Mark 4:26-34
We are going to be in Mark, chapter four, looking at verses 26 through 34 this morning. Mark, chapter four, verses 26 through 34. Peace be with you once you have found that place in your Bible, or you may look up on the screens, please stand out of the reverence of reading of God's word. Mark 426 34. This is the word of the Lord.
And he was saying, the kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil. And he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows. How he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself. First the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.
But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come. And he said, how shall we picture the kingdom of God? Or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade. With many such parables, he was speaking the word to them, so far as they were able to hear it.
And he did not speak to them without a parable, but he was explaining everything privately to his own disciples. Let's pray. Father, may your will be done. Jesus, may your word be proclaimed, and spirit, may your work be accomplished. In us we pray.
Amen. You could be seated.
We are told here that Jesus is speaking in parables, but specifically speaking privately to his disciples. And here we come to two parables that are very, just few in number by verse. And we are given two parables that are meant to explain what the kingdom of God is like. And what we first need to understand is that the kingdom of God in these parables is a manifestation or an embodiment of what the church ultimately is supposed to do. What Jesus reveals in these two parables is what kingdom people look like and what they do and how they function, and also what the kingdom place is for those kingdom people.
And so we're going to dive into these two parables in order to present to ourselves as the church what it is that we ought to look like. First, as a person in this kingdom. And second, as this place called the church, what is it supposed to grow into? So let's look at that as we begin to break down. Let's look at verse 26.
And he was saying, that is, Jesus was saying, the kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil. And this right out of the gate, Jesus tells us exactly what kingdom people do. Their whole purpose in life is to sow seed. It is to mimic and mock the ministry of Jesus. Jesus ministry is going around casting seed among the soil everywhere he goes.
And it is this kingdom, the kingdom people that carry on this ministry, and that is what we ought to do. The kingdom people know the type of seed that they are to sow in the field that it will grow in. And that is what we need to know. That's what we need to understand that it is a specific seed, that we're just not casting anything out upon the soil, but we are specifically casting out seeds of the gospel, the good news of Jesus christ. There's nothing else that has the power unto salvation.
We can feed poor, we can give people rights to places of employment, we can tend to the sick. But those do not have or possess the power to turn people's lives and cause them to be born again. It is only the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of what he has done for us, that possesses the power and the spirit of God, that causes us to be born again. Paul says in romans 116 that he's not ashamed of this gospel and he's not ashamed of it. So he proclaims it everywhere, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.
We need to come to understand that the kingdom people are people who are grateful to sow this seed because they've been greatly impacted by it, they've been greatly changed by it, and now they're going to spend all of their time and energy making sure that others can be impacted by it as well, by sowing seed everywhere they go. This is what this parable begins teaching us. And it also, Paul also goes on later on in romans to describe what it is that how people get this good news, how it is that we should dedicate our lives to sowing seeds. For he says, whoever will call on the name of the lord will be saved. How then will they call on him who they have not believed?
How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of great things. The kingdom people have the most beautiful feet because their feet and its beauty is defined by what they sow into the world. We are to namely, sow the gospel.
We can't just be a people that cares and tends to everybody's needs. We do that, but we also present to them what is the greatest need, and that is the gospel. We have to be a kingdom people that are people of sowing the gospel. The good news. There's several implications here that we can draw from just this first verse, as Jesus is beginning to paint the picture of the kingdom people who we ought to be.
What his kingdom people look like and act like is one that we understand, that we find ourselves in multiple fields. My fields are not the same as your fields. With all of us together, we have a multitude of fields that we can sow in. And so we have to begin sowing this seed in the fields that we have been entrusted with. And on Father's day, there's no greater place to start father's than your own family.
I don't have time to go in and we can walk through all of Jesus ministry. But when he calls his disciples, he doesn't immediately send them two by two into the world to proclaim the gospel and cast out demons. What his disciples begin to do from day one is go to their friends and their family first. That area, those fields that they're most familiar with, their fields that they are most readily available to. And many of us, and I see this, I observe this in just the christian communities across the board, is that all of us have this hesitancy to sow the seed of the gospel.
Everywhere we go. We're nervous to speak about the gospel to others because we don't want to make, maybe we don't want to be too offensive. Maybe we don't want to, like, create some kind of tension in the moment. But Jesus is saying that kingdom people enjoy sowing the seed. It's the very thing they do.
It's the most important thing they do. They sow the seed of the gospel because they're the ones that have been illuminated to this mystery, that that's what everybody in the world needs. They don't just need their bellies filled. They just don't need the healing from those things that ail them. What they need is their souls to be saved when they bring in that paralytic before Jesus.
The reason why that story is so significant, one of my favorite stories about the ministry of Jesus is because there's four friends that lower him down through a roof. And the first thing that all of us would think in the story if we were writing it, is Jesus is about to heal and give action to this person's body that isn't, that is immovable. It doesn't act in and of itself. Jesus is about to heal a paralytic, but that's not the first thing he does. The first thing that Jesus does in his ministry is he sows a seed of the gospel in the paralytic's life by saying, your sins are forgiven.
And then the Pharisees and everybody in the crowd starts freaking out because he just declared, doing something that only God can do. And by doing so, Jesus not only reveals that the man, the paralytic sins are forgiven, but that he is God who can forgive sins. And so he can come to know that it is a sure and done deal. And in that moment we're told and we're given the example of what is most concerning to Jesus, and that is the salvation of our souls. And he doesn't stop there.
He does heal the paralytic, but that's not the first act that he does. His first act is to first and foremost know that he possesses the power and his work and his ministry is all about giving the forgiveness of sins. Because without the forgiveness of sins you can't see God the Father. And Jesus says, I'm here to do that for you. That's your greatest needs, whether your legs work or not.
That's a side issue. The main issue here is that your sins need to be forgiven and I just forgave them. And then he says, and to prove that that is sure and real and effective, get up and walk. And so the use of his legs proves the internal reality that his sins are forgiven and he's been reestablished in a relationship with God the Father. And that's what kingdom people do.
Kingdom people not only fill bellies and pray for those who need healing, but we also, first and foremost, primarily need to be sowing the seed. And however we need to begin doing that, we start with those in our areas of influence and inner fields that we find ourselves in. It's not a mistake. You are where you are in your life, and the people that are around you are around you for a purpose and a reason, is because God the Father has put them in your life and he's entrusted you in these fields and he's asking you and he's telling you to sow it. And it's a little bit more than that because Jesus himself demonstrates that he is a sower.
He is the man in this parable that sows the seed in fields. But now he's ascended to the father and sits at the right hand and he is commissioned and he is given the church, his kingdom, the people, the kingdom people, the mandate to say, now go and sew like I did, which shows that Jesus isn't asking anything of you, that he hasn't done himself. And so he says, you can be bold for that. I've given you the example. You can read about it.
You know what I've done, and I'm asking you to join me in that. I've handed off the baton to the kingdom people. And the kingdom people need to first and foremost be a people who sow seed in their fields, that they find themselves in these fields that they've been entrusted with. Not only should these kingdom people be a people who sowed seed, but they're a people that entrust their work to God. Look at verse 27.
And he goes to bed at night and gets up by day and the seed sprouts and grows. How he himself does not know. We live in a culture where we work and expect a paycheck where we work and we want a particular outcome that we benefit by. And that is not what kingdom people do. Kingdom people are not motivated by what the outcome is.
They're motivated because they understand that they get to participate and partner alongside with this great ministry that God the father is doing in all the world. We've been invited to something great and glorious that God himself is overseeing, and he can do it all by the command of his voice. We can go all the way back to Genesis, chapter one and see just how hard God works and what he's able to create, what he's capable of doing just by the command of his voice. And yet that's not how he is choosing to move forward in this ministry of sowing seed. He says, no, I'm going to invite my people to participate and partner with me in this mission.
That's why it's important to them. And it's not based on the AKA. We're not motivated on how many people we can save, because salvation has nothing to do with us at all. Is, is by the hand of God. This is why when I go and I teach on Fridays at chain breakers, I have guys sitting here, over here on the couch asleep, and I have guys sitting right here in a chair, leaning forward with their ear inclined and just writing and taking notes.
They often will look to the other side and like, guys wake up because they're snoring. And I said, I'm not a pastor that worries about who sleeps, not a pastor that worries about the number of people. I have yet to this day counted our attendance. Maybe I should have. I don't know.
I didn't read that in my expectations, but I haven't because it doesn't motivate me. If the only person that showed up to hear the word of God was my wife, I would put just as much time and effort into it than if we had every pew filled in here. Because I'm not motivated by the number, because I can't produce that. If we want to fill these pews, I know how to do it. We could do it by a raffle.
Tell the community that we are selling a brand new Ford f 150, and anybody who shows up will get a chance to put their name into the pot, and I'll draw it in this. Watch the pews filled. But I can care less about that. That's not what I want to give people. I don't want to give people entertainment.
I don't want to give them a great personality necessarily. I want to give them this because this is the only thing that's changed my life. And that's all I have to give.
And we get to partner with God, and I trust in its work. I can't tell you the number of baptisms I've done. I can't tell you the number of people that have been saved under my ministry because I just don't use that language. I don't know. Because it doesn't motivate me.
It doesn't motivate me to do. I do because I love opening God's word, because I learn so much for it, and it changes my life so much that I want people to have their lives changed as well.
And we can't trust these outcomes because it's not us doing it. Can you notice the posture of this kingdom person who sows seed and then goes to bed and he gets up the next morning, looks out the window and sees something that he didn't do. He didn't cause those little green sprouts to rise up out of the soil. He didn't cause this field over here to grow up into stalks. He didn't make the ears of corn appear to be harvested.
He didn't do any of that. All he did was sow the seed that made him happy and changed his life. And then God takes that, which just demonstrates further that we get to partner with God in this ministry of changing the world, of advancing his kingdom where he rules and reigns. We get to work with our father. I always love the image of a little boy who dresses up and carries a briefcase just like his dad, who's like a CPA or a business guy.
I remember even growing up, my dad was in radio, and I thought my dad had the most beautiful radio voice. To this day, you know, your own family, you're like, they're not really that gifted. But I thought my dad's voice was amazing. And to this day, I have his. His tapes and those reels of his commercials on the radio that now, because he's passed away now six years, and I get to continue to listen to that voice.
And I remember going up into my room, and I had this little tape cassette player, and I would work on introducing a song and then fading it out and then introducing a second song like my dad does on the radio, introducing these songs. Because there's something in us, in our nature, that little boys want to be like their dads. They want to do what their dads do. Which, if I can just add a side note here, fathers that your little boys, no matter what age they are, are cheering for you passively, if not actively. They want to.
They want you to be the best man for them because they want to become like you. And you're to point them to the greatest father of all, which is God. They're watching.
They pay attention to how you carry your briefcase, of how you look, how you dress, how you talk, how you deal with things, because you're their example before them. And that's how God's established it. And he's established it even for himself. He says, hey, I'm the father. Here's my job today, and here's what I need you to do.
I was always given by my dad these little small jobs. Like, he got to be the one that took the screwdriver and screwed in the screws. I thought for whatever reason in my little tiny brain that that was the better job than going and getting the screwdriver. But my job as a little boy was always, go get the screwdriver, hand it to my dad, and then he gets to do the real cool and meaningful things. That's what Jesus says here, kingdom.
People are just like that, son. They love their father so much, and the father knows what he's doing, and he is producing something that he's just asking us to go get the screwdriver so that we can watch him do amazing and wonderful things. Which is. Which just brings me to another point, which is we often talk about how we want to see God move in mighty ways, how we want them to work. We want to see him at work in something.
Well, Jesus is telling us, kingdom, people who sow when they go to bed, and they wake up and they look out the window, they're going to see God move. So the question becomes, what are we sowing? Where are we sowing? What are we sowing? And if we're sowing, Jesus is saying, like, you're going to see some growth, things are going to sprout out of the ground, and God does that.
If you want to see God move and God work, sow some seed, go to bed, wake up and start looking around for what he did. That's how God moves and works. This also reminds me of, actually, it's right after this passage, Jesus sleeping in the boat, right? Jesus is sleeping, and there is a monsoon and major storm happening, and it's raging, and the disciples are freaking out all over the place. And Jesus is asleep and they wake him up.
And the thing that Jesus indicates to them is that they have little faith. And then he commands the storm to silence. And it's silence. And here I think it's interesting that we're given the same thing you so than sleep. And if you think about that passage right after this that we're given, what's the significance of Jesus sleeping in the boat?
Well, we're told that by his very words when he chastises the disciples for not having faith. The reason why Jesus sleeps in the midst of a storm is because he trusts in his dad. And so when you sow seed, you don't worry about the outcome, and you can go to bed peacefully because you're trusting in your dad to carry it from there, that it's not about you, that it's about him. So if you want to see God work or do something, go out and sow some seed in the fields that God has entrusted to you to sow. Not only that, not only do kingdom people become people that sow seed of the gospel, and we are also a people that mature.
Notice in verse 28 just the progression of the crop that Jesus specifically points to. The soil produces crops by itself. First the blade, then the head, then the mature grain of the head. And this supplies us with a lot of insight into what christian maturity is in our lives. One is that crops can be at different stages in its progression.
There's no doubt in my mind that within the church there are people that are just little tiny sprouts. There are people that are stocks, and then there are people who are full formed crops ready to be harvest. And that's the life, that's the christian life that each and every one of us live. And so we can impose on each other our own maturity. Now, I can hope that you grow in your maturity, but I can't give somebody who's just a little sprout.
I can't harvest that. They are still needing to grow. They still need to mature. So the truth that we have here is that although there are different stages of christian maturity, the one truth that we should all know is that each and every one of us is expected to grow. Immaturity.
And I have to ask, think of your own self. Consult your own intuition. Have you been stagnant for a long period of time in your christian walk? Because Jesus says, christian kingdom, people grow in maturity. They're meant to.
They're anticipating something. They're moving towards something. You're not just saved to stand still, you're saved to progress forward and to fill in the new life that you've been given. We are a people who grow in maturity, and yet this is something we also don't do ourselves. We don't save ourselves, and we don't sanctify ourselves.
In Hebrews twelve two, it says, fixing our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of faith. Stop right there. That tells us right there of who we fix our eyes on and what he accomplishes in us. He authors our salvation, but he also sees it to perfection. That's Jesus.
That's our sanctification. How is it that we grow in our christian maturity? It itself is done by the hands of God as well. But what's our part in it? Do we just sit back and let God do what he's going to do and he's going to make us over?
And we just sit passively in a chair as we get our hair did and our makeup on? No, we commit ourselves to the areas and the means through which God perfects people, through which God makes those people mature. And how. What are those means? What are those ways?
It's his word. Every time you come to God's word, it begins to not just provide you the power of salvation, but it also guides you in your life towards being sanctified, towards growing and maturing in your faith. Not only that, but the work that we're doing, sowing seed, also helps you to grow in maturity. So not only does God's word and the work that God calls us into, but also the community, the community here, the church, the kingdom, people that hopefully you find yourself in very frequently also can help you grow immaturity. I can look at some of the mighty men here this morning, not even knowing the details of your life.
I can say to you that you stir me up to be a man like you at some level. Not maybe in all ways, but at some level. Like Richard, he's a preacher, so I'll preach on him. What I love about seeing Richard is that he always brings a smile first and foremost when he walks into the door and I try to say some kind of fun loving thing, but he just. He starts there and he just starts doing this.
And you just immediately feel amazing. I'm like, I want people, when I walk into a room to feel blessed and joy. That's how he stirs me up to christian maturity. That's how we stir each other up to christian maturity. This is what we commit ourselves to, is participate in the means that God uses to work that christian maturity into us.
That is God's word, the work that he's called us into. And being a part of this community, people today just, I don't. They must not be reading their bibles, but they feel like they can stay at home apart from the community, that they never have to go and be a part of a community, and that they expect to receive all the blessings that only come through being a part of a community. God created us for community. And if we have these sensations of being left alone, isolated to ourselves, we might be being influenced by something else.
Because God is like, no, I bring people together. I never divide. I present unity. I'm gathering people to myself. I'm gathering nations, tribes and tongues.
I don't put people in isolation. Matter of fact, I would leave a community to go get one person in isolation so that they can come back into community. God is all about community because he's building a people, not a person for him self.
Not only do these kingdom people so seed and trust God for the work and the outcome and who grow in maturity, but they're also the type of people that Jesus is coming back for. There is a specific woman that Jesus is coming back for, if I can use that analogy. That is his bride. He's not coming for a bridesmaid. He's not coming for anybody else.
He is coming for the kingdom people. Who is his bride? 29. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come, each and every one of us. The whole point of christian maturity is to make ourselves ready so that when the groom shows up on the wedding day, we are ready.
Our dress is on, our makeup's on, our hair is dead. And guys, I know that's a really hard analogy to find, but nonetheless it is. We are a people that Jesus is coming back for. And that should be the only thing that really motivates us to get doing what he's asked us to do, to get growing, to become the mature bride that's been washed by his word. So that the bride, and this is coming from Ephesians chapter five and six, when Jesus says, I wash her with the water of my word so that I can present her to myself on my wedding day in radiance and glory.
We are anticipating a wedding day. That doesn't mean we just sit there in our pajamas and do nothing until he shows up. It means we get ready, we grow and we mature, that we're not just an acquaintance, we're not just a girlfriend. We're the bride of Christ. And he promises, I'm coming.
I need you to be ready. And that's what we need to do. That's what the kingdom people have this mindset. And you know how we can usher that? Check this out.
Matthew 20 414. The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. This is a very important verse for everybody who likes revelation, because every time I hear somebody talk about revelation, they're always in a doom and gloom type of bent on reading and interpreting the book. Everybody is wondering and trying to read the tea leaves and the signs to see where Satan is rising up and what bad things are beginning to happen, because that's going to usher in the kingdom. To me, that's a more negative view on how to read scripture.
When this verse tells us that the only thing that King Jesus is waiting to come back for is his people to sow some seed, that's a positive thing. Once his good news reaches all of the world, then he's going to come back because he wants everybody to be given the opportunity to hear what he's done for them. That's a better way to read revelation. That's a better way to understand when the end comes than all this negativity that somehow is propagated on the function of how Satan's going to do something. Satan's already been bound by Jesus.
What Jesus says, no, it's actually not about Satan. It's about my church. It's about the kingdom, people doing what I've asked them to do while I'm gone. That is, go and tell everybody about the gospel all over the world. When you do that, then I'm going to come back for all of them.
I'm going to bring them. I'm not going to leave anybody out.
That's what that says. And then James encourages us, using this analogy. In James chapter five, he says, therefore be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and late rains. You too, be patient.
Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. All of us long for the day that the Lord returns, but it's just not something that we have. It's something we wait for, but it's also something we can experience. Now, every time you're sowing that seed, every time you're growing maturity in your faith, you are beginning to experience the kingdom reality. Now, you don't have to wait for Christ to return to begin to experience.
When he returns, you'll experience its glory and fullness of the kingdom. But you can begin experiencing kingdom life now by sowing the seed, growing in maturity, and being around a community of people that stir you up to love God and love others. So not only does Jesus give in a parable that tells us the type of people are his people in the kingdom, but he also talks about the type of place that those people reside in. This takes place in the second parable in verses 30 through 34, and we're only going to spend time on the first three verses. Here Jesus says, how shall we picture the kingdom of God?
Or by what parable shall we present it? So Jesus is transitioning. He says, now I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to paint you a picture of what this place, that kingdom people live in, ought to be. He says, it's a place with humble beginnings.
31. Look at verse 31. It is like a mustard seed, which when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil. So he begins by pointing out in mustard seed how small it is to indicate the type of initiation or beginning that this kingdom will have. It starts with humble beginnings.
It starts in the exact opposite way than the world thinks, right? Jesus is demonstrating that this kingdom, place that the kingdom people live and reside in, is a place where its whole culture is surrounded by humility, where when they make themselves low, they will actually make themselves great, that when they actually lose their life, they'll gain it. It's this whole philosophy of the kingdom, he says. It's even in the place that they exist and reside in. It is founded in humility.
It's established by Jesus himself taking on flesh, humbling himself, and taking the form of a bondservant and that is what initiates the mustard seed. That is the mustard seed of the kingdom place. And I have to admit that how it started might not be how it is today. Let me paint a really brief historical lesson for us this morning. In the early church, people often weren't claimed from the letters that we can read about the activities that happened in the early church.
I mean, right after Jesus ascended and his disciples began the church after the day of Pentecost, and they were gathering in homes. They're eating together as often as they can. They were meeting in worship every morning because a lot of them were slaves, so they had to go to work for their masters. They would gather early in the morning, they'd worship, they'd go work, they'd come home, they would break bread together and continue to pray and worship and build each other up. And they did this more frequently than we do today.
But it wasn't something that they were able. They were never accused of being judgmental or hypocrites. Matter of fact, the exact opposite. And one of the clearest letters that we have is from a governor named Plenty and a roman emperor named Trajan. I would ask you to go look up these letters.
They are very telling letters of the early church. And when you read them, it sobers your mind and your attention. Plenty was sent out by Trajan to go up and find christians. And he devised this plan based on their loyalty and commitment to one another. That the way he would go about finding a Christian or somebody he suspected to be a Christian, so he can send them back to be prisoners back in Rome, if they're a roman citizen, or cast them and burn them at the stake for their garden parties and persecute them.
All he did was ask a simple question. Do you deny Jesus Christ as your lord and savior? That's simple. And in his letter to Trajan, his emperor, he would say, like, the reason why I'm asking this question is because of their loyalty and their commitment to Jesus, this guy named Jesus, who claims to be their savior. But these are simple minded folk.
These aren't people of high class or even middle class. They're lower class people. A lot of them are women and children. They can easily, we can find them out by the fact that they're just committed and. And lowly and loyal.
And so what he found out is that any true Christian would never deny Jesus. But he would ask it three times, because the first one, if he began to see them squirm, he would ask it again. He would ask it until he finally got a no. And if they said no, he wouldn't persecute them, because he knew that true Christians, the ones that they're seeking out and destroying, would only commit themselves to saying no, never, I will never deny Jesus. And if they did, he would as easily let them go.
That's how easy it was to avoid death. But today we don't get plenty, or a roman emperor seeking and kill and destroying us by asking us that question. I would probably say like, yeah, ask me that question, and I would never say no. But though we don't experience the same type of attack on the church like it was back then, there's a different type of attack, the same attack, but just a different strategy. Instead of plenty and trajan in cahoots trying to seek and destroy christians, the questions change.
It's not do you deny Jesus, it's you can have Jesus, but will you also add these things to your life? We also do this stuff because what they've realized is that they can't motivate people to deny Jesus, but what they can motivate people to do is find something else to distract them from Jesus, and they will eventually do what they want them to do. Now, I do observe in the church today, and we're not saying necessarily everybody here present, but I have to speak as a church as a whole, that we have filled our lives with so much stuff, that we only for like an hour and a half every week, meet together. Maybe some of us meet a little bit more, but we have all kinds of things that we've added to our lives that seem to be distracting us, stymieing us from our maturity, because we find ourselves in the word less, we find ourselves out of community more, because we have so many things going on. When I was a youth pastor, it used to be back in the day that Wednesdays was a day where no sporting events took place because the community was centered on the church.
That was at the very beginning of my youth ministry days, towards the middle and end. What I found is I couldnt even plan a summer camp because all the parents would say, well, my kid has camp like basketball camp, baseball camp, and I couldnt find a time for just even a small youth group to get together to where we can spend a week or a weekend. I had to reduce every event that I did to only a couple hours.
What that tells me is that that is becoming something that the church is failing in. We're not cutting out time to be a kingdom place and a kingdom people. We say we are, but we're riddled with every kind of other thing the world has to offer, and yet this is the place that the kingdom people is supposed to love and enjoy and is the greatest thing in all the world. Jesus says this. Jesus moves on from these humble beginnings, and he says, this is what the church starts, humble, but it becomes massive and it becomes great.
And he says, this is a place. It's a kingdom place, and it's like no other. Verse 32. Yet when it is sown, it grows up, becomes larger than all the garden plants, and forms large branches so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade. The kingdom place is a place like no other.
It is what song of Solomon often alludes to as being an apple tree among a forest, a lily among thorns. I think that's beautiful imagery for us to truly understand what the kingdom, the church, ought to be like. It should be that city on the hill. It should be that mighty tower that people can run into, come in and find rest and shelter. That's what the church, the kingdom place, ought to be like.
It should be glorious, great for people to come to. When you look at a forest, it's just a bunch of trees, but if there is an apple tree among the forest, where are you going to find yourself under its shade so you can also be nourished? Or what is more glorious than a lily surrounded by thorns and thickets? And Jesus is saying, the kingdom place is like that.
So though that there might be these wonderful stadiums, and people are gathering and all these glorious buildings, the most precious and the most beautiful of them all is the church, the kingdom place. That's what he's encouraging us. That's what he's telling us in this parable. And not only is it the beautiful place, but it's the place where the kingdom people get to call home. I was sitting up here this morning and looking out.
You know, I don't know if people find it intimidating if I'm just, like, staring out there, but I'm always thinking, I'm always processing, and I'm looking, and I'm an outsider for you guys. I'm new. I'm the new guy. And what I have come to know about Fairview and what I'm most excited about is it feels like home. Matter of fact, I told Melissa when I was interviewing for the job, I need to go there.
I would like to preach, but I want to go there to put my feet in it, put my hands in it, to see the people, because I would love to be a part of a place I can call home. And when I see how everybody comes in through the door and we all ambush them when we all shake their hands. When I had guests from Harvest Point come and visit me last week, and you all made them feel welcome, they didn't want to leave. And I said, well, come move your membership here. This is great.
You made my mother in law. She probably doesn't want me to share this, but she's not watching. She was. Here she comes occasionally. You know, it's the only grandparents that Beau actually gets to experience, and so they come four times a year.
And my mother in law came when I first preached here. And even that day, we weren't even going to have a relationship with one another. You made her feel special. You remembered her name. And I admit I'm bad with that.
And you make people feel like home. So this is one thing I feel like you guys have down, but we can't just be a home. We also have to be the kingdom people that God is calling us to be as well. So let me just finish now, because I know I've been talking a lot, but there's a lot. This is two small parables that unpacked so much about who we ought to be.
Jesus is speaking to the people in the pews, but he's also speaking to the building that we need to create. He's given us the standard to gauge ourselves as a church. Are you this kingdom place that I've just presented to you as a picture? And are you a kingdom person, as I tell you what a kingdom person does? Are we people of the gospel speaking the gospel?
Is it on the edge of our tongues so that maybe the first thing out of our mouths isn't about anything else? But do you know Jesus as your personal lord and savior? You know that when you're stirred up and you're meeting people, all you could do is talk about Jesus because he is the love of your life. You remember when you met your spouse for the first time and how you called your best friend that night and told your whole family? That's the type of people we're supposed to be, that we love Jesus so much and what he's done for us.
And we can't. We're sick to our stomachs if there's somebody that goes to bed tonight that's in our area of influence, that doesn't know him. Now, we can't make them believe in him, but we can sure tell them about them. And we could do so boldly because the outcome is not up to us.
We're given this identity that Jesus gives us that picture of, and we need to live into it, not only as a person, as the people, but also as this place we call the church. Ultimately, the church should feel like home to us. And if it doesn't, then I think there might be two issues present. One is that we're not the kind of kingdom people that we think we are, and it doesn't feel like home, that it's not the best place we actually enjoy to come. I can honestly tell you.
And maybe it's because I have nothing else in my life that I find to be more attractive. I enjoy coming up here. I enjoy my office hours. I enjoy walking through here. I enjoy when people are here.
I enjoy when we gather together, because I've just oriented my whole life around this place, because I know what I'm like when I'm not in this place. And I don't have a constant habit of being here and among the people.
We need to be a people, a kingdom, people that finds this place the most attractive, and we're committed and we're loyal, and that can't be shaken by anybody enticing us with other things. You could probably present. I'm a university of Tennessee balls fan. So if you gave me, like, what do they call those tickets? A season pass to watch all the, all the games, I would be heavily enticed, because there is, I mean, going to Nealon Stadium on game day when we beat Alabama is an amazing thing.
And yet I wouldn't trade it for this place and to be with you guys, because at the end of the day, that's going to burn up each and every one of us. Christ is coming and he's going to take to himself and we're going to spend the rest of our lives with him. And I'm going to spend the rest of my lives with you. So why not start now, getting to know each other. We don't have to wait till then.
We can experience kingdom life now with one another. So Jesus teaches us what kingdom people are like, and he describes for us what the kingdom place ought to look like. Meditate on these things, think about them, drive them home. Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you so much that you have not left us blind in this world and that we are not just left to our imaginations of what we ought to be as a Christian or where we ought to find our home as a Christian. But you tell us specifically, here is what we need to be, and here is where we need to be in the kingdom, doing kingdom things.
So help us through the power of your holy spirit, to live as kingdom people. And to embody in this place, in this church, a place that is glorious, so that the community can see us as that city on the hill, that apple tree among the forest, that lily among the thorns. And when they come in here, that they will find a home to nest in. We thank you for today in this word that you've given us.