UNIMPRESSIVE: Jesus acknowledges that many will initially see the Kingdom as insignificantly small.
- Luke 13:18-21.
- Matthew 13:31-33; Mark 4:30-32.
- I guess you could say that sometimes we hype up Jesus and His Kingdom too much.
- “Who wouldn’t want this?”
- “It’s so obviously true and great!”
- “You’d have to be blind to not see what Jesus is doing here.”
- It’s interesting to read these very brief parables and realize that Jesus doesn’t agree with us.
- Jesus acknowledges that the Kingdom is probably not going to overwhelm you right off the bat.
- This, of course, stands in contrast to much of the way the world operates. It’s a “grand opening.” We’re having a “blowout” to open this store. We’ve got to have a great website when people look us up. We like good P.R. and first impressions are a big deal, so we want people to be impressed immediately.
- In contrast, Jesus here freely acknowledges that the Kingdom might not be especially impressive at first sight. In fact, He goes much further than that - He says that you are likely to think it’s insignificantly small at first.
- What does that mean when we get down to the details? Let’s dig in.
WHAT DOES THAT ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE?
- On each of these parables, I want to focus on what I think is the biggest, most significant application of that truth. I concede there might be other ways to apply these truths, but I feel on solid ground that these are the main ones.
1. MUSTARD SEED: Unqualified disciples and a small crowd in an upper room.
- Luke 6:12-19; Acts 1:12-15.
- The most significant application of the mustard seed parable is the start of the church.
- Look with me at Luke 6:12-19. This is not an impressive, well-qualified group of individuals. It’s a ragtag collection.
- Look with me at Acts 1:12-15. In some ways, this is even more discouraging. Here we have the group gathered at Jesus’ instruction after His Ascension. Think of His ministry: all that Jesus did, all the miracles, all the teaching, all the conversations. After all that, how many people would we presume would be gathered together to be present for the ushering in of the church era? 500? 1,000? 10,000? 50,000? How about 120? What? 120? Only that many? It’s wild to think about how small that number is.
- Looking at both of those passages it would be understandable to be massively underwhelmed. These are the disciples who are going to change the world? Come on. This is all we’ve got to start the church with? Come on.
- It is helpful to know that Jesus called it ahead of time. The mustard seed parable points us directly there. Look at it again. The parable speaks of a tiny, insignificant seed that is planted. Nothing impressive there. But it grows and grows and becomes a solid, sturdy tree where birds nest. Not a start to be impressed by, but the outcome was great.
2. YEAST: An unseen Spirit enters your heart.
- Luke 8:4-8, 11-15; John 3:5-10.
- Now let’s look at the second parable.
- I think the most significant application of the parable of the yeast is the Holy Spirit entering the heart of a new believer.
- Look with me at John 3:5-10. In this famous conversation with Nicodemus that gives us the most well-known verse in the Bible, we see earlier in their talk discussion of the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks of the mysterious movement of the Holy Spirit, likening Him to the wind. I think this is a situation where we can sympathize with Nicodemus. Among the three members of the Trinity, it’s the Holy Spirit we struggle the most with. How are we to understand Him? Where are we to see Him? How are we to yield ourselves to Him? It’s a source of confusion and uncertainty for most Christians.
- Look with me at Luke 8:4-8, 11-15. This is the parable of the four soils. This is an important parable for understanding the expectation of fruitfulness that Jesus has on the lives of Christians. (That expectation is a different sermon but important to understand.) The bottom line for his moment is that the normal Christian life should produce an overwhelming harvest of fruitfulness. That's something that is intended to be a typical result.
That creates panic in many people. How do I manufacture those results? You don’t have to. It's the Holy Spirit’s job to bring those results. In John 15 we are taught by Jesus that as we obey His teaching we will abide in His love and then as we abide in His love we will abound in fruitfulness. Our job is simply to obey the teaching of Christ as faithfully as we can and then allow the Holy Spirit to organically produce the spiritual fruit.
- Now let’s make a connection between the two passages. We receive the Holy Spirit in our lives and it’s a little bit of a mystery but His presence leads to abundant fruitfulness.
- Let’s go back to the parable of the yeast, which is helpful on this point.
- The parable teaches us that the addition of small thing (yeast) to the large amount of dough produces a big result. That's not a shocker to anyone who has ever seen bread rising. I think of Thanksgiving and watching the rolls rise.
- The point for this moment is two fold: the yeast produces a big result and the yeast starts as such a small thing. In both, the yeast is like the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives starts small - He just enters in at the moment of salvation, but He produces big results (abundant fruitfulness).
- This leads us back to the point in your sermon outline: an unseen Spirit enters your heart.
- Sometimes after getting saved, the person will say, “I don't feel any different.” I think they were expecting something big and spectacular. Some big event. But the Holy Spirit quietly enters your heart and begins His work. We might think (and this is important) we’ve messed up and missed it. Maybe it didn’t happen for us. Maybe we said the wrong words. There should be trumpets blaring or angels singing or something.
- This parable is a comfort to us. It’s something that starts small. It’s like yeast in the dough. At first it doesn’t seem like much . . . but just wait till you see the finished product.
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER: Faith is the evidence of things not seen.
- Hebrews 11:1.
- Luke 18:8.
- I want to apply these two parables and the big ideas we’ve just discussed to our lives today, but before I do that I think there is a verse in Hebrews that is helpful in putting all this in a larger context.
- It’s Hebrews 11:1 and the phrase is that “faith is the evidence of things not seen.” We’ve all heard that and we know what it means. Faith requires us to step out and believe even though we cannot see everything that we are believing in. In the case of salvation, we obviously do not get to see Jesus. Until Thomas, we don’t get to put our hands in the wounds in order to shore up our confidence in the resurrection. We have not seen heaven. Generally, at that point we haven’t even read the whole Bible.
- But we have faith in God nonetheless. We have not seen everything but we choose to believe and move forward in that trust and confidence. We put faith in what we have not yet seen.
- This ties closely into the two parables we are examining tonight.
- In both we find that we are not overwhelmed with early proof.
- The early church did not look like something that was necessarily even going to survive, let alone become a global phenomenon still standing tall two millennia later. After all, they had no money, no influence, no connections, no established network. They were battling the Jewish religious authorities, who wanted any mention of Jesus shut down. They were also battling the Roman authorities, who were not interested in anyone claiming any authority higher than the Roman state. Everything was stacked against them. How did they make it? Faith is the evidence of things not seen. What was not seen? That Jesus was at the right hand of the Father. That the Spirit was within each believer. That the Kingdom would spread to the ends of the earth.
- The arrival of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s heart likewise doesn’t initially impress. No pyrotechnics, no outward proof, no immediate transformation. But faith is the evidence of things not seen. What is not seen? That the Holy Spirit is real. That He is working from the inside out. That He is changing us at the deepest levels. It’s not immediately visible but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.
- The subject of faith makes me think of Luke 18:8.
- Jesus asks there whether the Son of Man will find faith on the earth when He returns. It is telling that this is the one thing He says He will be looking for: faith. I think that tells us how important it is to Jesus.
- That also gives us insight into why these two parables are in there. The Kingdom is not this way by accident. It’s by design. This is important: it’s by design.
- Why is it by design? Because Jesus is trying to build faith in us. It’s something He treasures and will be looking for when He returns someday.
- So the two parables that teach us that the Kingdom starts and salvation starts in ways that are small and unimpressive are not pointing to a bug but a feature. It’s not that Jesus wishes it could be otherwise but this was the only way He could do it. No, it’s that way because Jesus wanted it that way.
- Doing it this way builds faith. It cultivates faith.
- With the Kingdom, will you believe that Jesus is going to transform the world with this ragtag, tiny group of believers? That takes faith.
- With salvation, will you believe that the Holy Spirit is going to transform you from within? That takes faith.
- So it’s important for us to understand that this is the way Jesus chooses to administer His Kingdom and His salvation because He wants faith built up in us.
APPLYING IT TO MY LIFE:
1. MUSTARD SEED: Will I invest in the Kingdom even though it’s not as bright and shiny as many of the things of the world?
- Now I want to take what we’ve been talking about and apply it to our lives today. Let’s start with the mustard seed.
- We are easily distracted. And there is much around us that is distracting: money, power, position, wealth, possessions, suffering, struggles, nuisances, work, kids, romance, chores, and on and on it goes. Now all of these are not bad things in general. But they can become problematic when we put them at the center of our lives and make them our focus.
- For instance, we all need a job to make ends meet. We’ve got to pay the bills and put food on the table. There is nothing wrong with that. But it becomes a problem when we make our work the focus of our lives, whether it’s workaholism or finding our self-worth from climbing the corporate ladder.
- For another instance, when we are blessed with children we want to be good parents. But too many parents make their children their number one priority. Our kids should not be our first priority - God should be.
- Many of the things of the world are bright and shiny. Let me name two.
a. Social media.
- We can waste untold swaths of time on there. It’s so easy because everything is bright and shiny and designed to hold our attention.
- Just to set up one possible scenario: will I be someone who spends two hours a day scrolling social media but can’t find ten minutes a day to read a chapter of the Bible? John Piper was right when he noted that many Christians will be in trouble on Judgment Day when they plead that they didn’t have enough time to read the Scripture regularly, only to have Jesus cite how much time they averaged online each day.
- Social media is bright and shiny but reading Scripture helps transform our hearts.
- Will we be focused on the things of the Kingdom?
b. Money.
- We often think of what we give to church as lost and what we get to spend on ourselves as kept. That is exactly the opposite of the truth.
- If I believe what the Bible teaches about giving, we get to keep what we invest in the Kingdom, in the sense of getting rewarded for that. What we give, we keep. Conversely, what we buy (and there are necessities that we have to have) is ultimately lost. It ends up as garbage and it ends up as lost money eternally.
- Precious few Christians look at it that way. If we did, we would be excited to give our tithes. We would love the opportunity to pour into the least of these. We would have joy in giving.
- How many Christians will be overwhelmed at Final Judgment at how little they invested in the Kingdom? How many will cry out, “I wasted so much! I didn’t know!” But, of course, they did know. They just got distracted by the bright and shiny things of this world.
- So, even if the Kingdom doesn’t initially impress, will we still invest our lives, our times, our focus, our money, our gifts there?
2. YEAST: Is the Spirit’s presence in my life the most transformative thing that can happen to me?
- Let’s apply the parable of the yeast in a similar way to our situation.
- Do I believe the presence of the Holy Spirit in my heart is the most transformative thing that can happen to me?
Let’s take this in a few levels.
a. Do I want to be transformed?
- Do I long to become like Christ? The honest answer for the majority of Christians is no. They want to be forgiven. They want to go to heaven. But there is not a deep-seated longing to become a transformed person.
- Why is this? Some just want fire insurance. Some want God as an advisor but not as Lord. Some do not see being more like Jesus as something they want.
b. Do I focus on the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life?
- Do I understand the Scriptural teaching that Jesus gave us concerning the Holy Spirit? He said He was going away but He was going to send a Helper. He said it was advisable to us to live under this changed arrangement.
The Holy Spirit isn’t an afterthought. He isn’t irrelevant. He is the internal powerhouse to fuel spiritual growth.
- How much attention am I giving to Him and His ability to bring transformation?
c. Is all this more important to me than the measures of “success” that the world offers me?
- While the culture will sometimes nod in the direction of the spiritual, they are far more focused on the material world. Success is consistently defined in ways that are material.
- Am I living in a way that shows that I think that a deep soul is more important than a fat wallet?
- Do I want to see the Holy Spirit begin His quiet, internal, hidden work that will transform me like yeast transforms dough?
