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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions, hi this is Pastor Tom Holliday and we're
continuing our study together through the book of Mark, Mark four this week,
this is an incredible book, Mark. He takes a look at the life of Jesus in the
most exciting of ways, just showing us event after event after event, teaching
after teaching after teaching, and as you look at how he groups these events
together we're going to see these next couple of weeks that he helps us to see
how the ministry of Jesus can impact your daily life, my daily life. For
instance this week we're going to be looking at Mark chapter four and we're
going to see together that it's a chapter that's all about growth, it's all
about spiritual growth and how that can be happening in our lives.

To experience the daily new life of Christ you must be growing as a Christian,
not growing taller or wider, I'm not talking about physical growth, but growing
deeper and broader into Christ's love, into Christ's Lordship in your life. Now
here's the question to begin this week for you personally, do you feel that
you're growing in your spiritual life? Are you declining?

Are you just sort of staying the same or do you sense that you are growing? Let
me give you a definition, Christian growth is the process of you're becoming
more and more like Christ, of you're taking his character, his direction into
your daily life, is that happening? Not maybe day by day, maybe you have some
ups and downs day by day, but when you look week to week and month to month and
even year to year, are you seeing growth happen?

If you feel a bit discouraged about that, my prayer is that this week will
encourage you about growth, what God is about, what God is doing. You and I
sometimes when we look to ourselves to cause our own growth it can be pretty
discouraging, but God is at work and God wants to do something in your life and
Jesus talks about it here in Mark chapter four. Mark four is growth according to
Jesus, it's sort of Jesus's yardstick on the wall by which we measure our
growth.

Remember when you were a kid you'd put a yardstick on the wall and every once in
a while you'd go up and stand up against it and see how many inches you'd grown
since the last time? These verses we're going to look at this week are a
yardstick like that. Jesus often used, we're going to find in these verses,
pictures of a garden or the growth in nature to point to our need for personal
growth and this week we're going to look together at three pictures that he
painted for us.

The pictures are also called parables and someone has called a parable art
harnessed for service. There really is something artistic about the parables of
Jesus Christ. He takes the most complicated of things in our lives like
spiritual growth and he reduces them down to simple simple pictures so we can
see what God is doing.

They're beautiful pictures of what God wants to do in our lives. So with that in
mind let me read for you Mark chapter 4 verses 1 to 12. Again Jesus began to
teach by the lake.

Let me just pause there because someone asked me what's the lake here? I thought
there was a sea of Galilee. What is this lake?

Well it's the same thing. The sea of Galilee is actually the size of a large
lake so sometimes it's called a sea and sometimes it's called a lake. So again
Jesus began to teach by the lake and continuing on the crowd that gathered
around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake
while the people were along the shore at the water's edge.

He taught them many things in parables and in his teaching said listen a farmer
went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed some fell along the path
and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where it did not
have much soil.

It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow but when the sun came up the
plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell
among thorns which grew up and choked the plants so that they did not bear
grain. Still other seed fell on good soil.

It came up grew and produced a crop multiplying 30, 60 or even a hundred times
and then Jesus said he who has ears to hear let him hear. When he was alone the
12 and others around him asked him about the parables. He told them the secret
of the kingdom has been given to you but to those on the outside everything is
said in parables so that they may be ever seeing but never perceiving ever
hearing but never understanding otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.

Now before we look at this picture that Jesus gave us of growth first why did
Jesus speak in parables? He talked about this at the end his disciples came and
said why are you talking in parables and he says this strange thing for many of
us to hear they may be ever seeing but never perceiving. He's actually quoting
from the Old Testament Isaiah 6 9 to 11 and he seems to be saying that he
doesn't want people to understand the truth ever seeing but never perceiving
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.

Why wouldn't Jesus want that? What is he talking about here? Jesus is talking
about how he tells the truth.

Jesus tells the truth in a relational way not just a factual way in a
life-changing way not just an accepting of a few more facts into my brain kind
of a way. He tells the truth in that kind of a way because his purpose is not
just to get more facts into our memories his purpose is to restore his
relationship with us and so Jesus is saying here that he tells the truth in a
way that takes an open heart to hear and to respond because that's what Jesus
wants. He wants us to hear it but not just to understand it from a knowledge
base he wants us to understand it from a relationship base.

We need to hear and respond from an open heart so what's an open heart? That's
the heart that Jesus talked about in this story that's how you know what he
means from Isaiah when he quotes it because he's just talked in a story about an
open heart. He's talked about three things that stop our growth that close our
heart and three things that keep us growing that open our heart to God.

We're going to look at the first couple of those today and then the rest of it
tomorrow. In fact if you as I told this story from Jesus had never heard it
before it's likely that you may be wondering what is this about this seed that
fell on the path another seed that fell on rocky places. Well if that's true of
you never fear the first disciples of Jesus felt the same way and so they asked
him to explain this parable this story that he told about the seeds to them.

Here's what he explained he began to explain about some things that stop our
growth that close our hearts. The first thing he explained that stops our growth
is a sense of familiarity with spiritual things. Here's what he said in verses
13 to 15 as he explained his story.

Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you
understand any parable? The farmer sows the word.

Some people are like seed along the path where the word is sown. As soon as they
hear it Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Satan, Jesus
says, comes and snatches away takes away the truth before it can become real in
your life because the path is hardened in that day through the fields there
would be paths that had been hardened by thousands of wagon wheels thousands of
feet falling on that path had hardened it to the extent that when a seed fell on
it it couldn't penetrate and because of that the seed just did not grow and
Jesus is saying here that our hearts my heart your heart can be like that.