Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 17, 2012
There’s a difference between not knowing and uncertainty. You can have
quite a bit of knowledge about something and still be uncertain. In a similar
way, there are things you don’t understand and yet are very certain of them.
God doesn’t reveal everything to you but what He gives you you can be certain
of it. There are some things you know of God but you don’t know everything. Why
is it that we long to look into those things we don’t know and don’t understand
rather than simply being certain of those things He gives us?
There’s a reason He does it this way; we know it to be true on a
fundamental level. We operate this way in so many areas of life. The way Paul
states it in the Epistle reading is that we walk by faith and not sight. One
area of life it works this way that we know well is in the home. Since today is
Father’s Day, consider how it is a father raises his children in a godly way.
One thing he does is teach them the Word of God. Does he dump all the theology
there is to know on them off the bat? Of course not. Children aren’t ready for
that off the bat but they’re most certainly ready for the Word. So he teaches
them in the same way a baby is fed. It starts with milk, moves to baby food,
and then slowly and methodically goes to substantive food.
The father knows that his children don’t know and understand all of it
yet, but he teaches them the basics of God’s love for them in Jesus. He knows a
lot more than they do but when he is teaching them a particular thing he
doesn’t tell them everything he knows about it. He keeps it simple. He explains
things in a simple way they can understand.
When he does this it’s plain that he’s withholding information, and he
does this in many other areas of raising his children. He’s revealing some
knowledge but not all. But the reason he’s doing it this way is because this is
what is best for his children. Children don’t often see it that way. They want
to know why. They don’t want simply to go on the word of their father. They
want more information. They don’t realize it but this isn’t beneficial for
them. What is beneficial is the way their father, who loves them, is teaching
them and guiding them. He gives them what they need to know. As they grow he
reveals more and more to them.
One of the most important things children need to hear from their
father is the simple statement: “Because I said so.” That’s not going to work
every time a child asks a question but one thing children need to learn is that
they simply don’t know as much as their father knows. Even more importantly,
they need to learn trust. They need to walk by faith and not by sight, so to
speak. Where their father is guiding them is where they need to go, whether
they understand it or not. And when he says something is a certain way they
need to come to the point of trusting him and taking him at his word.
Ultimately, all analogies break down at some point, and with this one
it breaks down with godly fathers themselves being sinners and people who themselves
make mistakes and who themselves don’t know everything. Even so, haven’t we all
experienced moments when we have looked back on something our dad said and the
way he told us it was and we realized that it was exactly that way and it’s
only now that we have gained in knowledge and wisdom that we see that there was
a reason he didn’t tell us everything we wanted to know?
As much as we want to know, there’s a certain point where it’s good not
to know. Not meaning not knowing anything. We obviously know some things; even
a lot of things. The Bible is a pretty big book and there’s a lot in there for
us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. But the Bible itself tells us
there are things God has not revealed to us. There are always questions we
have, things we’d like to understand. To these things we can always look forward to the day we’ll
be in heaven where we’ll have a perfect understanding of them. Until then, we
walk by faith, not by sight.
That’s why Jesus’ analogy is so great. It gets to the heart of why we
don’t need to know certain things. It drives home the point that we rather
should simply hold on to and trust in those things we are given to know. What
the man does in Jesus’ analogy is scatter seed. He tosses it out there onto the
ground. Then what does he do? He goes to bed. He takes a nice snooze, not
worrying one bit about that seed. He did his work, he tossed the seed on out
there on the ground and now he’s ready for a good night’s sleep.
A good night of sleep of course is followed by waking up to a new day.
And what does the new day bring? It doesn’t bring anything new where that seed
and ground are concerned. The seed is still there, right where the guy threw it
on the ground. And yet, there’s something he knows that tells him differently.
As he looks at the ground and the seed he sees nothing different from the day
before. But he knows there’s something new. He knows there’s a natural process
going on. He knows the seed is germinating. Notice what kind of knowing this
is. It’s not an understanding of how the process works but simply that it
works. A botanist would know how the process works but this guy’s a farmer.
He’s not interested in how it works, just that it does.
And so he goes to bed again that night, not worrying that things don’t
look any different but confident in knowing that they are. This pattern goes on
for a time. He doesn’t keep adding more seed just because he doesn’t see any
progress. He lets nature take its course. That’s why he can go to sleep each
night knowing that he did what he needed to do. And over the course of time he
is rewarded. The seed sprouts. It grows. He knew this would happen but never
once worried about the fact that he didn’t know how it would happen.
Jesus isn’t giving a farming lesson and obviously there’s more to it
than the few details He gives us. Jesus is teaching us to live by faith, not by
sight. That’s what the guy in Jesus’ story did. He scattered the seed and then
took things on faith. In time he saw results. As Jesus says, “The earth
produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the
ear.” When it’s finally ripe, the man gets to work again, this time with a
sickle, and he harvests the crop.
This is the way it is in the Kingdom of God. It grows. But it doesn’t
grow according to things we can understand. It grows according to the seed
being scattered and God producing growth despite what we see. The seed is the
Gospel. You may think of all kinds of ways to get the Church to grow, but
there’s one thing Jesus gives you here to actually do: scatter that seed. Get
the Gospel out there. Let Him take care of the natural process of His Kingdom
growing. There is no question in Jesus’ analogy of whether or not growth is
going to occur. It most definitely occurs. But it’s most definitely not by what
the guy does and most certainly by what God does.
Even as the man doesn’t know how the growth process takes place the
people of God, the Church, doesn’t know how the Church grows, only that it does
and that it is because God is the one providing the growth. The Church scatters
the seed; it gets the Gospel out there and lets God do the work. We don’t worry
that we don’t understand. We come to the knowledge that it’s good not to know.
But doesn’t there have to be more to it? Don’t we have to do something?
Don’t we have to understand about how to reach out to people? Doesn’t it seem
that it’s not working if we don’t see the growth taking place? These are not questions
of faith. They are questions of our Old Adam, questions of wanting to get a
handle on things, of wanting to control this process. They are questions of
those who walk by sight, not by faith. It’s clear that we do things. We share
the Gospel with others, we do good works, we serve others, we give our
offerings to God. Do we do these things in order for God’s Kingdom to grow? No,
God is the one who grows His Kingdom. We who are in the Kingdom do these things
because we are in the Kingdom. God doesn’t grow His Kingdom with our good works
and our offerings. Our good works and offerings are the fruit that are produced
from the natural process of God growing His Kingdom.
Everything we do is by grace, just as the salvation accomplished for us
was by grace. Everything we do is in response to the grace given in Jesus
Christ. Salvation has been accomplished by the humblest of actions in Jesus
becoming a man and Jesus suffering on the cross for sin of the world. We are
brought into the Kingdom of God because God brought His Kingdom to us in His
Son. His Kingdom is not as we would expect, even as we wouldn’t expect Him to
come to us in the way He did.
He shows us how we should view His Kingdom in another parable for us:
the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Now I don’t know about you, but if I
were God I would want to compare my kingdom to something spectacular. But
that’s because I see things very differently than God does. I want the
Christian Church to look spectacular. I want it to be something people can look
at and readily see that this is of God. But God likes to operate in subtle
ways. He didn’t make things so that when a farmer wants a crop that he tosses
into the ground some seed and immediately pops up the most spectacular plants
you’ve ever seen. It’s a long, very boring process.
And for His Kingdom He doesn’t take the biggest and the greatest. He
takes the smallest. The mustard seed is something you wouldn’t expect much
from. And yet its growth is greater than we could imagine, as it grows into the
largest of the garden plants. Jesus’ description goes on from there with these
words: the tree “puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make
nests in its shade.” This is reminiscent of what God says in the Old Testament
reading today: “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and
will set it out. I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender
one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain
height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit
and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the
shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest. And all the trees of the
field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high
the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the
Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.”
That’s really the upshot of it all. He is the Lord. He has spoken. He
will do it. He does it by the very speaking of His word. He brings low the high
tree and makes high the low tree; He dries up the green tree and makes the dry
tree flourish. If you attempt to understand it or seek what He hasn’t revealed
to you you won’t know what He has given you to know. When it comes to what He
hasn’t given you to know it’s good not to know and you don’t need to know. You
don’t know how it works that God grows His Kingdom, but you know it does. You
can be certain of that, because He has said it and He has also said that His
Word goes forth and accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it. Amen.
SDG
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