Matthew Parables: The Parable of the Mustard Seed and Leaven

We've been going through a few weeks here, uh Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

So Matthew chapter 13, we have this chapter where Jesus is teaching, and he's he's going through these parables.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

And so this is him telling stories, and he's telling stories to tell a story to tell us about something else, something much more profound than the story he's actually telling.

Um these are kingdom of God parables.

And so what that means is it this is about the kingdom of God, the power of God entering the world.

What does that look like?

How do we think about that?

So this is about the power of God in you and the power of God in this world and what that means and how that works itself out.

So this is about the forgiveness of sins, this is about the taking away of condemnation and shame, but it's also about kind of what we talked about last week.

It's also about how's all this junk that's going on in the world, this mess, this injustice, how is this ever going to be made right?

It's also about that.

It's about what does it mean for God?

This is what we've been saying the last few weeks.

It's about what does it mean for God to reign in you?

Right?

And it creates the question: what does it really mean for God to be in control of my life?

Is it just walking an aisle, accepting Jesus as Savior, and then kind of working harder and harder and harder to become a better person, or is it something else altogether?

So Matthew 13, verse 31, let's jump in there.

Matthew 13:31

He put another parable before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.

It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

So this week I rounded up some mustard seeds.

Thank you, Megan Respus, for dropping this off at my house.

Uh I don't know how many are in here.

Probably a few hundred.

Um these people, they when it came to the kingdom, these people were thinking about something massive, right?

Like a political revolution, like rescue us from Rome and the Messiah's coming.

So there were their thoughts were like fireworks and and hugeness and bigness, and and then he he says, here, here is the kingdom.

And they, you know, they're farmers, they're all into agriculture.

I mean, they they understood this and they're going, well, wow.

So the kingdom is small, but it's powerful.

And it's hidden.

And it's kind of mysterious.

Like it's it's working when you don't see it.

The mustard seed was a popular metaphor at the time, and so Jesus was using the mustard seed, he uses it another place, right, where he says you'll be healed if you have faith like a mustard seed.

And so a mustard seed is kind of a popular metaphor for smallness and hiddenness, and yet it grows up into something big, and this is so freeing for us.

And this is the one point of the whole sermon.

So just listen to this.

You can fade away if you want to after this.

This is the point.

The seed is the thing sown, not the result of something else sown.

Meaning this.

Well, it means you can rest, and here's why, uh, because the kingdom coming into your life, that's the seed sown, not something else sown.

The kingdom is the seed sown.

So the kingdom coming into your life and into this world is not on the shoulders of your cleverness.

Your cleverness and your control is not the thing sown, and the seed being sown is not the result of your cleverness or your control.

This kingdom being sown is the result of the kingdom.

It's the nature of the seed.

So this doesn't mean that we don't pray or we don't read or we don't meditate on scripture, it doesn't mean we don't worship, it doesn't mean we don't fellowship, it doesn't, it doesn't mean any of that.

But what it means is we let go of our love of merit and our addiction to control that we we put forth in every other area of our lives.

But when it comes to spirituality, it doesn't work.

And we have to take on a posture where we receive what the kingdom is already doing in us, what God's control in our lives is already doing because the seed is the thing sown, not the result of something else sown.

So here's how I'm starting to understand this this week is that last Saturday morning we had great plans.

We were going to ride our bikes to the square, we were gonna get peaches and eat popsicles, and we were gonna do all of this, and literally right before we leave, Christy's laptop gets knocked off the end table, falls onto the hardwood floor, huge noise, and then a coffee cup falls on top of it.

Right?

Double trouble, bad news.

We're freaking out, we're yelling, we're getting the laptop off the ground, we're wiping it off, and it won't turn on.

You know, you're like, do you hear noise?

Do you hear noise?

What do you hear?

Do you hear something?

Do you not hear something?

I think I hear something, you're pressing the button, pressing it longer, you know, and and we're not real savvy at this, and so it doesn't take very long for me to call a friend, like, hey, what do we need to do?

And what's the first question?

The first question is well, what's on it?

Like, like, what's on it?

When was the last time you backed up?

Right?

What do we need to do?

We need to make an appointment.

You know what?

Well, fortunately that night, miracle, Mac healed itself over the course of the day.

No idea how that happened if somebody snuck in our house and fixed it, but all I know is that night it worked and it didn't work all day, and all of a sudden it started with healed thyself.

So I I just tell you that because that means Monday morning I walked into my office, and what did I do on my laptop?

I updated that backup carbonite program, and so I'm I'm I'm I get back on and I let it expire, and so I get back on and I gotta upgrade the software on my computer, and so I start to do that, it doesn't take me long, and this is not working out for me.

I'm not good at it, I'm in over my head, and so I I do the little chat, you know, where we can chat with somebody right away.

Corey.

Corey came online and it only took like a minute, and Corey's like, hey, can I just take over your computer?

And I'm like, uh-uh, you know, wow, you know, it's kind of like first date.

I'm like, I'm not sure.

Like all this fear, I'm sitting in my office, and he asks me that.

I kind of look around, like, is anybody am I gonna let him do this to me?

I don't know.

All this fear just showed up into like because it's this feeling, right?

Have you ever done this?

Have you ever let somebody take control of your computer when you're sitting there and you say yes, and and they're moving the mouth mouse around, they're controlling stuff and opening stuff and changing stuff, and you're just sitting there.

You you feel like you're like, can I do anything about it?

Can I stop this?

You know, it's a feeling of being powerless.

And who is this guy?

I don't know who he is, I don't know where he lives.

And you're just watching, right?

And they're just feeling like, oh, like, does he need my help a little bit?

Like maybe he needs me to show him the way around.

Like, does he know that's those are my pictures over there?

Don't go over there.

I don't want you messing with that stuff, and he's opening stuff and he's changing stuff.

And it was this feeling, like, and I just read this passage about this the seed is the thing sown.

It's this feeling like, oh, this is happening to me.

Like the work is happening to me.

And if I can mix metaphors here a little bit, it's hard to let a savior into my Mac laptop because you just feel so powerless.

And to take on that posture of receiving is very difficult.

And that's what these parables are about, is that the kingdom is powerfully and mysteriously and in hidden ways at work in you and in your friends' lives and your family's lives and in this world.

It's happening to you.

And see, this is the difference.

This is the difference between you smothering to death your spirituality and your transformation as a Christian, or you finally becoming quiet enough, dead enough, right?

And that's what the scriptures say, die to yourself, dead enough, free enough for the kingdom to be sown in you.

So Jesus wants to drive this point home even further.

So verse 33, he starts to talk about bread and leaven, and he says, he told them another parable, verse 33.

The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened.

Now, maybe you've read over that a million times that Jesus uses a woman to portray God.

I don't know how that settles with you.

Maybe you've raised like conservative, like me, conservative, southern, you know, like how dare we even mention something like that?

Here's Jesus, um, because the baker is God.

So in this story, God is a woman baker pounding out some dough because this is three measures of flour, which is a bushel of flour, which is 16 five pounds, five-pound bags of flour, which takes 42 cups of flour, which is about 101 pounds of dough that this lady is pounding out.

And Jesus talks about the dough to talk about leaven or to talk about what we would call yeast.

And by talking about yeast, Jesus takes this hiddenness a step further, right?

Because if you planted a mustard seed and soil, you could technically find it eventually.

Eventually.

But yeast and dough, once it's in, it doesn't come back out.

Yeast happens to dough.

The parable insists again that the kingdom is something that happens to you.

I know you don't, I know you feel like you don't do enough to help God transform you.

And don't we feel like we need to help God transform us?

And I know you feel like you don't do enough because you see somebody else, you see their life, you see their practices, you see something, and you go, well, I'm not doing enough, and you feel unworthy, or you just feel like you're never quite enough when it comes to being a Christian.

Nobody feels like they're enough.

Either they're delusional or prideful or something, and just don't talk to them, talk to somebody else.

It's just not real.

Spiritual life as a Christian is about the reality that we feel like we don't do enough, and yet He has already done enough for us, and so we're in this posture of receiving the kingdom.

And is learning this posture of no control, no merit, full rest and reliance on God's work for you in Jesus.

Though I'm not righteous, he is righteous for me, and I will refuse a spiritual path of self-sufficiency and self-reliance.

About five years ago, a friend of mine, a brilliant guy, he went to law school at UVA, so brilliant guy.

Let's call him Johnny just for the sake of it, because his name is not Johnny, but this will help out so he's not embarrassed if he ever listens to this podcast.

He said, Hey, can we grab some pizza?

I want to grab some pizza.

And he was down and he was defeated, and he was pretty much at this point ready to walk away from Christianity.

And he just said, you know, I look at other people and I look at their experiences and I see how passionate they are, how emotional they are about the Lord, or how radical they are.

And he's like, I feel like I never get there.

I feel like I'm just never getting there.

And he's like, I'm doing the Bible study thing, like I'm doing the prayer thing.

I'm, you know, I'm like, I'm getting the next book and the next book and the next book and the next one.

And he, no matter what he read, how long he prayed, how many Bible studies he joined, he just felt like he could never reach what he thought he was supposed to be reaching.

See, he thought he could bring his brilliance and his control and his love of merit and achievement, because that's what he is.

He does that so wonderfully in the world.

He thought he could bring all that into his relationship with God and that it would work, that it would earn the kingdom.

And all he did was wearing himself out.

He was becoming more tired and more confused.

And so, over a few slices of pizza, I love this conversation.

This is my conversation, if you haven't picked up on it.

I mean, this is the conversation I wait for.

And it's because it's the thing that I wrestled with for years: the treadmill of spirituality by self-effort.

Like I am ready for this conversation.

If I just did a little more, if I was a little more passionate, if I was a little more radical.

Did you see the amount of self-centeredness in all of this?

And so I just asked him, I said, Well, do you believe do you believe Jesus died for your sins?

Like, do you believe you're a sinner and you really need the work of Jesus and his righteousness for you, for your position with God to be a beloved child?

Do you believe that?

He says, Yes.

I said, Okay, okay.

We're good.

You are good.

Are you at this point ready to just stop constantly trying to do more or add to that work and just rest in the work that's been done for you and let it work itself out in you?

See, he was doing what I used to do, what maybe you're doing, what I still try to do a lot of days, and that's smothering the work of the kingdom with my own self-reliance.

You know what this is like?

It's like um, this is why Jesus is using this idea of bread, because it's the difference between bread with yeast.

Yeah, I went to the grocery store, it's been a while, um, but I found these items in there.

Uh it's the difference between bread with yeast and bread with no yeast.

One has room and space, and one's just flat.

Spiritually you're smothering the work of the kingdom with your own self-reliance.

And the difference here is that the yeast happens to the dough.

And all of a sudden that flatness you've been feeling has been relieved, not because you've done something more.

It's actually just the opposite, as you realize that all this time, the work's already been done, and it's inside of you.

And all of a sudden, space starts to get created in your heart.

Things start to change.

Christians, we should be the most secure of people.

Because the kingdom, God's reign in your life, it's already in there and it is working no matter what your emotional state is that day or that week.

Because while we're imperfect, we know the kingdom is at work in us.

Every failure, every success, making things right, forgiving sins, cleansing the slate, wiping it clean constantly, always, relieving shame, deeming us righteous, even when we're unrighteous, and making us beloved.

We should be the most secure of people.

This is so hard for us.

Not just as Americans that are pull your bootstraps up.

I mean, as human beings, this is hard.

Because we love to smother the dough before it rises with all of our self-reliance.

And the big question is it's just like, will you trust the leaven?

Will you trust the yeast?

Will you trust that the kingdom is being sown in you even when you feel like you'll never get any better?

Even when you feel like you'll never get over that.

Even when you feel like you're never quite enough.

Robert Capin, who wrote this great book on the parables, I've been reading alongside Matthew 13.

He was a theologian and a pastor and a writer.

He's also a baker, which is a great combination.

He actually wrote a book about baking as well.

And he writes about the bread, and he says that the leaven lightens the dough by filling it with thousands of tiny pockets of carbon dioxide.

That's what's happening.

That's what causes the dough to rise.

And then those pockets of air they expand when they're heated.

So the warm air, the breath, causes the dough to rise.

Now, the scriptures say that God breathed the word Jesus into existence.

And he put forth Jesus into existence for us, and then he sent his Holy Spirit as a rushing wind, breath, who resides in us, creating thousands of tiny air pockets inside of you.

I don't know about you, but I know about me.

And I spent a lot of time spending a lot of breath trying to breathe a word of my righteousness to God or my value to somebody else, to prove myself, to feel better than maybe I really am.

And it's like I never catch my breath.

Will you receive the breath of God?

The grace of God.

Jesus is still breathing today.

He'll be forever breathing on your behalf.

And you know what he's saying?

He's saying, I know that boy.

Yeah, I know he's not perfect.

I know, oh, I know I know her.

And he's breathing it to God, the just God of the universe.

He's saying, Oh, yeah, I know him.

I know her.

They're mine.

I have deemed them righteous.

I have covered them with my righteousness.

So, my brothers and sisters, may you receive this kingdom to live and to know victory, not because you will white-knuckle yourself into perfection, but because the one who is righteous deems you righteous and has created inside of you thousands of tiny air pockets of life and his breath lives in you.

The kingdom is at work in you.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you that we are not in this without you and without your work.

We are not on a track of making ourselves better by our own work, but we are put to rest from our obsession with merit and our obsession with achievement, and that when it comes to spiritual life and position with you, your kingdom is sown in us.

Would you help us to receive the work already done?

Would we would we pray?

Would we meditate?

Would we read?

Would we would we be in fellowship?

Would we do these things as postures of receiving the kingdom?

And would we know great freedom and great transformation because of it?

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.