Sermon Notes Luke 13:18-21 Townfield 6/7/14 A vicar friend of mine justified the state of his vicarage garden by explaining his theology of

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1 Sermon Notes Luke 13:18-21 Townfield 6/7/14 A vicar friend of mine justified the state of his vicarage garden by explaining his theology of gardening. The first sin took place in a garden. The first murder took place in a garden (well, a field). Jesus was arrested in a garden. Far too dangerous a place to be! We ve heard two short, apparently simple parables of Jesus about the kingdom of God. The first of these speaks of planting a mustard seed in a garden. Jesus often used everyday material things as an illustration of deeper spiritual realities. So let s try to unpack these two parables a bit. What do they mean? Here s a picture of a mustard seed mustard seeds measure 1-2mm; and here s a couple of types of full grown mustard tree. Usually 3-6 feet high but can grow to ft high & wide. The second type can grow to 25 feet. You can see from this why mustard was regarded in the middle east as something of a weed not only because of its appearance however but because once planted it s very difficult to get rid of, as the seed when it falls germinates at once, and the seeds are so small they are easily blown or carried around. Like a mustard seed was a common saying for something that was v small. Jesus hearers would have immediately understood this parable as relating to something that starts extremely small, but grows fast and spreads, quickly becoming firmly established, and impossible to eradicate. It s easy to relate this parable to the growth of God s kingdom as a whole. Jesus began his ministry with a handful of followers. After his resurrection, at the time he ascended into heaven, the group of believers numbered about 120; not so very different from the no of people here today. But then at Pentecost the explosive growth began: 3000 added to their number in one day, then soon thousands more, then over the succeeding years Christianity spread across the whole known world; today over 2bn people of the world s 7bn population would claim to be Christian, and although you may say, rightly, many of them haven t really understood Christianity, don t live in a relationship with Christ and it doesn t make much difference to their lives, there is still an enormous number of people who do follow him. And like mustard, even more so, the kingdom has proved impossible to eradicate. There are many countries in the world where in the past or even now people have tried to eradicate the Christian church. Christians have been persecuted, imprisoned, killed. (eg China.) But the church refuses to die. Instead it is refined and purified and the core which remains is strengthened to survive and even to flourish.

2 That s an encouragement to us to know that we are not alone; we are part of an enormous and growing family to which we are all connected spiritually. When we look around and think, there s not that many of us here; when you look around perhaps your family or workplace and feel very much alone as the only Christian, be assured that you are not alone; you are part of this worldwide family. But there s more to understand from this parable (indeed both of them) if we look at it not only in terms of the global church but in terms of the work of God within each individual person and how faith grows and impacts on our life. Often people start experiencing God s kingdom and responding to Jesus Christ in quite small ways. But this seed, if nourished and not stifled, will grow. It s not just the church as a whole that grows like a mustard seed, but faith in the life of the individual Christian. This isn t the only place where mustard seeds are linked with faith. In Matthew 17, Jesus says, If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Some of you may be fans of Adrian Plass books and may have read the part where, challenged by this passage, he decides to practice exercising his faith on a paper clip. He sits with a paper clip on the desk in front of him and wills it to move by faith. His wife and son, outside the room, hear him getting more & more agitated telling this clip to move and getting very frustrated and discouraged when it won t. But of course he s missed the point; that is not what faith is about. Faith is exercised with a purpose. It s not for magic tricks what would be the point in moving a paper clip with your mind instead of your fingers none at all! He could easily move the paper clip whenever he wanted by picking it up! Jesus is talking about exercising our faith to bring about the purposes of God, trusting him. Let me give you an example. (Story of church needing to literally move a mountain I don t know for sure whether true, heard different variations of it, but I do know God answers prayers like this). And faith is not so much about us as about God it s not a question of how much faith you have so much as who you put that faith in. So the growth of the mustard seed is also about the growth of faith in our lives. As we find we can trust God in small things we learn to trust him in bigger things. But you know this doesn t just happen automatically. The mustard plant may be very hardy and fertile but it still needs the right conditions for the seed to grow. It needs soil, light, warmth and moisture.

3 Just as it s hard to eradicate mustard plants, once we ve allowed the Holy Spirit to start working in our lives it s very hard to push him out completely. But we certainly can, and often do, restrict and hamper his work. If we want our faith to grow and flourish we need to nurture it. We need to spend time building the relationship through prayer and study, worship and fellowship, and living it out through serving God. In my experience faith grows most of all through trusting God through difficult times, and through trusting him when stepping out in new ways taking up a new area of service, trusting him with an area of our life in a way we haven t before, obeying him in something he is calling us to do or in turning away from something we now know is wrong, & so on. Let me turn to the second parable, the yeast. At first sight, this gives us a very similar message about the growth of the kingdom. How many of you like baking? I ve never baked a cake or bread but like eating them! Baking again would have been very familiar in the time and culture when Jesus told this parable. Every household baked their own bread. The point is that a tiny amount of yeast works its way through a large volume of dough, and has a massive impact on it. In the same way God s kingdom, starting small, has spread right around the world, and impacted it greatly. You might say, well I suppose that s encouraging in a way, but so what! However, like the parable of the mustard seed, we can look at this parable in the sense of the growth of the kingdom within the life of the individual believer both in terms of God s work within us, and his work through us. When I lived in London, I bought a flat, which was a bit of a wreck. I worked through it, room by room, doing it up. I paced myself, doing one room at a time, which meant that for a long time, parts of the flat were not so nice to live in, but I simply couldn t do it all at once. Later I sold it & bought a house and again there was a lot of work to do. Before moving in I had the two downstairs rooms knocked into one; so there was mess & new plasterwork and those rooms needed decorating quickly; at the same time, the main bedroom had polystyrene ceiling tiles which needed stripping, and I needed to get the spare room decorated and fitted out for a lodger, and it became a bit like challenge Annika, drafting in friends to help get everything done quickly.

4 The normal experience of a Christian is more like the first flat. When we receive Jesus as Lord & saviour the HS comes to live in us like moving in day. He then begins a process of renovation which goes on and on all our lives. If he tried to tackle everything at once, it would be too much for us to cope with; we wouldn t know ourselves. And he only goes at the pace at which we allow him. So he ll start work on the highest priorities leaving others till later. And there may be some rooms which we shut him out of either because we think they are fine or because we don t want to sacrifice things in that area just yet. Sometimes, as he begins to work on us, we become aware of other areas which aren t quite as ok as we thought they were. (example). Again, just as I talked about allowing the seed of faith to germinate and grow in us, we need to allow God s work to spread through every area of our lives. Our relationship with God isn t just about Sunday morning. It s about our work, school, family, leisure and everything we do; every part of our life needs to be lived under his authority and involving him in it as part of our relationship. Again, we need to nurture that relationship. The power to change comes from the outside, from God s HS: the dough doesn t change itself. I think we can also view the parable of the yeast as relating to God s work through the life of the individual Christian. As Christians, we should be a positive influence on people around us those we come into contact with in every area of life, school, work, family, leisure as well as church. Remember Jesus parable about light and salt? No one hides a lamp under a bowl; you put it where it can give light to the room. Our role is to shine out as his witnesses to those around us. Salt is useless if it loses its saltiness. Salt is not just a flavour enhancer, but a preservative it stops things going bad. Part of our role is to stop the world going bad. We need to bring the light of Christ and the yeast of the gospel into the lives of others. We do that through the way we live our lives, the way we treat others, and the example we set; we do it through what we say as well as what we do. So do we take part in gossip; sexual innuendo and immorality; dishonesty over expenses and business practices? Or do we take a stand for what we know is right, and seek to influence others for good? The yeast of the gospel will not spread well unless we do it. Just as there is hard work involved in kneading dough to get the yeast to spread through it, there is hard work in spreading the spiritual yeast into our schools, homes and workplaces. It takes commitment and faithfulness. But it does bring results too.

5 Going back to the mustard tree, Jesus speaks of the birds perching in its branches. If we live out our relationship with the Lord and allow him to work in and through us, we will help others to find a place of refuge, of peace and safety. I m also reminded of something else Jesus said about yeast: he said one day to his disciples, beware the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. Yeast can represent something bad as well as something good. Bad things can spread and affect others too. If we re honest we all know in our own experience how Satan can get a hold of us, how bad habits can grow and develop, how temptations yielded to can flourish and take a damaging hold. Just like the work of the Spirit, this can impact not only on us but on those around us, damaging our witness and hampering their faith. This is a type of yeast which we need to beware of and resist. We need God s Holy Spirit to grow and develop his work in our lives and we need to work to be faithful to him and resist the traps of the enemy. Both mustard and yeast are very small in the beginning but produce something much larger. God s work begins almost invisibly yet grows and grows and eventually, if we allow him, comes to impact every area of our life, and all those we come into contact with, as part of a much wider movement growing the kingdom around the world. So to finish, some questions: will you allow the seed to grow, the yeast to spread? Will you allow God s spirit to work in you, and work with him, to clean out all the dark corners, to transform you and enable your faith to grow? Will you nurture that faith and build on your relationship with the Lord through study and prayer, fellowship and faithful service and witness? Will you seek to spread the yeast of faith through the dark world of dough in which we live?