last month Oscar of Edo an insurance man from New Jersey Walked into the office and got an instant message from one of this co-workers Hey come see me. I got a surprise for you So Walks around the Bob's cubicle looks at it and Bob's looks up. He says you got my money Now when a guy in New Jersey asked you if you got his money you better have it Oscar would later say he thought Well, that was pretty rude But he paid up anyway because the Oscar Was in the office pool for the New Jersey Lotto There were ten of them that went in five dollars a piece each week and they'd buy 50 tickets and Although he was late sometimes in pay and he always paid So he reached across the desk and Hands Bob is five dollars and Bob reaches up grabs his hand and looks at him and says now you're a millionaire see The night before Bob had realized they had the winning numbers and He'd checked it double checked it triple checked it got real excited and nobody else knew So he went into the office to have some fun that morning here They just won two hundred and sixteen million dollars
Oscar it reached across the desk with five dollars Came back with twenty million. That's a big return on an investment. I see in America Big numbers Means big headlines What about with Jesus? See all about the numbers See all about the big return He said come on Russ You know better than that. Well Let's hear from Jesus Matthew 13's where we're going This is the same chapter as the parable of the sower So matter of fact there's more than eight par there's eight parables in this chapter and We're looking at two of the shortest of them Starting at verse 31 Here God's word. He put another parable before them Saying the kingdom of heaven Is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field It's the smallest of all seeds but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree So that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches He told them another parable The kingdom of heaven is Like leaven that a woman took and hidden three measures of flour Till it was all leavened All these things Jesus said to the crowds and parables indeed. He said nothing to them without a parable This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet I Will open my mouth and parables I will utter what has been hidden Since the foundation of the world This is God's word Let's pray father Need the dough work your spirit deep within us we pray Changes By your word we ask in your name Amen he put another parable before them Jesus through it down There's just no way around this y'all I I'd like to over intellectualize. I'd like to find some sophisticated way to maneuver around it But there's no denying it he's talking about a visible tangible quantifiable growth Change that is visible you can see the difference the kingdom of God is like What I mean what are these things haven't common both of them involve visible Change visible results And that's what scares me you know why in the 1980s do you know where the largest Church in the world was some of you may know this the answer may surprise you Chattanooga in Chattanooga in 1982 you know what's church? It's right down the street Highland Park Baptist Church boasted 52,325 members the largest church in the world in Chattanooga Now some of you knew that you grew up here you lived through it you remember I'm knocking on your door Because they did they knocked on every door in Chattanooga I never thought that this town could have a church of 60,000 people. I mean, that's like a quarter of Chattanooga That's twice the size over twice the size of Rick Warren's Church And if that number stood today, it would still make it the largest church in America by far All right, I didn't grow up here. It's done me. You know why it's done me Because I've I've driven past it. I mean, I've I've seen the church today Now it's still a decent-sized church. It's even got a college associated with it But within the last decade their tenants had dipped below 500 They had gone from over 57,000 To under 500 attending radical growth
radical Collapse some of you say so what Russ? Oh, of course. They flared up the flame down. I mean, it should be a lesson to us. It's all about quality not quantity Ah, yes quality not quantity We the intellectual elite And we have used that line to rationalize away a multitude of sins as if the poor Uneducated masses just don't have refined enough taste to know what quality is I just throw a couple of things at you. Did you know that in 1800 the Presbyterians were the most numerous most influential Christian group in the United States? Before they got blown right past. I mean, it was like Rome when the pagans the elite saw Christianity coming and they said Poor uneducated masses. They don't know quality just quantity. It'll pass. It's a fad
quality over quantity But this is America and we know how to gauge every kind of growth. I mean, you want to gauge quality? remember Ford used to have the slogan quality is job one and What they meant by that was not I think Let's gather a couple of quality people and sell a handful of cars. I Mean, they thought we build a quality automobile bill out of a car and we'll sell lots of them That's the idea that quantity follows Quality, you know, I bet they are really thinking about that right now too since Obama just forced out the CEO of GM Ford is reconsidering what quality is because in America If you don't perform You're done. It's not that way with Jesus Well, he didn't say you know what I'm looking for a few good men And I just want a couple of them to get huddle around a fire and sit around and argue about who knows the most about me He said go make disciples of all Nations Fishers of men and I say Jesus. I don't know. I want to be a fisherman. I Mean, I stink at it. Don't like touching the bait. Don't like hooking it work. I'm not a good fisherman He says That is exactly Why I want you doing it because it's only in doing it that you'll know It's not you It's definitely not you See look at these two parables. Did you notice? The soil can't grow by itself The seed has to be placed in it The dough can't rise by itself. It needs the leaven the yeast to be put in it until God acts Until God puts himself in us. We can't grow I mean, there's nothing there to grow There's nothing there that would make the dough rise. I just want to hit this for those of you who are Visiting or new to Christianity. This is the difference between Christianity and every other religion and every other faith We have to act first Just like the American way perform Are you're done? You're out then and only then maybe maybe the powers that be alike you But in Christianity before we can do anything he acts in love toward us And once he did and once we see it It'd be arrogant for us Not to act in response as a matter of fact it'd be virtually Impossible The seed's going to grow The yeast is going to force the bread To rise But that's the problem isn't it? I mean, that's the reason that many a Christian is struggling with self-doubt If I'm not growing here if I don't even want to grow What's wrong with me? Am I really am I really even a Christian? That's the test this passage is bringing this morning. Am I growing? Are we growing? Do we even want to the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed the mustard seed grows Extensively it grows out it grows widely One ancient writer said the mustard seed grew like a weed almost out of control The mustard seeds are really really tiny, but they're potent I mean in one season within one year it can grow to be 10 feet tall And that kind of rapid growth means Things get out of control And get a little bit messy Think
Now I really want there to be a movie scene just it can be a random scene in some movie somewhere But a guy in the Pacific on a boat with a potted plant with some cudd's doing it saying 1800s I'm going to take this back and fix up my yard No idea It gets messy You know this week in this pulpit a Black preacher stood And he said at Eleanor Powell's funeral You know what in the world was a white woman from signal mountain doing an inner city Chattanooga
When she came down to drive those kids to hear the gospel and all the while he was just praying please don't let her get hurt And she had those kids come up to her house to have parties in here about Jesus and he was just praying please don't let her break anything But she didn't care She understood the gospel puts us in situations and with people that otherwise we wouldn't be in we wouldn't be with It gets messy When ministry happens Life gets a little bit out of control a little bit messy, but that's where God wants it He doesn't want a Pristine museum where the dead are venerated when Jesus said I'm the God of the living And this side of heaven Living is going to be messy Mark Druskel's a pastor in Seattle who was making this very point and he said you know We had a lesbian family come to our church and these two women became Christians and Then they realized they they couldn't continue living together, but they had these kids and what are we going to do with the kids now? He said when you're doing real gospel ministry it gets messy I mean God acts People's lives are changed and we're left in all of what God's done, but wondering What are we going to do now? It's a mess It was a mess. It is a mess. So what do you do? You get messy with Jesus
Sometimes it's fun Sometimes it's really hard Just ask the disciples So let me ask you are you getting messy with Jesus his life getting messy the gospel throws the doors open Wide open to welcome anyone who might walk in I Thought three times about whether or not I'd say this this morning because it scares me But last month Gospel throws the doors wide open and a man with a gun walked in walked up to a preacher in Illinois and shot him and Killed him and the next week his wife got on TV and said we forgive him and we're praying for Jesus loves him. It gets messy See because all kinds of birds come when the gospel tree goes up all kinds of birds come and nest in it Mocking birds Whippen cranes Even loony birds Such is the kingdom of God The kingdom of God also says is like 11 the yeast works Intensively it works inwardly it works deeply as my son likes to sing one was wide. This is deep deep and wide This is what Jesus is doing It's needed into the dough the yeast works its way into everything when the mustard seed Is a more outward focused image. This is an inwardly focused one And once the leaven is placed inside it's hidden it's out of sight But you better believe that as it does its work It's work becomes evident it becomes visible
Listen up frail old man We'll end up having to move in with his son his daughter-in-law and his four-year-old grandson The man's hands trembled his eyesight is blurred a little bit his step faltered some The family would eat together at the table, but this elderly grandpa He had shaky hands and failing sight so when he tried to pick something up peas rolled in the floor He grabbed the milk his hand would shake milks all over the floor The son and daughter-in-law me to got increasingly irritated with the mess Said man. What are we gonna do about dad? I mean, I just I've had enough of the mess
So husband and wife Realized the corner was a better place. They set a table in the corner. The messes could be cleaned up more readily The dad kept dropping the plates and breaking them. So they got a special wooden bowl for him So he'd sit in the corner while the family ate together Every once in a while something would drop. They'd turn and rain down sharp admonitions on him
all the while Four-year-old grandson just taken it in and silence One day the dad Comes in finds his son before dinner playing with some wood scraps in the floor to son What is it you're making there? Oh? I'm making some wooden bowls for you and mom to eat out of when I get older
They were speechless I mean that night Grandpa came back to the table and when food at the floor There was no complaining See when God holds up the mirror and let's us see what we're doing When he needs the dough and presses his grace down deeper within us There's only one natural reaction and its repentance If you're going to ask the question of yourself am I growing the hallmark of a growing Christian Is repentance Now some of you who are really sharp and like to think biblically you're saying preach has uh It's a good point. It's a nice story But I don't see that in the text where are you getting that from Well Get ready Because this whole sermon I've been avoiding the bombshell that Jesus has dropped I love this y'all. I love this My prayers that I can communicate this to you
This is the inversion Look at this Let's back up a second and take the whole chapter in Jesus does nothing for this chapter but say the kingdom of gods like this kingdom of gods like that kingdom of gods Yeah, I like this Why didn't he come right out and just say what the kingdom of God is why does he keep dancing around it with all these images? You know famous Southern author Flanery O'Connor was once asked by a critic Will you sum up this short story in a single sentence With her normal witch he turns to him and said If I could have said it in a sentence I wouldn't have ridden the whole story
And Jesus just keeps giving us images he just keeps throwing them out there as if we can't handle the unadulterated Bald simple truth We look at the language of verse 31 He put another parable before them. He threw it down It's as if an alien has come and landed his starship gotten off and just starts pulling out pictures Of his home from on the other side of the universe and throwing them down in a row Because there's no other way we can get our head around What he's talking about It's two mind-boggling Let's get some context think with me The Jews expected a king they needed a king they needed to be freed from Roman oppression They wanted to hear about how this kingdom is going to be
You're an old brother where art thou fan? It's like men in prison dreaming about what freedom is going to be like hey Jesus Tell us about the big rock candy mountain again
But instead of filling their mind with over-the-top superlatives fanciful dreams Jesus opens his mouth to speak you know Kingdom of God's kind of like weeds Or It's like a woman working in the kitchen You know it's kind of like Mustard biscuits
What no no no no no no no no what you mean to say is it's bigger than the pyramids in Egypt and it's brighter than the sun right No I did it Kingdom of God is like a mustard bush No, no you mean a cedar of Lebanon towering toward the sky No, I mean a mustard bush See the Jews were expecting The kingdom to rise up is a huge tree Like in Daniel 4 or Ezekiel 17 Their tree was going to grow high it was going to bring all the other trees low and instead Jesus informs him that his state tree Is a shrub It's a weed Why his disciples We're still arguing about who was going to be the greatest in this new kingdom They still didn't get it and that's why Their expectations were not matching Their experience They're saying Jesus What are we going to get done with this homeless traveling act and start having people coming in feet as grapes and Fanos You know i'm tired of this can we just get some new clothes and something good to eat
Jesus is showing them What you think is important what you think is big It's not always what I think is important It's always what I think is big
I got to bill Allen joke for you a DEA agent Shows up at this Montana ranchers farm And demands to see the premises a drug enforcement administration agent I want to see the premises Sure sure go wherever you like but you probably steer clear of that field right over there The agent's a little bit insulted he says mr I represent the power of the federal government You see this badge right here? This is a go wherever I want do whatever I want no questions asked no answers given badge do you understand Farmer just looked at him he goes
nods And off goes the agent straight toward that field Now Little while later farmers resumed his work He hears screaming Hey, it looks up and here comes that agent running for his life With the ranchers prize winning bowl gaining on him with every step Farmer throws down his tools he runs over to the fence and he says Show him your badge show him your badge
See We need we need to understand what real authority is Jesus isn't just making up fun stories. He's being purposefully provocative We think we already understand this and he steps up and says stop Think again It's not a tree It's a mustard bush And the leaven this might be a little harder to catch but if you were to read all through scripture yeast is normally a negative image in scripture as a matter of fact in Luke 12 Jesus warns his own disciples to be where the leaven the yeast of the Pharisees To be where their hypocrisy I mean hypocrisy literally means to be less judging of yourself so More judging of others hypocrisy in other words Is making other people look like less So that I can look like more Now the same time Yeast is an image of corruption Evil works its way through the whole batch as kind of the old proverb One rotten apple can ruin the whole bunch
So hypocrisy is contagious I mean blame shifting quickly can become a way of life just think about Adam and Eve We make others look like less so that we can have more Put it a different way we tear other people down we tear the people up So that we can get what we call life So why in the world would Jesus say the kingdom of God is like leaven What does the kingdom of God have in common With a corruption with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees Let's put it a little bit differently If one bad apple Can make the whole bunch bad Could the reverse be true?
Can you corrupt the corrupted With goodness can you rot the rotten Back into ripeness If hypocrisy is making others less So I can be more if it's killing others so I can have life What's its opposite making myself less so that others are more dying So that others might have life Do you understand The cross isn't just a footnote at the end of Jesus life It's the climax of all his stories. It is the big reveal You want to know what the kingdom of God looks like? I mean, are you sick of the parables? You like the disciples say just tell us already Jesus One of my good buddies in high school Ethan Farquhar went to covenant college up on the mountain back in the day And his roommate Was the first one to get a girlfriend And all the other guys were living vicariously So the heat was on and this poor young man made the mistake of admitting that he had never been kissed and they Blood in the water they were merciless I mean everywhere he went When you're going to get some sugar there boy When you're going to get that sugar Let's start calling him sugar Hey sugar In the bathroom sugar In between classes what's up sugar They're going around the great hall. Hey sugar every everywhere he went One day he's sitting in the great hall eating dinner on a date with his girlfriend One of the guys walks by with a sugar packet Slaps it on his chest and keeps on walking falls right down in his lap Go for a look she goes What's that all about And then one of the greatest Cheesiest impromptu lines in the history of romance He turns to her looks and he says I can't tell you I'll have to show you Oh and it works it works That's crazy Oh So with the risk At the risk of being more demeaning to the kingdom than I've already been by calling it mustard and biscuits This is what Jesus is talking about in all these parables. Do you want to know what the kingdom of God is like? Do you want to understand the meaning of all these parables? He's saying look I can't tell you I'm gonna have to show you If you want to know what a kingdom is like look at It's Listen, it's Palm Sunday What do we celebrate my kids come down through here with palm branches later this morning Jesus had no delusions He knew as he came into the city these people don't get it They don't know who I really am no more than these kids who walk through will know
Why do we celebrate this day? I mean, it should be a day of our shame People calling on him Calling him the king on Sunday Are going to say crucify him on Friday People who at the beginning of the week are calling him savior At the end of the week are going to yell kill it Why because the kind of kingdom they want The kind of king they want Is the one who does whatever they want They're really looking for their own kingdom
So why don't we celebrate this again because they're just like you and me Just like us We call for his coronation But when the king turns out not to be a puppet We call for his crucifixion We call for him to be crowned but then we turn around and we call for him to be killed And that's when the really incredible happens because Jesus turns and says
The crucifixion is My coronation the cross is my crowning You want to know what all these parables are about you want to know what the kingdom is like Come watch them crown me This is God's kingdom Then in more ways Than you and I want to admit more ways Always that I want to admit I have crowned him And I continue in daily betrayal to crown him again And again and again and he takes that betrayal And he makes it my salvation
He turns my weeping into rejoicing He trades my death And gives me his life How do you rot the rotten How do you corrupt the corrupted
You got to turn everything inside out You got to hang on the tree of life and make tree of death And make it The mustard bush of life You got to be buried in the putrified dough So it can be raised in your life Once you've met this king you will know there is no other kingdom
Let's just put it Hopefully how my son can understand on Easter morning Chocolate bunnies have gotten nothing on mustard and biscuits
Lord God you are the king
Show us While we would want no other kingdom Show us who you are And Jesus I have no doubt there are people here this morning
Who don't call you king at least not in that way And if so lord I pray that this morning would be the morning they rejoice And the fact that they are loved That they would turn and call on you right now That we would say all together in this room Jesus be my king
You would make that real in all of our hearts That you would change us today That Easter week would not be so much superstition and routine But that we would understand what you're crowning accomplishes
So we turn to you and ask that you would write your kingdom into our hearts And send us out to write it among the nations We pray for this In your name We stand for the benediction Let me just say this If you called on Jesus as your king for the first time today I'm not going to ask you to come forward I'm not going to ask you to come tell me But tell somebody This kind of life this kind of party was not meant to be celebrated alone Was meant to be shared so Received the benediction Made the grace of our lord and king Jesus Christ Made the love of god the father who sent him And made the fellowship of the spirit of Jesus be with us all now And forevermore Go in peace