Learning the Methods of God

Text:  Mark 4:21-34

Proposition: God’s methods are often counter intuitive to man’s, where we are cautious He is bold; where we withhold from others He withholds from us ; where we doubt small beginnings He sees giant outcome.

Introduction:  A man was explaining the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. He said it was like a rope going up through a hole in the ceiling and up there was a pulley. The rope went around in the groove of the pulley and came down through another hole. He said that if he were to just grab hold of one of the ropes and jump off a ledge he’d fall down and be hurt. In order to suspend himself he needed to grab hold of both ropes. In the end, when we are able to see how the pulley balances things we’ll see that it was but one rope, not two. Perhaps what he was getting at is that the tension between what God can do  that is so often beyond our understanding is balanced by what God puts within our hands and leaves to us as an entrusted responsibility. As Jesus taught the crowds He emphasized the responsibility of people to grasp hold of the Word. The parable of the Sower and the Seed emphasized the importance of having a receptive heart and mind to the gospel. As Jesus continues to teach the people He holds out the tension of the sovereignty of God and the free will of man’s responsibility in a series of parables. What we glimpse in these are the methods that God chooses to use in the establishing of His kingdom, how one moment He accomplishes it all on His own and how in the next He makes it imperative that man contribute to the process. Have a look at three parables that Jesus used to teach the methods of God in Mark 4:21-34.

I. Our Responsibility Is To Follow the Ever Deepening Path of Salvation.        This is not a new concept for us, we know that when we graduate grade one that we are still not prepared for what comes next. We enter grade two with the expectation that when we graduate there will be entrance into grade three. When it comes to being a Christian how many grade levels are there? If grade one is where I first ask Jesus to be my Savior, how many other grades are there? Part of the free will of man is that he is responsible to continually be engaged in the knowledge and wisdom and relationship that God intends for him. A couple of weeks ago we talked about the parable of the Sower and the Seed, the emphasis being the responsibility of man to prepare his heart to receive the Word. Now Jesus says that since you passed grade one of receiving the Word, move to grade two which is to place that Word on a lamp stand. It would be ridiculous to stick a lamp under a peck measure or under a bed, not only is that a silly or illogical thought, it would waste the purpose for why you had received a lamp in the first place. The lamp is so that people can see what not to trip over, to be both a spot light and a search light. It amplifies truth and it draws others to the truth. So the process moves from seeds being sown to light being shown! What would it mean for you and I to put our light on a lamp stand? Perhaps it begins with giving away the truth of what you know about Jesus to another. It could be you telling your children the things that you have just discovered through the Scripture. Perhaps it could be you giving away the discoveries you’ve made about how to resist worry or fear or business as the Holy Spirit enabled you in the past week. Perhaps it’s going to a completely unknown person and showing them the love and respect and truth of God through your words and even presence in their lives. However you let your light shine, the light of Word of God in you, let it shine more and more. That’s what I mean by the ever deepening path of salvation, it always goes deeper in terms of faith and action and understanding. It’s why Jesus offers the caution He does when He says, “Take heed what you hear…”. There are a number of influences upon you that will make you want to put the lamp under the peck measure or under the bed. If peck measure means the way that we measure food and wealth and bed refers to our comfort, we begin to know that what we hear regarding those things can adversely affect the way we let our light shine. If you hear judgmental attitudes, jealous attitudes, envious or bitter attitudes they can affect the way you shine. If you swallow these distractions they will affect how much you pour out to others. If you pour just a little then that in turn is what the Lord pours back into your hands. It almost sounds that like adage for old age, “If you don’t use it, you lose it”, meaning the flexibility of muscles and mind power. Spiritually speaking, if you don’t use what the Lord is entrusting to you, even what you had will be taken away. Correspondingly, if you let your light shine, if you pour out with extravagance He pours back into you to more than replace what has been given in terms of strength, love, time, faith and hope. Always your salvation is an ever deepening path, always you are called to grow in the understanding and expression of what salvation means. One person likened it to rubbing the smudge off a mirror so that the face of God in us could be more clearly seen by others.

II. The Ability of God’s Sovereignty Displays Mystery, Power and Victory.     In these next two parables Jesus uses everyday experience or common knowledge, to teach the methods of God as He displays His sovereignty over everything. In the first Jesus tells of a farmer who scatters seed in his field and then waits. He can’t cause the seed to actually grow. We would call it germinating and sprouting, and though we recognize the process still we don’t know the actual ‘why’ of what occurs. Jesus simply says of the farmer that though he sees the results he can’t explain the wonder of what occurs. The mystery of God’s sovereignty is that we can’t give explanation for how salvation occurs, when a person moves from knowledge to faith. We can’t explain the way God intervenes in one life and not another, we can’t fathom the mind of God as He hears every prayer from every person and with perfect justice answers one this way and another that way. His sovereignty is in that sense a mystery to us and we need to come to the place on some things where we simply say, “It’s beyond us, it passes our understanding and yet we trust that God is indeed good. The mystery gives way to power, we see the evidence of changed lives, we see the power of God in the way He heals, the way He glorifies Himself and in the way causes kings to fall and servants to prosper. God’s sovereign power eventually causes the full circle of leaf, ear, grain and it prompts harvest. The harvest is in a sense the victory of God through the issuance of life in the seed. He takes that small and apparently powerless seed and transforms it into a crop a hundred fold. It is the picture of the victory of Jesus, from the seemingly helpless baby in a manger to the King of kings and Lord of lords. God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to His purposes. The world even today is seeing the power of God at work as He brings us closer and closer to the ultimate harvest of the Second coming of Christ. God’s methods include His permissive will towards Satan allowing Him to tear down what God intends to rebuild. As the world shudders at crashed financial systems and collaborating political systems and concessional religious systems God’s methods are still accomplishing their purposes as He prepares to the world for His kingdom harvest. The mystery, power and harvest will characterize these days and the sovereignty of God’s methods over them.

III. God’s Methods Use the Smallest of the Small To Create Kingdom Shelter.      If we were to say that the example of receiving the seed from the Sower and the  putting of a lamp on a lamp stand represent the responsibility of man in his free will and then the example of the seed growing all by itself represents the action of the sovereignty of God, then the two together are pictured in what happens in the mustard seed. The most insignificant acts of man done in the name of the Lord are sparked and fanned by the sovereignty of God as He gives the increase to them. Perhaps Jesus has in mind the small group of disciples that will take His word to all the nations. Perhaps they were just like that mustard seed in terms of land to be covered, peoples to be reached, persecutions to be endured. The likelihood of success was tiny, like the mustard seed, yet when coupled by the obedient faith of 12 apostles and empowered by the sovereign Holy Spirit they have been used of God to make a great Kingdom Shelter for millions upon millions of people. I suppose that when it comes to the methods of God they are almost always counter intuitive to the ways of man. What we would see as a plan of action and what we look to see as a measure of success is almost always different from what God has as His method.  Where we are cautious He is bold; where we withhold from others He withholds from us ; where we doubt small beginnings He sees giant outcome. Always God’s methods will have the resemblance to them of how Jesus moved in obedience, with prayer, in humility, by faith, in love, through grace, yet in power to victory!  Learn the methods of God.