Consider for a moment with me, the beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ. On the day of Pentecost, Peter and the other apostles went out from the house and began preaching and 3000 souls were saved. The church exploded, and throughout the book of Acts we see the expansion of the church. This continues on until the church becomes this unstoppable force. Then, in 312 AD, the Emperor Constantine declares Christianity to be a legal religion of the Roman Empire, and suddenly the church gets married to the state. Gradually the church becomes less concerned with taking the Gospel into the world and more concerned about preserving its power.
The church continued to become more and more corrupt, to the point that salvation became something that God simply helps us out with instead of something that God provides from beginning to end. The church became more concerned with its coffers than with the Kingdom of God, until in 1517, Martin Luther challenged the Roman Catholic Church by raising 95 challenges to the Roman Catholic teachings. Martin Luther’s initial intention was simply to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but when the Church decided to put him on trial, he formed a new church. From this sprang up the Reformation and out of this movement came the Baptists. These groups grew and expanded and the Church again regained a passion for spreading the Gospel message.
The Church spread to the New World, where Protestant churches had better opportunity to grow. As the United States of America grew, so did the Church. Through the 1700 and 1800’s, the Church stayed faithful to its message of Salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. But, the 1900s brought about a new outlook. Charles G. Finney helped to bring about the Second Great Awakening, and in this so called revival, there was not as much concern with preaching the Gospel as there was with right living and right behavior. The calls were for repentance and spiritual renewal, but there was no call to depend on Jesus for salvation. The church began to teach again that salvation was primarily a human effort with a little bit of help from God. Churches began depending on programs and strategies, and for a while that worked. We had high attendance Sundays and block parties and crusades. But, when the excitement left and the fun was over, when the show had left town, most of those who attended went right back to what they were doing.
Now, we are in the twilight of this Age of Excitements, and we find that the same old tricks don’t work. We call for a high attendance Sunday and the same old crowd shows up. We come out with one technique after another on how to present the Gospel and they all lose interest within a couple of years. We fuss about how no one seems to be interested in church anymore, but we really don’t know what to do to get them interested.
I see pastors and church leaders all of the time who just look lost as a goose in a hurricane about what to do with this generation and this spirit of the age. We recognize that something is missing, but no one seems to know what it is. But, I think the answer is found in our text. I think what we have lost is our confidence in the power of the Gospel. I think the problem we have is that we just don’t believe that a simple presentation of the fact that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, died in our place as our sacrifice, and rose again from the dead… we don’t believe that this is appealing. We don’t believe that this sells. So, we change the Gospel into something that will sell (so we think). We tell people that Jesus can give you fulfillment, that he can make you whole, that he can get rid of your addiction, that he can cure your illness, or that he can give you purpose and a better life. But, we never tell them that Jesus can save them from death. That just seems too unbelievable.
But, Jesus is going to tell his disciples in these verses, that the Gospel should never be hidden, that it will do a complete work, and that it will provide unexpected results. Let’s see what Jesus wants us to know about the Gospel by looking at Mark 4:21-34.
Jesus has just told the parable of the soils, and he then turns to his disciples and explains to them the meaning of the parable. We said last week that this parable is meant to be an encouragement to them as they face the challenge of taking the Gospel into the world, and it should be an encouragement to us because even though we may deal with people who reject the Gospel for various reasons, there will be good soil, and where good seed meets good soil there is good fruit. This passage is a continuation of that explanation. Jesus is still dealing with his disciples and he starts by asking them, “Do you light a lamp and hide it?” Now, this seems like a ridiculous question. Why would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a bushel or under the bed? That is exactly the point that Jesus wants to make. You would never do that with a candle or a lamp, and you shouldn’t do it with the Gospel either. The lamp that Jesus is referring to was a small clay jar with a spout out of which a wick was drawn. The lamp was filled with oil and then the wick was lit to provide light inside the house. There are two things that Jesus wants us to pick out. First, this is a small, insignificant lamp, and the Gospel starts out small. When Jesus ascended into heaven, the disciples were very few, but within a couple of months they were taking over the city of Jerusalem. Do not hide the Gospel from people because you think it is too simple or embarrassing to share.
Then, Jesus gives a warning in verses 24-25 and basically it goes like this: If you don’t use it you will lose it. If you know the truth of the Gospel, and you take it and hide it under your bed and never ponder it, never study it, never grow in it, and never share it, then you will lose it and God will never trust you with more. But, if you take the truth of the Gospel and you own it, you love it, you study it, and you share it, then God will allow you to understand more and more about it. I have been told, “Nathan, I just wish I could grow deeper in my walk with the Lord.” Do you want to know how? Study. Read the Word of God. Listen to preachers. Read books about the Bible and about spiritual things. If you want to know God, you have to go to His Word. How could you know anything about your spouse unless you listened to what he or she said? Some of you may need to listen more! But, you know all that you know about your spouse because you study him or her. You observe, you listen, you ask others. In a similar way, you can’t know God unless you study him.
So, we see that the Gospel should never be hidden, but then Jesus goes on to point out that the Gospel does a complete work. Look again at verses 26 through 29. Jesus says that a man sews seed and then he goes on about his business, and the whole time the seed grows up and produces fruit all without the help of the sower. In the same way, the Gospel has power in and of itself to bring about the harvest. We need to get over this idea that we have to help it along with some winsome technique or some fresh new approach. The Gospel, if it is told plainly and accurately, can have its affect on the hearer. Paul says in Romans 1:16, “The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believes.” The Gospel has the power to save. I know a man that I presented the Gospel to years ago, and for a year I never saw any change, any results. A year later, he came to me and told me that he had been thinking about what I said during that whole year and he realized that he needed to get his family in church. Today, he is in church because of something I said to him years back. The Gospel has that kind of power, and it works even when we are not working.
Finally, the Gospel will produce unexpected results. Look again at verses 30 – 32. Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. He tells us that the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds, but it can grow to be larger than any other plant in the garden. The mustard bush that Jesus was speaking of is a shrub that the Jews domesticated and used as a vegetable and condiment. The seed is the smallest of any plant in the garden, but it can grow to as high as 15 feet. The point that Jesus is making is that the Gospel may seem like a small and inconsequential thing, but it will grow and produce more than we could ever think possible. Jesus was a carpenter’s son from an insignificant town in a forgotten part of the world who started a small ministry with 12 disciples, but once he died and rose again, not even the Roman Empire could stop the spread of His Church.
Have you doubted the Gospel? Do you turn away from opportunities to share with your neighbor or friend because you don’t want to be embarrassed or you don’t want to embarrass them? Remember, the Gospel cannot be hidden, it is powerful enough to produce its own results, and it will produce results above and beyond anything you can expect.
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