TOP 10 CLASSIFIED ADS – From true classified ads in daily newspapers
10. Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.
9. Try us once, you’ll never go anywhere again.
8. Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.
7. Illiterate? Write today for free help.
6. Stock up and save. Limit: one.
5. Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.
4. Semi-Annual after Christmas Sale.
3. For sale: antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.
2. We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.
1. Used Cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated. Come here first
APPLY: Many of those classifieds are funny, because somebody left out, or misspelled, one small word or phrase. Sometimes, it’s the things you don’t notice - the little things that have greatest value.
In our text today, - Jesus tells a parable using one of the smallest of seeds known to the people in that day: the mustard seed. How many of you have ever seen a mustard seed? It’s not much bigger than a speck of dust, and yet Jesus uses this small, seemingly insignificant little seed to tell us something about His kingdom, the Church.
I. Parables were stories that Jesus told where He used common items that people often saw everyday (such as birds, flowers, seeds) to describe spiritual truths & realities they’d never seen or would never see.
No one had ever seen the “Kingdom of God” Jesus was describing, SO, He told parables like this to help people visualize what it was going to be like.
But, why use an item like a mustard seed. It was a small, insignificant, relatively unimportant seed. It wasn’t highly prized. It was useful for flavoring food, it’s leaves were edible, and some believed (if prepared properly) parts of the plant had medicinal properties.
BUT, it was also something of nuisance plant. Jesus calls it a tree here… but it’s actually more of a shrub. It grew sometimes to a height of 10’ to 12’ and its stem often could become the thickness of a man’s arm… but it was still a shrub. And it wasn’t an overly attractive plant. In fact at times, people regarded it as a bit of a weed. You didn’t dare plant it in your garden it would crowd out all the other plants and literally and take over.
(A note to preachers accessing SermonCentral = while searching the Internet for pictures and information on the mustard seed, I found that skeptics felt they had really found a error in Scripture because Jesus had called this mustard plant a "tree." It took me a couple of hours to discover that the mustard shrub - commonly believed to be the Black Mustard plant - sometimes grew to heights of up to 15’. However the only picture I could find to substantiate that fact was in the "Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. II @ 1975. In other words, the mustard plant could tower over people much like a tree would, and would no doubt many Jews of that day may have called it just that - a tree. For Jesus to have called this shrub a tree, therefore, would not have been a error in Scripture if it were commonly referred to by others in that fashion).
The mustard plant was a common, ordinary shrub that had things about it that people liked, and things about it, people didn’t like.
II. So why choose the mustard seed to represent the Kingdom? Why choose something so common and so ordinary to paint a picture of the powerful and majestic Kingdom Jesus would soon invest so much to create? It just doesn’t make any sense… or does it?
I believe Jesus chose the Mustard seed (in part) because it was so small, so insignificant.
Turn with me in your Bibles to I Corinthians 1:18-29 (READ).
Why did Jesus chose the mustard seed to represent His Kingdom? Because God is always consistent: He "chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things— and the things that are not— to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him." 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
ILLUS: I’ve heard of churches that become the "in place" to be. All the "pretty people" want to go there. All the influential gather at its doors. Politicians and businessmen go to that building because that’s where everybody else is.
It could be described as a mighty oak, or a towering Redwood, a spreading Chestnut tree – because it has great influence and power in the community. But those churches often run into the danger of being a place where people go to see each other… but not to see Jesus.
Jesus didn’t His church to be mighty Oak… He wanted it to be a humble mustard shrub. He doesn’t want people to go to church and be impressed how important they are and valuable the people around them are. He wants people to bow in modesty before His throne.
IN SHORT, he doesn’t want people to get excited about themselves. He wants them to get excited about what He can do thru them… what He can do in their lives… and the changes and healing He can bring to them.
That’s part of the reason He chose the mustard plant to represent His kingdom. HE wanted us to keep our eyes off of ourselves and focused on Him
But there’s more…
III. Jesus chose the mustard seed for His parable because of its size. He used it because even something as small as a mustard seed had miraculous power within it. Think about it. A seed – not much bigger than a pinhead - had within it the power to become a towering plant
Now if you’ve done much work out in the garden, you’ve grown used to the idea of being able to put a seed in the ground and watch it’s plant grow from the ground. In fact, you might not have thought much about it.
BUT, now let’s say next week Bill Gates gathers all the world’s most brilliant scientists together and tells them "I’ll give you all the money you could possibly want if make something for me.
"I want you to create an item the size of pinhead, that I can bury in my back yard out in the sun.
And I want this item to grow up out of the ground become a living, life giving plant."
Will he be able to do it? Will his brilliant scientists, having untold billions of dollars at their disposal, be able to take inanimate material and produce something as simple as a garden variety seed? Of course not.
Gates is perhaps the richest man in the world. AND, he’s a certified genius who’s done things no one ever would have thought possible. BUT I’m here to tell you, I don’t care how smart he is, or much money he has, he’s not smart nor rich enough to create anything as amazing as a little seed. There’s no scientist alive that can duplicate that kind of miracle.
Likewise, the Kingdom of God - the church – has the power to do things that no human institution can emulate. Paul wrote: "…no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:11
In other words, you can’t duplicate what God intends to do in His church. God’s power in the church has a life within it that defies understanding. AND IT ALL STARTS with a small seed inside the heart of an individual. And once that seed takes root and begins to grow, that which was lifeless & empty becomes filled with the power of God.
ILLUS: Back in 1995 in Christianity Today - Harold Miller told of the change that God brought to the natives in the Peruvian Amazon.
He wrote: “Just one generation ago these were fearful, aggressive, and animistic people; all their contacts with outsiders were marked by violence. But now they’ve been transformed.
One missionary writes that since embracing faith in Christ, the men of those tribes are more tender with their wives and children. The native believers have problems like Christians anywhere else, but they, more than most, can appreciate the difference between "before" and "after" Christ.
An anthropologist recently visited a Bora tribe and started criticizing the missionaries. He said: "Christianity is for the white man. You people should go back to your old religion and your old ways."
One of the tribal church leaders, looked at the anthropologist for a moment. "Yes, and if we did, you’d be the first one in the pot."
Jesus chose the mustard seed, because of the humility it represented, and because of the Life giving power it had within it. AND then…
IV. Lastly, Jesus chose a mustard plant to represent His church, because the mustard seed has to die in order to give life.
In I Cor. 15:35-38, Paul writes: "But someone may ask, ’How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’
How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body."
In other words, a seed has to die to bring life. Was it possible, Jesus was saying (that in the same way) in order for the Kingdom of God to come into being – something had to die????
At least two or three times in His ministry, Jesus told His disciples: "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." Luke 9:22
In fact, Paul tells us that this is the message of the Gospel: "By this gospel you are saved… that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (I Cor. 15: 2-4)
In other words, Jesus had to die and be buried in order to give life to His church and to us. As Romans 5:8-10 tells us
"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!"
CLOSE: It’s amazing how a tiny mustard seed could say so much about Christ’s Kingdom. And as I studied for this sermon, I have to admit that it was quite a bit for me to comprehend. The very idea of using a small seed - a little larger than a speck of dust - being used to describe power and the mystery of what Jesus did to create His Kingdom.
Was there that much power in a tiny seed – that Jesus would want to use something so small to represent something so majestic?
I think the answer is yes. I don’t think there’s anything on earth that has the ability to bury the power that lies within one tiny seed.
In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave on which were placed huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together and fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet strangely, she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. On the marker were inscribed these words: "This burial place must never be opened." In time, a seed, covered over by the stones, began to grow. Slowly it pushed its way through the soil and out from beneath them. As the trunk enlarged, the great slabs were gradually shifted so that the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets. A tiny seed had become a tree that had pushed aside the stones.
