Scripture
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem from Galilee. He only has a few months left to live. Jesus knows that he is going to Jerusalem to pay the penalty for people’s sin by his death. He will sacrifice his life in order to reconcile sinners with a holy God.
Luke 12-13 alternates between notes of judgment and hope. Jesus offers people a way to connect with God, but it is not the same way that is offered by the professional clergy of his day. Throughout his short ministry Jesus has been teaching people about the kingdom of God. Basically, the kingdom of God has to do with the rule and reign of God in a person’s life. People enter the kingdom of God through faith and repentance.
In today’s lesson Jesus teaches two parables about the kingdom of God. Jesus wants people to understand how God’s kingdom grows.
Let’s read about Jesus’ parables of the mustard seed and the leaven in Luke 13:18-21:
18 He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? 19 It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
20 And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.” (Luke 13:18-21)
Introduction
Kyle MacDonald was stuck in a dead-end job and he was strapped for money. So he came up with an improbable plan: starting with one red paperclip, he would trade on the Internet until he exchanged it for a house.
First, he traded the red paperclip for a fish-shaped pen. Next, he traded the pen for a doorknob. He traded the doorknob for a Coleman stove. He traded the Coleman stove for an electric generator. He traded the electric generator for a Budweiser sign and a keg of beer, which he then traded for a snowmobile. Exactly one year and only 14 trades later, MacDonald finally reached his goal: he exchanged a part in a Hollywood movie for a home in Saskatchewan, Canada.
The true story of Kyle MacDonald is told in his book One Red Paperclip. Now apparently the book is being made into a movie. Fame, fortune, a book, a movie deal, and a home – it all began with one red paperclip.
Sounds incredible, doesn’t it? And yet Jesus teaches that the growth of the kingdom of God will be even more incredible.
When we look at the growth of Christianity in the world today we may be tempted to become discouraged. In fact, when we look at our own spiritual growth we may also be tempted to become discouraged. Nevertheless, we must always examine our experience of the world, the church, and ourselves in light of God’s Word. And when we do so, we shall be encouraged.
Lesson
The analysis of the kingdom of God as set forth in Luke 13:18-21 teaches us about the growth of the kingdom of God.
Let’s use the following outline:
1. The Parable of the Mustard Seed Illustrates the External Growth of the Kingdom of God (13:18-19)
2. The Parable of the Leaven Illustrates the Internal Growth of the Kingdom of God (13:20-21)
I. The Parable of the Mustard Seed Illustrates the External Growth of the Kingdom of God (13:18-19)
First, the parable of the mustard seed illustrates the external growth of the kingdom of God.
Jesus said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?” (13:18).
The word “therefore” is important. As someone has once said, “When we see the word ‘therefore’ in the Bible, we should always ask what it is there for.” The word “therefore” is making a connection with the previous pericope. In the previous section Jesus healed a woman with a disabling spirit. Presumably Jesus continued teaching in the synagogue after healing the woman and, as Darrell Bock says, the word “[therefore] illustrates the implications to be derived from the healing of the woman.” The healing of the woman was something small. And yet that healing was the beginning of something much bigger. The woman’s healing illustrated the ultimate defeat of the kingdom of Satan and the ultimate victory of the kingdom of God. This one healing miracle, David Gooding says, “would one day spread to the bounds of the universe, until creation herself would be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and all in heaven and earth would find security, satisfaction and delight in the magnificence of his dominion.”
And so Jesus followed his miraculous healing of the woman with a disabling spirit with a question, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?” (13:18).
Jesus’ first parable is about a mustard seed. He said, “It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches” (13:19).
A grain of mustard was the tiniest seed that farmers sowed in ancient Israel. It was less than a millimeter in diameter. And yet it grew into a bush-like tree that stood as much as twelve feet tall. Apparently, birds enjoyed nesting in mustard trees. It was common to see lots of birds in them. Jesus’ parable illustrated how a tiny seed grew into a large tree that gave shelter and nourishment to birds.
What is the point of Jesus’ parable? Jesus is teaching that the kingdom of God will grow from something small and seemingly insignificant into something large that provides shelter and nourishment to all who enter it.
God created the world in perfection and beauty and goodness. He created Adam and placed him in a perfect setting to exercise dominion over all creation. Unfortunately, he did not obey God’s solitary command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When tempted by Satan, Adam ate of the fruit and plunged all humanity into ruin, corruption and sin. From that time onwards sin has destroyed life after life throughout the entire world. Indeed, the wages of sin is death. All people are now prisoners of the kingdom of Satan.
But, God in his mercy provided a way of escape. He sent his own son, Jesus, to defeat the kingdom of Satan. Jesus’ entrance into our world seemed so insignificant at the beginning. He was born out of wedlock, and grew up in an obscure village called Nazareth in the backwater of Galilee. People even said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). When he was about thirty years old he burst on to the scene of national Israel because of his preaching and miracles. People in Israel in those days were expecting God to send his Anointed One – the Christ – to deliver them. However, they were expecting the kingdom of God to appear suddenly, powerfully, and crush all opposition. In short, people were expecting a military and political kingdom. When Jesus failed to fulfill their expectations, they crucified him on a cross in Jerusalem, and buried him in a stranger’s tomb. Jesus’ few loyal followers were devastated when Jesus was killed. In fact, they all ran away or denied any association with Jesus. Yet, three days later God raised Jesus back to life, a sign that he had succeeded in his mission.
Who would ever imagine that the seed would flourish into the mighty kingdom of God?
This is how J. C. Ryle describes the seed:
It was a religion which seemed at first so feeble, and helpless, and powerless, that it could not live. Its first founder was One who was poor in this world, and ended His life by dying the death of a malefactor on the cross.—Its first adherents were a little company, whose number probably did not exceed a thousand when the Lord Jesus left the world.—Its first preachers were a few fishermen and publicans, who were, most of them, unlearned and ignorant men.—Its first starting point was a despised corner of the earth, called Judea, a petty tributary province of the vast empire of Rome.—Its first doctrine was eminently calculated to call forth the enmity of the natural heart. Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness.—Its first movements brought down on its friends persecution from all quarters . . . . If ever there was a religion which was a little grain of seed at its beginning, that religion was the Gospel.
Yet, the seed did grow. Although starting from a seemingly insignificant size, it has flourished. It grows because it has life in it. It grows because it has all the power of God in it. It grows because nothing or no one can stop the kingdom of God from growing. J. C. Ryle describes it this way:
But the progress of the Gospel, after the seed was once cast into the earth, was great, steady and continuous. The grain of mustard seed “grew and waxed a great tree.” In spite of persecution, opposition, and violence, Christianity gradually spread and increased. Year after year its adherents became more numerous. Year after year idolatry withered away before it. City after city, and country after country, received the new faith. Church after church was formed in almost every quarter of the earth then known. Preacher after preacher rose up, and missionary after missionary came forward to fill the place of those who died . . . . In a few hundred years, the religion of the despised Nazarene . . . had overrun the civilized world.
In his book Witness Essentials, Dan Meyer lists some statistics about the growth of the church around the world:
• In 1900 Korea had no Protestant church. Today, there are over 7,000 churches in just the city of Seoul, South Korea.
• At the end of the 19th century, the southern portion of Africa was only 3 percent Christian. Today, 63 percent of the population is Christian, while membership in the churches in Africa is increasing by 34,000 people per day.
• In India, 14 million of the 140 million members of the "untouchable" caste have become Christians.
• More people in the Islamic world have come to Christ in the last 25 years than in the entire history of Christian missions.
• In Islamic Indonesia, the percentage of Christians is now so high (around 15 percent) that the Muslim government will no longer print statistics.
• In China, it is estimated that there are now more self-avowed disciples of Jesus than members of the Communist party. Even the most conservative estimates suggest that China will soon have more Christians than any country.
• Across the planet, followers of Jesus are increasing by more than eighty thousand per day.
• 510 new churches form every day.
Meyer concludes: “The irony is that, except for the Middle East (where Christianity was born) and Europe and America (to whose civilization it gave birth), Christianity is expanding everywhere today.”
To give you another statistic, the percentage of Christians in the world in about 35 AD (just after Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection) was 0.002%. Today the percentage of professing Christians in the world is about 25%. That is staggering growth.
And the kingdom of God will continue to grow until a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, are standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10).
So, first, the parable of the kingdom of God illustrates the external growth of the kingdom of God.
II. The Parable of the Leaven Illustrates the Internal Growth of the Kingdom of God (13:20-21)
And second, the parable of the leaven illustrates the internal growth of the kingdom of God.
And again Jesus said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened” (13:20-21).
Apparently, three measures of flour are about 50 pounds of flour, and would have produced enough bread to feed 100 people. Leaven, of course, is a substance, as yeast or baking powder, that causes fermentation and expansion of dough or batter. And just a very tiny bit of leaven will permeate the entire batch of dough and cause it to rise.
The point of Jesus’ parable of the leaven is to show the progress of the gospel in the heart of a Christian. I cannot improve on the way Bishop J. C. Ryle explains this growth:
The first beginnings of the work of grace in a sinner are generally exceedingly small. It is like the mixture of leaven with a lump of dough. A single sentence of a sermon, or a single verse of Holy Scripture,—a word of rebuke from a friend, or a casual religious remark overheard,—a tract given by a stranger, or a trifling act of kindness received from a Christian,—some one of these things is often the starting-point in the life of a soul.—The first actings of the spiritual life are often small in the extreme,—so small, that for a long time they are not known except by him who is the subject of them, and even by him not fully understood. A few serious thoughts and prickings of conscience,—a desire to pray really and not formally,—a determination to begin reading the Bible in private,—a gradual drawing towards means of grace,—an increasing interest in the subject of religion,—a growing distaste for evil habits and bad companions,—these, or some of them, are often the first symptoms of grace beginning to move the heart of man . . . . They are often the “leaven” of grace working in a heart.
But once grace begins to work in the heart, it does not stop there. The “leaven” of grace continues to grow. Again, this is how Bishop Ryle expresses it:
The work of grace once begun in the soul will never stand still. It will gradually “leaven the whole lump.” Like leaven once introduced, it can never be separated from that with which it is mingled. Little by little it will influence the conscience, the affections, the mind, and the will, until the whole man is affected by its power, and a thorough conversion to God takes place. In some cases no doubt the progress is far quicker than in others. In some cases the result is far more clearly marked and decided than in others. But wherever a real work of the Holy Ghost begins in the heart, the whole character is sooner or later leavened and changed. The tastes of the man are altered. The whole bias of his mind becomes different. “Old things pass away, and all things become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17.) The Lord Jesus said that it would be so, and all experience shows that so it is.
As a teenager I was passionate about playing cricket, which I played for about eighteen hours each weekend. I could not imagine not playing cricket until I was too old to run or see. But then at the age of nineteen I was converted to Christ. My life was changed. I read God’s Word. I prayed. I turned from sin. I enjoyed worship. I told others about Christ and salvation. And I clearly remember, about five years after I was converted to Christ, sitting in an hour-long prayer meeting on a Sunday afternoon praying for the missionaries of our church. While sitting there, it suddenly hit me. If people had told me five years earlier that I would be sitting in a prayer meeting five years hence – and enjoying it! – I would have told them that they were out of their minds. But, dear friends, that is what the leaven of grace does in the life of every converted person!
So, let me ask you if you know anything of the work of God’s grace in your own life? Has the leaven of God’s grace got your heart? Is the leaven of God’s grace growing, spreading, and increasing in every area of your life? This is how you may know whether the leaven of God’s grace is at work in your life: you will grow in the knowledge and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). It cannot but be so for the Holy Spirit will work in every regenerated child of God.
Conclusion
Therefore, having analyzed the kingdom of God as set forth in Luke 13:18-21, we should trust God for how he is growing his kingdom.
John Gibson Paton (24 May 1824 – 28 January 1907) was a remarkable Scottish missionary to the New Hebrides islands in the South Pacific. The people on the islands were cannibals, and when his first wife and child died shortly after he arrived, he had to sleep on their graves for days to ensure that the islanders did not dig them up and eat them. His life was in constant danger. Paton eventually remarried and returned to the New Hebrides islands in 1866. He and his wife labored diligently to see the kingdom of God established in the New Hebrides. Enduring many years of deprivation, danger from natives and disease, they continued with their work and after many years of patient ministry, the entire island of Aniwa professed faith in Christ. In 1899 he saw his Aniwa New Testament printed and the establishment of missionaries on twenty-five of the thirty islands of the New Hebrides.
God is growing his kingdom. He is growing it all around the world. And he is growing it in the hearts of men and women, boys and girls all around the world too. Let us trust God for how he is growing his kingdom. Amen.
