WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.759 This summer we're considering the parables of Jesus in a little series and 00:00:05.600 --> 00:00:08.640 we've been specifically looking for the last few weeks at 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:13.280 parables of the kingdom. So these are parables that Jesus gave where he 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:17.240 specifically tells a short story about the kingdom of God and 00:00:17.879 --> 00:00:21.760 in that he uses similarly most often the kingdom of God is like 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:26.560 this or a metaphor or out last week we saw that he uses allegory 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:31.079 symbols, a thoroughgoing symbolism to describe the kingdom of God. 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:39.000 One of the things we've said every week, I've said every week is that we see in the New Testament and the Old Testament that God uses stories to teach us. 00:00:39.479 --> 00:00:43.200 God has always used stories. Most of the Bible is written in narrative and 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:50.679 one of the reasons for that, Dorothy Sayers, an English fiction writer of the past century, one of the one of the best of 00:00:50.679 --> 00:00:58.560 writers of the past hundred years, Dorothy Sayers says that telling stories is an aspect of what it means to be made in God's image. 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:04.519 So we as human beings, we all love to tell stories. We love to hear stories. We love to read stories. 00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:11.159 Telling stories is part of what it means to be in the image of God because God tells stories, God writes stories and 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:19.680 this is an old way of saying it, but John Calvin said something like the world is a stage, the world is a theater, all of history is a theater and 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:24.520 God is working out the drama of his glory on the world stage. 00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:30.120 All of history is his story. It's his great plan of redemption that's been unfolding. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:35.040 And so God has written story into the fabric of what this world is. 00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:41.719 Our lives have meaning because they are storied lives and God continues to give us stories to help us make sense of 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:44.680 what's going on in the life of the world and he does that in the Bible. As 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:52.520 Lewis, C.S. Lewis put it, how do we relate to God? We relate to God like Hamlet relates to Shakespeare. 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:57.600 Right? How does Hamlet relate to Shakespeare? When Hamlet asks where is Shakespeare? 00:01:57.600 --> 00:02:01.560 He doesn't look around the stage and say where is Shakespeare? Where is Bill Shakespeare? 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:06.200 No, if Hamlet wants to find Shakespeare, the only possible way 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:12.080 that Hamlet could ever find Shakespeare is if Shakespeare writes himself into the story. 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:17.240 You know, the character has to, can't arise to the level of the author. 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:22.240 God is the author of the story of history, the author of the drama of redemption and 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:26.560 we know him because he wrote himself into the story. 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:30.960 He came down, the king came down and that's what the kingdom of God is all about. 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:38.720 And so we've been thinking about that. God gave us stories and so these parables are short little stories about the big story of the kingdom. 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:43.319 The story of history actually that God is still writing and we're a part of. 00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:50.520 And so what we've done is we've looked at, we've been looking at the kingdom parables that are in Matthew 13. 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:58.000 In Matthew 13, there are seven kingdom parables, seven different parables that Jesus says the kingdom of God is like. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:07.919 He's trying to get us there to think about creation, sevenfold parable to remind us that these stories tell us about the sevenfold movement of new creation. 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:12.399 That he's doing something brand new and these little stories are telling us that. 00:03:12.399 --> 00:03:19.679 And so what we've done so far is we've looked at five of them and we've learned things like from the mustard seed. 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:24.879 That the kingdom is the power of God to bring heaven down to earth, down to earth. 00:03:25.679 --> 00:03:32.799 And we've learned that Jesus is the king and the tree of life himself, the great world tree from Daniel chapter four. 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:37.760 The mustard seed told us that we learned that the kingdom is home. 00:03:37.760 --> 00:03:44.760 It's homecoming, that it's the place where all of us long to actually find our nest to put our nest in the kingdom of God. 00:03:44.760 --> 00:03:53.760 And we learned from the parable of the leaven that God is going to transform this whole world and penetrate, permeate everything in existence with all of his glory. 00:03:53.760 --> 00:04:00.760 And we learned from the pearl and the treasure that there is a treasure at the center of the kingdom, the best part of the kingdom. 00:04:00.759 --> 00:04:04.759 And that's that you can be in relationship with the living God, Jesus himself. 00:04:04.759 --> 00:04:16.759 And we learned from the treasures old and new in the scribe of the kingdom that there's a calling in the Christian life to be a scribe of the kingdom, to love Jesus and his word, and to connect the Old Testament and the New Testament, and to understand how those work together. 00:04:16.759 --> 00:04:18.759 That's being a scribe of the kingdom. 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:21.759 So that's the five parables we looked at this week. 00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:26.759 We have the sixth and it's the one parable that is not in Matthew 13. 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:31.759 So there are seven kingdom parables in the gospels, all in Matthew 13, and then there's an eighth. 00:04:31.759 --> 00:04:33.759 And the eighth is in Mark chapter four. 00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:35.759 It doesn't appear anywhere else. 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:39.759 And it's this parable about the seed that is growing. 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:41.759 Very simple. 00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:44.759 Some of the same agricultural themes that we've been looking at. 00:04:44.759 --> 00:04:45.759 So let's think about it together. 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.759 This is a story about how the kingdom grows. 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:49.759 So that's what we're going to think about. 00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:55.759 And there are three characters, the seed that grows, the farmer that sows. 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:57.759 That sows the seed. 00:04:57.759 --> 00:05:00.759 And lastly, the harvest that is brought in. 00:05:00.759 --> 00:05:04.759 So let's think about each of those characters and what we learn here about the kingdom. 00:05:04.759 --> 00:05:06.759 First, the seed that grows. 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:07.759 All right. 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:13.759 So in the beginning, verse 26 and 27, this farmer goes out and he scatter seed all over the ground. 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:16.759 And the seed goes down into the soil. 00:05:16.759 --> 00:05:20.759 And we're told here that the farmer goes to his bed. 00:05:20.759 --> 00:05:22.759 He sleeps night and day. 00:05:22.759 --> 00:05:29.759 He rises again and he comes back out and he sees that the seed has sprouted. 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:31.759 Some days later, the seed has become a plant. 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:34.759 And many days later, the seed has become a tree. 00:05:34.759 --> 00:05:39.759 And there's a very important word in verse 28 that Anna read for us. 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:44.759 And it's when he says in verse 28, the earth produces by itself. 00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:47.759 So that's the Greek word automatos. 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:51.759 And you know that word because it's the English word automatic. 00:05:51.759 --> 00:05:55.759 So automatos or automaton is the word we derive to say automatic. 00:05:55.759 --> 00:06:00.759 So it says here that the farmer scatter seed, the seed goes down in the soil. 00:06:00.759 --> 00:06:04.759 And automatically, there's a sprout. 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:08.759 And of course, when Jesus says it happens automatically, 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:12.759 he's doing something a little bit different than we do with the word automatic. 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:17.759 Because when we say automatic, we very literally mean it does it on its own. 00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:20.759 But that's not how he means the word automatos, automatic. 00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:23.759 No, because that's part of the point of the parable. 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:27.759 He's trying to derive, help us to think about nature to see, of course, 00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:30.759 that it does not work automatically. 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:33.759 The seed doesn't just sprout on its own. 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:36.759 And he's drawing a distinction here between what the farmer does, 00:06:36.759 --> 00:06:42.759 but then the power, the invisible power that is there in the potential of the seed 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:44.759 to grow into a sprout. 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:49.759 And you know, one of the ways to think about this is Jesus is, 00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:54.759 in the first century, drawing us in to think a little bit about biology, seed biology. 00:06:54.759 --> 00:06:56.759 I don't know anything about that. 00:06:56.759 --> 00:07:01.759 But I do know that in a seed, there's an embryo, there's gestation, 00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:03.759 there's a birth that takes place. 00:07:03.759 --> 00:07:08.759 You can think about it in the same way of when a baby comes into mother's womb. 00:07:08.759 --> 00:07:11.759 There's so much mystery there. 00:07:11.759 --> 00:07:17.759 The biologist can tell us exactly what's taking place as a baby grows in a womb. 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:20.759 I don't know what you call it, a seed biologist. 00:07:20.759 --> 00:07:24.759 There's a word for that, and I can't remember it, a plant biologist. 00:07:24.759 --> 00:07:29.759 Can tell us what's going on in the life of the seed as it breaks forth and brings forth the sprout. 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:34.759 But there's biology, and then there's philosophy, and they're different. 00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:39.759 And philosophy comes and gets you to ask questions like, 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:41.759 but why does this exist? 00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:45.759 And what is this little baby in mother's womb actually for? 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:47.759 And where does personality come from? 00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:48.759 And what is a person? 00:07:48.759 --> 00:07:50.759 And does the seed have meaning? 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:52.759 And do people have meaning? 00:07:52.759 --> 00:07:53.759 And is there value in this? 00:07:53.759 --> 00:07:57.759 And how come it keeps happening so consistently? 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:03.759 Why do the same rhythms of life, the laws of nature seem to keep ticking over, over and over and over again? 00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:08.759 And one of the things I think Jesus does here is that he draws us to remember that science is very helpful. 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:12.759 Biology is so good, but it's got real limits. 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:15.759 And we can't transgress those limits. 00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:22.759 So science can tell us about the mechanics of the biology of seed life, or what's going on in a womb, and so many other things. 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:25.759 But it cannot tell you why it happens. 00:08:25.759 --> 00:08:28.759 It can't tell you how exactly, all the way to the bottom. 00:08:28.759 --> 00:08:30.759 It can't tell you what it means. 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:32.759 It can't tell you what this is for. 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:39.759 Science can tell you so much about the baby in the womb, but it can't tell that baby, this is what you should do with your life. 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:42.759 This is what gives that baby meaning. 00:08:42.759 --> 00:08:47.759 And the same thing actually happens at the level of plant life, of natural life at every single level. 00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:51.759 We ask questions like, why does the sun continue to rise? 00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:54.759 Why does the world continue to spin on its axis? 00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:59.759 Why should we expect the sun to rise tomorrow? 00:08:59.759 --> 00:09:03.759 And science takes you so far, but then eventually it has to stop. 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:05.759 It can't get all the way to the bottom. 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:07.759 Here's one way to think about it. 00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:13.759 I can't remember if it rained yesterday, but I'm sure it did, right? 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:17.759 You could ask a question like, why did it rain yesterday? 00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:24.759 And the first answer is because water vapor condensed in the atmosphere and had to fall. 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:26.759 And then you could ask, why did it rain yesterday? 00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:33.759 And you'd say, because the grass and the trees and the flowers need water to survive in the life cycle in our ecosystem. 00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:37.759 And you could ask, why did it rain yesterday? And you dig a little deeper and you say, 00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:43.759 it's because God has ordered the world in such a way that water from the heavens is the fundamental source of life. 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:45.759 And you could say, why did it rain yesterday? 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:50.759 And you could say, because God has declared that life is good and that life is better than death. 00:09:50.759 --> 00:09:52.759 And you could ask, why did it rain yesterday? 00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:56.759 And you say, because life is good, because God is alive. 00:09:56.759 --> 00:10:00.759 And from his living being, everything else arrives, living being. 00:10:00.759 --> 00:10:04.759 And you could keep going a little bit, but eventually you reach the bottom, right? 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:08.759 And science takes you some of the way, natural study takes you some of the way, 00:10:08.759 --> 00:10:14.759 but eventually you realize that every single person in this world needs religion. 00:10:14.759 --> 00:10:17.759 And without religion, you can't actually say why. 00:10:17.759 --> 00:10:20.759 You can't actually say how at the bottom level. 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:22.759 You can't actually say, but what does it mean? 00:10:22.759 --> 00:10:24.759 Only religion can do that. 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:30.759 Only religion can really plumb to the depths of what something is and what something actually means. 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:33.759 Thomas Nagel, one of the most important philosophers in the United States, 00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:37.759 he wrote a book some time ago called Mind and Cosmos. 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:39.759 Thomas Nagel is not a Christian. 00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:43.759 No, in Mind and Cosmos, he declares that he is an atheist. 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:46.759 But let me just give you a little summary of the argument in his book. 00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:55.759 He says the idea that there is an ordered cosmos, an ordered cosmos without a mind, a consciousness, 00:10:55.759 --> 00:11:01.759 a living personality at the back of all that exists, he says it's difficult to maintain that. 00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:08.759 And he says the proton, the quirk and the bit of stardust that first appeared at the beginning of history 00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:12.759 has been given a purpose that it seeks to fulfill. 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:18.759 He says in every little proton there is a purpose, that proton is hungry to do what it was made to do. 00:11:18.759 --> 00:11:23.759 He points that out and he says the tiniest bit of existence has an engine in it, a purpose in it, 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:25.759 a reason that drives it. 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:31.759 And it tells us that there is some mind that stands behind everything that exists. 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.759 Now that's exactly what Jesus first does in this parable. 00:11:35.759 --> 00:11:43.759 He says that the farmer sows the seed and the farmer goes to bed and the farmer wakes up and there's a sprout 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:46.759 and it does it automatically by itself. 00:11:46.759 --> 00:11:47.759 And what is he trying to get you to do? 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:49.759 He's trying to get you to say, oh boy, it doesn't. 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:50.759 It doesn't. 00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:59.759 That there is a power, an invisible power, the spirit of the living God who continues to give life and breath 00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:05.759 and hold the world together at every level from the womb to the little seed-bearing plant. 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:10.759 And this is all across the Bible in Ecclesiastes 11 verse 5. 00:12:10.759 --> 00:12:14.759 The writer co-hell it, the preacher, he says it like this. 00:12:14.759 --> 00:12:20.759 He says, as you do not know the way that the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, 00:12:20.759 --> 00:12:25.759 so you do not know the work of God who makes and holds everything. 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:27.759 Thomas Nagel said it. 00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:30.759 He said, you can't just say that everything's just running on its own. 00:12:30.759 --> 00:12:31.759 No, it's not. 00:12:31.759 --> 00:12:36.759 The spirit of the living God is holding everything together and we cannot see. 00:12:36.759 --> 00:12:37.759 We forget. 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:38.759 We don't remember. 00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:48.759 We lose memory about the billions and billions and numbers I don't know how to say of ways that God continues to tick the world over. 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:54.759 And he tells us in Genesis after the flood that he is the one who gives the seasons. 00:12:54.759 --> 00:12:55.759 It's a covenant. 00:12:55.759 --> 00:12:56.759 He's made with the world. 00:12:56.759 --> 00:12:57.759 He is the power. 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:00.759 The spirit of God is the power of nature now. 00:13:00.759 --> 00:13:03.759 That is not the point of the parable. 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:09.759 Jesus gives us that point then to tell us the point of the parable. 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:15.759 And the point of the parable is this, the kingdom of God is like that. 00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:23.759 In other words, the point of the parable Jesus is saying is this, when you look out at nature and you realize there is an invisible power, 00:13:23.759 --> 00:13:29.759 the spirit of the living God at work that's actually the engine that's driving real growth. 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:32.759 The kingdom of God is the same. 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:39.759 That when it comes to ministry, when it comes to the work of the church, when it comes to people moving from darkness to light in their lives, 00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:43.759 finding the beauty of the gospel and being transformed by it, 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:47.759 he says look at nature and you can see exactly the way it works. 00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:56.759 And that's that the spirit who upholds creation, who gives power to the quarks, whatever a quark is, somebody can tell me after. 00:13:56.759 --> 00:14:01.759 The spirit of God is doing the same exact thing in the kingdom. 00:14:01.759 --> 00:14:08.759 That it's the spirit of God, God who is the invisible power at work that's transforming people's lives and building the kingdom of God all around us. 00:14:08.759 --> 00:14:13.759 That nature teaches us what new creation is like. 00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:18.759 The spirit of God at work and creation is the same spirit at work and new creation and it's God who's building the kingdom. 00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:24.759 It's God who's building the church. It's God who is doing all the work. 00:14:24.759 --> 00:14:26.759 Let me say it like this and we'll move on. 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:31.759 The spirit's work and creation, the rhythms of natural laws, the laws of nature, 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:36.759 is an organic living lesson to us about the way the kingdom of God works. 00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:38.759 And that's that God is the builder. 00:14:38.759 --> 00:14:41.759 Now secondly, the farmer that sows. 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:44.759 Who's the farmer here that's doing the seed sowing? 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:48.759 Who's the farmer? Who's the person in this passage that's throwing the seeds out? 00:14:48.759 --> 00:14:53.759 And the answer is that it's any follower of Jesus doing the work of ministry. 00:14:53.759 --> 00:15:00.759 So today, if you are a Christian and a follower of Jesus, you are the farmer in this parable that sowing seeds. 00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:03.759 And what is the seed here that's being sown? 00:15:03.759 --> 00:15:07.759 It's the seed of the kingdom. It's the message of the kingdom. It's the gospel of the kingdom. 00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:12.759 And the gospel of the kingdom, just to make sure that we're really clear on this, 00:15:12.759 --> 00:15:18.759 is this that you were made by God in your mother's womb 00:15:18.759 --> 00:15:23.759 for a living relationship with the real, absolute, and only God. 00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:27.759 And that every single one of us have rebelled against that 00:15:27.759 --> 00:15:31.759 and committed great injustices against the living God who made us. 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:35.759 And then God decided, I'm going to write myself into the story. 00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:39.759 And Jesus Christ, the king came down and he said that I want to know you. 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:41.759 I want to be close to you. 00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:45.759 And he died for the sake of establishing our justice. 00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:47.759 He went to the cross for our injustices. 00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:54.759 And he's coming again in his resurrection power to redeem everything, to bring peace, to restore. 00:15:54.759 --> 00:15:58.759 And so the message of the kingdom is that today you can have forgiveness 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:01.759 to the point where God forgets your sins. 00:16:01.759 --> 00:16:07.759 You can have true peace and you can have a hope that someday all wrongs will be made right. 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:09.759 Now that's the message of the kingdom. 00:16:09.759 --> 00:16:11.759 That's the seed that the farmer sows. 00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:15.759 If you're a Christian today, there's a simple call here 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:19.759 that all of us are called to sow that seed, the message of the kingdom. 00:16:19.759 --> 00:16:24.759 And the second point of the passage is really, really clear, really obvious, I think. 00:16:24.759 --> 00:16:29.759 And it's that when we sow seed, when we do ministry, when we speak the word of the gospel, 00:16:29.759 --> 00:16:34.759 when we do good deeds as Christians, what this parable is trying to get us to say is, 00:16:34.759 --> 00:16:36.759 there's something I do here. 00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:37.759 I open my mouth. 00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:40.759 I take courage and tell somebody else about the gospel, 00:16:40.759 --> 00:16:44.759 but boy, I know that I'm not actually doing any of the work. 00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:49.759 So in the same way that you, the farmer does not raise the crop up from the ground, 00:16:49.759 --> 00:16:52.759 he has no power to do that, in the same way, 00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:58.759 not a single one of us Christians has any power to actually transform people's lives. 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:02.759 We sow the seed, but only God can do it. 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:04.759 Only God can give the growth. 00:17:04.759 --> 00:17:06.759 That's the message of the parable. 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:12.759 It's probably so simply put, we could have probably just read this one verse and prayed. 00:17:12.759 --> 00:17:14.759 No, we would never do that. 00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:16.759 Paul, how does Paul say it? 00:17:16.759 --> 00:17:24.759 Paul says, I planted Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 00:17:24.759 --> 00:17:28.759 And actually the verb there, God gave the growth, is a participle. 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.759 It says God was causing it to grow all along. 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:33.759 That's the message of the parable. 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:38.759 We can plant, somebody else can come and till or water a little bit, 00:17:38.759 --> 00:17:40.759 but only God can grow the kingdom. 00:17:40.759 --> 00:17:46.759 Now, let's get super practical as we come to the end in just a moment. 00:17:46.759 --> 00:17:49.759 Let me give you three very practical takeaways. 00:17:49.759 --> 00:17:50.759 What to do with this? 00:17:50.759 --> 00:17:55.759 First, this is calling us then every single follower of Jesus today to have a real kingdom mindset. 00:17:55.759 --> 00:18:00.759 And a kingdom mindset based on this parable is to simply be willing to say, 00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:04.759 be able to say something like, I do not build the kingdom. 00:18:04.759 --> 00:18:09.759 So it's very common, even in our tradition, sometimes for us to say, for people to say, 00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:12.759 we are out building the kingdom of God. 00:18:12.759 --> 00:18:15.759 For churches sometimes to get caught up in that language, 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:18.759 to say we are all about building the kingdom of God. 00:18:18.759 --> 00:18:21.759 This parable shows us we do not do that. 00:18:21.759 --> 00:18:23.759 We don't build the kingdom of God. 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:25.759 We don't grow the kingdom of God. 00:18:25.759 --> 00:18:26.759 Not at all. 00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:28.759 Only God builds the kingdom. 00:18:28.759 --> 00:18:30.759 Only the spirit of the living God can build the kingdom. 00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:32.759 Only God grows the kingdom. 00:18:32.759 --> 00:18:33.759 What do we do? 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.759 The language of the Bible is we witness to the kingdom. 00:18:36.759 --> 00:18:38.759 We sow the seeds of the kingdom. 00:18:38.759 --> 00:18:40.759 We attest to the kingdom. 00:18:40.759 --> 00:18:46.759 We serve as ambassadors of the king trying to point other people to the only one that can actually change them, 00:18:46.759 --> 00:18:48.759 the king himself. 00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:50.759 That's the kingdom mindset this parable calls us to. 00:18:50.759 --> 00:18:55.759 The second thing to take away here is this parable calls each of us, 00:18:55.759 --> 00:19:00.759 follower of Jesus, to trade in ministry pride. 00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:04.759 We could call it ministry pride for ministry humility. 00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:07.759 And boy, this is first for pastors, I think. 00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:10.759 First for leaders in the church to hear. 00:19:10.759 --> 00:19:14.759 And then for every follower of Jesus, what this parable teaches us. 00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:16.759 And that's this ministry success. 00:19:16.759 --> 00:19:18.759 What is ministry success? 00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:24.759 What does it look like for us to have a successful church for things to go really well here? 00:19:24.759 --> 00:19:26.759 Lots of answers to that. 00:19:26.759 --> 00:19:30.759 But one of the things this parable says to us is first you have to say, 00:19:30.759 --> 00:19:32.759 you cannot measure that. 00:19:32.759 --> 00:19:36.759 God is doing things that you will never see. 00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:42.759 God is raising up the crops in a way I do not understand. 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:48.759 And God is doing things with the seed that is sown in ways that I do not understand. 00:19:48.759 --> 00:19:55.759 And so we're called to sow the seed and in some ways to not try to figure out exactly what it means to be successful. 00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:57.759 Because God's doing it. 00:19:57.759 --> 00:19:59.759 God's the one that's giving the growth. 00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:03.759 We don't, that means that I think we're being invited here as a church, as St. Columbus, 00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:10.759 not to measure everything in the three B's of ministry success that you learn in seminary. 00:20:10.759 --> 00:20:13.759 What are the three B's? 00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:16.759 How many bodies are in the room? 00:20:16.759 --> 00:20:19.759 How many buildings do you own and how's your budget? 00:20:19.759 --> 00:20:20.759 The three B's. 00:20:20.759 --> 00:20:21.759 Ministry success. 00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:23.759 Bodies, buildings and budgets. 00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:24.759 Right? 00:20:24.759 --> 00:20:28.759 And this parable says that that's not the measure of ministry success, not primarily. 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:34.759 That God is doing things in an invisible way in people's hearts that we may never understand. 00:20:34.759 --> 00:20:41.759 And you're going to have the tiniest church in the world and God can be doing unbelievable things under the surface that you can't see. 00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:48.759 We got to trade in our ministry pride, our megachurch mentalities, right? 00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:54.759 For ministry humility and say we sow, but God's going to do what He wants to do. 00:20:54.759 --> 00:20:58.759 Third, let me read you a quote from J.C. Ryle. 00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:00.759 I like what he says about it. 00:21:00.759 --> 00:21:04.759 Let us note this truth for it is deeply instructive. 00:21:04.759 --> 00:21:08.759 It is humbling no doubt to every minister and to teachers of others. 00:21:08.759 --> 00:21:15.759 The highest ability, the best preaching, the hardest work cannot command ministry success. 00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:17.759 God alone can. 00:21:17.759 --> 00:21:20.759 God alone gives the growth. 00:21:20.759 --> 00:21:25.759 Third, last, and we'll move to the final thing. 00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:28.759 That also means at the same time, juxtaposition. 00:21:28.759 --> 00:21:37.759 This parable calls us to trade in our small ambitions for huge kingdom ambitions, for kingdom expectations. 00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:42.759 In other words, if we can come today and say, you know, I know that it doesn't depend on me. 00:21:42.759 --> 00:21:45.759 I know you can say I know it doesn't depend on me. 00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:49.759 I'm called to sow, but I don't transform the world. 00:21:49.759 --> 00:21:51.759 I can't transform the city. 00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:55.759 Then that means we can actually have huge ambitions. 00:21:55.759 --> 00:22:01.759 Huge ministry ambitions because we can say God is so powerful, God can do it. 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:02.759 It's not up to me. 00:22:02.759 --> 00:22:04.759 I'm so thankful that I don't have to do it. 00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:05.759 God's doing it. 00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:12.759 And so that gives me the humility to have huge ambition for what might happen here in our city. 00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:19.759 I would imagine that as the disciples heard this parable, they would have probably been tempted to say, 00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:26.759 they would have probably been tempted to look at the Roman Empire and say, you know, Jesus keeps talking about the kingdom 00:22:26.759 --> 00:22:29.759 and he keeps saying things like the kingdom is like a seed. 00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:34.759 But I look at the Roman Empire and I see the kingdom is like Caesar's palace. 00:22:34.759 --> 00:22:36.759 You know, it's pretty nice. 00:22:36.759 --> 00:22:37.759 It's huge. 00:22:37.759 --> 00:22:38.759 It's big. 00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:39.759 It's powerful. 00:22:39.759 --> 00:22:41.759 And Jesus is saying, look at this little, this kingdom. 00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:43.759 This kingdom is a seed. 00:22:43.759 --> 00:22:52.759 And they had to have been tempted to say, I sort of wish the kingdom of God was being compared more to the palace in Rome 00:22:52.759 --> 00:22:54.759 than the little, but he see that goes into the ground. 00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:55.759 I want to see big things. 00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:56.759 I want to see great things. 00:22:56.759 --> 00:22:58.759 I want to see the world transformed. 00:22:58.759 --> 00:23:07.759 And boy, today in our world, there are 2.4 billion Christians and billions beyond that that have already passed away. 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:09.759 And where is the Roman Empire? 00:23:09.759 --> 00:23:12.759 It's long gone. 00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:17.759 And that means we can trade in ministry pride for ministry ambition. 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:19.759 God is doing great things. 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:20.759 God loves to do great things. 00:23:20.759 --> 00:23:22.759 He still is. 00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:25.759 Thirdly, finally, the harvest that we seek. 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:37.759 At the very end of the passage, we're told in verse 29, when the grain is ripe, the farmer puts the sickle to the wheat because it's time. 00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:46.759 So at the very end, we learn that there is a harvest and there's a harvest that the farmer, the follower of Jesus actually does bring in because of God's work. 00:23:46.759 --> 00:23:47.759 And what is that? 00:23:47.759 --> 00:23:48.759 That's new. 00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:50.759 That's people coming to faith in Christ. 00:23:50.759 --> 00:23:52.759 That's baptisms. 00:23:52.759 --> 00:23:54.759 That's new church members. 00:23:54.759 --> 00:24:01.759 That's people being transformed day by day to take on the image of the sun in themselves. 00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:02.759 That's virtue. 00:24:02.759 --> 00:24:04.759 That's sanctification. 00:24:04.759 --> 00:24:07.759 So much harvest that can be so much fruit that can come. 00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:15.759 And I just want to conclude with a few things to do as you seek the harvest as a follower of Jesus as a farmer, as a sower of the seed. 00:24:15.759 --> 00:24:27.759 The first is this, take a moment today to evaluate, to do a little self-evaluation, to do a little bit of diagnostic work in your heart and say, am I sowing the seed? 00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:35.759 Because one of the things we learn here is there's a real invitation to say every follower of Jesus is called to be a farmer of the kingdom, to sow the seeds of the kingdom. 00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:37.759 Do you sow seed? 00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:45.759 Are you ministering to other people in this world through the word of the gospel, the word of the kingdom and deeds in the kingdom? 00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:46.759 That's the first. 00:24:46.759 --> 00:24:54.759 The second thing to do there is to say, where are you going to get the power to sustain a lifelong farming ministry? 00:24:54.759 --> 00:24:58.759 And the answer is that you've got to look at the seed himself. 00:24:58.759 --> 00:25:05.759 And in John chapter 12, Jesus Christ compares himself to a seed, to a seed that's thrown into the ground. 00:25:05.759 --> 00:25:12.759 And he says that the seed has to go into the ground and it has to die in order for real fruit, real life to come up from it. 00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:15.759 And there, of course, he was talking about his cross. 00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:17.759 He was talking about his death. 00:25:17.759 --> 00:25:28.759 And he was saying, if you really want to be a planter in the kingdom, you can only have power to do that if you never graduate from staring every day at the seed himself. 00:25:28.759 --> 00:25:40.759 The one, the king, the author who wrote himself into the story, the one who came and was sown in weakness, sown in death, but raised in strength. 00:25:40.759 --> 00:25:42.759 He says, there's the power. 00:25:42.759 --> 00:25:43.759 There's the hope. 00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:44.759 There's the victory. 00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:52.759 There's the strength that you can have to actually be a consistent, lifelong ministry farmer, a sower of seed. 00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:54.759 Never take your eyes off the cross. 00:25:54.759 --> 00:25:59.759 The seed, sown in weakness, raised in strength. 00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:02.759 You go down in humility in order to have power to do ministry. 00:26:02.759 --> 00:26:04.759 It's the cruciform life. 00:26:04.759 --> 00:26:06.759 It's the following the master. 00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:08.759 It's the way of Christ. 00:26:08.759 --> 00:26:15.759 Third, afford, embrace, there's a call in this parable then to embrace the mundanity of ministry. 00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:21.759 There's something mundane here in this parable about ministry and about the kingdom. 00:26:21.759 --> 00:26:28.759 There's an invitation, I think, to be steady, faithful, patient, sower of seeds. 00:26:28.759 --> 00:26:32.759 James Edwards, one of the, I think, the best commentator on Mark's Gospel. 00:26:32.759 --> 00:26:34.759 This is what he says about it. 00:26:34.759 --> 00:26:39.759 The kingdom of God should be likened to something grand and glorious, we think. 00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:44.759 We come and we say, why is he not comparing the kingdom to something so much bigger and more grand? 00:26:44.759 --> 00:26:52.759 To shimmering mountain peaks, to crimson sunsets, the opulence of potentates, the lusty glory of the gladiator. 00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:54.759 Why not that metaphor? 00:26:54.759 --> 00:26:57.759 But Jesus instead chooses seeds. 00:26:57.759 --> 00:27:00.759 And here's the paradox of the Gospel. 00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:07.759 Indeed, the scandal of the incarnation itself, that it's disguised in common places. 00:27:07.759 --> 00:27:12.759 The God whom Jesus introduces will not be kept at a celestial arms length. 00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:17.759 Jesus does not tell us how high and lofty God is in his metaphors, 00:27:17.759 --> 00:27:23.759 but instead how very near and local and present he is in all of his metaphors. 00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:32.759 The routines of simply planting and harvesting faithfully are mundane clues to the nature and the plan of building the kingdom. 00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:36.759 There's a normalcy about it that we would have never expected. 00:27:36.759 --> 00:27:38.759 What does it look like to grow? 00:27:38.759 --> 00:27:39.759 What does it look like to bring fruit? 00:27:39.759 --> 00:27:42.759 It just looks like opening the Bible. 00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:45.759 It's mundane in a way, but it's powerful. 00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:51.759 Something so ordinary as reading is the place where you can come to meet the living God. 00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:54.759 It doesn't look like the Vatican. 00:27:54.759 --> 00:27:56.759 It looks like the farmer sowing seeds. 00:27:56.759 --> 00:27:59.759 It's steady, it's patient, it's faithful, it's simple. 00:27:59.759 --> 00:28:02.759 That that's how fruit comes about. 00:28:02.759 --> 00:28:08.759 Prayer, Scripture, worship, telling somebody else about Jesus inviting somebody. 00:28:08.759 --> 00:28:13.759 It's mundane, but it's the way, it's the ordinary means of grace. 00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:15.759 It's the message of the kingdom. 00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:22.759 Lastly, that means that kingdom ministry, and we'll close with this, is not a zero-sum game. 00:28:22.759 --> 00:28:25.759 It's not what God is telling us here. 00:28:25.759 --> 00:28:32.759 It's never for us to say, well, God does it so I don't do it, or I have to do it because God has left me to do it. 00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:36.759 And actually, there's no zero-sum game here in the way that God has worked it. 00:28:36.759 --> 00:28:41.759 God is the primary cause of all kingdom power. 00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:44.759 And then he says, and you are the secondary cause. 00:28:44.759 --> 00:28:49.759 And it's 100% the case that the only way the church will grow, the only way the kingdom will grow, 00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:55.759 the only way your friend will come to faith in Christ is if God does it. 00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:58.759 And at the same time, he says, now go and talk to them. 00:28:58.759 --> 00:28:59.759 It's not a zero-sum game. 00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:01.759 It's 100%, 100%. 00:29:01.759 --> 00:29:06.759 And so what you can do is you can come today and say, I am not the source, I am not the engine, 00:29:06.759 --> 00:29:10.759 I am not the power of my own growth, I'm not the power of anybody's growth. 00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:18.759 I can't bring my kids into the kingdom, I can't transform my city, I can't transform my neighborhood, 00:29:18.759 --> 00:29:24.759 I can't bring the royal mile to bow the knee to King Jesus, I can't affect anybody's life at the fringe, 00:29:24.759 --> 00:29:31.759 not ultimately, and at the very same time say, God has called me to be a kingdom farmer. 00:29:31.759 --> 00:29:39.759 And so we can put it like this, God does all the work and I can sow the seeds of my own spiritual growth. 00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:44.759 God does all the work and I can sow the seeds of my children's spiritual health. 00:29:44.759 --> 00:29:50.759 God does all the work and I can till the soil and plant the seeds of my church's corporate health 00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:53.759 by pursuing my individual spiritual health. 00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:57.759 God does all the work and I can share the message of the kingdom with my family member 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:01.759 and my colleague and my neighbor and take courage. 00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:09.759 God does all the work and I can explain why I think God and Jesus Christ makes better sense of reality than a materialistic world viewed us. 00:30:09.759 --> 00:30:13.759 God does all the work and I can sow the seeds. 00:30:13.759 --> 00:30:18.759 And that means God is building the ultimate garden for us. 00:30:18.759 --> 00:30:24.759 And he invites every single one of us today, every single follower of Jesus to go out today, this week, 00:30:24.759 --> 00:30:29.759 and be reminded that you are a gardener of that kingdom. 00:30:29.759 --> 00:30:37.759 Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the kingdom parables and we pray now that you would give us the balance, 00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:45.759 the balance of saying and knowing that it is you who are the power behind everything in creation and redemption 00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:50.759 and simultaneously the balance of saying, of knowing that you've called us. 00:30:50.759 --> 00:30:59.759 So Lord, we give away our laxity attitude towards ministry and towards the kingdom of God. 00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:02.759 We don't want it and yet we struggle with it. 00:31:02.759 --> 00:31:08.759 And so I do ask today that maybe Lord, by the Holy Spirit, by the power at work in us that we cannot understand, 00:31:08.759 --> 00:31:18.759 you would do the very important work of tilling our hearts and taking away our lack of desire to serve you through sowing seeds. 00:31:18.759 --> 00:31:25.759 Take it away Lord and give us new desires, fresh desires, real longings to do in this life what matters most. 00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:51.759 And so we pray for that heart in Jesus' name. Amen.