HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS 026
Mark 4:26–29
Matthew 13:24–30
Matthew 13:31–32 / Mark 4:30–32
Matthew 13:33–35 / Mark 4:33–34
HEALTHY GROWTH
// INTRO
It was William James who wrote, “I am Done with Great Things!”
In one of his letters, the philosopher and psychologist shared a conviction regarding his focus not on big, grand things, but with small “almost invisible” decisions:
“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets,... yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.”
He rightly points out that mankind is usually obsessed with the big and grandiose, but overlooking the importance of small things
We love BIG! God bless ‘MERICA!! Bigger is better!
And we’re proud!
And I could go on and on about Western culture and values, but what I want to say simply is that we tend to focus on all the wrong things in this life, and in the process, we miss many things that God is doing
Things in the normal mundane everyday
Things He’s doing in small places in small ways
Things He’s doing in and through average, everyday people who aren’t in the spotlight, who don’t have prestige, fame, or power
We’ve got our lines crossed when it comes to greatness and humility
Now it has been said that “He who has never been humbled cannot be great - humility is the true test of greatness!”
And I believe that to be absolutely true
This is why Jesus is the greatest Man to ever live
There is no one more humble, and thus more great, than Jesus
We’ve spent a good deal of time in previous weeks talking about this inverted Kingdom
Those seeking applause and accolades will find themselves humbled
And those who humble themselves, Jesus said, will be exalted
It is a Kingdom of inversion - a 180 degree departure from the default settings of this life
In the Kingdom, small things can be incredibly potent and powerful
The size of a thing is not necessarily proportional to its potency or importance
And this is something we need to keep in mind as born-again Believers in Jesus
When we look with our physical eyes, we’re often wrong about what we perceive
But to be in the Kingdom means that we need to look through spiritual eyes informed by God’s Word
What we think to be good at first glance, can actually be harmful
And that which we overlook due to it’s plainness and lack of shimmer can turn out to be priceless in the Kingdom of God
So with that paradigm in mind, let’s go to the text this morning
// TEXT & EXPOSITION
SECTION 84
Mark 4:26–29
[26] And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. [27] He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. [28] The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. [29] But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Right off the bat, Jesus reminds us that these parables are about the nature of God’s Kingdom
And remember that Jesus has established for His disciples that His teaching in parables is for them, and not for those outside that circle
That will be true for the duration of Jesus’ earthly life, but will cease to be true once He’s been resurrected and then has ascended into Heaven
We’re simply told that the Kingdom is as if a man scattered seed on the ground
That sounds a lot like the parable we unpacked last week
But notice the dichotomy in this parable - the man scatters seed but the seed sprouts and grows
This tells us something VERY important
This tells us that Mankind has responsibility in this AND that God has responsibility in this
It’s not one or the other - it’s both
Though certainly not exhaustive, some of those include the responsibility to love, to lead our families, to do and teach what is right
And God has taken on some responsibilities, as well
He creates, sustains, loves, gives us His Word, creates good things for us to enjoy, leads us when we ask and pray
So Man works and God works
And this was and is His idea, and how He set it up
We see this in the parable where the seed of the Gospel has a life and power of its own
This again speaks to the sufficiency of God’s Word, as we established last week
All the farmer can do is plant the seed in suitable ground
He cannot make it grow
He doesn’t even understand how it grows
The Kingdom of God grows because of the mysterious power of the seed (God’s Word) to produce a crop
Thinking practically about this parable of the seed that grows, one of the outcomes here is the certainty of a harvest
And the parable seems to be establishing that there is some element of mystery here for us
We don’t know or understand all of the ways in which God’s Word works - we just believe that it does!
So this seed that Jesus has given to us germinates, sprouts, grows and produces fruit in mysterious ways
And in our present age, God’s Kingdom grows according to His will
SECTION 85
Matthew 13:24–30
[24] He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, [25] but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. [26] So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. [27] And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ [28] He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ [29] But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. [30] Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
An enemy sowed tares, which means we need to answer the question, “What are tares?”
A tare was a darnel weed prevalent in Israel, that is largely indistinguishable from wheat until it matures and bears fruit
These people start out incognito, but generally blossom into false converts and false leaders
In other words, at some point where there should be maturation and fruit, they begin to show that there is none
Some people go their whole lives, playing at being a Christian
I know - I was one of those until my senior year of college
I claimed to know and have a relationship with Jesus Christ, but there was NO fruit at all in my life
And that’s how you know
Such was the case with Diotrephes in 3 John and the false apostles mentioned in Revelation 2
The enemy who sowed those tares, did it at night and in the darkness:
Ephesians 6:12 - For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Jesus speaking to Saul:
Acts 26:16-18
16 But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you,17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Colossians 1:13-14
13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
This is the work and Satan and his demons, to sow tares
Pulling up the tares would damage the wheat so he sends enemies of the Gospel into the Church to confuse things
A current example would be something like Critical Race Theory
That’s sowing tares in the Church
Churches in western culture are all too ready to grab onto something new or exciting - it’s a function of our consumerist mindset instead of having the mind of Christ
God’s solution? Teach the Word and challenge people to embrace orthodoxy and live it out
Love them, disciple them, get the Word in them and get them sharing their faith
And when they won’t, and flatly refuse to do anything other than sit and soak, invite them to try other churches (we call it out-counseling)
Oh, Pastor! That sounds so harsh!
It is. And when things have come to that point, it generally has to be
Jesus says that what is sown in the heart will eventually show itself for what it really is
It will show itself to be good fruit/harvest or tares (looks good on the outside but has no substance)
And as an undershepherd of Christ Jesus, I am tasked with being a fruit inspector (and some of y’all are WAY fruity!)
But if the worst you’ve ever known is being disciplined in the Church, that was for your benefit
And if you can’t embrace it and heed it, it only gets worse
Jesus says that the crop is gathered on the Day of Judgment and is separated or judged for what it really is
The good wheat (that which produced fruit as a sign of true salvation) was gathered into God’s barn/storehouse (heaven)
The tares which produced NO fruit, were cast into the fire (of Hell)
They looked good on the outside, but inwardly they never surrendered and submitted to Jesus
They were not saved
Now you tell me, is it loving to pass over the tares and let them go on pretending, ending up in eternal torment
OR is it more loving to confront them now, even to say hard words to someone, and risk offending them in order for them to see the truth about themselves?
Some of us in the Church need to grow a backbone
The Church today has an abundance of Evan-jellyfish (Christians without spines)
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to confront and rebuke someone
And if you know my testimony, then you know that it was 3 young women in the Music Dept at the college I attended, who took me to lunch and called me out on my duplicity
Without that confrontation, I don’t know if I’d be here today
Do the hard thing
Say the hard thing
Do it in love
This age will end when Jesus (the Judge of the world) separates the weeds from the wheat (judgment)
The weeds (all who do evil) will be thrown into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
The wheat (the righteous) will be revealed and will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father (the future Kingdom which will appear at the end of the age)
God’s justice will finally be fulfilled
SECTION 86
Matthew 13:31–32
[31] He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. [32] It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
Mark 4:30–32
[30] And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? [31] It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, [32] yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
This is one of my FAVORITE parables because when you actually parse it out, it surprises most people
Jesus says that the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds, but when it was planted, it becme this HUGE (like an evergreen) tree
A mustard bush, when fully grown, is usually 2-3 feet high at most
Some of the cedars in my backyard are 70-90 feet high
So this mustard seed growing to the size of a large tree is definitely abnormal
It becomes so large, in fact, that the birds of the air come to make their nests in it
Now, that doesn’t sound like such a big deal at first
In fact, it sounds like a good thing - we like birds
And don’t we want people to come to church?
But we have to remember our consistent idioms (word pictures) that Jesus is using
The “birds of the air” are the ones that snatched the seed away in the parable of the 4 soils
Jesus called them the messengers of the evil one
So take that explanation back into this parable
Jesus is saying that the Church got so BIG that messengers of the Evil One could come in and be at home and not be seen for what they are
You know what we call that?
We call that a MEGA-CHURCH, and it’s not a good thing, in my estimation
When it comes the Church, bigger is not always better
Yes, more resources allow us to do more ministry, but there’s a limit
And I think in America especially, we’ve assumed a different interpretation of this parable because what Jesus is actually saying goes against our consumer mentality
SECTION 87
Matthew 13:33–35
[33] He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
The usual interpretation is that the leaven is the gospel and the woman is the church, but given the consistency of Jesus’ use of idioms, I don’t believe this is the case at all
Because of that interpretation, many have thought at various times that the church was going to introduce the millennium to the world, and that it would usher in the Kingdom
In the 1800’s (the age of progress), it was widely held that the gospel would so permeate the world that Christianity would be universally accepted all over the planet
But that doesn’t line up with the parables we already have deciphered
In fact, leaven is used consistently in the parables as a bad thing, because matza, or unleavened bread was the staple of the day
As we’ve already seen, Jesus used leaven consistently as an idiom for false doctrine
To unravel this, we have to go back to Genesis 18 and the first mention of “three measures of meal” in the Biblical text
During their conversation, it suddenly dawned on Abram that God Himself was visiting him, accompanied by two angels
That was the beginning of the use of the three measures of meal as a symbol for fellowship
Going back to the Exodus in Egypt, before the Jews ate the first Passover, God sent them all through their houses with candles and lamps looking for leaven
They were to clear every bit of it out of the house lest any of it get into the three measures of meal, or the Passover feast, and destroy the beauty of the symbolism free from sin
Never once is leaven ever used as a symbol of anything good in Jesus’ parables
Everyone in this crowd knew that this woman had no business putting leaven into these three measures of meal
That was to destroy the very meaning of this significant offering, for Scripture had taught them that the three measures of meal were to be unleavened
In the New Testament you find five distinct usages of leaven and they all mean something bad
Never, ever in the Scriptures does leaven symbolize something good
So when it comes to the meaning of this parable, we see that false doctrine and teachings will infiltrate all aspects of the Church until Jesus sets up His Millennial Kingdom on earth at the end of the Tribulation (aka: Daniel’s 70th Week, the Time of Jacob’s Trouble)
[34] All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. [35] This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”
Mark 4:33–34
[33] With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. [34] He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.
And we covered this last week, explaining that Jesus was obscuring His teachings to the crowds and making them known only to His disciples so that He would eventually be crucified
Had He made them plain with explanation, they would not have crucified Him, and we would not have a sufficient atoning sacrifice to grant us salvation
// APPLICATION
So I’d like to give you a few handholds from these parables this morning that will help you apply some of these truths
Healthy growth is slow and steady
Maybe that comes as a surprise to you, but it shouldn’t
Imagine your 3 year old toddler having grown to 6 feet tall and having the strength to pick you up
You could say that there was growth, but you’d be hard pressed to convince anyone that it was good or healthy
So why do we clap like North Koreans at a missile parade when a church plant goes from 30-500 in year 1 or 2?
Part of the answer is that church growth is a lucrative business
But I can look back in the 2000 year history of the Church, and what I see there is faithful men and women rightly handling the Word of Truth, sacrificing their time and effort to make investments in people with the Gospel message and God’s Word
And those early churches didn’t grow to 500 and purchase the Temple of Artemis to meet in
They planted more churches as they evangelized the known world and made disciples who made disciples
That has been what has changed the world
And I believe that is what’s missing right now in the American Church model
Everytime I go to a regional or national conference or gathering, I am bombarded with speakers and leaders challenging myself and others to GO BIG!
Make a HUGE impact for Jesus and the Kingdom!
Do GREAT things for the Church!
But that’s not what I see in the Gospels and the New Testament
I see a call to faithfulness and shepherding the flock of God
A good church planter or pastor knows that he just has to accept and embrace that much of the work before him is tilling soil and breaking up fallow ground
It’s HARD work but it MUST be done
Healthy growth, whether in a person or in a Church, should be slow and steady
And if you plant or pastor, make sure you have a consistent method for connecting with new people and moving them through the membership process
All of us need to sort out our responsibility from God’s responsibility
God has clearly given Mankind some responsibilities, and embedded in that word is the definition - the ability to respond
When it comes to the parables we have read today and last week, Redeemed Mankind (saved people) clearly have the responsibility to sow the seed of the Gospel
We are to “tend the fields” which means befriending our neighbors, encouraging them, and praying for them as they wrestle with the Gospel and submitting to Jesus
We participate in the harvest when we present the Gospel for the first time or the 50th time, and someone responds to that well-meant offer of salvation
We are told to guard the good deposit that God and others have made in us
We are commanded to scatter seed as we go
And that list goes on
But God’s has responsibilities, as well
He has already provided the seed for us
He works and labors with us and in us while we labor in His fields
He sorts it all out in the end, separating the wheat from the chaff
Therefore, God’s Word reminds us…
[12] Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, [13] for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)
Generally speaking, God seems to work primarily through small, local bodies of Christ-followers rather than big, sexy rock shows
You can whip up a crowd in a large church or arena and play on that emotion to get people to raise their hand or come forward
And some of those conversations will be genuine, but it's mostly because others have been laying the groundwork for months or years
It might sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but bigger really is NOT always better, especially when it comes to planting churches OR making disciples
If you go back to Matthew 13, the mustard seed became a great tree, like the cedars around here, that’s not good or healthy growth
The local church was never intended to be an organization that is so large that those who actually serve the enemy can infiltrate it undetected
I tell church planters in our network and in our region that launching a church of 200, 300, or even 500 is not something we ought to celebrate by default
Many of those are disgruntled, angry church goers taking their issues with them into the next church
Again, as Americans, we’re so prone to look at the size of what is happening and congratulate people on it being a “work of God”
But what if it’s not?
The unintended consequence of celebrating big with the assumption that it’s always of God is that the small plants and churches that are steady on and faithful and growing slowly inevitably receive the message that Jesus hasn’t blessed them as much or God’s not in it….
There are unintended consequences of making a big deal out of BIG
Just a couple of weeks ago, the day after we returned from Atlanta, I had the opportunity to teach a breakout session at Converge Northwest’s annual regional conference
I told that room of about 15-20 people that if you’re committed to building disciples and developing leaders, you WILL multiply - it might just take longer than you want it to
I’ve had to repent several times in this process that I was diminishing in my heart the work of God in the lives of people in THIS church because I had embraced frustration due to the slow pace of our growth as a church
And God reminded me of a lesson my dad taught me when we lived in Athens, GA
SLEEP - CREEP - LEAP with Leyland cypress trees in GA
Again - If you’re committed to building disciples and developing leaders, you WILL multiply - it might just take longer than you want it to
Save yourself the heartache of buying into ALL the quick-growth methodologies
There is no substitute for faithfully reading and studying God’s Word and making the local church a priority in your life and the life of you family
And I’ll leave you Paul’s advice on the matter
Galatians 6:6–10
[6] Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. [7] Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. [8] For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. [9] And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. [10] So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer!
// PRAY
// SING
// GO
In our flesh, we tend to obsess over BIG things in the Church world, and we miss many things that God is doing
Things in the normal, mundane everyday of life
His working in small places in small ways
Things He’s doing in and through average, everyday people who aren’t in the spotlight, who don’t have prestige, fame, or power
We’ve got our lines crossed when it comes to greatness and humility
Jesus is the greatest Man to ever live
There is no one more humble, and thus more great, than Jesus
So let’s follow His example as we make disciples who make disciples, and may we all be found faithful in His Presence when we stand before Him!
Emmaus Road Church, YOU ARE SENT!!
