The Parables About Sharing the Gospel

Take Every Passage to Prayer - Volume 2, The Gospels
^{Thursday July 11, 2024}

Matthew 13:31-35, 44-52, Mark 4:21-34, Luke 13:18-21

Father, You have given me a job to do. I am to share the gospel with others. It is not a suggestion or a recommendation. It is a command. As a believer in Jesus Christ, I do not have the option to decline the task of sharing the gospel. In Your providence, You have chosen to use believers to bring salvation to others. You don’t bring people to faith without the contribution of believers. It is no small thing for a believer to decline to share the gospel with others. Father, please defeat within me any rebellious hesitation or resistance to the work of sharing the gospel. I want to share the gospel without fear of man, with effectiveness, with sincerity, with genuine love, and with a heart of thankfulness for those who You used to bring salvation to me. Amen.

Father, Jesus had just talked with His disciples about the judgment that is coming for all who do not place their faith in Him alone for salvation. The logical question that comes next is:

How should a believer respond to the knowledge that his neighbor is heading for eternal destruction?

• Father, You expect the believer to share the gospel. The believer has the light in a world of darkness. The believer has the answers for the confusion created by this world. The believer has the peace, joy, and hope that those living in darkness and anxiety long for. Just like someone turns on an outdoor light to see at night, we are to turn on the spiritual light for our neighbors that they might see in the darkness. To keep our light to ourselves, to refrain from sharing the gospel, would be like turning on a lamp and then hiding it under the bed. It makes no sense to be a believer who refuses to share the gospel with others. The gospel is a mystery to those in darkness. Its truth is hidden from those who don’t believe. Jesus tells us here that the gospel is meant to be disclosed and its truth is meant to be brought out into the open so people will understand it and embrace it. If the person who hears the gospel is desiring to be saved (they have “ears to hear”), they will hear the truth and understand it.
  
  
• Father, You will judge the believer based upon how they shared the gospel. Jesus said to His disciples:
  
  “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 they have will be taken from them. (NIV)”.
  
  Translation:
  
  “Listen carefully, guys. If you don’t have compassion for the lost, your Father may not have compassion for you when you come to Him with needs. The more compassion you have for the lost, the more your Father will bless you. Your work of sharing the gospel will yield more fruit and a greater harvest. However, if you lack compassion for the lost, your Christian walk will become unfruitful and yield no harvest at all. In fact, the Father will give the work of ministry to someone else who has compassion for the lost.”
  
  
• We are to share the gospel and watch the miracles You, the Father, will do with it. A man planted wheat seeds in his fields. As time passed, the man saw the seeds sprout, grow stalks, grow heads, and then finally kernels in the head. When the kernel is ripe, the farmer will harvest the wheat. He did nothing to make the seeds grow. Similarly, a believer is to share the gospel, planting seeds in different people’s lives. You will then perform miracles and bring about faith in the person’s life who heard the gospel shared with them. Just like the tiny mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, grows into a big mustard tree, You can take the seemingly most insignificant act of sharing the gospel and complete incredible transformations of individuals, families, organizations, communities, and nations.
  
• A man changes the tire of an older woman in a grocery store parking lot.
• She remembers Sunday school lessons from her youth about the Good Samaritan.
• She opens up her Bible for the first time in decades.
• She comes to faith in Jesus Christ by reading the Bible.
• She faithfully shares the gospel of Jesus Christ year-after-year with her rebellious grandson.
• She dies. At her funeral, her grandson breaks down and wants to give his life to Jesus.
• Her grandson becomes the pastor of a church.
• Because of his devotion to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the pastor’s ministry is blessed as many people in the local community come to faith in Jesus.
• Among the new converts are politicians and other influential leaders in the community.
• The politicians pass legislation that helps the poor and promotes truth and justice.
• The success of this legislation transforms the entire city and becomes a beacon of hope for other cities across the nation.
• A nationwide movement grows, and spiritual revival is experienced across the land.

This is the kind of impact Jesus had in mind: the tiny mustard seed of a seemingly “insignificant” act of ministry could grow into a large tree that touches the lives of many.

• Father, You intend each believer to touch many lives with the gospel. Jesus shares the parable of a woman who mixed yeast (leaven) into 60 pounds of flour until it had worked all through the dough. Yeast is used as a leavening agent. It makes the bread rise and it fills the bread with strong air pockets. Sixty pounds of flour suggests an amount of bread that would feed perhaps as much as 100 people. Metaphorically speaking, Jesus is encouraging each believer to share the gospel with many people.
  
  
• Father, nothing should be more important to a believer than leading people to Jesus. Jesus used two parables to illustrate the point that it is worth giving up everything we own (giving up all materialism and worldliness) to gain the opportunity to lead souls to faith in Jesus Christ. Those who lead people to Jesus can anticipate receiving a heavenly reward that is far greater than any treasure on earth.
  
• A man walked through or adjacent to another man’s field. He saw a treasure in the field. To give this a modern context, perhaps the man found various nuggets of gold or oil seeping onto the surface from under the ground. The man decides he must own that field. He sold everything he owned so that he could make the owner an offer the owner could not refuse.
• A merchant went looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he sold everything he could so that he could buy that pearl.
  
  
• Father what are the consequences if we do not share the gospel with others? People will go to hell. Just like fishermen in the Sea of Galilee sort fish caught in a net, separating the good fish from the bad fish, so the angels of heaven will sort those who know Christ (the righteous) from those who do not (the wicked). The wicked will be sent to hell (the blazing furnace) where there will be much weeping (sorrow for no longer having God in their world) and gnashing of teeth (regretting bitterly their foolish decisions to reject God that occurred in life).

After Jesus had just shared quite a few parables in a row, Jesus was asked by His disciples why He teaches exclusively using parables. Jesus answered:

• He is fulfilling Old Testament prophecy.
• We already discussed how those who long for salvation through Christ will make the effort to understand the parables (eyes and ears opened) while those who do not long for salvation will not.
• The parables are effective in teaching the truths of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus asked the disciples if they understood the meaning of the parables. They said they did.

Jesus stated that believers should continuously teach people about the Kingdom of Heaven. Believers should teach:

• The old truths that people have heard before. People need to be continuously reminded of these truths.
• New truths, which is more in-depth knowledge of the gospel, brought out of the storeroom of knowledge of the Bible, that the people haven’t heard before.

Amen.