"Kingdom Principles" - Mark 4:21-33

And then if you've got a Bible, it'll be in Mark chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's blue Bibles on the tables in front of you.

If you need one, let us know. I'm going to make it easy for you. It's on page 930.

You don't even have to check the table of contents. Just give you a page.

Last week, we discussed the parable of the soils. We said this is how growth works.

Not that we do anything that causes the growth, but that we spread the seed

on soil and God has prepared certain soils for growth, right?

That there's really nothing in that passage that tells us, well,

here's what you need to do to be good soil.

Jesus is simply explaining to his apostles, future apostles,

current disciples, that when you go out and you preach the word and you spread

the seed, you're going to get different responses. Here's why.

In other words, one of our main takeaways last week was this,

our job is to preach the gospel, is to preach the word.

The response, what happens is up to the Lord.

And Jesus is going to continue that here, but I think it's important where this

is placed in the gospel narratives.

To this point, Jesus is on the scene. Remember we had John in chapter one,

which seems like a year ago, but John chapter one, he comes and he pronounces

that Jesus is the one that's going to take away the sins of the world.

Jesus is tempted. He starts his ministry.

He goes from synagogue to synagogue to start. He starts getting big crowds because

he's healing people and feeding people. And so, of course, everyone wants to be a part of that.

But as his ministry is about to really hit its high point, it's like he stops

for a second to explain to his disciples, hey, we're about to go do ministry

together. You're about to see me preach the gospel.

You're about to see literally what God is doing on earth.

And I want you to understand this is how this is going to work.

These are the principles of how the kingdom works.

He doesn't want them to think, listen, we're going to go out there and everything's

going to be grady, man. We're just going to kill this thing.

Like you've been looking for a king. I'm your king.

This is actually what ends up causing the crowd to yell, crucify him is the

crowd is looking for a king.

They want someone to come take over the Romans. They want someone to get the

Romans out and to rebuild this temple and to sit in the temple and to make sure

that everything is as it should be in their minds.

And yet Jesus has no crown.

He recruits no army.

And for most of his ministry, he really doesn't care a whole lot about fighting the Romans.

He says things like, give unto Caesar what is Caesar. And you know,

the Jews are going, time out.

How about not giving unto Caesar what is Caesar? How about we just keep this

for ourselves, right? That's what we want our king to do.

And I think though we might not verbalize it that way, most of our frustration

in our Christian life comes from that kind of thinking.

That we come to Jesus thinking, listen, here's my problems, here's my issues,

I need you to fix those issues, right? Chop, chop.

I got problems, I need you to fix those problems. And even more so when we begin

to actually serve and do ministry and preach the word, preach the gospel,

spread that seed across the world, we think, not only do I want you to fix my

problems, I wanna see results.

I want to see the fruit of my labor, right?

If I'm serving in kids ministry, if you're teaching a class,

if you're discipling someone, right, whatever it is, raising kids,

whatever your ministry is at the time, you want to see results.

And Jesus is going to give us three parables here that I think will help clarify,

it's not really how this works. That's not how this works.

Not only in the world around you, but in yourself.

Most of the people I talk to that would say, you know, I'm a Christian.

I'm just really frustrated.

Usually their frustration is I'm not growing at the pace that I would like to grow.

I'm not seeing the change that I would like to see. Now, obviously there's questions

you can ask like, well, hey man, are you going to church?

Are you reading your Bible? Are you praying? Are you being discipled?

You know, and all those things can be true.

But even if the answer to all those questions is yes, there's no guarantee that

you'll see the growth that you want to see when you want to see it.

So Jesus is going to lay this out for us a bit. You could call these kingdom

principles, kingdom principles.

Remember last week was about how the kingdom is going to grow. going to spread seed.

The right soils are going to respond. The other soils, the other hearts are

going to respond this way.

And now Jesus is going to go deeper and to say, these are the principles of

kingdom growth. This is how this is going to work.

So let me just read this. We'll read this a little bit at a time.

I don't want to read all of it at the same time. So Mark 4, we'll start in 21.

And he said to them, is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand.

For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest or to be made known,

nor is anything secret except to come to light.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

And said to them, pay attention to what you hear with the measure you use,

it will be measured to you and still more will be added to you.

For to the one who has, more will be given.

And from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

So before we get into this, a quick English lesson. I think the NASB may be the only Bible.

So if you have an NASB, you win today. All right.

I don't even know if it's in the most recent one. It might only be in the 1995

version. And if this means nothing to you, that's okay.

If you want to nerd out over Bibles later, we can talk.

But really, the Greek here lays out that this isn't a lamp. It's not a lamp.

And the Greek could say definite article. Again, if you're an English person

in here, this is the best part of the sermon for you.

So let's just, if you're not an English person, be gracious to your English-loving neighbors, okay?

But this is a definite article. In other words, the verse really reads not as

a lamp brought in to be put under the basket, it is the lamp brought in to be put under the basket.

The definite article, the lamp.

So Jesus isn't making a general observation. He's not saying,

well, generally speaking, if you have a light, You wouldn't bring it into a house and cover it up.

Not that that's a wrong observation. That's not the observation he's making.

Remember, he's just talked about how the kingdom grows. And so now he's saying

the lamp, right? The lamp.

Who's he talking about? He's talking about himself.

He's talking about himself.

John picks up on this imagery a ton in his gospel about eight or nine times.

Let me give you two. John 1, 9, the beginning of his gospel says,

the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

Jesus, the true light was coming into the world. Later on, John 8,

12, again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

So in Mark, this isn't a light, a lamp. It's the light, the lamp.

What Jesus, I think, is going to

explain here, too, is this explains why prideful people will hate Jesus.

Prideful people hate Jesus. The Pharisees hate Jesus.

Why do they hate Jesus? Because they're prideful.

Why does the crowd yell, crucify him?

Because in their pride, they don't see their sins as the biggest issue in their

life. They see the Romans as the biggest issue in their life.

Why do the crowds that gather and get fed, the 5,000 plus, why do they leave

when Jesus says, you need to repent and believe?

Because in their pride, they go, I don't want to repent of my sins.

That's not my issue. My issue is I'm hungry and you can give me food.

Why do people still hate Jesus? At the core of the hatred and the rejection

of Jesus is this, I don't need forgiveness of my sins. I'll take care of that.

I'll handle that. Or worse, I don't really have any sins.

Our president has famously said that out loud. I don't really know what I need

to repent from. I'm not really sinning a whole lot.

That's a prevailing thought. You're not that bad. It could always be worse.

Those kinds of people over and over again in Jesus' ministry will hate the light

of the world. Why? Because what does the light do? It reveals everything about you.

If you follow Jesus for very long, you know that anything you try to keep hidden

is the one thing that Jesus will reveal.

The sin that you try to keep hidden, right?

The habit, the idolatry, the habit, whatever it is, Jesus will reveal that he

is the light of the world. But you know who loved Jesus?

The humble people who know they are sinners.

The humble people will receive Jesus because they see their sin and they see

their need and they will cry out like the tax collector, have mercy on me,

oh God, a sinner, a sinner.

Jesus is the light of the world. And another image here that he's giving them

is he is to be put on display.

He is to be put on display.

I think an easy way to think about this is at our church or maybe even in your

own life is Jesus put on display? Is he the main event?

Is he the main event? This is something that we've talked about a ton,

especially in our elders meetings.

When we first started, and I'm talking about planning a church,

this was at the core of everything we did, was that we wanted to keep everything

else as simple as we could.

Everything else as simple as we could. I don't ever want to get to a place,

no matter how big we grow, which I'm praying we do, that programming takes the place of Jesus Christ.

That our worship service turns into a show that when people come in,

that what they walk away with is, man, wasn't that awesome?

It sounded so good, man. They had this mix going and there was light, man, all that stuff.

Now, again, I'm not saying that if a church does that, it's wrong.

I'm not making that argument.

What I am saying is anything that might get in the way of Jesus being on display,

of the light being put on a stand, And I don't know if it's wrong,

but I do know it's dangerous.

It's dangerous. And people go to certain churches, certain events.

They do certain things. I'm guilty of this. Not because I'm concerned about

Jesus being put on display because, you know, I really like the way that guy talks.

I really like that person's voice. I really like how they sound.

I like how it feels. The chairs are really comfortable.

I went to a church in college for a month because I was like,

I don't know, man, those pews are like extra padded. I don't know what it is.

And every week I'd walk out and I'd be like, man, I don't know that I learned

anything, but my butt feels great. Like I just feel rested and really good.

So Jesus, again, is making this point that, hey, the goal, the way the kingdom

works, the focus of the kingdom is the lamp, is the light of the world.

It's Jesus Christ put on display.

It's his word going forth. It's his gospel going forth.

It's his commandments being obeyed. That is what the kingdom works on. That's how this works.

And I think if we're not careful, what we do as churches is not that we want

to not put him on display, but we want to cloud him a little.

We want to put some filters in front of him because we're afraid like,

man, if you read some of the things that Jesus said,

like what we talked about a few weeks ago, if I come out and somebody says,

hey man, I was reading this verse about him saying you need to hate your family,

your father and mother and your kids.

I don't really like that. Our natural response to say, well,

don't worry about that. Let me read John 3, 16 to you. That's the one you want to know.

Don't worry about those things. Hey, I was reading what Jesus said about sexuality

and about marriage, and I'm just not really on board with that.

You know, I kind of got some hurt with that.

And so we want to just, again, we want to pivot people to just all the things

that we think they'll like.

That's skewing Jesus. That's putting a filter over the lamp and saying,

hey, let me try and get some of maybe these things that'll be harsher on you,

a harsher light, a harsher ray.

It's shining on some things you don't want to deal with. Let me put that over

Jesus. So you still see Jesus. You just don't see all of them.

And hopefully over time, maybe in a couple years, maybe in 10 years,

we can start removing some of these filters, and we'll just let you see them.

I think that's the pit that we can fall into if we aren't careful.

And Jesus is saying very clearly, listen, put me on display. I'm a light.

Put me on the stand and walk away. Put me on the stand and walk away.

I don't need anything else. I don't need anything else.

I would also say if you skew Jesus, the problem with that, the main issue with

that is a skewed version of Jesus won't save you. It won't save you.

I was having a conversation with a friend this week. We were talking about,

you know, what we always end up talking about, church and statistics.

And he's an architect slash engineer kind of guy. He lives in Dallas.

And so he's all about numbers. And he was telling me all these studies.

And I was reading this study. I was reading this study. I'm not super big on

statistics, but I do trust my eyes.

And one of the things he said is, you know, I'm reading these statistics about

evangelical Christians and what they think.

What they think. So, you know, they'll ask the question, well,

what do you think about the abortion issue? What do you think about the transgender

issue? What do you think about marriage?

And one of the things he was telling me was, you know, it's amazing to me how

many professing evangelical Christians think the way they think about marriage

and sexuality and life and all of those things.

And I said, well, you know, I think in a lot of ways that's the church's fault.

And I said, I think in a lot of ways that's people like me's fault at times.

Because those kinds of things are hard to talk about. You know what I would love to do every week?

I would love to come in and preach on Ephesians 2, 1 through 10 every week.

I would love to do that. I would love to just preach on that passage every week.

And then maybe we can go to Romans 5.

Maybe we can go to Romans 3 and Romans 8 every now and again.

Right? I can, John 3, John 6.

The problem again with that is what I'm doing and what the church tends to do

is We just want to shield you from these hard things because you're just not

quite ready for those yet as if we know better than Christ does.

So what's the first principle? The first principle is the focus of the kingdom

is Jesus Christ on display, on display.

Everything he says, everything he does, everything about him, we put him on display.

Practically, Matthew 5, 16, a verse you probably know, let your light shine

before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.

What is your light? What's my light?

It's not my innate creativity or my wonderful wit or my IQ or my knowledge.

That's not the light that's in me. The world has all of those things.

If you have a light to shine before others, if you have good deeds that glorify

your Father in heaven, those things come from knowing Christ and you let those

things shine before men.

Matthew doesn't say, let your talent shine. Let your innate graciousness shine.

Let how awesome you are shine. He says, let the light that you've been given shine.

Jesus is the focus of the kingdom. Number two, the work of the kingdom. The work of the kingdom.

Verse 26 says, and Jesus said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.

He sleeps and rises night and day.

The seed sprouts and grows. He knows not how.

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

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

I think one of the most common topics you hear talked about in churches again is burnout.

You're going to get burnout. You're going to get burnout. I think burnout is

most often caused by wrong motivations.

Burnout is most often caused by

wrong motivations. Now, I'm not saying you can't be overworked. You can.

I'm not saying you can't do things that or have things done to you that attribute to that.

What I am saying is when I read my Bible, when I read my Bible and I read about

the disciples and I read about the early church, I read about what's going on.

It seems like 24-7, every single day, they're being persecuted.

They're being kicked out of their homes.

They're being threatened. They're being treated like third-class citizens.

And yet never once do I read for them to stop doing ministry.

Now, there's a command to rest on the Sabbath. That does not change.

But they don't rest from worshiping the Lord. They don't rest from doing God's work.

They rest from the world around them. They need to rest from what the world

is putting on them, not what God has asked them to do.

Again, I'm not saying that to guilt trip you into anything.

What I am saying is oftentimes, again, burnout is caused by wrong motivation.

What is the motivation that causes burnout?

Your response to results reveals your motivation.

Your response to results reveals your motivation.

So I'm coaching or helping coach a 10U baseball team.

And it's obvious at times when you get around other coaches where the motivation is.

Right? You can find out real quick. Do you care about this kid or do you care

about winning the game? It's obvious very quickly.

Usually the coaches that are over there cussing under their breath and throwing

things, you know, pretty quick.

Little Timmy batting 104 is a problem for you, right? He's an issue.

You got your whole life built up in this nine-year-old.

They say, man, I'm just so tired of coaching. I'm like, you will get tired of

coaching little kids if you think their success is going to help you out because

it doesn't matter how good or bad your kid is, right?

Even the very best kids mess up their kids. That's what they do.

Ministry in much the same way is not or shouldn't be results motivated, right?

We don't do things for the kingdom because we're looking for results.

Imagine if you're a disciple, imagine if you're Paul and your idea of a successful

ministry is I'm going to go out and everything is going to go great for me.

Now we think of Paul a certain way because we know what ended up happening.

We know how these things finished up. We know how he's remembered.

But if you lived, if you read Paul's life, it is not very successful.

He's shipwrecked and bit by snakes and beaten within an inch of his life and kicked out of places.

There's successes along the

way, but by and large, most of his life is a long, slow trudge of what?

Doing what God has asked him to do, of fulfilling what Christ told him when

he called him. I'm going to show you how you will suffer for my namesake.

What if that was the banner over your life's ministry?

And when someone looked at you, they're like, hey, how do you measure success?

And you're like, well, I don't know. And the guy that called me said suffering

would be a pretty good measure of my success.

And they would look at Paul and go, you're doing great. You're doing wonderful.

Man, you're doing a great job.

But our goal is to spread the seed of the gospel.

Not to go, why aren't they doing X? I've told them a hundred times why don't they get it.

I've walked with them. I've talked to them. I've done everything I could do.

They're not getting it. You know, I really want to see why. I really want to see something.

I want to see God do this. I want to see us growing this way.

I want to see these things get solved.

Or you'll say things like, why are they treating me this way?

Why is it not going the way I want it to go? All of those things are revealing

a motivation inside of us that says, I want the results.

I want the results. I do not care about spreading seed anymore until I see some results.

And Jesus is saying, listen, when you spread seed, the kingdom grows unbeknownst to you.

You don't get to control that. This is the picture he gives him,

that a farmer goes out, spreads some seed.

And what does he do? He goes to bed. He goes to bed.

He goes to bed. He doesn't know what's going to happen. He doesn't know how this is going to take.

Again, he's saying this on the heels of telling him about the soils.

You go spread the seed on the soils.

The growth is God's business. It's not your business.

And in our personal life and in our church and the way we live our lives,

if we get caught up in the results, how are things going?

Why am I not seeing this? Why are these people not getting it?

Why can't they just understand where I'm coming from? Why are they doing this

to me? You will be burnout.

You will. You won't just be burnout in ministry. You'll be burnout in your own Christian life.

I have no doubt there's someone in here or multiple people in here that you've

come to church this morning. You're like, you know, I'm doing it,

but I don't really even know why anymore.

I'm just not really sure. I'm doing it. I know I'm supposed to.

I know I'm supposed to go.

I know I'm supposed to read, but you know, it's just not really working for me.

I don't really feel motivated to do it. listen, the reason you feel that way

is because you think the results are what matter.

You think the results are under your control, or you think you'll find the perfect

formula to get the results you want. You'll find the perfect church.

You'll find the perfect preacher, the perfect Bible teacher,

the perfect worship set, the perfect lighting, the perfect mood,

the perfect vibe, the perfect time.

You think, man, if I find all those things, it will result in me becoming the

greatest Christian that I could ever possibly be.

And Jesus, again, is saying, that's not how this works.

The seed is spread. The seed is spread. The growth is his business.

The word used here is actually the word we get automatically from or automate.

That the seed is spread and it automatically produces what it was supposed to produce.

It would certainly be easier if we spread some seed and then someone got saved

and then tomorrow they just got it all. They just figured it out.

My life would be easier, your life would be easier, but that's not how it works.

I think a good way to think about this too is when you get frustrated about

things not working, results not coming the way you want them to come.

And so you lose motivation to get in the Word.

You lose motivation to come to church. You lose motivation to pray.

Think of it like eating, right? Not every meal is one you want to remember.

I don't know if you've ever eaten like Vienna the sausage out of the can,

right? That's a meal to get you from A to B. Now, some of you are like, that's a delicacy.

God bless you. I don't know. Spam is a delicacy. Okay, let's make some distinctions here.

But there's a lot of meals that you eat that you've forgotten about.

You don't remember them at all, right? You were on the go, you were busy,

so you stopped somewhere and snagged lunch just to get you to where? To dinner.

You've had plenty of dinners that you wish were different, that you wish went

different ways, that you wish the food would have been different.

You wish you would have prepared it different.

You wish somebody else would have been there. But the point is you ate.

The word is much the same way.

If I asked you, what was my message eight weeks ago? I don't know that anyone

in here could tell me. That would be impressive, by the way.

If you'll turn over your papers and there's a quiz.

That's not my point. I know that you won't remember a lot of what I say. I hope you realize that.

Realize that. I know that there's going to be a lot of times that I'm teaching

and I'm preaching that Matt's teaching, that you're learning something.

There'll be a lot of times that you open your Bible in the morning and read

for 20 minutes. And by the afternoon, you will have forgotten 99% of what you read.

That's okay. In the same way that you've forgotten most everything you've ever

eaten, that doesn't mean it didn't accomplish its purpose in you.

And Jesus's point is when the seed is sown and when it takes in the ground,

it will accomplish its purpose in you.

It is growing. It is moving. It is acting.

So for me, the reason we preach the way we preach and teach the way we teach

through the Bible expositionally is because I want you to have the word,

because I'm not trusting that something I say might spark a spiritual change in your life.

I'm trusting that over time, the word implanted into your hearts will grow into

something that I don't understand. that I don't get.

Why do you need to read your Bibles in the morning? Because you need the Word.

I don't remember it. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

Trees don't have memories, right? If you ask a tree.

You get here? He's not going to go, well, there was some seed back there. A tree is a tree.

We know that that was a seed at one point. There's this little thing that just

grew into this big thing.

In the same way, your spiritual life is like that.

You continually get as much seed as you can in your life.

You spread it on the soil of your heart and you let God let it work.

I have no doubt if we brought different people up who've been Christians for

a while. He said, how did you get here? how'd you get here?

Most of us would say, you know, I don't really know. We could point to some big moments.

We could point to some highlights, right? Some five-star meals that we've heard or said.

And then like, man, that was a five. I remember 1997, I was here.

That was a five-star meal. I've never forgotten it. But for the most part,

we go to church, we pray, we sing, we take the sacraments, right?

We come get the Lord's supper.

We watch baptisms, we get baptized and we kind of go, you know.

Don't know exactly how I got here. All I can say is that God has been at work

in my life every single day.

And now I wake up and I love the word. Now I wake up and I live for him.

Now I wake up and I don't struggle with certain sins and I don't deal with certain things.

And I would encourage you, if you're older and you're at that place in life,

you find someone younger to encourage them with that.

They need that encouragement. Hey, it will get better.

It will. I know it's hard to read. I know it's hard to pray.

I know there's temptations in your life that you feel like you will never get

over, but God will do his work in you.

The seed of the word will do his work in you.

So Jesus is on display. That's our first principle.

Second principle is the work of the kingdom is done by God. It's done in secret.

God calls it to grow. Last thing, what does that growth look like?

What does that growth look like? Well, Jesus says it looks like mustard seeds.

Verse 30, and he said, what can we compare the kingdom of God or what parable shall we use for it?

It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when grown in the ground is the smallest

of all the seeds on the earth.

Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants.

And it puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

Let me remind you of a quote we said last week, the word of God does the work

of God and the people of God.

The word of God does the work of God and the people of God. Now,

again, imagine you're the disciples in 10 years.

Jesus has been crucified. He's risen again. You're being persecuted.

Maybe you're Paul. Paul's not here right now, but maybe you're Paul.

You're reading this writing.

Maybe you're Peter and you're being persecuted in Rome.

Reading over some of your notes that you took while Jesus was teaching and you

come across this passage and you are reminded, oh wait, as I sow kingdom seeds,

they're not going to look initially like very much.

Just think about Jesus. To the outside world, looking at Jesus,

it's man, this craftsman, carpenter,

stone guy from a nowhere town with 12 nobodies. That's who he was.

That's how God chose to manifest himself on the earth.

They tried to snuff them out. They tried to persecute them. They tried to kick

them out. They did everything they could to the Christians of the first century.

And what did the Christians of the first century keep doing? They kept sowing.

They kept preaching. They kept proclaiming. And they would, again,

sow them into wild beasts and put them in as a display to be eaten by wild animals.

They would dip them in candle wax to light the way to the temple.

And what did they do? They just kept sowing.

Why? Because of parables like this. because they could look at Jesus' words

and go, okay, that's what it's like.

That's what it's like. I shouldn't expect to see this incredible result when I sow this seed, right?

I shouldn't expect that everything in my life will get better,

that everyone will come to me and say, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you told me that.

I'm so glad that you preached to me the gospel of Jesus Christ and that I'm

a sinner and I need a savior.

No, that most people will respond to this with, I'm not a sinner.

Who are you to tell me that I'm a sinner, right?

I don't need these things. My kids don't need these things.

What do you mean? Give up my life, take up my cross and follow Jesus.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

They sow seed and what happens? It grows. Again, like a mustard seed, it grows.

It's small in the beginning until it takes root. And then by the end,

listen to this imagery that Jesus uses.

It becomes so large that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade The

birds of the air can make nests in its shade Now what Jesus is doing here is

he's pulling some Old Testament language,

He's pulling some Old Testament language So if you want to take notes,

you want to go study this Because we don't have 30 minutes to go through all of it Psalm 104,

Ezekiel chapter 17 and 31, Daniel 4 All of these places use this exact phrase, the birds of the air.

Ezekiel 17 · chapter mention

Every single time it's used, God is referring to the nations,

the nations, the birds of the air, like the nations.

What does God say about the nations? Behold, the nations are like a drop from

a bucket and they are accounted as the dust on the scales. Behold,

he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less

than nothing in emptiness.

In other words, these nations that he counts as nothing will one day take their shade in what?

In the gospel seed that's been planted.

When we go out to the world, when we go to the nations and we preach the gospel,

what we're ultimately doing is saying, there is a kingdom that is going to grow

in such a way that every tribe, tongue, and nation will one day take its shade under this kingdom.

That from every tribe, tongue, and nation, there will be people that come that

take their shade, that take their rest under this mustard seed.

That's important for two reasons. Number one, again, as you go out and you feel

like you are doing small things, nothing things, right?

We've all had somebody come up to us 10 years after something and say,

you know, you said something 10 years ago that I'll never forget.

And they tell you what it is. And what do you say?

Never heard. I've never said that. That couldn't have been me Again,

the first thing here is you sow You sow the word of God in people's lives And

you let God do what they do Number two, what does it mean?

The birds of the air, the nations are accounted as nothing In other words,

don't look to the nations Don't look to the people around you to see if you're being successful.

Terrible place to look. Your job is not to give the nation shade. That's God's job.

Listen, your job is not to give your neighbor shade, is not to give your kids shade.

That's not your job. Your job is to sow gospel seeds, to put the word of God

in front of people and to trust in him that he will do whatever it is he wants to do with that.

So that when people go awry, when the kids don't do what you want them to,

when that friend that you've invested so much time into doesn't accomplish what

you wish he would or she would, you don't turn to God and go,

what the heck, man? What the heck?

I've done everything you've asked me to do, and none of this is working out.

What about in your own life? You feel like, I mean, I've read every day for

the past month. I've prayed. I've gone to church.

I've done everything you've asked me to do. I don't feel like I'm any different.

You remind yourself of the motivation that Christ gives his own disciples,

which is, I will build my church. I will build my kingdom. I'll do it.

I will do what no one else can do. And when I am done doing that, people will find shade.

People will find rest. That every single person will be invited to find rest in those things.

But if we're not careful, and the birds of the air become our concern,

the people in our lives, the nations, kids, families, friends,

whatever it is, if they become our concern and we go,

my goal is to provide for the birds of the air in such a way that I will give

them shade and I will give them rest and I will fix their problems and I will

solve all of their issues.

But what we're doing is putting ourselves in the place of God.

And there's no quicker way to get tired than to try and do what only God can do.

Most people, again, that I meet, specifically pastors that are burnt out,

when you talk to them, what you realize is, oh, you're trying to do what God can do.

You're trying to accomplish what only God can accomplish.

You're trying to do the things that God promised he would do.

And therefore, you're not God. You're not strong enough. You don't have the

energy. You don't have the arms. You don't have the legs.

Instead of sowing seed and doing what Jesus asked you to do, which is what? go to bed.

That's an incredibly comforting thing, should be.

Preach the gospel. Preach the word. Put it on display for your families.

Put it on display for your friends and your co-workers and your church.

Put it on display. And then you know what God calls you to do? Go to sleep.

Go to bed. Sleep well.

What if I don't do this? And what if I don't do that? And what if this is wrong?

And what if I get this wrong? You will. You will fail.

That's your only note for this morning, if you don't take anything else away,

you will fail miserably. You will not do everything right.

You will not spread seed in the way that you wish you could.

You will not be able to accomplish what you think you can.

God tells you, spread the seed and go to bed.

I'll take care of it. Trust me with the results.

Trust me with what will happen. Trust me to grow the mustard seed.

Trust me to prepare the soil, right? Go to bed, rest.

God is at work.

He closes this section by saying in verse 33, with many such parables,

he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it.

That's a message to anyone who would ever teach the word as they were able to hear it.

No one cares how much you know if they don't understand what you're saying.

No one cares. No one cares.

Side note, very important though. This is why we have a rule in our men's Bible

study. If you use a church word or a big word, you know what you have to do?

You have to stop and define it.

You don't just get to use big words all willy-nilly to make yourself look smart, all right?

Therefore, he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his

own disciples, he explained everything.

So what does he do? Number one, he meets them where they are.

He doesn't leave them where they are, but he meets them where they are as they were able to hear it.

Our goal as gospel seed spreaders is not to be known as the smartest person ever.

Your unbelieving friends, your kids, your neighbors, they don't need to think

about you, man, that person knows more theology, more Bible than anyone I've ever met.

They're so smart. If the takeaway is, man, I'm just so, I'm so blown away by

how smart they are. We've missed the point. We've missed the point.

Jesus meets them where they are, right? As they were able to hear it or understand

it. And then what does he do?

Privately to his disciples, he explained everything.

There's a principle there, right? We broadcast seed to the world,

right? We put it out on full display. If somebody visits our church,

we're broadcast and seed.

The people at our offices, at our works, at our businesses, our kids,

again, they should know.

They should know that we're broadcast and seed, but there will be people that

God brings into your life that you will have a unique opportunity to disciple,

to meet with, to talk with on a regular basis.

Again, first and foremost, if you got kids, problem solved, okay?

But past that, we should be actively looking for people that God's placed in

our life that I can go out to eat with, that I can invite to my home,

that I can sit down with and do what Jesus is doing. Hey, let me help you understand this.

Let me help you understand this. I would caution you if you're going to do this

with college kids. I got a text last night at 1145, a Bible question.

And I was like, brother, he's like, are you awake? And I'm like,

I'm not texting you back because if you think I'm awake at 1145,

you're going to keep texting me that late. But it's great.

100%. It was Adam. All right. It was 100%. But you will have these unique opportunities

to sit down with someone and explain to them everything that you could know.

That's your time to put it on display. That's your time to try and use all the

theological training and knowledge you have and give it to them.

But to the world around you, to the world around you, as you go and do ministry,

You spread gospel seed, right?

How do you do that? Jesus on display, number one.

Jesus on display. Don't hide him under a bed. Don't hide him under a basket.

Put him on display. All of him, all of him.

The hardest sayings he has, put him on display.

Put him in front of people, right?

Second, trust him to grow that seed. Go to bed, go to bed, right?

Do you not want to be burnt out? Stop trying to do what God can do Stop trying

to grow people Stop doing that Stop trying to fix everything It's pointless,

Go to bed What's the last thing?

That God will provide rest for the nations of the world, including you and me

and everyone around us, when he is ready to do that.

When God is ready for that mustard seed to grow and to provide rest,

he will do it. He will do it.

We all have stories of wayward children or wayward friends that you go,

man, they grew up in the same church, same house. They heard the same messages.

Everything was the same. And they just took off running. I just don't know why.

Yes, you do. You do know why. You do know why. You don't understand why you

couldn't fix it. I hope you understand that now, but you do know why.

And when God is ready, he will provide them the shade from a mustard seed that

maybe you had the opportunity to plant, right? That's our goal. That's our goal.

Do we trust that God will grow his kingdom?

If we do, then we put Jesus on display, spread the seed, go to bed,

and sit back and marvel at what God is doing.

Marvel at what God has done.

Marvel at what God is going to do. That's 90% of what church is.

Can you believe it? Can you believe what God has done? Can you believe?

I mean, I'm just sitting in this room right now. Goodness gracious.

Can you believe what God has done? People ask me all the time,

well, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't even know.

This is the easiest thing. It's the most simple thing. What's your programming schedule?

God bless Kareth. I don't know. That's the programming is to throw Kareth back

there and just corral kids.

How does that work? How is this working. Went to bed, man.

Seed, went to bed, came back. This is what it looks like. In my own life,

in my own life, how do I get to this point?

Couldn't tell you. I can't point to a specific thing that I was like,

man, that moment in time, that moment, that message, that point of encouragement,

man, that is what really did it for me.

No, it just, seed was sown into me. And over time, you just keep growing.

Do we trust the Lord to grow his kingdom? That's really the point of this whole chapter of Mark.

Next week, Jesus is going to calm the storm as if to say, all of those things

I told you, all of that sowing the seed and growing and all of those things,

let me show you how I can guarantee you that those are true.

I'm going to calm some storms. All right. Let's pray. Father,

thank you as always for this morning. Thank you for the.

God, I pray that we would not be a results-oriented church. We would not be

a results-oriented people.

That we would be a promise-oriented people. We would trust your promises.

We would trust that you will prepare the soil, that you have given us the seed that we are to sow.

And we would put Christ Jesus on display, unfiltered, nothing in his way,

up on a lampstand, so that everyone could see him.

And that once we do that, that we would go to bed.

We would rest in the fact that you will accomplish your purpose and your people at the proper time.

And God, that we wouldn't ever get tired of doing that because we know you have promised us,

even in this parable, that those mustard seeds that we feel are so insignificant,

we feel don't really mean anything and

we get so tired of sowing because we don't see the immediate results

that God you will use those things to build your kingdom you will use those

things to provide shade to the nations one day and we wouldn't look at the people

around us and look at the nations around us as things that motivate us to do

the right thing we would look at our King and say,

our King has promised us that this will work.

Our King has promised us that this will grow and trust you. We thank you in our prayer. Amen.