Monday

Related Verses
Mark 1:15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe in the gospel.

Mark 4:26
26 And He said, So is the kingdom of God: as if a man cast seed on the earth,

Rev. 14:2, 4
2 And I heard a voice out of heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harp-singers playing on their harps.
4 These are they who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are they who follow the Lamb wherever He may go. These were purchased from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.

Luke 17:21
21 Nor will they say, Behold, here it is! or, There! For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.

1 Cor. 3:6-7, 9
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.
7 So then neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who causes the growth.
9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s cultivated land, God’s building.

Related Reading
In Mark 4 we have the seed of the gospel, or the gospel as a seed. According to 4:3, as the Lord was teaching, He was sowing. This sowing was the Slave-Savior’s proclaiming of the gospel of God, which brought in the kingdom of God (1:14-15). It was, as in 4:26, the sowing of this seed of life in the word spoken by the Slave-Savior. This indicates that His gospel service was to sow the divine life into the people whom He served. The growth of this life depends on the condition of the ones served, and its issue differs according to their various conditions, as portrayed in the parable of the sower (vv. 1-20).

The Lord Jesus sowed the seed into the human heart. In Mark 4 and Matthew 13 the human heart is likened to soil. Our heart is the field, the soil, into which the Lord Jesus has sown Himself as the seed of life, which is the seed of the gospel. In the parable of the sower, the Lord Jesus is both the Sower and the seed sown. As the Sower, the Lord sows Himself as the seed of life through His word. (Life-study of Mark, p. 122)

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When the Lord sowed the seed of the kingdom of God, He sowed Himself into His disciples. Then this seed of the kingdom passed through a process of development within the disciples for three and a half years. As a result, when the day of Pentecost came, the kingdom of God was present with the disciples. The time from the Lord’s coming forth to proclaim the gospel until the day of Pentecost was less than four years. That was a period of time for the seed sown into the “earth” to grow. The seed continued to grow and develop until the day of Pentecost, when the kingdom was clearly present with Peter and the one hundred twenty.

The kingdom of God is very different from the kingdom of man. The kingdom of man is a matter of organization. The kingdom of God is not a matter of organization; rather, the kingdom of God is absolutely a matter of life.

What is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is actually the God-man, Jesus Christ, sown as a seed into His believers. After this seed has been sown into them, it will grow in them and eventually develop into a kingdom…This kingdom will bring us to the destination so that God’s goal may be reached…This goal is the full development of the kingdom of God.

In order to make this matter clear, I would like to borrow a term from biology. This term is the word gene. The Triune God in humanity sown into our being is the gene of the kingdom. We know that without human genes it is impossible to have human life. Our birth, our being, and our existence all came from a gene. Now we must see that the Triune God in humanity has been sown into us to be the gene of the kingdom. Praise the Lord that this gene is within us! Eventually, the kingdom will issue from this gene.

First, the kingdom is the issue of the gospel, and then it is the goal of the gospel. Between the issue and the goal we have the church. Do you know what the church is? The church is the continuation of the issue of the gene of the kingdom.

The One who has been sown into us is the gene of the kingdom, the Triune God in humanity. This wonderful One is our God, Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Master, and life.

Day by day the seed of the kingdom is growing and developing within us…We may forget many things, but we should all remember the gene that is within us. The Triune God in humanity has been sown into us as a seed of life to grow, develop, and issue in the kingdom. The kingdom, then, is the issue of the gospel and will be the goal of the gospel. Between the issue and goal we have the church life as the continuation of the issue of the marvelous gene that is within us. (Life-study of Mark, pp. 123-124, 126-128)

Further Reading: Life-study of Mark, msg. 14