Stir What You Got (Mark 4:21-34)
Andy Eddington, once the president of Shriner College in Texas, loved sugar in his coffee. On one occasion at a greasy spoon near Dallas, he dumped not one, not two, but three teaspoonfuls of sugar in his coffee. As the waitress watched, Andy said, “Ma’am, we’re going to need more sugar for this table.”
This Texas waitress looked at Andy and said, “Listen, bud, before I give you more sugar, you stir what you got.” (Thomas Tewell, pastor, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, New York; from a plenary address at the Preaching with Passion Conference, 5-31-01; www.PreachingToday.com)
Sometimes we think we need more to serve the Lord effectively – more money, more skill, or more people. But often the Holy Spirit says to us, “Stir what you got.”
The fact is God has given us plenty of resources to serve him well and to serve him effectively in this place. I know the task seems overwhelming at times, but we really do have everything we need as a church to expand God’s Kingdom on Washington Island and to make a real difference in the lives of people right here.
You say, “Pastor Phil, what do we have? Our church is small. What resources do we have to make any real difference here in the long run?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Mark 4, Mark 4, where Jesus shows us those resources in three parables about the expansion of His Kingdom anywhere in this world.
Mark 4:21 He said to them, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? (NIV)
A better translation would be, “Does THE lamp COME to be under a bowl or a bed? Is it not put on the lamp stand?”
Mark 4:22-23 For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” (NIV)
Understand what Jesus is saying. Jesus is the Lamp, and He didn’t come into the world to be hidden. No. Just like light, He came to shine. He came to reveal Himself to the world.
And He is our first resource. My friends, WE HAVE JESUS! WE HAVE THE LORD. All we need to do is let Him shine. All we need to do is turn him loose.
In the early days of Promise Keepers, when they still had just one stadium event a year in Boulder, Colorado, a newspaper reporter interviewed E. V. Hill, one of the speakers. The reporter asked him, “What is Promise Keepers all about? What do you do?”
E.V. Hill responded, “We’re all about Jesus. We talk about Jesus.”
And the reporter said, “Is that all?”
“Is that all?” E. V. Hill reported to the Promise Keepers crowd. “They don’t know who He is!”
Well just who is Jesus? Let’s let S. M. Lockridge show us who He is. Show That’s My King video (by S. M. Lockridge, 3½ min.).
Do you know Him? I hope you do, because if you know Him you have all that you need! When it comes living our lives and influencing others, we don’t need anything else. We just need to let Jesus shine through us. We just need to let Jesus live His life through us and share Him whenever we can.
In another context, Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself.” Lift up Jesus, my friends. Lift Him up in your actions. Lift Him up in your speech. Lift Him up at work. Lift Him up at School. Lift Him up before your friends. Lift Him up every chance you get. Just let Jesus shine through you.
You say, “Phil, how do I do that? How do I let Jesus shine through me?” Well, we do it when we listen to Him. We do it when we hear His words and put them into practice.
Mark 4:24-25 “Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” (NIV)
If you hear and believe what Christ has to say, He will give you more guidance. But if you refuse to believe what Christ has to say, then you will be totally and hopelessly lost.
I like the way John Ortberg put it in a sermon on Choices. He talked about using a GPS system. You plug it in, punch in your destination, and a woman’s voice tells you how to get wherever it is you are going.
Now, you can have that GPS lady in your car, but that doesn’t mean you trust her. If you trust her, what do you do? You do what she says. You go where she tells you to go. If she says, “Turn left,” you turn left. That’s what it means to follow Jesus. It means trusting Him enough to do what He says.
But you can choose not to listen to Jesus, just like you can choose to ignore your GPS system. Ortberg talks about a time when he and his wife were together in the car and he was quite sure the GPS lady was wrong. She said to go left, and he didn’t go left. He went right, because he “KNEW” she was wrong. Then came an interesting response. She said, “Recalculating route. When safe to do so, execute a U-turn.” Ortberg says he was sure she was wrong, so he unplugged her. “That’s the beauty of that little box,” he said. “You can unplug her.”
Well, he got lost as a goose, which his wife enjoyed immensely. So they plugged the GPS lady back in, and you know what she said? “I told you so, you little idiot. You think I’m going to help you now? You rejected me. You just find your way by yourself.” No—she didn’t say that. She said, “Recalculating route. When safe to do so, execute a U-turn.”
Now, that’s grace. As soon as we’re ready to listen, as soon as we’re ready to surrender, God says, “Here is the way. Execute a U-turn.” By the way, that’s repentance. (John Ortberg, in his sermon, Choices, www.PreachingToday.com)
Where are you at with the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you ready to listen to Him and make some U-turns in your life?
Even if you have ignored Him up until now and are totally lost, He is ready to show you the way. All you need to do is listen to Him. All you need to do is hear Him and trust Him enough to do what He says.
If you do, He will shine even brighter through you. But if you choose to ignore Him, then even what little light you have will be taken away.
My friends, we have all the resources we need to expand Christ’s Kingdom right here on Washington Island. That’s because we have Jesus Himself. All we need to do is let Him shine through us.
Now, if that’s all we had, that would be enough. But God has also given us another resource. You see, we not only have Christ, WE ALSO HAVE HIS WORD. WE HAVE THE GOOD NEWS OF THE KINGDOM. WE HAVE THE MESSAGE THAT CHRIST GAVE US. All we need to do is share it. All we need to do is scatter it around like a farmer does his seed.
Mark 4:26-29 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (NIV)
Sometimes we think we need fancy programs and plenty of resources to grow and produce disciples of Christ. But this parable tells us that all we need is the “seed” of God’s Word. Remember, in verse 14, Jesus told us that the “seed” was the Word of God. So all we need to do is scatter some of that “seed” around. All we need to do is share the Word as God gives us opportunity.
And then get ready for the harvest. Verse 28 says, “ALL BY ITSELF the soil produces grain…” The Greek word is “automatically.” The farmer doesn’t dig up the seed every day to see how its doing. No! He lets it alone, and AUTOMATICALLY it starts to grow.
In the same way, God is the One who uses His Word, planted in the hearts of people, to grow followers of Christ. It is not through our efforts, but His. He is the one that produces disciples of Christ. All we need to do is scatter some seed.
When the Apostle Paul talked about His work in multiplying disciples and planting churches, he said, “I planted the seed…but GOD made it grow (1 Corinthians 3:6).
God is always the One who makes things grow. We can’t force it. We can’t manipulate it or even manage it. All we can do is plant the seed of God’s Word and let God do the rest.
We are powerless to change people, but God’s Word is powerful! It will absolutely transform lives and change whole communities when it begins to take root in the soil of people’s hearts.
On April 28, 1789, the famous “Mutiny on the Bounty” took place while the ship was on its way to the Caribbean just after leaving Tahiti. The sailors had enjoyed their time in Tahiti, and they didn’t want to leave—especially under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh, who was notably strict and ill-tempered.
The mutineers, under Fletcher Christian’s leadership, forced Bligh and the other officers into the Bounty’s attached longboat and cut them loose. The mutineers then returned to Tahiti, but Fletcher Christian feared that staying there could put him in danger of capture. Mutiny was, after all, a capital offense.
So he reboarded the Bounty and set out to find a place where he could hide forever. Seven other mutineers, twelve Polynesian women, six Polynesian men, and one infant joined him. After months of exploration, they found Pitcairn Island, which had no people but an abundance of coconuts, breadfruit, and other useful crops. The group destroyed the Bounty, to avoid detection by passing ships, and settled into their own “paradise.”
Only they didn’t experience “paradise.” Their free sex provoked jealousies and rage. One mutineer discovered that the root of the ti plant could be distilled into liquor, and they all discovered that they could not build a healthy society with criminals, concubines, and whiners. Within four years, all of the Polynesian men and half of the mutineers had been murdered. A few years later, only two Englishmen – Edward Young and Alexander Smith – remained with the fearful women and children.
Then while poking through the items saved from the ship, Smith discovered a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer. Smith couldn’t read, but Young taught him before dying of a wasting disease in 1801. Smith studied the Bible for years and became convinced that everyone on the island (at this point, himself, 10 women, and many children) needed to live by its principles. He instituted Sunday worship and daily prayer times.
In 1808, an American ship discovered Pitcairn Island, where the crew was shocked to find a community of 35 English-speaking Christians. Six years later, a British ship rediscovered Pitcairn. The crew had orders to seize and kill any mutineers they found in the South Pacific, but they couldn’t bring themselves to arrest Smith and disrupt the peaceful community, who was now calling him “Father.” In fact, no one ever came to arrest Smith, and he died on the island in 1829.
That’s the amazing story of Pitcairn Island. Even thought it was settled by criminals and had a courthouse, it never hosted a trial, and the island’s three jail cells housed only lifejackets. (Elesha Coffman, “Mutiny and Redemption,” Christian History Newsletter, 4-27-01; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s the power of ONE Bible, my friends. It will absolutely change lives and whole communities. All we have to do is scatter it around and let it do its thing.
You see, we really do have everything we need to make a real difference here on Washington Island. We have Jesus. We have His Word.
And OUR SIZE DOESN’T MATTER TO GOD. FOR GOD DELIGHTS IN USING SMALL THINGS TO BRING ABOUT BIG RESULTS. GOD LOVES TO GROW BIG THINGS OUT OF LITTLE BEGINNINGS.
Mark 4:30-32 Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.” (NIV)
In the Jewish culture of the day, the mustard seed was the smallest seed they ever planted. It took 725-760 mustard seeds to weigh a gram (28 grams equal one ounce). So we’re talking about a very tiny seed. Even so, the annual plant that comes from that seed reaches a height of 10-12 feet in a few weeks – the largest of all garden plants in that day.
Now, that’s the way God grows His Kingdom. It starts off small, but before you know it, it’s so big many people are enjoying its shade.
In his book Organic Church, Neil Cole describes a number of small missional communities that meet in various places where people gather, including pubs, community centers, and even in some parking lots. One particular church Cole describes meets in a coffeehouse. They grew to the point they decided to send out some of their own people to start another church in another coffeehouse called Portfolios. Now, Cole describes Portfolios as “a coven for witches, warlocks, Satanists, and vampires [i.e., people who sleep in coffins, file their teeth to fang-like points, and come out only at night].” Not the kind of place you think God could grow a church, but he did! Cole writes:
The first person to become a Christian at Portfolios was Manuel. Tim, one of the believers who was sent there, sat across the table from Manuel and opened his Bible to Romans 6:23. He gave it to Manuel to read for himself. Just then, Joey, a recruiter for the occult and part of the coven, came and sat next to Manuel. Joey likes to talk and has a foul mouth, so Tim prayed silently, “Lord, keep his ears open and his mouth closed.” Joey didn’t say a word.
Then Jack came and sat on the other side of Manuel. Jack is an atheist philosopher who loves to talk but doesn’t ever get very far. Tim prayed the same silent prayer, and Jack didn’t say a word.
Finally, “Psycho Saul” came up behind Tim. Psycho Saul is the leader of the vampires. He is tall, thin, and pale, and he dresses all in black with a long black trench coat and long frizzy hair down his back. Saul leaned over and whispered to Tim, “I just want you to know that I have my sword with me.” Tim answered, “Oh, that’s nice; I have mine, too,” pointing to his Bible. “Manuel is reading it now.” Then Psycho Saul leaned over again and said, “No. I really do have my sword.” And he opened his trench coat and there, hanging from his belt, was a double-edged sword. Tim prayed silently again, “Lord, keep his ears open and his mouth closed, and don’t let him cut my head off.”
Manuel glanced up from his reading at that moment with a confused look on his face. He read it again, and suddenly the lights went on in his eyes and a smile came across his face. He understood that the wages of his sin was death, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” At that moment, Joey got up to leave. Jack rose from the table and walked away, and Psycho Saul took his sword and left.
From that moment, Portfolios became holy ground. Manuel was baptized at a beach within a week. Within a few weeks he was baptizing his first convert at the same beach. He baptized another convert a few weeks after that. Within a short time, a second church was started with converts from Portfolios. Then, a short time later, a third was started all because a tiny seed was planted in a dark place. (Neil Cole, Organic Church, Jossey-Bass, 2005, pp.175-176; www.PreachingToday.com)
Now, if God can do that in a witches coven, starting with just one man and a Bible, think about what He could do here if just a few of us decide to take God’s Word into places where people need Him.
Already, we’re seeing God reach people who have come from some pretty dark places – some of you! & I believe that growth will continue as we continue to lift up Jesus and plant the seed of God’s Word in people’s hearts. Our size doesn’t matter, because we have Jesus and we have His Word.
