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[0:00] Alright, please take with me your copy of God's Word and turn to the Gospel of Mark chapter 4. I'm thankful for the people who are helping me with that. The bakers have the boys right now and I appreciate my parents kicking in to help with that a bit.

[0:38] But I'm feeling a little scatterbrained this morning. I was doing really well leading up to today, studying, kind of finishing my preparations yesterday. And then I fed our youngest, who's very allergic to peanut butter, peanut butter on accident yesterday, which caused vomiting and other joys yesterday evening.

[0:59] So, I just feel a little out of it today. So, join me and let's pray and let's see if we can get focused today on the text before us. Father, we do thank You this morning for the blessing of getting to come together and opening Your Word.

[1:14] And we so often treat it with neglect. We so often don't appreciate it for what it is, and that is Your Word to us. It has meant things for the church throughout history, but it means something for us now today, and it means something for every person in this room.

[1:33] Wherever they may be right now, it's a salve. It's a solution. It's an authority. And I pray, Father, that we will treat it as such.

[1:44] I pray, Father, that You will empower my speaking by Your Word, and that You'll empower all of our hearing, all of our application by Your Spirit, that we might be more like Your Son this day.

[1:57] He is worthy of all praise and all honor. He is magnificent to behold. And as such, Father, I pray that our lives give Him that proper praise.

[2:09] Help us this morning, Lord, and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. So we're going to read together and deal with Mark chapter 4, verses 21 through 34.

[2:22] So please join me as I read this to you. And He said to them, Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light.

[2:36] If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. 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.

[2:46] 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. And He said, The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.

[2:57] 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.

[3:09] But when the grain is ripe, it once He puts in the sickle because the harvest has come. And He said, With what can we compare to the kingdom of God? Or what parable shall we use for it?

[3:20] It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth. Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

[3:35] 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. Now we have before us this morning four sayings, most of them being parables, one of them more of a proverbial explanation.

[3:55] And you can see those as each of them kind of begin with, the, and He said to them, or and He said. If you have a red letter edition as I do, those black, and He said to them, and He said, kind of stand out to me.

[4:07] And you see there's these four separate sayings. Again, being as they are primarily parables, remember that a parable is a lesser truth laid alongside a greater truth to help us understand that truth.

[4:23] We get the word parallel, our same English word for that, from the root in the Greek here, para, to lay alongside. And so we have this pause in the Gospel of Mark with this teaching.

[4:37] And it's not often that this happens. Mark moves pretty quickly. It's kind of the action gospel, so to speak. And he pauses here to express some of Jesus' teaching, and then again in chapter 13.

[4:49] And so it's good for us to really stop and ponder and really take a look at what's going on here. And so you may ask then, why are we going to deal with all four of these sayings on the same Sunday?

[5:02] And I've got to tell you this week, I didn't start out intending to deal with them all. I was really just going to speak about the very first one, verses 21 through 23. But they are tied together thematically.

[5:16] They are tied together thematically. Now to kind of help us see that theme, we have to remember where the Gospel of Mark began. And I just want you to draw your attention to chapter 1, verses 14 and 15, where Mark records, Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God, the good news of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand.

[5:43] Repent and believe in the Gospel. Now we need to get this understanding right. What is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God?

[5:54] What was it that Jesus was coming and preaching? Because I fear that we are overly reductionist when we speak of what the Gospel is.

[6:05] When most of us talk of the Gospel, we are speaking of the redemption of souls. This is the only thing we are referring to when we talk about the Gospel. This message that we were sinners, dead in sin.

[6:19] That Jesus came and made a way by the propitiation of His life. That He died for us. That He was raised. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. And that when we will place faith in Him, we will have eternal life.

[6:32] And the Gospel certainly is this. In fact, it is this at its very core. If you remove any of those things, it ceases to be the Gospel. It is no longer good news. But it's not just that.

[6:44] It's that in its essence. It's that in its core. But it is not just that. Recall in Revelation 21, verse 5, when we see the new earth, the new heaven being established, Jesus says, Behold, I am making all things new.

[7:02] And this is what I mean by this. The Gospel of the Kingdom of God, this good news of the coming Kingdom, is the good news of God re-establishing order as it should be.

[7:15] Re-establishing the world as it was meant to be. Which at its core includes our ability to live in relation with Him. Our ability to worship Him with everything that we do.

[7:28] This is the main part of this Gospel message. But it includes other things. And that is, how is it that we now live in light of that reality? The redemption of our souls.

[7:39] What happens now? How then shall we live? And it must look different because we are now citizens of a greater kingdom. Not of this world, but of a heavenly world.

[7:52] And God is bringing to pass this process of making all things new. I was speaking with Ash about this yesterday. And I gave the analogy, it's very poor really, but I talked about an M&M.

[8:07] And an M&M in its core is chocolate. Without that, it ceases to be an M&M. It would be a really weird, empty candy shell. But an M&M also has a candy shell. At its core, the Gospel message is the redemption of souls.

[8:21] The candy coating, the extra thing, that thing that has effect then, is the redemption of other things in our world as well. We live in a fallen place.

[8:34] Sin has affected so much. The ability of our bodies to heal. It affects relationships. It affects how it is that we relate to the world. Work in your yard a little bit.

[8:44] That's sin. Pulling weeds is a result of sin. The work that was given to Adam in the garden became labor after the fall. These things were all destroyed by sin.

[8:56] And now, Christ is working to make these things new. All of this simply to say to you that those of us who are redeemed must look different.

[9:09] And we must make a difference in this world. And here's how we see these four sayings, parables, tied together. And that is, the theme of these is that we ought to receive the knowledge of the covenant kingdom of God and impart the same to others.

[9:29] We must do this with our words, first and foremost, but we also must be doing this with our actions. Now, fascinatingly, these are pulled together here, these four sayings together, but they're scattered in the synoptic gospels, in Matthew and Luke, all throughout the gospels.

[9:44] They're all throughout it. And at first, as I was studying, I thought, well, how interesting that Mark, led by the Spirit, pulled them together and showed them to us here. But I believe that Jesus spoke them in this order.

[9:55] Mark does a pretty good job of telling us where it is that he's at. We know that he has been by the Sea of Galilee, that he has drawn out into a boat and he has taught this parable of the sower.

[10:09] We see that in verse 10, he was alone later explaining things. And then in verse 35, they decide to get back into the boat and go across.

[10:20] So I think he's still in this mode of teaching. He's on the side of the Sea of Galilee. He's teaching these things and he's recording them all together as they were taught. As any good teacher does, he gets a good parable in mind and he uses it in multiple occasions at multiple times.

[10:35] I'm sure that Jesus didn't one time speak of these things, but he continued to teach what the kingdom of God would look like as he traveled and as he spoke to different audiences. And so, not only did the Spirit move Mark to record them in this way together, but I believe that Jesus spoke them in this way as well.

[10:54] And so therefore, we ought to pay careful attention to this theme that we ought to receive the knowledge of the coming kingdom of God and impart the same to others. And so, with each parable, I want to show you four things.

[11:09] First, the revelation of the kingdom of growth, or the kingdom growth. Secondly, the response of kingdom growth. Thirdly, the mystery of kingdom growth. And fourthly, the magnitude of kingdom growth.

[11:21] So firstly, the revelation of kingdom growth. Verses 21-23, and he said to them, is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light.

[11:35] If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And the key here to seeing, what is it that Jesus is communicating to us? What is this light that he is speaking of, this lamp?

[11:48] And that is himself. Verse 22, he says, nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. And this is the stage in history that that is happening. Right? They had messianic prophecy up to this point.

[12:01] Now the Messiah is standing before them. Something that was hidden has now been made manifest. Something that was secret has now come to light.

[12:12] John 8-12, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Luke records this same thing parable in Luke 11-33, but just before that, in verse 32, we see this record, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it.

[12:35] For they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The revelation of God to man. He is the way of repentance.

[12:48] Jonah preached to Nineveh that they should repent and turn back to God. Jesus is now that greater Jonah. John 14-6, Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life.

[13:01] No one comes to the Father except through me. And this is why verse 23 says, if anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And all he's saying is, if you have had your mind open to the realities of the gospel, hear the realities of the gospel.

[13:19] Don't just take it in, but take it into your heart. Let it have effect in who you are. In Numbers chapter 21, we see Israel in the wilderness and they have complained to Moses of their situation.

[13:35] They are desiring to go back to captivity where things were a little bit easier for them. And God sends as a punishment to them what are called fiery serpents. Serpents that were biting them and they were dying as a result of this.

[13:50] We see in verse 6, it says, Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, listen to this repentance, they came to Moses and said, We have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.

[14:06] Pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us. We see this picture of repentance. So Moses prayed for the people. In verse 8, And the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live.

[14:22] So they make a statue, an image of a fiery serpent and they put it on a pole. So when people are bitten they come and they look at it and they live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole and if a serpent bit anyone he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

[14:36] And then we get such wonderful commentary about what this was meant to foreshadow. So here we have a people who were stricken by an affliction because of their sin against God. Because of their sin against God they are dying.

[14:49] And Moses prays on behalf. He intercedes for them and God gives them a way to live. He gives them a way to avoid the punishment of this bite and to live.

[15:00] John chapter 3 beginning in verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.

[15:12] for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. I hope that verse 16 was very familiar to you.

[15:23] Did you know that this was the story that's being spoken of that precedes that? Just as Moses lifted up the servant so the Son of Man was lifted on a cross and He was crucified.

[15:36] So that whoever believes in that redemptive work that He accomplished on the cross can have eternal life and can avoid the punishment that our sin brought.

[15:48] So Jesus is the light. As Mark is recording it here He is the lamp that is meant to be lifted up. But how do we do that? How do we do that in our world?

[16:00] The very same parable is recorded in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 and Jesus teaches it a little bit differently beginning in verse 14. He says, You are the light of the world.

[16:11] You. Speaking to the believers there You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.

[16:25] In the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. So Jesus is the light and we are the light.

[16:37] How is it that we are the light? Because we have Christ. Because Christ lives in us. Because the gospel has done a work in our hearts and it has made us new.

[16:51] But don't miss that therefore we should look like Christ. The way we put the lamp on the stand is that we live as He has called us to live.

[17:05] We live set apart from this world. We look different from this world. And you must ask yourself that question do I look different from this world?

[17:16] And I'm not talking about exterior trappings. That is not what I mean. We shouldn't dress in some strange garb make clothing out of burlap or something like that so that we look different from the world in that way.

[17:30] We shouldn't set ourselves apart from the world. We shouldn't become monastic. Many things, good things were accomplished through monastic movements but by and large these people removed themselves from the sake of holiness from the world and therefore weren't light at all.

[17:45] They were a city in a valley. They were a lamp that was covered up. They were, in our analogy here, a lamp that was stuck underneath the bed. We're meant to live in this world and to function in this world so that we can exalt Christ in this world.

[18:00] So that we can be light in this place. The vision statement of Christ's family church is that we exist to glorify God by experiencing, proclaiming, and displaying the supremacy of Jesus Christ in all things to all peoples.

[18:18] I hope that you've memorized that. I hope that every time I mention it now you go, oh yeah, oh I know that thing. Right? There it is. Can you remember it? We ought to first be experiencing this to be a reality in our lives.

[18:31] Right? If Christ is not supreme, if Christ doesn't reign over all things in your life, that should be true of you. You should yield things to Christ. You should desire that Christ be more precious than anything that this world has to offer because He is.

[18:49] You should stop trading lesser pleasure for that greater pleasure. The great pleasure of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. We should experience this to be true in our lives.

[19:00] And I think that too often we don't. Far too often we worship the things of this world. Far too often we are led astray by the sundry items of this world.

[19:11] Right? We don't behold Jesus' face and have everything else in this world just grow dim. Right? But this world has such a shininess to it for us.

[19:23] We love to hold it and we love to look it over and call it our precious. Jesus is precious. This world is not. Tolkien interjection there.

[19:34] On accident. Right? Now catch that we are also meant to proclaim the truth of this reality. Right? Our religion is a religion of words.

[19:46] Now hear me carefully. Don't... God works a change in our heart where we worship in spirit and truth but we worship in truth. Right? We have been given the gospel message in words and I praise God for it.

[19:58] We are unique in this way that it is okay that the Bible is translated into our language that we can translate it into other languages that we can propagate it all around the world.

[20:09] Right? If you are a Muslim it is not okay for the Koran to be translated into English. Right? It is not considered the Word of God. Right? These translations are precious to us.

[20:20] These words come and they bring life. Now if anybody ever asks you what translation I preach from just tell them the original. Just say that because some people get really into their translations and somehow think they are inspired.

[20:34] They are not the original inspired. Right? The Greek that we would read here is the inspired Word of God and this is that translation that comes to us we must proclaim. This is how people hear the gospel and believe in it.

[20:46] We must proclaim it far and wide. But we also must display it. Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 in the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see what?

[20:58] Not your proclamation. That's not what he says here. That they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. We must display this reality. If it's true to us that Jesus Christ is supreme to all things in the world and we're saying that probably Christians get that more right than anything but we're not displaying it.

[21:19] What good is it for anybody? If you go around telling somebody that they should believe in something that it will change their life and your life looks like theirs what good is it?

[21:30] It is pointless. It's not good news at all. It's just news. We've got to ask ourselves is our world a better place because of our church? Is our world better because Christ Family Church exists?

[21:46] Is your world better? The spheres that you run in are you making change where you are? And here's where this idea of redeeming souls and redeeming other things as well comes into play that the kingdom of God is about reestablishing God's order the way things are meant to be which hear me clearly is primarily about souls primarily about that but it also means that you will be the best possible employee you can possibly be because God has redeemed your soul he has also redeemed your work ethic that your employer will say I think that the gospel that Nathan preaches is insanity but man am I glad he's around he is a good employee I never have to ask him to do anything twice when he gets done with a project he comes and asks for another project I never catch him sitting down he makes me more money I am glad he is here we should be the best possible employees you should be the best possible students you don't have to agree with everything your professors teach you in fact

[22:53] I would strongly encourage you not to agree with everything that your professors teach you but as you disagree with them in the class they should be thankful that you were a student in their class Nathan doesn't agree with anything I say I was a sociology major so I very often didn't agree with the very liberal agendas that are weaved throughout that degree program Nathan doesn't agree with anything that I say man does he disagree graciously and boy does he pour his heart into the reading and into the writing and boy does he engage in conversation he's a good student and I'm glad he's in my class do people say this of us I disagree with him I think he's crazy but I'm glad he's around are your neighbors glad that you're their neighbors I'm thinking about all this felt a conviction that I need to take better care of my yard I should care about the state of my yard because I should care about the property value of my neighbors I should want the hedges to be trimmed and the grass edged and do all that kind of thing to the glory of God so that they know that I care about them those crazy

[23:59] Christians always having Bible studies over at their house and clogging up our street with cars on Wednesday night but they sure are good to the neighborhood are you renters are you good tenants are you taking care of the property that's been given to you you pay your rent late all the time there are very real and very practical ways that we should be putting light on a stand don't limit it just to a sphere don't say that I am a student I am an employee I play a sport and then I'm a Christian Christianity is the defining thing about you if you've been found in Christ and therefore it should permeate every aspect of your living this is the way we can be radically different from our Christian culture and I don't want to be different from our Christian culture I want our Christian culture to live to this standard like I hope they all look like that but we certainly don't need to look like those who don't experience proclaim or display the supremacy of Jesus Christ we do the very opposite of that we look like everyone else there's a very practical aspect of this parable is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not a stand no of course not that is crazy you are the light of Christ shine 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6 and then verse 13

[25:29] Paul writes for God who said let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written I believed and so I spoke we also believe and so we also speak so there's the connection for you very beautifully laid out by Paul for us that God who said light shine out of darkness he is the one that has shown Christ in our hearts and so we believed we speak this should have some real effect remember that we're coming off the parable of the sower Jesus I believe if we are really analyzing this as the sower but we've also been given the task of sowing right and it's going to look this way putting light on a stand sowing the seed we ought to respond the response of kingdom growth 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 the one who has more will be given and from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away now notice in verse 24 he says pay attention to what you hear in verse 23 he said if anyone has ears to hear let him hear in verse 33 and 34 he says with many such parables he spoke to the word to them meaning the crowd 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 so so the idea here behind hearing is not!

[27:05] simply hearing but hearing and acting it's hearing that has an effect it's hearing and believing so we need to respond and there should be a response to this kingdom growth Romans 10 17 says faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ Ephesians 1 13 in him you also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and believed in him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit there must be a hearing and a response and that is what Jesus is talking about when he talks about with the measure you use it will be measured to you insert into this faith with the measure of faith you use it will be measured to you and still more will be added to you for the one who has more will be given and from the one!

[27:51] who has not who and if we want to see the gospel message have root in our hearts and exercise faith in us we also must exercise that faith in growth Proverbs 13 4 says the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied the soul of the sluggard those who are lazy in their faith those who live as if faith does not matter crave!

[28:34] the diligent those who pursue Christ in faith are richly supplied J.C. Ryle in a commentary on this text said do we wish to grow in grace do we desire to have a stronger faith brighter hope and clearer knowledge beyond doubt we do if we are true Christians then let us live fully up to our light and improve every opportunity so we have this picture here in the parables of the revelation and the response of kingdom growth then in verse 26 we see the mystery of kingdom growth the mystery and he said the kingdom of God is if a man should scatter seed on the ground he sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows he knows not how the earth produces by itself first the blade then the ear then the full grain in the ear but when only mark records this parable and the point of it is that there is much beyond man's comprehension and control in the expanse of the kingdom of

[29:45] God there's much beyond man's comprehension and control in expanse of the kingdom of God the seed must be sown we must propagate the truth we must put the lamp on a stand right but there's much beyond that that we will not understand now at this point let me give you a little bit of a warning as you study parables to not over analyze them right you can dissect this into little tiny pieces and miss the point altogether you could do this by saying wait wait who is who is the man who is it that he's talking about here is the man us is the man us we scatter seed and we don't know how we sleep and rise we don't know what's happening right we could say that but we also see that the man then puts in the sickle he reaps a harvest so wait a second do we reap a harvest is it us that reaps the harvest when there's maturity what is he talking about in this regard or how about the symbolism of rising night and day you could overthink that as well the key to all of this though is to see that he knows not how he knows not how 1st corinthians 3 5 and 9 there was debate in the corinthian church about whom followed who in verse 5

[31:04] Paul writes what then is apollos what is paul servants through whom you believed as the lord assigned to each i planted! apollos watered but god gave the growth so neither he knew plants nor he knew waters as anything but only god who gives the growth he who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor for we are god's fellow workers you are god's field god's building so the point of the parable here is simply that we should sow we should sow and we should trust that god will bring about the coming of his kingdom now certainly i will say to you that it's a bit important i think to understand verse 29 but when the grain is ripe at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come and i believe that he's referring here to final judgment the final in gathering so as he speaks of the grain being ripe he's speaking of the church when the church has been completed when the number are finally added this harvest will finally come and i believe that because this language he uses kind of harkens back to

[32:15] Joel chapter 3 verse 11 through 16 Joel writes through the inspiration hasten and come all you surrounding nations and gather yourselves there bring down your warriors oh lord let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the valley of jehoshaphat who was the fourth king of judah and it means jehovah has judged for there i will sit to judge all the surrounding nations put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe go in tread for the wine press is full the the lord is a refuge to his people a stronghold to the people of Israel so we know that there is a coming judgment and as we scatter seed as we sow it and we don't know how it is exactly that

[33:18] God is going to work in people's hearts and bring about growth in the church we can take comfort in the fact that plants are planted and nobody knows how they grow and how they come up but they do we have a little more understanding than they would have have had at this time about how seeds actually function they didn't know they got seed into the ground and by some miracle it came up and it grew and yielded a crop and it was harvested and that's what we're meant to understand here that as we put our lamp on a stand as we find ourselves working to increase our faith that God himself will bring growth as this judgment is finally coming God will bring growth in perfection the church will be completed the way it's meant to be complete and then the harvest!

[34:05] will come I hope that all of you are laborers in the gospel and that you desire to see Christ return you can take heart that the work will be finished we can know that we need to keep on working because he's yet to come back the harvest is yet to come therefore the work is yet to be finished!

[34:36] It's hard to understand how it is that God works redemption in men's souls it's difficult to understand this is the way the spirit functions it blows where it will like the wind but yet it is our task to sow it is our task to scatter seed it is our task to propagate put the lamp on the stand right here's the laying of stories to help us understand a greater truth right and as we do this we can also take heart in the magnitude of kingdom growth so that was the mystery of kingdom growth how about the magnitude of kingdom growth verse 30 he said with 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 sown branches that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade now what he is saying here of the mustard would have been incredibly understood by them it's likely the black mustard which has just a minuscule seed those of you who cook go home and get your mustard seed out they are tiny little little flecks smaller than grass seed mustard seed is don't go to the grocery store and take the caps off things but see if you can find a clear bottle and see how tiny mustard seed is it's really little it's certainly the smallest seeds of all the earth but this plant which was used for oil and a condiment they used mustard back then as well apparently could reach heights of nine feet so in a garden this would have been a massive plant and what he's saying here is not the largest plant it's the largest plant in the garden that you would have had at your home it's a huge plant that would have produced these seeds and what he's doing here is he's contrasting something with an insignificant beginning but with an impressive final size that's what he's doing for us with an insignificant beginning and an impressive final size we see that to be the case of

[36:46] Jesus life as he's going around and teaching we see thousands gathered but yet so few believe we see such a small number finally once he's crucified and they don't know what to do we see such a small number of devoted followers that are still with him it seems so small and so insignificant but he's telling us of the great significance that will one day be true and if you find in your life now that the little things you're doing seem so insignificant the little seed that you're sowing along the way you can take heart that the kingdom of God will have an impressive final size all the things he has said to us so far praise God for this parable that's only recorded in mark of the seed growing and how it is that it grows!

[37:32] It is the work of God that this happens and we can take heart in knowing that he will also bring to pass his kingdom and it will be impressive as unimpressive as it seems at some time it will be impressive I think rightly he's drawing from some imagery that can be found in Ezekiel chapter 17 as well as chapter 31 which is the imagery of a cedar a great cedar tree in the cedar tree of the United States or any other nation in this world that we see as profitable and does well that those that have gathered underneath it and to receive its benefit there will be a much greater benefit there will be a much greater in gathering and here he says this mustard plant is large enough that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade that they will be comforted in this setting so the kingdom of

[38:55] God will have a great great magnitude and I experience this to be true of myself that people want to be a part of something that's larger than themselves beloved guess what if you are a Christian you are you are part of something that is so much bigger than you can even fathom coming here to Christ family church may not seem like a big deal it's not to be totally honest it's really not right the number here right we're not wrapped up in this rapture look at what God is doing in this place this is incredible right but he is doing a work and he wants to use the faithful to accomplish it he wants to use little churches!

[39:39] like ours to receive the truth of God and to see other people receive the truth of God this is the great high calling of those who are found in Christ this is the point of the gospel's mark mark mark's gospel right the point I've said to you from the beginning is that this is a rhetorical commentary rhetoric these days is an argument with no meaning it wasn't then right he is intentionally laying out for us an argument that would cause us to believe that Jesus is the Christ we saw that at the end of chapter three this setting where we see people accusing him of being a lunatic a liar and some who called him Lord he's convincing us to call Jesus Lord and then to live like that's true to call him Lord and then follow him to be a disciple that makes disciples this looks like many of us grew up in churches and we had what this looks like the way we should live in this world reduced way down reduced maybe to just handing out a track or heaven forbid laying it on the back of a urinal reduced to this simple little message and that is the core and it is beautiful but there is a bigger message!

[41:04]  of the coming of the kingdom of God there is a bigger message that this world is winding down it is being destroyed it is being destroyed by sin but the kingdom of God is winding up things are getting good for the people of God his church is expanding we are being perfected day by day and someday fully and finally and I urge it to come Jesus is going to come back and re-establish he's going to say behold I make all things new and we live in that reality we live in that realm and we need to start acting like we live in that reality we need to start showing this world that there is a better way and it is the way of God that they might find that in Christ let's pray together