Ben McSpadden: Imagine for a moment that the day that you were born was the day you stopped growing. That would be interesting. You would have a life continually dependent on other people. Somebody would have to change your diapers the rest of your life. This doesn’t sound fun, so let’s make it more fun imagining. Imagine that the day you turned 18 was the day you stopped growing. Now, the possibilities are a little bit more warm and friendly, like maybe you look a lot better at 18 than you do right now. I know I did. Maybe you’re more physically capable at 18, but I’m saying that you would stop growing in everything. You’d stop growing physically but also intellectually, experientially. Some of it looks like pluses, but man, there are some minuses, too. I had some things figured out at 18, but man, not what I like I have figured out now. So, I appreciate this idea of growth and not stopping growing.
In fact, when I was in college, I was actually sort of given the concept of stopping growth in my Christian experience. It was kind of a scary moment for me. It was brought in as this idea that I should soak up everything that I’m experiencing in campus ministry and college at the time, because when I get out there, it’s not going to be the same. When I get out of college and when I get into the adult world, there’s not going to be the same sense of growth and kingdom work. What these folks were telling me in this talk when I was in college was that the pinnacle of my Christian growth, the pinnacle of my Christian experience, was in college, and it was all downhill after that. That was not encouraging news.
Growth—this reality that we can grow—is really encouraging. It is a reality. It really does happen. It means that I don’t want to stay where I’m at right now. There’s something beyond right now. Actually, growth is something that God intends to happen. You can’t always predict or determine how things will grow. This summer we’ve been looking at parables that Jesus taught. A parable is basically an earthly example of a kingdom concept. It’s to serve as a picture, a mirror, or a window to give us insight that we are to live in light of. This week’s parable gives us a glimpse of this reality of growth in God’s kingdom. It talks about God’s intention for growth, our involvement, God’s process, and our response.
We find this parable in the book of Mark, the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4 verses 26 through 29. Here’s what it says. “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.’” This parable is a description of how God’s kingdom works. It says, “The kingdom of God is as if…” Well, God’s kingdom is His rule or His reign in an area of life, in people’s lives. It’s described as someone scattering seed.
When we think about this, the scattering of the seed is this spreading of the gospel message. Something that sometimes gets overlooked is the reality that God’s Word is the Source of life. God’s Word is the Source of life. Before anything can grow, you first have to scatter seed. You have to have seed. For anything that has life, it’s very existence starts with God’s Word. Here’s what the Bible says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
This is very significant to understand. All of life starts with God. This is one of the reasons that life is so precious. It’s connected to our Creator, specifically Christ, who is the Word of God is the Source of all life. Again, we find in the Bible, speaking of Christ: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” So Christ, being the Word of God, is the Source of all life. However, we know that not everyone wants to acknowledge or remain connected to Christ. In fact, this is why we are considered dead in our rebellion against God. We remain disconnected from the Source of life.
The Good News of the kingdom, the seed that we are to scatter, is this message that we can be connected back to the Source of life. We can be connected back to Christ. To see God’s kingdom or rule grow in our lives and in those around us, the message of Christ is first scattered or shared. Christ was the first One to scatter or proclaim this Good News. He let us know what God was all about leading up to Him coming to earth and dying on the cross for our sins to redeem His people unto Himself. He calls us to be a part of it, as well. He calls us to join with Him. It’s not such a lofty thing that only a few people can be involved in the scattering of seed and spreading the Good News. But, He intends for all of us to be a part, all of His children to be a part of this.
I love this quote from Spurgeon. He says, “The precious seed of the Word of God is small as a grain of mustard seed, and may be carried by the feeblest hand where it shall multiply a hundred-fold.” See, God involves us in a task that is possible for us to participate in because He makes it possible. But, it’s also greater than we can control. We join in the kingdom work, but God creates the results. Again, it says, “‘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…”
I wanted you to see this time lapse of corn growing. It’s very interesting. Check this out. (Video www.dcpages.net of corn growing) Seed sprouts, and man doesn’t know how. With all of our videos and scientific cameras that we can put in there and what we’ve learned about agriculture, we know a lot about how they grow. But there’s still parts of it that are just a mystery; we don’t understand exactly why some seeds grow better than others in the middle of a growing season. We can afterwards look at what this might have been caused by pestilence. This might have used more nutrients, but really there are parts of it that are still baffling our minds.
As we participate in kingdom work, we cannot predict or determine the results. We do our part, and we have to trust God with His part. We can’t always predict how our efforts will unfold in the light of those that we invest in and that we scatter seed with. The Bible says, “As you do not know the way the sprit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.” It says the earth produces by itself. God uses a process that we can't fully see or understand.
The Greek word here when it says “it produces by itself” is where we get the word “automatic.” The idea is it’s growing without human cause that God is causing it, but it’s automatic without our causing it to grow. This reminds me of some of the missionary stories I read with my kids where people go to other countries. They’re focusing their efforts on a particular group of people or a particular region, but God directs things in such a way that other groups or other regions are impacted. They begin to grow and flourish, and maybe your target audience didn’t. At times this is frustrating, especially if you’re the missionary that has planned. But, it also produces a reliance on trusting God to move in the hearts of people as He sees fit, so we scatter seed. However, God is the One who we need to rely on more than the strategy or plans that we come up with.
Again, the Bible says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” We also learn that we can’t take credit for our growth or the growth of others. It’s God who makes it grow. We scatter the seed, we do our part, we’re faithful; but God is the One who makes it grow. I’m reminded of how our founding pastor, Harold Bullock, initially planted Hope Church and the journey he has shared with me before. He had done ministry before, and he was thinking that he would go back. In the 70’s, it seemed like Southern California would be a strategic place where there would be lots of influence and impact that could take place. It was, and it still is. I’m thankful that many of the churches that have come out of Hope Church have landed there and planted in that area.
However, Harold had to trust God and remain in Fort Worth, though at the time it didn’t make complete sense to stay here when he had had experience in California. I remember working through an exercise of developing churches throughout the U.S. as a staff. We did this with Harold a couple years back, and we looked at the difference in population sizes in cities in the U.S. I remember seeing how the DFW area has risen in the ranks of population size. In the 70’s, it was sort of one of the lower cities, and now it’s become one of the larger metro areas in the U.S. To me as I looked at that and as I experienced that, I remembered and thought about how God was allowing Harold and Hope to be in an area with a growing population. But that wasn’t apparent, until you looked back over 40 years; growth happens, and it happens because of what God is doing. We get to scatter seed, and we take our instructions from Him. But, God is the One who makes things grow.
The apostle, Paul, who we see as a hero in the early church, had a significant role in seeing churches started. He understood this, and this is what he said. He says, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted. Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” God is the One who allows these things to grow, so we see this parable of the seed growing. Somebody scattering seed, but it is God. The person scattering the seed goes to sleep, and while he is sleeping, this plant is growing. We can’t take credit for what God does.
My family and I have attempted to garden over the years. I will say “attempted” because we are by no means experts. We have learned a few things. I like to tell my wife every year, “We’re just going to do it again this year. We’re bound to learn something, even if we don’t get much of a crop.” But one thing we have learned is there is a time to scatter seed. There are more optimal times, and so we try to take advantage of that in the spring and the fall. If you want to garden, at some point you have to put seeds in the ground. If there’s no sewing, then there’s not going to be any growing. You’ve got to put some seeds in the ground at some point. As time goes on, you do tend the garden. You water it, you watch to see if you need to prune it, and you take care of pests and weeds.
Growth happens, but it really happens outside of our control. We do things that can promote health, but we don’t make it grow. I did not invent photosynthesis. If I did, that would have been really great. But even if I had done some of it, I can’t fully control it. We do some maintenance to the garden, but we leave it most of the day. It grows while we’re doing school and doing house chores that aren’t in the garden, when I go to work, or just sleeping. It’s growing, but there’s also a harvest time. Harvest time didn’t come before the sewing or before the growing. Harvest came after. There’s enjoyment at the harvest, and the reward comes when previous stages come to fruition. Even at harvest there are signs that we’re not in control. Not everything grows the same way or in equal proportions.
You can check out this picture from this year. It has one of our largest potatoes and one of our smallest potatoes with this year’s crop. Did we harvest one too early? When you look at that picture, you think maybe we did something too early. Maybe, but actually all the signs for harvest were there, and not every portion of the plants were ready in the same way. If we waited longer, we might have waited too long for some of the crops and lost the crops that were growing well. So when harvest time comes, you and I have to go to work. We can’t see what all the results will be, but there is a harvest time; and we have to go to work.
A harvest time brings urgency in our time. Again, this parable in Mark says, “But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.” When the grain is ripe—there’s a time for harvest in God’s kingdom. On an individual level, sometimes friends that we’ve been sharing with begin to ask more specific questions about the gospel or what it means to walk with God. They indicate that they’re really wrestling with making a decision to following Christ as we relate to them. We need to be there for them to help them answer questions and pray for them. Sometimes, we just need to be direct and ask questions that they’re not sure how to articulate. When you see the signs of harvest, you take the opportunity, and you ask your friends to follow Christ. You help them walk with Christ.
On a larger scale, the earth will be ready for harvest. Harvest will be when Christ returns, and the reaping of the earth will mean some will remain with Christ forever while others will remain separated from Him forever. The Bible says, “And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, ‘Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.’” With our individual stories, with our individual lives and individual friendships, there’s something we just don’t know. We just don’t know how long each of us will live, and there’s a finiteness to human history. So there’s always a sense of urgency when it comes to thinking about God’s kingdom and people’s final score with God. There’s always a sense of urgency, and that urgency is to share the Good News of the kingdom, the good news that people can have a full life and be connected to the Source of all life.
It’s both present for us now, but it was also present in the early church. Paul writes out of concern for those who have yet to receive the gospel, and he says this, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’ So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.” Again, right back to the beginning of this parable of scattering the seed; it all begins through scattering the seed through the word of Christ.
This urgency, though, of our loved ones being made right with God before they step into eternity—this urgency compels us to share with those we love. It also compels us to look for where there are people who have not heard. Find them, and share with them the Good News. When my wife and I went to India back in 2004, I went to a place that was one of the most unreached places. I thought, “This is it. I’ve got an opportunity to sew seed here.” If you’re not careful, though, you begin to rely on yourself in those situations. God reminded me even there He had been working ahead of me. We found God’s children in some of the darkest places on earth, and they were for sure needing help. They were for sure being persecuted, and there was a great need to continue to share the gospel and encourage believers. I was reminded God is constantly at work, and He’s calling us to work alongside Him.
This urgency should drive us to spend our lives scattering seed. It should drive us to want to share the Good News with those around us. But I also want to caution you not to give up on people; as you work with people, sometimes they don’t respond right away. You feel like you’ve been doing this for a while, and we kind of lose this sense of urgency. We lose this sense of “Really does it matter?” It seems like my days are monotonous and mundane. Sometimes people don’t seem like they’re going to respond anytime soon. They may not respond soon in our concept of time, but I would encourage you to keep praying for them. Sometimes our lives get very difficult, and sometimes, both for believers and unbelievers, we face difficulties.
We can’t always see what God is doing with the seed that we’ve scattered. This is part of the lesson from this parable. We do our part, but we have to trust God with His—the growth process, both the growth of God’s kingdom throughout the earth and the growth of the work in the unbeliever’s heart and even the growth in our own lives. Something I learned through some of this is also something I learned through growing potatoes. When you’re growing potatoes, you don’t harvest them when everything above ground looks good and green. It seems like that would be right for harvest. No, it’s not. With some plants, maybe, but not with potatoes. With potatoes, they kind of look like they’re about to shrivel up and die and fall over. When that top part looks like that, you’re getting close to harvest.
Paul spoke of not losing heart when things don’t look good. He says, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” A well-known theologian and professor, Dallas Willard, a guy who is from our time, says this reflecting on this passage. He says, “This is the challenge I face every day when I wake. It walks with me through the events of each day. Will I, like Moses, ‘endure as seeing him who is invisible’?” ...cause things aren’t looking good, so will I “...endure as seeing him who is invisible? Will I listen to God and then obey? For me this tension is what it means to live as one who is learning from Christ how to live in the kingdom of God. Right where I am, moment to moment, I sweat it out with my brother, Paul: ‘My visible self may be perishing, but inwardly I am renewed day to day...producing something far greater than my troubles, and eternal in its glory, while we disregard the seen and focus on the unseen.”
We don’t want to lose heart in the things that are seen because there’s something that’s unseen. When you’re growing potatoes, you can’t base it on what you see above ground. There’s stuff that God is doing that only God can do in the growth process, and growth is kingdom work, working in the hearts of those around us. So let us not give up; let us continue to scatter seed. Let us continue to be ready for the harvest. If you’re a believer in Christ, you’re ready for Christ to return. And yet, He’s called you to work alongside and to scatter seed and help others be ready for the harvest. Those who don’t yet believe—we want to pray for them and trust God to do what He does in the hearts of them.
So, let’s pray right now that we ourselves continue to be faithful in scattering seed, trusting God for the growth, and being ready for the harvest. Let’s pray. Lord, we are so grateful that You created reality such that there is growth, that we don’t stay in a seed-like form. But, You desire fruit; You intend fruit and intend things to have a purpose beyond just the seed that it starts with. You grow Your kingdom in ways we don’t fully understand, but it is good as we look back and see how You’ve done it. We trust You with that, and we’re grateful that we’re part of that. We pray for our friends and loved ones and even people we haven’t yet met that don’t know You. They are disconnected from the Source of life. We pray that You would allow us to scatter seed into their lives, that You’d let us share the gospel, that You would help us be aware of when we can do that, and that we would do that faithfully and not sparingly. We would really share the gospel and spread the seed as a busy worker about Your kingdom’s will. We thank You. We love You, and we pray that You would have mercy, that the harvest as it comes, You would be patient with those who have not yet decided to follow, and that You would begin even now to let that seed of the gospel germinate in their hearts. That You would begin to grow in them a desire to turn to You, the Source of life—and that they would make You their King. Help us not to give up in doing good. Help us not to give up in scattering the seed, but do it willingly and not delay. We pray these things in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
