Sermon: Small Beginnings - Pastor Gary Anderson

let's pray god may your favor be upon us may you give us peace because we can't find peace anywhere in the world we can only find it in you and so we ask that you would give it to us this morning god thank you that you are a god who answers prayer that you are a god who covers every gap and thank you that we can trust you with whatever our lives or whatever is in front of us in our lives if you are with us we're gonna be good i pray now god that you would turn our hearts uh to your word i pray that you would calm our hearts that you would quiet them that you would prepare us for what it is that you would teach us in this moment i pray god that you would open eyes and open ears to the truth and the beauty and how compelling the message of your gospel is i pray that you would speak very clearly through me in this moment i pray that this would not be in any way shape or form um a performance or a clever presentation i pray that this would just simply be an act of worship in which we spend time with you and the word that you have given us we pray it in jesus name amen you can be seated today we're in the gospel of mark yes uh mark chapter four i'm trying to find it too mark chapter four starting in verse 21. mark chapter 4 verses 21 through 34 and this is what they say and he said to them is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand for nothing is hidden except to be made manifest nor is anything secret except to come to light if anyone has ears to hear let him hear and he said to them pay attention to what you hear with the measure you use it will be measured to you and still more will be added to you for to the one who has more will be given and from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away 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 and he said with what can we compare the kingdom of god or what parable shall we use for it it is like a grain of mustard seed which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on earth yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade with many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it he did not speak to them without a parable but privately to his own disciples he explained everything this is the word of the lord thanks be to god there was once a fabulously wealthy man who had an incredible passion for art he had one young son and he instilled in his son the same passion for art that he had because he was so wealthy they spent their time traveling the world amassing one of the finest private collections of art ever picassos van goghs rembrandts monets monets whatever else they're both artists uh because of his fabulous wealth he was able to amass an incredible private collection of art and because of his shared love of art with his son over the years they spent building that collection their love for each other grew incredibly deep and incredibly strong as young boys do that young boy grew up and became a young man and like so many in his generation he went off to war and also like so many young men in his generation he did not return and his death caused his father a grief which he never really got over many years passed and the father himself died having no living heir his will instructed that his estate was to be sold at auction beginning with the art collection this caused no small stir globally in the art community because for years there had been rumors and speculation of what actually was held in this collection and so on the day of the auction the art world descended on this man's estate art collectors investors institutions museums they all sent representatives salivating at the opportunity to add one of this man's pieces of art to their own collections his great hall was filled hundreds of people and the auctioneer at the appointed time came to the front and asked the crowd to quiet down and he said ladies and gentlemen we will now start the auction please direct your attention to the front of the room as we bring out the first piece for sale and as the attendants came out white gloves on holding the painting in their hands and set it on the easel a few people started to laugh a few people started to snicker and someone in the back of the room said what is that my favorite podcast right now actually is my been my favorite podcast for several years is a podcast called revisionist history it's by malcolm gladwell he's the guy he's an author he wrote books like outliers and the tipping point revisionist history is his podcast and this is what the tagline is or the description for revisionist history says it says it is this it is a journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood every episode re-examines something from the past an event a person an idea even a song and asks whether we got it right the first time because sometimes the past deserves a second chance it's a podcast all about things overlooked and misunderstood a lot of them are obscure some of them are obscure a lot of them are things that you and i would recognize and he does i think an amazing job of looking at things that have happened in the past and saying public opinion got it wrong we missed it on this one one of my all-time favorite ones that he has done he makes the argument that a more fair democratic and equal way to elect our leaders would be to pull names out of a hat instead of a majority election and you laugh but he actually makes a really i did too when he started the podcast and by the end i was like i think he's right i think we should do it that way he's like 60 episodes in and showing no signs of slowing down and the reason it's so popular the reason i like it so much is because it speaks to a problem that all of humanity shares we all have this problem we all are very quick to make judgments and opinions without knowing the whole story even though we know we're not supposed to we are constantly judging books by their cover and more often than not we get it wrong think about the little restaurant hole in the wall that you've passed a hundred times and you're like based on how it looks from the outside i'm not sure it has passed the county health inspection and then someone tells you you got to eat there or someone invites you to go eat there and you do and you find out that it's the best food you've ever had you judged the book by the cover and you got it wrong or think about it this way uh think about the doctor who you meet with and the doctor is short not physically short uh emo relationally short um condescending doesn't answer your questions makes you feel stupid and you're like this is not the doctor for me and then you go home and you find out they graduated top of their class at harvard medical school and they're one of the top doctors in their field or conversely you meet a doctor who is kind and gracious and patient and answers all your questions and you're like this this is my doctor and then you find out they don't know what they're doing because you judge the book by its cover or when your daughter brings home a boy and he's got earrings and tattoos and a motorcycle you know what judge that book by its cover we're just gonna we're gonna nip that in the bud you can just judge that book by its cover if you're with us this morning and you have earrings and a tattoo and ride a motorcycle we love you and we are glad that you are here and you are welcome in this place we are constantly judging books by their cover even though we're not we know we're not supposed to and more often than not we're getting it wrong we're continuing our series today uh called let's go which is a study of the gospel of mark and if you can believe it it's been several months since we started it some of you were like oh i know it's been several months and so i thought today just for a quick moment it would be healthy to have a refresher on what this series is all about we're calling it let's go because we believe that mark's gospel was written by mark who was a friend and traveling companion and translator for the apostle peter and the apostle peter of all the apostles was the guy who was about that action and so we're calling this uh we're calling this series let's go because the gospel of mark is this fast-paced action-oriented gospel that is all about that action because it's really the gospel according to peter the message that i try and draw out as many weeks as i can of the gospel of mark is that following jesus is more than about what you believe in your head and what happens in your heart it is certainly not less than those things but it is about what you do with your hands as well and i want to preach today on the topic of small beginnings the title of this message is small beginnings we're in the middle of chapter four and because mark's gospel is this action-oriented fast-paced story of jesus life he unlike the three other gospels matthew luke and john does not give us a lot of big chunks of jesus teaching it's a lot of stories it's a lot of action it's not a lot of teaching but here in chapter four is one of the few spaces where mark gives us a long section of what jesus taught and all of jesus teaching in mark chapter four including the parable of the sower which we looked at last week and the three parables we're looking at today are all centered around the same theme which is one of the major themes of the gospel of mark which is the idea of the kingdom of god and if you remember last week i believe it was verse 12 jesus says to his disciples to you has been given the secret we said it was also could be could be known as the or could it could also be translated as the mystery of the kingdom of god and these three parables we're looking at today that i just read that feel kind of weird and kind of obscure you're kind of like what are these getting at they are all centered on the same idea the same theme this idea of the secret or the mystery of the kingdom of god and though mark did not have the words when he wrote this somewhere around 60 a.d i think if he had he would not be opposed to us summarizing these three parables by saying what mark is communicating here is don't judge the kingdom of god by its cover don't judge the kingdom of god by its cover because this is the first thing i want us to see in this passage sometimes the kingdom of god doesn't look like much sometimes the kingdom of god doesn't look like much i haven't heard that a lot in sermons probably but that's what it's saying in the text so let me remind us of the context here mark is writing sometime in the 60s not the 1960s the origin the 060s he's writing to gentile christians who are in rome at that time the christian religion was this little little-known sect mostly made up of the poor and common people that had kind of broken off of judaism it had not found any traction in the centers of intellect or academia or politics or power of the time and in fact these gentile christians who had converted to christianity in rome are under incredible persecution daily they are watching people from their church be fed to the lions in the coliseum or or lit on fire to light nero's dinner parties as the emperor of rome they have not it's not like they've been a little bit accepted they are being totally persecuted and remember they don't have the new testament they don't have a book that they can go to to look at here's what jesus said here's how he said it we believe mark was the first gospel written maybe they'd heard one or two of paul's letters but everything they are going on their conversion has been based on first and second and third hand accounts of this guy who lived in jerusalem in judea across the mediterranean and somehow through the power of the holy spirit they have come to believe that he is god and he was who he said he was but they have no documents they have no bible at this time so imagine you're one of these christians in rome you're trying to figure out what this is all about you're facing all kinds of heat and persecution and someone from your home church is like hey did you hear that mark wrote a story about jesus and you're like yeah i've heard of mark and he's like yep it's a he wrote a biography it is hot off the printing presses and our pastor got a copy they're gonna read it at church this weekend and so it's like awesome so everyone packs into the house church lights are probably kept down low it's in some back alley so it won't be real obvious what's going on but all these people are packing into this room and someone pulls out this scroll and starts reading the gospel of mark and through the first few chapters you're like this is what i'm talking about the kingdom of god is here people are getting healed sick are being healed jesus is going after the religious people like now i get why i signed up for this and then and then the attendant whoever's reading it gets to chapter four and he gets to verse 20. 26 of chapter four and this is what he says the kingdom of god is as if a man should scatter a seed on the ground and if there was music playing you know if they had brought in a keyboard to kind of go behind you know play behind uh the reading of the gospel of mark uh it would have screeched to a halt like and someone in the back would have probably been like hey you got to read that line again i think you messed it up because the kingdom of god is like what the kingdom of god is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground you are facing heat day in and day out you don't know if tomorrow is the day you're going to be arrested or you lose your life and you need to hear in this moment that the kingdom of god is like an army of unicorns that shoot lasers from their eyes and here's mark saying here's what jesus called his kingdom it's like a bunch of seeds scattered on the ground and you've lost your job your family thinks you're crazy you don't know when you're gonna die and you're like i gave that all up for a bunch of seeds and just in case the point wasn't made the guy keeps reading and comes down to verse 30 and he says this with what can we compare the kingdom of god or what parable shall we use for it it is like a grain of mustard seed which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth and you're like this is what the founder of my faith is calling his own kingdom a bunch of scattered seeds on the ground and you're like actually when you think about how it all played out that kind of made sense because the common opinion of jesus in his day was that he was a fake imposter rabbi whose followers were a who's who of the rejects outcasts and losers of the day he was a jew who died on a cross and their own scriptures said cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree and mark is like hey just just a little bit of a reminder he himself said this thing wasn't going to look like much i haven't done a lot of international travel which is unfortunate but it is what it is but a few years ago my wife and i had the opportunity to go to paris that's uh france not kentucky though i'm sure that's great too and we spent uh a few days doing the major tourist stuff in paris and it was wonderful now uh i am not an art guy one of the one of the most one of the images most ingrained in my mind of my freshman year of college is how hard it was to stay awake in our appreciation when the lights would go down and the slideshow projector would come up but i am enough of a citizen of the earth to know a little bit about the most well-known piece of art in the whole world the mona lisa and so when we went to france one of the places that we went was to the louvre where the mona lisa is housed and i i know i'm walking out on some thin ice here with all of you art connoisseurs who are with us today but i also know i'm gonna see some nodding heads uh with from some of my people when i say this we went to see the mona lisa this is this is the most valuable piece of art in the world it's it's it's priceless but i saw an estimate this week that they think it's worth over 850 million dollars it'll never be sold so you could never actually realize that but most valuable piece of art in the world and you go up into this enormous room and there's a thousand people and you go find the mona lisa and i'm not sure how better to describe this except to say i was kind of expecting something more it it's it's about it's about 12 inches by 12 inches maybe a price probably bigger than that but it's it's just small and it's a painting of a woman's face there was no glow around it people weren't getting healed in front of it every couple minutes money didn't fall out of it it it was now i again i know all the art people are like i'm about to walk out and please don't please don't be offended it just i was expecting something more and that's exactly what jesus is saying the kingdom of god is like he's like when you know who god is when you know what i've said and what i'm all about and then you actually see what my kingdom looks like it's kind of like a bunch of seeds that are scattered on the ground it's kind of like the smallest mustard the smallest seed the mustard seed and here's what i love about the bible is what was true 2000 years ago is still true today i know some people would be like that's why i don't believe it's true because if jesus was the king if he was son of god who he was who says he was and you look at the church today and you're like that's a mess like that can't be true and i'm like it's why i believe the bible is true because 2 000 years ago jesus was like this thing doesn't look like much and today we still see that it doesn't look like much i i i am not one of those people who is like the church has never been in more turmoil than it is right now i know enough about history to know that the church has been through all kinds of stuff over the last 2000 years but we sit at a at a pretty unique moment in in history for the the church of jesus christ there is a level of disunity there is a level of dissension there is a level of unkindness and that's being generous there's a level of just downright meanness amongst those who call themselves followers of jesus christ right now that is appalling it's it's awful and for those of us who follow kind of the the the christian news cycle uh which is like not super encouraging because every week it's like there's another scandal someone else committed adultery someone else embezzled money from their church another case of abuse or sexual abuse or misogyny or church splits or whatever it is and it's like it's like followers of jesus now some of them some of us we are showing more passion and allegiance to ideologies than we are to the gospel of jesus christ [Applause] whether you're inside the church or out it is really easy to look at the church of jesus christ and be like this is it this is the this is the body of christ this is this is the hope of the world like good luck with that let me know how that's going to work out for you because sometimes the kingdom of god doesn't look like much but but something is happening something is happening look at verse 27. so so jesus is like my kingdom's like a bunch of seeds thrown on the ground verse 27 says the guy who threw him he sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows check it he knows not how jesus is like he throws that seed out on the ground and then he just goes about his life he goes to bed and he gets up and he does the work that he has to do and he goes to bed and he gets up he does the work that he has to do and he goes to bed and he gets up and he has the work that he has to do and while he is doing that something is happening something is happening that he can't see and he can't even explain and then again in the parable of the mustard seed jesus reiterates it again verse 32 it says he says yet when it is sown what it grows up the seed is sown and what happens it grows up and both of these i mean don't miss how closely this is connected to what we talked about last week with the parable of the sower and we talked about how it wasn't that the the seeds did anything themselves to grow it was that the sower caused them the god and his word have a supernatural power to do things that we can't even understand and so jesus is saying yeah my kingdom doesn't look like much but what you need to recognize is that even though it doesn't look like much something's happening something's happening underneath the surface something's happening that your five senses can't perceive something's happening that you can't even explain i know uh i know that i'm guilty often times of using more masculine focused um illustrations and so i know some of you in here are like no more stories about the browns i don't care about the cleveland browns and so this is for all of you people here's what it's like it's like a woman who's pregnant a woman who becomes pregnant initially she doesn't know what she doesn't know she doesn't know what's going on she just gets up and does the things that she needs to do and goes to bed and gets up and does the thing that she needs to do and goes to bed and all the while something is happening out of sight out of mind that is amazing and is beautiful and is a miracle and were she to know what was happening she couldn't even explain how but something is happening while she just goes about her daily life but here's what happens eventually there's start to be signs that something is happening underneath the surface right she wakes up in the morning and she wants to throw up the food that normally she loved now makes her want her gag and conversely stuff like pickles and mayonnaise she craves it's weird she starts to gain weight her her clothes don't fit the same way anymore she can't sleep well at night she's uncomfortable all the time and without knowing what was going on what would she say this is miserable this is awful but those are simply the signs that a miracle is taking place underneath the surface out of sight yeah things may look like they are a mess but something is happening that we can't perceive and this is a word for somebody in here today as a pastor i have a lot of conversations with people who are like where is god why is nothing happening why is he not doing anything and in these few short parables it is like jesus is calling us close to him it's like he's like come here i gotta tell you something something is happening you may not be able to see it you may not be able to feel it if i were to tell you what it was you probably wouldn't believe me and i you wouldn't even understand it if i explained it to you but i am doing something i am working something out of sight i am growing something beautiful i am doing something in your life that you wouldn't believe if you were told jesus says in john i am a paraphrase my father is always working and i am working even when we can't see it he's working even when we can't feel it he is working and so if you are feeling stuck this morning if you are like where is god if you are like there is no gas in my tank there is no wind in my sails there is no electricity in my tesla hold on because he is doing something that you can't see right now he is doing something that your five senses cannot perceive right now cannot observe right now even though the kingdom of god may not look like much he is doing something and we don't know how and that brings us to the amazing beautiful truth that these three obscure hard to understand parables communicate to us in mark chapter four and that is this looks can be deceiving looks can be deceiving so far we've looked at the the kind of the second two the two number two and number three of these three parables that jesus gives so let's circle back to the first one about the lamp being hidden under the basket jesus starts it off by saying he said to them verse 21 is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand for nothing is hidden except to be made manifest nor is anything secret except to come to light in english verse 21 gets smoothed out a little bit it's a little bit awkward in greek the kind of literal translation from the greek jesus says this does the lamp come in he doesn't say a lamp it has the article he says does the lamp come in so he's not just talking about some random lamp lamps don't walk lamps don't come in by themselves he's talking about the lamp the light john 8 the light of the world who is jesus christ himself he's talking about himself in verse 21 he is saying he's saying i may look like i am hidden right now i may look like i'm concealed right now i may be confusing to you right now it may not make a lot of sense but it is not always going to be that way because what is hidden will be made manifest a lamp is not meant to be kept under a basket it is meant to be put up on a stand for all to see and to give light to all in the room he is saying there will be a day where i will be revealed and in that day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that i am the lord [Applause] because the lamp is not always going to stay under the basket looks can be deceiving first thessalonians 4 16 paul talking about the last day for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of god and the dead in christ will rise first jesus is like don't be fooled i may not look like much now but one day the clouds are going to part and a trumpet will sound across this entire globe and everyone will recognize who i am and what i am all about you could miss his first coming poor baby in a backwater manger you will not miss his second coming because looks can be deceiving and this is the same theme that's just carried through the next two parables first 29 when the grain is ripe and once he puts in the sickle because what the harvest has come this random seed scattered on the ground has now turned into a huge harvest not because of anything the farmer did and then in the parable of the mustard seed uh verse 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade most scholars think that is a reference to the kingdoms of the world coming into salvation in the kingdom of god this tiny insignificant mustard seed has become this huge plant that the nations of the world are coming into for salvation yeah it doesn't look like much when it gots get started but looks can be deceiving jesus is saying the baby is going to be born the baby is going to be born and you will see the new life that i have been building this whole time out of sight that you couldn't understand and all the miserable moments the the morning sickness and the and the uncomfortableness and i don't think that's a word and the feeling i get to go to the bathroom all the time and not being able to sleep and labor it is all going to be worth it because i am creating a miracle of new life i am doing something that you wouldn't imagine if you were told these three little obscure parables in mark chapter 4 should have us running the aisles and jumping up and down in praise to god why because this is us it is the kingdom of god it is the story of the kingdom of god and it is the story of our lives there are so many of us in fact probably most of us who look at our lives and we are like this is it this is this is the big this is like this is not what i expected this is this looks like a bunch of random seed thrown on the ground this is this is kind of a mess but the promise of these verses is that it is not how you start it is how you finish and though it may not look like much now something is happening and looks can be deceiving he is the god who makes rivers in the wilderness he is the god who makes streams in the valleys he is the god who feeds thousands from a few loaves and a few small fishes he is the god who takes a tiny seed and turns it into an enormous harvest and so it is with his sons and daughters philippians 1 6 i am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of jesus christ looks can be deceiving so the first piece of art was brought out and put on the stand people laughed people snickered somebody said what is that it was a portrait it was a portrait of a young man but it was clearly done by an amateur nobody knew who painted it looked like it probably should have gone on the refrigerator not in an art museum and the auctioneer said we'll start the bidding at ten dollars do i hear ten dollars a few more laughs a few more snickers awkward silence and then a hand went up in the back it was the it was the wealthy man's gardener he'd worked for him for decades and he knew the sun he recognized the portrait as a painting of the man's son who had died at war one of his friends one of his son's friends had painted it for the man after his son had died and whatever great piece of art had been on the mantle it had been replaced by this portrait of his son and it became the most beloved piece in his art collection and though the gardner had very little money and he was only there really to observe the the chaos that was happening at this auction he loved that boy and was glad to have a painting so he bid ten dollars the auctioneer said i see ten dollars do i hear fifteen silence going once going twice sold for ten dollars you could sense in the room like all right got that over with let's get on to the good stuff and then the auctioneer closed his book and hit his gavel he said ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's auction and chaos ensued and when the room was finally able to be quieted down the auctioneer said this he said uh the instructions were very clear according to the will of the father whoever takes the sun gets it all [Applause] looks can be deceiving whoever takes the sun gets it all i know sometimes it doesn't look like much a poor jewish carpenter hanging dead on a cross because he claimed to be god a ragtag group of followers who each and every one went to as embarrassing a death as jesus 2 000 years later still a ragtag group of followers just trying to figure out how to follow the call of jesus in their life but please remember as you leave today that looks can be deceiving because whoever takes the son gets it all [Applause] take the sun let's pray god once again we are struck and and humbled by the truth that we find in your word you did not paint for us in in your holy scriptures an unrealistic picture of what it means to follow you you did not give us any indication that it was going to be sunshine and roses affluence and ease you told us if you can get behind a bunch of seeds scattered on the ground then you might be someone who can follow me and god we thank you and we praise you that though that's what it looks like from the outside there is more going on than meets the eye you are at work even when we can't see it even when we can't feel it and we stake our hope in that today god give us the courage and the strength to carry on until you reveal to us what it is you are doing in our lives god i pray um i pray for those who might be here in the sanctuary or watching online who have never made the decision to trust you with their life who have never said i cannot save myself i need you to do it for me i pray god that you would move in their hearts even in this moment to show them that you are the source of life you are the source of hope and you are the very thing they have been longing for got to pray for someone else today who might have been walking with you for a long time but has grown weary and tired waiting for the seeds to sprout into something more god give them strength give them endurance give them courage to continue to get up do what you have put in front of them and go to bed and get up and do what you have put in front of them and go to bed and trust in the midst of the grind that you are doing something they cannot see we love you we can't fathom that you love us but we know that you do and we praise you for it go with each of us god as we leave this place may we be the salt and light that you have called us to be we pray all these things in the precious name of jesus amen you can stand [Music] uh normally and a lot of you i think know this uh in in normal times uh we would have people down here in the front from our prayer team who would be available to pray with you if you need prayer uh and talk with you if you wanted to know more about what it meant to follow jesus with your life because of colvid we're not doing that right now but we have people outside myself included there's a tent out there if you need prayer if you want to know more about what it means to be a follower of jesus i or one of our elders would find it an incredible privilege to talk with you after this service [Music] let's receive the benediction the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you the lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace until our savior comes and then forever amen you are loved and you are prayed for and you are sent [Music]

Channel: Abundant Life Christian Fellowship

Views: 59

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Abundant Life Christian Fellowship, ALCF

Id: BwgTnxZjNHw

Length: 39min 12sec (2352 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 02 2021