From Stone to Flesh

Mark 4:1-20 Study- Dec. 3, 2025

Opening Question: Have you ever been by a lake in the summer time on a still day and you can hear what people are saying far away? The reason has to do with sound waves hitting the water.

As we study Mark, it’s been hitting me how simply yet efficiently Jesus did stuff. One thing that I’m noticing is that he used what was available to him- like how he most likely was using the lake as an amplifier. Sometimes, he teaches from the Synagogue (which is essentially a Jewish church) but usually he went to the places where the people were.

We witnessed various responses to Christ’s message in chapter 3. Jesus is teaching them the word of God but it lands differently on different people. 

1. Pharisees listen with sinister motives.
2. Jesus’ family is embarrassed.
3. There are many people in the crowd there for the wrong reasons. (To see a miracle or because it was the place to be.)
4. The disciples who have left everything to follow Jesus.

Jesus was explaining that the reason for such varied responses to his message was the varying receptivity of people’s hearts. His message requires human response.

Read Mark 4:1-9

Again he began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him. So he got into a boat on the sea and sat down, while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore. 2 He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, 3 “Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow. 4 As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly, since the soil wasn’t deep. 6 When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce fruit. 8 Still other seed fell on good ground and it grew up, producing fruit that increased thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.” 9 Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”

This is the first parable that Jesus tells. What is a parable? In the Bible it’s a story that Jesus told to illustrate a spiritual truth.

Draw a picture showing the seed falling on four different kinds of soils.

Read Mark 4:10-17

10 When he was alone, those around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables. 11 He answered them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables 12 so that

they may indeed look,
and yet not perceive;
they may indeed listen,
and yet not understand;
otherwise, they might turn back
and be forgiven.”

Stop. That sounds different to me—maybe not like something Jesus would say. Is there a footnote in your Bible for that part? Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 6:9-10. 

What do you think this means? I don’t have a great answer for you on this one.

We are going to look at a verse in Hebrews. The whole point of Hebrews is that Jesus is a better way than anything we find in the Old Testament and he is reminding the Jewish people of how their ancestors didn’t listen to the prophets or the warnings that God gave them.

Read Hebrews 3:12-15 

Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception. 14 For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality[c] that we had at the start. 15 As it is said: Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.[d]

So we’re looking at a warning here against hardening our hearts. The rebellion is basically Israel from the time of Moses to the time of Jesus.

Read Mark 4:13-20

13 Then he said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand all of the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 Some are like the word sown on the path. When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them.[c] 16 And others are like seed sown on rocky ground. When they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root; they are short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away. 18 Others are like seed sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness[d] of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.”

What does the exponential fruitfulness represent? 

I know that this is the same punchline as I had for our last lesson but I want to close with a verse that will help us if we are feeling like I’ve failed or I’m not good enough. I don’t want anyone to feel condemned. 

Ezekiel 36:26

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Our response/ Prayer