Luke Series #65 May 19, 2002
Title: Is Bigger Really Better?
Email: pastorsarver@yahoo.com
Website: www.newlifeinchrist.info
Introduction: Welcome to New life in Christ. I believe that the Word of God is vital to developing and equipping healthy Christians and a healthy church. It is the Word of God that keeps us from error and discouragement, also enabling us to live in the center of God’s will. In Psalm 1 the Bible says that those who delight in the Word of God and seriously think about it day and night will be strong and prosperous, like a tree planted by the water. I believe the Word is invaluable and this is why I study and teach you the Bible verse-by-verse. This morning we are continuing in Chapter 13 of the Book of Luke in our verse-by-verse teaching series out of that book.
Today I will be teaching from a very short passage, only three verses, but do not mistake the size of the passage for the important of the passage!
Read Luke 13:18-20
Opening Prayer
Let me start out this morning with a little quiz. What is the world’s biggest mountain? (Mt. Everest) What type of tree is the tallest? (Redwood) Who is the world’s richest man? (Bill Gates) What is the longest chapter of the Bible? (Psalm 119) Well you have done very well at the quiz so far but it is not quite over. What is the world’s smallest mountain? (Mt. Greylock) What type a tree is the shortest? (Dwarf Willow 5cm when full grown) Who is the world’s poorest man? (Jed Matthews owes 22.4 million and has no assets due to bad investments in an Internet company) What is the shortest chapter of the Bible? (Psalm 117 with only 2 verses)
You didn’t do as well on the second half of our quiz, but I didn’t really expect you that you would. The quiz was obviously given to prove a point. The point being that people tend to recognize, respect and remember those things in life which are the largest, most grandiose, numerical, etc while we tend to give little thought to the small and seeming insignificant things.
In nearly every aspect of our lives we tend to adhere the motto: “Bigger is Better.” We now drive vehicles known as SUV’s (in the military we called them tanks) because bigger is better. We are not satisfied with Wal-Mart but look for a Super Wal-Mart because bigger is better. We can even Supersize our meal at McDonalds because bigger is better.
Is bigger always better? No, not when it comes to spiritual things. Jesus uses these 3 verses to correct our thinking about bigger being better in spiritual things and God’s work. He does this because we tend to hold to the thinking that bigger is better in spiritual things like we hold to that thinking about worldly things. We tend to believe that more people, more money, bigger ministries and buildings, more programs, and greater talent will result in greater effectiveness at God’s work. We often think that God is doing more and can do more where there is something going on that looks grand and marvelous.
At the same time we tend to think the opposite about smaller things. We act as though God is not working or could not work though smaller churches and ministries, lesser talent, and fewer programs. “If it isn’t big, God must not be in it” would be an accurate representation of some people’s thinking and feeling.
These types of thinking affect our attitude and our actions. Our zeal, confidence, evaluation, commitment and expectations are often based on size and significance! Therefore it is vital that we understand and accept by faith the message that these two illustrations are intended to convey. The main point that Jesus is making here is that God works mightily through small things.
God Works Mightily Through Small Things.
In verse 18 Jesus asked, “What is the Kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to?” The expression “Kingdom of God” is a broad concept that is difficult to define simply. In general it refers to the rule of God and the establishment of His purposes. It may be used in a spiritual sense where God is working in the hearts of people or in some cases the expression refers to a physical kingdom that God will establish in the end times. In this context I believe we could accurately paraphrase this question like this: “How can I describe to you how God works to establish His rule and purposes in the world?” The answer is that God uses small, insignificant things but with great and far reaching results.
God Works Mightily Through Small Things.
In verse 19 Jesus says that God’s working is like a “mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches.” The mustard seed, which produces leaves from which mustard is derived, was known for its minuteness. It is very, very small. In fact it would take 20,000 mustard seeds to weigh just one ounce. Because of its size the mustard seed was used proverbially for anything that was small and insignificant. Kids of that era probable called each other “mustard seed brain.”
Jesus proverbially used the mustard seed on another occasion when He said that if we had faith as a mustard seed we could move mountains. In this context the emphasis is not on our faith but on how God works in establishing His purposes. God works through small things. He doesn’t just work though small things – He works mightily through small things.
There is a second characteristic of the mustard seed that is important to this comparison besides its smallness. Despite its small seed size, the mustard plant actually grows to be the largest of the herbs grown in that area. It can reach 10-15 feet in height, and thus be large enough to provide a place for birds to rest in its branches as Jesus alludes to at the end of verse 19. (Some people think that the birds are allegorical and represent something. I believe that they just emphasize the large size of the tree.) The point of the comparison is that success doesn’t depend on size! Just like God can bring a significant tree out of an insignificant seed, He can do the same with you and me. We may not be a large church. We may not be the most talented people. We may not have lots of money to work with. We may not have a lot of people that the world sees as influential and important. Nevertheless we can be encouraged because…
God Works Mightily Through Small Things.
In verse 20 Jesus uses another illustration to make the same point. “Yeast”, which is also known as leaven, is sometimes used in the Bible as symbolic of sin but in this case it is used in a positive manner to show how God works mightily through small things. In that era, when a woman made bread, which was everyday since bread was a staple food, she would have to use yeast to make it “poofy.” Now the yeast used then wasn’t like the dry yeast used today but rather it was a very small lump of dough taken from the previous days making of bread. She would take that lump of dough and kneed it in to the new flour mixture and eventually that yeast would permeate and influence the entire batch.
The most important aspect of this illustration is the amount of flour into which the small amount of yeast was mixed. In the NIV is says, “a large amount” but the literal Greek is more specific ands says, “3 Satas” which is somewhere between 30 and 50 pounds of flour. This is a huge amount of flour! Could such a small insignificant lump of yeast leaven such a large amount of flour? It was so tiny that it just seemed impossible, but every women of that day knew that even a small lump of yeast could leaven a large amount of flour. Even though it was small it would also be significant in its influence. Again success doesn’t depend on size!
God Works Mightily Through Small Things.
Of course Jesus didn’t tell us these things to teach or encourage us about gardening or bread making. He wanted His disciples to recognize that things are not always as they appear. What men see as insignificant, unimportant and inconsequential, God would actually use to accomplish His purposes. He shared this with His disciples so that they would not evaluate their own or others accomplishments or abilities like those in the world who think bigger is better.
This was necessary because they would have looked at themselves and been looked at by others as unsuccessful and unimportant in God’s work. The disciples of Jesus were like that mustard seed, tiny and insignificant. Why would they have been thought of this way?
As hard as it is for us to conceive today, Jesus ministry was a major disappointment to many when He was on the earth. The Jewish people expected the Messiah to come like lightning! They expected that the Messiah would come and unite the people, gather a vast army, destroy the Roman enemy, and establish a kingdom of great magnificence. They were looking for something big to happen. They wanted glory and grandeur because they believed that this was the way God worked but instead they got Jesus.
Jesus who was born in a stable, raised in the no good town of Nazareth, resisted by the religious leaders and ignored by most of the political leaders. Jesus only had a small group of followers who were nothing more than uneducated fishermen, tax collectors and prostitutes. This didn’t look like the Kingdom of God, as they understood it. To them it looked like it was doomed to failure and for many of the disciples to temptation was to “jump ship.” After all nobody wants to be a part of something small and insignificant because that means it is not successful. God couldn’t be in it because bigger is better. Jesus wanted to correct this erroneous understanding. It is a correction we need to hear and heed today because people still tend to gravitate toward that which is bigger while disparaging that which is smaller. To avoid this error we have to remember the lesson of these parables.
God Works Mightily Through Small Things.
Jesus didn’t give any particular application to His disciples from these illustrations and spiritual truth. He left that to us since the application is rather obvious once you’ve understood the spiritual principle being taught. This being the case, I want to briefly share with you two responses I believe we should have to this truth.
First: Since God works mightily through small things we should not be judgmental.
What I mean is that we must be careful not to evaluate the success or spirituality of a ministry, church or person based on size or significance. We often evaluate and judge these things based on numbers, apparent importance and influence, prominence, or seemingly notable and powerful things happening. We tend to think that God must be in these things because they are bigger and more significant and that God must not be in what is small and insignificant by man’s standards. The lesson from the mustard seed and yeast has taught us otherwise. Things are not always as they appear!
First: Since God Works Mightily Through Small Things We Should Not Be Judgmental.
The great prophet Elijah made this mistake in 1 Kings 19.
Read 1 Kings 19:10-13
Elijah was discouraged and ready to quit because from his point of view nothing of significance had come from his ministry. He was looking for a mighty moving of God but he didn’t see it because he was only looking for big things, such as many people due today.
So God gave Elijah a spiritual lesson. He had Elijah go to a cave and then there was a powerful wind, but the “Lord was not in the wind” and then there was a mighty earthquake but the “Lord was not in the earthquake” and then there was a fire, but the “Lord was not in the fire.” The Lord wasn’t in any of these big things, but then there was a “gentle whisper”, a “still small voice” and Elijah went to the entrance of the cave because the Lord was in this small, insignificant thing. God was telling Elijah “I am working mightily but you haven’t seen it because you have only looked for me in the big things.” Elijah judged his ministry wrongly because he judged it based on size and significance. Do you see the message for the church today? If you hold to the philosophy that bigger is better you will be looking for God in the extraordinary and miss Him working mightily through the small things. You will also judge other ministries on man’s criteria rather than God’s.
First: Since God Works Mightily Through Small Things We Should Not Be Judgmental.
Second: Since God Works Mightily Through Small Things We Should Not Get Discouraged.
Christians often either abandon or give less than 100% to a ministry because they don’t see it as successful or believe that God could work mightily through something so small and insignificant. Size becomes a discouragement. This was the mistake the people of Israel and Zerubbabel their leader made when rebuilding the temple in the Old Testament. The Israelites returned to the land and began to rebuild the temple but quit in discouragement because they were such a small group that it seemed impossible and because the temple they were working on was so small and insignificant compared to Solomon’s temple.
God had a word for them and us about their attitude toward small things.
Read Zechariah 4:6-10, Haggai 2:3,9
In both of these passsages the people are rebuked for giving up because they didn’t think a small group could do anything significant and because they saw the work of God as small. God in essence says, “Do not despise the day of small things” because the “Glory of this latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former.” It may not look like much but God was working so the people should be encouraged!
God Works Mightily Through Small Things.
Conclusion: We are not a people with great numbers but we have a great God so let us be encouraged and faithful because God is working.
Closing Prayer
