27 Feb Mark 10: Abide in the gospel
Mark 4:21-34
21 And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 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. 25 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.”
The Parable of the Seed Growing
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.”
The Parable of the Mustard Seed
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.”
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.
Introduction
Have you ever felt tired of being Christian? You feel dry inside. This is what we normally call spiritual fatigue. We feel tired and exhausted. We read the Bible but do not get anything. We do not want to go to church. We do not want to go to the MC/cell group. Basically, we do not want to do anything related to the church. And we wonder whether God is working in you or not.
Or we feel tired because we do not see growth in our ministry. We lead the cell group for a long time, but we do not see the fruit. Or we are frustrated because we pray for our loved ones to know Christ for a long time, but we don’t see any good news. we ask this question – “why even continue? Why even continue going to church? Why even continue sharing the Gospel? Why even continue leading MC when I cannot see any fruit?”
This is what we are going to learn from these 3 parables from Jesus. Last week, we learned from another parable from Jesus, The Parable of the Sower. The sower went out to sow the seed and it fell into a few different conditions. We learned how every condition represents our responses to the Gospel. In that parable, Jesus emphasised the importance of our response to the Word of God. Jesus did not stop there. He gave another 3 parables, to teach people the importance of The Gospel. We need to remember that “The Gospel is not something that we take or share once and set aside. The Gospel is only message that has power to save people and we will continue to be refined through Gospel”. That’s what we’re going to learn today.
I think understanding these three parables would be the answer of “why even continue? Why even continue going to church or reading the Bible? Why even continue sharing the Gospel? Why even continue leading MC when I cannot see any fruit?”. I will divide this sermon into 3 parts.
THE LIGHT
21 And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 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. 25 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.”
When I was preparing this sermon, I imagined myself as Jesus’ audience. When Jesus asked the question in verse 21 – “does anyone bring a lamp and put it under a basket and under the bed? No one, right?”. I can imagine that Ellis and I slowly raised our hands – “we do”. We did not put our bedside lamp on the table. We did not put it under the table, but we put it on the floor next to the bedside table. I think Jesus would roll his eyes and tell us that “First, this is just a rhetorical question, guys, don’t need to answer the question. Secondly, out of curiosity, why do you put your lamp on the floor?” I believe people will ask the question if they come to our place – “why do you put it on the floor?”. The reason we put it on the floor is the lamp is just too bright for us and if we turn it off, it will be too dark. I know it is silly. It defeats the purpose of the lamp. The lamp is to give light to the room.
We know that the lamp is to brighten the room and chase away the darkness. If we put it under the bed, it will defeat its purpose. That is also our purpose as Disciple of Christ which is to reflect the light of Christ in this world. How do we do that? By sharing Christ with those around us. The Gospel that transforms us is not only for us. It is our responsibility to share Good News.
Do we know this truth? I believe most of us know this truth. We recite Matt 28 every week. But how often do we shy away from sharing Christ with those around us? So often, we are like the person who holds the lamp and enters the darkroom but ends up placing the lamp under the bed.
One thing we must remember in this parable is that we are not the source of the light. We have no light. Like the moon, we are just to reflect the light of Jesus to the lost. When we share the good news, the end goal is not us but Jesus Christ. That’s the disciple of Christ. The Disciple of Christ is a person who the light of Jesus Christ shines through. The Disciple of Christ is not ashamed by their faith or ashamed to mention His name at work or in university. Some people hide the Gospel under the bed because of their busyness. Some of them because they are lazy. And some of them because of fear.
To be able to share the Gospel, we need to hear and believe the Gospel. In verses 23-24, Jesus reminds His followers about one important principle as a Christian. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 24 And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear:”. How can you share something that you don’t believe? It is the same thing as the salesman who sells based on basic information of the product. Do they use the product at home? Might be not. We need to pay attention to what we hear. Jesus reminds us again to have listening ears. So often, we think we are listening to what God is saying to us, but we are just hearing what we want to hear.
This is the question we should ask ourselves. Are we paying attention to what Jesus says? Are we listening to the Gospel? Do we believe the Gospel?
In this parable, Jesus teaches us to listen to the Word of God seriously, meditate on it, apply it to our lives and also share it with others. Flow in and flow out. When we went to Israel during the Holy Land Tour, we went to the Dead Sea. Do you know why they call it the “dead sea”? It is because it cannot sustain any living creature. The salt content is extremely high, nothing can live in that sea. This is because the seawater flows into the dead sea and there is no way to get out of the dead sea. Every day the dead sea evaporates, and it makes the salt content so high. The seawater can flow in but cannot flow out of the dead sea. And basically, that is what will happen to Christian if we just want to have “flow in” (listening to the Gospel) but we don’t want to “flow out” (share the Gospel to others). We will be the spiritual dead sea. That is the warning that Jesus gave to us in verse 25-26 25 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.” Ps RC Sproul summarised nicely – “It is the duty of the church in every generation, of every pastor, and of every Christian to take up that lamp, cast the basket aside, and put the light in a prominent place where people can behold the truth of God and of His Son.”
One question that we usually ask after we share the Gospel with others – “I have been sharing the Gospel to my friends for years, but I have not seen any fruit. When will he/she believe in Christ?” Then, we are getting frustrated. It leads me to my second point.
THE GROWTH
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.”
If you don’t know, I am working in the coffee business. Most people who work in the coffee business normally become coffee snobs. People who think know a lot about coffee. Normally these people hate Starbucks coffee and only drink speciality coffee. Since I started working in the coffee business, I have bought a lot of coffee stuff. When I look back now, many things that I regret – why did I buy that thing? But the most regrettable thing for me is planting a coffee tree. The first reason is before I decided to plant the coffee tree, I googled it and I know it takes 4-To 5 years at least to produce fruits. But who cares, I am a coffee snob and I need to plant a coffee tree. So, we planted the coffee tree. Most of you who come to our place, for sure, have been introduced to this coffee tree. First-year, second year, third year. It grows well. In the fourth year, we are expecting a harvest. Yes, at that time, we use the word “harvest”. But, in the fourth year, instead of growing, the coffee tree started losing the leaves. At the end of the year, we can see the coffee tree is dying stage. The problem is at the end of the year, we were planning to have a long holiday. It was during the summer as well. It was so hot. During the holiday, I was preparing myself to go home with the dead coffee tree. For us, the tree can’t be alive without any water. Even before we went on holiday, it was already dying. What surprising news, when we arrived at home, we found that instead of dying, the coffee tree was producing 3 fruits. The first three fruits and at the same time, it is the last three fruits. We were just amazed. How come? When we were taking care of the tree, it was dying but when we left it, it produced fruits. I don’t know why. That is the story in the parable.
After spreading the seed, the farmer continues with his daily routine. He sleeps and wakes. The seed keeps growing and the farmer does not know-how. Some experts say that even the best farmers can only control some aspects but there are a lot of things that they do not know, and they cannot control.
One of the main points from the parable is that man is not the focus, but the seed is the focus. The seed is the one that is important. The unknown part in this parable shows that there are a lot of things that are mysterious in the growth of the Kingdom of God. There are a lot of things that we don’t understand about the process of people’s salvation such as when they will get saved, how they get saved. And the parable reminds us that those things are not our part to worry about.
We often worry about what happened with yesterday’s Sunday service. We often worry about our ministry. We ask God why. We have spread the seed but no fruit. Some MC leaders might be wondering why their MC seems to have no fruit. The number is still the same, but you have done what needs to be done; preach the Gospel, reach out. For every seed that you spread, it will never go in vain. For every Gospel you shared, it will never go in vain because God is at work behind the scenes. We may never see the result now but know that God is working. We may never see the result at all, but other people may see the result. And that is fine. Why? Because whoever sees the results, God Himself gets all the Glory. We cannot boast about the result of this growth process. God is at work from beginning to end.
One wrong application in this parable is to think that we don’t have anything to do because God is at work. Ps Yosia was very clear last week that we have responsibility. The first parable also teaches us that we have a responsibility to listen carefully to the Word of God. We also have a responsibility to not hide the Gospel but to share the Gospel. For Parents, it is our responsibility to introduce Gospel to our kids, to keep sharing Gospel to our kids and to show them the importance of spiritual disciplines such as reading the bible or prayer. We may not see the result instantly but know the growth is there. We should remember that there is power in the Gospel. It leads me to my last point.
THE POWER
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.”
Before we are going to learn deeper in this scripture, let’s talk about the mustard seed as the smallest seed on earth which is mentioned in verse 31. I just don’t want one day one of you to be in the “who wants to be millionaire” show and the last question to get 1 million dollars is whether the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world or not. If your answer is “yes”, let me tell you that you will not get that 1 million dollars because there are many other seeds that are smaller than the mustard seed. It seems that it is not an important topic to be discussed but many people attack the Bible because of this issue. They say that this issue shows the inaccuracy of the Bible. Why then did Jesus use mustard seed? Mustard seed is relatively small compared to other seeds. At that time, the mustard seed was more familiar to the farmer in Israel and Jesus also wants to show the contrast in how the seed starts small and grows into a very large tree. Orchid seed is smaller than a mustard seed, but the Orchid plant will not grow into a very large tree. Jesus cannot use the Orchid seed as an example. Jesus wants to show His follower the magnificent power of the Gospel; not the cuteness of the Gospel.
When we talk about how the Kingdom of God can be the influence, we will talk about the influence of the church. Therefore, church planting is very important in extending the Kingdom of God. It is important to keep planting the church. But we also cannot just focus on the number. To extend the Kingdom of God, we need a church that can give influence on society. This is when it becomes tricky. What kind of influence does the church need? This parable is very clear to answer this question. The church needs the power of the Gospel to be influenced in the world. Not rely on entertainment or any other human-made events but the power of the Gospel. We do not need the influence to make the church bigger but to make Jesus bigger.
There are a lot of pastors or ministers who leave their ministry because they cannot see any fruit. Nothing is happening. But this parable is a good reminder for us who labour for God that nothing goes in vain. It is very encouraging for people who may think they are wasting their time labouring for the Lord. We cannot underestimate every God’s Word that we share with other people. This parable shows that we can trust the seed. This mustard seed was used by Jesus to give an idea of something that seems small but has great potential to grow. This is a warning that people do not look down on the significance of the preaching Gospel, even though it initially seems unconvincing or less impressive.
Let me challenge you with this question: Do you believe the Gospel is powerful? Do you believe the Gospel can save your family, your friends whom most people think impossible? Do you believe the Gospel can change lost people out there who are extremists from other religions? Imagine this. One day, someone asked you to come to the hospital. There is one of your relatives who is dying on the bed and he/she is so afraid of dying. What are you going to say to him/her? Are you just saying encouraging words to him/her or giving them false assurance such as “don’t worry heaven is waiting for you” but he/she does not believe in Jesus as Saviour? What they need is the Gospel Truth. We often believe the Gospel is powerful in theory but fall short in practice. Our worldly mindset frequently undervalues what the gospel can do. We easily say, “That person is just too sinful to hear the gospel and become a follower of Christ,”.
That’s what happened to Jesus’ disciples when they knew that Paul became Christian. In Acts 9:26; 26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. The person who hunts and kills many Christian becomes a radical follower of Jesus. They don’t believe how the Gospel can completely transform people. So often, that’s what happened to us. We don’t believe in the Power of the Gospel. We have this thought that “that person would never understand the Gospel. Their belief is so much different from the Gospel”.
This is what we should do every time we have that thought: we must remind ourselves how we get saved. The moment the power of the Gospel saved Paul and us. The moment the Gospel grasps you, there is the scale on your eyes taken off. Have you tried playing VR (Virtual Reality) where you put the headset? I have not played but I watched a lot of funny videos of people playing VR. When we look at them, they act like crazy people and are very funny. But for them, it is not crazy and not funny because they see it from a different perspective compared to us. How they see their surroundings is different from how we see them.
That’s exactly what happens when the Gospel takes off the scale in your eyes. You will understand the Bible differently. You may have read the Bible a few times, but you never understand and never come to your heart personally. But now, when you read the same verses, it becomes alive. You understand that the God we worship is Holy God. He needs to punish every sin. You suddenly realise how sinful you are. Death as punishment of sin becomes real for you. You realise that nothing we can do, and we are hopeless. But God sent Jesus as our perfect sacrifice. He died on the Cross to pay all our sins and He rose 3 days later, establishing His victory and the beautiful promise that whoever trusts Him has eternal life.
That Gospel interaction is not just a one-off thing. The Power of the Gospel does not stop there. It continues to sanctify us until the end of our life . We are moulded to the image of Jesus Christ. This process changes our minds, our desire, our perspective. Somehow, you want something that you never wanted before. Praying. Meditating the Bible. And you hate something that you loved so much before.
Therefore, if we want to grow as Christian, there is no other way than to abide in the Gospel. You may not see the result instantly. You may think nothing changes in me because the changes are not behaviour modification but changes inside.
The pericope ends with Jesus explaining the parables, not to all people but only to the disciples. 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. Why only to the disciple? Because only disciples have the ear to hear. Are you the disciples of Jesus Christ? I am not only talking for the unbeliever but also Christians who feel empty and dry. When was the last time you listened and opened your ear to the Word of God? I am going to close with this one-sentence summary of my sermon. The Gospel is the most important news to take in and take out for every Christian. Don’t take the Gospel lightly. Don’t avoid it. Come and listen with an open heart. Respond and repent. And Let share that Good News boldly for we have a God who works powerfully through his gospel! Let’s pray.
Discussion questions:
- Have you ever felt exhausted living as Christians? What happened?
- Why is it important for you to not only hear the gospel but also share the gospel?
- Explain the dynamic of gospel growth. Give some implications of this truth in your daily life.
- “We often believe the Gospel is powerful in theory but fall short in practice.” Is this true about your life? Give some examples.
- Why is it important to remind yourself of the gospel constantly?
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