Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This week we are continuing our teaching
series called Growing Season. And today we're
talking about what grows in the dark. After you've
planted that seed when it seems like nothing
is really happening, is there anything going
on? Is God still at work even during that time?
Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark, chapter
4. verses 26 to 29. He also said, then the head,
then the full kernel in the head. As soon as
the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it,
because the harvest has come. The word of the
Lord. We're doing this teaching series, which
we are calling Growing Season. And that is because,
really, the more that you read the Bible, the
more you realize that the Bible is actually kind
of written by farmers. It was written to farmers.
It was written through the worldview of farmers.
And in the Bible, it actually says that, you
know, God is like a farmer. God is like a shepherd.
God is like the owner of a vineyard. And we,
his people, are his feet. We are his flock. And
so the way we read the Bible and reading the
Bible through the lens of a farmer allows us
not just to better understand what God's word
is saying to us, but it actually points us all
toward the great farmer who is God. Now. I grew
up on this dairy farm. And of course, we don't
own this farm anymore. We sold it years ago.
But a few weeks ago, Alex and I had a chance
to go down and visit it again. And I thought
that as I went back to that farm, I was wondering,
oh, how am I going to feel when I walk on there?
I haven't been on there for like 15 or 20 years.
Would I feel kind of nostalgic? Would I say,
oh, I miss this feeling of home? Would I say,
oh, how I long for a city? simpler life. But
that's actually not what I felt at all when I
walked back onto that property. I was surprised
that the first feeling that hit me was this feeling
of like dread and slight relief. Because the
thing that struck me, the thing I remembered
most was just how much hard work farming was
in those days. living there. And my dad, he worked
hard. So hard. There is actually an old saying,
a farming expression, that a farmer works from
can to can't, which means that a farmer works
from the moment he can see from sunrise all through
till the moment that he can't see at sundown.
And that was definitely true of my dad. My dad
was up before the sun. He was out in the barn
milking cows while we were still sleeping in
our beds. And then by the time the end of the
night rolled around, it was long after sunset
by the time he got back into the house just in
enough time to sit down on the couch and fall
asleep while watching the nightly news. It felt
like he was always working. There were always
cows to milk. There were always crops to tend,
always fences to fix. There were always machinery
that needed repairing. It just never ended from
sunup to sundown, from can to can't. But, and
this is a very big but, every farmer eventually
learns that there are some things that hard work
just cannot do, right? You can prepare the soil.
You can plant the seed. You can fertilize. You
can spray. You can harvest the crop, but you
can't make the sunshine. You can't make the rainfall.
You can't make the seed grow. And so at some
point, every farmer reaches the limit of what
he can do. And it's not just farmers. It's not
just farmers. We also, whatever your job is,
we work hard. In our culture, we work hard at
our jobs. We work hard at our marriages. We work
hard with parenting. We're always working hard.
But eventually, we too run into situations where
there's just nothing more that we can do. You
can't force your business to grow. You can't.
You can try, but you can't make it happen. You
can't force a child to make wise choices. You
can't force your marriage to be healed. And often
when we run up against this reality that we can't
do these things, our reaction is actually to
try harder. Well, let me put in more time. Let
me put in more effort. Let me work harder. Let
me worry more. Maybe if I stay up later, maybe
if I work at it all night long, then I can keep
it going. Then I can get it going. But farming
teaches us something different. There comes a
point where effort ends. And trust begins. Eventually,
the farmer has to go to sleep. Eventually, the
field is left alone. And the seed disappears
underground. And in the dark of night, and in
the dark of the soil, and in the dark of the
winter season, we just have to trust that something
is happening, even if we can't control it. That's
why Jesus tells this strange little parable that
we heard in Mark chapter 4. It's got to be one
of the shortest parables ever. And for that reason,
it's probably one that many of you never even
heard before. It's so easy to overlook. But it's
easy to remember. You can just go home and tell
your friends about it after church. It goes like
this. A farmer goes out, scatters seed on the
ground. And then he goes to bed. And he wakes
up. And he goes to bed. And he wakes up. And
the seed grows. But he doesn't understand how.
End of story, right? I find that a fascinating
little parable, but you might say, what is there
actually to learn from that parable? Well, there
actually is a very powerful and important lesson
in there for us today. The things that matter
most are often the things that we cannot control,
right? God's timing we cannot control. The work
of the Holy Spirit, we cannot control. The kingdom
of God, we cannot control. These things matter
so, so much to us. But these things are often
happening beneath the surface, beyond our sight,
and outside of our control. In the dark, in darkness,
where we cannot see. That's what I want to talk
about today. I want to talk to you today about
farming in the dark. I want to talk about the
darkness underground. I want to talk about the
darkness of night. And I want to talk about the
darkness of winter. We're asking the question,
what is God doing when we can't see what God
is doing? And the answer is, a whole lot can
happen in the dark. Now, I've given you some
little sermon notes here. I would encourage you
to follow along. I think there's lots here that
we need to learn. let's start with the darkness
of the soil. Jesus says, the kingdom of God is
like this. It's as if someone goes out and scatter
seed on the ground and he would sleep and rise
night and day and the seed would sprout and grow
and he does not know how. Now, short parable,
but really where is the action all taking place?
The action is all taking place underground. It's
taking place out of sight. It's taking place
beyond the farmer's control. If you were to go
into this farmer's field the next day and look
out over that field, you would see nothing that
indicated to you that anything was happening.
You would just see no evidence. You would see
no progress. You would see no results. You would
just see dirt. You would just see dirt. And that's
exactly what makes this parable so difficult
for us because we want visible growth. We want
to see that something has happened. We want immediate
results in our lives. We want the reassurance
that our efforts are actually paying off somehow.
But the kingdom of God refuses to work that way.
The kingdom of God grows underground. Before
it ever grows above ground for you to see something.
You see, when you plant a seed underground, do
you know the first thing it does? First thing
it does is not send up a shoot so everyone can
see something's happening. No. What's the first
thing it does? First thing it does is send down
a root, right? It sends down a root into the
darkness where no one can see it. And if a seed,
I think, were to send up a shoot before it sent
down a root, it probably wouldn't survive. No,
God always grows the root before he grows the
fruit. The hidden work comes first. The foundation
comes first, right? We want visible progress.
We want shoots and we want fruits. But God is
far more interested in our roots, our character,
our humility. Our trust, our growing faith, things
that nobody else can see. I think, you know,
sometimes we pray, God, you know, change my circumstances.
But God says, nah, right now, I just want to
change you. God is growing roots and roots take
time and they grow in the dark and no one applauds
and no one sees. You know, science actually tells
us. That when you plant a seed underground, something
quite fascinating happens. That seed coats, that
hard, rigid exterior, it absorbs water. And it
swells and it swells and it swells until finally
it cracks open. It breaks. The seed actually
looks like it's blowing up and destroying. And
that is actually one of the most important lessons
about growth that we can learn. Is that sometimes
growth in our life begins with some kind of a
breaking. Right? It's a loss of certainty. It's
a loss of control. Loss of a dream. Right? The
seed breaks. You break. Your life feels like
it's breaking and shattering. All of our certainties
get cracked. But that breaking is not a sign
of failure. It's often the beginning of growth.
And it looks like nothing is happening. Or even
worse, when it's breaking, it looks like everything
is falling apart. But growth is actually happening
in that moment. The farmer can't see it. We don't
see that from above, right? The seed doesn't
even understand it when it's happening to it.
But God is at work. And it is true that great
transformation often resembles death before it
resembles life. Which means this morning, if
you find yourself in an underground... right
now, if your prayers seem to be going unanswered,
if your growth seems to feel invisible, if everything
in your life seems to be breaking and cracking,
don't assume that God has stopped working, right?
The soil may be dark, but lots can happen in
the dark. Okay, but Jesus doesn't just teach
us about dark soil. He also teaches us about
dark nights. Listen to what Jesus says. He says,
the kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter
seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night
and day. Now, that detail seems a little unnecessary
to me, right? Why does Jesus need to tell us
that the farmer sleeps? Why not just tell us
that the seed grows? It's because Jesus, as always,
is teaching us something very important. Notice
what the farmer is not doing. The farmer is not
pacing anxiously across the edge of his field.
The farmer is not digging up the seed every morning
to look and see if it has started growing. The
farmer is not out at the field at 2 a .m. in
the morning with a flashlight saying, come on,
grow, grow, right? No, the farmer sleeps. And
that's remarkable because farmers are not lazy
people. My dad certainly wasn't a lazy person.
But even the hardest working farmer eventually
has to stop because there is nothing more that
can be done. And so he goes to bed. Not because
he doesn't care. Of course he cares. But he goes
to bed because he's already done everything that
he can do. The rest now is beyond his control.
Again, do you know what scientists tell us? That
most of a plant's actual growth takes place during
the night. During the day, the plant absorbs
all the energy from the sunlight, but then it's
during the night when the farmer is asleep that
that energy gets spent in elongating the stem
and deepening the root. Just hear that again.
The farmer is asleep when most of the growth
That is true, I think, spiritually as well. Some
of the most important growth in our lives happens
during night seasons, right? During the night
of grief, the night of your uncertainty, the
night of disappointment. The night when your
prayers just seem to be bouncing off the ceiling
above you. We tend to think, oh, growth. No,
growth happens during the bright and sunny moments,
the days of success. But God often grows us the
most in the night. And I think that's because,
you know, night forces us to stop working, forces
us to stop performing. Night strips away from
us the illusion of control and forces us to actually
trust God. And that leads to growth. Now, some
of you will say, well, sure, sure. Yeah, I might
not be able to work at night, but I can worry.
I can worry at night. And we might think that
somehow the more that we worry, it means the
more that we care. But the farmer does not stay
awake worrying either. Worrying about a seed
does not make it grow. Worrying about tomorrow
does not fix tomorrow. In fact, Jesus said something
like this elsewhere. He says, can any of you
add even a single hour to your life by worrying?
The answer is no. Worrying away our nights does
not make things grow. It actually stunts our
own growth. But rest. is an act of trust. Sleep
is a sign of faith. Rest says, God is still in
control while I sleep. God is still God even
when I'm asleep. God is still working when I
rest. God can carry what I can't. God can watch
over what I can't watch over. And God can grow
what I can't grow. Sleeping is not giving up
responsibility. It's giving up The illusion of
control, right? Sleeping is not abandoning the
field. Sleeping is actually entrusting the field
now to God. And I think that's why for some of
us, sleep is the most difficult spiritual discipline
of all because we believe we're the fixers, right?
We're the problem solvers. We're the saviors.
But eventually every disciple has to learn. That
Jesus already has that job. He's the fixer. He's
the problem solver. He's the savior and not us.
Some of you might know this, but there's a beautiful
prayer that's found in some Anglican prayer books.
And it's often prayed right before bedtime, right
before your head hits the pillow. It goes like
this. It is night after a long day. What has
been done has been done. What has not been done.
Has not been done. Let it be. Wouldn't it feel
good to pray that prayer at the end of a night?
Not because it's encouraging laziness, but because
it encourages us trust. Look, the day is over.
We worked hard, but now the work is finished.
Now sleep. Because the kingdom of God does not
depend on you staying awake. Or let's put this
like really simply. Sometimes the most spiritual
thing you can do is go to sleep. Not because
you've given up, but because you trust the one
who never sleeps. And while you sleep, a lot
can happen in the dark. So there's the darkness
of the soil. Lasts for a while. The darkness
of the night, of course, lasts till morning.
But sometimes we experience not just a dark moment,
but we experience a dark season. And every farmer
often knows better than us the reality of the
seasons. You heard my dad rattle off all the
things that happen in different seasons. There's
a season for planting, a season for growing,
a season for harvest, a season for rest. You
cannot harvest in April. You cannot plant in
January. You cannot force July to arrive in February.
The seasons... arrive in their own time. Now,
we understand that perfectly when it comes to
nature, but we struggle to accept seasons in
ourselves. We resist seasons of life. We want,
in our lives, perpetual summer, perpetual growth,
perpetual success. We want every season to feel
like it's harvest season. But God has not designed
things that way. That's not how he made nature.
And that's not how he makes discipleship either.
Right? The kingdom doesn't work that way. Farming
doesn't work that way. We can't work that way.
And that brings us to the season of winter. That's
the dark season. Right? The days are shorter.
But winter is not a mistake. It's part of the
design. I mean, I remember when I was growing
up on the farm, it always felt a little strange
in winter because now the fields that had been
full of life just a few months earlier suddenly
looked empty. The corn was gone. You know, the
wheat was gone. There was just stalks of corn
left sometimes. The wheat was gone. Even the
cows were gone. They couldn't go outside. They
had to be confined to the barn for the winter.
Everything looked brown and frozen and silent
and dead. Nothing seemed to be happening. And
yet every farmer knows that is not the whole
story because winter has a purpose on a farm.
Now, in the video, you heard my dad talk about
winter wheat, winter wheat. And in the video,
we spent a lot of time looking at wheat. Winter
wheat is planted in the fall. It sprouts. It
grows a little bit. It gets about like, you know,
this high. And then winter arrives. And the snow
comes and the cold comes and everything seems
to go dormant. You might say, oh shoot, I didn't
have that timed out very well. I've just killed
a whole field of wheat. But here's the fascinating
part. The wheat actually needs winter. There
is this process called vernalization. where the
wheat must experience a prolonged period of cold
before it can produce grain. Without that cold,
it won't mature properly. It won't form heads.
It won't produce the harvest that it was created
to produce. So just think about that for a moment.
The very thing that looks like it is stopping
growth is actually making future growth. The
cold is not an interruption to the process. The
cold is part of the process. Winter is not keeping
the wheat from becoming fruitful. Winter is preparing
the wheat to become fruitful. And some of us
today, we're going through a dark, dark winter
season. It could be a season of grief or disappointment
or uncertainty or of illness. Job loss, financial
struggle, whatever. And we often assume, oh gosh,
this season is a complete interruption. But God
sees those seasons as preparation because some
things only grow after a cold winter. Again,
God is not merely interested in changing your
circumstances. He's interested in changing you.
And so much of that transformation happens in
dark seasons like winter. Winter teaches us that
God is still working even when nothing seems
to be happening. It doesn't make sense in our
culture, which is obsessed with speed and instant
this and instant messages and instant that and
instant answers and instant results, but God's
slow. Often slow. He's seed slow. He's root slow.
He's winter slow. And winter is a powerful teacher
if we let it teach us. It teaches us hope. It
teaches us patience. It teaches us that what
appears to be inactivity may in fact be preparation
for the next season. Now, I put a little piece
of scripture on the back of your teaching notes
this morning, and I invite you to just take a
little look at it. This is a reading from the
book of Habakkuk, and I've called this the farmer's
creed, because what Habakkuk does in this reading
is he looks out at a field with no figs and no
grapes and no olives and no grain and no cattle
and no sheep. All the signs of success, all the
signs of success are gone. And Habakkuk says,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful
in God, my savior. And I would say this week
or this month or whenever you're wondering if
anything is growing in your life, I want you
to pull out this creed and read it again. And
that last line, the sovereign Lord is my strength.
That is what faith looks like in the dark season.
In the winter season. So we talked about the
dark soil. We talked about the dark night. Now
we've talked about the dark season. But all of
this points towards something even darker. The
dark day. The darkest day. And you might say,
Rob, come on. Daytime is the one time it's not
dark. Day isn't dark. But actually there was
a day. There was once a day of complete darkness,
a day when for a moment the sun refused to shine.
It was Good Friday. As Jesus was crucified, we're
told that from the sixth hour until the ninth
hour, darkness came over all the land. Darkness.
And not even just darkness in the sky. Think
about those disciples, right? Their hope had
turned to darkness. Everything they had given
their lives to now seemed to be collapsing. Jesus
had died. The tomb had sealed. The seed had been
planted. But really, I think probably the hardest
day was the next day. Saturday. What we sometimes
call Holy Saturday in the church calendar. Good
Friday gets a ton of attention. Easter Sunday,
of course, gets a ton of attention. But what
about that Saturday? Nothing happens, right?
There's no miracles. There's no angels. There's
no resurrection. There's just silence, right?
By all appearances on Saturday, the story is
over. Field is barren. The winter has won. The
seed is dead. But as we have been learning, the
deepest work of God often happens where we cannot
see it. The disciples could not see it. The religious
leaders could not see it. The Roman soldiers
could not see it. But God was working in the
darkness of that tomb where no one could see.
And on the third day, the plant sprung up as
Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection is
God's answer to anyone who has ever wondered
whether something can grow in the dark. Resurrection
answers like, does hope grow in the dark? Yes,
it does. Does faith grow in the dark? Yes. Does
God work in the dark? Yes. Winter is not forever.
Darkness does not get the final word. And that
means that if you find yourself in a dark season
today, whether you feel forgotten or excluded
or disappointed or stuck, remember, buried seeds
become abundant harvests in the same God who
raised Jesus from the dead. Always. always, always
does the best of his work in the dark. And so
in closing, I thought I should just mention one
other little thing my dad said. I asked my dad,
Dad, how do you know the spring is coming? You
know, a farmer learns to read the signs. The
days get a little longer, the snow begins to
melt, the ground thaws out, tiny shoots maybe
begin to... These are small signs that spring
is on the way. And when we're going through a
dark period, often all we can focus on is the
darkness. But I wonder if maybe we should be
looking for signs of spring in our spiritual
lives too, right? What about the small things
that are happening for you? Are you a little
more patient than you were six months ago? That's
a sign of something growing. Is your prayer life
a little stronger than it was a year ago? That's
a sign. Do you have new compassion for other
people? Do you have a growing trust in God? Do
you have a renewed desire to worship? These are
all small signs that even in dark seasons, the
spring is coming. God does some of his best work
in the dark. So if you're living in dark soil,
you're going through a dark night or stuck in
a dark season, remember a lot can happen in the
dark. Keep scattering your seed. Keep... Keep
worshiping, keep trusting, and maybe tonight,
get some sleep. Because as the farmer sleeps,
God works. The seed grows, and one day the harvest
comes. Thanks be to God. Amen. Thanks for tuning
in to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
This sermon was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville
in Mississauga, Ontario on June 21st, 2026.