Dr Mark Turman 0:00

Good morning. Great to see you. If you wanna follow along today. Uh, we're looking at Mark chapter four. Once upon a time, Jesus told a story. Here's what he said. A large crowd gathered around him, so he got into a boat on the sea, what we would call a lake, and he sat down while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore. He taught them many things in parables and in his teaching he said. Is a lamp brought in and put under a basket or under a bed, isn't it put on a lampstand for There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed and nothing concealed that will not be brought to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And he said to them, pay attention to what you hear by the measure. Measure you use. It will be measured to you and more will be added to you. For whoever has more will be given to him, and whoever does not have even what he has, will be taken away from him. The kingdom of God is like this. He said A man scatters a seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, the seed sprouts and grows. Although he doesn't understand or know how the soil produces a crop by itself, first the blade, then the head, and then the full grain on the head. As soon as the crop is ready, he sins for the sickle because the harvest has come. And he said, with what can we compare the kingdom of God? What or what parable can we use to describe it? It's like a mustard seed that when sown upon the soil is the smallest of all the seeds on the ground and when sewn, it comes up and grows taller than all the garden plants. Produces large branches so that the birds of the sky can nest in its shade. He was speaking the word to them with many parables like these as they were able to understand. He did not speak to them without a parable privately, however, he explained everything to his own disciples once upon a time, you know that little phrase. Has been with us for about 300 years. Once upon a time, came to us through a French writer who gave us the stories like Cinderella and Snow White, however you actually find echoes of that phrase going back another 1400 years in various phrases, phrases and words in storytelling. I've been caught up with the idea of storytelling this week because of the movie I recommended to you that Sheila put in the newsletter and talking to a director. Jesus loved to tell stories and he loves to tell his story to us so that hopefully we can tell that story to others. If you got to listen to my podcast. Thank you for Mike calling that out. Uh, it's been a new world for me the last four years to move from not only pulpit to podcasting and there are way too many podcasts in the world, just like there may be too many preachers in the world. Okay? Uh, but one of the great things about, uh, being a part of Denon Ministries, the last four or five years are the people like you, uh, and many people around the world that I've gotten to meet, and I love a good conversation. I've learned so much and been discipled in so many ways simply by having a talk with somebody, oftentimes over a meal, to things I like to do as well. Eat well and talk well, and that's been one of the funnest things about podcasting is that because of technology and because of this way of learning, I've been able to talk to people literally around the world. I was talking. Just 10 days ago to two guys in Tokyo about how they are leading efforts to plant churches in a nation Japan, that is the second most un-Christian nation in the world, and had a wonderful conversation. Jesus loved to tell stories and he loved to have conversations. If you listen to this episode with Andy Irwin, the director of, I Can Only Imagine two, the new movie. He, he said, this stories change us and changed people, change the world. Jesus told stories once upon a time by a lake and stories are captured here by Mark probably listening to the recounting of the apostle Peter of some of the stories that Jesus told. Stories that were intended to inspire faith to draw faith. Toward him and toward the kingdom of his father. What is this kingdom like that we've been singing about this morning and that we say that we're looking forward to? What is this kingdom like? Well, it has three characteristics I wanna point out to you this morning. As I understand these stories, it's a kingdom of clarity. It's a kingdom of creativity, and it is an incredible kingdom of capacity. Let's think about those three ideas for a few minutes this morning while we're together, this kingdom that Jesus is talking about and his kingship over it is a kingdom of clarity. Jesus says, what do you do with a lamp? Obviously in his day, it wouldn't have been like these lamps. It would've been a candle or a lantern of some kind, fueled by oil, he says, you don't bring a light into a room and. Put it under a basket or hide it under the bed. No, you bring the light in to illuminate the room, to show the way, to give safe progress and to understand direction. Now I gotta just stop right here and tell you. Jesus was not thinking apparently of the modern time that we live in because after a couple of stumbles at night, I actually have light under my bed now. You can buy these little$12 nightlights that are motion detectors, and I put three of them around the bed because I needed to be able to see the dog who can no longer hear me because well, there's been some stumbles. Let's just call them that. And if you came to my house now, you'd find out that there are motion detector nightlights all through my house. So maybe Jesus wasn't exactly talking about my house, but you get the point. If you lie to Lanner lantern or a candle, you put it in a place where it can dispel the light, but Jesus takes it further than just making it safe to walk through a dark room with this lantern or exposure. Jesus takes it further and kind of really starts to get into our business. When he says. That the light exposes, it reveals. He says that there's coming a time where everything will be brought out into the light. Can I just take a step aside right here and just tell you, that is one of the most important guidance statements that Jesus ever made. If there's stuff going on in our lives that we want to keep hidden. It's a caution to us. It needs to be something that causes us to pause, to think and to pray. Because after pastoring people for 40 years, I have found that the things that we're trying to hide are not always, but they are often things that we're not ready to surrender to God. What I found is, is that God wants to bring us into kind of a spiritual operating room, and he wants to bring all, all that's going on in our life under the bright light of his love and of his truth, and he wants us to deal with it in his presence and in His grace and in his power. That's why the writer of Hebrews said this, no creature. No creature is hidden from him, but all things are open and exposed to the eyes of him. That is God. To whom we must give an account. There's only one kingdom ultimately, and there is only one king, and this king will and does know all things. As Jesus said, he will ultimately bring either reward or punishment penalty in the absolute just way. So Jesus says He who has ears to hear, let him hear. If we were living in the 1970s and traveling down the highway with our CB radio, that would be a way of saying, do you have your ears on? If you don't know what a CB radio is. You don't know what a CB handle is. Well talk to somebody my age or older. Okay. Do you have your ears on? Because you see the light that he's talking about is not just something that you see to walk by. It's what we mean when we say phrases like, oh, the light came on, or I saw the light. It's a statement of revelation, of comprehension, of understanding. Jesus says that that's what his kingdom is about. It's about bringing light to all things. It's about bringing clarity to that which seems foggy to us, that which we long to grasp, but struggle to grasp. And so Jesus challenges us. Be careful. Be careful what you listen to. Are you catching the mixture of metaphor here? He started talking about your eyes. Now he's talking about your ears. He says, that light illuminates our eyes. It illuminates our vision, but our hearing has a way of illuminating our soul. So be very careful. Jesus says, to what you listen to because there are voices all around us and they're not all seeking our good. The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And one of the best ways that he does that is through deception, by whispering lies and half-truths into our ears, and ultimately into our soul if we're not careful. So who's your source of truth? Who is your source of reality? Who are you seeking to bring clarity into your life about? All things about anything. Jesus told stories to bring light, to bring understanding, to bring clarity about the kingdom of God. But listen to how this folds into this chapter. If you have a few minutes today, I hope you'll take time to just read the whole chapter because you notice how it began. It said in chapter, uh, chapter four, verse one. Jesus began to teach them by the seed and a very large crowd gathered around him. Wow, what a sight. He got into a boat on the sea, sat down, and the whole crowd was on the, uh, was by the sea on the shore, and he taught them many things in parables in his teaching, used stories. At the end of this section, it says that he was speaking the word to them in many parables, many stories as they were able to understand Jesus could read the room. He did not speak to them without a parable, and privately he would explain everything. But if you go back into the early part of the chapter, it also says this, Jesus told the first story about a seed. We didn't read that part. You can read that for yourself. But when he told that story, his followers were confused. So verse 10 of the chapter says this, when he was alone, those around him with the 12, ask him about the parables, about the stories. And so he said, the secret, listen, the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those outside, everything comes in parables. So that they may indeed look and yet not perceive. They may indeed listen, but not understand. Otherwise they might turn back and be forgiven. I gotta tell you, when I read those verses, I am completely confused in some ways. Is Jesus trying to get me to believe or not help me believe is it? Is it that he told these stories so that I could better grasp the kingdom of God and the king who rules that kingdom? Seems like that's what he's doing because he told these stories and he then explained the stories. Then verse 10 and following, sounds like the story is intended to keep you from being able to understand. So which is it? What if it's both? What if the key that unlocks every story that Jesus tells is your faith and mine, our willingness to believe it, our openness to trusting the king who leads the kingdom. Jesus says, if you'll humble yourself in faith, if you'll ask for the clarity and the light that only he can bring, then things will start to illuminate. That's why the great CS Lewis said this. I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun, that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. The key that unlocks the story, all stories of Jesus is hu, humility and faith. The second story that Jesus told here in this collection is a story of mysterious creativity. Verse 26, just this little interesting story about seed. Jesus seemed to be intrigued by farming. I've got three hobbies and one of them is actually, two of them are about to become very, very important. One of my hobbies is on the golf course. I love golf courses and I love to play golf. The reason that I love to play golf is because I think it's the perfect partnership between God and human beings, that you have these beautiful fairways and trees and sand traps and water, and you get to play a really great game. If you're not a golfer, don't worry. By the time you get to heaven, you will become one. Okay. I love to play golf. I love coming to the lake. I love being on the water. I'm glad that Mike is predicting that it will be warm enough in a month for us to be on the water. I love being on the water, but my third hobby is in my backyard. I love to landscape. Matter of fact, AI and I are working together to completely redesign my backyard this spring. I intend to take an entire week off about a month from now to plant.'cause I love to watch how God grows things. Jesus seemed to have that same kind of a love, and when he is teaching us about his kingdom, he's telling us that the kingdom is not only a place, it's not only a destination, it's a perspective. It's a way of thinking. It's a way of believing. It's a way of living, and it is also a process that God is overseeing. And so Jesus says, says this story, the kingdom of God is like this. A man scatters seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, the seed sprouts and grows, although he doesn't know how. I want you to underline that phrase in your mind or in your Bible. The farmer doesn't know how. The soil produces a crop by itself. First, the blade, then the head, and then the full grain on the head, and as soon as the crop is ready, he sins for the sickle because the harvest has come. Seeds are amazing, miracles of God. I did a little bit of research with AI's help. Did you know that the largest seed in the world is the Coco, Deir, or seed? It's found on a remote Pacific Island, it can weigh anywhere from 30 to 60 pounds. Now, compare that to orchid seeds. Orchid seeds in one single pod can have as many as 3 million seeds. They call them orchid dust because they're so small, you have to have a microscope to see them. You ever heard of the of the Koc tree? The Koc tree grows, I believe in South America. The koc tree has a fiber in its seed. That used to be the stuff that they would put in pillows or blankets or get this. It used to be the original component of a life jacket. Because it had buoyancy and until we created modern fibers, we would pull the fibers out of the Koch seed and use it for a life jacket. I learned this this week. Some seeds are incredibly dangerous. My mother, when I was a kid, used to at times give me castor oil. Anybody ever had that experience? One of the worst experiences of all childhood. Do you know that if you actually ingested just one, maybe two castor oil seeds, you would expire very quickly. Some seeds are really dangerous. I found this interesting. Most oak trees live oak trees. Most oak trees do not put produce acorns until the tree is 50 years old. Being the age I am now, I thought, well, that has something to say about the value of maturity and productivity together, but seeds are living organisms. Do you know that sometimes seeds can sit dormant for as much as 2000, perhaps even 10,000 years and still produce life and perhaps the most interesting spiritual insight. Is that seeds always know direction. God has put into them the ability, no matter how you put them in the soil, the seed will know that the roots are supposed to grow down and the sprout is supposed supposed to grow up. Last word about seeds. Seeds, some of them have to be scarred. In order for the life in them to come out, they have to be wounded. Sometimes they get wounded by the soil that they're in. Sometimes they get wounded by spending some time in the gizzard of a bird. Sometimes they get wounded by a forest fire. Sometimes they get wounded by a freeze, but some of those seeds will not open up until they have actually been wounded. It is the wound of the environment that sets forward the life that has been placed in them. But I love what Jesus says here about the farmer. He does very little. He is. Educated enough to know that there is something powerful, something alive in this seed. He scatters them on the ground. Oh, by the way, he didn't have a John Deere or a Kubota tractor in their day. They just threw the seeds out into the ground and let the seed make its way into the soil. That was the common way of sowing in Jesus' day. But notice what he says about the farmer. He sows the seed, goes to bed, he rises. Works goes back to sleep. He does very little and all by itself. The seed makes it into the ground, it opens up, it begins to sprout, it comes out of the ground, and before long it is produced an entire crop, and the farmer goes and gets his sickle, his enormous inherent creativity in this kingdom that is the kingdom of God. There's enormous complexity in this kingdom, and what I'm comforted in when I think about that is that God is up to stuff that I can't grasp, and if I am determined that I am only going to believe in that, which I can understand, then my world is going to be really small. We pursue simplicity so much. When we need to get comfortable with the level of complexity that points us back to the reality of God, that there is a majesty in the world around us that we need to stand in awe of. That's why it can be helpful to read the psalmist. Psalm one 11 is a great 11, a great example, but you'll find flavors of this all through the 150 Psalm. Psalm one 11 says this, hallelujah. I will praise the Lord with all of my heart. In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation he says. The Lord's works are great, studied by all who delight in them. All that he does is splendid and majestic. His righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and compassionate. He has provided food for those who fear him. He remembers his covenant forever. He has shown his people the power of his works by giving them the inheritance of the nations. The works of his hands are truth and justice. All his instructions are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever enacted in truth and uprightness. He has sent redemption to his people. He has ordained his covenant forever. His name is holy and awe inspiring. The fear of the Lord. Is the beginning of wisdom. All who follow his instruction have good insight. His praise endures forever. This kingdom, remember, this kingdom is so vast, so beautiful, so incredibly complex and awesome that we will spend eternity discovering and appreciating it. You think you're gonna be bored in heaven? I don't think so. That also gives me comfort from the standpoint that God says in Philippians one, six, that whatever he begins in us, he has promised to finish whatever seems weird, complex, dense, beyond our understanding. God's got a process and we're a small part of it. He's gonna see it to the end. It's a kingdom of amazing creativity. It's lastly a kingdom of astounding capacity. Those guys that I talked to in Tokyo, they're leading an organization, a mission organization, church planting ministry called the Mustard Seed Network. They have planted churches in every major city across Japan in a country. 95% of the people have probably never even heard the name Jesus before. They are planting seeds, the seeds of the gospel, story of Jesus. It's kind of strange when you read verse 30, it says, and Jesus said, with what can we compare the kingdom of God or what parable story can we use to describe it? It's almost like Jesus is looking around with all these people on the shore and he's like. How can I explain this to you? He said, well, it's, it's like those little tiny mustard seeds that you'll find still producing plants on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, the Lake of Galilee. Those little tiny seeds that in their understanding of things at the time were the smallest of seeds. But over time, planted in the ground would produce the largest thing in their landscapes, in their gardens. So large of a plant that the large birds would come and nest in them. Jesus said The kingdom of God is like that, kind of like those orchid dust seeds that out of the smallness comes bigness. What store to use Jesus is. It's almost like a, a jeweler who took a diamond and keeps turning the diamond, because every time you turn the diamond, you see something different. You see something more beautiful, so you see a different prism that comes alive. And the point of the story is clear. Even what appears small and insignificant can hold the greatest, incredible story of life. This kingdom has astounding capacity. Have you noticed that God likes to sneak up on you? Sometimes He sneaks up on you through very small things. That's why the prophet Zacharia was told in his day, do not despise the day of small things. Even the writer of Proverbs picks up on this theme. The writer of Proverbs says that there are three or four things. Are small and inconsequential, but should be paid attention to. He says in verse 24 or verse 30, or chapter 30 of Proverbs four, things on the earth are small, yet they are extremely wise. Ants are not strong people yet they store up their food in the summer. A high rack is not a mighty people yet their homes are in the cliffs. Locusts have no king, and yet they all march in ranks. A lizard can be caught with your hands. It lives in the King's palace. God has a way of showing us the way, even through very small things. A few years ago, I was in school, down the road here in Brownwood. Went to one of my very first Bible classes, and the teacher assigned us a Bible text that he wanted us to study and learn and come to teach. I was assigned a passage that I was pretty unfamiliar with out of the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 53. The whole passage is intended to be a prophecy telling us about Jesus and his kingdom. Part of that prophecy is this, who has believed what we have heard, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up that is the Messiah. He grew up like a young plant. And like a root out of dry ground. He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him. No appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turn away from. He was despised and we didn't value him yet he himself bore our sickness and carried our pains. In our, but we in turn regarded him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our rebellion. He was crushed for our iniquities, and the punishment of our peace was on him. Jesus seemed like an inconsequential reality in his day, but in him is the light of all life. The seed of eternity itself. When he was born in a stable, it was just like any birth of his day. When Jesus taught, many of the things he said to many of the people, seemed not that impressive. And when he died, he died like many other criminals who were abused by Rome. But it is outta the seed of his life that all life comes. There's enormous capacity in this kingdom and in this king, and if you read the rest of this chapter in March, chapter four, it will not surprise you to find that one of Jesus's most impressive miracles finishes the chapter because when Jesus finishes teaching these stories, he says to his friends, okay guys, let's go. They get in a boat and they head out to the Sea of Galilee. In the middle of that trip, the storm comes and the winds rage, and the winds blow. And the men who are experienced on this water are terrified and they wake up Jesus, who's in the back of the boat and say, don't you care? Death came calling again. In my experience this week, one of my closest friends. I got a call on Sunday afternoon that her father was about to pass in Arkansas and she lives in Chicago. She booked a plane, tried to get there as fast as she could, but while she was waiting to get on that airplane, the call came that her dad was gone. We walked a little bit together through that. Two days ago, I got a message from a friend, old friend in my church in McKinney that her mom. Mary, Ms. Mary Marelli was looking to be in her last hours, and so we were making a plan that on Friday I would go by and spend a few minutes with the 97-year-old Mary Marelli, who was the most fabulous Italian cook I have ever met. Matter of fact, when Mary and Lou moved from Chicago to McKinney. People found out about how well she cooked and the grocery store Market Street from Lubbock. They hired Mary to share her recipes in the front of the store. This woman and her husband were first generation Italian Americans. Their parents had come over from Italy and brought eventually over time multiple families of their extended family into Chicago. They became two of the most wonderful people that I had the privilege of being the pastor for. They loved Judy and I. They cared for Judy and I, and they became an embodiment of the story that I've been trying to describe to you. And because of their story, what I can tell you is this, Ms. Mary is now living happily. Ever after, and so can you. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for loving us the way you do. Thank you through Jesus and the spirit that you continue to teach us. God, help us not to look past the small things that you may be trying to put into the soil of our soul even today. Lord, you. You are doing an amazing thing in this world, in the coming of this kingdom that you told us to pray for. Lord, you are doing more than we could ever ask or imagine, and you're gonna just continue to work that and unfold that according to your grace and goodness. Lord, help us every day to seek you. And to walk with you, to trust you, and to allow you to bring the fullness of life and beauty that you have implanted in us in the gospel to bring it to its full harvest. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.