Jesus, Our Teacher

Good morning. As we look to Mark 4 and Jesus' parables, I want to open with a question. Are you a good listener? Now that might be a good question for you to ask the person next to you, where we're oftentimes a little self-deceived on how good of a listener we might be. We all do know people who we think are good listeners. I'd be curious, what would you think is characteristic of folks that listen well? Listening is important. Mortimer Adler, in his book, How to Speak, How to Listen, he's given us four basic categories. We read, we write, we speak, we listen. And he makes a simple observation. Listening is the first of these skills we learn. A baby listens before they speak. A baby listens before they read and write. He also says it's the one we do the most of. He believes we listen about 40% of our time is spent in communication listening over against speaking, writing, and reading. And interesting, even though it's the one we use the most, it's the one we get the least amount of training in. If you think about school, we learn to read and write. A lot of time is spent on those particular skills. But how many people have really been trained to listen? It's hard to listen. It's easy to be impatient, wanting the person to kind of get to the point or end this long thing. Or it's sometimes just unwilling to listen to the other perspective. There's a prideful prioritization of what we think. We can't wait to jump in and make a correction. It's interesting in this new world of mass communication, we could all pick up a device from our pocket and call people around the world right now. It's amazing the kind of communication we have, and this world has been best described as everyone speaking, no one's listening. Everyone is speaking, no one is listening. I mention this because I think culturally we could say it is a common experience. It's hard to find good listeners. It's hard to be a good listener. This morning, that is a key word in our passage. Listen appears ten times. To hear or to listen. The same word from the Greek there is used ten different times. And it even begins Jesus' teaching. Listen. It's a command, an exhortation. He begins teaching in these parables, listen. And then twice we see chapter 4 verse 9 and 23, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. I like the message translation of this. Are you listening to this? Are you really listening? He spoke that this is God himself speaking, the perfect communicator, and yet they really aren't hearing. They're really not listening. He's bringing a word to His people, and they're having a difficult time grasping it. Now Mark 4, we're really breaking away from the narrative in the Gospel of Mark. If you were with us in chapter 1, we saw Jesus do great miracles. He's a wonder worker. He's teaching with authority. He's healing with authority. People are amazed and astonished. And then we saw that first conflict where He forgave sinners. There were five conflicts, and now Mark brings us to a break in the narrative, and he introduces four parables. We're looking at Jesus the teacher. The first parable focuses on the soil. We often call this the parable of the sower, but it really is more focused on the soil. Then the next parable is on the lamp, and then on the scattered seed, and then the small seed that grows into a great tree. Now in order to really get what's going on here, I wanna talk about parables in general just for a moment. 40% of Jesus' teaching as recorded in the Gospels is in parables. They've been defined simply, an earthly story about a heavenly truth. And there's something there that is accurate, but I'm not sure that says everything we need to know about a parable. A parable is oftentimes comparing two things. We see this very clearly in our own text. Look at verse 26. The kingdom of God is as if a man, or even more directly, with what can we compare the kingdom of God? So we're comparing something. He's taking something that's commonly known, sowing seed, a lamp, scattering seed, the mustard seed, And he's introducing something about the kingdom from that. And a parable is, by definition, provocative. It's not just straightforward teaching. It forces some thinking. It forces a stimulation of thinking that just a straightforward teaching does not. There's also something interesting here that we see about parables in verses 10 to 12 that's challenging. And we're gonna spend some time here Parables are intended on keeping some people in the dark and bringing light to others. We see it very clearly. To you has been given the secret of the kingdom, but to those outside, everything is in parables. Someone likened a parable as being in a church with stained glass windows. There's an inside and an outside to the parable teaching. If you're outside of a church with stained glass windows, you can see the church, you can see the beauty, but you don't really get to experience the fullness of a stained glass window unless you're inside with the sunlight coming in. There's something to see, there's something you understand, but you have to be inside to get the full beauty of the light shining in through the stained glass window. That's the inside and outside. The outsiders, they hear it, they get something, but it's not the main point. They miss the depth, they miss the enlightened truth. And every parable points to Jesus and our trust in Him. So this morning, I encourage you, listen, let's lean in, right, listen, Lean in. These are difficult things that not everybody understood. Jesus is the light of the world. He came to give us life. Let us look to the first parable, the soils. The first parable, the soils. This is verses one to 20. And Jesus reveals the secret to forgiveness here. So he begins, there's a large crowd gathered. He gets into a boat, and this is a common experience where Jesus got into a boat to speak to the large crowds because they're pressing in. And he begins, listen, behold, he's capturing our attention. And then he begins to walk through the four different kinds of soil, or reception. And this will be common, and it appears the sower, he goes out and he's just throwing seed everywhere. Right, so in a few months, there'll be gardening season where you, one of the most important things you're gonna do for your garden is till it. Prepare the land. And then you sow the seed after you've prepared it. But here is a picture of a sower who's very generous. He's throwing it everywhere, so it's falling on the sidewalk, it's falling over there in the weeds, it's falling over here in the rocky ground. He's just sowing everywhere. And Jesus uses that to explain how there's different kinds of reception. Well, just common knowledge. Okay, if it falls in the path, then a bird's gonna come and eat it. If it falls in the rocky ground, it's not gonna get enough root. The sun's going to scorch it. If it falls into the weeds, it's not gonna be able to compete with the other root systems, and it's gonna be choked out. But some seed will fall on soft soil, rich soil, prepared soil, without competition. It'll grow, and it'll bear fruit. And that's just common gardening knowledge. This is what all people would understand. Now, he stops there, and he leaves the crowd with just that declaration. And notice what he does next. And when he was alone, those around him in the 12 They get an opportunity to ask questions. And he says to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom. But on the other side, everything is given in parables. Now, last week we introduced the sandwiching technique of Mark. If you're new here, there's something Mark's doing with a certain writing technique where he oftentimes will put two stories kind of on the ends, and the story in the middle gives the key, it gives the clue to how to understand the bigger picture, the bigger two stories. I think we have sandwiching here. Because you see, Jesus gives the parable, one to nine. He gives the explanation of the parable, 13 to 20. But the real decoder, Right? The decoder. The key to understanding what's actually happening here is 10 to 12. This kind of moment to step back and hear them speak to the disciples in a very specific, challenging way. They pull in. Notice there's an insider and an outsider. To you, disciples. To you who are close, who are near, who are up here to ask questions, you're asking about the parables because you don't understand either, but I'm going to give you the secret. Now, it's important to understand that any time secret or mystery is used in the New Testament, it's secret and mystery revealed. It's what God does disclose. So He's saying here, I'm going to let you know this. But he's also going to say there's those outside. They're not going to know. They're going to always be seeing but not perceiving, as the prophet Isaiah said. That they may indeed hear but not understand. Something Jesus is getting at here with the command, listen, behold. They hear, they understand, they see, they perceive. There's an unteachableness. The whole five conflicts that we just saw with the Pharisees, where they're looking at Jesus and saying, how could you eat with tax collectors? Don't, don't you understand? I didn't come to heal the healthy. I didn't, I didn't come to save the righteous. I came to save sinners. Those who actually recognize they're sinners. There's an unteachableness to the, the Pharisees, the scribes, even the crowds. This is one of the most deadly, dangerous sins, to just refuse to listen. If you remember Matthew 18, that actually is what leads to church discipline. That's what leads to being treated like a tax collector, being put outside of the body. Refusing to listen. There's a need to be teachable. Listening requires humility, and it leads to such honor. It's a paradox in that way. So I ask, are we folks, are we people who are growing and rejoicing in, in knowing more? Or are we eager to hear what God is saying? Because there's a clear difference in some who will get to hear, and some who will not hear. And look at the stakes. They're high. The very end of verse 12. Lest they should turn, that is repent, and be forgiven. Jesus has come to be the Savior of sinners, and those who refuse to listen, they will not be forgiven. This is challenging. The stakes are high. And we even know one of the men who's there with the disciples, Judas Iscariot, he's not gonna be forgiven because he refused to listen to Jesus according to who Jesus was. He saw but did not perceive. He heard but did not understand. Something I want us to see here is I don't believe Mark is presenting this or Jesus is presenting this to make it clear that you're always in this clear, absolute state of not hearing. This is written as a warning. Don't be like this. This is written as a call. Listen so that you will perceive. Listen so that you will be forgiven. Jesus is explaining this divine parable to the twelve so that they would be able to be clear proclaimers of the gospel that they themselves believe. So there's a challenging truth here in verses 10 to 12 that there's some insider knowledge with Jesus. There's some outsiders who will not get it. And then he gives the interpretation. He explains the parable. Verse 13. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? You can always kind of hear him a little frustrated. Come on, guys. How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the work. The sower is someone who is proclaiming the gospel, going out and declaring the kingdom of God as I am doing myself, Jesus says. And he explains the first. The first seed, it's like the gospel that falls on the path, and Satan, he comes and snatches it away. Satan, he comes and he tempts you away from the truth, or he accuses you with guilt to deny the truth. He makes you believe that either you aren't good enough to be saved, or God can never accept you. The second is the rocky ground. That is the worries of the world. They're concerning you. When the sun comes, the temptation, the persecution, you can't endure. You don't have a root system. The thorns, that's the worldly temptation. The love of riches, they choke you out. There's a competition for your belief and your love for Jesus that chokes your faith out. And there's good soil. It's received. It sprouts. grows and it bears much fruit. Now, we need to think about this. Like I said, a parable is meant to cause some questions and it challenges us. Even this explanation of the parable really challenges us. And to make it very clear, a parable has to break down. You're comparing an earthly image to a heavenly reality. And I want you to notice something. You could look at this and say, the only difference between the one good soil and the others is all the externals. You could look at this and say, well, yeah, the person who had growth and bore fruit, it's because God didn't give them any obstacles. Because if you look at this and just read it as it is, it's about the external circumstances of the soil that let the others not grow, as if it's God and His circumstances. I would find that interpretation very difficult. Because I hear demonic lies. I've got rocks that keep that root system somewhat feeling like it's withering at times. that there's always weeds, there's always all kinds of sin that easily entangle. Most of the New Testament is constantly telling the church, persevere, hold fast, put off sin so you can put on Christ. I don't believe this is saying God gives some people the right kind of circumstance to believe. I believe he's actually talking about the kind of problems we have in our own heart that keep us from truly believing and growing in Christ. It's not external circumstances, they're internal problems. This really reads like a warning passage. Jesus is instructing us. This is how you believe. This is how you receive me. And it's an instruction that comes as a way of a warning. Here are the things you're going to need to be looking out for. First, Satan. He desires to attack the Word of God as it lands. And the most classic attack came in the garden God really say that? Did God really say you're a sinner? Would God really talk about you and say you're that bad? And don't you think that if God really loved you, he wouldn't tell you you couldn't do that anymore? I mean, think about what you'd be missing out on if you had to repent and not do that anymore. Can you really trust a God who doesn't want you to be happy with your sin? Oh, and then after you actually follow along with Satan's temptation, what does he do next? How could you? You think you are a believer in Jesus Christ, and you did that? He would never have you. Those are the lies of Satan. He makes it look as if God is not good, that he's trying to keep something good from you, when God is the good God who gives himself to you. And then he makes you think that you're too sinful to ever come to God. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. That's the gospel. That's the exact gospel that Satan lies about, to snatch away the gospel. If you look at the next two, the rocky ground and the thorns, they're really two sides of the world. The first, the roots, they don't grow deep. You think about Psalm 1, where the person who meditates upon the Word of God, they're like a tree planted by a river, where the roots grow deep, so the tree grows strong and bears much fruit. There's a depth that the roots have to get so that there's a strength and a fruitfulness. Well, if the worry of the world If suffering, if the persecution bears in, if you don't have deep roots, you're going to wither. Satan's always going to tempt you to throw in the towel. Quit. His greatest delight is to see professing believers deny Jesus with their words or their actions. The ground there represents the roots not being able to get deep enough so that whenever persecution comes, you don't withstand. The weeds and the thorns, that's the lies of the world. The lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. Your love for Jesus is in competition for the other things you love. Everyone recognizes that, I hope. We constantly are loving other things. They could be clearly sin, or they could be just fine, decent things. But we're constantly introducing a competitiveness. There's a competition for our heart. There's things that are constantly competing for our love for Jesus. And if we don't watch out, if we're not aware of that, they're going to squeeze it out. If we're casual about our love for Jesus, it will be choked out. And then there's the good soil that focuses on Jesus. that sets aside the sin, that sets aside the lie, that focuses on Him, who He is, what He said, believes Him, obeys Him. It's ready soil to bear fruit. There's a really tight tension here. There's a really tight tension with God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, and it's the right tension, it's Jesus speaking. God is in perfect control as to how His Word goes out. where it lands and how it lands. And man is completely responsible for how we're going to receive it. And the responsibility is, are we going to turn from the sins that keep us from listening? Are we going to keep persevering in the sin? In our love for Jesus, we choked out. Jesus is God speaking. Here's what we needed to say. We're gonna look at a few weeks. Lord, help my unbelief here. Lord, help my ears. Help me hear you. Help me listen in a way that I'll actually receive you. Two questions to ask yourself and one another after the service. What is keeping the good news of Jesus Christ to sink in? If you're not a believer, that's your question. What do you put up against Jesus that says, I don't want to believe him, I don't want to trust him? What is it that lets, that keeps Jesus and His good news from actually sinking in? And then believer, what are we holding on to that keeps it from sinking in deeper? What sin has been revealed that we refuse to repent of that does not allow that root to go deeper? Our second parable, the lamp. The lamp. Verses 21 to 25. Jesus is the light. Verse 21, and he said to them, is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand? Now, lamps have been small oil lamps. And in a day without electricity, this is pretty important. You really get this. Right? So if it's nighttime, you know, we've got some illumination here for our Christmas season. But if it's nighttime and we lose power, we're going to want to get our, well, we're going to get our phones out with flashlights on them. Right? We need illumination. You don't decorate the Christmas tree and then put a, put a blanket over it. Right? The whole point of putting up the lights, the whole point of, of shining light is that it, it would, it would shine and illuminate the room. It would, it would sparkle. You don't cover it. He's showing how ridiculous it is that you would bring a lamp into a dark room and, and put a bucket over it, or cover it somehow. Verse 22. For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except what comes to light. He gives a rationale. He begins to explain, verse 22 is, the light comes so that things are illuminated. The light comes so that the secrets are made known. The light comes so that the mysteries are revealed. The light comes so that things become manifest. I believe Jesus is speaking of himself here as the Lamb. He is the light who has come into a dark world. A world where we're so self-deceived, we don't understand how sinful we are. A world where we're so self-deceived, we don't see the consequences of what we're actually doing. He's come to shine light so that we know two things, and the most two important things you can know, who is God and who we are. He shines light so that we'll know how to get out of the darkness. He shines light so that we'll see our sin and see that He is the only Savior. And again, he says, are you listening? Are you really listening? If anyone has ears, let them hear. Then he adds to this. And he said to them, pay attention to what you hear with the measure you use it. It will be measured to you. And still more will be added to you. For the one who has, more will be given. And from the one who has not, even what he has, We'll be taken away. Now, he's speaking of listening here. Listening is a trust. There's an accountability, he's saying, to the measure with which you listen and receive and believe and obey, that you'll be judged. And he's actually saying if you're listening and you're receiving and not obeying, I'm gonna take that what you thought you understood away from you. If you're not faithful to what I'm entrusting to you, to listen, to hear, it'll be removed. If you're faithful, you'll be given more. I think this is where sin in the Christian life is so scary. As we walk, as we grow, as we're sanctified in Christ, what the Spirit does is He illuminates more and more sin, and the way you grow is by putting off that sin and putting on Christ more and more. But there's seasons in life where that light shines on a certain sin and we're like, ah, maybe not right now. No, I've got that one under control. And that's when you stop growing. That's when if you have doubt, if you lack assurance, that's probably where you need to go back to to start thinking about what happened at that moment when the light shined on that particular sin and you said, no, I think that's gonna be my acceptable sin. You will be judged. When Jesus thinks, you might think, ah, not for me today. A friend of mine in college said this. She understood the gospel. She would interact with me when I was sharing the gospel with her. And she actually told me she really liked reading Christian novels. She said they were like her Christian candy. They weren't really leading her belief, but it was enough just to kind of get the palate covered, and she enjoyed the gospel truth, she enjoyed thinking about Jesus, but she was in college. She had some things she didn't experience before committing to Christ. There were things she still wanted to do that she knew Christ would say no to, so she was putting it off. Let me be very clear. If Jesus Christ is not better than whatever you think you need to repent of, or whatever you're desiring, He's never going to be better than whatever the next thing is. He's either worthy of your life now, or you're going to die in your sin, and suffer eternity in hell. He is either the Savior who is worthy now, or you're going to always find some reason To reject Him. Will we hear it? Will we actually receive His grace so that we believe in Him and, and live in Him? Are we going to continue to reject Him, listening to our own voice that we, that we love? We love our own voice that has our law that we think everyone else needs to live up to. Or our own license that tells us what kind of sins we can live in. and hear the encouraging word today. Jesus has come to save sinners. He's died on the cross so that we can be forgiven. He took upon the wrath of God that we deserve. He has brought us into a place where we can be reconciled with the Father, with His death, and He rose again in new life, and now He's at the right hand of the Father. And He's still speaking. He has sent His Holy Spirit. to transform us, to conform us to the image of the Son. Jesus is still speaking. Do not reject Him. Next, let's look at our third parable. The scattered seeds. And he said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come." Now, what's common is, again, a man going out in a farmer's celery, throwing the seed out. And what's common is his harvesting. Also, what's common is he goes to bed every night. So the kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seeds in the ground. Now, the kingdom, it involves sowing, growing, and harvesting. Okay? It is like that. But the real emphasis in this passage, I believe, is there in verse 27. The sower, he knows not how. He's faithful in the labor of sowing. He knows that he's supposed to sow. He's faithful in the labor of reaping with a sickle and gaining the harvest, but there's a lot of time there where he's just going to bed at night, waiting expectantly. He does not know how that seed lands in the ground and produces the fruit. Now, as image bearers who have become much more scientifically aware, we've analyzed, we've studied, we've come up with ways with manipulating the seeds. But let me assure you, we will never have a full grasp, be able to wrap our head around the Kingdom of God truth. How the Kingdom of God works. The point of the parable is that what God is doing as the seed lands, and where it lands, and how it grows, we have no control over that. We have no power. The sower, he's just a representative of a man who's faithful to do the labor, and then is faithful to be expectantly waiting. Trust God. Here, it's just full of expectancy. He waits. He's just simply going to bed and expecting that the seed is going to work. It'll be fruit. As I thought about this, it led me to appreciate more our ministry speaker, Ed Moore. He gave what he refused to acknowledge was a purpose statement for a church, but it's just perfect. Trust God. Proclaim His gospel, love His people, see what happens. Proclaim the gospel, love His people, and see what happens. I love our brothers who shared, we're just going to plant a church, just. But that really is what it is. It's proclaiming the gospel and seeing what happens. We're not in control of what happens. We have nothing to do with what happens other than being faithful in our labor and then being expectant. Are we expectant in sowing the seeds of the gospel? The best way I can illustrate this is from my own life. I was a bad human being as a youth. Yeah, we're all born sinners. I think I was special. Other people thought I was special. In June 1993, my grandfather wrote me a letter. It was a eight-page handwritten letter, and it was telling me all the things I was doing, what it was going to lead to, and how I needed to believe in Jesus Christ. In June 1993, I was going to go out that evening. I knew what was in the manila envelope. I knew what it was from. Didn't read it. Threw it in a drawer. For three years, it laid dormant. Never opened. My freshman year of college, was going through things. I was starting to think more clearly. I was actually reading the Bible. My heart was being primed. And I happened to find the letter, November of 1996, and it brought me to my knees. And I finally said, Jesus, I'm yours. It was the letter that led me to salvation, that led me to Christ, but the seed was sown three years prior. I actually wrote my grandfather back, and he put it in the newspaper, anonymously. Sow the seed faithfully. He put his letter in the date, June 1993. Receive, November 1996. We have no power as to when or how that seed is going to take root and grow, but we have to be faithful and expect it in prayer, trusting that God is going to do what he wants to do with his word. And what he wants to do is always good. a call to be faithful, labors, a call to be faithful, and expectancy. The final parable, the small seed. Jesus gives the growth. The small seed. What can we compare the kingdom of God to? It's a, what parable shall we use for it? It's like the grain of a mustard seed, which when sown in the ground is the smallest of the seeds in the earth, Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. Now what seems to be the emphasis here is the smallness grows into what's an unexpectedly large tree. The point seems to be how great a growth happens in such a miraculous way. The previous one was how we don't even know how this works. It's just God and we're waiting expectantly. And this one is how something so small can grow to be so large. Now, I think some commentators are actually right that he might be actually alluding here to Ezekiel 17. where there's a picture of a tree and all the birds of the nest, which all the peoples of the nations, they're gonna come under that one tree, Jesus Christ. But let's look at this a little more specifically. Jesus Christ died on the cross. A shameful, painful death on a Friday. 50 days later, 3,000 are converted to following Him. From there it goes out to the outer ends of the earth. It spreads to India, to Britain, to Asia. This is where that small moment spreads into a great growth, and it's amazing. The kingdom of God is not stagnant. It's growing. It's spreading. We pray it goes into Turkey. You know, the city where you're going. See, another way the Gospel grows. In a believer. There's nothing like seeing a new convert, and how hungry they are, and how they grow. And you're never supposed to stop growing. There's no such thing as stagnant kingdom living. There's a constant growth. It is amazing to see someone grow, and it's sad to see someone just become stagnant out of stubborn sin. putting off sin and putting on Christ is how that first moment of belief grows into a beautiful picture of what the Gospel is. Church, I want to challenge us. Are we listening? Are we trusting? Are we obeying? There's faithful labor to be done. There's expectant prayer to be committed to. There's something about expectation. It never leaves you frustrated, tired, fatigued. When you're growing up in Christ, when your eyes are looking at the Savior, when you're actually seeing Him and trusting that He will do what is good because He's God our Savior, we labor with great expectation, without any clue what He's going to do, just waiting to see how is God going to bless us with abundance. The challenge this morning, are we listening? Are we leaning in? Do I want to have this Jesus who's going to save me from my sins, who's going to take control of my life, who's going to take all the things I'm messing up and giving me the right good law so that I can see the glory of God? Are we going to listen? Will you pray with me?