Sermon from August 13, 2000
You never had the pleasure of knowing Zeke Emhoff. A steamroller crushed his leg during construction of the New York State Throughway. After he became accustomed to his artificial leg, he would take his wife, Jeanette, to dinner and sit at the table with his artificial leg rotated 180° so that the front of his shoe was pointing behind him. As you can imagine, he attracted a lot of startled attention.

Zeke and Nettie came to faith in Jesus Christ in 1969. Almost their whole family came to Christ within three years. Later, their youngest son also came to Christ and today is on staff with Young Life. It was all very new to them. Zeke especially had a hard time staying awake in church in those early days. I had been a pastor for less than three years, and I had to decide how I was going to handle Zeke. Of course, he embarrassed Jeanette, but a man who will sit with his foot rotated 180° is not terribly susceptible to social pressures. I made a decision that has stayed with me ever since.

I decided that if he needed to sleep, he should sleep. He was not snoring, only listing severely to starboard, and he came every Sunday. The transformation of human lives proceeds at a glacial pace. A snooze here and a snooze there during a sermon is hardly the issue. It is not where you are that counts; it is where you are headed.

Zeke was growing in his grasp of the faith and in his love for people. Within ten years of becoming a believer he became an elder in the church and served with distinction there. Tolerance of his tiredness was a small price to pay for the privilege of watching him grow into something beautiful for the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, wisdom is vindicated by its children.

But he had to grow. If all he did was snooze, something inside him would have died that he could not afford to lose. That is what I want you to take away with you today. God has given you possibilities for spiritual growth that you cannot afford to lose, but you can lose them; and if you do, you may never get them back. You can see what I mean in Mark 4:21-25.

Let's put these verses in context. Jesus' ministry had reached a crisis point. Religious authorities sought to discredit and marginalize Him. They did it by attributing His miraculous powers to the devil. "He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons." "Of course, we do not deny His miracles. How could we? They are there for all to see. But where do you think He gets the power to do them? There is a power in this world other than God. In light of how Jesus undermines our Jewish distinctives, we suggest to you that His power comes from the devil."

In response to this official rejection, Jesus, quoting Isaiah 6:11, warned of judgment to come and began to teach unintelligible parables as a symbol of divine judgment to come on people, who no longer had the power to discern what God was doing in Israel – so much so that they were attributing God's work to the devil. To reject Jesus, as some Jewish officials had done, had national consequences.

The great crowds that thronged to Jesus everywhere He went continued to do so more and more, but they could no longer pursue Him in a holiday atmosphere. In a large, public way, they were going to have to make a decision about Jesus, and life and death hung on their choice. Was Jesus right or was the Jerusalem delegation right?

Among those who believed Jesus was right were the twelve men He had appointed as apostles. By making that decision they had within them new and exciting possibilities for spiritual growth. But they were only possibilities. The apostles had a long way to go, and nothing shows that better than the fact that when Jesus told His parables, they were just as much in the dark as everyone else. Jesus knew that, and in private sessions He explained the meaning of His parables, because He knew they were really with Him. But even that was not enough. The really important tests still lay ahead of them. That brings us to Mark 4:21-25.

Look at verses 21-22. He said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open." What is the meaning of these statements? Let me make three observations, and you can judge for yourself if they help the meaning to be clear.

First, verses 10-12 gave us the first answer to the question, "Why, Jesus, have you spoke in parables that no one understood?" Jesus spoke in parables as a symbol of divine judgment to come on people, who no longer had the power to discern what God was doing in Israel and were in fact attributing God's work to the devil. Verses 21-22 give a second answer to that question. Simply put, Jesus said that revealing, not hiding, was the primary purpose of the parables.

Jesus' intention was to reveal something important about the kingdom of God, not to hide it. For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. Do you remember the great statement by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10?

"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him" –

and that is where we too often stop. Verse 10, however, continues. But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. God intends to share with us what is on His mind. Why, then, do we so often feel like we are in the dark about God? That brings me to a final observation.

The time before whatever is concealed is brought out into the open is a time of faith for those who have given their loyalty to Jesus Christ. The longer the time before it is brought out into the open, the greater the challenge to our faith. Has life ever seemed to you so confusing and unfair that you said to God, "Why?" We hardly understand what we are asking when we say that. Reality seems to violate what we thought was right and just, and nothing or no one promises to put it right.

In times like that it is good to remember and believe Jesus' words here. For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. That is what Jesus' next words in verse 23 call on us to do. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Have you ever said to your children, "You don't listen! If I've told you that once, I've told you a thousand times." Ears to hear are ears that take and use obediently what they hear. People who do that will trust God to show them in His time the meaning of events that seem to have no meaning. People who do that in the dark times have learned to do it by means of a discipline that Jesus talks about in verses 24-25.

"Consider carefully what you hear," he continued. "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." Sometimes we ask God for wisdom. This statement by Jesus offers a piece of wisdom so profound as to be relevant to every area of human experience. We hear it reflected, when someone says, "You'll get out of this exercise just as much as you put into it." People who say that may not know that they are echoing Jesus. In the biblical context He was bringing it to bear on the kingdom of God. Let's try to get a handle on it.

First, let's try to hear what He said against the background of Mark 4. Jesus has told a parable that no one understood. His twelve apostles and others who believed in Him wanted to know what it meant. He explained it, as we have seen, in verses 14-20. So now, they understand. But when Jesus says, "Consider carefully what you hear," He pushes them to take the next step.

He is saying to them and to all of us who cherish His words, "You now know that my parable about the farmer and his soils had to do with the word of God and how people receive it. So, what are you going to do with what you now understand? What kind of soil are you today? What steps are you taking to be sure that you are good soil that will produce a harvest and not poor soil that does not?" Are you and I consciously and consistently working into our lives some godly habit of thinking and acting like a follower of Christ? My friend, Zeke of artificial leg fame, illustrates beautifully what I am talking about.

Zeke never became a Bible scholar, but he became a biblical man. Once when we went back to upstate New York for a visit, I was sitting at the table in Zeke's house. He sat down across the table from me and said, "Bowen, we have formed an 'Ephaphroditus' Club' here at the church." I did not know that Zeke could pronounce "Ephaphroditus," and I asked him, "Zeke, what are you talking about?"

Zeke said, "You know, the guy in Philippians 2, Ephaphroditus." In Philippians 2:25 the Apostle Paul described him to the Philippian church as your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. Zeke said, "That is what we do. We find out about people in the church and outside the church who have needs and can't take care of it themselves, and we go help them."

That is what it means to do something with what you understand. Zeke was a doer, and Ephaphroditus was a doer. Zeke could understand that, and he used that man's example to work into his life a godly habit of helping people in their need. In Jesus' words Zeke considered what he heard, and it made a difference in his life. Jesus' words take that dramatic step further.

"With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more." What size container do you bring for God to fill? The Gospel of Mark shows Jesus going to extraordinary lengths with the twelve apostles to increase the size of the container they were bringing to God to fill. The training of the Twelve forms one of the more dramatic sub-themes in Mark. But today I am interested in you. What size container do you bring for God to fill? Let me take a minute and make what I mean more clear by reading four statements from the New Testament and then asking you some very personal questions about them.

The first one comes from Jesus in Matthew 6:33. "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous." Do you ever aspire to do everything you do in your life, because God and His way of doing things mean more to you than anything or anyone else in the world? Have you ever taken or aspired to take any course of action about which you would have said, "I did that because God and His way of doing things mean more to me than anything else or anyone else in the world?" If not, how do you make your failure to do so square with Jesus' words?

Here is a second statement from Jesus in Mark 8:34. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." For the time being I will leave out the part about the cross; but otherwise, is there some credible way in which the people who know you best would say that you are trying to follow Christ in the way you live, and that He inspires you to show a willingness to deny yourself to help other people?

Next is something the Apostle Paul said one time in Philippians 1:20. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. Would you say you are eager and courageous to exalt Christ by the way you live, whether anyone else notices or not? Do you wish you were? How much would you like to be?

Finally, from Romans 12:2: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Does your behavior simply mirror that of the people around you, or do you bring to your relationships something that reflects a distinctly Christian way of thinking? Do you ever question whether your motives for what you do honor Christ? Changes in motivation are the bellwether that marks a mind that is being renewed into the image of God.

I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I do not ask these questions in an all-or-nothing attitude. There are degrees of achievement. There are degrees of desire. That is why I prefaced these tough questions by asking, "What size container do you bring for God to fill?" If I can live for several years with Zeke nodding off during my sermons, I am not about to lay on you impossible expectations.

But what direction is your life going? What is your desire toward God? I don't want us to congratulate ourselves on the success of our religious life because we have been successful materially or politically. It is wonderful that we are building this west wing. It is no doubt splendid that we evangelicals enjoy great wealth. It is a sign of political strength that evangelicals have a place at the national table; but church buildings and money and power in the public arena will not resist or reverse the moral and spiritual rot that gnaws at our liberal culture and beckons to us alluringly.

That requires a sufficient number of people pursuing God as Jesus and Paul taught us over a sufficient period of time. There is a sufficient number of Christians in this nation to do this. We know or are culpable if we do not know what Jesus and Paul have taught us. What is lacking is for those of us with that knowledge to aspire over a sufficient period of time to that bright vision of what human life is meant to be.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Matt. 5:6). "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more." What size container do you bring for God to fill? And there is that disquieting reminder that Jesus gives at the end of verse 25. "Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away."

We have only indirect influence on Christians in other congregations. This is the only one we can do anything decisive about. Aim high, but work low. Don't be afraid to lift up your eyes to the hills, but don't forget to keep your nose to the grindstone. Let's be realists, but let's not be cynical realists, who say all the Bible talk is just idalistic nonsense. Its reach will always exceed our grasp. That is no reason not to reach.