Good Ground Key To Fruitfulness

TOPIC: GOOD GROUND – KEY TO FRUITFULNESS

Text: Mark 4:1-29

vv. 26-29, “26 And He said, the Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed upon the ground, 27 and then continues sleeping and rising night and day while the seed sprouts and grows and increases – he knows not how. 28 The earth produces (acting) by itself – first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe and permits, immediately sends forth (the reapers) and puts in the sickle, because the harvest stands ready.”

Introduction:

(ILL. Three men working in the building of a palace was asked by a man with the same question. What are you doing here or why are you here? The first one answered, “I am a family man, I am here because I need to work hard as a mason to earn money for my family’s needs.” The other man was asked with the same question and he said, “I am here and I work hard because they need my specialty as a mason.” And the third man was also asked by the same question and he said, “I am here as a mason, and I work hard because we are building the palace of the king.”)

Fruitfulness is a way God builds His Kingdom. And like those three men we are either here for own gain, for our own gratification or for helping God to build His Kingdom. Actually in God’s Kingdom you are either an enemy of the Kingdom or helping Him to build and advance His Kingdom. In building His Kingdom we must know from Him what is important to Him so that we can really help building His Kingdom.

Today’s text also talks about the Kingdom of God, and every time Jesus teach about God’s Kingdom He is always use parable, common stories with heavenly truth and meaning. Let’s read Mark 4:26-29. This part of the Bible is about the parable of the Growing Seed, but I would like to suggest that it is more to me as a Parable of a Good Ground. It takes good or healthy ground to grow a seed into a full-grown plant or tree. So this morning I would like us to see the principles that healthy life and church is needed in building God’s Kingdom.

I. THE PURPOSE OF GOOD GROUND

Why do farmer want a good ground, a healthy soil for his seed?

1. To have a healthy plants

2. To have a fruitful harvest

II. THE POWER OF GOOD GROUND

There is no problem with the seed; there is power in the seed. From just a small seed, once it crack and sprout, it will grow into a big tree that will break even the hardest and strongest fence. That is the power of the seed. But do you know that this power of the seed to grow depends on how healthy the ground is, even the cracking of the seed from its outer cover depends on the right temperature of the soil, if the soil is not healthy then it will not bring the seed to crack and sprout and grow. So from Mark 4:27-29 (Mark 4:8) we can see the power of a healthy ground.

1. It produces healthy grains – vv. 27, 28

2. It produces fruitful harvest – v. 29

III. THE PREPARATION OF GOOD GROUND

Mark 4:3-9, talks about different kinds of soil where the same healthy seed was scattered. Again there is no problem with the seed; it’s more on the ground. v. 4 – Pathway Soil (hard, stubborn one); v. 5 – Rocky Soil (shallow one); v. 7 – Thorny Soil (crowded one) & v. 8 – Good Soil (healthy one). (ILL. A man with two dogs, black and white and he use to fight for one another for people to bet and sometimes the black win sometimes the white, but the man, the owner always win. And when he was asked what his secret is, he said that he feed the one he likes to win and let the other one starved and become weak.) This parable tells us about different kinds of soil, three of it is consider not good or not healthy and only one was consider good soil. Do you think there is way to make the three soils which is not good to turn it into healthy one or good soil? There is and it takes time, efforts, perseverance, diligence and lots of work on the part of the farmer to bring it into usefulness for his crop, for his seed, for his harvest. And it also takes a lot of humility, trust and cooperation on the part of the ground.

1. Plowing

2. Breaking

3. Weeding