SPEAKER_00: This morning, Matthew 13.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it these three verses, two parables, packaged so tightly together.
SPEAKER_00: What an economy of words from our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 13, 31.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree.
SPEAKER_00: So the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.
SPEAKER_00: He told them another parable.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God, and I pray that he would steal it in your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Other than the Bible and perhaps Pilgrim's Progress, probably the most influential book in Protestant church history has been Calvin's Institutes, Institutes of the Christian Religion.
SPEAKER_00: It's 1800 pages.
SPEAKER_00: 1,800 pages.
SPEAKER_00: Many people haven't read it because they look at 1,800 pages and get intimidated.
SPEAKER_00: Two volumes, 900 pages each is the American version, and you get intimidated.
SPEAKER_00: But you can do some back-of-the-napkin math here and figure out if you were to read 20 pages a day, you could get through the institutes in three months.
SPEAKER_00: Just a small little like 20 pages a day.
SPEAKER_00: And I grant that the type can be kind of small.
SPEAKER_00: So make it 10 pages a day, and you got six months.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is something that at the beginning looks insurmountable is easily accomplished with just doing a little math.
SPEAKER_00: You know, start with small.
SPEAKER_00: Do some exponential reasoning here.
SPEAKER_00: You start with, you know, two, and you can get to infinity pretty fast.
SPEAKER_00: Don't correct me later, you engineers, you something small can grow drastically, especially when it grows exponentially.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the vision in Jesus' parables this morning.
SPEAKER_00: He uses two parables that describe the growth of the church in the world.
SPEAKER_00: There are two images that would be very common.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing surprising, nothing unusual with the images themselves.
SPEAKER_00: But of course, like all of Jesus' parables, they have surprising twists in them to make their intended points.
SPEAKER_00: The first is the parable of the mustard seed.
SPEAKER_00: It's identified as a parable in verse 31, the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's also called the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the growth of God's kingdom, the growth of the gospel on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It is the growth of the church as is described by all seven of these parables here.
SPEAKER_00: It is compared to that of a mustard seed.
SPEAKER_00: A mustard seed is tiny, it is the smallest of the seeds.
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, I didn't want an engineer to correct me earlier.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want an armchair botanist to correct me later and say, actually, the orchid seed is smaller.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the orchid seed is smaller.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, when Jesus says this, he's using an idiom or an expression from the Jews: the mustard seed is very small.
SPEAKER_00: Of all the plants you would grow in your garden, the mustard seed has the smallest of the seeds.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's the point.
SPEAKER_00: You would not plant a mustard seed in your garden, however, because mustard bushes grow huge.
SPEAKER_00: They can kind of fall in on themselves, and sometimes they grow in groves and they kind of drown each other out.
SPEAKER_00: But if you plant one in a place where it has room to spread out, it grows up and it plops out.
SPEAKER_00: If you have been to Israel, these are the yellow bushes that are all over the plains of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: They are everywhere and they grow big.
SPEAKER_00: There are bus accidents in Israel because around corners, these mustard seeds have grown and they cut off your line of sight.
SPEAKER_00: You might have stop signs in your neighborhood where it's hard to see around the corner because some giant bush is growing there.
SPEAKER_00: That's a mustard seed.
SPEAKER_00: It's not some 75-foot-tall tree or anything, it's a big bush that spreads out.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this week I saw uh some pictures online of a guy who has them in his yard in Richmond, Virginia, and they have grown over his uh he has an abandoned school bus in his yard.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, Richmond, what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's got an abandoned school bus and it is covered in mustard seed plants with like the kudzu vines growing all over it, and it makes like an impenetrable wall there.
SPEAKER_00: That's the mustard seed bush that just bushes out.
SPEAKER_00: If it was up here, it would grow like as tall as a screen and it would grow this way, and these things, if a few of them grow together, can just block, it'd be like it's like a wall.
SPEAKER_00: And birds love to live in them.
SPEAKER_00: Birds love to live in them because they have seeds, small seeds, but birds are small.
SPEAKER_00: Small seeds that the birds can eat.
SPEAKER_00: So it would be like one of you living in Costco.
SPEAKER_00: Like you can eat where you live, roll that box mattress out, sleep on the floor, use their sheets, get their rotisserie chicken, call it a night.
SPEAKER_00: Birds love the mustard seed bush.
SPEAKER_00: It starts so small and yet grows so big.
SPEAKER_00: The surprising twist in the story is not a plot development.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of plot in this story, seed grows.
SPEAKER_00: The surprising twist in it is just the contrast.
SPEAKER_00: Something can be in everyday life, and you lose sight of how surprising it is.
SPEAKER_00: You lose sight of it.
SPEAKER_00: You have oak trees all over your yard, and those acorns that fall are so small.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they make the sound on your roof, but they're just compared to the oak tree, they're tiny, and yet they grow these massive trees.
SPEAKER_00: We can often lose our sense of wonder at that.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus' point.
SPEAKER_00: The smallest of the seeds can make a massive bush that people come into for refuge.
SPEAKER_00: This image is, of course, from Daniel chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: In Daniel chapter 4, uh, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, a series of dreams, really, and he all of his interpreters can't interpret them, and so Daniel comes to interpret them.
SPEAKER_00: The second of those visions was a tree, Nebuchadnezzar says, in the midst of the earth, and its height was great, and it grew and became strong, and its top reached up to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It was visible to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and it was food inside of it for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: The beasts of the field took shade under it, the birds of heavens lived in it, and all flesh was fed from it.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar asked Daniel, What does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: Now, the interpretation itself, what it means, is not the hard part of Daniel's job there.
SPEAKER_00: You're talking to the most arrogant person in the world, who's the emperor of the strongest empire in the world, and he says he has a dream about a tree that towers over the nations of the earth, and everybody comes to him for shade and food.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever could it possibly mean?
SPEAKER_00: And Daniel's like, I think your dream's about you, my humble friend.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the hard part is what comes next, where Daniel says, the Lord's gonna chop you down.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna bring you tall.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're so proud.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the nations of the world find shade in your branches.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've brought peace and stability to the earth, but because you're so arrogant, because you have this dream about how great you are, and you're like, oh, I wonder what it could mean.
SPEAKER_00: You're going down, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: You're going down.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go eat grass like a cow.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's gonna happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna wander around the field.
SPEAKER_00: That's this image.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord uses it elsewhere at Ezekiel chapter 17, a wonderful passage where the Lord talks about the cedars in Lebanon that grow tall.
SPEAKER_00: He says he's gonna take the sprig from the top of one of those talls.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's the green growth in the spring.
SPEAKER_00: We have those in our bushes here too.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the bushes, like those holly bushes, for example, they get a dark green in the winter, and in the spring, the new growth is a brighter green.
SPEAKER_00: And you can tell what grew in the last month.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, probably they're growing.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'm gonna find the tallest of those cedars in Lebanon and take that new growth off the top, and I'm gonna plant that little twig of growth in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And that tall cedar in Lebanon is gonna go down, and the little sprig of growth is gonna tower over the nations.
SPEAKER_00: All the nations of the earth, God says through Ezekiel, Ezekiel 17, are gonna come and find shade in it, find fruit in it, and then all the trees of the earth will know that I, Yahweh, am the Lord of the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: That's this image.
SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: That God's kingdom will tower over the nations and spread upon the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first parable.
SPEAKER_00: The second parable he tells here, and again it's like in it's called a parable in verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: Another parable is the kingdom of heaven is like leaven.
SPEAKER_00: Leaven is, you know, essentially yeast, it works its way through the bread, it puts, you know, carbon dioxide, CO2, gases, and such into the bread.
SPEAKER_00: It makes bread fluffy and yummy.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it does.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, unleavened bread is bad and lame.
SPEAKER_00: Um remember, unleavened bread was given to the Israelites as a punishment.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you eat unleavened bread with your like pea protein or whatever, and I just want you to know that God made the world better than that.
SPEAKER_00: He just did.
SPEAKER_00: He made those Texas donuts that are so fluffy and they're like sourdough bread.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine looking at sourdough bread and then like one of those unleavened little like chips made with tomato paste or whatever?
SPEAKER_00: And like, I don't know which to choose.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a problem for you if you don't know which to choose.
SPEAKER_00: One is good and one will break a tooth.
SPEAKER_00: And people will come and say, after communion, they'll be like, oh, this bread that we're using for communion is so bad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I know.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: It's unleavened bread, it was a punishment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, leaven doesn't represent something bad.
SPEAKER_00: Leaven represents something generally good, but it's pervasive, is the idea.
SPEAKER_00: It spreads through things, and that's the point.
SPEAKER_00: This woman took leaven and she hid it in three measures of flour, which is a ridiculous amount of flour.
SPEAKER_00: It's like 60 pounds of flour.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Papa John's uses for pizza on Super Bowl weekend, is that kind of flour.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the image here.
SPEAKER_00: This woman took a little bit of yeast and worked its way through a comical amount of flour.
SPEAKER_00: I know this is the amount of flour that Sarah made for uh the angels that visited her in Genesis for uh Gideon's, you know, had that experience where the angel of the Lord appeared to them, Samson's parents, I mean, and the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and they made three ephas of or three measures of flour.
SPEAKER_00: So it's, you know, it was something used in sacrifices in the Old Testament, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00: But do you remember the Old Testament Israelites, they were supposed to eat unleavened bread at many of their sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: At many, like Passover was unleavened bread.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because they were fleeing Egypt in haste.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have, first of all, practically time to let the leaven work through the bread that they were going to take.
SPEAKER_00: But secondly, the way leaven works is it carries its old life with it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea of leaven.
SPEAKER_00: In the Middle East, even today, it's a common wedding gift.
SPEAKER_00: The parent, the mother of the groom will give the bride uh what we would call starter dough.
SPEAKER_00: Sourdough.
SPEAKER_00: That's what leaven.
SPEAKER_00: Leaven and sourdough are the same thing, basically.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll give it as a gift.
SPEAKER_00: The mother of the groom will give it to the bride.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's the idea of the two families becoming one.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a cool image.
SPEAKER_00: And we do the unity candle here, but it's the same kind of concept.
SPEAKER_00: Here's something from the house of the groom that's going to the new house through the wife to feed the family.
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful picture.
SPEAKER_00: That's leaven.
SPEAKER_00: It presents continuity.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Israelites were not supposed to bring it with them.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't supposed to bring Egypt with them into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to cut it off.
SPEAKER_00: Egypt stays there.
SPEAKER_00: And so all the feasts were supposed to be unleavened bread, with one exception.
SPEAKER_00: The feast of Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: That had leavened bread.
SPEAKER_00: Because, remember, that's a happy feast.
SPEAKER_00: That's the blessings that God gives you.
SPEAKER_00: And God gives you joy in Texas-style donuts and sourdough loaves.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, let's go to lunch right now.
SPEAKER_00: Best sponge breakery, right down the road.
SPEAKER_00: That's the image.
SPEAKER_00: Leaven represents something that works its way through everything.
SPEAKER_00: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's the church.
SPEAKER_00: It comes in the world and will work its way everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: That's these two parables.
SPEAKER_00: These two parables are linked together because they have the same interpretation, they have the same moral to them, and we'll look at them this morning.
SPEAKER_00: These are stories that inspire.
SPEAKER_00: Stories that inspire.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, it's in a set of six parables.
SPEAKER_00: There's seven total, but the seventh one is the final exam.
SPEAKER_00: That's the dragnet.
SPEAKER_00: That's the one Jesus says, Do you understand how to do parables?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, pop quiz.
SPEAKER_00: Here's this one.
SPEAKER_00: But the six that was the classroom lessons here, they're in pairs.
SPEAKER_00: They go two, two, two.
SPEAKER_00: I hope maybe you notice that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the first two are the sower and then the weeds, and those talk about the growth of the church as far as the spiritual depth of the church.
SPEAKER_00: The seed will grow into someone's heart, it grows depth, and that's speaking of their true conversion.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be weeds in the church, the world in the church, unsaved people in the church.
SPEAKER_00: That seed falls in their heart, grows a little bit, and dies out because it doesn't get depth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first parable.
SPEAKER_00: It's paired with the second parable, which is the weeds, that the gospel is gonna go around the world, but weeds are gonna grow up as well.
SPEAKER_00: The first parable is the world in the church, the second parable is the church in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And remember the moral of that was don't try to get rid of evil in the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's not your job.
SPEAKER_00: God will do that.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to keep scattering seed and let the church keep growing.
SPEAKER_00: The best way to get rid of sin in the world is to scatter seed and let the gospel go forward.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the first two parables are the establishment and the mission of the church.
SPEAKER_00: The next two, the two we just looked at, the leaven and the mustard seed, that talks about the breadth of the church.
SPEAKER_00: If the first is the depth, the second is the breadth.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to grow all around the world.
SPEAKER_00: The first was the establishment and mission of the church.
SPEAKER_00: The second couplet is the scope and growth of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And then next week we'll look at parables five and six.
SPEAKER_00: That shows the wealth of the church, the heart of the church, the riches of the church, the appropriation of the church, how somebody makes it their own, the transformation the church brings to an individual's heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's the next two.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, those middle two speak of the breadth of the church.
SPEAKER_00: It will go around the world, the scope and growth of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Then it comes with two basic parts.
SPEAKER_00: The first is the natal kingdom or the birth kingdom, the small seed kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom starts tiny, it starts so small.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the context of when Jesus gives these parables is so important.
SPEAKER_00: He is surrounded by thousands of people, many of whom want to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: So he gets on a boat.
SPEAKER_00: His family's there.
SPEAKER_00: They want him to come inside.
SPEAKER_00: They think he's out of his mind.
SPEAKER_00: His disciples are there.
SPEAKER_00: They're confused.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd is there.
SPEAKER_00: They're spectators for the most part.
SPEAKER_00: John 6 tells you that.
SPEAKER_00: They're basically spectators at this point, but many of the crowd is hostile.
SPEAKER_00: They want bread to eat, they want signs and wonders.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to become citizens of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the thinking people in the crowd are plotting to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus wants to teach, but the crowd is so thick, he pushes out on a boat.
SPEAKER_00: So he's off standing on a boat telling these parables to thousands of people, many of whom want him dead.
SPEAKER_00: Some think he's insane, and some are just bewildered.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the bewildered people he's trying to reach with the parables in such a way that the rest of the crowd is blinded to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the scene here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you couldn't write this if you tried.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples know about the promised kingdom in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: They know the Old Testament says the king is going to come.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to rule the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to strike the nations with an iron rod, with a scepter.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to laugh and mock, and he's going to crush them.
SPEAKER_00: The gold and the silver of the earth is going to come to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to overthrow empires.
SPEAKER_00: The Ezekiel 17, we read earlier.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be the tree that grows over all the nations of the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they want.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they were promised.
SPEAKER_00: And what do they have instead?
SPEAKER_00: Is a guy on a boat in Galilee, pushed off the shore, because nobody knows what to do with him.
SPEAKER_00: This is not that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: So you can see why there's a lot of confusion right here.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus matches their confusion by teaching about the church that will come after they've killed him.
SPEAKER_00: So he's teaching them in a way that's preparing them so that when this goes down, like Book of Acts style, later on, decades later, they're going to remember what he taught them about the church.
SPEAKER_00: And the point is, it starts so small.
SPEAKER_00: It starts with a guy in a boat in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Not even in the right place.
SPEAKER_00: Not even in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: A guy in a boat in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Probably a small boat, too.
SPEAKER_00: So small that they didn't recognize the power of the kingdom in that one guy.
SPEAKER_00: All the transformative power of an oak tree is in that acorn.
SPEAKER_00: The power to grow the massive bush is in that mustard seed.
SPEAKER_00: The power to make 60 pounds of flour into, you know, somebody look this up for me.
SPEAKER_00: It's like 500 pizzas, is what some I heard after the first hour.
SPEAKER_00: That amount of yeast is just so small.
SPEAKER_00: So they're looking at Jesus in the boat and he's letting him know with this parable.
SPEAKER_00: Again, most of the people will not understand this.
SPEAKER_00: But this parable is teaching them that power of the kingdom, that power of the king, it's right there in front of them.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look like much right now.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like a mustard seed.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to transform the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's the natal kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The small birth kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 17, Jesus says, the kingdom doesn't come to you with signs that can be observed.
SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, the kingdom is in your midst.
SPEAKER_00: They look at it and they don't under they don't they don't even recognize it.
SPEAKER_00: But this is their king and this is their kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So small.
SPEAKER_00: Second.
SPEAKER_00: It will grow into the millennial kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom ends so huge.
SPEAKER_00: It has such this inauspicious start.
SPEAKER_00: The boat in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: It is going to grow.
SPEAKER_00: From that point, it is going to grow like the kudzu.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to grow like vines that cover the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of his teaching here.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom, the seed will be scattered, churches will grow, people will be added to it, the gospel will grow in their hearts, weeds will grow in the world, yet they'll win.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, it's going to grow and start to permeate the whole, the whole dough, the whole batch of dough, the whole earth will be permeated by this small amount of yeast.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to return to this in Matthew chapter 16 and say the key, the keys of the kingdom go to Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Peter gets the keys because of the confession of Jesus as Christ, as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so the church is going to be built on the confession of Christ as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be led by elders, Jesus says, by giving the keys to Peter.
SPEAKER_00: It's emblematic of elders leading the church.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 18, he makes that very, very clear.
SPEAKER_00: You enter the kingdom, Matthew 16, through confessing Jesus as Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You exit the church, you get disciplined out of the church by persisting in sin.
SPEAKER_00: The elders of the church in Matthew 18 oversee that.
SPEAKER_00: So he's teaching these basics of the church.
SPEAKER_00: You think if Jesus is going to teach two things about church discipline, I mean about the church, why does he focus on membership and church discipline?
SPEAKER_00: Why not like music style or something?
SPEAKER_00: Pews or chairs.
SPEAKER_00: Give us something to work here with, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Service times.
SPEAKER_00: That would help.
SPEAKER_00: No, he gives you membership and discipline.
SPEAKER_00: Elder led.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he tells you.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think they understood.
SPEAKER_00: Because then they go in the upper room after his death.
SPEAKER_00: They're hiding in there.
SPEAKER_00: The angels have told them go in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus told them to go in the world.
SPEAKER_00: No, they're in the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: But once the Spirit drives them out in the world and the church starts, they're going to draw to mind all that Jesus taught them.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to remember what he said.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel is going to grow around the world.
SPEAKER_00: It is going to grow.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus dies, there's a few.
SPEAKER_00: Who is next to when he died?
SPEAKER_00: John?
SPEAKER_00: His mother?
SPEAKER_00: A handful of people?
SPEAKER_00: That's so small.
SPEAKER_00: And now look at us.
SPEAKER_00: The church is everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: That's this parable.
SPEAKER_00: He prophesies it's gonna go around the world.
SPEAKER_00: You get in the book of Acts, and they're in the upper room, remember?
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit comes.
SPEAKER_00: Peter preaches.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is building the church off of Peter's preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Peter preaches, and thousands get saved, thousands get baptized and added to the church right then.
SPEAKER_00: They went from a hundred plus people to thousands of people in one day.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't see that coming.
SPEAKER_00: And then it keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: They get driven by persecution everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them run to Syria.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul, Saul at the time, is chasing him down, trying to catch them and persecute them.
SPEAKER_00: And God catches Saul first and saves him.
SPEAKER_00: Sends him off to Spain eventually.
SPEAKER_00: He's like the dog that finally caught the car.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: He's going after the Christians and he got them.
SPEAKER_00: He was chasing them off to Nineveh, really.
SPEAKER_00: That's where they're going, Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: And God turns them around and sends him to Tarshish.
SPEAKER_00: Sends him back over to Spain, saves the guy.
SPEAKER_00: The Ethiopian eunuch, which is a court official.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can diminish eunuchs, they're court officials.
SPEAKER_00: They're a regal position, really, gets saved.
SPEAKER_00: And sent to start a church in Ethiopia.
SPEAKER_00: Paul gets to Rome and he's witnessing the slaves, he's witnessing the criminals, and then by the book of Philippians, he says, people in Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Household are hearing the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, the gospel does get to Spain.
SPEAKER_00: It does get to England.
SPEAKER_00: It does get to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you start seeing Roman leaders getting saved.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel keeps going forward around the world.
SPEAKER_00: It goes all the way present day.
SPEAKER_00: To Anandale.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: The disciples didn't even know what an Anandale is.
SPEAKER_00: From the Middle East to the world.
SPEAKER_00: And it's transforming governments, it's transforming kingdoms.
SPEAKER_00: And it's never about the governments, of course.
SPEAKER_00: It's about people getting saved.
SPEAKER_00: And then some of them are in the government, and you start to see cultural transformation in ridiculous ways that would be on the imagination of the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: They felt cheated because they wanted Jesus overthrowing Rome instead of Jesus upsets the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: You think even of, I was thinking just recently of the United States' role in all this.
SPEAKER_00: How many missionaries has the United States sent out in our couple hundred years of history?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's more than any other nation in the world, but it's got to be close.
SPEAKER_00: And the way Christianity has permeated our own, especially, you know, a century ago, permeated our own nation.
SPEAKER_00: We stand for life and we protect the dignity of women and we have certain basic freedoms in the world that we have learned to export around the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy when you think of the way our nation has impacted the world through Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And it's never been about, you know, we're going to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's always just the transformative power of Christianity in people that God puts in various places and they start doing various things.
SPEAKER_00: It's like there's no cohesive plan that we can see from our side, and yet from the other side, Jesus is directing people everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, nations rise and nations fall.
SPEAKER_00: Rome built the roads that carried the gospel everywhere, and then Rome falls.
SPEAKER_00: It's never about the nation, it's always about the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Nations rise and nations fall, but the gospel reigns undefeated.
SPEAKER_00: That's the image that Jesus is describing in this parable.
SPEAKER_00: The nations of the earth will come to the shade of the tree, and it's not about the bird themselves.
SPEAKER_00: It's just the picture.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is going to transform the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Old Testament picture of the gospel, too.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a growth that is fulfilled in this age.
SPEAKER_00: You see the gospel growing in this age, you see the yeast permeating in this age.
SPEAKER_00: You see the mustard bush growing in this age, but you don't get the full extent of it until the millennial kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Think of all the scripture describes about the millennial kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord says to his king, I will make the nations your inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: You will rule them with an iron scepter.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 72, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: The nations will bow down before the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 2, verse 44.
SPEAKER_00: In those days, God's kingdom will never be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: He will set up a kingdom that will never end and that will never be left to another people.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Ezekiel prophesies the millennial kingdom by pointing to the mountains of Israel and saying, The day is coming where an enemy will no longer set foot on you ever again.
SPEAKER_00: That's Daniel 2, 45.
SPEAKER_00: All the so-called kingdoms of the earth will be crushed and brought to an end, and God's kingdom will endure forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: I love it when Daniel calls the other kingdoms so-called.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 7, verse 14 says, The ancient of days will come to earth.
SPEAKER_00: And given him will be dominion and power and glory and honor over all peoples and all nations and all languages who will serve him forever.
SPEAKER_00: This dominion is an everlasting dominion.
SPEAKER_00: It will never pass away.
SPEAKER_00: His kingdom will never be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: That's Daniel 7, 14.
SPEAKER_00: Micah chapter 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: It will come to pass in the later days, the mountain of the house of Yahweh will be established as the highest of the mountains.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, it's not even the highest mountain in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been there, Mount Zion is low.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the basin.
SPEAKER_00: The Mount of Olives is over it.
SPEAKER_00: The amount of what we call now the Mount of Betrayal is over it.
SPEAKER_00: The whole Jerusalem is over Mount Zion.
SPEAKER_00: It's the bottom of the barrel.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah says when the Savior comes back, he's going to crush Mount Olives.
SPEAKER_00: He'll split it in two to make channel for the river to flow out of the temple, which would flow that way to the Dead Sea, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: And he will set up his kingdom from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, which you can remember from the med to the dead to the red.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to reign over it all, reorienting the topography of the place to elevate Mount Zion over everything.
SPEAKER_00: Micah 4, as I said, verse 1, it'll be established as the highest of the mountains.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be lifted above the hills, and the people will flow to it.
SPEAKER_00: Many nations will come and say, Come, let us go to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of God, that he can teach us his ways, so we can walk in his paths.
SPEAKER_00: For out of Zion will flow forth the law, and the word of Yahweh will flow out of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah says, In that day, no one will have any need to be taught anything because the Lord will be near everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah says that he will bring peace because the governments of the nations will be on his shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: Haggai says he will shake the earth, and the gold and the silver will flow to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is difficult to even use hyperbole to describe what the kingdom will be like.
SPEAKER_00: And to think that starts with Jesus on a boat in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of these parables.
SPEAKER_00: It's typical Jesus that he uses something so small and insignificant to transform the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see those two points, the natal kingdom and the millennial kingdom, even in the person of Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, well, even before time, Jesus as the Son of God is reigning over the universe.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 1, Jesus is the word which creates the universe.
SPEAKER_00: He is walking in the garden, so to speak, with Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: He has a front row seat to the devil's attack.
SPEAKER_00: The devil wants to attack him, but can't, so he strikes Adam and Eve instead.
SPEAKER_00: The slime of the devil leaving the garden would have gone right by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He watches depravity go through human history, coursing through everybody's veins, until finally he judges the earth and floods the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He won't endure mankind forever, floods the earth and starts over.
SPEAKER_00: And again watches sin run its wicked way through the world.
SPEAKER_00: Biding his time, one chapter of sinful history after another.
SPEAKER_00: Until finally, in the fullness of time, in fullness, he's the one in charge.
SPEAKER_00: This is his plan, his design.
SPEAKER_00: When his calendar said it's time to come to earth, he comes to earth.
SPEAKER_00: And he does not come to earth riding a horse with truth and justice written on his leg and a sword over his head and blood up to the bridle of the horses.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how he comes.
SPEAKER_00: He'll come that way a second time, but that's not how he comes the first time.
SPEAKER_00: How does he come the first time?
SPEAKER_00: As literally an embryo, a fetus, the smallest possible human being.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Bethlehem, in a manger, with the animal droppings and the a manger.
SPEAKER_00: It's a teenage, a teenage mom.
SPEAKER_00: In nowhere, with an audience of shepherds and sheep.
SPEAKER_00: Can you get any lower than this?
SPEAKER_00: The king of heaven to that.
SPEAKER_00: What would make it lower?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if the king finds out about it and tries to kill all the babies, that makes it lower.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if he's run out of town, has to be a refugee and flee to Egypt, that would make it lower.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if he comes back and resettles in like Galilee or Nazareth or somewhere forgotten, that would make it lower.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's nothing, nothing worth recording for decades except faithfully plotting through and keeping the law that nobody even notices.
SPEAKER_00: That would make it lower.
SPEAKER_00: You can't go any lower than he goes.
SPEAKER_00: To a boat in Galilee with thousands of people, many of whom want him dead, and they finally accomplish their murderous schemes by killing him, nailing him to a cross, surrounded by a murderer and a robber and an insurrectionist.
SPEAKER_00: They value the murderer and the insurrectionist over him.
SPEAKER_00: They put it to a public vote and they vote that they like the insurrectionist more than him.
SPEAKER_00: How much lower could he go?
SPEAKER_00: Buried into the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much lower he can go.
SPEAKER_00: Down to Sheol.
SPEAKER_00: He'll go all the way down there.
SPEAKER_00: The seed will drop to the core of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: But that's where it starts to grow, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And it comes back up to the ground, bursting back out of the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Teaching the disciples, then sending them to scatter the gospel in the world as the tree grows all the way to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Jesus comes.
SPEAKER_00: And we know how the story ends.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 5, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: You will make them martyrs, rule over a kingdom by being a priest to all the nations, and they will reign on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 11, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: The seventh angel blows his trumpet, and there are voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And he will reign forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 12, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of Christ have come, and the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down.
SPEAKER_00: He who accuses them night and day before our God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the last part of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And his authority will be over them all.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see why this would be encouraging to the disciples on a boat surrounded by people that don't understand, thinking this is this is pointless.
SPEAKER_00: Pointless.
SPEAKER_00: It's so much better than they could imagine.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that encourages you.
SPEAKER_00: We have so much more knowledge than the disciples had.
SPEAKER_00: So we should have so much more confidence.
SPEAKER_00: What is absurd to them should be just very like the next step for us.
SPEAKER_00: Bold faith bringing the gospel to the world.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful that the kingdom of heaven started small, otherwise, we wouldn't have seen your power displayed in it.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel grows, in a sense, like a weed all around the world.
SPEAKER_00: Transforming people, wrapping up sinners in its clutch and changing their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Such were some of us, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for the way the cores of the gospel got a hold of us.
SPEAKER_00: We're so encouraged by the promise that the kingdom will grow, so small, and yet take over the world.
SPEAKER_00: We long for that day.
SPEAKER_00: We long for your second coming to bring us home, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Wrap this up.
SPEAKER_00: Establish your kingdom in person as you reign over the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Until that day, Lord, keep us faithful.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I invite you to stand for our benediction.
SPEAKER_00: There's any way we can pray for you, encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: If you want information about baptism or church membership, what it means to follow Christ, please come find one of our elders.
SPEAKER_00: We're being right by the table outside there.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to encourage you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Go in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, walk in his ways, do his will, serve him with boldness and gladness, and hope to see you back tonight.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.