A Seed of Matchless Worth, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Introduction
The hymn writer Fanny Crosby gave us more than 6,000 gospel songs. Although blinded by an illness at the age of six weeks, she never became bitter. One time a preacher sympathetically remarked, “I think it is great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He showered so many other gifts upon you.” She replied quickly, “Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I should be born blind?” “Why?” asked the surprised clergyman. “Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!”
One of Miss Crosby’s hymns was so personal that for years she kept it to herself. Kenneth Osbeck, author of several books on hymnology, says its revelation to the public came about this way: “One day at a Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts, Miss Crosby was asked by D. L. Moody to give a personal testimony. At first she hesitated, then quietly rose and said, ’There is one hymn I have written which has never been published. I call it my soul’s poem. Sometimes when I am troubled, I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my heart.’ She then recited while many wept, ‘Someday the silver cord will break, and I no more as now shall sing; but oh, the joy when I shall wake within the palace of the King! And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story – saved by grace!’” At the age of 95, Fanny Crosby passed into glory and saw the face of Jesus.
Though blind, nearly from birth, Fanny Crosby’s insight was enough to clearly see the truth of the matchless worth of her savior. This morning, I want to talk to you about a certain seed which is more valuable, more precious, and of more worth than any other seed, or any other thing in this world.
You may have noticed, in fact, that all of the hymn selections for today are hymns which were written by her. Just as she saw the majesty of grace with great and inspiring clarity, in spite of her physical blindness, today we will seek to shed light on the matchless worth of the Kingdom of God.
The Mustard Seed
In today’s Scripture reading we hear Jesus speaking of this seed of matchless worth, as He compares the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed. In order to understand this parable, we must understand a little bit about a mustard seed. The mustard seed was the smallest seed known to that part of the world. From what I can gather, only the orchid seed is smaller.
The mustard seed is tiny yet it can grow 12-15 feet in one season and become a nesting place for the birds of the air. It was a common saying of the day to refer to something unusually small in reference to the mustard seed.
In making the comparison between the Kingdom of God and the mustard seed, Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God, though having small beginnings, would rise to greatness. The Kingdom of God began in relative obscurity with one rabbinical teacher, Jesus, and twelve unknown men.
The Jewish people were waiting for a messiah, a promised delivering King, but they were waiting for a King of great power; not a Nazarene carpenter who preached a message of radical compassion and mercy. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed which is sown, not a mighty fortress which already established.
Jesus did not build a great fortress for His kingdom. Jesus did not build mighty walls around a city, nor did He besiege any enemy encampments. The Kingdom of God sprouted forth from the teachings of this humble, loving, gentle, and yet incredibly powerful man; who was in fact the Son of God!
The Kingdom of God is an “upside down” kingdom where the King serves rather than is served, where the suffering is somehow redemptive, where love is of greater virtue than power, and where power is seen not in physical prowess or earthly strength, but in one’s ability to lay aside revenge in favor of forgiveness; lay aside conquest in favor of pilgrimage; to lay aside self in favor of Christ.
The Jews longed for a King who would restore the Kingdom of David, drive out the Romans, and bring them back into earthly prominence and power as a nation. They were not looking for what God had actually promised them; a King who would suffer and die for the sins of the world, a King who would initiate a Kingdom where service is of greater significance than authority.
Watered in Blood
The Kingdom of God sprouted forth from a seed of matchless worth – the teachings and life of Christ – and it was watered in suffering. The water which nourished, continues to nourish, this seed of matchless worth is the blood of Jesus and the blood of the martyrs.
Revelation 1:5 says, “And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” (NKJV)
The story of Christianity is a story about blood. For you see, apart from the blood of Jesus Christ washing us clean from the stain and guilt of our own sin, we have no part in the grace of God. The means of God’s grace is the blood of Jesus Christ and the only means of access to that grace is faith.
Jesus died to cover the sins of the entire world with His blood. His sacrifice is sufficient for all. It is however, only efficient for those who, according to faith, place their trust, not in their own works, but in the redemptive work of Jesus. In other words, the blood of Christ is like a refreshing stream which runs through ever village, town, and city on the planet, but we must choose to drink.
While a student at Yale University, Eugene F. Suter, Jr.’s father died, leaving him an estate of $400,000. When Eugene refused the inheritance, the trustees of the estate insisted he take it, and even took him to court to force him to accept the money. In an unprecedented case held in New York City, Judge William T. Collins reluctantly ruled that the young man had a legal right to reject the $400,000. The order legally cut off the 22-year-old student from all future interest in the family fortune, leaving him without an income.
There are a lot of people in this world who are refusing a far greater inheritance than Suter did. God has offered us the opportunity to be joint-heirs with Christ unto eternal life, so many are refusing to profess belief in Christ and to be born again. Like Suter, they will be cut off from all future benefits from their Father’s estate.
At the Cross Jesus laid down His perfectly sinless life as a substitutionary atonement for our sins. The perfect life that we could not and can never live, He lived it! The sin debt that was owed on the part of all humanity which could never be paid in full; He paid it. Every time that we celebrate communion, every time that we sing a song of redemption we are reminded of that old time gospel hymn “What can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus!”
At the Cross, He also demonstrates to us the kind of love that we are to embody in this world; sacrificially loving and forgiving others, even when they don’t deserve it; even when the world rejects us. Our primary calling from God is too like Jesus as He hangs dying on the Cross; grace, above all, is to characterize His Church.
It was the early church father Tertullian who said, “The more you mow us down, the more quickly we grow; the blood of Christians is fresh seed.” The early Church looked like Jesus on the Cross. Indeed, it was persecution, not power, which characterized the early Church.
In 314 when Constantine and Licinius, between whom the Romans Realms was temporarily divided, met at Milan to officially grant toleration to the Christian religion. It was later; under succeeding Emperors that Christianity was sanctioned as the official religion of Rome.
From the time of Christ ministry until 314 there were violent upheavals of persecution against the Christians. According to Foxe’s book of Martyrs, there were no less than ten major persecutions of the early Church in the Roman world.
(synopsis from: http://www.allaboutfollowingjesus.org/early-christian-persecution-faq.htm)
The first mass persecution occurred under Nero in A.D. 67. He was the sixth emperor of Rome and is remembered as the one who set Rome aflame and then blamed the Christians for the deaths and destruction caused by the fire. He had some Christians sewn up in skins of wild beasts and thrown to the dogs.
Some Christians were dressed in shirts made stiff with wax, fixed to axletrees, and set on fire in his gardens, in order to illuminate them. Rather than diminished the spirit of Christianity, this persecution increased the devotion and commitment of Christianity.
The second persecution happened under Domitian in A.D. 81. Anything bad that happened whether it was famine, pestilence, or earthquakes he blamed the Christians and put them to death. The third primitive persecution occurred under Trajan in A.D. 108. Christians were beaten, beheaded, and devoured by wild beasts. About ten thousand Christians were put to death.
The fourth persecution took place under Marcus Aurelius Antoninas in A.D. 162 and the fifth persecution is credited to Severus in A.D. 192. Christians were burned at the stake, had hot tar poured on their heads, beheaded, placed in boiling water and ravaged by wild beasts.
The sixth persecution took place under Maximus in A.D. 235. At this time, numerous Christians were slain without trial and buried indiscriminately in heaps (mass graves), sometimes fifty or sixty cast into a pit together. The seventh persecution happened under Decius in A.D. 249. At this time, the principle person martyred was Fabian, the bishop of Rome, who beheaded on January 20, A.D. 250.
The eighth persecution occurred under Valerian in A.D. 257. Once again every manner of torture was used to mock those claiming to be Christians and for the entertainment of the rulers and their guests. The ninth persecution occurred under Aurelian in A.D. 274 when Felix, bishop of Rome was martyred.
The tenth persecution took place under Diocletian in A.D. 303. This was commonly called the Era of the Martyr’s and was occasioned partly by the increasing number and luxury of the Christians The manner of persecutions was carried out with racks, scourges, swords, daggers, crosses, poisons, and famine.
This seed of matchless worth, the Kingdom of God, was watered by the blood of Christ and the blood of the Martyrs, this upside down Kingdom, where the King serves and even dies for the citizens of His Kingdom.
We do well to remember from time to time that the Kingdom of God was born in persecution. We are the heirs of God’s grace in that the Church should not have survived the persecutions of ancient Rome. It is a testament to the power of God and the enormous value of this seed of matchless worth!
The Pearl of Great Price
Listen to the words of Jesus, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45-46 NKJV)
True wealth is in knowing God. This alone is the chief purpose of our creation. Hosea 6:6 says, “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” (NKJV)
(J.I. Packer, “Knowing God,” page 34)
“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord. The world today is full of sufferers from the wasting disease which Albert Camus focused as absurdism (“life is a bad joke”), and from the complaint which we may call Marie Antoinette’s fever, since she found the phrase that describes it (“nothing tastes”). These disorders blight the whole of life: everything becomes at once a problem and a bore, because nothing seems worthwhile. But absurdist tapeworms and Antoinette’s fever are ills from which, in the nature of the case, Christians are immune, except for occasional spells of derangement when the power of temptation presses their minds out of shape – and these, God’s mercy, do not last.
What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, some-thing which catches our imagination and laws hold of our allegiance; and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?”
Conclusion
Just as Fanny Crosby’s sight was opened by the grace of God to see the matchless worth of her savior, may our eyes also be constantly open to the beauty and unending worth of the Kingdom of God.
We are not primarily citizens of this world. We, like Fanny Crosby, will one day see our savior face to face and in the meantime we make our home within the tree that His blood has watered which grew from the seed of matchless worth!
Amen.
