
in the first century,
it was proverbially
the smallest thing around.
Okay?
And so Jesus is using
a first century image
that would have been known well
to say this is the smallest thing
in the world.
And yet it is planted.
And the contrast is
that this smallest seed
produces the largest bush.
Right?
Oregano plants don't grow
to 10 feet.
But mustard trees,
bushes, do.
I guess,
in the Middle East at least.
They grow to 10 feet tall.
Right?
And so Jesus is using
this well-known imagery
to make this contrast
between the smallness,
the seemingly insignificance
of this little thing
and the greatness
of what it produces.
Jesus says,
this is what the kingdom
of God is like.
It starts small.
It starts insignificantly.
And yet it grows
into this great bush.
This bush that recalls
the imagery from Ezekiel 31
that we read earlier
that is large enough
to welcome not just a bird
but many birds to come
and nest in its branches
and find shelter.
The kingdom of God
that starts so small
is going to be so big
that it's going to welcome
many comers
from the outside.
This is, of course,
the model of the church
that God uses seemingly
in the eyes of the world
insignificant things
to accomplish great things
for Him.
So again,
in 1 Corinthians,
we're reminded,
Paul writes this,
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.
And because of Him,
you are in Christ Jesus
who became to us
wisdom from God,
righteousness,
sanctification,
and redemption
so that,
as it is written,
let the one who boasts
boast in the Lord.
God chooses the insignificant
things of the world
and even the things
that are not
to shame the things
that are
so that we might see
that the kingdom of God
comes
by the work of God.
Right?
And again,
we may think,
we may think
that we need
the slickest programs
or the biggest bank account.
We may think
that we need
the most cultural power
or political control.
We may think
that we need
the most impressive people
that we can collect
for the kingdom of God
to come about.
But Jesus reminds us
in this parable
that for the kingdom
of God to flourish,
it needs only
a mustard seed.
Something small
and insignificant.
something that
has no wisdom
in the eyes
of the philosophers,
has no power
in the eyes
of the miracle workers.
But as he said
in 1 Corinthians,
Jesus Christ crucified
is the wisdom of God
and the power of God.
For friends,
this is the very heart
of the gospel
that we've believed in.
That Jesus,
who though he could
claim all glory,
made himself
insignificant.
He took on human form.
He was born
as a baby
in mean estate,
as the hymn says,
right?
Wrapped in swaddling clothes
and laid in a manger.
He ministered
in obscurity.
He didn't create
an institution.
He didn't write a book.
He left a band
of scared,
scattered followers.
believers.
And he died
in social disgrace.
There is no reason
to think
in the annals
of history
that Jesus
would be anything else.
And for those of us
who are in the church
and see the world
through the history
of church,
it's kind of hard
to believe.
But all you have to do
is go over
to one of those institutions
right around the corner
who's going to teach history
where it's not a big deal.
The church
is not a big deal.
It is insignificant
insignificant in the world
in what is,
in how the world
has progressed
and where we are now
and where we are going.
But God raised
this insignificant one
from the dead.
And the kingdom foes
of sin and death
were defeated
and the sentence
against evil
was rendered
and good had conquered.
And Jesus is the place
where we know
that the kingdom of God
has conquered
and it is certain
and it is sure.
Because he has risen
from the dead,
we know this is happening.
And we know
that it will be
one day
finally accomplished.
When he returns,
he will bring
the fullness
of his kingdom
and we will see it
in all of its glory.
And it will be
a beautiful thing.
So the kingdom of God
begins in insignificance.
And it grows.
And one day
we will see its glory.
And we see this
in some ways.
Because that mustard seed
that has become a plant
is now,
if this refers
to the church
and the growth
of the church
in this age
as we're waiting
for the fullness
of the kingdom,
if the church
is the primary expression
of the kingdom of God,
there are birds
from every tribe
and tongue
and nation
coming
to find rest
and comfort
in the shelter
of the gospel
and the good news
about Jesus Christ
in the church
all over the world.
And friends,
we might even be
so bold as to say
we can see it
here at Trinity.
This church
that was not a church
50 years ago
and 30 years ago
was a small
and struggling church.
And yet God
has seen fit
as the seed
has been sown
to continue
to build it
for the good
of many
who are a part
of this.
And look,
churches aren't
the kingdom of God.
Individual churches,
churches sometimes
grow and then die.
But the church
universal
has continued
to grow
and advance.
Not perfectly,
but has continued
to grow.
Friends,
this is what
David Flood
found out
as well.
the boy
who sold them
chicken and eggs,
he heard the gospel.
After the floods
left,
he went to his village
and he shared
with them
the message
that he'd heard
from these strangers
who had come
to live near them
for a short period
of time.
And that daughter
was adopted
by other missionaries,
raised,
one day found out
what had happened
to her birth parents,
to her birth mother.
She tracked down
what happened
to this boy
and she found out
that that boy
had gone back
and the village
had believed
and he was now,
she met him
at a conference
where he was now
the national head
of a Christian
Sunday school program
that had over
110,000 people
in it.
She tracked down
her dad.
She said,
dad,
God's been good
to us.
And he said,
no,
he's not.
He's ruined
our lives.
And she told him
the story
and God redeemed him
and that day
he repented
of his bitterness
because he got
a taste
of the certainty
of what Jesus
wants us to know
that the kingdom
of God,
though small
and insignificant,
is certain
and it is sure
and we can bank
on it
and we can spend
our lives
trusting in it
and looking for it
because of the gospel.
Let's pray.
Lord,
we thank you
for this word.
Lord,
we pray this morning
that you would help us
to not be afraid
but to have faith,
to trust in you
and in this word
that,
Lord,
the kingdom
that you have begun,
Lord,
you will bring
to fruition.
Lord,
we pray
that you would help us
to have this hope.
Lord,
in the midst
of the trials
that we face
and the discouragements
that we feel,
Lord,
to know that your kingdom
is certain.
Lord,
gives us great strength
to persevere.
May it be true in us,
we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.