How the Kingdom of God Grows

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Mark, Chapter 4, verses 26 -34. Jesus also said,

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This is what the kingdom of God is like, a man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.

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All by itself, the soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head, and as soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come.

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Again, he said, What shall we say the kingdom of God is like? Or what parable shall we use to describe it?

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Well, it's like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground, yet when planted it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.

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With many similar parables, Jesus spoke the word to them as much as they could understand.

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He did not say anything to them without using a parable, but when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

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In the name of Jesus. With many such parables, Jesus spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it.

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He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. Now, in order to understand part of the reason why

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Jesus spoke in parables, you have to remember the sermon from last week. Remember last week

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Jesus was healing people, and the Pharisees and scribes from headquarters came down and said,

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Oh, he's doing that by the power of the devil, by the power of Beelzebul, he's casting out demons.

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So notice that Jesus' ministry, his message, is meeting stiff opposition.

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And so Jesus begins to speak in parables. And there's a big misconception today, actually a false teaching if you would, regarding why

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Jesus spoke in parables. There are some churches today who, during the summer season, what they do is they actually preach through popular movies.

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No joke. It's a weird thing that's going on in evangelicalism. And these pastors, when they give the reason as to why they do it, they say,

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Well, Jesus spoke in parables. And the reason Jesus spoke in parables is because he was trying to appeal to the broader culture and tell them things in language that they would understand.

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But that's not why Jesus told parables. In fact, in our gospel, the gospel of Mark, chapter 4, verses 10 through 12, here's what it says.

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And when he was alone, those around him, the twelve asked him about the parables. Basically, the disciples said,

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What's the deal here? Why did you start preaching in parables? Nobody understands what you're saying. And so Jesus said to them,

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To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those outside, everything is in parables so that they may indeed see but not perceive, that they may indeed hear and not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.

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So in part, Jesus spoke parables as a judgment against those who were persecuting him and literally saying that his ministry was demonic.

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So he still preached, but he preached in parables so that they wouldn't understand and so that they wouldn't be forgiven.

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Something to keep in mind when we look at the parables. But we as Christians understand this.

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The gospel writers write in such a way that we are privy to the inside information of the inner circle.

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We are given the understanding of the parables. We are disciples along with them.

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Jesus is discipling us the same way he discipled them, with the same words, with the same parables, with the same miracles.

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The only difference is that we're not eyewitnesses to these things. We're relying on the eyewitnesses to convey these things to us.

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So we are being discipled along with the disciples. And so with that, we're going to look at the first parable that Jesus tells in our gospel text.

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And I'm going to read it from the ESV. Here's what it says. And Jesus said, The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.

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He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, and he knows not how the earth produces this all by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

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But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. So notice here, the kingdom of God, well, it's like a farmer.

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Now remember, this is first century farming. They didn't have red or green tractors.

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They didn't have any of those things. Instead, they would broadcast seed. They would take the seed and they would broadcast it and put it on the soil.

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That's how it would be sown. And the farmers in those days didn't have the, well, 21st century science to explain to them how a seed operates.

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All they knew is that I've got this thing, I put it in the ground, broadcast it, and then all by itself, stuff happens, right?

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And so it's kind of like that with the kingdom of God. So we're talking about the kingdom of God.

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And the kingdom of God, well, it grows in ways that we're not exactly sure how. It has something to do with seeds, but seeds are the metaphor.

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And the question is, what is the seed? The seed is the word of God, the proclamation of the gospel.

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And so what Jesus here is telling the disciples is something pertaining to what would become their apostolic ministry.

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Understand the kingdom of God grows in this way. You don't know how it works mechanically. I couldn't explain it to you.

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But I do know that when you preach the word of God, the kingdom of God grows all by itself, and it's like a seed.

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This is what Jesus is saying. And so let me give you an example of this. We're going to look at a little bit of cross -referencing, and here's the idea.

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Scripture interprets Scripture. So we're going to look at 1 Corinthians 3, verses 1 through 11.

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And what I'm going to do is I'm going to point out by way of kind of an interesting cross -reference how this plays out.

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The apostle Paul understood this very well. And if you know the background of the epistle of 1

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Corinthians, the Corinthian church had issues, and I'm being very polite.

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Corinth was kind of like modern -day Las Vegas, okay? And the church there, well, they had some struggles, and there was all kinds of problems.

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And so this is a letter written to correct some of the ways in which the Corinthian church went off the rails.

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And the funny thing is that they went off the rails in that direction, this direction, this direction, and the other direction too.

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They were all over the place. And so the letter itself seeks to correct a few things.

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But let's take a look at this where Paul is correcting them because the Corinthian church was engaging in what we call today kind of a cult of personality.

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So if you know anybody who says, oh, you know, I just love XYZ pastor.

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Oh, he hung the moon. He can't do anything wrong. They might have a bad view of a pastor to the point where they need to be corrected and understand that all pastors, they're servants.

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And so this is what Paul is correcting, kind of this cult of personality. But back then, the cult of personality didn't include guys like Rick Warren or Mark Driscoll or people like that.

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It included, well, the apostle Paul, Peter, Apollos, you know, big names that we find in our

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Bible. And so here's what Paul writes to the church at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1, but I, brothers, while I could not address you as spiritual people, but instead as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

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So this is a sign of immaturity, you know, cult of personality, immaturity. He says, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.

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And even now you're not yet ready, for you still are of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

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For when one says, I follow Paul, another says, well, I follow Apollos. Are you not being merely human?

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So let's make this clear. Paul is correcting something here. And he's one of the guys who they're saying, oh,

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I follow Paul. Paul could have easily said, well, of course they do. I'm the apostle Paul. But no, he doesn't do this.

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And there's a reason why, because Paul understands that he's an officeholder in Christ's church, and it's all about Jesus.

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So then Paul asks this question. So what then is Apollos? What is Paul? I like the fact that he says what, not who.

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It's a little degrading. What then is Apollos? What then is Paul? Servants through whom you believed.

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And there's the important word, servants. Pastors, apostles, prophets, teachers, they are not rulers.

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They're servants. They are servants through whom you believed. As the Lord assigned to each,

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I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

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Who is the one getting all the credit? Not Apollos, not Paul. God is.

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Because God is the one who brings the growth. How does he do it? I don't know. I have no clue how the mechanics work.

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But what did Paul do? Paul was a missionary. He would go out and he would preach the word. That's what he would do.

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He would broadcast the seed of the word of God. And somehow, some of the seed would take root and it would grow and people would be brought to penitent faith in Christ.

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And no sooner does Paul establish a church, well, he brings in elders or pastors and they come in and they water those seeds and the seeds grow, the plants grow and mature and then they produce a crop.

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In other words, they reproduce other Christians. That's kind of the idea of what's going on here. So let's read a little bit more.

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So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. You got that? Okay, pastors, apostles.

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Yeah, they're just, think of us as slaves. That's what we are. We're slaves, we're servants.

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We're not anything, but it's God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor for we are

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God's fellow workers and you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder,

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I laid a foundation and someone else is building on it. Let each one take care then how he builds upon it for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is

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Christ Jesus. Jesus is the foundation. It's all about him. So let's take a look at then this idea, kingdom of God is like seed.

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Let's take a look and see what this looks like in action. Paul has explained it to the Corinthian church. He's nothing, he's a servant.

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He plants and other waters. Well, let's see what that planting looks like so that we can see how the seed is cast, if you would, or put planted in the soil.

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Flip over to Acts chapter 13. We're gonna start at verse 13 and Paul is on one of his missionary journeys and he's gonna come to the city of Antioch of Pisidia.

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Now there's a couple of cities in the Mediterranean named Antioch. This one is in Pisidia. If you don't know where Pisidia was, it's no longer called that.

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But Pisidia is in modern day Turkey in Asia minor and it's part of the region of Galatia.

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So keep that in mind. Here's what it says starting at verse 13 of chapter 13.

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Now Paul and his companions, they set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia.

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John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.

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And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and they sat down. Now this is where much of evangelism took place in the first century because the people who were

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Jews, they were familiar with the Old Testament scriptures and as a result of that, they were the ones who were anticipating and waiting for the

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Messiah to arrive. And so Paul would always go to the synagogue first and preach to them and watch what he does.

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So after reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.

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So Paul stood up motioning with his hands. He said, men of Israel and you who fear

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God. Now real quick, a little note here. When it says you who fear God, that isn't technically a title.

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The God -fearers. Now, if you don't know who the God -fearers were, God -fearers were Gentiles who were studying to become

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Jews. So if you were a God -fearing man, you were a Gentile who was listening and being catechized into the

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Torah, but you were not yet circumcised and seen as a full -blown member of the Jewish community.

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So when you read the book of Acts and you hear about this guy was a man who feared God, that is a technical term, it's a title, referring to the fact that he's a

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Gentile who's studying to become a Jew. Does that make sense? So these are your adult catechumens, if you would, into Judaism.

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So men of Israel and you who fear God. Listen, the God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm, he led them out of it, and for about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness, that is an understatement, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance, and this took about 450 years, and after that, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet, and then they asked for a king, and God gave them

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Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years, and when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, that I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.

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Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior,

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Jesus, as he has promised. Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel, and as John was finishing his course, he said, what do you suppose that I am?

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I am not he, but behold, after me is, one is coming, the sandals of whose feet

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I am not worthy to untie. So notice what Paul is doing here. He's preaching the word, and he's doing so by summarizing the grand sweep of the

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Old Testament, reminding them, brothers, you know all of these things because you've heard these things written in the

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Torah and the prophets, and so he's reminding them of God's promise, and now he's declaring that God has kept his promise.

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He's fulfilled it by sending a savior. So here's what he says. Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear

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God, remember who the fear of God people are, right? To us has been sent the message of this salvation.

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For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every

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Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him, and though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked

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Pilate to have him executed, and when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb, but God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people, and we bring you the good news that what

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God had promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising

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Jesus. As also it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son today, I have begotten you, and as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,

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I will give you the holy and sure blessing of David, therefore he says also in another Psalm, you will not let your holy one see corruption.

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We'll pause here again. This sermon of Paul's is just chalk full of scripture.

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Now notice what Paul is not doing. Paul is not giving his personal testimony, not talking about lives being transformed or anything like that.

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He's proclaiming Christ, and he's planting the seed of the word of God.

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How does the kingdom of God grow? It grows through the preaching of the word and the preaching of Christ, and the preaching of him crucified and risen, and it comes with the preaching of the forgiveness of sins.

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And so we'll see this now as we move on. So he's talked about Christ's resurrection and death, and here's what he says, for David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but we whom

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God raised up did not see corruption. So let it be known to you therefore brothers, that through this man, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

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Wow, did you catch that? Through Jesus is proclaimed to you the forgiveness of sins.

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And so brothers and sisters, let us keep this in mind, that as we share the gospel with our friends and neighbors, those who live in Grand Forks, Oslo, Alvarado, Warren, don't expect them to become believers in Jesus Christ if you're not telling them the scriptures, if you're not telling them of Christ and him crucified for their sins.

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Tell them about Jesus, not you, but Jesus. Tell them about Jesus and what he has done for them, because that's the seed.

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If you don't plant the seed, you'll never get a harvest. I don't know any farmers around here who come the fall, expect to see a harvest in their fields if they haven't first planted the seed in the spring.

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Does that make sense? So in the same way, the kingdom of God does not grow if you do not preach Christ, that's the seed.

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Preach him, tell them of the forgiveness of sins. Tell them of what a wonderful savior that they have. Tell them of their sin and their need for this savior.

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This is what Paul did. And I'm gonna point something out to you here. Notice how he ends this sermon.

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He does not end it with an altar call. Watch what he does. We continue.

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Beware therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about. He ends his sermon with a warning.

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Look you scoffers, be astounded and perished, for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you would not believe even if one tells you.

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As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told to them again on the next Sabbath.

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So notice, he doesn't end with an altar call. He proclaims Christ and he warns them of unbelief.

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Don't let this passage of scripture written in the prophets be fulfilled about you. Look you scoffers, be astounded and perished, for I'm doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe even if someone tells you.

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So he ends with a warning. Kinda leaves off with like, you've been told, repent, believe, don't continue to persist in sin and unbelief and scoff at this message.

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That's how he ends. And so with that, some beg that they might hear more of these things in the next

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Sabbath. Sounds to me like some of the seed is already starting to take root.

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And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace.

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So notice some of these people hearing this are going, this is great news, the Messiah has come. We are getting great news and they see it as that.

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So the next Sabbath, now watch what happens here. So into the next Saturday, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the

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Lord. Became a big deal. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul and were violating him, to which we say ufda, right?

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That's not good. So they began to revile Paul. And Paul and Barnabas, they spoke out boldly saying, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you.

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Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the

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Gentiles. Notice what Paul did not do. All right, well, maybe what we need to do is adjust the message here.

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We need to go back to the drawing board. I mean, clearly this message is offensive. So what we gotta do is we need to make it less offensive.

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He didn't do that. It's, this is the good news. We're proclaiming

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Christ, repent, believe, be forgiven. And there is no other message. Can't change it.

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You don't like it, the problem's with you, not the gospel. And so Paul doesn't sit there and say, okay, gotta go back to the drawing board.

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Maybe if we have a carnival and put in a water slide or at the baptismal font, people come down in the water slide and we can have a confetti cannon, maybe that'll get them, right?

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He's not thinking this way. No, instead he basically is all, he follows

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Jesus' directive. When you preach the gospel and somebody refuses to believe, persists in sin and reviles you, what did

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Jesus say to do? Shake the dust off your feet. So he says this, since you thrust aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we're gonna turn to the

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Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us saying, I have made you a light to the Gentiles so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

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And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

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And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region, but the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and they drove them out of their district.

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But they shook the dust off their feet against them and then went to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the

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Holy Spirit. So by the way, this kind of farming, planting this seed could get you in a lot of trouble, could get you in a lot of trouble.

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But we are to not love our own lives because the one who loses his life will gain it,

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Christ says. So Paul never let the fact that there was persecution and those who reviled him, keep him from casting out the seed of the word of God and proclaiming

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Christ. He never compromised the message, never changed the method because the method doesn't change.

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The kingdom of God grows by planting the seed of the word of God. And you don't want one of those, you know how nowadays they have seed that is genetically altered.

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You don't, you cannot genetically alter the seed of the word of God. It'll create some kind of a mutant that isn't a real

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Christian. So you plant the real thing. This is what you do. And so Paul, you know, he experienced persecution, but there was a fledgling church there.

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And so we read in the next chapter, Acts chapter 14, 19 through 23, Paul is in the city of Lystra.

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And in the city of Lystra, Paul actually healed somebody and the pagans in the city thought that he was one of the, you know,

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Greco -Roman gods in the flesh because they had performed a miracle. Well, he explained to them, no, no, no, we're men just like you.

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And of course, the Jews who didn't like Paul at this time incited the mob there. The mob was, they wanted to worship and offer sacrifices to Paul.

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And when they stopped them, the Jews kind of stirred them up. And so they decided to stone him instead.

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So this is kind of where we pick up and we'll see what happens regarding Antioch Pisidia because it's mentioned again here.

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So we're in Lystra, but the Jews came from Antioch, that would be Antioch Pisidia, and Iconium and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned

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Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. That had to hurt by the way. But when the disciples gathered around about him, he rose up and entered the city on the next day and went on with Barnabas to Derbe.

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And when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.

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So notice he goes back to Antioch. And why did they do that? To strengthen the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

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And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the

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Lord in whom they had believed. So what did they do? They went back to Antioch, appointed elders.

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You can say pastors. And these pastors then, what Paul planted, these pastors watered.

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And do you know what happened? The church grew. And if you look in the center of your bulletin, in the center of your bulletin, there's a photograph.

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And it's a photograph of what remains of the ruined now church, because nobody lives there anymore.

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The church of St. Paul at Antioch of Pisidia. This was a church built during the

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Byzantine era. And the building was constructed by the church that was originally planted by the

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Apostle Paul. Now, if you think back and you look back on the wall out there in the fellowship hall, there is a photograph of Berzven Anderson.

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He's the Apostle Paul of this church, of this congregation. That's who he is.

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He's the one who preached the word, planted the seeds of the word of God.

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And they grew. And the pastors that followed him were the ones who watered and built them up, right?

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And I'm just one of a line of servants of this congregation. But here in our photograph, the

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Apostle Paul is the one who originally planted that church. And they eventually had the funds to build a congregation, a pretty nice facility, if you would, for the day.

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And this is interesting. Recent excavations have revealed a first century building underneath the church, which has been identified as the synagogue that was there.

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So the synagogue where Paul preached in Antioch of Pisidia, where eventually he, that was where the rabble, those who persisted in sin and unbelief, kind of drove him out.

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And some of those Jews from that same synagogue, they traveled to Lystra and stirred up the crowd against Paul and had him stoned there.

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The people who were of that synagogue, you know what happened to that synagogue? It died and the church thrived.

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And what ended up happening is that on the same site where that synagogue was, is where this church was erected.

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Fascinating story from history. But again, we're all talking today.

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We're talking about the seed of the word of God. So let's come back to Jesus's words. Jesus said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.

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He sleeps and rises night and day. The seed sprouts and grows.

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He knows not how. And so the kingdom of God is like that. And here's, remember what

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Paul said in our letter to the Corinthians, that we are all fellow workers with God.

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God in his sovereignty has chosen that the means by which the kingdom grows is through the word of God.

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But not just the word of God alone, the word of God in the mouths of human beings, sinful humans like me and like you.

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And he promises, God promises to reward us. And yet Paul said, he who plants and he who waters is nothing.

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It's God who brings the increase. And so God is so rich in mercy and grace that he has permitted us human beings, not angels to preach the word.

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Angels don't come down from heaven and preach the word of God and people are brought dependent in faith. It's sinful humans like me and like you.

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And although the scripture says we're nothing and it's God who brings the increase, still

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God in his mercy rewards us for being his fellow workers.

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This is what we call grace upon grace. And so the idea is this, brothers and sisters, let us keep this in mind.

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We all desire for the kingdom of God to grow. And notice I didn't say Kongsvinger.

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I said for the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God grows when we tell people the good news about Jesus Christ.

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You and I, all of us have the privilege to be able to spread the seed of the word of God, to proclaim

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Christ in him crucified and risen from the grave and proclaim the forgiveness of sins that we so desperately cling to to those around us.

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And they do need to hear it. And so you want to know how somebody becomes a Christian? It's not by your cleverness.

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It's not by your great argumentation. It's not by your subtleties or shenanigans or even by a church's clever marketing campaigns and things like that.

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The kingdom of God grows when people like me and like you preach

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Christ. So let us do that for the sake of our neighbor so that those who are appointed to eternal life may be brought to penitent faith in Jesus and that we can be fellow workers with God.

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Although that seems like being unequally yoked, does it not? Right? I'm gonna keep this in mind.

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He's given us his word. He's the one who does the saving. He's the one who does the regenerating. He does all the heavy lifting.

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And he has allowed us the privilege of preaching the good news.

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So let us do that. Let us do that. And we know that God who never lies, he will someday reward us too for telling people the good news and spreading the seed of the word of God by which the kingdom grows.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. We thank you for your support.

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All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.