Turn to Mark chapter 4. The title of the message is Growing
in Grace. Growing in Grace. The Word of God teaches us that
there is a growth in grace and of the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if we do grow in grace, and
if you're born of God, you will. If you're alive, you'll grow.
If you grow in grace, it will be
through knowing Christ, the knowledge of Christ. Not just knowing some
facts. Not just knowing some facts, but to know him. As Paul said, oh, that I might
know him. It's not a knowledge of facts.
It's a relationship. It's like, you know, I know my
wife better now after 30, almost 37 years. If I mess that up,
I'll realize how much I know. But after about 37 years, I know
her better than I did 37 years ago. And as we grow older in
Christ, and we know more of Him, we grow in grace. You see more
of that graciousness, that kindness, that joy that is the fruit of
the Spirit. You see more of it in a believer
as they grow in grace. and in knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. But let me say a few words, just
a few words before we deal with this, about the kingdom of God. As I was working on this, it
just struck me that the kingdom of God is a very real kingdom. It is a very real kingdom. came
through an election and people divided up and drew lines in
the sand and, you know, hot debates. And I thought, you know, the
kingdom of God is every bit as real as this one. And we ought
to be just as hot for that one. Now, listen. No, no. Let me say
this over. More so. More so. We need to be far more on fire,
heated up. over the kingdom of God than
the kingdom of this world. This is a kingdom of darkness.
It doesn't matter what nation you talk about. Outside of Christ,
it's a kingdom of darkness. The whole world lies in wickedness,
and that includes every nation on this earth, every one of them.
But God's kingdom is a real kingdom. Just because it cannot be seen
with the physical eye does not mean it's not real. There's a
lot of things I haven't seen that's real, a lot. In Luke 17,
20, it says this, and when he was demanded of the Pharisees
when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said,
the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. It's not like
you're going to see a tidal wave coming and it's the kingdom of
God. No, the kingdom of God is already
here. It's the church. You know the kingdom of God is
among you when you have the gospel preached to you. When the gospel
is preached to you, the kingdom of God is among you. And we need
to be more mindful, and think about this, we need to be more
mindful of God's kingdom, which is an everlasting kingdom, than
this kingdom of man. And then secondly, it is a spiritual
kingdom. In Luke 17, 21, the Lord said,
Neither shall they say, Lo here or lo there, for behold, the
kingdom of God is within you. Christ in you? He's the king
of that kingdom? Or it can be translated like
this. The kingdom of God is with you among us. But it's also within
you. It's a spiritual kingdom. God
is spirit. And his kingdom is a spiritual
kingdom. And then the kingdom of God is
a kingdom of righteousness. Oh, that's it. As I've gotten
older, that's good news. You turn the news on, do you
hear righteousness? Do you hear things that are right
and things that are joyous? Is that what we heard this last
week or two? We've gotten a taste, once again,
every now and then, every once in a while, God allows a man,
or a man or woman, but in this case a man, He allows a man to
do something tragic, awful, to remind us, this is you. By nature, it's us. It's us. And every once in a while, God
withdraws His hand and allows it to happen. And men will say, why this? Why
that? It's a kingdom of darkness that
we live in. And you, the believer, are the
light of the world. It's the only light in this world.
It's the church. But God's kingdom is a kingdom
of righteousness. There'll never be any bad news
in His kingdom, you know, when this is all over with. When this
is all over with and all sin has been put away, everything's
been dealt with, everything's put away, all enemy's been put
under his feet. There'll never be one message
of bad news. You'll never hear one thing about,
did you hear what they did? Did you see what happened? If we do, it'll be, if we say
that, it'll be concerning the glory of Christ. It'll be concerning
something good, something good. And then the kingdom of God is
made up of sinners saved by grace. That's what it's made up of.
It's not made up of a bunch of good people, it's made up of
a bunch of people whom God has saved from their sins. It is
made up of sinners redeemed by the blood of Christ and regenerated
by the spirit of God and the elect angels. That's the kingdom
of God, it's a very real kingdom. And everyone who believes the
gospel, every one of you here who believe the gospel, you make
up a part of that kingdom. And that's the kingdom we ought
to be most concerned about, that kingdom. Now, let's get to the
parable here. In verse 26, and he said, the
Lord said, so is the kingdom of God. as if a man should cast
seed into the ground. Now, you'll notice before this
parable here, he gave the parable of the sower. And the last thing
he ended with was the good ground. But now that good ground needs
to be sowed, doesn't it? That good ground is not going
to produce fruit of itself. It's not going to say, well,
it's good ground. No, it won't. I'll tell you what
you do. You go plow a garden. Go fertilize
the garden. Clean it all up, take the rocks
out of it and see what it produces. I'll tell you what it'll produce.
Weeds. It'll produce weeds if it's not sown. Now, if you sow,
if you sow corn, you sow corn in it, you take care of it, you
sow corn in it, guess what it's going to produce? Corn. First
of all, there has to be a sower. And God is a God of means and
he uses men. In casting the seed, what I'm
doing, what you did this morning, Frank, what you teachers did
in the Bible class, what I'm doing right now, I'm casting
the seed. That's all I'm doing. That's
all I'm doing, is casting the seed. You know, this earth, if you
leave it alone, what will it bring forth? Thorns and thistles. Weeds will take over. If you
do not take care of a garden, weeds take it over, don't they?
They'll take it over and choke out the fruit that you planted
in it. If there is to be corn, a farmer
must cast the seed, he must sow the corn. If there is to be an
experience of grace in the soul, there is the preaching of the
gospel. There is the casting of the seed. But God must plant it in the
heart, the new heart, not that old heart. There's got to be
creation of a new heart, which is the good ground, and that
seed is cast into that good ground. And God must give the increase.
He must give the increase. Even though I may be standing
here casting it, sowing, I'm not the one who can make it live.
I'm not the one who can give it increase. All I can do is,
what does a farmer do with a seed? Does he create the seed? No.
He just takes it, bites with his hand, and he just tosses
it out there, just tosses it out there. And it grows. It grows. Mysteriously, it grows.
He knows not how. Paul said this, one plant and
another water, but God giveth the increase. The work is of
God. Secondly, I've only got four
points, this is the second one. The work of grace in the heart
is mysterious. It is mysterious now. It says
in verse 27, and should sleep. The farmer sleeps. The preacher
sleeps, he goes home, he sleeps. He rises night and day and the
seeds should spring and grow up. He knows not how. What a mystery. What a mystery
there is in that. The preacher is not to be anxious,
first of all, about the outcome. You know, religion puts so much
pressure on their preachers to produce results. That's why they
go through all these methods, you know. They'll show movies
on burning hell, scare people into making a profession. They're
trying to get results. I'm not trying to get results.
I'm just casting the seed. The result is in God's hands.
It's in his hand. It's not in mine. You know how
easy that makes it for me? I mean, preaching itself is not
easy, but I tell you, trying to convince a bunch of rebels
to love someone they hate, someone who has whose mind says it's
enmity with God. For me to try to turn that around,
you kidding? You better also go down and stop
the high river. than to do that. But God can do it. God can take
a rebel and turn him into a lover of Christ. God can do that. He did it with me. He did it
with many of you. He can do that. Oh, he knows
not how. He knows not how. The preacher
is not to be anxious about the outcome. It's of God. All the
worry in the world has never, ever made one grain of corn grow
up, has it? You worry, you wring your hands.
It's not going to do anything. It's not going to do anything
at all. It won't accomplish anything. And it won't save a sinner either.
It will not save a sinner. When the farmer plants his corn,
he goes home. and goes about his business.
Just as I'm preaching to you right now, I pray the Lord bless
it, because I know that the blessing, the increase is of God. But I'm
not going to go home and be anxious and worried whether this is going
to make it or not or whether this... No, it's in His hands.
It's in His hands. I can do nothing. I can do nothing. No more than
a farmer can do that. He just plants it. What are you going
to do? Go out there and dig it up every day and see if it's doing anything?
If you do, you'll mess it up. Just put the dirt over it and
let it do its process. Preach the gospel and let the
process. Whatever God's process is with it, that's what it is. We can do nothing. It's of God.
Whatever takes place under the dirt, When you bury that grain,
it's mysterious. You know why it's mysterious?
Because you and I don't have anything to do with it. It's
of God. It's of God. How the grain of
corn must die in order to produce more corn is mysterious. But
Christ said he had to die. He gave that example. He said,
I must die. Just like that grain of corn must die if there is
to be fruit, if there is to be much fruit like it. In the same
manner, I must die if there to be many sons of glory like me."
That's what he's saying. Oh, how mysterious is the work
of grace. How much more mysterious is that
work of grace in the soul. How one listens to the gospel. We've got God's Word, preaching
the gospel, and all of a sudden, There's an interest. It's like, you know, you plant
the seed in the garden and you go out the next day or the next
week and it's still just bare. Then you go out one morning and
there's a little old plant just sticking up out of that dirt.
How that plant pushed its way through that dirt is mysterious. I mean, think of that. The strength
of that plant having to come up through that dirt that's buried
on top of it. How mysterious is it that a person
comes here, it may be here, these children, these children, they
talk the gospel, and one day they've got an interest. I mean,
I don't know when that seed was sown, when it really sown, but
one day they have an interest. One day they have a real conviction
of sin. One day they're really concerned
about their soul. And one day they believe on Christ. They can't help but believe on
Christ. Did you make yourself believe on Christ? I didn't.
I couldn't help it. I heard the preacher of the gospel
and I said, that's the truth. That's the truth. I'd have to
lie if I said I didn't believe it. It produces life, faith, repentance. And yet the person sitting beside
of you, no interest at all. No interest whatsoever. That's a mystery, isn't it? It's a mystery. It's a mystery
because it's the work of God and not of men. And it goes on
on the inside. It takes place on the inside. You see like that seed planted
in the ground, All that's going on is underneath the dirt. You
can't see it. You can't see that mystery of life, that germination
and all that's going on there, no more than you can see what's
going on in a man's heart. Christ does, because he's the
one making it go on. He's the one producing it. Thirdly,
the work of grace manifests itself gradually. gradually. For the earth, in
verse 28, for the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself, first
the blade, that's how it happens, then the ear, after that the full corn in the
ear. When the grain of corn is planted, you do not go out the
next day and there is a full mature stalk of corn ready to
eat. It took months, didn't it? It
took rain, it took sunshine, it took fertilize, it took plowing,
it took weeding, it took all this, and all of a sudden, here's
this little old shoot coming up. Little old shoot. Even so, grace
manifests itself in the heart gradually. That's what he's saying. Gradually. We grow in grace. Gradually. We start out as babes in Christ,
it's what tells us over in 1 John. We start out as babes in Christ.
We grow to be young men and men and women in Christ. And then
old men and women in Christ. There's some young men and women
in Christ in here. Babes. There's some old men and
women in Christ in here. This is a good reason to be slow
to judge a man's relationship with God, to be patient with
one another, because it is gradual. It is gradual. Just like we take
these children and we send them to school. We went to school. You start out in kindergarten,
first grade, and you go right on up until you graduate. Except
in this one, you don't really graduate, do we? We just keep
on growing. Keep on growing. So it says in 2 Peter 3, 18,
but grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grow in it. Seek to grow in it. Seek to grow in it. And then
fourthly. God knows when the harvest, when
to harvest his fruit. God knows when to harvest his
fruit. The farmer does not go out and pick the corn when it's
green. It wouldn't be any good, would
it? He knows when the harvest time
has come. And he knows that there's this
period of time that this fruit that he planted months earlier
is ready and ripe for the picking. It's ripe. Some of God's children are ripe
sooner than others. We think, why did he or she die
so young? You know why? The Lord just gave
it to us. They're ripe. They're ready. That's why he took them. They're
ripe. There's no mistakes with God.
No mistakes with God whatsoever. When the Lord takes one of his
own, whether that person be young or old, he was ripe and he just
put in the sickle and he took that fruit home, took it home. Now, in closing, what do we see here? What do
we learn? First, that God uses men to cast the seed. What I'm
doing is extremely important. It's the most important thing
that I'll ever do in my life. It's the most important thing
that anyone will ever do in this life. It's casting the seed.
Because this life's going to be over within a short while.
Casting the seed. Secondly, grace is the work of
God in the heart. It's the work of God. It is a
mysterious work. Thirdly, it's a mysterious work.
And fourthly, it grows in stages. First, the blade. in the ear
than the full corn in the ear. It grows in stages. And fifthly,
when the believer is ripe, ripe, mature, ready, God will take
him or her home. That's what He's saying. I'll
take them home when they're ripe. Some die younger. They're ripe
a lot earlier. What God's purpose for them in
this life was accomplished. And he says, now it's time for
this one to come home. Grow in grace. Growing in grace. Growing in grace. I pray that
we do more of it. Oh, that we do more of it.