Let's be turning to Luke chapter
13. Luke 13. Beginning in verse 18, our Lord
gives two parables to explain the kingdom of God. And what
we see is that this kingdom is the kingdom of the Messiah, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it describes, it makes known,
it manifests His work in the earth. It reveals what He does
for His people. And Matthew calls it the Kingdom
of Heaven in the like passage over in Matthew 13. And according
to Matthew's account, Our Lord gives these parables in order
to reveal to us something of the mysteries of God and His
kingdom, the mysteries of the kingdom. It says in Matthew 13,
verse 34 and 35, that all these things spake Jesus unto the multitude
in parables, and without a parable spake He not unto them. that
it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying,
I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things which have
been kept secret from the foundation of the world. And so it's a good
way, when we're trying to explain a foreign concept to someone
who's a stranger to it, as we are strangers to the things of
God by nature, a parable, a similitude helps by tying something that
we are familiar with, that we do know and understand, to something
that we don't understand, that we might know it. It's to simplify
something that we as old creatures do not understand, but that we
might understand it in the new man being revealed to us and
being made known to us in a manner that we get and we understand. And so what we'll see here is
something to encourage the church, something that we see oftentimes
in the world, the church is a small body. It's just a little group
oftentimes in the world. And so what our Lord speaks to
here, The smallness of the beginning of a thing here is given to give
us comfort and to affirm to us our need of patience, waiting
on the Lord. That it's not gonna come by the
way that we think we should observe it, according to the way that
we think things should unfold, but it comes in the way that
the Lord has purposed it and meant it to come. So the first
parable reads this way in verse 18 and 19. Luke 13, 18 and 19. Then said he, unto what is the
kingdom of God like? And where unto shall I resemble
it, right? Shall I liken it to, give us
a militude for? It is like a grain of mustard
seed which a man took and cast into his garden And it grew and
waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches
of it. In your Bibles, if you look for
an O in your Bibles, a little O, probably a mustard seed would
fit inside that little O. It's a tiny, tiny little seed. It's a small seed. It kind of
reminds me of like a broccoli seed or a cauliflower seed. It's
really small and round, just a little tiny thing. And when
our Lord died, The body was very small. We're told that the disciples'
names were numbered about 120. 120 souls in all that were numbered. And you think about that. With
all that our Lord Jesus Christ had done in going about the cities
and the villages, teaching and ministering the spirit to the
hearers, healing all that came to him, of all their diseases
and infirmities, that this body was still truly a small little
body considering all that were in Israel in that day, numbered
about 120. And so our Lord, what our Lord
is doing here is teaching you and I not to despise the day
of small things, not to count it as nothing. but to be thankful
for the Lord's hand in it and his work in it for us. Do not
despise the day of small things. Let's see that over in Zechariah
chapter four. If you get to Matthew, the book
before that is Malachi and the book before that is Zechariah.
So Zechariah is the second to last book in what we call the
Old Testament. Zechariah four, And we'll pick up in verse six. Then he answered and spake unto
me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel,
saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit saith
the Lord of hosts. This speaks to the Lord's work,
how that the Lord accomplishes his work in the earth. As flesh,
as men, we look to things that we've seen successful in the
flesh. We look to charismatic things,
things that lead and capture the attention. We're looking
for strength. for might, for beauty. We're looking at the
outward appearance of a thing and thinking, this is what's
necessary. We need name recognition. We
need to do things a certain way so that we can attract people
to hear the gospel. But the Lord is able to do things
in a manner very different from how we would do it. Of course,
he's able to do things however it pleases him to do it. He can
bless a work and he can dry up a work. He can do all things
as it pleases him, but he's able to make it successful in a way
that's very different from how you and I would go about it.
He's able. He's able. He's not going to
be confounded or confused or limited by man and what man does. In verse 7 there says, who art
thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt
become a plain. He can take that which we think
will stand forever and make it nothing. It also means that he
can raise up out of these stones sons of Jacob, sons of Israel,
sons of God to cry out to the Lord and to seek him. and he
shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings crying
grace, grace unto it. And so when Christ came and the
manner that he came, it was lowly. When he entered as the king into
Jerusalem, it was lowly, riding on an ass, on the foal of an
ass, just a little tiny baby donkey that he came in on into
the city. declaring his greatness, no splendor,
no grandeur, nothing that should attract man to him. And yet he
is the foundation stone, and he is the chief cornerstone. He is the capstone. He's the
beginning and the end. And this is the Lord's doing.
And it's marvelous in our eyes. It's made marvelous in our eyes
that he could take something so small, something so seemingly
insignificant to us, and make a great thing out of it, accomplish
great things by his Savior that he's appointed in the earth. And so then it says, There in
verse 8, Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house,
his hands shall also finish it. And thou shalt know that the
Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. And so this is all done
in a manner to which you and I cannot lay claim to having
done it. It's all done in a way so as
to strip us of vain fleshly confidences, of being puffed up with pride,
so that when a work is established, it's established by the Lord.
When the Word goes forth, it goes forth by the grace and power
of the Lord. When you're blessed in your heart,
it's of the Lord and not of man. The Lord does it in such a manner
so that we can't take credit for it. But God gets all the
glory. And so our Lord did this very
thing, right? He said, destroy this temple,
and in three days I'll raise it up. And that's exactly what
he did. When they crucified him and they laid his body in a tomb,
he was raised again. The temple of God's people raised
again in three days. And our Lord now builds the house. He's the builder of it, and he
assembles lively stones, such as it pleases him in the manner
it pleases him. So with our attitudes adjusted,
he says, verse 10, for who hath despised the day of small things? So let's consider this small
thing in relation to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of our Lord
here. It began as a very small thing
in the earth. A very small thing. Our Lord
accomplished in this, He had to accomplish first what He came
to do. He made it a small thing on purpose
in order that He might accomplish His redemption in the earth. over in Luke 17, verse 25. We're leaving Zechariah now. But in Luke 17, verse 25, our Lord speaking to the rulers
of the Jews said to them that first, the Son of Man first must
suffer many things and be rejected of this generation. So he came
in weakness in order that he would be rejected by man to accomplish
the suffering that he came to do in the room instead of his
people. He must do that. And so when he was weakest, when
the Greeks heard this, they thought it was foolishness. that a man
by his death would accomplish the greatest salvation ever.
When he was at his weakest, Christ accomplished the redemption of
his church by his death. By sacrificing himself, making
himself an offering to the Father to obtain the forgiveness of
our sins, that God would be gracious to us. who believe him. And he did that at his weakness,
at his weakest point, being put up on a cross to die. And there he paid the debt that
his bride owed so that she would go free. In him, in his sacrifice,
by his grace and power, Christ's weakness there triumphed over
man's strength. Man thought he had him, that
he had put him to death, and yet that's right where Christ
triumphed gloriously over his enemies. The horse and the rider
thrown into the sea. He triumphed gloriously. So there
Christ obtained eternal redemption for his people being rejected
by the elders of the Jews and the Jewish people with him, and
being rejected by the Roman government and Pilate, the governor, and
all the Gentiles, he was rejected. And the point was that the Lord
made the kingdom small, a mysterious thing, unseen, undetected, unrecognized
by this flesh. and our nature. And it tells
us something that we're not going to be saved by the strength of
this flesh. That's not how we're going to
enter the kingdom, in our own works, in our own strength, in
our own wisdom. We must be born again. It's revealing
that we must be made new creatures. It's making known that we need
the grace of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Now, it was a mystery to us. And when Peter stood up on the
day of Pentecost, being blessed of the Spirit, he stood up and
he preached to the people, saying in Acts 2, verse 22 and 24, Ye
men of Israel, hear these words. Hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth,
a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs
which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also
knew." Right? They saw what he did. I mean,
think about how incredible that is, that they saw a man going
about healing people like that, just of their infirmities. standing
a woman up straight who was bent over, telling a man to stretch
forth his withered hand, and it was unwithered. Healing servants
and children that were sick on their deathbed and rising up
when they were certain for death. Our Lord did this. Our Lord healed
and did these many wonderful works, feeding 4,000, feeding
5,000 plus women and children. Getting across lakes. And they
didn't know how he did it because there was no boat for him to
take. And yet he got across it. And so they saw these miracles
which no man ever did. Healing a man who was born blind. Giving him sight. No man ever
did that. And yet they counted it for nothing. They gave it no merit. They despised
him. Despised him. That's a wonder.
It shows us just how corrupt and dead the nature of man is.
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain,
whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because
it was not possible that he should be holden of him. And so his
person, who he is, remained a mystery that the Son of God, robed in
flesh, would come down to earth and accomplish that work which
the Father sent him to do, through his blood atonement, so that
by his work he destroyed the works of the devil. That noose
that we had slipped our neck in under in Adam, Christ broke
that and delivered his people by his work, by his sacrifice,
by his atoning righteousness, his blood. And so he obtained
for us forgiveness and established the covenant of God's grace,
whereby God is just to forgive us for Christ's sake, for Christ's
sake, you that believe on his son. Paul then speaks of this. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 2.
And Paul speaks of this mysterious work. which is done, which is
a work in the kingdom. It's a mysterious work of God's
kingdom being witnessed in the church. So 1 Corinthians chapter
2. And we'll begin in verse 5. We'll look at a few verses here.
Paul says, and I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony
of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He
went out to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles didn't know the
things that the Jews knew. And Paul didn't know how this
thing was going to go. And at the time he shows up, he wasn't
there speaking in boldness and in power the way he had seen
among the Jews when they hated him and ran him out of there.
He came in weakness. to these Gentiles and didn't
know if they would receive this, but what he declared to them
was the one thing needful, the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. that the Son of God came, robed
in flesh, and His purpose in coming in that manner, in that
low manner, was to save the people of God from their sins, to make
a people for Himself according to the election of God, to bring
them out of darkness, to bring them out of the prism of this
flesh, and to bring them into the light, whereby we acknowledge
that God hath wrought this in me that he has done this in me
and so that he died in the room instead of his people to satisfy
the hand of justice which was against us to deliver us from
that and God being pleased and satisfied with his sacrifice
raised him from the dead so that all who believe in him are justified
by that faith he's done that He did that. We might know that
God is pleased with His Son and all in whom His Son comes. God
is well, well pleased. And I, Paul says, was with you
in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, nothing great. I wasn't anything to speak of.
I was like a tiny little mustard seed, not impressive at all,
just a tiny, tiny little dot that's not impressive at all,
that you think is nothing and worthless and meaningless. And my speech backed that up. My speech, my preaching was not
with enticing words of man's wisdom. but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest or
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." And that's
what the Lord does. He gives his servants to speak
to the one thing needful, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. If
I don't know anything but Christ only, that is sufficient for
your salvation, brethren, that you might hear the glories of
God revealed in the face of Christ, that you might know Him, that
the light of Christ rise in your hearts, that you be raised from
the dead by His power, and that you go forth in Him by faith,
walking in Christ. trusting Him, believing Him.
And so that's what we're called to bear witness of, our Lord
Jesus Christ. And God the Father blessed that
word to those Gentiles who knew nothing in utter ignorance, worshipers
of idols, bowing down to stumps and rocks and ignorant things,
and yet the Lord delivered them from that, from that pollution
and that filth. and that wickedness and it gives
us hope that we who are wicked and fools and ignorant in ourselves
that we might have life by his life. We might live and know
him and follow him. And so by the blood of the redeeming
blood of Christ our Savior That singular focus of our preaching,
being Jesus Christ and him crucified, this all tells us that this grain
of mustard seed, this little tiny thing, it speaks of Christ. It reveals Christ. That little
thing, that little bit of faith, that little thing which he does
and works in you, it's to reveal Christ in you. And we see that
it's his kingdom. He is the savior of his kingdom.
He's the provider of his kingdom. He's the king sitting now in
session as the king ruling and reigning upon all. All dominion
is given unto me. All authority and power is given
unto me of my father in heaven and in earth to accomplish the
will of God. And he said it this way in John
12, 24, verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die,
it bringeth forth much fruit." If you have a packet of seeds
in that packet and it's sitting in your freezer somewhere or
in a jar, a baby food jar or something like that, it sits
alone and it's unfruitful. But as soon as that seed, as
it were, dies and you put it in the ground, that's when it
brings forth much fruit. And that's the picture. Our Savior
in weakness died and was buried and rose again and bears forth
much fruit, his kingdom being great, great now in the earth,
great in the hearts of his people. Continuing now with what Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 2, 6 through 8, How be it we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world nor
of the princes of this world that come to naught or to nothing. This kingdom on purpose appears
small, it appears weak, it appears insignificant, it appears to
be unnecessary to the carnal eye of man. But to you that hear,
it is great. And to you that hear the voice
of your God, you're thankful for it, because He settles you
and comforts you. He takes away, plucks away all
the foolish things that we bring in this flesh, all the silly
ideas that we have and the worries and the fears that we have, and
He settles us down in Christ. and makes us to rest peacefully
in Christ. He makes us to forage on green
grass as sheep in a good pasture in Him. He does all that, and
the world doesn't bother you. So that you come into His place
of rest, His house of rest, and receive good things of His hand. And the reason why is because
it's revealed to you. to you that hear, that is the
voice of God speaking to you. It is the work of God to do that
in you, which is not done in them that are of the world. They
will not hear, they will not believe, they will not hear and
trust in the Christ that you hear and trust, except God be
gracious to them. So pray for them, speak to them
of what the Lord has done for you, but know that God must give
them that life and that salvation. Paul says, but we speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of
this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory. So again, we see Christ must
suffer. He didn't come in a manner that
the world says, well, why didn't he come this way? Then we'd all
believe. Well, then they wouldn't have crucified him. and we'd
be in our sins. But it was through this manner
that the Lord purges us of our sins to glorify the name of his
Son in the hearts of his people. We might not think of ourselves
as anything, but of Christ as all. And we might find in him
our all in all, and trust him to the praise, glory, and honor
of the Father who sent him, who chose him, and chose to do it
this way for us, brethren. So God had a purpose and has
a purpose in the smallness of his kingdom in order to separate
out unto himself those that hear and believe Christ and follow
after him. He does it. So our Lord, when
he came, he came from poverty. So poor were his parents. He
didn't come to a rich, wealthy, Family with a name that's recognized
among the elders of Israel or some wealthy family and pomp
and circumstance. He came to poor parents where
he was born in a barn and laid in a manger, which is a feeding
trough for animals, wrapped in swaddling clothes, which is rags.
Rags. That's how he was wrapped in
those things. And his apostles were mostly
ignorant, unlearned men. They weren't studied in letters.
They were fishermen. They were simple men, hard-working,
blue-collar men. And that's who the Lord took
and brought into his service. And so it came in a manner altogether
different than what man expected. Or if a man looked at it, would
say, I wouldn't have done it that way. Well, of course you
wouldn't. None of us would, because we're flesh. but the Lord does
it in a manner that pleases Him, where He gets all the glory for
it, that we would see Him, that we would know Him, right? Because
the Spirit we can't see, but we see Him through Christ and
what He did. And so our Lord, coming as he
did, proved that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and
the weakness of God is stronger than men, and stronger than the
strength of man. Because our Lord, when he went
to that cross, shamed the enemies. and the enemies of God, and the
enemies of God's people making a public spectacle of them. He
despised the shame, and they're the ones ashamed. Because we've
been delivered from the strongman's house all by that wondrous work
of Christ to take us out. And so they received power from
on high. After he rose from the dead,
and they received the spirit on the day of Pentecost, and
Peter went and preached, 3,000 souls were added to the church
that day. And a few days later, 5,000 souls
were added to the church when he preached again. And so beginning
at Jerusalem, just a small little body of 120 names numbered there,
it began to spread out through the city of Jerusalem, out into
Judah, out into Samaria, out into all the world, all the world,
to declare what Christ had done for his people. And so like that
mustard seed, what our Lord did just cast into a garden, it grew. It grew and waxed a great tree,
and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. So that
it grew and became a great kingdom. It has become a great kingdom.
And we see that pattern repeated in our hearts. You that believe,
that pattern is repeated in our own hearts. Again, reading from
Luke 17, 20 and 21, When he was demanded of the Pharisees
when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said,
the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall
they say, lo here, or lo there. For behold, the kingdom of God
is within you. It's a kingdom made up of new
creatures, new creations, not by the work of our flesh and
our hand. It's of new creatures. Paul said
over in Galatians 6, verse 15, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And that's where the kingdom
of God is revealed in the new man, born of his grace, for we
are born again. made new creatures, not by our
flesh, not by something we do, not by something that we change,
not by a decision we make. It's not of the flesh. It's of
the Spirit of God. We confess Christ because God
brings that forth in us, gives us the spirit of grace and supplication,
whereby we cry out to him, Lord, save me. Lord, have mercy on
me. Lord, deliver me from the body
of this death, that we might see and know Christ. So he's showing us that we are
new creatures. And it begins without observation,
the Lord doing it. Oftentimes, well, all times,
we're brought low in ourselves, made to know our sin, that we
might seek the Lord for grace and comfort and find it in Him. And then the Lord does a patient
work in us, whereby we are stripped and the grave clothes taken off
of us and our hands letting go of the fleshly things to see
that all the work is the Lord's. All the work is the Lord's. And so the Lord does it in a
manner that's often not seen by others, where he grows us
in faith, in hope. and in love, love for Christ,
love for the brethren, love for his word, love for his gospel,
willing to lay down our lives for Christ and the gospel's sake.
And then there's a sense in which this kingdom is benefiting the
world. It has an effect because this
world wouldn't be here except God still has a people that he's
calling out by his grace. Until that last sheep is called
into the fold This world will continue, and then it'll be rolled
up like a scroll, and it'll all come to an end then. But there's
a benefit here, right? This gospel is for all, in the
sense that there's but one Savior, one Savior, and that Savior gathers
men and women from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. That we might all be gathered
unto the Lord Jesus Christ. And he establishes this church.
He plants this church because this is where the gospel is preached
and the spirit ministered to the people of God. He ministers
that word to us through the preaching of our Savior. This is where
the hungry are fed. This is where the thirsty, those
that are thirst, their thirst is quenched. and the sick are
healed of their infirmity. Our sin sick soul, diseased with
sin, dead in trespasses and sins, where we are healed and given
life. And then we see also that in the kingdom, in the outward
form of the kingdom, there is a mixed multitude. Because he
says the birds of the air lodge in it. And we know that there's
unclean birds as well as clean birds. The cool birds that we
tend to like in the flesh, the eagles, the falcons, the hawks,
they're called unclean. But those clean ones would be
that turtle dove, that little, innocent, harmless little thing,
as those whom the Lord draws into his kingdom and blesses. So we see it's a mixed multitude
in there. Over in Matthew, when you read
Matthew 13, if you read that later, you'll see in that context,
he had just preached the parable of the wheat and the tares there.
And so there is a mixed multitude in the body. And I'm not to try
and pluck up the tares because that offends the wheat, too.
And you'll lose wheat along with the tares. You've got to be careful. And so this brings us to the
next parable, and I'll be very brief on this part, verse 20
and 21. Again, he said, whereunto shall
I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven which a woman
took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened."
Now, our Lord doesn't explain this parable. He doesn't tell
us exactly what He intended there. Everybody agrees that when our
Lord said that, it's like a mustard seed that became great, that
it's a prophetic word. He's declaring what the kingdom
of God shall be. It'll plant and become a great,
great kingdom in the earth here. And some thought, especially
when you look at the context in Matthew 13, that this might
be contrary, showing how that perversion will enter into the
church. Because every time he described
leaven in the scriptures, he used it to describe the self-righteousness
of the Pharisees. And so some think that that it
was a counterpoint, in a sense, where it'll be great. But then, over time, that self-righteousness
of man will begin to permeate and fill that bread. And again,
if you look at Matthew 13, he does that. He talks about comparing
the kingdom to a net that's brought up, that takes in a great amount,
brings up the shore. They sit down, and they go through
it. And they keep the good, and they
chuck back the bad. So in the context, you could
see that. If it is a like word to the parable
of the mustard seed, if it's just like that, if it's affirming
that same truth there that was said that speaks of the kingdom
of our God here as a mustard seed, then what it's speaking
of here as 11 is it's the flavor. It's that savor which goes into
the meal and quietly permeates the whole. and fills the whole,
so that we are taught by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of
grace and supplication, whereby it's a patient work, it's a quiet
work, and yet it raises us up unto our God, being filled with
the fullness of God in our hearts, and in our minds, in our lives,
in our speech, in our actions, in our thoughts, our words, and
our deeds, so that it's all of Him, rising rising to greater
and greater views of Him, as our Lord said by Peter, but grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So, in these parables we're taught that small things, though they
start small, become great things by the Lord, in and by the Lord. And so seek Him for His kingdom,
that it be established in our hearts, and that there it grows
greater and greater by his grace, by his power, helping us, making
us to hear his word, which he teaches us, delivering us from
self, from pride, from self-righteousness into the arms, driving us into
the arms of Christ, that we might find our all in him, and that
he be pleased to plant his footstep here in our community. that he
raise the beacon and draw out his people out of darkness into
his kingdom where they are made to hear that word and to rejoice
in Christ and that his will be done. Pray that his will be done
in the earth even as it is in heaven because that's why his
kingdom is here in the earth. To broadcast, to declare his
name to the glory, praise and honor of him, and to call out
his lost sheep into the family of God. By his grace and power,
amen.