SILOS & SEEDS: KEEPING THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING
Mark 7:31-37 (5:18-20)
Sermon #4 from “Life on the Farm”
Sermon Objective: Just as the purpose of seeds is not to store them but to spread them and the purpose of silos is not to fill them but to empty them; so it is with the Good News of the Kingdom.
SERIES INTRO:
We will conclude our sermon series today from Mark’s Gospel. We called it “Life on the Farm.” It has focused on some of the basics of the Christian faith; specifically, some of those non-negotiables that define Biblical Christianity.
• Our first sermon was from Mark 6:6-12 and was titled “Putting Up Hay.” Kingdom work, like putting up hay, is daunting, but doable, and accomplished most effectively through teamwork.
• Our second sermon was from Mark 6:30-44 and was titled “The Paradox of Manure.” We often see manure as waste but it is filled with untapped potential. In a similar way it is life’s inconveniences and discomforts that produce the greatest opportunities for grace!
• Last week we looked at Mark 7:1-23. The sermon was titled “Weeds, Water, and Insects.” We discovered that just as there are natural enemies for the crop farmer so citizens of the Kingdom must also beware and be aware of our spiritual enemies.
• Today we will look at Mark 7:31-37 … “Seeds and Silos.”
SERMON INTRO:
I mentioned to you last week that my ministry in Southern Illinois introduced me to a new way of farming. Crop farming. In Oklahoma and Texas there are silos but nothing like there is in Illinois! In Oklahoma and Texas are more livestock barns and hay barns. In Illinois there are silos everywhere.
I quickly learned that these constructs were not just a new form of architecture … they were a tool of the trade. They served an important purpose. They are storage for seed and feed. For commercial crop farmers grain is placed in silos (some as tall as 90 feet high) and from the silos it is unloaded into into rail cars, trucks or conveyors where the crop is taken to market or to the mills.
Farmers take care of their silos and they don’t take them for granted either. Without the silo much of their yield could be lost or they’d have to pay someone else to store it for them.
Silos are important. But they are not an end in themselves. A farmer is not itching to build new silos just to have more silos. The reason the silo is important is because of what it represents … seeds! Grain! And the reason the grain is important is because of what it represents … harvest, money, more planting for more crops in a never-ending cycle!
Keep that in mind as we read Mark 7:31-37.
I think that, in order to understand what is happening in this story, we need to go back to another time in the ministry of Jesus. We need some background. We don’t know how long ago it was, maybe a year or two. But we read about an interesting and related event in Mark 5:18-20. Let’s read the ending of another miracle story … the one where Jesus delivered a man with demons.
18As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 19Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." 20So the man went away and BEGAN TO TELL IN THE DECAPOLIS HOW MUCH JESUS HAD DONE FOR HIM. AND ALL THE PEOPLE WERE AMAZED.
(Emphasis mine)
Mark 7:31-37
Mk 7:31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.
Mk 7:32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.
Mk 7:33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue.
Mk 7:34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”).
Mk 7:35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
Mk 7:36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.
Mk 7:37 PEOPLE WERE OVERWHELMED WITH AMAZEMENT. “HE HAS DONE EVERYTHING WELL,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
(Emphasis mine)
Did you catch the connection? What you may be looking at here is the first successful Gentile missionary enterprise in the New Testament.
According to Matthew 5:20 this man “got it”. He understood the value of the truth he possessed and rather than hoarding it he did indeed share it with everyone in the ten cities. He went home and told the people what Jesus had done.
I want to propose to you that what we see in chapter 7 is … the harvest of this man’s labor. The people believed the man – he was from their community and they could see the difference. These are the same people who banished him to the graveyards to live.
They believed him and then … then THE MIRACLE WORKER ACTUALLY CAME TO VSISIT THEIR HOME TOWN!!!!! They seized the opportunity and then they saw fitrst hand what Jesus could do.
The result … renewed amazement (5:20 & 7:37).
The result … first-hand knowledge of the Savior. They could now believe because of their own eye-witness testimony.
You probably see the correlation between this missionary event and “Seeds and Silos” now. Allow me to make a couple simple observations this morning.
THE PURPOSE OF SILOS IS NOT TO FILL THEM … IT IS TO EMPTY THEM
In a similar way, the purpose of church is not to fill it … it is to empty it. We have gotten accustomed to looking at the size of church buildings or church attendance and determining a church’s success. There may be (there is) a better indicator of a church’s success … what do the people of God who gather there do when they are away?
The indication of a spirit-filled and obedient church is what the congregation looks like when they are away and what they are doing while away. If they look like the world and act like the world then the church needs to rethink it’s effectiveness. If, on the other hand, the people disperse and take Kingdom values and the Good News with them into the other arenas of life then that church is a raving success!
I have told you recently about the shift taking place within me regarding this topic. I must tell you again. I have always believed that the Holy Spirit dwells with the church (the people of God). I still do. But, I have overlooked another important point … the Holy Spirit also present in the streets!
Just as Jesus was comfortable in the streets so it the Holy Spirit; God did not all of a sudden become sterilized and isolate Himself from people.
In the book of Acts you will notice that everywhere the church went to minister the Holy Spirit had already been there. He was already working in people’s hearts and calling them to Christ. Oh, these people didn’t know how to articulate it, and they might not have understood what God was doing within them, but there was no denying it either. It was when the church left their cluster and went into the community that the Gospel was spread far and wide. And they discovered, as I have, that God was there too!
The purpose of the silo is to empty it and reap the harvest of income that comes from the year’s labor. So it is with you … the church! When you leave here you take the Gospel with you and it is there that you reap the harvest.
Jesus did not pray “Thy church come” --- he prayed “Thy Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). You see the church, like the silo, is merely a tool … a means to an end.
You were saved to serve. You were not designed to set on a pew. You were designed to get up from that comfortable chair and be sent into the world as an ambassador for Christ. That is where the Church shines. That is the purpose of the church … to be an equipping and sending agent for Harvest work.
May I give you one more related and simple observation?
THE PURPOSE OF SEEDS IS NOT TO STORE THEM … IT IS TO SPREAD THEM
The way I see it, that stuff they put in a silo has two names. The name that is used depends on what the farmer is going to do with it.
• Name #1 (and the bulk of the content in the silo) is “Grain.” That is the portion of the yield that the farmer sells to markets and mills. That is the portion that he makes money on.
• Name #2 (a smaller portion but just as important) is “seed.” That is the portion of the yield that the farmer replants. Good seed will bring in a harvest of about seven times it’s input … a 1 to 7 ration is a good harvest.
It was almost exactly 29 years ago that I preached my first sermon to a congregation. I was a junior in High School. My text was Haggai 2:19. I have never preached on that text since but the question God asks Israel there is certainly pertinent today. In Haggai 2:19 YHWH asks the question of Israel, Is the seed yet in the barn?
Rather than sharing love and God’s divine favor they were hoarding it to everyone’s demise.
Where is your seed?
I must tell you my friends … I am genuinely disturbed at how many of God’s people never share His love and salvation with another human soul. I must tell you I find that … I cannot even understand that kind of thinking.
As a born-again believer you possess the ONLY Good News knowledge of eternity that qualifies as truth. ONLY you!
The sole purpose for the coming of Jesus was to redeem the lost. He has entrusted that message to you!
These first followers got it … they are the ones who emphatically stated that Jesus “is ’the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:11-12)
The first generation of disciples understood that they were responsible to spread this seed of faith (The Gospel of Jesus) which they were entrusted with. They also understood that YOU were given the same commission.
Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in his second Epistle to the Corinthians (chap. 5).
11Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. … 14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
… 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Do you get it?
• You are to persuade men.
• You are given the ministry of reconciliation.
• You are Christ’s ambassador!
Is the seed yet in the barn?
If so … why?
WRAP-UP
18As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 19Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." 20So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.
Mk 7:37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
1. The purpose of silos is not to fill them … it is to empty them
2. The purpose of seeds is not to store them … it is to spread them
Any farmer that spent money to build silos and never used them would be … foolish. And any farmer that filled his silos and the locked the grain up and never distributed it would also be a laughing stock.
This first missionary was successful because he left the pew and went abroad through Decapolis. He was successful because he shared God’s Good News.
If you do not know the saving power of Jesus, I want to encourage you today to discover it before you leave here. We would be honored to introduce you to a new relationship with the living God.
This same passage I just read to you from 2 Corinthians says this next:
1As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 2For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6).
You can know Christ as Savior very simply. It is a matter of trust – faith.
F – is for Forgiveness.
Salvation is only available when one has had their sins forgiven through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3, KJV)
A – is for Available.
Heaven is available to everyone but not automatically applied to everyone.
By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:2, NIV)
I – is for Impossible.
It is impossible to go to Heaven any other way than through Jesus Christ’s work on the cross.
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:17, NIV)
T – is for Turn.
We must turn to God. This is a choice we make. We transfer our faith from our own Good works to God’s grace.
Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. (1 Corinthians 15:33-34, KJV)
H – is for Heaven.
IT IS ALL ABOUT YOU!!!! God has provided a place in eternity with Him – God has settled the account and removed the penalty of sin!
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57, KJV)
In both the Mark 5 and the Mark 7 story we see Jesus re-creating human beings. He will do that for you too. Today! I guarantee it!
If you have experienced that new birth and you do not have a passion to share it with others then you and God need to do some business. To be frank with you … I have serious concerns about your spiritual condition. How can you pass from death into life and not want others to know of that grace? I would suggest that you are either
1. Religious but not saved
2. Backslidden from God
In either case … God’s grace has a corrective for you. “Come back” he says!
He who has ears to hear
Let Him hear.
