“[The farmer] sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself.” Mark 4:27-28a ESV¹

Read Mark 4:26-29

I felt so lazy as I sat in the house while copious amounts of snow fell from the sky and a ferocious wind swirled it about. My husband was on a business trip. He asked me not to worry about shoveling the snow; he would take care of the snow removal when he came home later that evening. At first, I was satisfied with the arrangement, but the weather continued to worsen and, because of the storm, my husband’s flight was delayed. Now, no longer would he be getting home in the evening; he wouldn’t arrive until almost midnight. I felt I had to do something to help.

I shoveled the sidewalk and in front of the garage. It was heavy, wet snow, but I slowly conquered a ginormous drift and felt empowered to tackle more. I started up the driveway, but the drifts got taller, and as I began to tire, the snow seemed heavier. But I was determined; I was going to at least clear a place at the entrance of the driveway for my husband to park his vehicle and shovel a path for him to get into the house. It took me almost two hours, but I accomplished that which I set out to do. By that time, though the wind threatened to destroy my work, the snow had almost come to an end. Exhausted but satisfied, I returned to the house with a smile on my face as I imagined how proud my husband would be of me.

But when my husband finally got home, I didn’t receive the gushing display of gratitude I had expected. The first words out of his mouth were, “I told you not to shovel the snow. I said I would do it. You could have gotten hurt.” He went outside, fired up the snowblower, and was finished with the remainder of the driveway in less than half an hour.

By lifting with my legs, I had been careful to not hurt my back, but that doesn’t mean the next day I wasn’t in pain. The unnecessary job which I had attempted to valiantly perform had been too difficult for me. My arm muscles were so sore that it hurt to even put up my hair in a ponytail. As I struggled through the discomfort to do my normal activities, I wondered why I had attempted to do what I was told not to do, had been so laborious for me, and made my usual responsibilities harder for me—especially when that thing had been so easy for my tall, strong husband, with the right equipment to do.

But isn’t that what we, as Christians, are so often are tempted to do in our daily lives and in our ministries? Because it is so uncomfortable to wait and it feels so lazy to do nothing, we can find ourselves doing things we haven’t been asked to do, that are far too hard for us, prevent us from doing what we are supposed to do, or are meant for someone else much better suited. In the next parable we will consider, Jesus revealed the solution to that problem.

“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’” (Mark 4:26-29).

This parable was among those that immediately followed The Parable of the Soils. Jesus was continuing to share farming illustrations with the crowd. This parable expanded on the fourth kind of soil to which Jesus referred earlier—the good soil which was rich, deep, clean, and capable of producing a crop that would grow and mature, thrive and increase, and yield from thirty to one hundred times what was planted. This kind of soil was representative of those “‘who hear the Word and accept it’” (Mark 4:20a), “‘hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and … with patience’” (Luke 8:15b), “‘bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold’” (Mark 4:20b).

The Parable of the Growing Seed sheds further insight on why those represented by the good soil were able to produce a crop. This parable, only found in the Gospel of Mark, is one of the first of the Kingdom of Heaven parables. When speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven, both Mark and Luke use the phrase the Kingdom of God. Perhaps that phrase helps us to better understand what is meant by the expression Kingdom of Heaven because at the heart of the Kingdom of Heaven is a Person and its central point is that of a continuous relationship. “Being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, [Jesus] answered them, ‘The Kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There!” for behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you’” (Luke 17:20-21). The Kingdom of God is a government that rules in hearts not so much from high and lofty places of honor. All of the Kingdom of Heaven parables are intended to teach some aspect of God’s relationship with humans.

So, what is so relational about a farmer who sows seed in his field and then allows nature to take its course?

The Heart of the Matter

When we realize that the seed which the man scattered represents the Word of God, or the Gospel, (see Mark 4:14) and the soil is a picture of the hearts of those who hear the Gospel, the relationship between God and man, represented in this parable, becomes clearer. Much like a farmer or gardener scattering seed on fertile soil is the first step to a successful harvest, the acceptance of the Gospel message and the response to the One whom it proclaims depend on the condition of the hearer’s heart. Elsewhere Jesus taught about the significance of the heart:

“‘For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks’” (Luke 6:43-45).

One thing is required for the seed of the Gospel to be planted and take root in the heart of a human. One thing determines if a person’s heart is like fertile soil in which the Word of God can mature and bring forth fruit. That one thing is, simply, faith.

Once, a group of people in search of what God required of them approached Jesus. “They said to Him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent’” (John 6:28-29). Belief may not sound like work, but it does take conscious effort and it is exactly what is required to begin and sustain a relationship with God.

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith” (Colossians 2:6-7a).

The Care Package

Besides planting seeds, a farmer or gardener who expects a harvest is responsible for caring for his/her crop. He/she does this in two ways: 1) by fertilizing and watering it and 2) by weeding it and keeping it free from pests. Similarly, those who have responded to the Gospel have two joys: 1) to nourish what was planted in them by spending time with God and 2) to protect that which is growing in them by abstaining from sin, selfishness, or anything else which would crowd out or compete with their love for God. I say joys because, unlike the responsibilities of the farmer or gardener, these are not done out of duty but out of love.

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:30).

Nourishing and protecting one’s relationship with God takes the same work of faith that made that one’s heart receptive to the Gospel initially. What might not be immediately understood is that neither of the ways one cares for the Gospel seed planted within his/her heart can be done by one’s own strength or will power. Relationships are two-sided; they require initiative by both parties. From the stronger one in the relationship, more is required. Relationships don’t succeed where the weaker party attempts to do all the giving and the stronger party does all the taking. (In case you didn’t realize it, we are the weaker ones when it comes to our relationship with God).

In the same passage where those who seriously wanted to follow God asked Jesus what was required, Jesus shared an important truth about following God. He told them, “‘Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal’” (John 6:27, emphasis added). This comment had nothing to do with their physical needs but everything to do with what was necessary in the spiritual world. The most important thing that is needed in sustaining a relationship with God cannot be earned and it cannot be gained by humanly working a little harder, it can only be given. And it is only given to them who believe. When one continues in faith, everything else necessary to live the life God intends will be given to him/her.

“Stop striving and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a NASB²).

“His divine Power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

God has a standard for you—to be like His Son. And God has a responsibility for you—to do what His Son would do. But He doesn’t expect you to accomplish what He commands in your own power; He knows you can’t. But He gives you everything you need to rise to His expectations.

“You were ‘made alive’ in Christ to be exclusively at His disposal, so that by the Holy Spirit He may monopolize your total personality and give expression to Himself through your behavior … The image will never be perfect or complete down here on earth, but the degree in which by your free consent, you live to and for Christ, is the degree of your spirituality; the degree in which you still live to and for yourself is the degree of your carnality …

You are to live exclusively ‘to and for Christ,’ and to consider yourself ‘alive to God’ only by virtue of what you are ‘in Him.’ You cannot accomplish your own redemption, and you cannot accomplish your own sanctification! It is ‘according as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue’ (2 Peter 1:3): faith takes what God gives, and God gives what man needs! All that he needs! …

A man’s worth is not primarily a matter of scholarship [or anything else obtained by human effort], it is essentially a matter of relationship—relationship to Jesus Christ.”³

“In other words, if Christ assumes responsibility for our lives, what remains for us to do? … Paul prays for the Christians in Ephesus that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith (see Ephesians 3:14-19). Here we see a great work that faith accomplishes for us and in us, moment by moment in order to allow the living God to work His will in us. Christ will accomplish the work … Just as the Father lived and worked in Him, so Jesus lives and works in us. The Son expressed the Father. We are to express Christ. The Father worked in the Son, and the Son gave expression to that which the Father brought about in Him. Christ works in us and enables us to carry on His work. This is His gift to us.”⁴

Our gift to God is that we let Him do His work in and through us.

The Helping Hand

Consider the farmer in the above parable. As he “goes about his business day by day, the seed begins to have an effect. First, the seed sprouts; then it produces a stalk and leaves, then a head of grain, and, finally, fully developed kernels in the head. Jesus [emphasized] that all of this happens without the man’s help. The man who scattered the seed cannot even fully understand how it happens—it is simply the work of nature”⁵

All of what a farmer does is based on faith. He/she does not attempt to help the seed germinate by prying open the outer husk. He/she does not pull on the sprouting plant to make it grow taller. He/she is not able to pollinate it. He/she does not, by his/her pleading, make it produce seeds. He/she cannot make the sun shine or the rain fall. He/she can do nothing but wait and allow the One who created plants and determined how they should grow and mature to do the work He has designed them to do.

Similarly, we as Believers do not decide what God will do in and through us. We cannot somehow force God’s hand and bend Him to our will. We cannot in our own power ultimately make anything grow or anyone mature. It is not our responsibility to create a harvest. Nor is it our right to take credit for what happens. Our responsibility is to simply believe, trusting God to do that which only He can do. In such manner, we are doing what we were designed to do.

“‘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’” (John 3:8).

For those who have no experience with growing plants, it may be helpful to step away from the farming illustration and into something else which explains this concept.  Pastor Eric Ludy, in his sermon entitled, In Christ, gives this illustration about an airplane:

“An airplane is able to accomplish something we as mere humans can’t; it can fly. It can defy a law known as gravity. You [can] try to flap your arms and you mean well and [say], ‘God I want to fly for You!’ … We flap our arms … as Christians [asking], ‘God, is this pleasing to You?’ [God responds], ‘No, you see, you can’t please Me in attempting in your own strength to do something that only I can do for you. What pleases Me is faith. When you turn to Me and say, “God, could You fly for me?”’ …

“If you go to an airport and you esteem how that plane works, … just looking the plane does not give you or bequeath to you the strength of the plane … There’s a secret to flight; … you can’t just be near, staring at a plane, and … you can’t sing songs of praise about a plane, you must be in the plane. When you enter into a plane and the plane starts moving, you do not need to hold the plane up. You do not need to flap your wings to help it. All you need to do is abide. You need to rest and allow the plane to do for you that which you could never do for yourself—which is fly. The secret to overcoming the Law of Gravity is to enter into the strength, the virtue, the power, the efficacy of a higher law; the Law of Aerodynamics trumps the Law of Gravity. We are under the Law of Sin and Death … You can try in your own strength to make it to the Throne Room of Grace and you will fail. But Jesus Christ has made a way for us in and through His death, His sufferings on that cross. He has opened us an avenue that, when we put our confidence in it and enter into Him, [and] we rest in His work and say, ‘It’s sufficient. I don’t need to work something up. I just need to remain in faith in Him and my life will change. My life will begin to work.’ … Guess what? It does.”⁶

It is in an intimate relationship with God, established by the gift of the Holy Spirit and referred to in Scripture as being in Christ, that one receives what is needed for the Gospel seed which was planted in his/her heart to come to maturity. In Christ, one is able to fulfill all the requirements and plans God has for him/her.

“I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion” (Philippians 1:6).

And it is by being in Christ that one is able to take part in something bigger than oneself.

A Share in the Dividends

Those who become Christ-follows do so by accepting the Gospel message and entering into a relationship with Christ by faith. Believers continue in faith allowing what was planted in them to grow to maturity. But it isn’t only their own maturity that those in Christ are interested. There is a great, big world full of people who were designed for and desiring the same thing.

“‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into His harvest’” (Luke 10:2).

The man in The Parable of the Growing Seed didn’t plant just one seed deep in the good soil of his own heart, he scattered the seed everywhere on the ground. Just as he cared for the seed planted in his heart, he, undoubtedly, in some way, weeded and watered the seed he had scattered. As he watched and waited, God worked: “He [slept and rose] night and day, and the seed [sprouted and grew]; he [knew] not how. The earth [produced] by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.” (Mark 4:27-28).

But the story didn’t end there. Something wonderful happened next. There was a harvest! “But when the grain [was] ripe, at once he [put] in the sickle, because the harvest [had] come’” (Mark 4:29). Though he did very little of the work in actually producing the grain, the man got to fully participate in the harvest. Likewise, as we plant, and water, and weed, and watch, and wait, God works in our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister bringing all things to maturity.

You may have “planted the seed, [you or someone else may have] watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

If we abide in Christ and let God do the work that only He can do, there will be a great harvest in which we get to share. Eric Ludy continued his airplane illustration with:

“You know the hardest place to stay is in a position of faith? [If you are] in the plane and [you’re] flying [and] you’re actually seeing the realities of Christianity at work within you, and at a certain point over the Atlantic, you say, ‘God, thank you for giving me a head start. I think I have this flight thing figured out,’ so you open up the door to the plane and jump out and say, ‘I can do it from here’ [you will no longer be flying!] What’s the secret to making it through this journey? It’s not just entering in at the beginning; it is believing all throughout the journey that the work on the cross is your work. When you come to that Judgment Day, don’t reach into your own pockets and come out with some lint. When God says, ‘What is the merit by which you can enter into My Kingdom?’ Your answer is very simple, ‘I’m in Christ.’⁵

“‘The way God uses His Word in the heart of an individual is mysterious and completely independent of human effort.’ May we be faithful in ‘sowing the seed,’ praying for a harvest, and leaving the results to the Lord!”⁴ And God will be faithful to lovingly let us have a part in the harvest.

It is a comfort and a delight to be married to a man who loves me, cares for me, helps me, shares with me, and is so concerned about my well-being that he takes care of all the things which are physically too difficult for me. It is an astounding privilege to be in a love-relationship with All-Mighty God who, to a greater degree than humanly possible, loves, cares, helps, shares, and gives everything we need “for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).

Let’s not get impatient and attempt to do in our own power that which God never intended for us to do. Instead, as we rest in Christ and allow Him to work in us, may we let “Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,” (Ephesians 3:20) do that which is impossible for us. When one day we stand before His Throne, may we hear, “‘Well done, good and faithful [servants] … Enter into the joy of your Master’” (see Matthew 25:20-21), not, “‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness’” (see Matthew 7:23). The secret to being victorious over all is being in Christ.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

 

¹ Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.

² Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995

³ Major W. Ian Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ and Mystery of Godliness (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 272-277.

⁴ Andrew Murry, Daily in His Presence (New York: Multnomah, 2004), February 5.

⁵ https://www.gotquestions.org/parable-growing-seed.html

⁶ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OGBF0TeiIU, the airplane illustration starts at about at the 3:42 mark.

For further study, check out these articles: https://blueturtletrails.com/soil-conditions/ and https://blueturtletrails.com/the-work-of-god/