Pastor Nick Gatzke

In 1913, it was said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire.” Nearly a quarter of the human race lived under its authority. Today its remnants are fourteen small dependent territories including Gibraltar, the Falklands, and specks most of us could not find on a map. That is how kingdoms behave. They rise and fall under the struggles of mankind, and their authority is temporary.

So when Jesus tells his disciples three parables to describe the kingdom of God, the contrast with earthly kingdoms is startling. Jesus uses a household lamp, a farmer, and a tiny seed to help us understand his kingdom––a kingdom with no armies, no borders, and no end. Three parables, one point: the kingdom of God will grow in God’s way, in God’s time, and to God’s size.

Put the Lamp Where It Belongs

“And he 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.’” (Mark 4:21)

A lamp in the ancient world was a clay dish of oil with a wick down the middle, and nobody had to be told where it went. Not on the floor. Not under a basket. Up high, where the light reached the corners of the room.

In the parable, Jesus is the light, and his followers are charged with setting the lamp in place. Which means the kingdom expands when people see the king. It does not advance by conquest or financial leverage, by treaty or royal marriage. It grows when someone is captured by the beauty of Christ and makes him visible to somebody else. If the king is genuinely beautiful, hiding him is the strangest thing we could do.

What You Cannot Do

Then comes the farmer who scattered seed and went to sleep.

“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.” (Mark 4:26-27)

Here is what the farmer cannot do. He cannot remove the blinders from someone’s eyes. He cannot impose the conviction of sin. He cannot produce repentance in another person’s will, or implant a hope that will hold from the day of their conversion to the day of their death.

The farmer plants the seeds. All the other tasks are weights you were never asked to lift. When the harvest is ready, our job is to be there to put the sickle in.

Small Is Not the Same as Insignificant

“And he said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall 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 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.’” (Mark 4:30-32)

The last image is a mustard seed—the proverbial smallest thing. But when sown, it becomes the largest plant in the garden, tall enough for birds to nest in its shade.

A slow season in your church or your family is not proof that the Spirit has left the room. Faithfulness in speech, in conduct, and in growing affection for Christ become the measures of success, not enthusiasm or numbers. You can watch the church down the road receive a revival you prayed years for and rejoice instead of resenting it, because, as Paul told the Corinthians, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

Don’t Give Up

William Carey was a self-educated English shoemaker who sailed for India in 1793, expecting God to do something there. What came instead was seven years of almost nothing. His ministry partner abandoned him and took the funds. His family moved five times in seven months. He worked at an indigo factory to feed them. He caught malaria. His five-year-old son died, and his wife’s mind never recovered.

“I have God,” he wrote, “and his word is sure.” He ran the factory by day and translated Scripture in the evenings. Not one convert for seven years. But Carey plodded on.

Then, in December of 1800, he baptized a man named Krishna Pal. Then a Bengali New Testament came off the press. Then a mission station, and eighteen more, a divinity school, the Bible in six languages and portions in twenty-nine others. Carey once explained his whole method saying, “expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”

He expected great things and they did not come, and did not come, and did not come. And then God gave the growth.

What Only God Can Do

This is how God has always worked. He used a boy with a sling against a giant. He called fishermen and a tax collector to be entrusted with the gospel. A cobbler carrying Scripture to Bengal.

So what if the years ahead do not give you what you are hoping for? Will you stop shining the light? Will you stop sowing?

The King came, died to forgive sinners, and opened his kingdom to anyone who will have him. It is a spiritual kingdom now; one day it will be visible, clothed in splendor, filled with people who love him, and lasting forever. You have been invited in—and handed a part in its expansion.

God’s kingdom will grow in his way, his time, and to his size. Of that we can be sure.

“A Word From Pastor Nick” is based on Pastor Nick Gatzke’s Bible teaching on A BETTER WORD.