September 26, 2004
THE WAY OF KINGDOM GROWTH
Matthew 13:31-33
Have you ever noticed that when God works, He seldom works the way we expect Him to? Would you expect God to move someone to Utah so they could find Christ? Yet that’s exactly what He did with some of you. How many times do we expect God to act one way only to see Him act another?
It was no different for the disciples. Those first disciples knew who Jesus was. Jesus was Messiah. Jesus was their King. And because those first disciples knew who Jesus was, they also knew exactly what He was going to do and how He was going to do it. They’d read their Old Testaments. They’d studied all the prophecies. They knew what Jesus had come to do! Jesus, the King, had come to establish His Kingdom. He had come to stomp out sin and sinners. He had come to rescue His people Israel and rule the nations from Jerusalem. Jesus had come to conquer. Jesus had come to kick tail!
Of course the disciples were right. Jesus had come to establish His kingdom. Jesus had come to conquer sin and sinners. Jesus had come to rescue His people. He just hadn’t come to do it the way they expected Him to. It started out well enough. As expected, the ministry of Jesus was spectacular. It was God’s power on parade. Jesus healed sick people. He tossed demons around without breaking a sweat. He silenced a storm. He walked on water. He fed multitudes with bottomless baskets of food. He even made dead people live. This was the power that would conquer the Romans. This was the power that would bring all the religious leaders to their knees. In Christ, the kingdom had broken into the world. And the disciples knew—in Christ, the kingdom was about to overwhelm the world. Or not.
As the ministry of Jesus unfolded, God wasn’t doing things according to plan. Yes, there were plenty of miracles, but the lasting impact of those miracles was small. Yes, there were multitudes of people, but very few willing to follow Christ. The bang of the kingdom was beginning to fizzle. And by the time we reach Matthew 12, the King and His kingdom weren’t transforming the world, they were being rejected by the world. The religious leaders rejected Jesus as Satan’s boy and the crowds followed their lead and refused to believe. The kingdom was going bust! Or was it? That’s the question Jesus answers in Matthew 13:31-33. In the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast Jesus reminds his disciples—and us—that, while God always does what He promises, seldom does He do it in the way we expect it to be done.
Follow with me as I read Matthew 13:31-33. Matthew 13:31-33 reads, He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all though the dough.”
When the kingdom of God came into this world, the disciples expected it to come hard and fast. When God became man in Christ, they expected Him to overthrow both Rome and the corrupt religious leaders in Jerusalem. In just a matter of months, they expected Jesus to be sitting on His throne and they expected to be reigning with Him. In the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast, Jesus tells them, “that’s not the way it’s going to be.”
Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven doesn’t blow into this world like hurricane Ivan blows into the Florida panhandle. The kingdom of heaven doesn’t explode on the scene fully formed. No! The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.
In other words, in this world, the kingdom of heaven begins small. In fact, the kingdom starts out so small Jesus says it’s like a mustard seed. It’s barely visible. It looks insignificant to anyone who sees it. But like that tiny mustard seed grows into a large shrub or a tree that’s 12-15 feet tall, the kingdom of heaven far outgrows its small beginning. In fact, the Bible tells us that in the end God’s kingdom will fill the earth and provide shelter to all who seek forgiveness and refuge in Christ.
I wonder if we really understand how small the kingdom’s beginnings really were. When you read about the ministry of Jesus and the coming of His kingdom it’s easy to get the wrong idea. Jesus preached to multitudes. He fed crowds that probably numbered twenty thousand or more. He did spectacular miracles. At times, Jesus was adored. At times, He was praised. At one time He was so popular, the people tried to make Him their king. As we read the gospels it’s easy to get the impression that when Jesus came to earth His impact was huge. It’s easy to think that when Jesus came the kingdom came with Him in a big way. Now make no mistake about it. When Jesus came the kingdom did come with Him. But when all was said and done, it didn’t come in a big way. By the time they took Jesus down from the cross the multitudes had all gone home and only a few followers remained.
Do you want to know how big the kingdom of heaven was immediately after Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave? Look with me at Acts 1:15. In Acts 1:15 we are told, In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty)…
Stop and let that sink in. After all the people Jesus preached to, and all the sick people Jesus healed, and all the demons He cast out, and all the dead people He raised to life—after all of that, the believers in Jerusalem numbered only 120. That’s the same number of people that gather here on a good Sunday. Now do you see why Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. It starts small. But oh, how it grows. In Acts chapter 2, the 120 became 3000. In Acts 4 another five thousand were added. And beyond that we are told that the Lord added to their number daily those being saved.
So how big will it grow? From its mustard seed beginnings how big will the tree of God’s kingdom become? Psalm 72:8-11 tells us. It says, He (Jesus) will rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. The desert tribes will bow before him and his enemies will lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him; the kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts. All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him.
In the same way the apostle John describes the ultimate magnitude of the kingdom in Revelation 7:9 when he says, …I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb…
Let me ask. As a believer in Jesus Christ, do you ever find yourself feeling small? Are you ever tempted to think that what you’re a part of is insignificant because it seems small? Don’t kid yourself. The kingdom of heaven on earth may not look big today, but it will be huge tomorrow. If you belong to Christ you belong to a kingdom that will one day fill the whole earth. With Jesus, what starts small, gets really, really big.
So how does it happen? How does the kingdom that starts small get big? Exactly how does it grow? That’s the question answered by the parable of the yeast. In Matthew 13:33 Jesus says, The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.
What do we learn here about how the kingdom grows? First, we learn that the kingdom most often grows quietly. Second, we learn that the kingdom most often grows from the inside out. Let’s understand the picture Jesus is painting for us. When you bake bread, what happens when you add yeast to the dough? Does the yeast go “snap, crackle, and pop”? No. The yeast does its work silently. In fact if you sit there and stare at your lump of dough it looks like nothing’s happening. But something is happening. From the inside out, the yeast permeates the dough and makes it grow.
Jesus says that’s how His kingdom grows too. That’s why we’re wrong when we demand miracles and signs and wonders. Most of the time that’s not how the kingdom grows. Think for a minute about our missionaries. Think about Terry and Lori Kienjan in Japan. They are God’s yeast. Few people notice. Few people care. But through Bible studies they lead and the relationships they build the kingdom silently grows. Then there’s Roger and Lynn Schmidt in Mozambique. The world looks and sees one family struggling to learn a language. They see one family working with a few other families sharing the good news about Jesus. What they’re doing in Africa will never make a big splash in this world. They’ll never get famous doing what they do. But because of them the kingdom is quietly growing. The same could be said about the Humbles in Indonesia, the McCombs in Ivory Coast or the Lovelady’s in Utah County. Few people notice what they do. But they are God’s yeast hidden in the dough. And because of them the kingdom grows.
Do you know what? You’re God’s yeast too! If you are a believer in Christ you are God’s instrument of growth right where you are. God has mixed you in with all those unbelievers in your family and your workplace and your neighborhood. And just like yeast impacts the dough, we are called to impact those around us. We are called to care. We are called share Jesus. We are called to touch lives one person at a time. Let me say that again—wherever God plants us, we are called to touch live one person at a time. That’s how God’s mustard seed grows into a tree. That’s how the kingdom grows. It’s not spectacular. But it’s incredibly effective.
Today, we can look around and say to ourselves, “We’re just a small church. There’s just not much we can do for God.” But nothing could be further from the truth! Don’t be deceived. We are God’s kingdom. And while the kingdom may start small, it grows big. We are God’s yeast. All we have to do is care for one person at a time. All we have to do is share with one person at a time. That’s how God is growing His kingdom around the world. And that’s how God is growing His kingdom here.
