The Growing Kingdom

You can turn your Bibles this morning to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

You'll find the sermon text printed also in your bulletin if you'd like to follow along there.

It's a short sermon text this morning.

Part of this kingdom parable series, sermon series that we're doing.

This is the one about the mustard seed and the leaven that Jesus taught.

He, being Jesus, 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 is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is 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.

This is the reading of God's holy and precious word.

Please join me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the truth that your son taught.

We thank you for the seed that he sowed while he was on earth.

But we thank you that he is still sowing seed today.

Even at your right hand, as he has poured out his spirit upon us, the seed is still being sown.

And the gospel is still being preached.

So let the preaching of your gospel have its full effect this morning in our hearing, in our hearts, in our lives.

We pray.

King Jesus.

Amen.

Jesus loved word pictures.

He was the master's storyteller.

He knew the truths that would grab people's hearts and attention.

And the master gives us a couple of other pictures, word pictures.

He said, if you want to know what the kingdom of God is like, it's like a mustard seed.

He said it's like leaven, yeast that grows into the whole batch, it permeates through the batch of bread.

This morning we're going to look at the fact that the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of any church, not the kingdom of any other king on this earth, but the kingdom of God is in fact growing with power.

Secondly, the kingdom is growing from within, from the inside out.

That's how it works.

And thirdly, the kingdom benefits many.

The kingdom is growing with power.

Now, if you've been with us the last several weeks, you might wonder, is it really?

I mean, we looked at the parable of the soil, the sower sowing in the soil, and there were three-fourths of the soil that wasn't really growing and bearing fruit.

Is it really growing?

And then last week, last week was a tough passage.

The weeds growing right in the midst of the wheat.

There's a lot of people, as Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7, he said, on that day, on that day, when he calls the nations together, and every person who's ever lived on this earth, there will be many who will say on that day, Lord, Lord, did I not do these things in your name?

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Did I not prophesy in your name?

Did I not teach in your name?

Did I not do good works in your name?

And he will say on that day, Depart from me.

You're not allowed in.

I never knew you.

And I don't know you now.

Oh, I know your name.

I created you.

But you never knew me.

You never gave me your heart.

You never came to me begging for mercy.

You thought you had enough goodness of your own to get in.

You should have known better.

How many sermons did you sit through?

How many of the Bible did you read?

And how did you miss that?

Those are frightening ideas.

But that's Jesus.

That's why it's important that we listen.

Whether you've never been in a church before, and we have people that come to this church and have never been in.

It wasn't that many years ago that a man after this service met me at the back of this room.

He said, Pastor, let me introduce myself to you.

He said, I have to tell you, I'm an atheist.

Is it okay if I'm here?

That's literally what he said to me.

I said, Absolutely.

I'm glad you're here.

We started doing Bible study together.

And God started working in his heart.

He came to me the second Sunday and said, Pastor, I'd love to sing.

Can I join your choir?

I said, let's slow down on that one.

We have people that come to this church that know absolutely nothing about the Bible.

But you know, you can also sit in the pew in a church year after year and miss it.

That's what Jesus is saying in these parables.

But in fact, the kingdom is growing.

It is with power.

He says the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.

Among the garden seeds, it's quite small.

I'm told that it takes about 750 of them to weigh even a gram.

That's how tiny the mustard seed is.

Why in the world would Jesus use this word picture to describe his kingdom growing?

What he's saying is you can take the tiniest thing you can imagine.

And as long as it's got the life of God in it, it's got power.

So Jesus' kingdom began small.

You know that, right?

Most of you know that.

You've heard that story.

You've read it in your Bible.

Twelve apostles.

And at the end, eleven.

After his death and resurrection, 120 of his followers are meeting together covertly because they had fear.

They saw what was done to their leader.

After three years, outwardly he didn't have much to show for it, did he?

About 120 people.

He probably needed the secret code to get in the room.

Scared.

But then he sent the Holy Spirit upon them.

And the Holy Spirit came and ignited them and gave them courage and boldness and gave them grace.

And they grew like wildfire.

Well, you're going to talk about that more.

This small band of followers seemed to, more people seemed to be repelled by the message of Jesus than attracted to the message of Jesus.

And that was Jesus, the consummate preacher.

Yet there is power in the seed because it's God's power at work in the seed.

One of those apostles, Peter, would write this years later in his first epistle.

Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God.

Let's repeat that.

Since you have been born again, have you been born again?

Not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed.

What he means by that is this is a seed from God.

And because it's a seed from God, it's a seed of life.

And it's a seed that comes with power.

It'll change your life.

If it doesn't change your life, you haven't been born again.

Is it changing your life?

Because it's the word from the living and abiding word of God.

Like a grain of mustard seed that a man took.

And what did the text say?

He sowed it in his field.

Today I'm sowing it in his field.

Is it being sown in your heart?

Listen to the prophets.

The Bible is so full of these passages, so many texts.

Just one from the book of Ezekiel.

I want to read from this morning, Ezekiel chapter 17.

Ezekiel 17 · chapter mention

Listen to this word picture beginning in verse 22.

Thus says the Lord God, I myself will take a sprig.

Now you know what a sprig is, right?

I will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out.

I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.

On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar.

And under it will dwell every kind of bird.

In the shade of its branches, birds of every sort will rest.

And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord.

I bring low the high tree, and I make low the low tree.

Excuse me, I make high the low tree.

I dry up the green tree, and I make the dry tree flourish.

I am the Lord, I have spoken, and I will do it.

Did you hear that?

He will bring down the proud.

The person that think they do not need Jesus Christ, he will bring them down, and the person that knows that they need Jesus Christ, he will raise up.

But this kingdom is growing.

Ezekiel saw it hundreds of years before Christ came.

Do you see it?

This kingdom is growing with power.

And yet it's so easily missed.

One commentator put it like this: we need not be ashamed of the smallness of Jesus, his story, and his ethic.

For while it is characteristic of all seeds to be small, it is also the characteristic of seeds to be alive.

Extremely small, yet growing day by day.

These seeds have within them the power to become big trees.

A bread factory.

We're going to look at that a little bit more.

Like leaven, like yeast.

Once it begins in the leavening process, it works its way through the whole batch.

What's the whole batch?

Surely it's the whole world.

There are still some people and some groups and some nations that have not yet heard this message, as far as I know.

But most of the world has heard this message.

And Jesus said he will not return until the whole world hears this gospel message.

Like leaven.

The leaven seems to refer to the inward growth of the kingdom.

The mustard seems to refer to the outward visible expansion of the kingdom.

This amount of bread is producing a bread factory.

It's enough.

A little mustard seed.

And think of all the little mustard seeds that he's sowing every day.

As people open their Bibles and read it.

As his people are worshiping him in churches like this all over the world.

And some of them are meeting in sanctuaries like this, and some of them are meeting in fields, and some of them are meeting in caves.

But mustard seeds are being planted, and his kingdom is growing.

Did you catch what he said?

That little word.

Secondly, this kingdom grows from the inside out.

That's what leaven does.

It starts within and grows outward.

The leaven is working its way through the batch.

The power of the gospel to start growing within a single life, a single heart.

Powerfully.

It's in the passive.

The language is in the passive.

It is leavened, which points to God's activity, God's work.

Aren't you glad that it doesn't depend on you?

That God is doing the leavening.

He's the one that planted the seed.

He's the one that's attending to the seed.

Now we have work to do in sanctification, no question about that.

But ultimately, and finally, it's really his working, it's his power that gives us confidence.

He says the gospel will penetrate the whole world.

Last night I had the opportunity, I had the privilege to catch up with some people that I haven't seen them in 20 years.

They were part of this church.

The husband and the wife both came to Christ in this church.

And he was, they were telling me last night on the phone that their kids came to Christ.

And now there's a whole family serving Christ.

And boy, as we sang, well, we didn't sing it, the choir sang it.

Boy, did that touch your heart like it touched my heart?

And when I think of God, his son not sparing, sent him to die.

What are the next words?

Some of you know that.

I scarce can take it in.

Last night at the end of our conversation, the man started crying on the phone.

He basically said, Tom, the tears haven't stopped flowing in the last 20 years.

He didn't use these words, but he might as well have.

I can scarce take it in because I know what God saved me from.

And his wife came to Christ here, too.

And his kids have come to Christ.

And he's in a position where he can have a lot of influence on people.

He's a hospital administrator.

And he has a lot of contact with a lot of people.

And the loving is working its way through the batch.

But it starts one heart, one life at a time.

New life, gripped by God's grace.

That we're forgiven.

Don't ever get over that.

If you're forgiven, don't ever get over that.

That you're delighted in.

How would you know?

But by its fruit.

How would you know, but by seeing the effects of it?

And so some of the ways that we talk about at Alexandria Presbyterian Church, how would you know?

Are you growing in humility?

Are you growing?

Can you say, my understanding of my sin is growing and growing and growing?

If you've taken sonship, you know what that's the cross chart that we use in sonship.

You can't see it probably, but you see, there's a cross that's getting bigger.

When you come to Christ, it's kind of small.

I mean, it's big in terms of your understanding, but but the point is that as the kingdom is growing within you, the cross gets bigger, not smaller.

Like my friend, I scarce can take it in.

We are the forgiven, and we are the loved.

And so before conversion, the holiness of God and my own sinful nature is veiled to me.

After my conversion, I have a limited but growing awareness of both God's holiness and my sinfulness, but in Christ meeting my need.

But then you get to the point where sometimes we adjust the record.

We resort to dishonesty and performance to bridge the gap.

Where the gospel doesn't keep pace with my knowledge of my sin, we have to bridge the gap, and that's what we talk about a lot in sonship.

How we how we try to protect ourselves and how we try to get into earning somehow, which we can't.

We get into performance righteousness, we get into appearances, and all that is junk.

Jesus didn't die for that.

He died to set us free from that stuff.

The kingdom grows from the inside out.

Is it growing in your heart from the inside out?

Is the leaven still working?

The leavening effect, the leavening effect since Jesus left.

His Spirit was sent, His Spirit is working.

And we see the leavening effects throughout history.

Wherever the church goes in power, wherever the church goes in the name of Christ, there is the leavening effect.

I mean, there's hardly time to go into detail, but Wilberforce abolishing slavery, the leavening effect.

George Mueller bringing over 10,000 orphans.

Into his home, many of whom came to Christ.

The leavening effect.

Those of you that are working on Capitol Hill or in the executive branch or wherever you're working in terms of bringing about justice and righteousness and legislation.

And those of you who are at home, just as importantly, the leavening effect.

As you pour your time and your energy and your heart into your children and you love them well, the leavening effect.

Not a day is wasted.

It's not the place, it's not the location of your calling that determines this ultimately.

It's not the location of your calling.

It's the kingdom growing within and pushing out.

The kingdom, thirdly, benefits many.

It really does.

It became a tree.

Those really bushes could be twelve, fifteen feet high, we're told.

They become big enough that the birds of the air can come and build nest and find rest.

And that teeny tiny mustard seed has started.

The nations are coming and finding rest, safety and blessing under the shade.

The nations are finding rest in Jesus.

The nations are coming to Washington, D.C.

like very few places.

The ministry for the nations that just started not that long ago.

Another seed planted, growing in the Washington, D.C.

area.

But the nations have been coming to this church for quite a while now, a number of years.

This church has had the opportunity to minister to 60 different people, refugees, asylum seekers.

Five families have been reunited through the kingdom seed, growing and bearing fruit.

And people are finding rest.

And people are finding shade.

Oh, and by the way, some of us who have been here for a while, the gospel is lovening in us and growing in us in ways that it never has before.

Praise God.

Eleven countries that this church has the privilege of supporting, 26 missionaries.

How many countries?

The shade, finding shade and finding rest and this gospel power.

It's working.

It's working.

Let me read an article as I close from Ray Ortland Jr.

The book of Acts contains unanswerable evidence of the truth of the Christian religion.

It is a record of the early triumphs of Christianity.

Within the space of 30 years after the death of Jesus, the gospel had been carried to all parts of the civilized and to no small portion of the uncivilized world.

Its progress and its triumphs were not concealed.

Its great transactions were not done in a corner.

It had been preached in the most splendid, powerful, and corrupt cities.

Churches were already founded in Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, and at Rome.

The gospel had spread in Arabia, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Africa.

It had assailed the most mighty existing institutions.

It had made its way over the most formidable barriers.

It had encountered the most deadly and malignant opposition.

It had traveled to the capital of Rome and had secured such a hold even in the imperial city as to make it certain that it would finally overturn the established religion and seat itself upon the ruins of paganism.

Within 30 years, it had settled the point that it would overturn every bloody altar, every pagan temple, that would bring under its influence people of office, rank, and power, and that the banners of the faith would soon stream from the palaces of the Caesars.

All of this would be accomplished by the instrumentality of Jews, fishermen, Nazarenes.

They had neither wealth, armies, nor allies.

With the exception of Paul, they were men without learning.

They were taught only by the Holy Spirit, armed with the power of God, victorious only because Christ was their captain, and the world acknowledged the presence of these messengers of the highest and the power of the Christian religion.

Its success never has been and never can be accounted for by any other supposition than God.

And if the Christian religion is not true, the change brought about by those twelve apostles is the most inexplicable, mysterious, and wonderful event that has ever been witnessed to in this world.

Their success will stand until the end of time as an argument for the truth of God's plan.

And it will always confuse the unbeliever and sustain the Christian with the assurance that God's kingdom is growing.

It grows from within.

It's branching out.

I don't know about you, but that little history lesson was good for me.

I need to remind myself of that occasionally.

And God says, I want it to branch out into your home.

Whether it was this couple that I was referring to earlier, started with it started with one of them.

Now there's four of them that are serving Christ.

Is it branching out in my neighborhood?

Is it are we building relationships with our neighbors, with our co-workers?

That's why we support missions here.

Our theme verse from the vision banquet last November.

And with this I close.

Since the day that you heard the grace of God in all of its truth.

And that's why we sing Jesus shall reign with confidence.

And that's why our souls can arise.

Because he has already taken root in us.

Because the sun arose, we have come to life.

And now we have the privilege, as an act of our worship, to sing the gospel back to our God.

Would you please pray with me?

Oh Father, we thank you.

We thank you for mustard seeds.

We thank you for yeast that works through the whole batch.

God, please forgive us if the yeast has not been working its way through us.

God, forgive us if the seed is not growing within us.

If we're not growing and bearing fruit, forgive us, Father.

And change us.

Lord, even this day, if there's anyone here who has not yet come to understand that they're saved not by their good works, but by Jesus Christ alone.

Oh God, save them now, I pray.

Father, for those of us who have come into your kingdom, God, I pray, Holy Spirit, be touching our minds and our hearts and our emotions and our wills in new ways.

Let the gospel go deeper.

Father, let it penetrate us so that we can ask questions such as, who have I not forgiven?

Who have I not forgiven?

What am I doing with my kingdom resources?

What am I doing with my kingdom opportunities?

Let the gospel go in new ways in my neighborhood, in my office, in my family.

Oh God, we we're here this morning to bow before you and to praise you because you've given us new life.

We praise you and we sing praise to you now in Jesus' name.

Amen.