Following the Servant

Living in Kingdom Power

Mark 4:21-34

Following the Servant

“The kingdom of God is near.”                                                                                                                       Mark 1:15

We have to learn to trust God so that we can to Him and not act in disobedience.

Jesus came to earth to inaugurate His kingdom. The citizens of His Kingdom are encouraged to adopt a new kingdom culture while they live on earth in expectation of living with Him in His heavenly Kingdom for all eternity.  The kingdom has come in one sense . . . but it has yet to be established and recognized on earth.  God’s Kingdom on earth is guaranteed to grow by the power of God until it includes people from every tongue, tribe, and nation.

Mark 10:45

These three parables reinforce the first parable in chapter 4  (the parable of the soils).

1.   The Kingdom is spread as the Gospel is (4:21-25).

Psalm 100

A.      Jesus is to be glorified by our (4:21-23).

“Are you listening to this?  Really listening?”  Mark 4:23 (The Message)

(The call to listen is found in 4:3, 9, 13, 23 and 24.)

Jesus has “come as a light into the world” (John 12:46). He is “the light of men” (John 1:4), “the true light” (John 1:9), and the “light of the world” (John 8:12).

Colossians 1:15

Jesus not only revealed divine truth, but when He came to earth, He truth as a human being.

B.      We come to the King (4:24-25).

Proverbs 9:9

2.   God will see to it that His (4:26-29).

A.      There is a to the growth of the kingdom (4:26-27).

James 1:21

When you plant the Word in a receptive heart, the Holy Spirit makes it grow.

“The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life.

Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”        “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis

B.      There is a to the growth of the kingdom (4:28-29).

Revelation 14:15

3.   God’s Kingdom may begin small, but it will grow large (4:30-34).

A.   God’s kingdom program will experience (4:30-32).

This parable of the mustard seed illustrates .

1 Samuel 16:13, 14

1 Samuel 22-30

As His citizens, we’re encouraged to adopt a new .

B. God’s kingdom program requires (4:33-34).

How would we get the power to live this kind of life?

John 12:23, 24

1 Peter 2:24

The cross shows us how the Kingdom operates and how we can have to live our lives here.

 

Daily Meditations

 

Memory verse: “Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”                                                                                                                                         Mark 4:25

 

 

 

Monday

Read Mark 4:1-34.   What inspires you to persevere when progress seems painfully slow?

 

 

 

 

When we are told that Jesus is the light of the world, what is our responsibility?

 

 

 

 

Tuesday

Read Mark 4:1-34.   Have you found that in the seasons of your life when you were actively responding to God’s Word, these were the times when you grew the most? Give an example.

 

 

 

 

What made those days so productive?

 

 

 

 

Wednesday

Read Mark 4:1-34.   What makes some seasons in your life spiritually unproductive and stale? How can you avoid such times?

      

 

 

 

How does the parable of the seeds emphasize God’s sovereignty?

 

 

 

 

Thursday

Read Mark 4:1-34.   Why is it reassuring to know that God intends the kingdom to grow automatically as well as slowly but surely?

 

 

 

 

Does your understanding of biology, botany, ecology, and agriculture diminish or enhance the parables of the seeds and the mustard seed (4:26-32)? How?

      

 

 

 

Friday

Read Mark 4:1-34.   How is the parable of the mustard seed encouraging for those who work and pray for the expansion of the kingdom of God?

      

 

 

 

Do you think the birds in the branches of the mustard plant represent the nations?

      

 

 

Saturday

Read Mark 4:1-34.   Jesus explained the parables to His disciples. In what way do Christians today actually have an advantage over those disciples?