Good morning, everyone. If you
would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter four. Mark the fourth chapter. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverend, is your matchless name. Father, we dare only come
into your presence this morning, pleading the person and the work
of our Lord Jesus Christ, pleading his obedience is our only righteousness,
pleading his blood is the only cleansing that we have from our
sin. And father, how we thank you
that you have promised us in your word that we can come accepted
in the beloved, not because of anything about ourselves, but
all because of who Christ our Savior is and what he has accomplished
for his people. And Father, we thank you. And
I beg of you this morning that you would enable us by thy spirit
to lift up and magnify the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That Father, by faith we may
see him, be humbled, enable us to fall at his feet and to truly
worship him. Give us a true hour of worship. we pray. And what we pray for
ourselves, Father, we pray for your people wherever they're
gathered together this morning. Father, we ask that you'd bless
for your great namesake and for the good of your people. Father,
we're thankful for the many blessings of this life, how richly that
you've blessed us. And Father, we thank you. Knowing
everything we have has come from by hand. It's not because of
our merit or our ingenuity, but All a gift of thy grace, and
Father, we thank you. And Father, we pray a blessing
for those that you brought into the time of trouble and trial.
There are many right now, Father, who need you especially. They're
sick, they're brokenhearted, they're recovering from various
surgeries and treatments. We thank you for the good rapport
in our sister Jackie, and Father, pray you continue to strengthen
and heal her through this healing process. Now Father, we ask you
to forgive us of our many sins and all of our failures and weak
faith and ask that you would see us only in our Lord Jesus
Christ. For his blessed name, for his
sake we pray, amen. I've titled the lesson this morning,
Growth from Small Beginnings. Last week we looked at a parable
that the Lord taught, the spiritual life, how it grows. It grows
like the farmer's crops. This week, we're gonna look at
another parable that the Lord taught on a very similar subject. This parable teaches how both
the individual believer and God's church, they both grow from very,
very small beginnings. And that's comforting for us
and encouraging for us to hear. We don't have to despise the
day of small things. Yes, it might be small, but now
you just never know what the Lord's gonna do with it. You
know, it could be that the Lord's going to do something very great
with it. And it'd be just like the Lord to do it that way, wouldn't
it? So let's look here, beginning
of Mark four, verse 30. And he said, where unto she alike
in the kingdom of God, or with what comparison shall we compare
it? It's like a grain of mustard seed, which when it is sown in
the earth is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. Now,
great things come from small beginnings. That's what the Lord's
teaching us here. The mustard seed is the smallest seed of
all the herbs that people would plant in their garden. But when
it's grown, there's a type of mustard seed that grows up to
kind of like a tree-like looking thing. And when it's full grown,
it'll support the weight of birds to come and sit in it and rest
in it. They find safety in it. Maybe
they find food in it, too. I don't know. But all that plant
came from the smallest seed they need by plants in their garden.
So the first thing I want us to see is about the individual
believer. The faith of every believer begins
with very small things. Faith in a person's heart begins
when that person hears the gospel. And almost always it's just in
a normal weekly service. This is the service that we have
every week. And while the word's being preached,
the Holy Spirit moves through silently and plants the seed
of faith in the heart. Now that planting almost always
goes unnoticed. It probably goes unnoticed by
the sinner. It goes unnoticed by everybody
else around them. And it takes a while for anybody
to realize that seed's been planted in the heart, but now it's been
planted. And we're not gonna notice that
that seed's been planted until it starts to grow. That seed,
the seed of the word that God plants in the heart, it grows
because the Spirit's given life. Now where there's life, there's
growth, isn't there? If a plant's alive, it grows.
Animal life, if it's alive, it grows. Human beings, we grow. The same thing's true of spiritual
life. It grows. You know, first, there's a babe
in Christ. Then there's growth to a young
man in Christ, and finally an old man in Christ. Your human
life starts that way, doesn't it? We don't even know at first
that an egg's been fertilized, but before long, now if that
egg's been fertilized, it's gonna grow, and before long, everybody's
gonna know a seed's been planted. That mama's belly's gonna come
out, we're gonna know a baby's growing in there. And always,
seems like later than we want, that baby's finally born. That
baby grows into a toddler, grows into a child, grows into a teenager,
and then finally to a full-grown adult. Now look at all these
full-grown adults sitting around here. We all started with a microscopic
embryo that can't be seen with the naked eye. But look what
it's grown to. Well, spiritual life starts the
same way. It starts in humble beginnings,
and God causes it to grow as it pleases Him. Now here's the
thing. Almost every believer gets so
discouraged about our growth, our spiritual growth, our growth
in faith. We get so discouraged and think,
there's just no growth. Or I used to think I saw some
growth, but now it looks like I'm regressing, you know. And
we get so discouraged about that. But now, remember this. It doesn't
take great faith to say, It takes a great savior to save. And the
smallest amount of faith in him that lays hold on him allows
us to receive that salvation. The confidence that we have is
not in the strength of our faith. If your confidence is in the
strength of your faith for long, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Our confidence is in the strength of the savior. Look back at Matthew
chapter 17. Don't despise that little small
bit of faith and spiritual life that's the size of a mustard
seed. If it's faith in Christ, it's great. Matthew 17, verse
19. Then came the disciples to Jesus
apart and said, why could we not cast him out? There was a
demon there, they could not cast him out, but the Lord did. And
Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief, For verily
I say unto you, if you have faith as the grain of a mustard seed,
you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place,
and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
If we have even small faith in Christ, that's what the Savior's
saying, nothing's impossible. I don't think he's there talking
about physically moving mountains, but how about removing the mountain
of our sin? the mountain of our unbelief,
the mountain of this nature that keeps us from coming to Christ,
just the smallest amount of faith will overcome that and enable
us to come to Christ because with God all things are possible.
See, all this doesn't happen because of the strength of our
faith, it happens because of the power of God. Not the power
of our faith, with God all things are possible. And the Lord's
use of the mustard seed here as an illustration of our faith.
That's an excellent example. Every believer would say, my
faith is small. Just it's so small, it's not
worth talking about. It is the size of a mustard seed.
And I tell you why a believer will say that. Somebody that
truly trusts Christ says that because we never trust him enough.
We never believe him enough. We're never gonna be satisfied
with the strength of our faith as long as we're on this earth.
And interestingly enough, after we leave this earth, we won't
need faith anymore. So never in our experience will
we say our faith is strong enough. Anyone who thinks they have great
faith, you beware of them, they probably don't have any. If you
think you have great faith in Christ, you probably don't have
any. Now here's a good warning to us. Now every believer does
have faith, don't they? They have faith in Christ. But don't have faith in your
faith. Make sure your faith is in Christ. Don't rest in the
fact I have faith. Rest in the fact I trust Christ. My faith and trust and hope and
rest is in Him. You know, I hear people on TV,
you know, after some tragedy or something, you know, where
they've lost everything. And you hear them say this so
much, now I'm going to get through this because I have faith. Now
I'm going to get by on my faith. And I do not, Trust me, I'm not
picking at words here. I don't want to pick at words,
and I certainly don't want to pick if somebody's just had this
tragedy, you know, they don't say something just right. But
I'm just warning you and me, let's be careful that we're not
trusting in our faith. Because we've just seen, you
know, the Lord said, if you had faith the size of the grain of
a mustard seed, well, that tells me our faith isn't even that
size. It's smaller than the grain of a mustard seed. Let's not
trust in our faith because we ain't trusting it much if we're
trusting our faith, are we? Because it's so weak. Let's have
our trust in Christ. You know, I trust Christ, he'll
provide. I trust him, he's gonna give me the strength to get it,
he's gonna see me through, I trust him. He's all powerful. I'm nothing, he's all powerful.
And he has the wisdom. He has the wisdom to save in
such a way he's both just and justifier of the ungodly. Now,
if he can take care of that, my spiritual need, he can take
care of these other needs down here too. I trust him to have
the wisdom to do it. You see, there's a difference
sitting there and saying, well, I have faith and I trust Christ. I'm looking to him and waiting
on him. That's where we need to come to. So the second thing
is this, the faith of every believer. Now it starts out very small,
but it will grow. Now you just wait, just wait
and give it time. It'll grow. And faith in Christ
grows by two means. First, the preaching of God's
word. The word of God. This is the
basis of everything we believe. That's why we go through it verse
by verse, line upon line, precept upon precept, chapter after chapter.
We go through a book at a time, you know, going verse by verse.
Because this word is the basis of everything we believe. As
far as the salvation of our souls go, If it's not in this book,
we don't believe it. Now I might think it to be true,
but I don't know. If it's not in this book, we
don't believe it. And if it is in this book, we
believe it. Even if I don't understand it.
There's a lot in here I don't understand. But I believe it,
don't you? I believe it. That's faith. Saving
faith always believes God's word. And this whole book, is written
to reveal Christ to us. It's not written to tell us how
to live. It's not telling us what to do, what not to do. It's
written to reveal Christ so we believe Him. That's the subject
and goal of this book. And the more we hear Christ preached,
the more we learn of Him. I mean, that just makes sense,
doesn't it? The more we hear of Him, the
more we'll learn of Him. Well, the more we learn of Christ,
the more we'll trust Him too. Saving faith just grows from
hearing Christ preach. The more I hear of Him, the more
I'll believe Him. Second, faith grows through trials
that the Lord sends our way. You know, the first thing I said,
faith grows by hearing the preaching of God's Word. Everybody says,
oh, I like that. I like to come and hear God's Word and my faith
grow. And then we hear our faith is only going to grow through
trials. Everybody goes, oh, I don't want those. But you know, faith
will only grow when God sends us trials. It's just like that
mustard seed. Somebody plants that mustard
seed in their herb garden. Well, that mustard seed's gonna
need a mixture of things. It's gonna need some sunny days
in it. It's gonna need some rainy days. It's gonna need some stormy
days. It's gonna need all those things put together to grow. Our faith is the same way. Our faith is just not gonna grow
when everything's going our way. Faith grows through trials. You
know, when God sends us a trial, this is what it always does.
It always takes us past our ability to handle things on our own.
Trials are always more than we think we can bear. And they're
certainly always more than we want to bear, aren't they? but
the Lord's got to bring us to the end of ourselves. He's got
to bring us to the point in a trial that we see this is past my ability
to handle. I can't handle it. I can't do
anything about it. I can't solve it. I'm completely dependent
on the Lord. That's where the Lord brings
us to the point in a trial where we're just completely dependent
on him. We know there's nothing I can
do. I've just got to depend on him. Then the Lord acts to relieve
the trial, but not before. See, trials teach us this, the
Lord will deliver. He will deliver. So next time,
we're gonna know. Next time a trial comes, I'm
gonna know better by experience, just wait on the Lord. Just wait
on Him to deliver. Being content to wait on the
Lord to do what is best in His time. That's a growth in faith. Trials teach us this. God's grace
is truly sufficient to comfort us in times of trial. I can't remember a time that
I didn't know that verse where the Lord told Paul, my grace
is sufficient for you. I can never remember not knowing
that. I mean, it's just known as long
as I can remember, you know? And I always believe that's true.
God said it, so it has to be true, right? Then when the Lord put me in
the furnace, there came a time I quit praying
that the Lord would deliver me. Honestly, I quit praying that
the Lord would deliver me. And so many times I would say,
Lord, just give me grace for just this second. Just this second. Just give me grace that's sufficient
for just this next second. Just these next few seconds,
you know? And you know what I found out? God's grace is sufficient. It didn't take away the trial,
didn't take away the suffering, it didn't take away all the things
that made the trial so difficult, but he gave grace to bear it.
He gave comfort. Well, next time, this is what
I sure hope, I'm gonna know. Now, God's grace is sufficient
in this, and I'm gonna keep begging him for it. I don't know if Lord's
going to deliver me from this trial or not. I mean, could be
the Lord's going to use this trial to take me out of this
world. I don't know. I mean, I just don't know. I
mean, you know, we could say, I hope the Lord's going to heal,
but I don't know. But here's what I do know. His grace is
sufficient. His grace is sufficient to comfort
your heart and enable you to enter. I know that because God
said so. Now if you want your prayers
answered, I'll tell you what a good idea is. Pray what God already
promised. Pray what he says here in his
word, and he'll do it. Because that's what he's promised
to do. Trusting that God's gonna do what he promised to do. Because
I've learned this by experience. That's growth in faith. I'll
tell you something else trials teach us. The things of this
life aren't nearly as important as we thought they were. You know, almost everybody, I
reckon, as they get older, don't we always say, oh, I wish I could
do this over again, knowing what I know now. And one of the things
we know now that we didn't know then is this. The things of this
life just aren't as important as we thought they were. Trials
teach us this. I need heavenly things. I need
the Lord's presence. I need His grace. I need His
leadership. I need Him. That's what I need. Trials show me this, how much
I need Christ. I need Him. And knowing how much
I need Christ, that lets me keep all the little things of this
life in the proper perspective. And the whole scheme of things
is pretty small. It's pretty small compared to how much I
need Christ. Growth in spiritual life. and
growth in faith lets me keep these things in their proper
perspective. Now you gotta take care of them. You got a job,
you better take care of it. Job's hard to come by, you better
take care of it. You better do a good job. You better be the
best worker in the plant, because that's what God tells us to do.
But keep it in perspective. Don't let it stop you from seeking
Christ, because I must have him. Give me Christ or else I die. That's growth in faith. And I'll
tell you something else about growth in faith and growth in
spiritual life. It's always the opposite of what
the flesh looks for. When you think about somebody
just maturing in faith and maturing in this thing of spiritual life,
what we tend to look for is somebody who's got more self-confidence,
who's got the ability to just be faithful in all things and
do all these things just right. They got the ability to tell
everybody else what to do. I know what you ought to do because
I've experienced it. A person is just a shining example
of what a Christian ought to look like. But do you know that
true growth in faith, true growth in spiritual life is not a growth
upward. It's a growth downward. True
growth in faith makes us see ourselves as less and less and
less and less. It's a continual seeing how that
we're less so we don't trust in ourselves. At the same time,
we're growing downward in our own estimation of ourselves.
We're seeing Christ more clearly than ever, and he's growing in
our estimation. We're seeing him more and more
and more sufficient, more and more and more glorious. We can
say with John the Baptist, I must decrease, but he must increase. That's growth in faith, growth
in faith is growth in dependence on Christ. It's not growth in
being able to do things on your own, handle things on your own.
Growth in faith is growth in dependence on Christ. I use the
example of a child growing from an embryo. Well, we raise that
child to be more independent, don't we? And then all of us
parents, then we cry when they're independent, go off and leave
us, but we raise them to be independent. But that's the opposite of growth
in faith. In growth in faith, we grow more
dependent. You know, I have known men and
women who I considered to be giants in the faith. I really
did. That's the word I would use to describe them. They're
giants. But you know the thing that's similar about all of them?
Not one of them considered themselves to be a giant in the faith. Not
one of them. They all saw themselves with
faith the size of a mustard seed. They didn't see themselves as
anything special at all. I'm more dependent on Christ
than I ever was. That's being a giant in faith.
That's faith that has grown. Now, that faith and that spiritual
life, it's gonna grow, but it's gonna grow slowly. You just remember
that, it's gonna grow slowly. All right, third, the Lord is
teaching us not just about the individual believer, but about
his church, his kingdom as a whole. He says, where unto shall ye
liken the kingdom of God? He's talking about his whole
kingdom, all of his people. Now, the kingdom of God began
in the mind and purpose of God when nothing was created, when
just God existed. But look what it's grown into.
The nation Israel in the Old Testament, they're a picture
a spiritualist, or aren't they? They're a picture of the true
church. That whole nation started out with one man who was an idolater.
That's how it started. He and his wife, and God promised
them they'd have a son when they were too old to have a son. Now
look what that nation's grown into. Born in the stars of heaven,
aren't they? The New Testament church began
the same way. I mean, very, very humble beginnings.
The New Testament church started out with 11 men and a few women. You know what they were doing?
They were hiding for their lives. Their Lord had just been crucified
and they are pretty sure they're going to be next. They're scared
to death. They're hiding for their lives.
Now the Lord told them, I'm going to be crucified. I'm going to
suffer and die. And the third day I'm going to rise again.
Sure enough, the third day, some women came to him and said, we
saw the Lord, the Lord's risen. And they couldn't believe it.
They just could not believe it. Now the Lord used that bunch,
who's weak in faith, they're just a ragtag, uneducated bunch
of people, to turn the world upside down. They spread their
gospel of Christ across the whole world. And I'll tell you why
that happened. It wasn't because the power was
in them. You're going to trust the spreading of this gospel
to the power of Peter? No, I don't think so. You're going to trust
this thing of growth in faith to Thomas? Don't think so. You're going to think this gospel
is going to spread across the whole world by the mouth and
pen of Saul of Tarsus? Don't think so. But look what
happened. Because the power was not of
them. The power was of the Lord. The powers of the gospel, the
power unto salvation. The power is found in the Savior
that they preached. That one man, by his one sacrifice
for sin, made untold millions of people righteous by his sacrifice
and by his obedience. He made more people righteous.
He justified more sinners than we could ever count. The sacrifice
of one man did what rivers and rivers and rivers of animal blood
in the Old Testament could never do. He put away the sin of his
people. One man. One man hanging on a
cross between heaven and earth, deserted by everybody that was
his friend. Deserted him and left him completely alone. His
own father turned his back on him. I mean, nobody's been more
alone than Christ on the cross. That's pretty humble beginnings,
isn't it? but look what it's grown into. The church on earth almost always
grows very slowly, very slowly. Now I know there's occasionally
been a revival and it seems like large numbers and big things
are happening, but usually, almost always, the church grows slowly. We read about on the day of Pentecost,
3,000 souls were added to the church. Well, that doesn't happen
very often, does it? Normally, we had one or two,
one here and one there. That's how it normally grows.
This work, this local church, let me tell you how it began.
It began with 15 or 16 people meeting in a funeral parlor that
we borrowed. They didn't charge us, we borrowed
it. 15 or 16 people. I preached, and then John Chapman
preached. 15 people. And we've almost been homeless
twice since then. We've almost been without a place
to meet twice since then. But the Lord has consistently
blessed the preaching of his word. Now there's been growth,
you know, in numbers. But I'll tell you what thrills
my soul even more. There's been growth in grace. There's been
growth in faith. I see that the Lord's blessed
his word. Now it's been slow. But sure
enough, it happened. Sure enough, it happened. The
Lord has saved his people. The Lord's comforted his people.
The Lord's given his people a message that they could die by. The Lord,
he's blessed his people. 15 people heard those messages
that first Sunday. Last month, over 1,400 messages
were heard on sermon audio from this bullpen. in 37 states and
31 countries. Now, I know that's not, still
not much, is it, in the whole scheme of things, but it's growth. And that happened from very humble
beginnings. And you just take that story
and apply it everywhere. That's the story of God's kingdom.
That's what Christ is saying here. And I tell you how all
that growth comes. How does the Lord cause all that
growth in his people and in his church? How does he cause that?
It's by the most simple preaching of God's word that you can find.
Look at verse 33. And with many such parables spake
he the word unto them as they were able to hear it. But without
a parable spake he not unto them. And when they were alone, he
expounded all things to his disciples. The Lord always preached in parables,
using examples like the farmer's field, using the example of a
herb garden. Everybody knows the size of a
mustard seed. These are things everybody, believer,
unbeliever, child, old person, everybody understood exactly
what the Lord was saying. They understood his illustration
because it was just common things. The Lord used one and two Sometimes
three syllable words. I mean, this is wisdom personified.
I mean, you think about this wisdom personified, but he spoke
in ways that children can understand what he's saying. You might not
believe what he said, but you understood what he said. That
was a Pharisee's problem, wasn't it? They understood what he said.
They just hated it. They wouldn't believe it. We're
to preach the same way. We're to preach in the simplest,
plainest language that we can find to use. You know, the only
difference between us and the Lord is the Lord had the power
to give faith, you know, when he wanted to. We had to preach
and depend on him to do it. But we're to preach this very
same way that the Lord preached in clear, simple terms. You just don't know. How much
that I pray for each one of you and how much I want the Lord
to save you, to give you faith in him. How much I want the Lord
to bless these messages to your heart, to edify you and encourage
you and comfort you and cause you to grow. You just don't know
how much I pray for that, how much I want that for you. And I can't give it to you. I
can't give it to you. But this is what the Lord's telling
me I can do. I can at least make you understand what I'm saying.
And maybe the Lord will give us faith to believe Him. Maybe
the Lord will be pleased, in spite of all of our weakness,
to give us some growth in spiritual life and faith in Him. I sure
pray He does, don't you? All right, the Lord bless you.