Text: Matthew 13:31-33
Focus: Evangelism
Function: To help people see that church growth is one person at a time.
Form: Bible Study
Intro:
This chapter is a rapid succession of parables that are given to illustrate principles of the Kingdom of heaven that are important to God. There are 7 Parables about the Kingdom of Heaven.
The first 2 are about how God plants the Kingdom of heaven. The first, deals with the fact that God plants all good seed, but some people ignore it, others get distracted, some are excited for a while and the majority grow up and reproduce others
The second one we looked at last week and it stresses how important each and every individual is to God. It gave us principles for protecting one another, especially the weakest among us.
The 5th and 6th speak about the incredible value that the Kingdom of heaven is for us. It is like a hidden treasure, that is worth everything we have. It is like a fine pearl that is so beautiful, and such a great investment that it also is worth everything we have.
The 7th empathizes the ending of the one we looked at last week. It restates that God is the one who does the judging, not us.
Today, we are looking at the 3rd and 4th. In this list, they are my favorite because they describe the miraculous way that God causes the Kingdom of God to grow.
You already heard the two parables that illustrate the principles of the growth of the Kingdom of God when they were read.
The illustrative stories are simple: First: The smallest seed becomes a bush so large that it is oftentimes mistaken for a tree and second: a little bit of yeast multiplies and transforms loaf after loaf of bread.
Let us look at those two.
The mustard seed principle:
I don't know if Jesus had a mustard seed in his hand when He told this parable. I am sure the disciples understood just who small a mustard seed is.
I know for my sake, I like Grey Poupon mustard, and it is riddled with the little specks of mustard seed. Wikipedia says the are between 4 to 8 hundredths of an inch.
Jesus' point being that although they grow fairly large, they start out very small.
The disciples were 11 when Jesus rose from the dead and now the Kingdom of God is the largest faith in the entire world.
The Church of the Brethren was 8 people when it started out, and now it has 120,000 members. John and Charles Wesley, who started the Methodist Church were just two men, and now the Methodists number around 12,000,000.
The principle behind this parable is that the growth us up to God and God does big things with small numbers.
God will still do big things with us.
God makes everything new, all the time. Jesus promised us that He would be with the church, our church, until the end of this age. Jesus has not given up His covenant with us. He has not given up on His promise with us.
The disciples were getting ready to take on a monumental task. They didn't have the Internet, billboards, TV and radio advertising, publishers to manage perceptions, or marketing consultants to create the proper image.
All they had was faith in God. They had faith that God would fulfill His promise to them.
So, principle number one about the growth of God's Kingdom, through us, is this: Do not look at the size of our resources, look to God who promises.
The second parable, the yeast making bread rise, gives a principle about the specific mechanism about how that works.
I wonder just how much of a mystery yeast causing dough to rise was to the peoples of Jesus' time.
It wasn't like they had microscopes to understand cellular mechanics. They didn't know about germs. I am sure through their science they knew that mold was generally bad and yeast was generally good. They may have figured out that the two are related. But to see into the biology of all that, to know the difference between a virus and bacteria was something that was beyond their science.
So, Jesus is explaining to them a mystery. I don't think they thought it was magic. But they could not yet place a finger on it and explain why.
It was something wonderful to them.
I don't know how the Holy Spirit works in the heart of individual people. I don't know what has happening inside my the day I gave my life to Jesus.
I do know this. I had a broken life, I was at my end, and God's Spirit whispered into my heart that if I trusted Him, not only would He forgive me, but He would heal my brokenness.
Am I completely healed? Not yet. Part of me is doing pretty good, much better than I was, but I still need God to fix me. Our faith just keeps on growing.
So, to the disciples the question must have been: How did yeast just keep on getting bigger and bigger? How come one small bit of yeast, given time transform not only one batch of dough, but several?
Jesus mentions this. It is used to transform 3 batches. The same amount transforms one, and given time, as many as you want.
Jesus is pointing out that the effect of one to another cannot be readily stopped.
We know from our science that the effect isn't a loaf at a time, but that the yeast spreads through the loaf, rather quickly, but it spreads from one individual cell to the next.
And that is how the Kingdom of God is intended to grow.
I remember a big evangelistic crusade when I want forward to recommit my life to Christ Jesus.
I heard the preaching, my heart was convinced, my spirit responded and Jesus came inside of me.
Evangelism worked in this big group setting whereby the preacher proclaimed the message and we were invited to respond and then we were invited to join the community.
When Cornelius, the Roman Centurion was converted in Acts 10, Peter was in the middle of his sermon when all of a sudden Cornelius believed. Peter never finished that sermon, he never gave an altar call. The yeast of the Holy Spirit took heart in Cornelius' soul and he became a Christ follower.
But there is something very significant in this parable. This idea that the growth happens on a cellular level. There is a metaphor for us in this concept.
I mentioned the times when I went forward in Church as a response to a very powerful sermon.
I heard a sermon, I made a decision to trust Christ Jesus and then, after I went into training, took classes, made an application to join, they invited me to a relationship with them.
But when I read this scripture, how there is a natural progression from one cell to another, I see something.
They are already part of the same lump of dough.
When Jesus is telling us how evangelism is supposed to work, He is talking to each and every one of us.
He is talking about how we, as Christians, bring a blessing to the people around us.
I am working PT sales for a local roofing company. It has been a HOT WEEK up on those roofs!
My clients, when they find out that I am a local pastor as well, immediately, almost all of them ask me to pray for them about something.
People are hungry for spiritual things.
Many of them don't know who they can trust.
But we, when are doing our work as a cell in a lump of dough have the unique and direct blessing of being a blessing and an agent of change for those who are around us.
Instead of hearing a message, accepting a call and then applying to membership, I believe Jesus is teaching us, to build a relationship first, then be open to the questions that bring transformation, and then, a person becomes converted.
When I study this parable, it reminds me to rethink our method of evangelism.
I do appreciate the big meetings with the powerful preacher. I remember one, and we had a really big name come in. And during the altar call, no one seemed to want to respond.
I remember feeling my heart well up inside of me so I went up on the stage and joined the evangelist.
And I looked at the people, I have been the pastor there for over 5 years and I repeated the appeal the evangelist just made.
And several people came up to ask for prayer.
The evangelist, afterwards said this to me: It explains what I mean about building a relationship first. He said: “the people came because they know you, the trust you. Me, they don't know me. I can preach up a storm , but they came forward because they know you. It is relationship that people are truly transformed.
The yeast is only going to spread through the lump of dough from one cell to another. Every cell is important. Jesus is telling the disciples that evangelism will work through relationship. It is true that in the first few weeks of the church, thousands of people believed as a response to powerful preaching. But as a principle, Jesus isn't counting on the preacher alone to grow the church. The growth comes when we make intentional relationships with people.
We build a relationship first, we are all part of the same lump of dough. We directly affect those around us and then, and only then does the transformation happen.
People wonder who they can trust. Well, they can trust you. They know you and you are credible people. You are believable. And the Holy Spirit is in you, he is that yeast, that transforming agent in your lives.
I was talking to Johnnie March. He is a pastor in London, England at a church that is directly across the street from the famous department story, Harrods.
They run the “Alpha Course.” And they share it. Kathy and I attended an Alpha Course to check it out, and although the Church is Anglican, they have made a Roman Catholic version. They don't care about the name above the door as much as they do introducing people to Jesus.
The alpha course is a very basic introduction to Christianity. It is simple stuff. It is theology that could be understood by a 5th grader.
Johnnie told me of a woman who attended the small group that he was leading. She told them the first night that she didn't even believe if there was a God, she was at best, an agnostic and maybe even an atheist.
After the course of was over, she decided to take it again. At the end of it, she told Johnnie that she still wasn't going to be a Christian. He asked why she kept attending and she answered: “I love the community, the way I feel a part of something.”
A few weeks later, the church was doing an outreach in a poorer neighborhood. It was sort of like us collecting school supplies, except they were passing out free school supplies in this neighborhood in the name of Jesus as a ministry of their church.
A couple of people started an argument with them about Christianity. And the woman started defending Christianity. She started telling them things that she not only learned, but apparently believed from her instruction in the alpha course.
After the people left, Johnnie, with a wink in his eye said to her: “I thought you weren't a Christian.” To which she replied, with her own look of wonder, “I guess I am a Christian.”
That is the point. Believers were patient with her, loving and accepting and eventually, the yeast, through their community transformed this woman.
Growth, renewal and change, the rising of the loaf happens on an individual level.
Since Jesus has came into your lives, He has made a difference in you.
There is no hiding that change. It gives you hope, it gives you peace in the midst of trials, it gives you comfort in the midst of pain, it gives you grace in the midst of failure and it gives you the character to admit your need for God and each other.
And that is how God wants the Church to grow.
CONCL:
No comments:
Post a Comment