5/5/2002

Take you thumb and put it under your chin, bow your head and close your eyes. What is it you have that needs to be laid on the doorstep of the Lord, that is burdening your heart today? It might be a worry, it might be a problem that just presented itself, it might be a difficulty that you hadn’t seen coming, might be a continuing pain or problem that you haven’t found an answer to and just seems to be getting you down, take that thumb and just kind of lift it and face your head toward the sky and say Lord this is what I need. He said ask and you shall find and knock and it shall be opened to you. Father we thank you that you are God who would not give us a stone if we ask for a piece of bread, nor a serpent if we ask for a fish. You are the one who loves us and gives us more than we need. Certainly more than we deserve. So Father this morning I pray that you would teach us that you are the lifter of our head, the one who cares for our cares more than we do and casts our cares upon you for you care for us. You are the one who gives wisdom without reproach, you are the one us give sustenance, you are the one that gives the life that we live. We thank you for it and appreciate it and we love you for it. Thank you in Jesus Name, Amen.


Turn to Matthew 13. There are four parables that we want to look at today. Each one with a particular meaning, and each one with significance for each of us today and they are not very long ones. Verse 31, ‘He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds; but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” Now the mustard seed was not actually the smallest of all seeds because there is like dill and cumin, some of those are really tiny winnie things and you have seen little mustard seeds. But in relation to its size it was much smaller than most of them for what they were going to grow. And being an annual, annual means that you have to plant it every year, it doesn’t grow year by year, you have to keep planting it. So as an annual plant it means you planted it and within the few months of the growing season it would grow 12 to 15 feet high. So that means from floor to ceiling is 14 feet, so it would grow about that high in a very short time. And so the growth of the mustard seed was fairly phenomenal in terms of annual plants. Many of them would grow this tall and they would be herbs and that is what this was actually kind of an herb. So in terms of its growth it was quite amazing. And so obviously the point here the kingdom of heaven is like that. A very small insignificant start became something that touched the whole world. 

Now it is very interesting in a small country of Israel, not very big on the map, it is smaller of many of our states, most of our states and bigger than almost none of them really. Little tiny insignificant country, insignificant people, insignificant person, in the sense that Jesus was born of a carpenter at least to the people of the nation and so here was a man who had held no position, who did nothing accept walk around teaching and doing some miracles. The rest of the world didn’t even know anything about him. But before long within 300 hundred years the whole Roman empire had been affected by the gospel of Jesus Christ. So it started as a very small insignificant thing and has now affected the whole world. In fact it has affected the whole world in a very short order. So he said the kingdom of heaven is like what. Small beginnings, huge results in not to long within a year for the plant. Within not to many years for the gospel. 

Then he says in Verse 33, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a women took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until is was all leavened," That is yeast. Until you put it in a lump of dough and somehow in a mysterious way the dough begins to rise, any of you who have made bread and have seen it rise you put it either in the big lumps or put it in the pans and pretty soon it gets bigger and swells up and looks the same on the outside except the outside keeps getting a little bit more size to it. And so leaven is one of those hidden things that effects in a hidden way but becomes visible. Of course you can see the parallels, the mustard seed growing into a large plant is the spread of the gospel. It spreads quickly, it can spread amazingly, in fact, but how does the gospel spread? The gospel spreads when people hear the good news. In Romans, Chapter 10 it says, ‘How can they hear unless they have a preacher?" Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And so the word of Christ has to go forth from one mouth to another persons ear. That is the only way that it spreads. We have to hear it somehow. Well, it goes from the ear, which is a visible type of a thing not visible with the eye but it is tangible in the sense that we can say the words, they can be heard and they can have an affect that is known. We can say the words and another person can hear them. Well the gospel does that. We can tell somebody the gospel they don’t have to respond to it but they can at least hear what it says. Hear what the meaning is.

The leaven being hidden is like the Holy Spirit who does the work in the heart. Jesus said the Holy Spirit is like the wind, you can’t see the wind but you can see it effects. And so the Holy Spirit works in our heart aside from our ears. The message goes in here but somehow has to get to here. That is a hidden word. Somehow it filters all the way down to here and gets into our heart and begins to change our lives. People may not see how it’s changed but they will see that it is changed. That is what the Holy Spirit does, he works in our hearts to make changes. So the gospel spreads from mouth to ear but it makes a change when it goes from ear to heart. 

Now notice another parable, he goes on later on. We have looked at most of these parables and some of them come in pairs and so we have done that. But look at Verse 47, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind; and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down, and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. So it will be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth, and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” So he says within the draw of the kingdom, when people hear the gospel there will be many who will be drawn to it for one reason or another. They might like the idea of good works that God prescribes for it. We should be diligent to good work. He says do your works in such a way that will see your good works and glorify God who is in heaven. There are many people who like the good things that Christians do, the good things that the church teaches, they like the good principles. Many people have called Jesus the good teacher, the great teacher, because he teaches moral principles and practical principles for life. So many are drawn because it is a good thing. They may hear some things and filter it out and never have a heart change but they will still be visibly part of the kingdom because they are drawn to the gospel message of some sort.
In fact if you look at the whole Christian world it is very interesting who are called Christians isn’t it? If you look in certain parts of the world it is the Christians verses the Moslems, it is the Christian such and such verses somebody else. They are talking about battles and wars, it is like, wait a minute here, how can that be? If we are to stand for peace and we are supposed to be peacemakers, which become the children of God, that is what Jesus said in the Beatitudes. How can we be the ones who are at war with our enemies all the time and be so as Christians? So Christian envelopes a huge number of people that are maybe Christian in name only. They may have heard the gospel, may never have actually heard the gospel but are associated with something called Christian. In fact there are a number of organizations that have the name Christian within them and they don’t follow Christ at all but they follow good works that are Christian works. And so this is what he is saying. Within the net full of people who call themselves Christians there are some who are certainly not Christians. There are many who are. And so that is what God’s work will be. He will send the angels and say, ‘Ok you never had a heart change, you only heard it never got from your ears to your heart. So you are out, and you are out and you are in because you heard the message and it affected your life.’ Like leaven it affected your life, it changed your life, you followed Christ and served him. Jesus said in Matthew earlier on he says, ‘Many will come to me in that day and say, ‘Lord, Lord didn’t we do these things in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’

There is a necessity of hearing the gospel, there is the necessity of the hidden word of the Holy Spirit in our heart that changes our lives so that we become truly a follower of Jesus Christ, a disciple of Christ. He says at the end we will have to separate out the two, those who have the name only and those who truly have followed Christ. 

And then he says in Verse 51, “Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes.” And He said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old.” It was the head of the households responsibility when he sat down to distribute his goods to his family, especially as he was contemplating retirement from work or his own death possibly, he would distribute the treasures of his household to those within his household. To his first born, to his second born, to his friends, to his neighbors, whichever he chose. When you have heard the gospel through your ear, when it has made an effect in your heart, you now have a relationship with Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit within us. The Bible says he is there to guide us, to strengthen us, to teach us, to convict us, we have now a resource, the person of God in the Holy Spirit within us, that teaches us about life. So we now have treasurers, we have treasurers of truth, we have treasurers of experience, where we have seen God at work. So when we set down with a friend and they have difficulties, we should have treasures to give them. We should say you know what the Bible says about that. Do you know that God can care for that? Did you know that you don;’t have to worry about that because God says he can care for that? Did you know? And we can take out of our treasure of truth and experience of God and say here let me give you some of the treasure God has given me. Because he has changed my life. 

If you don’t have that experience with God you are giving an opinion. You are giving your thoughts on matters. But when you have a true experience with God and he has changed your life, changed your heart you can say let me share with you out of the treasure of my heart the things that God has taught me. Old things that I experienced a long time ago that I learned early on and fresh incites that I just got today because I was reading scriptures again. You know this is what you are talking about today, let me share with you today what the Lord showed me. So he says if you are a real disciple where you have heard the gospel through your ear, it has finally gotten to your heart, and you are one of those good fish, you will have a treasure trove of good things to give to those who need them. That is why Peter says, ‘Always be ready at any moment, when anybody asks to give a defense for the hope that lies within you. Why do you believe in Christ? Why do you trust him? Why do you pray? Why do you do these things? In fact, Steve Glass has a shirt that says, Got doubt? Well you are supposed to say, Maybe a little bit and then he can tell you how not to doubt. Right. Because Steve has all the answers. Well, a good share of them. He’s got treasures old and new because he has had a life changing experience with Jesus Christ. If you have had that, you have treasures. If you haven’t had that, you have opinions. You don’t have the Holy Spirit within you to guide you. So, it is pretty difficult for a leper to change his spots, if you are talking about fish, it is pretty hard for a carp to become a trout. Ok, they are what they are. That is where parables tend to break down if you stretch them to far. We can change from being one who is a bad fish to one who is a good fish. One is going to be discarded, one is going to be taken into the kingdom. Because it is our decision that we make to follow Jesus Christ. When we have heard the gospel, we have to say ok I am going to ask God to change my heart. And become a changed person because God enters through the Holy Spirit. He gives us forgiveness, he gives us salvation, he gives us all the wonderful treasures of himself. He says, ‘Knock and it will be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall be given to you. You can ask for wisdom, you can ask for knowledge, you can ask for all kinds of things and God has them because we are now his children. We have a line to cross, we are not born children of God. We are privileged to become children of God on the basis of our receiving Jesus Christ. 

John 1:12 says, ‘But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.’ There is the belief that we get through the ear that says, Yes, I believe that, that’s true. There is the reception of that truth into our heart that changes our lives. They are the ones who become children of God. It goes from information to application of life where we follow Christ. If we have that we get a treasure trove, where we can learn from God and we can share him with others. That is our work.

Let’s pray: Father we thank you that you are a God who gives us wonderful gifts. We have the inheritance of Jesus Christ at our disposal because we have now come into him. We are now identified with Christ because of our son ship in Christ, the adoption as children of God, because of our faith in him. Not because we have heard the good news but because we have responded to the good news of Jesus Christ. Father I pray that there are some here this morning who haven’t responded by saying, God change my life, get that message from my head down to my heart. I have heard it, I need to experience it. We experience after being born again through Jesus Christ, by asking him to become our Savior, asking forgiveness of our sins, by committing ourselves to following him throughout our whole life, so that we can enjoy forever his blessings through Jesus Christ our Lord and we thank you for it in Jesus Name, Amen.

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