Sermon Notes: Mark 4:26-34
Mark 4:26-34
Observation
Author: Mark
Audience: Gentiles who are being told the good news of the kingdom of Jesus.
Followers of Jesus who are growing up into maturity in Christ and learning how to live under the rule of his increasing kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Occasion: Mark, as Peter’s missionary helper, is writing a gospel “tract” for use on the field as they preach the good news to Gentiles.
Genre: Overall, historical biography. And in our current text, it is a parable.
Reminder: A parable is a concrete story that paints an image in the imaginations of the hearers and conceals the meaning from those who are indifferent and desire to remain an outsider to the kingdom of God while making clear the mysteries of the kingdom of God to those who come to Jesus by faith.
Key words / phrases:
V. 26-29: Seed / scatter / sprouts...knows not how / grows by itself and gradually
V. 30-32: Mustard seed / smallest / larger / birds make their nest
V. 33-34: As they were able to hear it / privately...he explained everything
Lists:
None
Contrasts / comparisons:
Comparison: God’s kingdom works like the process of sowing and reaping. Physical creation operates like the unseen realms of God’s kingdom.
Contrast: Beginning is contrasted from the end. Seed contrasted from fruit. Sowing contrasted from harvest. Small is contrasted from large.
These contrasts show us that God operates by processes the has designed, laws he has created that govern his creation. In other words, there is a way Jesus created for things to work, and part of the glory of kings is to search out the mechanisms of how Jesus wired his creation to operate.
Notice how there are no instructions in the Bible on all the mechanics of agriculture, just illustrations and some prohibitions in the law of Moses.
Does that mean humans should not discover every possible created law about how to grow more and better food? Of course not. It means the Lord has given us some hints and called us to go use our royal position as kings and queens to discover how to make it better as his co-regents.
Who should lead the charge in discovering all the laws of Jesus’ created universe?
Followers of Jesus should!
Expressions of time:
V. 28-29 “then” and “when”. These expressions of time are connected to the contrasts. Thus, these expressions of time indicate an order and God’s process of time. God operates using time in creation as he created it. That begins to require us to operate in patience while we expect God’s processes to work out.
V. 31-32 “when”. Again, these two uses of “when” connect time to the process of the contrasts of going from small to filling the earth.
God designed his kingdom to work a certain way. Jesus created laws that govern the working of all things, and we do well to pay attention to how Jesus’ creation works.
Colossians 1:15-17 (ESV) 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
“In him all things hold together.” If he holds all things together, then is it better to discover how things work and work with Jesus’ processes or ignore them?
What does the text say:
Jesus teaches in such a way with parables that only those who come to him in faith will be able to understand. Jesus gives insight to his people so they can understand as they come to and stay near him. For those who don’t come to him in faith and are still listening, they may come to him while they still hear if they will believe.
The good news of Jesus kingdom is to be spread, and it will grow by itself because God makes it grow gradually over time by his processes. We don’t make the kingdom grow. Only God makes his kingdom grow and expand. We must know our place and role.
The growth of Jesus’ kingdom is assured even though his kingdom begins in small and seemingly insignificant ways. But Jesus’ kingdom will not only grow and produce fruit; Jesus’ kingdom will fill the earth.
What does the text mean:
1. Jesus is the seed, the Word of the kingdom in the flesh. (This is also our gospel connection)
Jesus will be sown by the Father into the ground through his death and burial. This seemingly insignificant and small mustard seed, the Son of God, is sown in death.
But by God’s own means and processes, while Jesus is in the tomb he causes his kingdom to grow as the Son of God declares to the spirits in prison that he has conquered according to his word, just like Peter records for us.
On the third day, Jesus, the Son of God, rises to be the largest plant in the garden and a growing plant, a kingdom that grows to fill the whole earth so that all those who would come to him would find the shade of his love and mercy.
As Daniel the prophet saw concerning this mustard seed become the largest plant in the garden but put it in terms of a stone and a mountain: Daniel 2:31-35 (ESV) 31 “You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. 32 The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
Application: If you have not, repent and believe! If you have believed, stand in awe of Jesus and his kingdom.
Worship him.
Commit to knowing him and his word more and growing up into maturity in Christ. Don’t be content to be stagnant.
As Psalm 22 is about Jesus and states: He has done it!
2. Jesus’ kingdom begins small and will grow to fill the whole earth.
Don’t despise small things.
From king David to Gideon to the Son of God, the Lord chooses and increases the small and insignificant “things” in the eyes of the world system that is sold out to the lust of the flesh, the lust of eyes, and the pride of life.
Application: Don’t look or thirst for significance as an indicator of success in God’s eyes.
Do what you can, where you are no matter how small, sow the good news of the kingdom of God, leave the growth to God, and then in God’s time and his tending, reap the harvest he brings.
Be content with being small and hidden. Let God bring growth and fruit.
3. Jesus works with us in his kingdom not in spite of us.
We were created as image-bearing co-regents who were designed to multiply in a family relationship to fill the earth and exercise Jesus’ dominion over all creation.
God designed us to work with him, not for us to do nothing and watch him work in spite of us.
The sower sows and the sower harvests. The sower does not cause the growth, and in fact, he doesn’t understand or know how the growth happens.
The sower simply recognizes when the grain is ripe and then does his work of harvesting.
Jesus is preparing his insiders, his people who have come to him in faith, for their global work to sow the good news of the kingdom, to trust him to bring growth from their labor in spite of what things look like in the moment, and then be prepared for harvesting the fruit that the Spirit of God brings about.
We sow and harvest. God causes the increase.
“The success of the Christian message...does not depend upon human effort or understanding...but upon divine power.[1]
Application: 1. Get after preaching the good news to every ear that may hear and get after expounding on the implications of the good news to those who have heard. This is our primary work of sowing.
Preaching the good news to outsiders requires us to be among those who need to know and then the courage to say it.
Working out the implications of the good news among those who claim to have heard requires being present and with.
2. Buckle up for the discipleship lesson of maturing in our learning to trust the Lord in living by faith.
We are going to have to learn thanksgiving and managing our regulation with truth. Learning this is an indicator we are learning to live in the fruit of the Spirit of self-control and thus by faith as opposed to fear and panic.
You know you are maturing into this when you can, like the sower do your part then go to sleep and let God do his part without trying to manage God and make him do what we want our way.
3. Be prepared to harvest when the Spirit causes growth.
Have eyes to see and discernment do know when it’s time to put your hands back to the labor of receiving the growth God brought.
4. Jesus’ kingdom works according to his processes, or his laws, that he created.
Simply put, there are laws by which Jesus’ creation works because he designed those laws to govern how it works.
The sower does not know how the growth takes place in Jesus’ parable. Not because he can’t learn the mechanisms of growth. He does not know in the sense that the growth is not his job.
He may learn the mechanism of growth to the glory and praise of God who gives the growth. But making it grow is not within his power.
Growth is God’s, and we tap into growth when we engage God’s process of sowing and harvesting with resting in between.
Sowing. Sabbath. Harvest. This is a law, a created wiring of God’s world, that we get to know and engage with in all of our work.
Can you identify some laws that govern Jesus’ creation that he calls us to work with rather than against?
Some are explicitly written in the Bible. Some are concealed as mysteries for us to find.
How about faith and prayer?
Be aware: The dark kingdom knows how Jesus’ creation works. They have better theology than we do, and that knowledge causes them to tremble. In their knowledge they use that knowledge to further evil rather than worship Jesus.
Just because it works does not make it evil. It may be that the sons of darkness are more shrewd than the sons of light (see Luke 16:8), and we dwell in foolish ignorance while the dark forces use Jesus’ created laws to outflank us.
Jesus created a universe, earth and heavens upon heavens, that are full of ways and means we were designed to master to have dominion over creation.
Application: Hide God’s word in your heart and get after discovering creation and don’t leave it to the outsiders to discover all the amazing things Jesus did, how sin spoiled it, and how we are to get after its restoration and take it back and exercise holy dominion over it.
5. Stay near to Jesus, listen to his Spirit, and he will teach you all things.
Jesus explained everything to his disciples.
Jesus didn’t explain everything to everyone. Jesus only explained the meaning to those who would come to him in faith.
There is this commentary statement in verse 33 by Mark, “as they were able to hear”. It comes off in English as Jesus teaching down to them or cutting off his content so they can understand him or not be overwhelmed.
But that can’t be the case. He already told us that he was teaching in parables as a fulfillment of the judgment of the Father as Isaiah the prophet told us (see Mark 4:12) on those who stay outside and refuse to come in and be saved.
What Mark is saying about Jesus is that there is hope for anyone who is near to the word of the kingdom. As they are within hearing to hear it, they can receive it if they will.
Application: 1. If you have come near because you have believed, stay near and the Spirit will guide you into all truth.
2. Again, if you have not believed and hear today, don’t turn away. Today is the day of salvation.
[1] James A. Brooks, Mark, vol. 23, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1991), 85.