Perspective on the Kingdom, Pt. 2

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Most of us measure success by results. We want to see progress. So when the results don’t show up, we assume the effort isn’t working. The diet gets abandoned, the savings plan fizzles, and the guitar goes back in the closet. But Pastor Nick Gatzke explains why spiritual success works differently and what to do instead

We see three parables to help us understand the kingdom of God. This is what it says in verse 21. “Jesus said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.’ And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given. And from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’” And 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.” And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God? Or what parable should we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. With many such parables, he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable. But privately to his very own disciples, he explained everything.”

Do we really understand all the minute and individual mechanics that become causal in a person’s heart? I mean, think about what happens in the regeneration of just one person in their life with all of their unique circumstances and personality. Can we give somebody a vision for God and a hearing of his word and cause spiritual blinders to be removed and ears to be unplugged? Can we impose conviction of sin on somebody and contrast that to the holiness of God? Can we give somebody a desire to be right with God? Can we cause repentance and the turning away from sin? Can we cause a person to surrender their will? to the king, which is what happens in conversion? Can we commit somebody else to follow Jesus and the king and to live by his ways? And can we instill in somebody, injecting right into their mind, into their heart, a hope that will last from the day of their conversion to the day of their death? Can we do that? Can we cause somebody to have those things? Can we do it for more than one person at the same time or hundreds at the same time or thousands or millions?

Of course not. God grows his kingdom in his time. The parable helps our perspective in a number of ways. The first one is it helps our expectations for growth because I want to see growth immediately. You want to see growth immediately. We’re incredibly impatient people. It’s a good desire to want to see growth immediately. But when we don’t see God’s kingdom grow, we don’t see God’s churches grow. When we don’t see our own church. grow for a season and more people come to Christ, does that mean that God is not present, that the spirit is not working?

Does it mean that we need to all of a sudden change course and abandon all of the work of sowing seeds of the word of God? No, because God’s kingdom grows in God’s timing. Secondly, it helps us understand a healthy standard for evaluating success in ministry. External realities, conversion, growth, excitement, enthusiasm are not our only standard for success and not even our primary standard for success. Instead, faithfulness to God’s word, faithfulness to God in our speech, in our behavior, expelling the work of ministry in a godly way, the growth of spiritual desires and affections, even when we don’t see explosive growth, these things constitute success.

Why? Because God’s kingdom grows in God’s timing. Thirdly, it means that we should not envy the ones who reap the harvest of souls even when we are not. Because it can be easy to become jealous or envious when you work for God, when you work at your office and you’ve been diligently trying to share the gospel with somebody. You work in your neighborhood, you’re having your neighbors over for dinner. moving from casual conversation to serious conversation to spiritual conversation because you want to put the lamp on the lampstand. You want to show them the king and nothing happens. It can be easy to become envious or jealous when you work really hard in the ministry of your own church, as so many of you do, but the church down the road receives and experiences a revival.

But instead of being envious, You rejoice, we rejoice in the work of God even when we aren’t the ones reaping the harvest because God’s kingdom grows in God’s timing. That’s why Paul tells the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” Fourthly, When the time comes, be ready to reap. Verse 29, “When the grain is ripe at once, he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.” Sometimes people are spiritually ready, but we’re so scared or hesitant, we’re not there to help close the deal, to put the sickle in. God is the one who converts, but he uses people to do that. That’s one thing you can do. You can sow the seeds. You can participate in reaping the harvest. You cannot cause the growth because God does that.

Born in 1761 in a small town in the middle of England, William Carey was converted to Christianity as a boy. And as he grew older, he learned the importance of steady plotting. Near the end of his life, he would say, I can plod. I can persevere. In any definite pursuit, to this I owe everything. In 1783, after conversations with Andrew Fuller and having examined the scriptures, he submitted himself to baptism. baptism, and just a few years later, he began to preach at a small, dying congregation. And as he grew, he became increasingly discontent with the urgency for evangelism and missions among his contemporaries. And so in the spring of 1791, at the age of 30, he preached from Isaiah 54:2-3, “which has enlarged the place of thy tent,” and he concluded with an unforgettable call.

Expect great things, attempt great things. Seeds needed to be sown. The kingdom needed to expand.And so shortly thereafter, he and some of his colleagues would form a new society, a society called the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Heathen. I don’t think that quite has a ring that we catch today. The society for the propagation of the gospel, the spread of the gospel among the heathen, those who don’t know Jesus. Seeds needed to be sown. The kingdom needed to expand. Great things were expected, and now it was time for some great attempts. And so in 1793, against many obstacles from his own church, from his wife, and from the mighty East India country, William Carey and a companion were commissioned to take the gospel to the Bengalis in India.

Seeds needed to be sown. The kingdom needed to be expanded. But what happened next was less than impressive from a human perspective. for many, many years. Over the first number of weeks, his ministry partner, John Thomas, abandoned him. He took the missions money that was meant for both of them to support them, and he established a medical practice with it to pay off his debts. Carey’s wife, her sister, and their children all suffered from dysentery. He was forced to get a job at an indigo plant to provide for his family, and in the coming seven months, his family moved. five times. There were no outward signs of fruit for his work in the ministry.

He wrote, when I left England, my hope of the conversion of the heathen was very strong, but among so many obstacles, it would die away entirely unless upheld by God. Nothing to exercise it, plenty to obstruct it. for now a year and 19 days. Discouragement mingled with faith. He would write, well, I have God and his word is sure. And for a long time, my mouth has been shut up and my days have been beclouded with heaviness.

But now I begin to be something like a traveler who has been almost beaten out of a violent storm and who with his clothes about him dripping wet, sees the sky begin to clear. But unfortunately, the skies would not clear. They only got darker. Upon their next move, he would contract malaria and suffer greatly through it. Dorothy, his wife, would suffer dysentery again, and their five-year-old son would die. This sent Dorothy into a mental and emotional decline that she would never recover from for the rest of her life. Carey was overwhelmed. He said, this is indeed the shadow of the valley of death for me, except that my soul is much more insensible than John Bunyan’s pilgrim. Oh, what I would give for a kind and sympathetic friend such as I had in England to whom I might open my heart. As usual, in depression and desperation, he clung to his faith. He said, I rejoice that I am here notwithstanding and that God is here. who can not only have compassion, but is able to save to the uttermost. And he plotted, and he plotted, and he plotted. Over two years into their time in India, he still did not see a single convert. He kept translating the Bible in the evening in various languages of the people while managing the indigo factory in the day. Soon he would take up the study of another language, Sanskrit, and by the spring of 1797, a Bengali New Testament was translated and ready for printing. Jesus said that the kingdom is as if a man would scatter the seed. He sleeps and he rises, and the seed sprouts and grows, and he knows not how. Finally, in December of the year 1800, Seven years after he had arrived, Carey baptized the first Indian convert, a man named Krishna Pal. And then in February of 1801, the first Bengali New Testament came off the printing press, and later the first mission station was built. It was the first of 19. 18 more would follow. They would later start a divinity school and train local pastors. Carey translated the full Bible in six languages and parts of the Bible in 29 others. And it was a monumental achievement, not just because of the sheer scope, but it’s because William Carey was a self-educated English cobbler. But seeds needed to be sown.

He expected great things, and they didn’t come. And they didn’t come. And they didn’t come. And they didn’t come. And life was hard and wrought with difficulty. And then one day, God gave the growth. So he plotted for 40 years with all of the conviction and the glory of the king and all of the need and urgency of the gospel for those in India. Through the death of two wives, children, close friends, multiple ailments himself, he plotted. And eventually, God gave the growth.

So don’t give up. Some of us have given up on our neighbors. Maybe after seven days. Some of us have given up on our kids. Some of us don’t share the gospel anymore because nobody’s ever responded. But don’t give up. The kingdom will grow in his way and in his time. Don’t give up after seven days or seven months or seven years because God gives the growth. And with that, Jesus moves to the third parable and we address it briefly.

If the second parable emphasizes the process of growth, the third emphasizes the size and the sheer contrast of something of small beginnings and great results. Things are not as they are. says in verse 30 that “with what shall we compare the kingdom of God or what parable shall we use? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all seeds on earth. And yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all of the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” The mustard seed is not actually the smallest seed, but it stood for the smallest seed proverbially in the ancient world. You might remember that Jesus told his disciples if they had little faith, even just a little bit of faith, faith the size of a mustard seed, that they could say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. and nothing would be impossible for you.

And so Jesus makes the point that when it comes to the kingdom, things are not what they appear. Something that the world sees humble, something as the world sees as insignificant, will turn into something with great enormity. God does this throughout the Bible with seemingly insignificant people and beyond. He uses little David to conquer Goliath. He uses fishermen and tax collectors to spread the gospel and to be the disciples of the Savior. He used a self-trained cobbler from England for the propagation of the gospel in India. Jesus says something as small as a mustard seed will grow into the largest of garden plants, seven to ten feet high.

Something seemingly hidden, small, obscure to the world will become the reign, of the eternal God of the universe among people in such a way that they cannot and will not imagine. This is the mystery of the kingdom. God’s kingdom will grow in his way, in his time, and to his size. God’s kingdom will grow his way, his time, to his size.

And so let’s just conclude by asking the simple question. What are your expectations for the short years of your life? The days are long, the years are short. What can you control and what can’t you control?

What happens if you do not see what you want to see in the years ahead? Will you give up? shining the light on the lampstand of the king? Will you give up sowing the seeds? Don’t give up. Don’t give up. The kingdom will grow of God in his way and his time and his size. The Lord Jesus came as the king. He died to save sinners, to forgive them that they would enter the kingdom. It’s a spiritual kingdom now that will one day become a visible and physical kingdom. Just try to imagine it with me. You can close your eyes if it helps. Think about the great kingdoms of the world. Maybe you’ve seen paintings or pictures. Think about the great Roman Empire of the first century with all of the pomp and the circumstance of chariots and horses and regalia and an emperor. Or the Mongol Empire of the 12th and the 13th centuries with all of its Asian flair and the breadth from Eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan. Or the British Empire of the 19th and 20th centuries where there was no place in the known world where you could go. The sun wouldn’t shine on the British Empire. And now try, if you can, try to imagine the kingdom of God, glorious, shrouded in splendor, filled with loving inhabitants and lasting forever. And you are invited to be part of the kingdom by the king himself. And you, even you, play a part in its expansion by making that king known. God’s kingdom will grow in his way, in his time, and to his size. And of that, we can be sure.

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** This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.