Mark 4:1-12

I mean, if you come tonight, you're going to certainly experience the rejoicing of Christmas. It's going to be quite a worshipful production. There's much to enjoy in terms of, if you're together with family at holidays, of course, there's gift-giving and there's good eating. But in the midst of this, you know, I think we're well aware as we go on in life, that this is also a season that is difficult for many people.

Maybe some of you, maybe many of you, that in the midst of all of this, the sense that that Christmas should be about rejoicing, that Christmas should be about closeness and family, there is the reality that many people go through the Christmas season with great burdens on their shoulders. And maybe those are very practical burdens like financial difficulties or employment challenges.

Maybe those are relational challenges and difficulties, like a marital conflict or family tension or congregational tension. Maybe it is simply a burden from the past and from all that we bring as we come into a Christmas season. And so, if that describes you this morning, and you have these conflicting feelings about this Christmas season that we are in, let me just orient us, maybe give us some perspective on why we're even in Mark.

I just want to simply use the words of an old hymn that came to me this week, even as I was praying. It's by this very humble hymn writer. Her name is Helen Lemmel. She wrote this in 1922. Just listen to these words. See if they speak to you this morning. "Oh, so are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see. There's light for a look at the Savior (...)," that's what we're doing this morning, "(...) and life more abundant and free.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." And so we desire to do this morning. We come to the Gospel. We come to this revelation of Jesus and who he is and what he said and what he's done, because that is the answer. That is what gives perspectives to whatever you're going through this morning and whatever burdens that you come this morning with, that is the answer.

That is what gives shape and illumination or whatever it is that weighs you down as you go through this holiday season. Well we are in Mark chapter 4, as we've worked our way up until that, and Mark 4, I'm just going to read the first 12 verses this morning, for reasons that will become clear in just a moment here. Hear the word of the Lord: "Again, he--", and that's Jesus, "--again, he began to teach beside the sea." That's the Sea of Galilee; they're still in the region of Galilee.

"And a very large crowd gathered about him so that he got into a boat, and he sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea, on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables." Let me just pause there. We enter into a section as we begin chapter 4 of almost parable after parable after parable, and as we read Mark, as well as other gospels, we get this distinct impression. Jesus liked parables.

In fact, parables are Jesus's preferred method of teaching, but parables confound us. I mean we're not used to parables. We sit in class like, say, we're in high school or college, or we sit in class on a Sunday morning, and we're used to propositional teaching. Even in sermons, "give it to me straight. Just give me the main points as plainly as possible. Throw in a few humorous anecdotes, maybe a few key phrases that I can walk away with. That's the kind of teaching that I want."

But that's not the kind of teaching Jesus does. He teaches in parables. And parables communicate truth, but they do so indirectly. Parables have to be mulled over. Parables, you have to hear from the one who gives the parable the interpretation of the parable. You can't figure it out on your own, so I think it should strike us as we go through chapter 4 and beyond that Jesus is doing something very intentional in how he teaches us. He was teaching them, and us, many things in parables.

And in his teaching, he said to them (here's the first parable). "'Listen, behold, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. "'Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

And other seed fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold.' "And he said, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' When he was alone, those around him (or the 12), asked him about the parables, and he said to them, 'To you has been given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables.'"There's a clue there, why he taught so much in parables: "so that they may indeed see, but not perceive,

and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.'" And that last statement in verse 12, if your Bible does not already record it, that's a direct quote from the Old Testament, from Isaiah chapter 6, verses 9 and 10, and that'll become more significant in a few minutes.

Now, my original plan this morning was to launch into this first parable, which is a key parable, I think even, to understanding all the rest of the parables, and I was going to split that out over two weeks and look at two of the kinds of soil. But you know what? I got struck by, and really couldn't get past, what Jesus said after he gives the parable, and he's alone with his disciples and a few more, in verses 11 and 12, when they asked him about the parables.

And I imagine they asked him what I'd want to ask him: "Jesus, why do you teach in parables? We don't get it. Why don't you just come straight out and say what you want to teach? And Jesus, what did that parable mean? You didn't explain it when you taught it there by the Sea of Galilee." I think there's two significant questions, and I think honestly, at least I need to wrestle through these questions.

I think maybe you do as well, if we're going to be able to be receptive to what's in these parables, both this parable of the sower and the soils and the parables that follow. The first question comes from Jesus's reference, in verse 11, to those outside. Look at it again. Verse 11: "To you has been given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables."

Now, the clear sense of what Jesus is saying there is that he sees all people, the people then and people now, you and me, as falling into one of two groups. You and I, we fall into either one group or the other. The first group, he doesn't use the word "insiders", but it's kind of implied when he says, "To you has been given the mystery." The first group are, you may be an insider. Insiders are those who have been given the mystery of the Kingdom of God.

We'll unpack that in a few minutes and see a little bit what that means, but we've heard this term "Kingdom of God" all through the first three chapters. So maybe you're an insider here this morning, but if you're not an insider, Jesus says, there's no other option than that you are an outsider. What's an outsider? An outsider is someone who may even hear about the Kingdom of God, Jesus says, but they don't perceive it. They can't make out what it's about. They don't understand it.

So all of us fall into one of two groups. Now I've got to tell you: humanly, I don't like this. I mean, "outsiders" has a pejorative sense to it, doesn't it? I mean, think politically, whether you like or dislike our current President, what was it that was said about him when he went to Washington? "He's an outsider." What does that imply?

There's this political elite, this group of insiders, and they have the influence, and they have the power, and they're not really open and receptive to somebody who is an outsider, and we don't like that. Regardless of what you think about our president, we don't like that that division exists. Or socially, we get that sense of insiders and outsiders. In 1967, S.E.

Hinton wrote a book called The Outsiders, and maybe you read it in high school, because it was big in the '70s and the '80s, and maybe it's still used, but what it was, it was a picture of a location of Oklahoma, where there were two groups of young adults, and there were the groups that were in, the "soches". Those who were socially acceptable, the insiders, and there were the group that didn't fit into that.

They came from the wrong side of the tracks, the outsiders, the "greasers", in that particular book, and why does that resonate with so many? Because we feel a natural sense of unfairness when there are insiders and there are outsiders. So humanly, we bring this, I think, somewhat to the text, and we really need to understand: what is Jesus saying and what is an outsider? What's an insider? Can outsiders become insiders? Well, what are outsiders? Who are those that Jesus warns about here?

If we put together what Jesus says in verses 11 and 12, here's my understanding of what an outsider is, both then and now. Outsiders are people who do not perceive and who do not understand the mystery of the Kingdom of God. They can hear the word spoken, they can hear the word taught, they can hear the words of Jesus, but it doesn't sink in. It doesn't penetrate. They don't understand it, and as a result, therefore, they do not turn, and they are not forgiven.

Now, the Kingdom of God that's talked about here, again, we'll unpack that a little bit more in a minute, but it's said it's a "mystery". It's a mystery, not because it's vague, not because you have to have a high IQ to be an insider and understand the mystery of the Kingdom of God; it's a mystery because, as the Bible uses the term "mystery", most of the people in the world do not perceive it and do not understand it.

The Bible uses that word "mystery", in Old Testament and New Testament, to mean "a heavenly truth that we can't humanly discover by ourselves". You know, we like to think of ourselves, generally in our culture, as intelligent people, as learned people, and we go to school, maybe we go on to college or university or graduate school, and we learn more and we become more and more intelligent.

We don't like to hear that there is truth that we can't figure out on our own using our own intelligence, but that's what a mystery is. A mystery is a heavenly truth that we can't discover by ourselves, that God has to reveal to us, that the Holy Spirit has to illuminate, that he needs to shine the light on in order for us to understand, and Jesus is saying here that outsiders are those who have not yet received this revelation.

They have not yet received this illumination of these heavenly truths, and so as a result, they don't turn. They don't turn from trying to live life their own way, without Jesus. They're on their own, trying to plow their way, trying to determine the shape and course of their life, and they don't turn to Jesus as their savior and as their lord and their king, and as a result, they're not forgiven. They don't know the forgiveness that comes by grace through Christ and his work on the cross.

They are still under the wrath of God. They are still subject to judgment. We don't want to be outsiders. Those you love, you don't want to be outsiders. Outsiders are people who, in Jesus's day, are like the scribes and Pharisees who reject Jesus, at least reject who he claims to be. That was clear about the scribes and the Pharisees, and you know people like that today.

There are people of other faiths who outright reject that Jesus is the son of God, that what he did on the cross is the only way to peace with God and entrance into Heaven. There are people who vehemently reject Jesus. Turn on the cable news. You watch what's going on socially in the culture around us. You see many, many people-- in fact, it seems as if the majority of people reject Jesus, at least the Jesus as he claims to be in his word, but outsiders aren't just people who reject Jesus.

Outsiders are also people who, like the majority of the crowds, they might be sympathetic toward Jesus, but they don't follow Jesus. What have we seen so far in the first three chapters of Mark, and we're going to continue to see it. Crowds come whenever Jesus teaches. Crowds come when Jesus feeds the 5,000 and the 4,000.

Crowds come when Jesus heals people and does his miracles, but the majority of those crowds, even if they would say that they like Jesus, they don't hang around if he's not feeding them. They don't hang around if there's no more miracles. They're not going to stay if they can't find healing and what they feel that they need.

The majority of the people who came out of curiosity to hear Jesus, they faded away when his teaching became uncomfortable for them personally, when it challenged the way that they were living their lives. It's the same way today. There are many people in our culture who probably would even identify themselves, in some sense, using the word "Christian". They would say they like Jesus, but it's a Jesus of their own definition. It's not a Jesus as he defines himself in his word.

It is a Jesus that they fade away from when they begin to see what he teaches, that that doesn't match up with their life, and it means that it's going to challenge the way that they live with their life. Are you an outsider? I doubt you're here if you outright reject Jesus this morning, but are you like one of the crowd?

That you're here, maybe, because it's a socially acceptable thing to do, or you're here out of curiosity, or you're here because you came with someone, but you haven't really met Jesus as who he claims to be, and you haven't really begun to follow Jesus. That puts you in the camp of outsiders, and as much as that makes you bristle, Jesus teaches this way because he wants you to become an insider, and that's what his parables will attempt to do as we go forward. Those are outsiders.

Who are the insiders? Well, again, putting together what Jesus said in verse 11, insiders are people who have been given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, and because they've been given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, they have turned, and they are forgiven. Now, notice this is one of those places were tense, verb tense, is very important. "They have been given": that is a divine passive. They don't gain it on themselves, for themselves. They don't achieve it. They have been given.

It is God who gives them the mystery of the Kingdom of God, and because God has done this gracious work in their life, they've begun to perceive a little bit of this mystery. They've begun to understand that the Kingdom of God has come in the person and the words and the works of Jesus. It doesn't mean they have full perception or full understanding, far from it, but God has begun a work in their lives.

One of the blessings of being home the last couple of weeks is I got to spend time with not just my wife, but a young woman that she is discipling, and I can't say a lot, just to preserve her anonymity, but this is a woman who comes from another very non-Christian faith. And that's what she grew up in. And through my wife and others who are at work and her life, she has begun to attend a church where she's heard the gospel preached, and she's begun to take steps toward that.

And she meets regularly with my wife, and she has taken steps to embrace Jesus for who he claims to be, even though that is very contrary and very foreign to the way she grew up. And because she's responded to as much as she understands of Jesus, with as much as she can, of herself, God has blessed that, and God is drawing her in and drawing her to Jesus. She understands very little.

In fact, she's somewhat frustrated by the fact that she understands very little, but that's not the test, of whether she has a robust theology of the Christian faith. It is how is she responding to what she understands of Jesus with as much as she can of herself? That's an insider, however new they are in the faith or not. Insiders are people, like the disciples, who accept Jesus for who he claims to be. It's not the Jesus of culture.

You know, our culture, our popular culture would put Jesus at the front of every politically correct cause. They would put Jesus on the front of the immigration cause, and they would put Jesus on the front of the same-sex marriage cause, and they would put Jesus on the front of the gender identity cause.

True followers, true insiders, seek who Jesus claims to be and what he presents of himself and what he teaches, and that is the Jesus they accept, not the Jesus that they want, maybe, personally, or that our culture says. Insiders are people who, like the disciples, they follow Jesus.

Jesus says in John 8:31, "If you abide in my word," in other words, "if you're reading and you're studying and you're mulling over what I have taught you, if you are obeying my teaching, then you are truly disciples, followers of mine." That's when the truth will set you free. That's an insider: one who doesn't just hear the truth but seeks to follow it, seeks to abide in it. So evaluate yourself, even as I give you these couple of statements, about whether you're an insider.

Insiders are those who continually seek to learn what Jesus taught. They are abiding in the word, reading it, studying it. Why? Not because it's something to check off on their list of what good Christians do. No, it's because I want to know what Jesus teaches. I want to know what he presents as truth. And then, insiders are continually seeking to bring their lives into alignment with what they're learning about what Jesus teaches and what Jesus says is true.

This young woman my wife is working with: she's got a lot that she's got to turn around in her life, but she has the beginning desire that, as she becomes aware of these things, "yeah, I want to change, and I want my life to be what Jesus wants it to be". That's an insider. Insiders follow the commands of Jesus even when it conflicts with the way we've been living, with what we want to do, with what we would do if we got to call the shots in our lives.

Well, I told you at the beginning there were two significant questions. That first question is what do we do with this distinction of outsiders and insiders that Jesus seems to present here? But here's the second question, and it comes back to what I said at the beginning: why does Jesus teach in parables? Why doesn't he just give us the truth straight? What is the purpose of the parables? Because if we don't have a handle on that, these next weeks are going to be pretty rocky for us.

What is the purpose of the parables? Jesus gives us at least a hint of this in, really, what he says in verse 12, and I'd put it like this: he teaches in parables because of how outsiders respond to parables.

Verse 12 is, as I said earlier, a a quotation that Jesus makes from the Old Testament, specifically from Isaiah chapter 6, and I'm not going to give you a history lesson on Isaiah here, but that was a time in the history of the Kingdom of Judah, of which Jerusalem is the capital, where the people of Israel had turned away from God in a major, significant way. You know, you read the Old Testament, and what do you see? They're just like us.

They have that propensity to turn away from God, to want to live life their own way, on their own terms, apart from God. But there were significant periods in Israel's history when so many of the people of Israel had turned away from God and for so long and in such profound ways that God brings his judgment upon them, and this is one of those times, in Isaiah chapter 6.

And God, after giving them warning after warning, is about to allow them to be overrun and captured and brought into exile by the Assyrians, but he gives them this last one morning: he sends this prophet Isaiah. Isaiah is really the last voice, the last chance to repent, before he allows the Assyrians to take them into exile.

God is speaking to Isaiah before he sends him, or as he sends him, in Isaiah 6, and he tells Isaiah, "I am sending you to be that last voice of 'repent and turn back to God', but Isaiah, even as I send you, I'm telling you, it's going to be, really, a futile errand. You need to do it, but you need to know, even as faithfully as you preach, the people you preach to, they are going to be--" Isaiah 6:9 and 10: "ever hearing but never understanding.

They are going to be ever seeing but never perceiving. They're going to be people who can't hear what you say, Isaiah, because they have calloused hearts, and they have dull ears, and they have closed eyes. There are people who read this part of Isaiah and even read this part of Mark chapter 4 and think, "Well, God has already made up his mind. "These people are going to be outsiders. They will never get it.

They will never be able to see the truth, and these people are going to get it, that he is predetermining that." I don't see that that's what this is saying at all; instead, I see the same pattern in the people of Israel and the people of Jesus' day and us today: that when we reject God's truth, when we hear his truth and we reject it, it has this way over time, as we reject it, as we ignore it, of building up a callus around our heart, the spiritual nerve center of our lives.

And the more we reject it over time, the thicker that callus becomes. And the thicker that callus becomes, the less we have the ability to perceive and understand the truth that God wants us to hear. And at some point, and I don't know when that point is, no man knows or no woman knows when that point is. At some point of rejection after rejection after rejection, God says, "Fine. As my judgment, I am releasing you to the consequences of your rejection.

And because you've rejected me over and over again, and you've built up that callus around your heart, here's what I'm going to allow to happen: I'm going to allow you to be permanently washed away in that hardness. You will lose your ability to perceive my truth. You will lose your ability to understand my message to you and make sense out of my truth."

And that's what Jesus says is going on in his day with the scribes and the Pharisees and many in the crowds: that Isaiah's prophecy is being fulfilled on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The scribes and the Pharisees and most of the crowds, they can't hear the truth about the Kingdom of God because it's not what they wanted to hear. And they reject it over and over again. And so he abandons them to that hardness. That's a truth that happens to many of us.

You know, in some ways-- maybe this is a poor illustration, but it's kind of like me sitting on a plane, waiting for the plane to take off. Maybe you can relate if you fly a lot. You know, before the plane takes off, what is the FAA's mandate that has to happen?

The flight attendant has to get on the loudspeaker, and they give that little speech about the safety features of the plane and what's going to happen if you have a midair disaster and what's going to happen if you have a water landing and all those terrible things that you really don't want to think about. And why does the FAA mandate that? It's to save lives. It's for our good, but what do most of us do? Or at least you know, being honest here. What do I do?

I've heard that so many times that I tune that out. I start a book or I put on headphones and I start listening to something or I talk to the person beside me or I just stare out the window. And I have ignored that so many times, on so many flights, that I'm afraid someday, they're actually going to change that message, and there's going to be something really important in there. I'm going to totally miss it, because I just go into this natural habit of tuning it out.

That's you and me spiritually. All right? What we hear, what is in God's truth? The truth about the Kingdom of God and what it means to be an insider and the frightful reality of what it means to be an outsider is to save our souls, but when we tune it out over and over again, when we push it off because it's uncomfortable, we don't want to hear it. It doesn't fit with what our culture is saying. It doesn't fit with our personal desires. We have this way of becoming more and more callous to it.

What was happening in Isaiah's day, what was happening in Jesus's day, happens in our day, and that brings me back to why Jesus taught in parables. Jesus teaches in parables because it reveals the state of our hearts. Jesus teaches in parables because, if you are an outsider, a parable is going to make that very apparent to you. Outsiders have no patience for parables. Oh, that was an interesting story. What's for lunch today? Where are we going for lunch after church today?

Outsiders have no tolerance for something that is not easily explained and practical and they can quickly apply to their lives. Insiders hear a parable and they don't understand it, but they mull it over, and they want answers to it. Insiders are really-- what we see are those who, verse 9, "they have ears to hear." And so they want to hear. That doesn't mean they have perfect understanding. It doesn't. They don't. We don't. But it means, "Wait a minute, what was that?

What did that mean?" Insiders are those, verse 10, like those with the 12 who asked him about the parables. And yes, he isn't physically here for us to ask him, but insiders want to pursue him. "Jesus, what did you mean by that? How do we understand through the Holy Spirit what that means?" Do you get the sense here that Jesus wasn't trying to make it easy and comfortable to follow him?

I mean, Jesus is attractional in the sense that when he was on Earth, people wanted to come and see him, but he was not attractional in the sense of, "Hey, I'm going to speak in the most compelling way, and I'm going to tell good jokes, and I'm going to give funny anecdotes, and I'm going to give memorable one-liners, and I'm going to be that kind of speaker." No. Jesus taught in a way that exposed whether you are really serious about following him or not.

If you're just curious, if you're just there for the show, for the bread and the fish and the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000, if you're just there for the miracles, you're going to walk away from Jesus's teaching. That's exactly what happened. What do we see? He gives, in those first nine verses, he gives the parable, but he doesn't give the explanation, and most of the people leave. It's not until verses 9 and 10 that a few, his disciples say, "Jesus, about these parables.

What did you mean, and why are you teaching?" Jesus interprets the parables for us. We can't understand the parables without his interpretation, but here is the good news: Jesus enlightens all of us who seek him. Jesus gives us the interpretation as we seek him, and that's what we're going to see over the next couple of weeks. Let me close with this.

If you're here this morning, and you have at least the inkling that you may not be an insider yet-- I wasn't an insider for many years in my life-- that you may be an outsider, and you want to be an insider. Here's the good news: "outsiders" is not a static category. Outsiders become insiders by the grace of God. You can become an insider even today. How do outsiders become insiders? Let me give you more good news. Outsiders don't become insiders by natural intelligence or goodness. All right?

It's not a matter of IQ. It's not a matter of whether you went to Bible college or seminary. It's not a matter of whether you've read the right books. It's not a matter of whether you think of yourself as a naturally good person. The understanding of the mystery of the Kingdom of God is given to you. It is an act of grace by God. It is an act where Jesus unlocks the mystery of the Kingdom of God for you, not because of you, not in response to anything you have done, just by you being open to it.

Here's more good news. Outsiders become insiders not by discovering secret information. There've been sects and cults all through the history of Christianity that claim to have found some special, secret information. In fact, there was a book out a while ago called The Secrets. You know, that if you read this, you know, you were enlightened about the way to succeed in life. It is nothing like this. It is not for a select few. All outsiders can become insiders. It is open to everyone.

And here's more good news. It is not by resolving all questions and doubts. You don't have to have everything figured out. I don't have everything figured out and never will in this life. The disciples certainly didn't understand everything that Jesus was teaching, and they were with him 24/7. They were often baffled and confused by what Jesus taught them, but they continued to follow him. They continued to seek him. They continued to ask. They continued to listen, and that's what we do.

We continue to follow him. We continue to seek him. We continue to ask. We continue to listen. Let me make it personal as we close. The next weeks and probably next couple months are going to be many, many parables, and as you come, if you come, and we get into the parables over the next few weeks, will you be like me, the bad airline passenger that sits during the flight attendant's announcement and tunes out and talks to your seat-mate and thinks about what's coming after the flight?

You know, where am I going for lunch? What do I have to accomplish this afternoon or this week? Or will you heed Jesus's command? His command in verse 3, to "listen", his command in verse 9, to "have ears to hear". Will you open your mind and your heart to receive a greater understanding of the mystery of the Kingdom of God that Jesus wants to reveal to you? He wants you to respond to as much of him as you understand with as much of yourself as you can. Outsiders become insiders by God's grace.

The mystery of the kingdom is given to you. You and I, we can't earn it, and we don't deserve it. God gives it to us out of his great mercy and his lovingkindness. Outsiders become insiders by seeking and listening and following after Jesus. "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." Let's pray. Jesus, you amaze us. I keep coming back

You are drawing them from whatever background they are at, from being an outsider to an insider. May they respond, Lord. May they respond to as much as they understand of you with as much of themselves as they can. And Lord, I pray for those of us who were once outsiders and only by your grace are now insiders. We are often like the disciples, Lord. We're often confused and befuddled.

We often don't understand both what you teach and what you're allowing to happen in our lives, and I pray, Lord, you'd give us more and more grace to listen and give us ears to hear. Help us to see you more clearly. Help us to love you more dearly. Help us to follow you more nearly day by day. Amen.