Bringing People into God's Kingdom

Mark 4:26-29, 1-20; Matthew 9:35-38
27/04/08

The Relationship Between Desire and Cost
Tim and I went into a new camping superstore the other week – there was so much stuff there that we love – torches, tools, canoes, fishing gear, car gear, camping gear – all sorts of outdoorsy stuff. It was fantastic!

I could have easily filled a trailer with the stuff that I would have liked to bring home, but all I walked out with was a coil of rope – and Tim of course!

You see everything I picked up had a sticker or a tag or a barcode on it that said, “If you want me, you’ll have to give up this much money”. Fulfilling my desires demanded a price, and most of the time that was a price I could not or would not pay. We all know what that’s like, don’t we!

On Friday we commemorated ANZAC Day. The original ANZACS were not conscripted, they voluntarily put their lives on the line. There was a price they were prepared to pay.

I want to ask you a question today: “How many of you want God’s Kingdom to grow? How many of you want to see people in the Narembeen, Hyden and Kondinin region discover eternal life in Jesus? How many of you want to see our church and other churches in our town and region full to overflowing? How many of you want to see people going out from here to serve God in other places? How many of you want revival?”

Today is the Blessing of the Seed service at the Roman Catholic Church. We will be gathering with other parts of God’s family and asking His blessing on our agricultural season. We want Him to make us materially fruitful. This is good and appropriate. Are we asking even more fervently to be spiritually fruitful? If so, how can we be involved in bringing it about?

Mark 4:26-29
26 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Last week we learned that we cannot comprehend spiritual truth unless God reveals it to us. Therefore it is impossible for us to bring anyone into God’s kingdom by forceful argument or clever manipulation or diligent service.

So what must we do? There are only 2 things that are required in this passage – scattering the seed, then harvesting it when it is ready. How the seed produces that harvest is not our concern, our job is to spread it and harvest it’s fruit.

What is that seed that we’re talking about? And what is the harvest? Jesus had already explained this to His disciples, and it is recorded in the beginning of Mark 4…

Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”
9 Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that,
“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’
13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”

Our job is to scatter the seeds, to sow the word. Elsewhere in the New Testament this is called the gospel – the good news about Jesus.

I believe that many of us have become far too economical with our seed! We don’t want to just scatter it about. We wait for an “opportunity”. We want to be sure people are ready and willing to hear the gospel before we speak it out. But because we speak it out so rarely, it becomes daunting and unfamiliar to us – we become unable to share it naturally with others as part of our everyday conversations. Because we are so out of practice, we don’t see those “opportunities” even when they present themselves.

We have got to become scatterers of seeds!

So if the seeds represent the message of the gospel, what is the harvest? It is the people who hear the good news about Jesus, accept it and become his followers – people who in turn share that good news with more and more people.

To reap the harvest is to experience the joy of seeing someone come to that point of accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. It’s to help someone begin the journey of following Jesus.

Sometimes people think that such an experience is the realm of evangelists and “ministers”. Not so. Let’s read…

Matthew 9:35-38
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Are you prepared to be a worker sent out into the harvest field?
We hear so many stories of how particular people have been used to lead thousands of people into a relationship with God that we think that is the norm. Most people who are Christians today did not come into a relationship with Jesus with the help of a big name preacher. Usually it is the combination of a number of influences until finally someone gets the privilege of helping them complete that journey to faith in Jesus. The seed had been growing away, and when the time was right it was harvested.

The Multiplier Effect.
Let’s imagine if we had a core group of believers who became really passionate about sharing the gospel with their family and friends, and God enabled each one of them to lead a person to Christ once every 5 years. Is that possible?

Let’s say there were 5 such people in our church…

(View powerpoint slides to see the multiplier effect in action)

This is the model of growth that God intended for the church. Of course God gifts certain people in the area of evangelism, and they are particularly fruitful. That does not excuse the rest of us from being faithful.

We started out by asking who wanted to see the kingdom of God grow. Seeing the Kingdom grow begins with right now with the handful of people who will take this challenge seriously. We all want to see the tremendous growth, but who will do the difficult and costly task of scattering seeds now? Who will pay attention to the signs that show the harvest is ready?