Yeah Good morning Welcome back to the cove Well yesterday At Bethel Seminer we had our graduation our commencement. So we graduated a bunch of students That's always an exciting time to see it's also a sad time after years of Students being with you and training for the ministry now. They're off one woman Graduated yesterday who started in 1993 Which is what I started at Bethel that was her first year and Went through some enormous trials had leukemia and went through that for years and and moved away for a time And then came back and has just finished and so just a great great time Of celebration with her and so school is out finally This year my family and I are heading up to hum Lake for the week Have a vacation time. No speaking for a change usually when I go our vacations are speaking vacations dad speaks in the And then we vacation, but this one is just a nice time at the lake and enjoying each other Connecting the kids are out of school and so really nice. We'll come back on Saturday and be here next next Sunday, but so it's it's great To have some time off isn't Often great things come in very small Beginnings start with very small and insignificant beginnings We're looking at a passage this morning in Luke's gospel about small beginnings and the great things that can come from that Little Billy became interested in computers when he was in the eighth grade His school got a hook up to a major mainframe Computer and he and his friend Paul Allen used to skip gym class to go and use that computer They would skate sneak sometimes into school at night so they could play on the computer Eventually he but he he wrote his very first computer program. It was a Computer virtual tic-tac toe game. That was his first computer program You probably know who I'm talking about little Billy. There he is Little Billy William Gates. I love that picture. He's such a geek in that picture is just so Number of years later as a fledgling software company. He had started his fledgling software company named Microsoft When the giant electronic giant IBM approached him to write an operating system for its brand new PC a desktop computer and in what was no doubt one of the most brilliant marketing moves of all time He wrote DOS Digital operating system and instead of selling DOS to IBM. He leased it to them So that they then would build the computers others would build the computers and Microsoft would write the software Absolutely brilliant because of course we know what resulted from that the evil empire is what resulted No, I'm just you can see I'm a I'm a Macintosh person, but the rest is of course history Bill Gates once bragged at one day one day. He would be a millionaire He was vastly wrong of course because he was not a millionaire. He was a billionaire but small things come in Small packages a more sublime story a small thing happened to a couple of shepherd boys Shepherd boys in Israel Bedouin shepherds one of them lost a goat and began looking for that goat He came to a cave and he wondered whether perhaps that goat had hidden in the cave So he grabbed a rock and instead of going into the cave He threw a rock into that cave and heard the sound of pottery Breaking scared him as a little kid and so he ran away, but later came back with a friend and they went into that cave And they found some old pottery jars broken and what looked like sort of leather Papers there and they took them out and they they took them to their camp Someone one of the story says one of the mothers there used one of those to start a fire She used it as killing to start a fire Eventually though they showed it to some dealers some antiquities dealer one of the antiquities dealers noticed and said this looks like ancient Hebrew to me Eventually they sold those there's the cave right there where they discovered that eventually they sold them to an antiquities dealer Who sold them to a scholar who knew what what how to read biblical Hebrew and of course some of you are aware what I'm talking about The greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century the Dead Sea Scrolls Eventually 11 caves were discovered Thousands of manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts the the earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible that we have Are from the Dead Sea Scrolls that is a copy of Isaiah the oldest copy of Isaiah in existence today From small beginnings a shepherd boy throwing a stone into a cave came this incredible incredible discovery that really in many ways Has revolutionized biblical studies over the last 50 years or so in terms of our understanding of first century Israel The world in which Jesus lived in terms of our confidence in the biblical text because these biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed for us That we have a reliable tradition of copying these manuscripts over the years So small things Result oftentimes and huge significance But of course the Dead Sea Scrolls and Bill Gates pale in comparison to the small thing that started in the first century With the death of a poor peasant teacher named Jesus Turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 13 Luke chapter 13 Jesus tells a parable two parables actually in Luke chapter 13 and they're about big things Coming in small packages or big things coming from very small and insignificant beginnings Jesus here describes the phenomenal success that will come with the kingdom of God Two short parables. I was looking ahead and I think this is the shortest passage we're going to cover for the rest of Luke's gospel There's only four short verses two short parables After this we tend to take bigger chunks all along the way, but these two parables Sort of have the same central message small things or big things start small But then they go in different directions and emphasize different aspects of that Jesus begins. Let's look at this passage in Luke chapter 13 Then Jesus asks what is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to This is the way Jesus often begins his parables. He often says what's the kingdom of God like he draws an analogy to the kingdom of God We've talked a lot about the kingdom of God But it's it is hard to get your handle on what the kingdom of God actually is We we use that phrase a lot We say we're going to work for the kingdom of God. We're going to advance the kingdom of God We talk about entering the kingdom of God, but but what does that mean? Is it a physical kingdom? How do you know when you're in the kingdom? Where is the king of the kingdom? Is he is he centralized? Is he raining in some places the kingdom centered in Israel or is the kingdom over all the universe and so Jesus taught What was really in many ways indescribable? How do you describe what is indescribable? He he talked with analogies really many ways that's how we describe things with analogies We we talk about the church how do we describe the church with analogies? What are some analogies with reference to the church? It's the the body of Christ, right? There's an analogy that helps us understand the church the bride of Christ There's another one that helps us understand the church the people of God the priesthood of believers There's there's all kinds of analogies because sometimes these concepts themselves are hard to get a hold of Um, how do you describe something that's indescribable? How do you describe ice cream to someone in the tropics who has never had ice cream? Right you can say it's sweet Sweet and cold like ice, but that just doesn't capture it does it Or any chocoholics in here any chocoholics how do you describe think about this now if you've never tasted Chocolate how do you describe chocolate?
Just think of the greatest experience you have ever had in your life and then double that right something something like It's it's hard it's hard to describe the kingdom of God is like that So Jesus begins to put parameters by using these analogies. How do you describe the kingdom of God? We get a couple of these analogies in these parables the first one is the parable of the mustard seed and the second one is the parable Of the leaven look at the parable the mustard seed verse Chapter 13 verse 18 then Jesus asked what is the kingdom of God like what shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed which a man took and planted in his garden It grew and became a tree in the birds of the air perched in its branches It is like a mustard seed now the mustard seed became proverbial in Israel For something very tiny there's some pictures of tiny mustard seeds if you remember in Luke 17 verse 6 We haven't been there yet, but you may have remembered the story Jesus says with a faith of a mustard seed you can move a mountain Now Why does he say mustard seed because that was the smallest seed really known in that particular cultural context Um in Mark's gospel Jesus is the smallest of the seeds and people have jumped all over that statement because we know It's not the smallest seed in existence, but it was certainly the smallest seed they knew so so Jesus with a with a faith of a mustard seed You can move mountains There's an analogy right what does what does that mean with the faith of a mustard seed The the point is that it's not the amount of faith we have ultimately It's the object of our faith that counts right so who is the object of our faith God is the object of our faith with a with faith in God We can move mountains We talked about Near the beginning of our study We talked about the call of Peter When he the the fishing incident do you remember when Peter had been slaving away all night fishing and and Jesus comes up to him And here's this rabbi who knows nothing about fishing and he says hey, let's let's go fishing Mending his cleaning his nets after a hard night of fishing and Jesus let I'd love to try this Let's try it Peter goes oh Lord. We've been working on night. We've been working on night I'm the fisherman you're not the fisherman and Jesus and he says but but for you I'll do it Now how much how much faith did Peter need to have in Jesus' ability to catch fish How much faith he think he had very little I would guess he had very little faith He only needed enough faith to what to get in that boat and push out that's all the faith that he needed to get you see With a little faith because it wasn't Peter who was going to catch those fish It was Jesus who was going to catch those fish So it's it's not the amount of faith. It's the object of our faith and and it means stepping out and acting on that faith So so the mustard seed analogy you can move a mountain if you have just a little bit of faith in a great big God You see because it's not about us It's ultimately about God and his purpose in the world. He calls us to get on board So that's sort of what an analogy related to the mustard seed This is a different picture if you will it's about a mustard seed But it's about planning a mustard seed and a mustard seed grows and becomes a huge tree in this context Here's our analogy the point is the kingdom of God begins small and grows into a great thing So much so that it will change the world it will transform the world Because most of you know I'm a New Testament professor and so I have students who are training for ministry Who want to come and learn about the Bible and and I wrote a textbook on the gospels But when we talk about the gospel accounts of Jesus Christ My students will sometimes come to me and they'll say um, you know Don't we have a lot of records about Jesus from from the ancient world you would expect Jesus was a I mean Jesus is the most important person in human history The son of God the Messiah the king and they would we would expect him to have made a huge a huge impact On hit the culture around him And so they say you know what what what accounts do we have do we have a Roman account of the trial Jesus We don't we have no account of the trial of Jesus from from any Roman archives that we have we have really very very little Historically about Jesus and and let me let me read you a couple of things This is this is the Roman historian Tacitus writing in the late first century During the the persecution of Christians the first major persecution of Christians by the emperor Nero He says he decided he defunded identifies their leader as a certain christus He says he's heard about this christus who suffered the extreme penalty which is crucifixion During the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators Pontius pilot His only that's all he says, okay, that's about what you know 50 years or so 70 years after Jesus's death That's all that he mentions he goes on to describe it as a mischievous superstition that hasn't yet been stamped out That's when he describes christiannes Writing shortly after Tacitus the Roman historian sweetonious Speaks about the expulsion of Jews from Rome by the emperor Claudius that account is actually described in acts 13 He says because the Jews at Rome cause continuous disturbances at the instigation of some christus He expelled them from the city now. He gets it totally wrong He thinks christus is actually in Rome what is happening is unbelieving Jews and Christian Jews Jewish Christians are are in conflict in Rome And the emperor gets upset with it and he throws them that throws him out and he thinks that some christus is causing the problem Well, the problem is Christ the problem is the Messiah they're they're fighting over the Messiah around 8112 plenty the younger governor of bifinia in Asia Minor wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan requesting advice on how to deal with these Christians who would not worship the image of Caesar 8112 or time at 70 or 80 years after Jesus describing the Christians He writes quote that on an appointed day They had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn to christ as if to a god Okay, now that's about all we have from the first 70 or 80 years from the Roman and and and it kind of bothers us You know because Jesus we know who Jesus was Jesus was the son of god the savior of the world But I have to tell my students from the perspective of the Roman Empire Jesus was just a blip was just a blip on the radar screen of history from their perspective He was just one more Jewish revolutionary or troublemaker, you know Problem child if you will who they just had to eventually just get rid of because he was causing problems in Judea So just just to blip just just to nobody from there from their perspective talk about small beginnings Born in the tiny province of Judea. He lived a peasant life He offended the religious leaders He was accused of revolt. He was executed one solitary life That's that's pretty much all he was in the eyes of the Romans And then Jesus what did he do he who would you choose If you were going to establish a kingdom who would you choose? I'll tell you what I would do I would choose the best military ruler or military leaders in the country right find the best generals You definitely want them you want the most brilliant Scientists the best scientists around don't you you want the best CEOs the best leadership gurus That's who you would bring together form a committee, you know and and if you were going to establish a kingdom So who does Jesus choose right? Jesus chooses twelve disciples Lowly fishermen nobody's very low on the socio-economic status He chooses a hated tax collector someone that the population the Jewish population would have hated Matthew He chooses a rebel us a guy named Simon who is identified as a zealot Which is probably part of this rebel movement in opposition to the Romans now We talked about this before and we talked about the choosing of the twelve, but this is the most bizarre choice imaginable You know you choose someone who's viewed as a collaborator a traitor a collaborator at the Roman authorities Then you choose someone who just hates them and wants to do violence against them and you put them together in your entourage You know come on Jesus. What are you doing when you choose these individuals? This is not exactly the dream team To to change the world And then Jesus chooses them from small beginnings The Apostle Paul writing later on says it's so well He's writing to the Corinthians This is a church that is just struggling struggling immensely in their faith and he says this He says brothers and sisters think of what you were when you were called Not many of you were wise by human standards Not many were influential Not many were of noble birth, but here's the key But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise God chose the foolish things the small things the insignificant things God chose the mustard seeds of the world to change the world to demonstrate that it is in God's power That we're going to accomplish His purpose that the kingdom will be established in his power from mustard seed comes a great tree There's a movie that I sometimes show in my class It's called Peter and Paul it was done in 1985 or something like that early in the 80s I remember starting Anthony Hopkins as Paul it's a great to see Anthony Hopkins in this in this role But there's there's one scene in this movie where Paul is traveling on his first missionary journey and he's with Barnabas in John Mark on the first missionary journey And they arrive in Pemphilia now we think of the Apostle Paul this incredible missionary You know he walks into town and everyone goes whoa and he's he you know He just snaps his finger and starts a church and snaps his other finger and writes a book to the church And you know this this incredibly powerful missionary Paul and this the picture This I think this is so much more true of what it was like they arrived there and Paul is deathly ill He's just sick they've been on the road probably seasick from from days days on on the ocean and and they're tired and they hungry And they're out of money and they're all sitting around there in Pemphilia and and There's a scene where some guy comes into town He's just completely beaten to a pulp and on the road up to Galatia There's bandits all along the road and this guy and and John Mark is standing there and this guy gets dragged past him And he's just completely he's just practically dead and and he's and Mark is just just freaking out here And he turns to Paul and Paul says we're going to Galatia on that same on that same road And and Mark's just had enough and Mark just totally loses it right then and there We're doing what are you crazy? You're sick here. You're dying. We're hungry. We're out of money and then he else I'm going back to Jerusalem and of course mark a band in the party that but but it's so dramatically and you go You're you're looking at the scene you go. This is the missionary movement that got launched This is this powerful movement that turned the world upside down That transformed the world forever And you realize these were a couple of guys walking from town to town and they preached the gospel for weeks And they get a few little converts and they they leave one little house church And then they go on to the next one and then the next one and the next one from very very small Beginnings God accomplishes amazing things Here's our first takeaway the parable the mustard seed teaches us that God uses the most insignificant of people and events To produce extraordinary results Turn with me keep your place and Luke will be back turn with me over to Hebrews for forward to Hebrews
Go pass Paul's letters Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, by Lehman and then you come to Hebrews Hebrews chapter 11 This is this great faith chapter where we learn about all these great men and women of faith Who persevere through and impossible challenging times I'm starting in the middle of verse 35 of chapter 11 There were others who were tortured Refusing to be released so they might gain an even better resurrection Some faced jeers And flogging and even change and imprisonment They were stone they were sawed in two they were put to death by the sword They went in sheep skins and goat skins destitute persecuted and mistreated This is the lot of the early Christians this is the lot of the people of God in the Old Testament Look at the next phrase the world was not worthy of them They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes and ground Turn back look back at verse 33 though Despite Despite The fact that they were viewed as the lowest of the low persecuted hungry destitute verse 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms administered justice Gained what was promised shut the mouth of lions remember Daniel quench the fury of the flames Escape the edge of the sword whose weakness was turned to strength and who became powerful in battle and routed for it enemies Women received back their dead raised to life again From a human perspective this movement would have never gotten off the ground But because this was the purpose of God The early Christians spread out and step-by-step mile-by-mile they brought the message of salvation from a human perspective It would have never happened Don't misread this passage though This passage is not about human conquest Not about world domination sadly Christians have sometimes viewed it that way like during the crusades a thousand years ago Set off to conquer the holy land Ended up mass occurring Thousands and thousands of innocent people along the way we still pay the price in some sense missionaries ask missionaries to Muslims What the biggest hurdle for that missionary movement is one is of course the identity of Jesus Christ is divine in the son of God But the other is they still remember they still remember those awful crusades where the conquistadors 500 years ago conquered the Americas in the name of God but mass occurred people destroying entire native native cultures. That's not what it's about It's about Overcoming evil with good. It's about transforming the world for God and really that's what the parable pictures here Notice the last line there it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air perched in its branches Now there's there's some debate as exactly what this means it could just mean it's a big tree You know, and so the size of it that what it was big enough for birds to purge in its branches But I think it's more than that. I think it has it has more to do with it's it became a place of refuge It became a place of safety The church is a place of refuge the church is a place of safety. Here's here's Jesus is or supposed to be a place of safety I should say here's Matthew chapter 11 verse 28 Jesus says come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble and heart and you will find rest for your souls For my yoke is easy and my burden is light Jesus calls for all those who are broken to come to him to to come to his refuge to come to his peace I think I might have told you the story of when we went first went to went to Scotland and We're really going through culture shock in in Scotland We hadn't really prepared very well. We didn't have any family or friends over there And winter was setting in and my wife Roxanne loves the hot desert climate of southern california To the right place here So I took her to Scotland for four years just to get you know to get her acclimated for for that and the cold winter was with setting in and We were poor we were broke We would have to walk to the grocery store and and carry our bags back They didn't even give you bags you had to carry your own bags bags bags They didn't have any of the right no no chips and salsa. How can you call this a civilized place with no chips? No peanut butter couldn't find that and so you know and and we just I was really struggling in my doctoral studies. I was nothing was working right I was thinking I'm not really qualified to do this and and we are really really depressed really really frustrated at that time Someone had given us the name of a friend before we came over Who was at a particular church there and we we called I called that him up one Sunday morning and Just trying to get directions to the church and he said to me said you wait there. I'm gonna come pick you up And he got in his car and drove like 10 miles to pick me up brought me back to the church and we walked into this church And suddenly a whole time in Scotland changed because this church just enveloped us Total strange. They just enveloped us in their love almost every Sunday that someone from that church would have us over for dinner Our one good the other during the week is we look forward to that those Sunday dinners and and and the church just enveloped us It was like we had been out in a storm you're been out in a really bad storm And you get in and you arrive in and the fire is going and it's warm and dry and it's a place of comfort a place of family a place of encouragement I think that's the picture here It grew into a tree and the birds came and nested the birds came and found refuge in that place Here's a second takeaway Parable the mustard seed teaches us that it's only in God's power That we can accomplish his purpose in the world. It's only through dependence on him One more time hold your place in Luke 12 and turn back to Mark's gospel Mark actually includes a little parable that only it occurs at the same context as this parable Because this parable follows it
But it's only in Mark's gospel. I want you to see it It's also a parable of growth in Mark chapter 4 verse 26 He also said This is what the kingdom of God is like mark 426 A man scatters seed on the ground Night and day whether he sleeps or gets up the seed sprouts and grows though He does not know how all by itself the soil produces grain First the stalk then the head then the full kernel in the head as soon as the grain is ripe He puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come It's called the parable the secretly growing seed because he just plants the seed he just plants the seed He doesn't do anything to make that seed grow because it's all in the DNA of the seed itself the seed itself And the parables purpose of demonstrate. It's not us that does it. What do we do? What do we do we just follow God's purpose? We just obey his command We just stay faithful to him and he accomplishes his purpose I think we turned to this passage a few weeks ago. It's in first. We don't need to turn there Let's just look at it here first Corinthians chapter 3 Here's the Apostle Paul He says what after all is a Paulus this great preacher of the gospel and what is Paul only servants Through whom you came to believe as the Lord has assigned to each his task I planted the seed a Paulus watered it but God has been making it grow So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow See it's only by dependence on him only by trusting in him that we're going to accomplish anything Tom Sine wrote a book in 1981 he called it the mustard seed conspiracy I love the title the mustard seed conspiracy. It's a it's a picture of that that mustard seed in the growth We are part of that conspiracy the conspiracies that we have a message from God that will transform this world That will heal broken people that will reconcile those who are in hatred against one another The message of the gospel is that message in the DNA in that gospel All we have to do is share the message of salvation and it will transform the world around us
That's really the me that's really the message of the parable the mustard seed But there's another issue and I just want to throw this out because scholars sometimes question whether maybe there's something else here Jesus says the mustard seed grows into a great plant now anyone Experts in Middle Eastern culture anyone anyone grow mustard in here just just curious Anyone grow mustard of experts in Middle Eastern culture? I guess experts in agriculture kind of look at this and they go That's kind of a puzzling statement that Jesus chooses a mustard Plant or a mustard tree as the example of something that starts small because mustard trees are really kind of where someone says What Jesus what we would expect to say Jesus to say is that it was a great cedar of Lebanon Right it it would plant it and grew into a great cedar of Lebanon or that it was a great oak tree Those are two trees that they knew in that context that would have been viewed as huge and stately trees trees Instead he says a mustard seed now I can understand because the mustard seed was so small But a mustard there's a picture of a mustard tree right there now I got some better ones too that were more stately I think they trimmed them up so that they would look they would look nicer But this one is it's it's like a bush really a giant bush and In fact, it's often been described as the mustard weed you know, and we don't use that because it sounds terrible the kingdom of God becomes a great weed That's just doesn't it just doesn't quite work now. I don't know the answer here. So here's again I'm just throwing out some some scholarly debate here. I don't know the answer But some of suggested there's more to it than just the size issue It's more than just something small became something great It's something small became something great and unexpected and surprising Because I guess mustard seeds come to sometimes get blown into gardens and they sort of take over and That they can be they can be pervasive they can be dominant when when people aren't sure They want them there And I thought could that be the kingdom of God at all? Think about it think about it. It's invasive. Here's the world and the world is going on just fine from some people's perspective From God's perspective the world is badly out of kilter and so God plans to seed But it's not a stately oak that people go oh cool. We like that instead. It's something they go I'm not sure I like that, you know That that tree is making demands on my life that tree is challenging my crops my life over here You see you see the perspective there that the mustard plant. We're just not sure because it challenges us The kingdom of God challenges us sometimes in areas where we're not so sure we want to be challenged You've got various in your life where you say God you can have this area and you can have it just stay out of this room Okay, I just don't want you to go there yet. I'll deal with it later Lord I just don't want you to go there and there's that mustard seed Suddenly there's a little seed over here and it's begin to grow in your garden You're you're cutting it back, but it's pushing and pushing and and growing in that direction So there's just something to think about as a possibility that maybe it's more to it than just something small growing into something big Maybe it's also the nature of those mustard plants as being invasive as being challenging to our traditional gardens All right one more parable here the parable of the leaven we've seen leaven before In Jesus's teaching Verse 20 again, he asked what shall I compare the kingdom of God to it is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about Now my Bible says 18 pounds of flour some of your says a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough Now a couple of questions here First of all what is leaven what is the significance? We've talked about leaven before you might remember where Jesus says beware the leaven of the Pharisees Do you remember that passage and what was the leaven of the Pharisees? Well leaven is pervasive You put leaven into dough and it spreads throughout dough and he and Jesus goes on to say the leaven of the Pharisees is what? Do you remember hypocrisy? It's it's the hypocrisy that hypocrisy will take root and it will it will spread in advance So so you want to avoid that leaven and leaven is often in scripture a negative image At Passover we talked about this as well Passover the Jews were supposed to get all the leaven out They were only supposed to eat unleavened bread during that week of the feast of unleavened bread And so some have suggested this is meant to be a negative image that something negative is going to pervade the kingdom I don't think that's the case personally now again This is that you can you can examine the text for yourself I definitely want you to always do that to go back to the Bible But leaven leaven was a common everyday thing. I mean for one week the Jews ate unleavened bread But for the rest of the year they ate leaven bread And so leaven was not viewed as something evil in the culture in general It could be in it could be viewed that way But it wasn't always viewed that way And based on the previous parable where the small seed becomes becomes great now Jesus says the small leaven becomes great And so I think probably the perspective is just leaven as a leavening agent as something that spreads as something that permeates Two ideas here the first one here's our first point under this parable And that is the permeating power of the kingdom of God You see what it says A woman took it mixed it with about with all this power until it worked its way throughout the dough Now the Greek says the reason you have see different translations there The Greek says three sata that's a that's a unit an ancient unit of thought It's about 50 pounds so you're talking about a big chunk of dough here a big chunk of flour
You take the leaven it starts small how much how much flour can a bit of leaven permeate A lot well ultimately all of it right no in other words it will If you leave it in there it's going to gradually grow little by little until it permeates at all Until it overcomes it all so we've got just not the permeating power of leaven But you've also got you've got the transforming power of leaven Leaven doesn't just permeate things it changes things it transforms their substance Into a new thing here's our final takeaway for oh no there's no Here's here's Paul in second year at least chapter five for 17 if anyone is in Christ They are a new creation the new creation has come the old is gone the new is here Paul says when you come to Christ when that leaven takes hold in your life It doesn't just permeate your life it transforms you it transforms you into a new creation in Christ Here is our final takeaway the parable the leaven teaches us that the kingdom of God can produce authentic Transformation from the inside out I mentioned I mentioned the the book by Tom sign that Mustard seed conspiracy let me just read you this is from the epilogue of the mustard seed Conspiracy a little parable of its own His rough Nerald hands gently scoop dirt into the seed as the sun warm the good earth He walked several more steps thrust his shepherd staff into the ground and planted another seed Every day he spent all his daylight hours walking the baron hill sides of province Planning seeds while his sheep grazed In 1913 the province region in southern France was a desolate area denuded of trees because of overcutting An over intensive agriculture most of the wildlife was gone water holes had dried up And most of the inhabitants had given up on the area too But not the old shepherd Every evening in a small cottage. He sorted acorns hazelnuts and chestnuts for tomorrow's planting One day a young man happened on the shepherd and asked what in the world are you doing anyway Well, it's pretty obvious what I'm doing. I'm planting trees But it'll be years before these trees will be any good Yes, but someday they'll do somebody some good and then they'll help restore this dry land I may never see it, but perhaps my children will 20 years later the hiker returned to province. He was amazed to find the old shepherd still alive And still sorting nuts in his cottage But he was even more amazed to see the countryside the entire valley was covered the beautiful natural forest of all kinds of trees Life had returned to the barren valley Wildlife had returned and the farmers had come back to cultivate the soil again A delegated the chamber of deputies from Paris came down to see the miraculous forest They saw the entire region of province restored. It's wildlife agriculture and population And they honored the man who brought the valley to life again It's a great a great story of one one Seed at a time, right? You look at you look at what needs to be done In our world today and we it just the task seems overwhelming and yet God doesn't call us to success God calls us to faithfulness one by one planting those seeds one by one sharing The message of salvation with those around you one by one helping those in need one by one visiting Someone in the hospital for a friend in the hospital one by one reaching out to someone who's hurting and God will gradually One by one make us his people and accomplish his purpose in the world Got one more story for you. This is from Tony Campolo Talking about the transformation and transformational power of the kingdom of God Tony Campola tells the story was preaching at a Christian college once and before he was About to speak eight men gathered in the back room. They laid hands on him to pray One in the eight Didn't even pray for Campolo though instead he started praying about a man named Charlie stolt foos He said dear lordy shouted. You know starly cholt stolt foos He lives in the silver trailer down the road about a mile you know the trailer Lord just down the road on the right hand side Campolo said he felt like saying not gonna fellow. What do you think God's doing saying where does that what's that address again Anyway, he went on and on Lord Charlie told me this morning that he's decided to leave his wife and three kids He told me that he was walking out on his family Lord step in do something bring the people in that family back together again And he kept going on and on about Charlie stolt foos leaving his wife and kids Giving God constant reminders they lived in that silver trailer a mile down on the right hand side Finally the prayers are over and Campolo went in and preached after he finished He got in his car drove to the Pennsylvania turnpike and headed for home As he drove on to the turnpike though. He noticed a hitchhiker And since preach preachers like captive audience is he picked him up They drove a few minutes and Campolo said hi. My name's Tony Campolo. What's your name?
He said my name's Charlie stolt foos Campolo said he couldn't believe it He got off the turnpike at the next second exit and headed back. Charlie notices that hey mister. Where are you taking me Campolo said I'm taking you home Charlie was confused and said why? Campolo said because you just left your wife and three kids right This blue stolt foos away With shock written all over his face he plastered himself against the car door and never took his eyes off Campolo Campolo drove right down to the silver trailer one mile down The road on the right hand side When they arrived stolt foos said with bull genies How did you know I lived here? How did you know I was leaving my family? Campolo replied God told me You think God speaks to prayer absolutely Campolo ordered him into the trailer and talked to the couple that afternoon both of them came to christ Today Charlie stolt foos is a pastor in california preaching the good news that Jesus christ can turn a life around I thought there's the there's the mustard seed compares conspiracy right Just just one word just one challenge one life turned around can transform the world forever We're done early let me close us in prayer and then we can take any questions that that you have let's pray
Heavenly father, thank you for your word and it's power to transform us from something small Lord, we are every one of us individually. We are small We're insignificant We don't have power in ourselves to accomplish anything But we have a great God who is in charge of human history and who has Has the power to do and accomplish anything so lord I pray that we would live a life of dependence on you That we would lie live a life of obedience and trust and faithfulness in you Father, I pray that if there's anyone here this morning who has been challenged in their faith right now that your holy spirit would Comfort would encourage Bring them into that That refuge at that that place of safety or they would feel your presence and your transforming power in their lives In Jesus name we pray
Okay, if you need to slip out of course feel free too, but anyone have any questions. We've got we have a short passage So a little bit of a shorter study. Yeah
Yeah, yeah, I didn't go there as well, but that's a good question. I'll repeat that question Yeah, I should have waited. Yeah, um birds are also sometimes evil in scripture and some people will say and again This is one possible interpretation I would encourage you to always go back study the word for yourself as well That both 11 and the birds are both symbols of the presence of evil in the kingdom And of course that there are there are Implications of that in other contexts and other passages In this passage birds again in scripture and not always evil by any means birds are such an such a Fundamental part of life both for us, of course But also for the for the Jews in in Palestine that I don't think whenever Jews said birds that everyone who you know or or leaven Everyone whoa these were just it's like saying took a pot, you know a pot could be evil You know, it's it's just everyday life. So it's possible certainly But I think I think we're reading too much. I think we need to hear them in the context in the immediate context in which they're said And unless another parable points to that particular truth and I think It probably indicates much more in terms of something small becoming large something Something permeating and filling and transforming. But yeah, it's a good question Other issues other questions or doesn't have to be about this passage. Of course you actually have comments First of all Wasn't it because the yeast was omitted from the bread during Passover because If you put yeast in the bread, it would spoil the dose so they in their travels they made it without the yeast And also if I hear one more time the word transformation really makes me Crazy because with the political situation today if I hear one more time the transformation of America I think I'll just scream We need to use different vocabularies Yeah, um, well certainly I think bread would would would mold more quickly that is leavened But I think in terms of the Passover the original reason for the unleavened bread was because Israel didn't have time for the bread to rise They had to be ready to go This is at the Passover you remember the story. It's the The 12th or the 10 plagues on Egypt the last plague was the plague of the first foreign Israel was about was was ready to leave Egypt and and God basically says have your staff in your hand your cloak on and don't let you know No leaven because there's no time for the bread to rise now then leaven became then a symbol a pure a purifying yourself and preparing for the Passover festival, yeah In terms of transform. Yeah, it's like there's a lot of words That that that others have taken from us in a sense. It's like The new age, you know, I always talk about the new age of salvation God has established the new and then the new age movement comes along and people aren't don't want to don't want to use the word the word new age It's our it's our terms so yeah Yeah, oh gone. I just two things with the bird thing, you know in Daniel 4 when I was talking about nebuchadnezzar that he he was a big tree and all the birds would nest in that man It was comfort and shielding and protection. Yes So it's not always evil. Right and I love that you pointed out that the Apostles that they were just ordinary strange choices Because when I was very young at 18 I read a book called 13 men who changed the world And that was life changing to me because that was when I realized that they were just ordinary Kind of guys and then you could make a difference if God can use them. He can certainly use us. Yeah Yeah, and Martha you brought us something. It's really significant that I didn't touch on and that is scripture also often portrays Empires as trees and nebuchadnezzar is that empire is a tree and so then again the mustard seed Becomes mustard plant becomes significant because you know the the ancient kings often and you find this in the Assyrian tablets and things like this The ancient kings describe themselves as great oaks, you know and great cedars and and these great trees And then it's like the the kingdom of God is a great Mustard weed, you know and and and so it's like it's going to surprise it's going to challenge So there's a there's another possibility as in terms of this over here and then we'll come back to okay
She was next Would it be appropriate to add to the analogy of the comparison between the mustard tree and the oak that That unlike the mustard tree Oaks and cedars can be toppled by turbulent Storms where they're raging storms of that time. Yeah, there could be certainly that's that's good as well that uh It's some the mustard tree won't won't be toppled obviously because of its nature and so yeah, I like that you can teach that one when And Roger I think it's important to Note that an example of today's lesson is that we are sitting in an example of today's Lesson um the church of rancher Bernardo and the cove Beac was begun by four people sitting in a family room. That's right of one of their homes and saying Let's start a church From small beginnings. Yeah, and and just trusting in God and taking one step at a time and this is the result Yeah, great example. Thanks, right? And that's a story as you mentioned the other night needs to be told again and again. Yeah, how God is faithful to us Any other questions? Is there such a thing as a big mustard tree It I'm not sure what What the definition of a tree is I guess we have a A peppertree in our backyard. It's now dead finally But it kept coming up and coming up and coming up and it's a it's a we basically, but it got you anyone know about these things Yeah, yeah, and and so is it a tree or is it not? I think I and again, I defer to the botanist in the crowd What it's it's really a matter of definition I think it it forms a big branch it becomes it can become this you know You saw the picture it can be pretty a pretty massive thing But I don't it doesn't grow. I don't think like a stately trunk. I think it's smaller, but anyone grow mustard here I'm sorry Can't do we have anyone who knows knows the answer here to this? Yes Okay, oh okay, so it can actually be good
Okay Yeah Okay, that another possibility the nutrients that the mustard provides the vineyard I think we have a confident hand up now. I was just gonna say my husband always said whether a plant was a Flower or a weed was dependent on whether you liked it or not. There you go. Yeah, that's right Well, and then good analogy to the kingdom right is is this the kingdom or is it just you know Something that's bothersome to us in our in our lives. Yeah, and annoy insert the kingdom of God. Yeah. Yeah. Did I see one more? No Thanks very much, Mark. Okay. See you next week