My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. If you have a Bible, would you turn with me to Mark chapter 4? We're going to continue our sermon series on the cross-shape life looking at the gospel of Mark looking at Mark 4 versus 1 through 20 today. If you're going to use one of the Bibles that we have underneath the chair in front of you, it's on page 1067 Here now God's holy and true Word Again, he began to teach beside the sea and a very large crowd gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables and in his teaching he said to them, listen, behold a sore went out to sow and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil and immediately it sprang up since it had no depths of soil. And when the sun rose it was scorched and since it had no root it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain growing up and increasing and yielding 30 fold and 60 fold and 100 fold. And he said he who has ears to hear let him hear. And when he was alone those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables and he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside everything is in parables so that they may indeed see but not perceive and may indeed hear but not understand less they should turn and be forgiven. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown when they hear Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground the ones who when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy and they have no root in themselves but endure for a while. Then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word immediately they fall away and others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, 30 fold and 60 fold and 100 fold. The word of the Lord, let s pray. Father we have come before you this morning we have confessed that we don t deserve your love and we have been assured that through Christ we have it. We long now to see into this text to see Christ. We do pray that you will bless this time that you will use this time to transform us to make us more like your son to help us to see his glory. And we pray that you ll use this time now that we spend in your precious and perfect word to transform us that we might run with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations. For it is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. You ever heard of the mosquito tone? There s a ringtone you can actually download for your phone called the mosquito tone. It was something that was developed over in Great Britain by some people who wanted to keep youngsters, teenagers from loitering around department stores and malls and so what they did is realizing that as human beings get older we lose our ability to hear, and so by the time you are 25 the highest pitch you can hear is about 6 frequency and so they made it at 17. And so what would happen is as teenagers were loitering around the malls and stuff they would start playing the sound. And the adults would just keep looking, oh there s a sail over here, it wouldn t bother them at all. But the teenagers would be like what is that? What is that it would drive them away? I don t think they do that as much anymore but the tables have turned because now young kids especially here in America have downloaded this thing as a ringtone. So now their phone can ring in class and the teacher has no idea but they know that they re getting a phone call. So what goes around comes around I suppose. But that reality of losing your hearing is just something we ll all deal with, the physical hearing. But when we think about this text this morning and think about our relationship with Christ we see that hearing is absolutely critical and that we would want to do everything we can to protect our hearing of God s word as we follow Christ. If we want to grow, if we want to change, if we want to be made into the image of Christ as we were predestined to be. It is imperative that we continue to hear in the biblical sense of hearing and applying, believing, accepting and so this morning s gospel fact is this that the cross shaped life involves real life change as a result of accepting God s word as truth. As we accept this book as truth that s what changes us. We re going to do this by talking about two things. I want to hit on two things this morning. First we ll talk about the secret of the kingdom and then we ll talk about four ways to respond to Jesus, the secret of the kingdom and then four ways that people respond. Before we move forward, I do want to show you we have another sandwich this week. Last week I explained that Mark in his teaching method he likes to as the author of our gospel he likes to make sandwiches meaning he will tell a story and then he ll interrupt it with another story and then he ll finish the original story. And what the point of that inserted part sort of helps understand the whole thing and so the parable and the explanation make up the bread this week and then this little inserted part where Jesus talks about the secret of the kingdom is sort of the meat. So we re actually going to go there first to understand the parable and Jesus explanation. So if you want to keep your bibles open, we re going to be looking at these verses and we re going to start with chapter 4 10 through 13. So look there with me and let s talk about the secret of the kingdom of God, verse 10. And when he was alone, those around him with the 12. So right off of that, we re talking about the 12 apostles, but also the disciples, people who had put their faith in him. So when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables. And he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables so that they may indeed see but not perceive and indeed hear but not understand lest they should turn and be forgiven. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable, how then will you understand all the parables? So right off the bat, we have an importance of this parable, something that we learn in this parable will help us to understand any of the parables. And here s the thing that we want to see here, that faith in Christ is the key to understanding God s world and God s word. Okay, all of the Bible only makes sense through faith in Christ, the relationship with Christ and the world at large. There are things that we can only understand in relationship to who Christ is, who he is portrayed to be in the Scriptures. And so that s our key thing to look at right now that faith in Christ is the key to understanding things, understanding the world, understanding God s word. Notice in verse 1, Jesus is preaching to a huge crowd. Okay, so big that he has to get into a boat, push the boat off shore a little bit so he can speak to all these people, massive crowd, and he gives the parable. But then in private, when the disciples come, then he gives them some information and look at that word secret in verse 11 there. He says to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. That word secret is the Greek word misterion, and it sounds like mystery, and it s translated as mystery several times in the New Testament. It means something that is hidden, something that needs to be revealed. Okay, and ultimately what he s getting at here is the fact that Satan has blinded the world to the glory of God, the world apart from faith in Christ cannot see that Christ is glorious, they cannot see that God is merciful, they can't understand these things. Paul talks about this in second Corinthians 4.4 where he says the God of this world, little G referring to Satan, he says the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. He also uses this word secret or mystery over 20 times in his epistles, the apostle Paul does, and ultimately what he s talking about when he s using it is he s referring to the fact that people without faith in Christ, they re not going to understand what those of us with faith in Christ are able to understand. It won't make sense, and they won't be able to accept it. Like for example, in second Corinthians, I m sorry, first Corinthians 2, Paul says the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. We, through faith, have the Holy Spirit, and it s only through the work of the Holy Spirit that we understand anything in God s word. And what we understand is that Christ is what has been revealed. He is who s been revealed. Paul talks about this too in first, in sorry, Colossians 1, 26 and 2070 says the mystery hidden for ages, that s that same word secret, the secret hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints which is Christ in you. Okay, another verse would be Colossians 2, 2, he talks about the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God s mystery which is Christ. And so what we re seeing in Paul is what we re seeing that what Christ is saying is he is the secret. He is what is revealed. He is what has been given to people who have faith. Christ is therefore the key to understanding this parable, to understanding all of God s word, to understanding everything. That it is through faith and Christ that we have this understanding. Think about this. He gives the parable to all these people, but it s only those who have faith that come to him and say, what are you talking about? What does that mean? And it s the ones who are in relationship with Christ by faith that get the explanation. So they re able to understand because they re in relationship with him. He therefore explains to them. So people who do not have faith in Christ therefore are not going to be able to see the things that you and I see in the scriptures in the world. We re not going to our ideas and visions and views of the world are never going to line up perfectly because we are able to see things through faith. We re been given the key to understanding all of life and all of the world. So as the world continues to carry on without faith in Christ, there s always going to be animosity. There s always going to be differences like for example in our view of sexuality. The world s view of sexuality in our country is morphing and changing all the time. It s moving farther and farther away from what God says, isn t it? And that is because the world does not have the key to understanding why God would have things the way he does in his word. They don t have Christ. They don t have faith in Christ so they can t understand which is why Jesus quotes from Isaiah here. Look back at verse 12. Look at verse 12. This is a quote from Isaiah and Isaiah said that people were going to see but not perceive they were going to hear but not understand or they would turn and they would be forgiven. This is a fulfillment of that. That people are not able to see. They re not able to really hear and they don t turn and they aren t forgiven. Unless that is, they ve been given something and that is what we ve been given. For those of us who have faith in Christ, it was something given to us. We didn t earn it. We didn t do it on our own. It was a gift given to us. God gave us the secret. He gave us his son through whom we can understand all things. And as we look at the world through the lens of Christ and his cross, things make much more sense. Do you remember Stereograms? You may not recognize that. I didn t know that s what they re calling until I was trying to look up what they were but they were popular. Maybe a decade ago. Everybody had one. You probably got one in your closet. They were those pictures and when you look at it and look at it and look at it like anything. It s just kind of a hodgepodge mosaic of colors and shapes and you walk by it and you are like eh and you keep going and it doesn t have any impact on you because it just looks kind of weird. Unless somebody tells you what the secret. They tell you that actually wait. Stere at it. And if you would stare at these pictures, the longer you would stare, eventually some sort of 3D image would appear and you suddenly blurred out. Oh, it s a sailboat. You know, and everybody s looking at you like what is his problem. And you know, it s because you saw it. Because you stared long enough. Somebody told you the secret and then you saw it. And in the same way that if someone had not revealed to you how you actually see the 3D image within the picture. The picture you would have never seen it. And it s the same thing that when God gave us faith, that s what enabled us to see that Christ is glorious, that he is the savior, that he is the Lord. In fact, all the prophets are in all the scriptures are saying to us, stare at the picture in the scriptures. And what we see forming is this perfect image of Christ himself. But we have to be given that secret. We have to be made aware through the work of the Holy Spirit. So the Bible teaches that God has given us this gift of faith and that s what enables us to stare into the mystery, to stare into the face of Christ and see how he is glorious and how he is the savior and how he is compassionate and how he loves us. That s what faith is. Faith is choosing to believe that it is through knowing Christ that we can understand the word and the world as well. So what we need to do is develop a habit of running to Christ and when we don t understand things, we run to Christ for understanding. That s what he s doing with the disciples right here. He s helping them form a habit that when they don t know what s going on, when they don t quite understand something, they run to him and they say, make this, make sense Jesus and He does. And so we need to have that habit as well that we would have a habit of running to Christ and understanding the world through the lens of Christ and his cross. He s teaching them, he s teaching us to look to him for understanding. What might they not have understood? Lots of stuff right at this point. I m sure there was lots of things they didn t understand. One of the things they probably didn t understand was why they were following Jesus and other people were getting ready to try to have them killed. This was probably a very confusing thing for them. And so Jesus addresses this by talking about these four ways to respond the four different ways that we see that we ve seen people respond so far in Mark s gospel. So let s talk about four ways to respond. And here s the key thing we want to see here. Faith in Christ is what enables us to understand things and then it s the acceptance of those things that changes us. In other words, life change comes after we hear and accept God s word. This is really good news for anyone, especially if there are some of us who sort of feel like we ve hit a rough patch, maybe a stagnant place in our faith where we re just not growing like we once were. This is a call to you and me to open our minds again, open our hearts and accept whatever the word of God teaches so that we are changed by it. That s when change happens when we accept what the word of God says. Think about this way. If you were standing here and there was a fire behind you but for some reason you couldn t see it but you could feel it and I could see it and I see you getting kind of warm and sweaty and I say to you there s a fire behind you and you don t accept it, you hear me but you don t accept it then nothing happens. You continue to get warm, you continue to get uncomfortable and I may say again there is a fire behind you and if you don t accept it again nothing changes but the second that you accept what I m saying and move things change. So we want to see that importance of hearing and accepting what God s word says in this text and we see it in these four responses and as we look at these four responses I want you to keep in mind that Jesus doesn t really make clear believer unbeliever distinctions so there may be some gray area here that we need to be okay with. We know that from a divine perspective I just talked about it we have to be given faith that s why we just saying my Lord I did not choose you for that could never be my heart would still refuse you if you had not chosen me but at the same time the tension between God sovereignty and our responsibility is not relaxed in the scriptures and we shouldn t relax it either which is why we say I called you answered okay it s both we see the tension between God sovereignty and our responsibility to respond. And it s through those things we are transformed. So let s look at this now seeing that Jesus is definitely approaching this from a human perspective and looking at verse 15 we are primarily going to focus on verses 14 through 20 the explanation. Look at 15 it says these are the ones sewn along the path where the word is sewn and when they hear Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sewn in them. Now if you think about who he s could be talking about so far he s going to give four responses and we ve really seen about four different responses in Mark s gospel so far this sounds a lot like the scribes doesn t it. They are not accepting what Jesus says at all from the very beginning the scribes and Pharisees they have skeptical questions moves all the way to where they s saying Jesus is possessed by the devil. So there s no acceptance on their part and therefore there s no life change. There s no growth they are the same. Now let s move to the next one look at verse 16 he talks about the ones in the rocks. These are the ones sewn on the rocky ground the ones who when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy and they have no root in themselves but endure for a while then when tribulation or persecution arises on the counter of the word immediately they fall away. This sounds a lot like the crowds. I mean these are huge crowds that are forming around Jesus. We see that but what s interesting about Mark in his gospel is he never portrays a crowd as a positive thing. In fact the crowds are usually portrayed as a negative thing. It s very often the crowds are portrayed as an obstacle think back to when Jesus healed the paralytic. Why did they have to go through the roof? Because the crowd was in the way. This is a really important thing for pastors to remember that a crowd does not mean success. So Mark pictures the crowds as it can be a negative thing. Jesus in John chapter 6 says to a huge crowd you guys are here because you're hungry. In other words you're not really wanting to know me let the gospel go deeper into your heart you want to get fed you're looking for your basic needs to be met. This is probably referring to the crowds they they're excited at first but when things get tough they're going to take off. And really what we're seeing is the the seed is not deep enough. They're understanding of Jesus is too shallow. They're just focused on things getting better. And so we see that as even in Mark 3 verse 8 Mark says that they were coming the crowds were coming because they had heard what he was doing not what he was saying. So that's another response we see the scribes response we see the crowds let's look at the next one starting in 18 he's talking about the thorns and others are the ones so among the thorns they are those who hear the word but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful that sounds like his family doesn't it. They loved them they loved their brother Mary loved her son but there was something that was sort of preventing them from really giving Jesus complete control remember we talked about this last week they were trying to control things. There was some area of their life they weren't willing to give completely over to Jesus and so we could say that they their acceptance of Jesus is there but it's not alone. They're accepting what Jesus is saying but they're also accepting what other voices are saying to them maybe about protecting their reputation maybe about who knows maybe it has to do with riches we don't know but what we can see is there was something in competition for their complete affection and complete love for Jesus. And then the good soil look at verse 20 but those that were sewn on the good soil of the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold and he is obviously talking about the disciples there now perhaps at this point they had an experienced a hundredfold life change but think about the fact that he uses the metaphor of a seed doesn't he. And a seed gets planted and gets needs some depth and then it begins to sprout and grow and it's over time so it's over time that these things happen it's over time that as we accept more and more of God's word as true that's what brings about more and more change you know we don't understand God's word until we stand under it and once we're under it and it's the authority and we accept it that's what brings about real change in our lives you know Sinclair Ferguson would say that the parables Jesus would use them like a mirror they're designed to be like a mirror that we would look into these things and see ourselves see where we're at remember a time in my life when I hated mirrors some of you know I think I mentioned it before I had a real vicious battle with acne. And it was so bad I didn't want to ever look in the mirror I'd go for days without looking in the mirror because I just did not want to see what was there but I was on this medication that was supposed to be fixing it now it's supposed to be giving reports back to my doctor who's five hours away so I had to I had to look in the mirror in order to see if this medicine was working and that's what we need to do as a church just to look into this parable see if we see our cells see if our tendencies are there so that the medicine of the gospel can set us free to be accepting God's word let's look at this as a mirror maybe you can detect that you are responding to Jesus sort of like a scribe you're just not accepting what's being said and what you would need to hear from this text is that that means nothing's going to change. When we just reject God's word it just it doesn't change us so that'd be reason for you to be make yourself willing to accept what about the rocks and the crowds maybe some of us struggle with our faith sometimes is not as deep as we know it ought to be and we get so this happens to me all the time you get so sort of focused on what I want the things I think I want and I think I need that I forget that I'm really wanting what I desperately really want is to truly know Christ. To truly understand him more and more so maybe sometimes we can see ourselves in here as having sort of a shallow faith maybe maybe some of us see ourselves like Jesus family we know we love them but there are definitely some things competing for our affection and we're sort of letting those things win and it's preventing us from changing notice that he says that they they're unfruitful there's no fruit there. And so when we love Jesus but love other things equally it stunts our growth maybe we can see ourselves there hopefully none of us were like oh there I am good soil I see me yeah that's me I hear and accept everything hopefully that was not your response the good news is if you are living a life of repentance and faith if you've trusted in Christ alone for your salvation you are good soil but the humble thing to do would be to recognize that
we have these tendencies and it's the gracious mercy of God to call us from these tendencies to the good soil response that brings us back to a place where we can be changed so the call for us to be striving to accept what the word says is key anything else is going to prevent us from growing and experiencing the gospel's power to transform us to make us new. That word accept in verse 20 Greek word is parodekomai and it's really interesting it means to admit to accept or to delight in that amazing that we as we accept what the Bible says and just say well if the Bible says it then that's true we begin to delight in it as well what an amazing thing you know Jesus doesn't command anything in this parable does he. There's not an imperative there's just a reality of the importance of hearing if you were to look back through you'd see the word here or listen at least eight times the Greek word for here is a kuo we see it eight times in this passage especially in verse 9 he says he who has ears to hear let him hear and that's not saying the same thing twice that's not saying he who can physically hear my voice physically hear my voice the Greek word a kuo is used to both mean physically hearing and then also spiritually hearing like. Heeding what you are hearing obeying submitting to it bowing to it as true so Jesus is literally saying there he who has been given the gift of faith exercise that faith and accept what the word says as true and let that change you hearing and accepting hearing and accepting that's what brings about life change that's what brings about transformation in our lives we need to hear and accept what the Bible says and we grow. Here and accept and grow think about hearing the basic things of becoming a Christians we hear the Holy Spirit helps us to hear that we are sinners that we've all fallen short of the glory of God and that we deserve the wrath of God that gets our hearts ready for the good news that in Christ we receive complete forgiveness we need to hear that over and over we need to hear that we are truly forgiven of all of our sin we forget that so much we are forgiven we need to hear that because of what Jesus has done. On the cross dying for our sins accepting that like it says in Acts 10 43 that everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of their sins through his name we need to hear and accept what the Bible says about justification Paul says a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ you know it's interesting God does not accept us based on what we do but on what Christ has done. So he accepts us he doesn't make us earn his acceptance this text is saying don't make God earn his your acceptance of him just take him for who he is in the word that's what changes us thinking and hearing and accepting what the Bible says about the new heavens new earth that one day will be delivered to a place where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain all of these things these basic things that we hear and accept and our Christians. But then we don't stop there that's the key to interpreting all of God's words we don't stop there we also need to hear and accept what the Bible says on marriage and hear and accept what the Bible says about parenting what the Bible says about work with the Bible says about school what the Bible says about the poor or suffering or money or sex or success or failure as we hear and accept what this book says about all of life we are transformed we grow we. Flourish think about that Catechism answer that we said earlier in the service that it was by his powerful word that we flourish it says everything we said everything flourished under his loving rule man that's good news right that these things that he's calling us to as we hear and accept the word it leads to us flourishing in Christ. Jesus uses this seed metaphor not only for the reality that helps to understand that these things happen over time but also because of what he knows about seeds think about what he says in John 12 24 truly truly I say to you unless a grain of wheat or a seed falls into the earth and dies it remains alone but if it dies it bears much fruit. That's the gospel that Jesus is the true seed who came into the world to die so you and I could have life and have it to the full so that we would be able to buy faith here the word accept it and flourish let's do that let's pray father in heaven we know that they're all will always be some things we don't understand. You showed us in your word that we will understand way more in heaven than we do now but you've also shown us in your word that we can understand things right now through a relationship with your loved son and it's hard to accept your words sometimes it's your ways are not our ways your thoughts are not our thoughts it's hard for us and so we pray for courage we pray for you to give us the strength we need through your Holy spirit to just flat out accept your word is true and then to. Experience the joy of being made new of being transformed of flourishing we pray for flourishing and we pray that you would bring it about and that we would turn back to you and give you all the praise and glory for you alone deserve it in Jesus name we pray.