Title: God is quietly at work in our lives and in the world… establishing his Kingdom.
Text: Mark 4:26-34
Thesis: We may not know what God is doing but be assured, God is doing it!
Introduction – Enigmatic? What to do with it? It feels like an FYI.
On August 12, 1805, near the Idaho-Montana border, Hugh McNeal, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, stood with a foot on each side a little rivulet that is the source of the Missouri River. That rivulet does not resemble the powerful current that flows into the Mississippi River near St. Louis.
Similarly, our text today likens the innate power in a tiny seed to the development of the Kingdom of God. The parable that follows is the Parable of the Mustard Seed which make further illustrates the nature of the Kingdom of God by citing how the tiniest of seeds becomes a largest of garden plants.
We understand the Kingdom of God is the reign or rule of God in our lives and the world.
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are praying for the rule and reign of God in our lives and in the world.
In this parable Jesus teaches us that…
I. God’s work in our lives and in the world is a process - Patience
“The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground.” Mark 4:26
A process is a series of systematic actions that lead to a desired result or end. In some cases a process is a series of changes that happen naturally.
Any farmer who wishes to grow a crop understands there is a process that takes place… a farmer does not plant a seed and immediately expect to harvest the crop. So if the Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground… we understand the Kingdom begins in our lives as a seed but the end is a harvest. In between is a process.
There is a process for nearly everything. There is a BeautifulPeople.com web site where you can connect with beautiful men and women. In order to join BeautifulPeople.com applicants must submit their information including their photo. Then existing members of the opposite sex rate the applicant as to whether they find the applicant beautiful or not so much. If the applicant garners enough positive votes they are granted membership to the BeautifulPeople.com community. They call it a screening process to avoid what they call “the riff raff.” The process for BeautifulPeople.com is a process of elimination. They have a strict ban against ugly people… fatties need not apply. (Stephanie Bosenbloom, “Narrowing the Field Before Playing It,” New York Times, 1/5/11; Mallory Simon, “Dating site for beautiful people expels ‘fatties’ after holiday weight gain,” CNN 1/4/10)
It’s a process of elimination.
If you wish to make a cup of Starbucks Expresso you begin by finely grinding 14 grams of Expresso Roast Arabica beans which you then squash into a puck with a tamp. Then hot filtered water is run through the puck for 18-23 seconds to extract a delicious shot of Expresso. If the grind is too fine the result is thick and bitter and if the grind is too course the result is weak and watery. The process is important to get a perfect shot of Expresso.
If you happen to be walking the cereal aisle of your grocery story you will come to the pancake syrup section. You will see that a tiny bottle of pure maple syrup is on the top shelf and costs $7. Then you will see on the lower shelves big bottles of Hungry Jack for $3. There is a reason pure maple syrup is on the top shelf.
Workers go deep into the woods where they use hand drills to make small holes in the trunks of maple trees. A metal tube called a spike is tapped into each hole and a bucket is hung on each spike. The sap begins to drop in the bucket… it is thin and clean like water only with a hint of sweetness. On a good day 50 maple trees will yield 30-40 gallons of sap.
The buckets are then dumped into large kettles over an open fire and the sap comes to a slow boil. As it boils the water content is reduced and the sugars are concentrated. Hours later it has developed a rich flavour and golden-brown in color. It is then strained several times to remove impurities and graded for quality. The end product is one gallon of pure maple syrup from 50 trees producing 30-40 gallons of sap.
The secret to delicious pure maple syrup is in the process.
When we become followers of Jesus we are like that raw, unrefined sap. But then God begins the process of transforming us from sap to syrup, so to speak.
It is important that we understand that when the seed of Christlikeness has been planted in our lives God is at work.
Paul wrote to we who follow Christ, “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” Philippians 2:12-13
The process of establishing the Kingdom of God in our hearts is a process and processes require patience. You can’t interfere with or fast forward a process. You must be patient with God’s work in your life.
And as is true of most processes… processes involve the passing of time.
II. God’s work in our lives and in the world involves the passing of time - Confidence
“Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows. The earth produces the crops on its own.” Mark 4:27-28
We understand the concept of the passing of time or the elapse of time. When time elapses it simply passes by.
I’ve always been a little bit fascinated by drag racing. Occasionally I tune in late at night to the Discovery Channel to watch Street Outlaws which is billed as being totally illegal but while the drag racing may on the up and up the program is obviously staged. It is basically a bunch of guys from one state challenging a bunch of guys from another state to drag race on some old air strip or remote black top road. It’s a crude adaptation of sanctioned racing where they actually control and time the races electronically.
In sanctioned racing there is what they call a Christmas Tree which looks like a stop light. There are a series of lights. Drivers pull up to the line and do a burn out to heat the tires for better traction. Then they align themselves at the starting line. The blue light comes on when the front tires of the cars are within 7” of the starting line. The amber light comes on and when the light changes to green it’s go time. If someone jumps the gun, so to speak, the red light comes on and the driver is disqualified.
They thunderously come off the line, tires screaming and smoking much to the delight of the crowd and race toward the finish line where their run is electronically timed. The seconds it takes for a car from start to finish is called the elapsed time.
We understand elapsed time in every process. Nine months elapse from start to finish for the birth of a baby. When you plant sweet corn the process from planning to harvest 78 – 83 days or 90 – 100 days, depending the variety and growing conditions.
Two truths readily come to light.
First…
A. It’s not about what we do.
“Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows.” 4:27
While we go about our daily routines, God is at work in our lives. God is at work in our lives establishing his Kingdom rule while we are sleeping as well as while we are going about our daily activities.
There is no instruction here for us. We are not told what to do or not do. We just go about life. It is neither about us being busy nor is it about us being passive. It is about us passing the time with the awareness that there is more going on than meets the eye.
Second…
B. It’s all about what God is doing
“The earth produces the crops on its own.” 4:28
The phrase “on its own” is interesting, particularly in this ancient setting. “On its own” means automatically. What happens to the seed once having been planted is an automatic process. It just happens. Remember my reference to the meaning of “process?” A process is a series of systematic actions that lead to a desired result or end. In some cases a process is a series of changes that happen naturally.
My sense is that Jesus wants us to know that the Kingdom of God involves both a process and the passing of time. And what we need to know is that whether we are sleeping or going about our daily routines… we can be confident God is at work in our lives and in the world. The key word here is confidence.
God’s work is imperceptible, constant and inevitable.
In II Corinthians 3:18 we are reminded, “And the Lord, who is Spirit makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious likeness.’ “More and more” means from “degree to degree” or “day by day.” God is working in our lives imperceptibly, continuously and inevitably.
A third truth taught in this parable is this:
III. God’s work in our lives and in the world will come to completion - Comfort
“And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle for the harvest time has come.” Mark 4:29
This text teaches us that there is a time for sowing the seed and there is the elapsing of time in which growth is taking place and the process ultimately ends or culminates with a harvest. God is at work in our lives and in the world and when the time is right, a harvest will take place.
This is an optimistic parable. Jesus wants us to know that whether we can see it or not… God is at work doing whatever it is that God does.
At the age of 80 a man plants some fruit trees in his garden. His wife and family wonder what he is thinking. He will not likely ever taste the fruit from those trees. He never got to taste fruit but his children and grandchildren pick and eat the fruit today… there was in the end a harvest.
As a 17-year-old school boy in Ghana watches, his teacher covers the black board with big sheet of white paper and taking a black marker placed a black dot on one corner of the paper. "Boys," he asked, "what do you see?" All of us shouted in unison, "A black dot!" Then he said, "So not a single one of you saw the large white sheet of paper?” The way to live is to not dwell on the black dot… see the big picture. God is not about focusing on the black dots… God is about the big picture which ends with a harvest.
We live in a time when we hear about meteors hurtling through space that are coming too close to Earth for comfort. We are told that molten pool of lava beneath Yellowstone could erupt at any moment. Ebola and the like are a constant threat. The Middle East is intractably doomed by hatred and prejudices. There’s the San Andreas Fault. Depending on who you ask, climate change is or is not happening. The polar ice cap is either melting or not melting and the oceans will either rise several feet or not. In Kansas the governor is threatening to dissolve the Judicial Branch of government so they can’t contest his actions. What a mess. However, the point being these are all dots on the big white sheet of paper that is God’s work.
As Polly Annaish as this sounds, Christians need to step back and take a deep breath and find cause for comfort rather than alarm in the fact that God will take care of all of it in his time.
In I Corinthians 3 Paul wrote of an apparent conflict in the church at Corinth about who was better, a gifted speaker named Apollos and the Apostle Paul. Paul explained, “Each of us (Apollos and himself) did the work God gave for us to do. It isn’t important who does the planting or who does the watering. The important thing is that God makes the seed grow. I Corinthians 3:5-9
Our text says, “As soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it… for the harvest time has come.”
I don’t get what God is doing but I do get that God is at work and God will complete his work in us and in the world. “I am certain that God, who began a good work within you will bring it to completion on the day when Jesus returns.” Philippians 1:6
Conclusion:
We are noisy people. If you go to Wall Street there is an opening bell every morning and that opening bell is followed by a frenzy of activity. In Congress politicians take to the floor and rant and rave and collude and conspire and rattle their sabers to let everyone know just how concerned and angry they are and how determined they are to make sure nothing gets done. They say that when Lyndon Johnson was a senator, other congressmen lived in fear of getting the Johnson treatment. He would loop a long arm over a colleagues shoulder and lean his massive face into the other man’s face, all the while poking index finger into the man’s sternum until the other man agreed with him. We love power and bluster and frenzy and noise and smoke and mirrors.
We think God is only alive and well and at work where it is overtly apparent. But it’s good to be reminded that if God’s Kingdom work is like that of a planted seed… a seed makes nary a sound!
When it comes to God’s Kingdom work in our lives, in the life of our church and in the world this parable teaches us to be patient, confident and to take comfort in the outcome.
