Landscape with the Parable of the Sower – 1557 – Pieter_Bruegel
The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. – Mark 4:26
Jesus’ parable about gathering souls to Christ is short, (Mark 4:26-29) but it offers one strong reminder of how souls find their way to Christ. We are the man that scatters the seeds on the ground.
Just like the farmer, we don’t have to know how the seed grows (Mark 4:27) – God will take care of the growth once we plant.
Just like the farmer, we will not see immediate results (Mark 4:28) – we should not get discouraged when there is no growth right away.
Just like the farmer, we gather the harvest as soon as it is ready (Mark 4:29) – our example and encouragement helps bring maturity.
Sowing the seeds of the kingdom is a lot of hard work. It is necessary work though. Just like the farmer cannot expect his field to yield a fine crop without sowing seed, we cannot expect people of the world to come to Christ without an introduction and an invitation.
What can you do today to improve how you scatter seed?
Biblia ectypa : Bildnussen auss Heiliger Schrifft Alt und Neuen Testaments – 1695 – Johann Christoph Weigel
My light isn’t so bright sometimes.
I know you know what I mean … It is hard to add a new activity to our routine, or take on a new responsibility. No matter how much the church needs something or could benefit from it, it is easy to let someone else take care of it.
That is a dangerous place to be!
I’ve pointed out before that Jesus chose busy people to be his disciples. In Mark 4:21-25, he is using the shining light parable to tell us just how important he considers our productivity in the kingdom. The passage makes three points:
The higher we hold up a light, the brighter it shines.
The bigger the measure we offer, the more abundant our return
The more we have, the easier we will acquire
That last point, taken from Mark 4:25 is often hard to understand in the context of Jesus’ parables. Jesus also made the same statement about the man with one talent: (Matthew 25:19-29)
For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. – Matthew 25:29
This is what Jesus was trying to teach us with that lesson: Those who are not diligently doing the work of the master will find themselves unable to please him at any level! So much so that even what little skill and knowledge they have acquired will also be useless. We can see how that applies very easily to …
Knowledge – The more we keep up with Bible study, the more the scriptures make sense
Skills – The more we participate in the needs of the church, the easier it is to do so
Effort – Momentum applies to the busy and the lazy, just like a stone on a hill
Responsibility – Those who accept responsibility are trusted with even more responsibility
One of the threads that run throughout the New Testament is that Christians are to be giving and productive workers – even at the expense of everything else. Jesus told us time and time again that God is going to frown upon those who didn’t participate to the level he requires. He wants us out there doing the things that will make the kingdom grow –
Christ Heals a Man Paralyzed by the Gout. Mark 2:4 – 1780 – Bernhard Rode (1725–1797)
They had to tear the roof off the place.
How often does it happen that we set our mind to finally fix something in our life and roadblocks suddenly appear? It doesn’t seem to matter whether it is financial, physical or spiritual in nature. Show me an airtight plan and I’ll show you the pin that can pop it.
That is probably what those four guys felt like when they were trying to get to Jesus to help their friend. (Mark 2:1-12) The crowd was pressed in so tight, there was no way to force the bed through there. They faced the exact same decision that we do when something tries to get in the way of our faith. They could have…
…said, “Oh well, we tried” and went home or
…looked for another way to make it happen
Of course we know they climbed up and opened a hole in the roof. By the time they lowered their friend down to Jesus, they had made quite an impression.
Look at what Mark 2:5 says about their faith:
…when Jesus saw their faith …
Faith is much more than some mental acknowledgment. Faith is something that is visible to others. Faith makes you act so that others are not surprised that you are a Christian. Faith makes you respond to tough situations in the way you know would please God.
That is why a little faith can move mountains, (Matthew 17:20) those with a living and active faith don’t let a little challenge or worry get between them and God.
Tough question of the day: How many of your coworkers would pick you out as the Christian in the group?
Here is an exhaustive listing of the places in the Bible that mention “faith only” (Or “faith alone” depending on your version)
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. – James 2:24 KJV
Yes that’s it. The complete and unabridged list.
Belief is a Milestone
While faith is definitely a foundational step in salvation, it does not end there. God has never once in the Bible accepted a man at his word. Faith has been seen outwardly or demonstrated through an action each and every time God required it.
Sacrifice of Isaac – 1635 – Rembrandt (1606–1669)
We can see that God requires the same kind of demonstration from us on our path to salvation:
We must hear and believe God’s word – Romans 10:17
We must repent of (turn our back on) our sinful lifestyle – Acts 17:30
We must be willing to confess Jesus name – Mathew 10:32, Romans 10:9-10
We must be baptized for the remission of our sins – Acts 2:37-38, Galatians 3:36-27
We must live a Christian life – Revelation 2:10
When discussing the “faith only” doctrine with those who teach it, we can make some very solid points to show that it contradicts the rest of the Bible:
In Ephesians, the works Paul said wouldn’t save us were works of the Law of Moses.
In James’ letter, he is talking about works of obedience without which, our faith is dead.
John 6:29 shows us that faith isa work
Romans 2:6 is very clear that the judgment will include an account of our deeds.
In Luke 7:36-50, Jesus told the sinful woman that her faith saved her even though she never vocalized it.
In Hebrews 11, a list of faithful men had to act on their faith to please God.
Faith is a necessity of salvation, to be sure. What is also a necessity is to teach and follow the whole counsel of God. (Acts 20:26-27)
The “Heroes of Faith” Didn’t Get Away With Faith Only
The Hebrews writer wanted us to understand that salvation does not come from some mental acknowledgement of God and Christ. If the world cannot see our faith, then it is not the kind of faith the Bible is talking about.
When we read through Hebrews 11, we can examine each and every hero and see that they had to go do something before God’s promise applied to them:
Faith led Abel to make the correct sacrifice – Hebrews 11:4
Enoch lived so that God was pleased with what he saw – Hebrews 11:5-6
Noah built an ark from believing that God would do something he had never seen – Hebrews 11:7
Abraham packed his family up and moved at God’s bidding – Hebrews 11:8-10
Abraham and Sarah had innumerable descendants through the faith that overcame doubt – Hebrews 11:11-12
Abraham was not afraid to give because he knew God could raise Isaac if he sacrificed him – Hebrews 11:17-19
….the list keeps going. We absolutely need faith to please God, (Hebrews 11:6) but we can also see that if any of these Hebrews 11 folks had failed to obey God, the outcome would be very different. (A great example is from the account of Moses striking the rock: Numbers 20:8-12)
If faith comes from hearing the word of God, and what we practice is different from his word, how can we say we have faith?
The Angel of the Lord Announcing the Resurrection – 1805 – Benjamin West (1738-1820)
There was something fishy going on there.
Why in all of history has there never been posted a “resurrection watch” on a tomb except this once? (Matthew 27:66) Nicodemus was there (John 19:39) and could verify that Jesus was dead. His word should be as good as any among the Jews.
Whatever the reason, there were now people in place who could be paid to lie, no matter what they had witnessed. (Matthew 28:15-16) The soldiers did so at great risk because they faced death for sleeping on the watch.
That’s how the Jews who never became Christians missed out on the single most important event promised in their heritage. They allowed someone else tell them what to believe despite the evidence they had witnessed throughout Jesus’ ministry. In the process, they missed out on salvation.
The same thing is going on right now.
Many are going to miss out on salvation because they are ignoring the evidence. They fail to give God a second look because of a few lies that someone told them.
Many are going to miss out because even though they believe, they are allowing someone else to guide them. They are willing to trust a teacher but not willing to verify.
Many are going to miss out because they will pick and choose what they hear that reinforces what they want to believe.
We may not encounter people who are actually paid to lie to us, but there are plenty of folks willing to make up stories that fit their agenda. It is up to us to stay diligent. Keep looking at the evidence!
Matthew ends his gospel with Jesus’ command to teach all that he commanded. I infer from that that we should hear all that he taught.
Since it affected an entire nation, I wonder what the Romans bought with that money …
“Give us Barabbas” Illustrations from volume 9 of The Bible and its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons, edited by Charles F. Horne and Julius A. Bewer, published in 1910.
What is it about a crowd that makes it persuasive? Why are individuals of a certain opinion willing to change it based on what the crowd tells them it should be?
The crowd forced Aaron into making the golden calf
The crowd was ready to hand David’s kingdom over to Absalom
The crowd chose Barabbas
We can look throughout history to see how leaders were able to use the crowd to get their way. Just like the Jewish leadership convinced the crowd to crucify Jesus, (Matthew 27:15-23) change of any kind can be made by winning enough buy-in.
I’ve written before about the need for Christians stop being silent on social issues. If we use our voices, we can reverse some of the momentum they have achieved.
The power of the crowd works in both directions. Just like it was used to erode moral values, it can be used to teach (and in many cases – re-teach) the majority what is good and right in the site of God.
The “safety in numbers” that we usually feel is more often than not, a false sense of security.
