Seeing Jesus - Parables of the Kingdom

Awesome. Well, hey, everybody. How's it going? Oh, I'm doing all right. Thanks for asking.

No, I'm doing well. Excited to be here. Yeah. Thanks for those who came to Church

in the Park last week. That was really great. It was a little hot.

And, you know, we can't control that. So I'm not even going to apologize.

Like, that's the Lord. But it was great. There's like 1,200 people came out, I think.

Thereabouts, maybe slightly less. But that's how many communion cups were handed out.

So that's what we're basing that number off of. And really, really just a fun

time to be with a bunch of churches in the valley.

And so thanks for everybody who several of our worship team and other people

helped out in various ways.

Yeah, I thought that was really fun. So yes, we are back though,

and I'm excited to be back in Matthew 13.

So if you've got a Bible in front of you or you brought your own,

just open it up and pick up in Matthew 13. We're going to be picking up at verse 24.

We're going to read this section that includes three different parables,

and one explanation of one of the parables.

And yeah, I've just been enjoying going through these parables.

It's funny, I feel like I read the Bible a lot and study the Bible a lot and

teach in the Bible a lot, but I don't really, parables are so different.

They don't really fit into the mold of the way we normally think about what the Bible is like.

I think most Christians, non-denominational Christians like us,

spend a lot of time reading Paul, but funny enough, we don't actually spend

as much time reading the words of Jesus.

I mean, it's interesting to get in here and to think through reading in context

and reading through the lens of Jesus's culture and his unique teaching style.

But parables, I mean, for Jesus, were super important. We've talked about this.

I talk about this every week, because it's like otherwise a head scratcher.

Like, why are we thinking about these parables?

They were super important. In fact, if we skip ahead a little bit in our passage

to Matthew 13, verse 34, there's sort of like a comment that Matthew makes.

Matthew 13:34

He says this, Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables,

and he did not tell them anything without a parable.

So that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.

I will open my mouth in parables.

I will declare things kept secret from the foundation of the world.

I find that fascinating. Like we think, oh yeah, Jesus sometimes used parables.

But Matthew says, no, he like was always talking in parables,

which I would find a little annoying.

But that's just me. Man, my annoyance doesn't matter.

But he taught in parables, not just sometimes, but it seems like all the time

it was a regular, his regular style, his go-to style.

And in this instance, crowds were gathering there.

They're like, we want to hear what Jesus has to say. And he would speak to them

in these little stories, in these things.

And through the teaching of parables, we find Matthew comments that he was fulfilling

these words, that I will declare things kept secret from the foundation of the

world, which is a quote from Psalm 78, 2.

And we don't have time to go into Psalm 78, but it's a really interesting psalm.

If you go back and you read it, you see that the psalmist introduces this idea

of speaking in parables and sayings, declaring things kept secret from the foundation of the world.

And then the psalm continues, and it's just a recording of Israel's history.

It's walking through different events in ways that the people were rebellious

and didn't listen, and yet God was faithful.

So it's like an interesting thing. Like the revelation is y'all got problems.

You know it. It's like you just look back at your history. And yet God has been

faithful. He has shown up. He has been patient.

He is always at work around us. And so as Jesus is speaking these parables in

particular, he is doing this act of fulfilling prophecy and revealing things.

Revealing things. secrets kept hidden from the foundation of the world.

And we get this picture. I would argue what we're going to see in these psalms,

in these parables, is that we get this picture of God's patience and faithfulness

and that he's at work all around us all the time, which as we go and read these

psalms, you're going to be like, well, wait, how is that?

How is this a picture of God's faithfulness? And that's what we're going to

talk about today. So I've just told you everything where we're going.

Let's go home. So let's read these three parables, okay? because they come in

quick succession. They are parables of the kingdom that Jesus delivers to the people.

So picking up in verse 24, follow along if you got it. It'll be up on the screen as well.

But I want you to read this and think about it.

We're pondering. We're pondering parables. That's what we do.

He presented another parable to them.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in the field.

And while his people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and left.

And when the plants sprouted up and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared.

And the landowner's servant came to him and said, Master, didn't you sow good seed in your field?

And then where did the weeds come from? An enemy did this, he told them.

So do you want us to go and pull them up? The servants asked him.

No, he said. When you pull up the weeds, you might also uproot the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time, I'll tell the reapers,

gather the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, but collect the wheat in my barn.

And he presented another parable to them. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard

seed that a man took and he sowed in a field.

It's the smallest of all the seeds, but when grown, it is taller than the garden

plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches.

And he told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that

a woman took and mixed into 50 pounds of flour until all of it was leavened.

So three parables presented in succession here, probably in one speaking moment.

We have the parable of the wheat and the weeds, which I think is probably of

these three, the most familiar to us.

Parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the woman in the leaven.

And they're not really named.

These are just me describing them. But each of them has this connecting point

is that they're similarly introduced by this little phrase or a phrase like it.

The kingdom of heaven is like, or in the first one, the kingdom of heaven may

be compared to, which is, I think, another way of saying is like.

So, right? So, these are all parables of the kingdom.

Jesus is painting a picture of his kingdom, of what the kingdom of God is going to look like.

He's trying to bring clarity to this, but it's not easy because of what the kingdom is, right?

I mean, we see Jesus talking a lot and having to explain himself a lot about

the kingdom and people are confused.

Jesus is dealing in these parables with people's wrong ideas about the kingdom

and trying to correct them. You know, that's...

That's when explanation is needed, right?

I don't need to go to great pains to describe something that you have no idea

about. I can usually do it because you don't have any preconceived notions.

But what Jesus is doing is saying, you guys have some ideas about the kingdom.

And actually, these parables are here to sort of shift your thinking about the kingdom.

So he's correcting wrong ideas. And he needs to do that because as Jesus'

ministry has continued on, we're sort of at the halfway point in his life and

in his ministry, his followers begin to recognize that he possesses all these

qualifications of the Messiah, right?

So these are, he's speaking to Jews, ancient Jews who were trained up in,

because of their understanding of the Old Testament, trained up to anticipate

the coming of the Messiah and the Messiah would set up a kingdom, right?

And so they're very much shaped into this idea and expectation that there's going to be a kingdom.

And they have a really clear idea of what that kingdom would look like.

Of course, I mean, there's disagreements amongst the Jews of what that's going

to look like, but they really think it's just going to be like,

there's going to be a king.

He's going to sit on a real throne. We're going to be able to see him.

He's going to have an army. He's going to do all the things that kings do,

right? Because that is what they're anticipating.

But as Jesus' ministry goes along and as the people begin to say,

oh, this guy seems to be really like the Messiah, they're also increasingly

questioning, well, when, Jesus, are you, like, where's the beef?

When are we going to get to the kingdom part? Because, like,

we think you're the king, we think you're the messiah, but we're waiting for that clarity.

We're waiting for your throne. We're waiting for your rule over Israel and your

rule over the whole world, because we really think that's what the messiah does.

And even those who don't follow Jesus, right, are looking at Jesus and they're

saying, hey, Look, where's this kingdom?

And they actually use this as a reason to disbelieve in him.

They're like, look, if you were really the Messiah, wouldn't you have gone about

the business of setting up your kingdom at this point? We don't see it,

and so you must not be the Messiah.

In Luke 17, the Pharisees, who are well-known disbelievers, they come up to

Jesus and they're like, hey, come on, man, where's your kingdom?

They say this, Luke 17, verse 20, when he was asked by the Pharisees when the

Luke 17:20

kingdom of God would come, he answered them, the kingdom of God is not coming

with something observable.

No one will say, see here or there, for you see the kingdom of God is in your midst.

People have this expectation. They have this hope. They want to see an observable

kingdom. and yet Jesus is explaining to them that there's something else going around.

The kingdom of God does not look the way they think it is. And these parables

are casting light on what the kingdom of God is actually like.

See, Jesus does have some explaining to do, right?

Because he's also, and this is really true, he's piquing people's expectations

throughout his ministry.

What is Jesus's, we've looked at this in the past, like in Matthew 4,

it says, Jesus went around preaching the gospel, repent because the kingdom is at hand.

If we could sum up Jesus's teaching message, it's repent because the kingdom of God is at hand.

And so I don't blame people for asking, well, where's the kingdom, Jesus?

Because literally you're saying that's what's going on. So where is the kingdom?

Because if his message is the kingdom is here, that it's coming now,

that it's at hand, that it's coming in and through Jesus.

Like, what does that here-ness and now-ness and at-hand-ness look like if it's

something that's not visible and not present?

So it's a legitimate question to ask.

And it was hard for people to accept because, right, again, Jesus is saying

it's here, it's now, but the people don't really see it in the way that they expected to see it.

And it was hard, especially, I think, for people to accept because they believed

that the kingdom would imply at least one thing that was really anticipated

and hoped for in their day.

They believed that if the kingdom is here, if the kingdom is now,

if the Messiah has come, that that would mean that finally all the bad people

that surrounded them and oppressed them and made their life difficult would finally get dealt with.

And so there was a hope and expectation that at the very least,

the kingdom would involve that kind of a judgment thing.

Because if the kingdom is like a woman who takes a big lump of dough,

50 pounds, like one of the scholars.

It actually doesn't say 50 pounds. It gives a measurement that is an ancient

measurement that we don't use anymore.

But like translators have done the math and said about 50 pounds.

And you're like, well, I don't know how much flour weighs. If you're like me, I have no clue.

If you're wondering how much is 50 pounds of flour, apparently 50 pounds of

flour is enough to feed 150 people.

Someone did that math, not me. Okay, so if the kingdom of heaven is like a woman

who's making this giant lump of dough, and what she does is she hides a little

bit of yeast, a little bit of leaven in it, just a tiny bit.

And what happens is that that leaven permeates through this whole giant lump of dough.

Then that is a disconcerting reality. If your expectation and your hope of the

kingdom is that finally we're going to get rid of some of this dough.

We're going to cut some of it out because it's bad dough and we're going to

throw it away back on the trash heap where it deserves to be instead of leavening

it and trying to make something useful of it, right?

Or if the kingdom of heaven is like just a tiny mustard seed that's planted

in the garden and it grows into

a big tree-sized bush where any bird can come and make its nest there,

then the kingdom of heaven is not nearly as exclusive as you were hoping it

would be because it's allowing for other people because birds in the Bible are

actually not positive things.

Sorry, Molly. Molly loves birds. She's a really big bird fan.

I take or leave them.

But in the Bible, in imagery, I mean, you think about the parable of the sower.

Remember the parable of the sower?

The first seed that's scattered, it goes on to the path and what happens to the path.

Birds of the air come down and gobble it up. It's not a positive image, right?

The fact that birds show up and it's like they're messing with the tree and

they're making their nest there and they don't belong in that tree.

That's a mustard tree. We want to harvest from it.

So it is a disappointing thing to have the kingdom be portrayed in this way.

It becomes big, like, oh, big, great. We want that.

But then people just show up and use it and sit in it. Come on.

Or if the kingdom of heaven is like a man who planted good seed only to have

his enemy come and plant a bunch of weeds, and who then proceeds to let the weeds grow in his field,

that means that the kingdom of heaven is not nearly as pure and protected as

people in this day anticipated, at least not until the harvest.

And the disciples are confounded by this imagery, and particularly this first

image, because after, if we continue on, we see that after Jesus teaches to

the crowds, the disciples privately approached Jesus and they're like,

could you explain some of this stuff for me?

Could you give me some more information about what this means?

And this is what he says. So picking up there, he left the crowds.

He went into the house and his disciples approached him and said,

do you explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field?

He replied, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man.

The field is the world, and the good seed, these are the children of the kingdom.

The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.

The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

Very quick explanation.

See, the reason why the disciples don't get it is because it just doesn't fit

with their idea of what's going

to happen, their expectations of what the kingdom is going to look like.

And what Jesus was saying was controversial to them.

But I think what's interesting is that it's not controversial for the reasons

that this passage is controversial to us.

This is why we read in context. We have to think, well, what was the mind like.

Of an ancient Jewish person?

Let's keep reading Jesus' explanation, and I'll explain to you what I mean by

that. Okay, so continuing on.

Therefore, just as the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire,

so it will be at the end of the age.

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom

all who cause sin on those who are guilty of lawlessness,

and they will throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping

and gnashing of teeth, and then the righteous will shine like the sun in their father's kingdom.

Let anyone who has ears listen.

See, in our culture and in our day, when we read a passage like this,

we are made uncomfortable by how everything ends, right?

By the fact that all this stuff is gathered up, that weeds are gathered up,

and they're thrown into the fire and there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It's obviously hell and punishment imagery, right?

So we are made uncomfortable by this imagery.

I'm not going to do a whole teaching on hell right now. Like got like 10 more

minutes left in the message. We don't have time to open that can of worms,

but I actually think it'll come up again.

I think because I've read the Bible before and it comes up a lot.

So we'll have some more time to talk about that.

But understand though, we find judgment uncomfortable, but in the culture of

ancient Judaism, it was assumed and expected and hoped for.

It was very much their hope that judgment was going to happen.

So his disciples aren't surprised like we are to hear Jesus talk about judgment,

but they're surprised to hear actually that it's being deferred.

That as the kingdom comes, the king isn't just like rip them out because they

were like ready to start the fire.

And get things burning. And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no.

He envisioned something different for his kingdom. He sees the gospel going

to every part of the dough to all people, even the parts.

That the disciples and the Pharisees and the people of his day thought didn't

deserve to have this leaven go to.

Jesus envisions the gospel as growing into a good news proclamation of a new

reality where the birds of the air, the Gentiles, people who don't belong can

come in and make their nest in. And Jesus says, and I'm okay with that.

Jesus envisions a reality where the righteous and the unrighteousness are just

growing up in the field and Jesus is going to sort it out at the end,

but he's going to let things go.

He has a picture of the kingdom that is different than what people expect.

And it's a truly, it's a meaningful difference. It's a meaningful difference.

And when we think about it, like I think we have to understand that Jesus was

challenging his disciples and he probably is in a way, I mean, beyond the hell stuff,

he's challenging us because he's inviting us into this uncomfortable thing,

this already not yet reality of the kingdom.

That God is one day going to judge wickedness and evil, that he hates it,

that it grieves him, that it hurts him.

And yet still he is withholding judgment for the sake of mercy,

for the sake of salvation, because he has hope that people will turn and see the light.

And it's interesting when we think about what the gospel is.

N.T. Wright, and I have a cute name for N.T. Wright, I won't say it.

No, I will. The Taylor Swift of theologians, N.T.

Wright, the Taylor Swift of theologians says, the power of the gospel lies not

in the offer of a new spirituality or religious experience, not in the threat of hellfire,

certainly not in the threat of being left behind, which can be removed only if the.

The powerful announcement that God is God, that Jesus is Lord,

and that the power of evil has been defeated, and that God's new world has begun.

This announcement, stated as a fact about the way the world is,

rather than as an appeal about the way you might like your life,

your emotions, your bank balance to be, is the foundation of everything.

Of course, once the gospel announcement is made in whatever way,

it means instantly that all people everywhere are gladly invited to come in,

to join the party, to discover forgiveness for their past, an astonishing destiny

in God's future, and a vocation in the present.

And that welcome invitation, all the emotions can be, and one hopes will eventually be fully engaged.

What N.T. Wright is saying, in the way that he does, he's letting us think,

asking us to think a little bit about what the message that Jesus proclaimed

is, because he does proclaim salvation, right?

But so oftentimes we individualize salvation, right? I mean,

because there's a reality to which this is true.

Jesus looks at you in all of your brokenness and all of your sin,

and he knows everything about you, everything you've done.

He sees you on your worst day, and he says, and yet I still love you.

And your sin and your shame, which is, yes, it's a problem, but I'm going to

deal with it adequately by the sacrifice of myself, by the washing away,

by my atoning work on the cross, and it's simply available to all who would trust themselves to me.

So we do understand that the gospel is an individual thing.

And yet Jesus went around pronouncing the gospel in this way.

He said, the kingdom of heaven is here because I am here, because I'm going

to do what I'm going to do. I'm going to live a perfect sinless life.

I'm going to give myself over to my enemies. I'm going to die on the cross for your sin.

And then I'm going to be raised again as a message loud and clear that there's

new life for the whole world.

And then what I'm going to do, I'm going to ascend to the Father and I'm going

to return and I'm going to bring heaven down to this place with me at that point.

And I'm going to restore all things. And that has now begun.

The kingdom has now begun presently simply by Jesus doing what he's done.

And the shift in our thinking is that this world is his kingdom right here, right now.

You live as a consequence of Jesus's action, his overcoming of all things.

You live in the kingdom right now.

Your neighbor who doesn't know Jesus is in Jesus's kingdom.

Your neighbor who doesn't know Jesus, your coworkers, your friends who don't walk with him,

no, like they are at this point, if they haven't trusted him,

yes, they are children of the world, But Jesus looks at people and he says,

what I want is this field to be full of people who become my children, who know my mercy,

and who are fruitful and transformed and renewed.

And all they have to do is look to him.

The way the world is, according to Jesus, is not what we think. God is not distant.

God is not up there and we're down here. The gospel is that God has come to this earth.

I quoted John 1 last week. John 1, 9 through 12.

This is John's way of describing the gospel. A true light that gives light to

everyone was coming into the world.

The world you live in right now is full of the light of the gospel.

It's permeated to every place because Jesus is here.

His kindness, his mercy, his faithfulness is here.

Even to people who have their eyes closed to it, they are bathed in light.

And yes, they can continue to be blind. They can continue to close themselves

off. They can continue to turn from the Lord.

Yet God is still just there and present because this world is his kingdom and

he is Lord. That's the gospel message.

And John goes on, he says, and he was in the world and the world was created

through him and yet the world did not recognize him.

He came to his own, his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive

him, he gave them the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name.

So the field is filled with people, right?

Filled with people. Some are children of the enemy and some are children of

God, and we know how we become children of God is that we just receive the good news. Jesus is Lord.

He saves, he forgives, and he invites us into a relationship with him.

But the difficult thing for us, and the difficult thing for me personally.

Is that we live, this means that the world is in tension still, right?

And because the disciples were desperate, the Jews were desperate for the tension

to be resolved, for them to see the victory, to see the kingdoms,

to see their enemies judged.

And Jesus just says, no, you're going to keep living in this tension.

The world that we live in is both full of grace and yet also full of mess.

And I'm so tired of this. Honestly, I am really tired of living in this way.

But you know what? It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter that we're tired because Jesus is deferring his return.

He's deferring his return. He's deferring the fullness of the kingdom for a reason.

We read about that in 2 Peter 3, 7. The Lord does not delay his promises,

as some understand delay, but he's patient with you, not wanting any to perish,

but that all should come to repentance.

And so sometimes I think as Christians, it's hard to stand in this tension.

It's hard to stand in this, okay, I realize that Jesus is Lord,

and yet I look around at my life and things are still kind of a mess.

And what does that mean? Does that mean that God is not faithful?

We're told what it means. It means that God has a plan for this world,

and he's asking us to be patient, to trust him.

He's asking any who would come to him to understand that he's going to come

and he's going to do all the things that he said.

He's going to come one day and there will be judgment.

But he's delaying for the sake because he doesn't want to rip up people.

He doesn't want to rip up things prematurely. God wants to see people come to repentance.

And thinking about this and really embracing this kind of changes things.

It changes things in two ways. Number one, it changes the way I look at people

who are difficult and who are a pain in my life. It can.

It changes how I think about people who I'm like, I don't like this person,

or I think God should go ahead and judge them now, right?

Because we can remind ourselves, okay, I can be patient because God wants to

be patient. and maybe God is still doing something in this person's life.

And so I can take the hits a little longer and I can take the insults and the

disappointments and the hurts a little longer,

because God is present in this world and he's working in people's lives and

he's surprised me in the way that he showed up in my life and he maybe will surprise this person.

Maybe this person's life, maybe they'll have their eyes opened and they'll become

a testimony of God's kindness and grace and mercy.

And so we can pray along those lines and we could hang in and hope along those lines, right?

So it changes that for what I think about people. It also just changes how I

show up in the world, how I think about my role and my part to play in the world.

God's taking care of the timing and he's competently managing the outcomes.

And so I show up in the kingdom as someone who is just in the fields,

he's looking around and who understands God is in the field and he knows how to take care of things.

See, the reason that we are called to trust in Jesus and believe in him is because

we're allowing him to do the work.

And I'll just be honest, it's hard sometimes.

Worship team is going to come up here in a second. No, right now,

not in a second. I don't know. Just like literally that's the opposite of what I wanted to say.

There's some applications to the sermon there. so

so we're at a time right now

as a church where we've been

like in this long transition if you think it's long i'm

going to tell you it's longer it's longer than you think but right now there's

you know i was talking to ryan before i'm like i don't recommend going walking

around at night around here because there are several holes you might have noticed

right and we've been working on putting the septic in place and doing that and

then we're we're working on a big move coming up We're going to move to downtown Snoqualmie.

And like, it's so much process, a lot of process and a lot of patience and a

lot of like, oh, man, can't this just be easier? Can't this just land?

I feel that very much. If you do, I understand and I am sympathetic.

But I actually have this great hope. I really do have this expectation that

it will land. And we're actually making really a ton of progress towards towards landing it.

Right. And this is not like meant to and it's not meant to explain.

The process, but to understand that, man, as things are being transformed and

moving forward, there's just this weird in-between time. And.

About patience is that it's required when it's needed.

I don't need to be patient when things resolve very quickly.

I need to be patient when things are difficult and when they're taking time

and when they're slow and when I would like it all to have just been managed already, right?

And I think in our lives, we are in this ongoing thing of just letting the Lord

work out the details, and it demands patience, which is not fun.

And yet it's one of these attributes, be one of these things that we need to

develop and cultivate. If we're going to hang in there with Jesus and we're

going to let him do the work, the disciples were not wanting to be patient.

They were wanting things to just land. They were wanting Jesus to show up.

And Jesus leaves them, right? When Jesus ascends into heaven,

he says, occupy until I return.

That's a King James translation. That one sticks in my brain.

Just hang out here and I'll be back later?

And it's like, well, when, Jesus? And you don't get any of that stuff, right?

But to sit here and to oversee and to wait on the Lord and just say,

all right, we're going to go about the work of being the church and proclaiming

the gospel and trying to reach people around us, it's like, it's wearying.

Wouldn't it be nice if things could just land and resolve?

And yet, at the same time, what Jesus says is that people are coming.

I love how this verse ends. Oh, sorry, going to go back and find it here.

Where did I put it? He says, the righteous will shine like the sun in their father's kingdom.

That's the ultimate situation that's going on here.

Patience is teaching us things. Patience is teaching us to trust in him.

Patience can teach you that. Pain can teach you that.

Paul understood this really well. Jesus understood this well.

The life of a Christian is not painless. It's not quick. It's not easy.

It's not simple. yet it is full of God's presence.

And so if you're at the point where you're just not, you don't want to be patient

anymore, or you're frustrated with life circumstances, work circumstances,

friends circumstances, family circumstances, church circumstances,

whatever, whatever the thing that's going on in your life,

can I just ask you, like, would you turn to the one who's present,

who's Lord over the world right now?

Because that's the comfort we have in the midst of the waiting is that Jesus

says, I'm Lord, I'm here, I'm present, I've sent my spirit, I'll walk with you.

We do need to shift our hopes. We do need to shift our expectations and we need

to keep waiting for the Lord.

We're gonna take communion today and I'm actually gonna ask you as I pray, even right away, right?

So I want you to do something while I'm praying to start coming up and grabbing

it because we're gonna do it together right now. So come on up,

be someone, be the first.

Music.