[00:00:00] Introduction and Greetings

Good morning Chapel. , It is good to be back here once again. Uh, I want to thank the Denison Forum, my friend Mark Durman and the Carters and everyone else that invites me to be here, uh, from time to time and share this, uh, worship hour with you.

It's a beautiful place. I try to describe this place to people and they all want to come here when they hear about it. Well, good morning to you. I did come here from, uh, Waco. I live in Fort Worth. Went down to the Baylor game, which we won in the last second, and, uh, drove up here last evening. I appreciate the provision of the beautiful condo here to stay in.

I try to use all the rooms of it while I'm here, well, up and down and enjoy it all this morning. 

[00:00:46] The Message: Our God Reigns

If I were to put a title into this message, I, I might call it our God reigns. A nervous farmer, a surprise plowman, and a risky pearl merchant. If you join with me, uh, first in Mark's gospel over in the fourth chapter, uh, in the gospel of Mark, there is what's almost a one-liner from Jesus.

The thing that these three little pictures have in common is that they all talk about. How God reigns, how he rules in our lives in this world in history. Typical thing Jesus did was not give propositions really, or an out outline. He told stories more than 30 of them and all, but one of them is what you'd call a secular story.

That is a farmer out sewing, somebody baking bread in a village. Somebody giving a banquet and the invited folks don't come. A, a son that runs away, a lady who loses part of her dowry and find they were stories and he said, these show you how our God reigns. 

[00:02:02] Parable of the Nervous Farmer

Well over here in Marx Gospel, you have a little story that only Mark told, and if you'll look with me at it, it's in verse 26.

Of the four chapter of Mark only here in this gospel. He also said The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow. He does not know how the earth produces of itself. First the stalk, then the head. Then the full grain in the head.

But when the grain is ripe, all at once, he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come. Really, a short, short story. A little cameo, just a few sentences, and he says, our God rules like this. Well, what about this there, uh, there was a Spanish gallian, a ship. Called the Atoka that in 1622 was carrying gold back from Central America to Spain, silver, so forth.

It sunk. And in 1971, a cabal of explorers founded and wanted to recover the gold. It's an interesting story. They got into a big court fight with Florida, whether the gold ought to be theirs. Or Florida. Some of y'all may remember that. One more interesting things than that though was some seeds they found, they found caked in mud, embedded in the planks at the bottom of the gulf, some weed seeds.

And the botanist wondered, if we planted these after 365 years, would they grow? So they carefully planted them into their astonishment. They crowded and grew. Well, if you don't like weed seed, just consider this 2023 in the permafrost in Siberia, they found. Get this some 43,000 year old worms. This sounds crazy.

You can read about it. Google, not right now.

Nematodes. When they warmed him up, these things in suspended animation came back to life. See, what does that have to do with this story? Well, this is a story of a nervous farmer. He, he souls. There was no irrigation in the Holy Land. Last week I was preaching out at Plainview. Every time I'm out, this seems like I get in a conversation with some of the farmers about the aquifer and how long is he gonna last?

Well, they didn't have that in the Holy Life. You sow it and you prayed to God that the early and later rain might come and make it sprout, or you didn't have a harvest in those days when there was no United Way, no food banks. You depended literally on your life for the rain to come. And if it didn't, wouldn't spread.

Well, this is an anxious farmer. He sound like an insomniac Farmer says he day and night, he gets up to see what's happening. And it sprouts. He doesn't know how. Now, in these pre-scientific days, you can wonder a little bit about that. Even today, what if you'd never seen an oak tree? And I held up an acorn and said that thing came from that.

You'd probably wonder it was like that every time the grain would sprout. There's a word that Jesus used here that's like the atoka and the nematode. Right in this verse, it says it grew of itself. There's an interesting thing in the language of the New Testament, which was a street Greek, it's the word automat.

It gives us our word automatic. This had in it inherently a principle of life that nothing could stop. The farmer couldn't make it grow. It grew, literally ate, it grew automatically. It had in it the very seeds of life. Now, when Jesus says, the reign of God in your life is like that, he speaks of an indomitable, unstoppable power inherent in the word of God and in his presence in your life.

You know, here we are half a world away, 2000 years later reading this story. In a sense, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We're looking at this very word about the reign of God because we're here as believers in the reign of God through the Lord Jesus. Now this has something to do with our own lives.

When the word of God is sewn into our lives by reading, meditating, ruminating on it, it has an inherent power, as does his life in us. It's also true of the world Church. Here we are in the year of our Lord, 2025, and nothing has ever impeded or stopped. Or hindered the expansion of the gospel. And I know we worry some about church attendance in US in North America.

Is it down? What's going to happen at any moment? God can reverse that. In England right now, I'm a bit of an Anglo file. Have friends over there suddenly in the state Anglican Church with no explanation for it. They are finding this year a 3% increase in attendance of young men. The parish priests don, they wonder what's going on.

They're showing up for no known re. You don't like that? 120 years ago, there were about 10 million Christians in continental Africa today, more than 400 million. The fact that in any given place something's not happening, doesn't mean in this whole world that God isn't reigning. I love the story of the Wmo Tribe.

They're in Ethiopia. It's an illustration of this little parable. Um, the Sudan interior Mission sent some missionaries to Ethiopia. In 1921, they found a tribe called the W Amos. It didn't have the Bible, so they started to translate it. And then when, uh, Hitler and Mussolini took over, Ethiopia run highly Salas out, they had to leave their work in 1940.

A few pieces of scripture. 18 believers, and they were gone for six years. When Mussolini was a feed, when they think back after World War ii, they thought they'd have to start over. You know what they found? They found 18,000 Christians organized into churches when all they had done was leave them some scripture.

Isn't that amazing? Yeah. You know, I, if you'd left a phone book there, I don't think you'd have found a phone company. They left the living word of God. You know how many Humo Christians there are now more than 2 million, and it all began with the inherent power in the word of God. 

[00:10:04] Parable of the Surprised Plowman

Well, that's a story about an anxious farmer, but kin to that.

In Matthew 13, he tells another one-liner about the kingdom of the kingdom of heaven, the rule of God. How does it work? It says it's like, uh, treasure hidden in a field which someone found and hid. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. That's a whole story. Treasure hidden in a field a day, laborer a plowman, finds it, covers it back up quickly, sells everything he has, buys the field and has the treasure.

I don't know how that went. You know it. It must have been a long day over there. You know, probably if you looked at me, your first impression might not be that I was a plowman, but I wanted to testify. I have been a plowman, my Uncle Doyle. Outside of Gainesville had 3000 acres of wheat. And for some reason my parents sent me up there when I was in junior high, I think, to get me out of the city.

And I was handed an old fashioned John Deere tractor with two huge pistons and a three disc plow. I messed a lot of stuff up. We'd have an enormous breakfast. Oh my goodness. Three meats, all kind of eggs in the dark go out. Doyle was fastidious about keeping his equipment. We greased up everything every morning.

Morning was good. Come back to the farmhouse hued lunch. By about two in the afternoon, I was falling asleep on the tractor. I wonder if it was like that. This day. Labor's out there, uh, earning a denarius a day's wage, I think late in the afternoon animal pulling it. He hears a clink, he hears something and he falls on his knees and.

Claw through the sandy soil there. There's a clay pop and that day, treasures weren't in treasure chest. They were in clay jars. That was before banks savings and loans. Wall saves. If the Babylonians or the Syrians came from the Northeast or the Egyptians came up from the southwest, all you could do was bury your treasure and hope.

If you ever came back, you remembered where it was. Now that's not just making that up. You found out in Caesarea in Israel in the late 19th century, gardeners found three copper pots full of gold coins with Alexander the greats face on it, A treasure that had been buried and lost. Like is this Bowman finds a treasure now.

It sounds a little shady, doesn't he? He, he, he looked around, buried it, went and sold everything he had and bought and, and he bought the field. I got worried about that. Actually, the experts from the time the rabbis who spent their time chewing on things like that, said that was okay. That was all right if you found it.

Finders keepers. So he liquidated. I want you to notice in this it says, for the joy of the discovery, he traded everything he had. Bought the field and had the treasure. Now, Jesus says, God's rule is like that. The real emphasis in this rest, on that word, joy over and over in Jesus' parables. When people come back, when they're found.

That's the note. Remember the two sons, one ran away, came back home, prodigal, what did they have a party. A feast. He's come home. Or when the lost sheep is found, calls his neighbors together celebrates. Jesus emphasized that when he reigns in our life, it brings us a sense of joy. I can never think about that without thinking about, he wasn't a plowman.

He was an Oxford professor of Medieval English literature. CS Lewis, who in the midst of an atheist's life was suddenly surprised by the gospel. And if you know his life, he entitled his autobiography, surprised by Joy. There's something about that discovery of the reign of God. That brings joy. Now. Joy doesn't mean you, you smile like a toothpaste commercial all day.

No, but it's an inner sense of wellbeing that nothing can touch, nothing. Hmm. Major Ian Thomas is a name, somewhat forgotten. Might have read his books years ago. He was a British deeper life preacher. This parable reminds me of a parable he told Major Thomas, uh, had been a spy in World War II and became a a ramrod straight preacher of the deeper life.

Told a story about a little beggar in continental indie is sitting by the road with a rice bowl fingering the last few grains of rice between him and starvation. One at a time. He said down the road he heard a roar and saw saw dust, and he thought it was the maharaj of the great ruler of that district, surena the man of power and wealth stock right in front of him.

He thanked his car, he held up his little bowl, and the Maharaja said, give me a grain of rices. That wasn't how the story was supposed to go. So cursing under his breath, he gave him a grain of rice that Mahara says at all. Little beggar, couldn't believe it, spat on the ground, gave him another grain of rice, and turned away, got in his gilded coat and left and here.

The little beggar, his karma, he can't believe it. He had to give up. He fingering the rice and he fields something hard, pulls it out, and it's a grain of gold. Then the rice, and he turned the whole book bowl over and found one other grain of gold, and he thought about the exchange. It could have been a grain of gold for every grain of rice.

When I was praying about this message, I thought of that story. I hadn't thought of it in years. Thought of it personally. How many times has he asked me for a grain of rice, something I wanted to hold on to? When I've found over and over when it's an exchange with him, it's always something better. One other thing, and I'm gonna sit down.

Right after. 

[00:17:38] Parable of the Risky Pearl Merchant

This is another short story from Jesus, almost a one-liner. We've looked at a anxious farmer and a surprised plowman, but here here's a character of a different kind. In Matthew 13, this is a wholesale jeweler, a risky jeweler. Verse 46. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.

And on finding one pearl of great price, he went and sold all he had and bought it. Now this, this is different. This is not a day labor farmer. The suggestion here is someone who's in the wholesale pearl business. The background of this I've read is that, uh, down along the Gulf of ABA or the Red Sea, there were Pearl Sheex Sheex that lived in tinted cities and.

Sent out Pearl Fishers and a man like this itinerant traveling, Pearl Merchant was probably visiting one of 'em. I, I can almost imagine going into his tinted city. There he is sitting on an ottoman or a de band, the pearl chic. They trade those, uh, little de DeMoss of strong Arabic coffee and all kinds of greetings.

When they go down to business, the Pearl Sheik pulls out a silk purse. Perfect proportion pulls out one Pearl. Pearl Merchant says, I've never seen anything like this impulsively with risk. He says, hold on. I don't know what you had to do to liquidate a Pearl Empire then, but it says he sold everything he had to get that one pearl of great price.

Now Jesus said The reign of God. It is like that, how well

it's worth taking the risk if there's one thing you can take away from this. Jesus did go up to people and over and over again, you've, you've read it, you've heard a hundred sermons on that. Here's Peter, Andrew, James and John Fisheries, incorporated. He finds them fishing or mending nets and says, follow me.

And what do they do? They do it. I mean, we're so used to that. It's like a dime that the image is rubbed off. They shuttered their business and said, let's follow following. Here's Matthew, uh, a, an IRS agent for the Romans. Follow me. He, he leaves it, gives a fist and follow Jesus. What Jesus is saying, there comes a moment of risk when the rain and rule of God is worth the risk.

Now, I know this sounds like a silly story, a Pearl trade, everything. Look it up. This afternoon, 1917, Mason and Macy Plant owned a mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City. He had made his wealth in railroads. His wife fell in love with a beautiful double strand of pearls made by Cartier. And, uh, Mason being the good guy he was traded his house, his mansion on Fifth Avenue.

It is still the Cartier Jewelers today for a strand. Of Pearls Impulsive. Yes. You can look 'em up this afternoon. See a picture of them. I don't know what kind of impulse it was, but he traded a mansion for a double strand of perfect pearls. So that's an illustration of an illustration. What does this say?

It says, when our Lord confronts us. Jesus, who for me is the Virgin born Sinlessly Perfect substitute on the cross. Buried. Resurrected is at the right hand of the Father. It's worth any risk he calls for to know his reign in my life. Just be careful in the trade though. The French storyteller, the father of the French short story, got him up a song, wrote a story about a young couple.

They had social aspirations, stories written in 1884. So they borrowed a, a strand of diamonds to wear to a social event to make a big splash. But after the event, somehow, some way they lost that. That strand of diamonds borrowed from a wealthy matron friend. They spent 10 years at mortgage. Everything.

They had to replace them to pay for them.

The lady who loaned it didn't know what had happened. They had redesigned it and given it back. The great end of that story. They hum and confess what they've done. She sits up from her illness and shrieks and says, you fools. Those were paced. They were costume jewelry. End of story.

Got him a asan. Wrote that story though, I think to tell us something, be careful in the trade off of lies. That what you're trading off for is the real thing. 

[00:23:49] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Our Lord told these three stories about his reign in my life and in your life. First of all, personal stories. His word of power is inherent. You don't have to prop it up, you don't have to hold it up.

You don't have to pump it up. It is life. And that's why when everyone else left him, he looked at Peter and the, and the others of the 12 and said, are you gonna go? And Pete said, where else can we go? You alone have the words of life, but 

Hmm. 

Sometimes you're a surprised to finder. I don't know. Everybody here wish somehow I could sit down and have a cup of coffee and all of you and get to know you.

I don't, but maybe this is something you're thinking or rethinking. In your life like that, plowman, you can be a surprised finder. Or maybe you're looking for something good right now. The Pearl Merchant was a serious seeker and he found something better than anything he was looking for. Well, Jesus said That's how God reigns.

Let's bow together just a moment.

Eternal Lord. Lord of these stories. Lord of life, Lord of history, Lord of all.

I pray for these and I pray for me

that we might find and know and be found by you. Your reign and your rule in our life,

help us to weigh the exchanges we're making in our life. Oh Lord, may we find the value and the joy in your indomitable power, and in that exchange, find life. That is life indeed. Even right now in Jesus name. Amen.