The Gospel of Mark | Ears to Hear (May 20th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, church, if you want to get your Bibles open now and uh get them open to Mark chapter four, uh that would be so great as you're turning to that.

Uh sometimes I've wondered if I have hearing problems.

You everybody ever wondered this about yourself?

I remember kind of growing up, you know, my parents sometimes they would say things to me and I would sort of just carry on like I hadn't heard a word of it.

And I swear to you, like it wasn't a dis you know, like a disobedience thing.

Okay, like I legitimately didn't hear.

Now my parents are actually here today, and they're probably like, yeah, interesting take, buddy.

It was for sure a disobedience thing.

But no, I seriously, I don't think it was.

Okay, like even now, my wife, Ann, she'll say stuff to me, and my kind of classic response is, huh?

Right?

And so she makes fun of me, huh?

Huh?

She's always doing that and kind of roasting me that way.

And uh, I don't know, maybe it's something, maybe it's something I should get checked out.

Right?

No, I think I'll be fine.

Whatever.

All right.

In Mark chapter 4, okay, in Mark chapter 4, Jesus actually uses the phrase, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Mark 4 · chapter mention Mark 4 · chapter mention

Now, he's not talking about a person's ability or inability in my case to hear.

Okay, that's that's not the physical ability, it's not that.

He's referring to people's ability to truly grasp or spiritually discern the truth, the spiritual truth behind what he's saying.

That's what he's getting at here.

And so today what we're gonna do is we're gonna explore Jesus' words here as he reveals to us what the kingdom of God is all about.

Okay, do you and I really get it?

Do we really understand spiritually in our hearts?

Do we have ears to hear?

You know, the kingdom of God, it's all about our salvation and discipleship and our purpose and mission and Christ's reign over everything.

Right?

These are not the kinds of things that you and I can afford to just kind of go in one ear and out the other.

This is crucial, crucial stuff.

And so why don't you join me as we pray and ask the Lord to give us ears to hear and eyes to see all that he would have for us here today in his word.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for this time together as your church father, and and we're looking forward to this, getting into your word, Lord.

We know that it's uh it's a challenging word and a hard word for some.

Lord, I pray that you would shake anybody here out of their slumber if that is in fact where they're at.

Any kind of lukewarmness, any kind of nominal Christianity nonsense that is so easy for us to slip into and fall into as our hearts harden and dull to you.

Lord, I pray that you would you would jolt us awake here this morning.

Lord, as your spirit moves, I would pray, I pray that you would encourage us, Lord.

I pray that that you would save the lost.

I pray that you would do that here today.

Father, move.

Move, Lord.

I I can't give us what we need here today.

That that's you.

Only you can do it.

And so, God, we ask that you would.

We ask humbly, we ask expectingly.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so if I have ears to hear, I won't miss out on what the kingdom of God is.

And here's the first thing.

Okay, it's about not just hearing the gospel, okay, but accepting it and bearing fruit.

That's pretty important.

Now, first of all, what is the kingdom of God, right?

What is that?

How would you kind of define that?

It's sometimes called in the scriptures the kingdom of heaven as well.

Okay, well, there's kind of a couple of different ways or angles that you can sort of look at this.

In a broad sense, okay, it's about God's sovereign rule, his reign over the entire universe, and and how he exerts his will and his desires over creation as he sees fit in any number of ways.

Alright?

In a more narrow sense, all right, it's about it's about God's sovereign rule, his supreme reign, the same kind of things, over those who have submitted their lives willingly to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, so the kingdom of God, if you want to look at it kind of two ways, it's about God's work out there or broadly among all of us, but it's also God's work in here, in me as a follower of Christ.

Alright, so let's get at this now.

Verse 1, take a look.

Okay, it says, and again, again he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered about him.

So it's kind of the same old story.

We see this every single time so far as we've gone through Mark.

They gather around him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea.

And the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land, and he he was teaching them many things in parables.

So you gotta sort of understand what's going on here, right?

It's kind of a little bit like this.

There's no water here, but it's kind of like me getting into this, like, let's pretend this is a boat, okay?

And you guys are on the land and and I'm teaching.

Well, that's what Jesus was doing.

He got into a boat, and experts tell us actually that the area that this happened in was actually very much like a natural amphitheater, and so the acoustics actually would have been really good as uh as Jesus taught the people.

That's just kind of cool, okay?

It says that he was teaching them in many, he was teaching them many things in parables.

You know, what's a parable?

What's that all about?

Well, parable literally means cast alongside.

Okay, cast alongside.

Okay, so there are these are stories cast alongside a truth in order to illustrate that truth.

Okay, another common way of kind of understanding parables is that they are an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.

Okay, have you heard that before?

I think that's pretty uh pretty common.

Okay, Jesus taught in in parables quite often, actually, um, because um the the other purpose of them uh was to illuminate truth to those with soft hearts.

So people with soft hearts could receive what he was really saying, but at the same time, they veil the truth from those with hard hearts.

Okay, we're gonna get into that in a second here, but let's keep going.

Verse 2.

Okay, and in his teaching he said to them, Listen, behold, a sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.

Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil.

And when the sun rose, it was scorched, since it had no root, it withered away.

Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

And other seeds fell into the good soil, and produced grain, growing up and increasing, and yielding thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.

And he said, here's our line, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Okay, the explanation of all of this, it's coming in just a second, but first of all, verse 10.

Verse 10 says, And when he was alone, he's with his he's with his crew, away from the crowd, those around him, with the twelve, asked him about the parables.

And he said to them, To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God.

Okay, so God has given believers insight into the true meaning of these things, of everything that he was teaching.

Okay, and he says, But for those outside, okay, who's that?

Well, that's the that's the unsaved, unbelieving world.

Okay, those on the outside, everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear, but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.

What?

Like, what's that all about?

Well, in in Matthew's gospel and in Luke's gospel, when it comes to this uh this story and this parable, the implications there are that the reason, okay, the reasons that outsiders don't understand the parables and don't receive forgiveness and don't enter into the kingdom of God and all of that is because of their hardness of heart.

It's because your heart's hard.

That's why you can't understand what I'm saying here.

But here in Mark's gospel, the reason that they don't understand the parable, the reason that they don't receive forgiveness, is because God, it says here, is actually blocking them, okay, in his sovereignty from understanding and receiving.

We okay with that?

We okay with that here at this church?

It's God's words, right?

Listen, when we when we take these things together, so when we consider Matthew's gospel, when we consider Luke's gospel, and now we add in Mark's gospel with all of this and look at uh the entirety of God's word to inform our theology and understand these things, what do we see?

Uh we see some tension here, don't we?

There's tension, it's there's there's a mystery even of God's sovereign will in choosing some who would know him and some who will not.

Okay, if you're uncomfortable with that, I would I would encourage you, if you just kind of need to, you know, I need to go deeper into that and kind of understand that.

I would encourage you to write down Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

Okay, God's sovereign choice.

Paul talks about this and and he unpacks this a little bit more, and and God says, you know, Jacob I love, but Esau I I hated.

Okay, so we've got all of that.

We've got God's sovereign choice, and that's why they don't hear all of that, up against the other reality, of course, in Mark and Luke, that man's willfully hardened heart also hinders their understanding of the parables and receiving forgiveness and entering the kingdom.

I think for us as Christians, I think so much, we just want like all of that tension gone.

Right?

Anything in the scriptures that kind of makes me feel uncomfortable, and you know, maybe we have this sort of simplistic kind of hallmark understanding of God, where it's just like love and doves and daffodils, and you know, we think of the Lord as that.

And we don't, you know, we we read something like this and we kind of we kind of cringe a little bit and we don't really like it, and we automatically start to think, well, maybe God isn't loving, and you know, maybe he's not good.

And listen, we have to understand that that God is just he's bigger than us.

And and the fact that he chooses some as instruments of righteousness and others as instruments of destruction, it does not remove his goodness, it does not remove his holiness or or any of those things.

Again, for us, we want we want to kind of put God in a box.

We want to be able to kind of observe him from all these different angles so that we feel comfortable, so that we can, in some way, I think, in our hearts, so that we can kind of control him.

This is who he is, I've got them figured out.

We can't do that.

We're limited, we're finite.

God is not, his ways are not our ways.

And so we want to remove all of that tension.

But listen, this is the scripture, time and time again, as we read it, as we look at the entire council of God's word, it forces us to grapple with that tension, doesn't it?

And sometimes we think, though, that well, that's not fair.

It's not fair that God would save some, but not others.

You know what's not fair?

Christ dying.

He is the only one who didn't deserve to be up there.

All of us deserve it.

All of us are sinners.

All of us have rebelled against the Lord.

Keep in mind that the Lord didn't have to choose any.

He didn't have to come back for us.

He could have kicked us to the curb, he would have been justified to do it.

He chose some, and again, we don't we don't totally understand all of that.

But at the same time, God's goodness, his righteousness, none of that is messed up, none of that is compromised in any way.

All right, let's keep going here.

The sermon's taking a different course, all right?

Verse 13.

Verse 13, it says, And he said to them, Do not under s uh do you not understand this parable?

Okay, so he's talking to his disciples.

And there's even this sense then that even as believers, we can be kind of slow to totally grasp all of this, right?

I mean, I think that's our story too.

Like we're like, yeah, wow, how come I don't get this yet as we read the scriptures?

Some of us have been believers for decades and we're still like trying to figure some of this stuff out, right?

And for sure, the disciples were kind of in the unique position of very slowly, over time, kind of putting together all the pieces here as God sort of, as Jesus kind of revealed it as he saw fit.

Okay, but now what does he do?

Well, he gets to the meaning of this parable that he shared, and and really it's about salvation.

It's about salvation.

Okay, so this is what he says.

He says, the sower sows the word.

Okay, in other words, the sower preaches the gospel.

Okay, shares the gospel.

He's talking about himself here.

This is what I came to do.

I came to share the gospel to the nations, to the lost.

Okay, and these are the ones along the path.

And so he gives to us now the first seed.

Okay?

He says, where the sea where the word where the word is sown, when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.

Okay, so the gospel is proclaimed to some, but Satan interferes with that in probably a myriad of ways, and their ability uh he interferes with their ability to get saved, and he kind of keeps their hearts blind and their eyes blind and their ears shut and all of that, and they they fail to receive Christ.

They remain unsaved.

That's the first seed.

Okay, and and these are the ones, he says, sown on rocky ground.

So here's the second type of seed, the second type of person.

Okay, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.

And then this, and they have no root in themselves.

That's really important.

But they endure for a while, then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.

Okay, so these are people who have heard the gospel, and at first to many other people, they may appear to be Christians and they may, you know, do Christian-y kinds of things, and maybe even for a while.

Okay, but there's no genuine salvation.

Why?

Because of that phrase, there's no root in themselves.

Okay, so when their faith is tested, all of our faith will be tested.

We were they're tested how?

Well, by trials.

It says here, by by persecutions and tribulations.

And when that happens, it says that they fall away, thus proving, showing that they were never served in the first place.

Okay, and so here's the third seed.

It says, and others are the ones sown among thorns.

This is the third type of person.

They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves, key word, unfruitful.

Unfruitful.

So these are people who, you know, claim to be Christians, you know, maybe think that they are, but they're so preoccupied with the world's values, they are like, yeah, I'm kind of on the outside, I sort of look like a Christian, and I might go to church and I may not miss a whole lot of Sundays and all of that, but really, my heart, my life, my mission, my values, my cares, all of it is wrapped up entirely in the world's game plan.

All right?

He says, that's that's the third seed.

And when they show that, and when they reveal that they're really all about the world and those values, they're they prove themselves unfruitful.

And they show that that that salvation, that, that, that was that was a mirage.

It wasn't it wasn't genuine.

Okay, but then here's the fourth seed, the fourth kind of person.

He says, but those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it.

And what does it say?

Bear fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.

Okay, so understand this.

The kingdom of God is largely, okay, largely about a message, okay.

That's the that's the gospel, that many, many, many will hear over the course of time and history and all of that, but only some will come to truly accept and prove that they've that they've accepted it by actually bearing fruit.

Okay, displaying evidence of a radically transformed life.

Okay, they're they're growing, it's a it's a changed heart, it's it's absolute and total surrender to the Lord and and his will for my life.

I think of John chapter 15, verse 8, if you want to write that down.

John 15:8

It says this by this my Father is glorified, that you that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

Do not miss out on what Jesus is saying here to us this morning.

If you are not bearing fruit and showing signs of a renewed heart and a changed life, listen, what confidence could you possibly have that you're actually saved?

What confidence could you have?

It doesn't matter what you think you prayed.

It's not about a bunch of magic words that you said when you were five.

It's not about what you think.

I believe that Jesus is real.

Yeah, so do demons.

It's not about that.

It's not, you know, some flash in the pan commitment that you gave your life to the Lord a few years ago.

Listen, if you haven't transformed, if you are not transforming, there's a great chance that you are actually more like the first three seeds than you are like the fourth.

So listen, I'm talking to you, teenager sitting here with your parents.

Yeah, you're coming to church now, and you've been coming to church your entire life, and maybe you're not making all that much of a fuss about it.

Maybe you are.

And maybe you're like, I can't wait.

I can't wait to get out of here.

I can't wait to go to college, to university, and I can kind of do my own thing.

Listen, I'm talking to you.

Maybe you're like one of the first three seeds.

It's the young adult, it's it's the full-grown adult, it's the retired person.

And we think the older that we get, it's it's other people that should be doing the work, and you know, I've kind of paid my dues, and I can kind of just sort of coast now, and I can sort of put it in autopilot.

Danger.

You might be showing that you never got it in the first place.

Do you understand this?

This is a big deal.

Let me tell you this.

If the if this at all describes you and where you're at with your walk with the Lord or your walk with the Lord, okay, if that's you, the answer is not to step up your game, right, in some kind of self-fueled, self-reliant, I gotta be better next time kind of way.

Okay, that's not what it's about.

It's not about you doing more.

The answer is not to step up, it's actually the opposite.

It's to step down off the throne of your life and surrender to the ways of the kingdom of God.

Maybe for you here today it's to receive Jesus Christ as Savior.

I think I already did that.

You're bearing fruit.

Maybe you haven't.

Maybe you need to do that right now.

Confess your sin.

Invite Christ to be your Lord.

It's as simple as that.

I'll get to it later.

I think I'm fine.

Okay.

Keep going here.

If I have ears to hear, I won't miss out on what the kingdom of God is.

It's about exposing hearts, but also how my attitude determines the blessing.

Okay, verse 21, take a look at this here.

He says 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, nor is anything secret except to come to light.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

And see so the idea here is that Jesus is the lamp.

Okay, that's what he's saying, and he's come to be a light that exposes.

Darkness.

Now, certainly the darkness created and perpetrated by Satan.

He's already done a lot of that in the first three chapters here.

But also the darkness of our own sinful pride that exists in every single human heart.

Just like how you would never light a lamp and then throw a blanket over it and just and just cover it all up.

Just like that, Jesus came not to be unclear or shy about his mission.

No, he came to go after it.

I'm shining a light on this darkness.

I'm exposing it to my darkness-erasing power.

Okay, that was the heart of the mission right there of Jesus.

You know, verse 24.

And he 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, more will be given.

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

Now that word measure there is pretty key for us to kind of understand where he's going with this.

The word measure refers to the attitude that you and I have towards the reign and the rule of Jesus Christ in our lives.

Okay, so if you and I um have humility and we kind of humbly step aside, again, off the throne of our lives and allow the Lord to have his way and to do great things in us by his spirit, by his grace, listen, it says here that we'll be given even more blessing.

We'll be given growth, we'll have greater usefulness in his kingdom.

The Lord's gonna do amazing things.

But if we do the opposite, if we stubbornly resist Christ as Lord, if we refuse salvation, we ultimately lose everything.

And I think sometimes what what ends up happening is the reason that we resist Jesus, whether that's for him to save me, or as Christ followers, when we kind of push him away, is because we think we're actually gaining something by doing that.

We think that we gain control over our lives, or we get to have fun.

We think that that's the most important thing over everything.

We just don't get that stuff.

We don't get control.

Life isn't better.

We don't control our destiny, all of those things.

Listen, the the life that God's given us isn't a long one.

And soon enough, you and I, we're gonna find ourselves standing before our creator with really only one question to answer.

How did you respond to Jesus?

That's it, right?

It's all gonna come down to that.

How have you responded to Jesus?

How are you responding to Jesus?

Have you allowed him to expose your heart as uncomfortable, right, as that is at times?

So many of us know that.

Are you still allowing him to have his way?

Lord, I know this is uncomfortable.

I know this is painful, Lord.

I don't, I know that I don't totally know where all of this is going, Lord, but I trust you.

Lord, have your way in me.

Right?

This isn't just a that's not just a one-time thing that we do where we say, Lord, take control of my life, and then we kind of take the reins back and we just sort of live however we want, and it's all about us, and then you know we'll probably just kind of coast into heaven and everything's gonna work out real great.

It's not how it works.

It's his light shining in your once sin-governed heart.

Is that is that you or or is your heart attitude and your the way you approach the Lord, is it still one of oppositional defiance?

Again, more than just what's going on in the outside, but what's going on on a heart level.

Third thing here, if I have ears to hear, I won't miss out on what the kingdom of God is.

It's about my efforts to build, but really God's making everything happen.

Okay, do we understand that?

We see it here in verse 26.

It says, and he said, The kingdom of God is as if man should scatter seed on the ground.

So he goes back to the seed metaphor.

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.

Now you can look at the kingdom of God here as sort of like on a global scale, right?

We looked at that in a broad sense earlier.

God's building his church and he's advancing his purposes uh globally all over the place.

And you know, all of that somehow involves our, you know, uh uh efforts and involvements and and all of that.

We're we're kind of like the like the man or the farmer here in this parable.

Like we're like scattering seeds, we're sharing our faith and sharing the gospel and and and we're planting churches and we're serving tirelessly in those churches, and we're doing all of that.

But we understand, right?

It's really God that does the real work.

Right?

God is the one who transforms people's lives.

Okay, he's like the earth here in this in this parable.

The earth is the things actually producing the grain.

He's the one doing it.

Again, we don't totally know how it all happens, and a lot of the times it kind of looks like nothing's happening.

Right?

Just like farming.

They plant and they kind of seed and they they water and they hope the weather's good and the sun's there, and for a long time it's kind of doesn't look like anything's going on, but stuff under the surface is happening, and there's things changing and transforming.

Same thing happens when we're like praying for people.

We're praying for people time and time again.

It seems like nothing's happening, but then all of a sudden, what happens maybe?

There's some encouraging signs, and wow, it's just a comment I received from that person, and they they kind of show maybe some openness to the gospel, and maybe a softness towards Jesus, and and and then maybe there's some fruit that starts to bear there, and there's salvation, and again, it this happens all slowly, but over time.

But again, if it's if there's fruit and it's real, it means that God has done it.

That's the global scale, but again, of course, there's the the personal level of this.

Okay, the kingdom of God is about you and I kind of individually working to grow and and to mature in our in our walks, right?

In our relationship with Christ.

And so we're you know, we're trying to put ourselves in good positions to see the Lord do the work.

That's why we're here today.

Lord, I need to come before you and allow your spirit to move and transform me through your word.

That's why we get open our Bibles, hopefully, each day throughout the week, and we're just like, God, I'm putting myself in front of you for you to change me and to and to make me new.

That's why I'm praying to you.

That's why we do all of these kinds of things.

It involves our effort.

But of course, the Lord's doing it, right?

It's by his grace, it's it's by his spirit.

Okay, and then let's not forget why he insists on pushing us oftentimes to the point of discomfort, and we would all we would love to not have that peace, and we would love life to just be comfortable and easy and all of that.

Well, why is why does he do that?

Why is he so willing to sometimes blow up our short-sighted, me-centered plans at times?

Why does he do that?

Well, it's because judgment's coming, folks.

Do we know that?

As we're reading through this, you and I, we should be sensing the urgency in the text here.

It is not just um, here's some words I'm saying, it's just kind of a fluffy message.

No, eternity uh is at stake.

That's why he says there, but when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle.

Hey, what's the what's a sickle?

That's that, it's a it's a farm tool.

It's that it's that blade that they use to cut grass.

You know, like the grim reaper, he's got that like, you know, curved blade thing, right?

That's the idea.

It's a farming tool.

Okay, because the harvest has come, he says.

Jesus is returning, and and he's gonna gather his followers back to him.

And at the same time, he's gonna pronounce eternal judgment on those who have rejected him as savior.

Listen, that's hard to hear.

But we need to understand that that this just does not work out like a Disney princess movie for absolutely everyone.

It doesn't.

Suffering, separation, eternity, all of that is it's serious business.

Okay, but in the meantime, he's at work.

Right?

He's at work, he's he's moving in his kingdom, he's he's working in you, and he's working in I, and and and he and he's building his church, and he's doing that here in Newmarket, here at Harvest, and of course he's doing it all over the all around the world, and he's he's he's using our efforts with all of this, but again, at the end of the day, he's behind the entire process himself.

He's he's the one making everything happen as he builds his kingdom.

So listen, as you're, I don't know, maybe thinking about all the work that's left to be done in your life, right?

You're sitting here maybe and you're like, man, I got I got a ways to go.

Right?

I'm I'm feeling that.

I feel that all the time.

And maybe you're thinking about that in the life of our church as as I do, and maybe you're just thinking about the work that Christians need to do worldwide or even in Canada.

You know, remember these things.

It's gonna be on the screen here.

So as you get after kingdom work, remember these three things.

First one, be patient.

Okay, be patient in this.

Growth often happens slowly.

Right?

I made mention of that real briefly already, but I think sometimes we get very antsy and anxious about yeah, I need to grow now.

And I read the scriptures and I and I and I see how I need to change, and we kind of get settled into the panic mode a little bit sometimes.

Maybe some of us could use a little of that panic mode.

But we get frustrated sometimes because God's not changing me.

Or we look out at other people, we look out, you know, in our family or with our friends, or maybe you look out across the church sometimes, you're like, why aren't people changing?

And we get kind of frustrated about that.

Listen, listen, listen.

Be patient with this.

Patience doesn't mean laziness, it means patience.

Right?

It happens slowly in you.

It happens slowly in me, it happens slowly in others.

Let's remember that here.

Growth is up to God, He's the one that's gonna do it.

Here's the second thing: constantly align your motives with the gospel.

You gotta do this.

You gotta remind yourself of the why.

Why am I, why am I discipling my kids?

Trust me, you're gonna need that reminder a lot.

Right?

Why am I serving here again?

I'm so tired.

Why would I wanna get up early and read the Bible?

Why would I ever want to evangelize?

If that's become detached from the gospel, I'll tell you what, you're gonna crash and burn.

You're gonna go into the ditch somehow.

You're gonna get bitter about how you I'm serving and that person's not, not as much as I am.

You're gonna lose joy real quick because you've you've neglected the gospel.

The gospel tells us that Christ has saved us, and it's a wonderful, amazing privilege to have received salvation, to have our sins forgiven.

He invites us into the mission of his church and and in growth and all of that.

And wow, how amazing is that that God has asked me to put some effort into this, and not in just in my life, but in the life of other people.

And you see that as you go back to the gospel and remind yourself of the death and the resurrection of Jesus and how awesome he is, how all of a sudden that gives you a fire to start to do that in your life and in the lives of other people.

Do you see it?

If you forget to go back to the gospel, you're gonna become miserable, you're gonna become lukewarm, you're gonna become useless.

The gospel has to be our anchor.

Align your motives with that.

That'll be your fuel.

Here's the third one.

Find strength in the fact that God wants to build it.

Find strength in that, find encouragement in that today.

I think sometimes when we're kind of like the farmer and you know, we've sown some seeds and scattered them out there, and nothing's happening.

Right?

And, you know, maybe God's not as excited about this as I am.

And and after a time, we kind of get discouraged in all of this, and and we grow weary, and you know, we're immediate gratification, immediate results kinds of people.

And so we think that, well, maybe God doesn't care.

Maybe he's not all loving.

Maybe he's stingy.

He's not.

Trust God's word.

He wants this more than you.

But he will do it his way.

He will do it on his timing when it makes sense.

Let's trust the Lord with that.

All right, let's trust the Lord.

Final thing.

If I have ears to hear, I won't miss out on what the kingdom of God is.

It's about small beginnings, but eventually a remarkable result.

Verse 30, take a look.

And it says, and he said, with what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it?

It's like a grain of mustard seed, which grow which, when sown on 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 puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

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.

Alright, so Jesus there in this in this parable, he compares the kingdom of God to a tiny mustard seed, right?

Which eventually grows into this like massive plant that's way beyond the tiny seed that it began as.

Okay, that's the kingdom of God, right there.

Right?

Likewise, the kingdom starts small, really small, inauspicious beginnings.

Insignificant, even, it would seem.

The church began with who?

With a bunch of guys that couldn't even get along.

You've got fishermen who have no expertise in any of this.

You've got tax collectors who everyone hated.

You've got really you've got zealots, you've got all these different people.

This is how the Lord started his church.

Small beginnings, not how you and I would want to do it.

We'd be like looking for the best, the brightest, the sharpest.

Small beginnings.

And yet, of course, we know that the church grew and expanded and the Lord was doing amazing and awesome things.

About our church.

I don't want to offend anybody and just call us a bunch of misfits or anything, but we kind of are.

Right?

It's like a small group of people that just began praying in a house.

And they're they're like seven, eight people praying.

Years praying.

Nine years before a church ever started here.

Lord, would you do a work in Newmarket?

Can we see a church start here?

You think those folks maybe were discouraged at times?

It's taking a long time.

Nothing's really happening.

But obviously, here we are, and the Lord's still working and a long ways to go yet.

But listen, God takes what is small and he multiplies it and he spreads it out all across the globe.

And what does he turn it into?

Something remarkable, right?

Something amazing and awesome.

And I think it's so incredible how how sometimes it kind of looks like nothing's happening in our lives, right?

We've already kind of talked about that a little bit, or the people that we've been praying for, or whatever, and then all of a sudden there's like these encouraging signs.

And things begin to happen, and all of a sudden there's like these major breakthroughs, and the Lord's off to the races, and you know, within a couple of weeks, months, years, whatever, the person's like completely, you know, different.

Maybe that even describes you.

Maybe as you kind of look back at your life and kind of assess all of that, and you're starting to put together the picture, you're like, rough start.

Right, rough start.

This is there's nothing special about all of this.

Okay, uh, it was small, small beginning.

Then you were started to grow as you receive Christ.

You start to see some change.

It never happens as fast as we want, but it kind of happens, and now you kind of take back, you know, look back on your life, and now you like hardly recognize that person that you once were.

Right?

That's an amazing thing.

You're becoming a truly remarkable result yourself because of what God's doing.

Right?

And that's the kingdom of God.

That's what he does.

And it's awesome.

And don't miss out on what God's doing.

Okay?

Don't miss out on what he's creating, whether that's what he wants to do in you or what he's accomplishing in in his church.

Have ears to hear.

Have ears to hear.

Don't half hear this.

Where we kind of like, yep, I got it.

I've heard this, I've heard this message before.

I've read this passage, I got it.

Don't be like that.

We sort of act like we've grasped Christ's words, but maybe our lack of fruit would suggest otherwise.

Surrender your heart once again to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.