You're listening to audio from Faith Church, located on the North Side Of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now, here's the teaching. Alright. Good morning, everyone.

It's good to be here with you all. My name is Pastor Joey, by the way. If we've never met, this is my chance to introduce myself. I'm glad you're here this Sunday. We are three weeks into the Lenten season.

Lent is those forty days plus the Sundays leading up to Easter where the church throughout history has focused on realigning itself with God's kingdom, with God's purpose for the church in the world. You know, historically, the church has done that by adopting practices of prayer or fasting or or intentional acts of generous love or generosity and love. But the Lenten season is also one of those, seasons in the calendar where maybe those spiritual disciplines we've kinda let fall away. Like, this is a good time to sort of bring those back into practice. I don't know.

Maybe there's something that, God is sort of speaking to you about, practice of prayer or fasting that you wanna readopt. But on our Sunday mornings, to help us all focus in on God's call to live in his kingdom, we've been taking different parables, these short stories that Jesus told, and we've been diving deep into one each each weekend. Before we jump into today's parable of the mustard seed, two verses, a short one, let's just pray briefly together. Father, as we open your word, would you bless the speaking and the hearing of it, that we may grow in love for you. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, I'm guessing that at some point all of us have had the same elementary school experience. Maybe it was kindergarten or first grade or second grade. Do you remember that day you walked into class and your teacher had prepared, like, she'd taken an egg carton or a couple of egg cartons and and cut them up so everybody got their own individual little cup, and, you know, they passed them around and everybody wrote their names on their cups. I'm just gonna write little Joey on this one.

I did not eggs are too expensive for me to go buy a dozen of them just to have an egg carton to cut up up here. So I've got this little cup. You'll just have to use your imagination. But, your teacher passes out the egg cartons and then comes around, and everybody's little egg carton cup gets a scoop or two of dirt in it. Really good, messy stuff that you immediately try to rub into the hair of the girl who sits in front of you.

And you take the the cup of dirt. Do you remember doing this? You take the cup of dirt, you stick your your pinky in there, and you make a little little spot in it, and then she comes around with some seeds. And you get to take a seed or two and drop it in there, brush the dirt back over the top of it like that, add a little bit of water. They always say not too much, but if a little bit of water is good, a lot of water is great.

Right? So you fill it up with water, and then you take it home. Give it to your mommy, your dad, or your grandma, your grandpa, and aunt, and uncle, whoever, and they put it up on the windowsill and remind you every day, like, don't forget to water it. Keep it in the window where it's gonna stay warm. It's gonna get sunlight.

And do you remember every day coming down in the morning and, like, looking at it to see if anything had had come out yet? I remember when Anna did this for the first time. I don't know if she's in kindergarten or first grade, but, like, when we did it, it was just one little pea plant. But when she did it, they they, like, filled it with grass seeds, so she was expecting to just see, you know, amazing things. She came down that first day and took a look at it and was like, there's nothing.

It's like, well, you know, we had to explain, honey, it takes a while. Right? Seeds have to germinate under the dirt for a while. You're not going to see anything for a couple of days, but give it a week or give it two weeks, and eventually you you'll see something. And every day she came down and took a look, and every day there was nothing until finally that that day, that morning where some tiny little green shoots were they were like the palest green were coming up out of the dirt, and and I still remember the look on her face.

It was just a look of absolute wonder. How does something like a like a seed I mean, it looks like a little piece of orange dirt. I mean, you're gonna have to take it, you know, on faith that I'm holding some seeds here. I don't know if you can see those, but I'm losing them. I got a whole jar.

It's fine. How does something that that looks like a little piece of dirt turn into something green and growing? I mean, seeds are are pretty magical if you think about it. They are they're totally inert. There's nothing happening until you get them in just the right environment, somewhere where it's dark and wet and and warm and dirty, and then something inside of them is unleashed.

Life emerges and begins clawing its way to the surface to find air and sun. Something as tiny and as insignificant as a seed carries inside of it the power to become a a towering plant or a majestic tree. The seed, by its own force, by its own potency, its own life that it contains in itself, seeds create a brand new reality out of nothing but dirt and water and air and sun. It's crazy. And it's a lot like the kingdom of God, Jesus says.

These these two short verses, these these mini parable is a a window into the kingdom of God. You Now, some parables act like doors. They invite us to enter into a new way of living. Some parables act like mirrors. They sort of reflect ourselves back to ourselves in light of the kingdom.

But this parable is a window. It invites us to look through it to see clearly what the kingdom of God is is really like. It's a short little story that invites us to to bring all of our expectations for how God is supposed to work in the world. Right? All of our preconceived notions about the way God does what he does and and the way God rules in our life and in our world, and we get to take all of those and look through the window of this little parable to see the kingdom of God, from a different vantage point, see it in a new way, in a new light.

Jesus is inviting us to have our view of the kingdom disrupted by looking at it in a different way, a better way, a truer way. So let's take a look. It's Matthew thirteen thirty one and thirty two. Actually, the gospel of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each record Jesus saying this short little parable, and each tell the parable in a slightly different way with slightly different words. The point is the same in all of them, but that just means Jesus used this analogy a lot.

It was one of his go to ways of disrupting people's preconceived notions about what God's kingdom would look like. You might remember that at Jesus' time, the average Jewish person was a committed follower of Yahweh, Israel's God, God, and Israel as a nation was living under subjection. They'd been taken over by Rome. They were living under military occupation, like France under Germany in World War II or like parts of Ukraine under Russia right now. Now, Jewish people always thought of themselves as God's own chosen people.

There's a good reason for that. God told them, you're my chosen people. Thank you. God said, I'm gonna I'm gonna care for you. I'm choosing you.

I'll bless you and guide you and lead you and and protect you and and care for you. So the Jewish people always thought of themselves as God's chosen ones, but now it really didn't feel like God actually was caring for and protecting and leading and guiding and shepherding them. With with Romans in charge, no one felt like, oh, this is the golden age. Right? This is what we've been waiting for.

No. It was nothing like under King David or King Solomon. But they depended on, they relied on a promise that God had made, that He would send an anointed one to rescue them, an anointed one. In Hebrew it's the word Messiah, right? In Greek it's Christ.

So the average Jewish person at Jesus' time was praying fervently and regularly that Yahweh, the God who promised to protect them, would send his Christ, his Messiah, his Anointed One, to rescue them and bless them and guide and lead and care for and protect them again. Which I think reasonably they assumed meant that this Christ would somehow lead in a military victory over the occupying Roman forces. I mean, not sure not sure exactly how, but obviously, that would be the key way to tell if someone really was the Messiah, the Christ. He'd be the one who would deliver them. And when he did, he'd he'd usher in, or the formal word is inaugurate.

He would inaugurate the kingdom of God. It's God's rule, God's reign on earth once again through the Jewish people. This is what everybody's hoping and waiting for. And then Jesus comes on the scene, and he begins teaching about the kingdom of God. He said, the kingdom of God is it's so close.

It's near. It's, like, right around the corner. Jesus seems to be saying that God's rule over all of Earth is actually embodied in him. And so he's talking about what life in God's kingdom really looks like. It's a it's a life of following Jesus, life that leads to wholeness, of peace.

It's a life of wholehearted devotion to God. And and Jesus is even doing miracles, which he says are are living pictures of what life in the kingdom will look like. But still, there's Romans everywhere. Soldiers all over the place. Right?

Nothing about Israel's situation is changing. Ask the average person and they wouldn't agree that evil has been defeated. People's lives are being affected positively. Sure. People are being healed.

People are following Jesus for the first time feeling like God loves them, that God loves them. But as great as all that is, is that the kingdom? Is that what we're supposed to be waiting for? Is God really gonna rule the world through a a homeless wandering rabbi and his ragtag group of a hundred or so followers? Someone at some point must have asked Jesus that question.

Is this really it? In fact, we know people ask Jesus that question. Jesus, are you the one or should we be waiting for another? Because this isn't what kingdom looks like. So Jesus, are you are you serious?

Right. Is what you're doing really kicking off the return of the king who will rule all of us in love? Is this the kingdom we're supposed to be waiting for? And the way I kinda see the scene playing out in my head is Jesus kinda chuckles a little bit, and then he says, have you ever seen a mustard seed? Look Look at the way Matthew records it here in Matthew thirteen thirty one and thirty two.

Jesus put another parable before them. Matthew says another parable because in the way he's organized his telling of Jesus's life, he's taken all the parable teachings and put them all into a couple of chapters. Like, here's all the parables together. So here's another parable. Jesus put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven, it's like a it's like a grain of of mustard seed that a man took and sowed it in in his field.

And it's the smallest of all the seeds, But when it's grown, it's larger than all the garden plants. It becomes a a tree so that birds of the air can come and and make nests in its branches. The kingdom of heaven, it's like a grain of of mustard seed. Now the kingdom of heaven, that's another way of saying the kingdom of God. Jesus used the two phrases kinda interchangeably.

The the kingdom of heaven is like it's like a mustard seed. A mustard seed. It's it's a it's a tiny seed. I just lost it. It's one of the smallest.

It's not technically the smallest seed. It's one of the smallest. In fact, at Jesus' time, people knew there were smaller seeds. The orchid seed, the cypress seed. Yeah.

These are all both smaller, but the mustard seed was the analogy that people reached for, linguistically when they wanted to say, you know, the smallest possible thing. The mustard seed is just the smallest version of something there is. Jesus is being proverbial, not pedantic. He's not trying to be specific. It's like when we say, you know, oh, it's as big as the Grand Canyon, and there's always somebody, usually me, who's like, actually, you know, the Mariana Trench is like 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon, so right?

We're being proverbial, you know, when we're saying we're breaking something down to the atomic level, we're separating it into its smallest component parts, and then I'm like, actually, atoms are made of protons and neutrons, which are made of quarks. So atoms really aren't the smallest thing. Right? Do you love the actually guy? Yeah, he's your favorite.

The point is that Jesus is using a word picture that everyone agreed was the, I mean, it's the standard image of smallest thing possible, a mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that that that a man took and sowed it in his field. It's the smallest seed you can think of. But when it's grown larger than all the other garden plants and then it it becomes a tree, And the the actually guy shows up again because he's like, actually mustard seeds don't grow into trees. They grow into these tall, like, 10 foot spindly plants with yellow flowers at the top and some leaves down at the bottom.

And, actually, I think we have a picture of what a mustard seed plant looks like. That does that look like a tree to you? No. It's okay to say no because that's the point. Jesus is pushing the analogy beyond its normal borders, stretching the imaginations of the people listening to him.

He says, the kingdom of heaven, it's like it's like a mustard seed. It's the smallest beginnings of life imaginable, but once it's been planted and watered, it will grow, grow until it's larger than every other plant in the garden, until it's something entirely unexpected, until it's a tree. He's stretching their imagination. He's not messing up the details. He's asking them to imagine something bigger and more impressive than they would normally expect from even something this small.

He's saying from the from the mustard seed, the tiniest of all seeds, the most inauspicious and humble of beginnings, the smallest possible origin comes a tree, a tree so stately that birds can use it for their nesting. It actually pulls in another image that resonates within his culture. And in all sorts of different passages in the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. The nation of Israel is pictured as a tree. Right?

Oaks of righteousness, cedars of Lebanon. Handful of times, the the tree Israel image becomes a home. Birds and animals from from all over the world that are able to come and find shade and shelter and and make their nests and find their homes. It's a picture of a of a benevolent nation that is protecting the people around it. In other words, the nation of Israel is a place of blessing.

The kingdom of God is a place of blessing and belonging for everyone. Jews and Gentiles alike, everyone can find a home in the kingdom of God. So if we were to ask Jesus, how would you describe the kingdom of God? How will I know when I see it? What what should I be looking for?

Jesus says, well, have you ever looked at a at a mustard seed? Kingdom of God is like the tiniest little seed you can think of. Right? This is not much to look at in the beginning. But all it takes is someone planting the seed out in good ground where it's gonna get plenty of rain and sunlight and give it time, and what happens?

That that little seed, that tiniest of seeds, it grows beyond your wildest dreams. Up and up and up it goes until it's taller than the tomatoes in their cages, and it's taller than the peas on the trellis, and it's taller than the cornstalk standing in rows, and up and up and up it goes until it's towering over the rest of the garden, and up and up and up it goes until it's a tree and it's it's sending out branches far and wide, crooking this way and that until there's so much room for shelter and shade that innumerable birds can make their homes in the kingdom of God. Looks can be deceiving. You wouldn't think that tiny little mustard seed would become what I'm describing. But eventually, you'll get to see it.

From the tiniest beginning imaginable, from almost nothing, the kingdom of God grows until it encompasses everything. That's the point of the parable. The kingdom of God may start small, smaller than you would expect, smaller than you think is even viable, but it's gonna grow and grow and grow beyond your wildest expectations. So don't be discouraged by the smallness that you see around you right now. The kingdom might appear small right now in Jesus' preaching and His teaching and His work, His miracles.

But what you're seeing is actually a seed. It's not the whole thing, it's just the beginning. These two short little verses contain a whole world of comfort, especially for those who are reading these words shortly after they were written down. Remember, each of the guys who wrote down their memories and reflections specific group of people they had in mind as they were writing these words down. They wanted to encourage them, instruct them with the stories of Jesus.

When these guys were writing, when Matthew was writing down his stories of Jesus' life from his memories and his experiences, there were not that many Christians in the world. If it were possible for us to count up all the people in the greater Indianapolis area who are sitting in a church service right now, there are more people in church today in Indy than there were Christians when Matthew wrote this. It's pretty small, pretty insignificant, pretty inauspicious beginning to what would eventually become a global movement to where we're coordinating Beirut and Kyiv and Indianapolis all together in one place. So imagine imagine you are one of those first few hundred, those first few thousand followers of Jesus. There's only a handful of others, maybe a few dozen in the small town that you live in, that you're from.

All the rest of your friends and your family think that you're crazy for for believing in a messiah who was killed. Like, by definition, that makes him not the Messiah. But you've met him. You know he was resurrected. You found life in following Jesus.

He's changed your life. But the Jesus movement is so small right now. It's just a few of you. Is this really the kingdom? Is this what we're supposed to expect?

And Jesus says, have you ever looked at a mustard seed? You know, it it starts pretty small. And and that's the point of the parable. Small now doesn't mean small forever, especially not when the power of life in the seed is the power of God. Small now does not mean small forever, especially because the life in the seed is is the power of God.

See, this parable opens up a window and invites us to look through it to see what the kingdom of God is is really like. Because like a mustard seed or like any seed, really, you know, you can't make it grow. Right? I can't make it grow. I can put it in the right environment.

I could try to water it, keep it warm, put it in the sun, but I can't make it grow. There's there's no amount of human ingenuity or engineering or human power or or pressure. I can't just, like, send thoughts at it and make it grow. But just like the cup that my daughter brought home from kindergarten, there was nothing she could do just to make it grow. We just had to check and see what the the life in the seed was doing day after day.

We have to remember that because I think it's easy for us, or at least it's easy for me, to assume that God is only present in my work when it's in tree stage, right, but not when it's in seed stage. I don't know if you ever feel that way. It's like I I don't believe God is working unless I can see it. If He's working below ground, if things are germinating down there, I'm like, well, that doesn't count. I need to see something.

We can't make it grow just by our own wills. The power of the growth of the kingdom isn't in us. It's not in how smart we are or how clever we are or how well we explain things or how well we plan things or how well we, or how much we pray or how much we give or how much we sacrifice. We do those things, but those things, if anything, are are the soil. They're not the seed.

It's the way we water the seed and put it in the sun, but the power of the kingdom is not in us. It's in the seed. Which means smallness might be God's plan right now. Whatever you're experiencing, whatever you're praying for, you're praying for that healing you're praying for, the feeling of God's presence that you're longing for, or the work, the effort you're putting in that you're asking God to bless, the people you wanna see come to faith in in Jesus. Smallness doesn't mean God isn't present.

Smallness doesn't mean God isn't blessing. Smallness doesn't mean God doesn't care. It might just mean the kingdom still in the seed stage, just beginning to germinate. Maybe you're just staring at dirt. But under the surface, The power of in the seed is starting to grow.

So don't be discouraged by smallness. Don't be discouraged by smallness because God will grow His kingdom. His kingdom will come. Blessing will follow even if it looks like almost nothing, just a dead speck of dirt right now. If we are following Jesus, if we're following the King of the Kingdom, then that seed will one day flower and flourish until it becomes the place where any and all can find comfort and belonging, healing and hope in its branches.

Small now doesn't mean small forever, when the power in the seed is the power of God. Now I need a show of hands. How many of you are frustrated this hasn't grown anything yet? Okay. A couple of you.

Right. You were hoping there'd be a magic trick where I pulled on a string and and something came out. That would have been really good. I should have done that. But no.

I mean, if we're being realistic about it, we're like, okay. Look. Obviously I just put the seed in there. It's been it's been in the dirt, in the water for what, twenty five minutes. We got to give it time.

At least these days, we used to have to give it time. Now we just go to Lowe's and we buy it already sprouted with, you know, it's already budding, already tomatoes on the vine. But we gotta give it time. It's it's gonna germinate. It's small now.

And the temptation is to think that because I planted something small, nothing's gonna come out of it. But but the tiniest act of grace, the smallest act of mercy or forgiveness, the smallest little expression of love or patience or kindness will grow and grow and grow. In CS Lewis's book, The Great Divorce, I don't know how many of you have read it, but the main character in it is touring heaven, trying to understand what he's seeing. There's a guide along with him who's answering his questions. And and at one point in the story, this just incredibly beautiful woman passes by.

There are musicians heralding her presence, hundreds, thousands of men and women following behind her and animals innumerable as well. All the people, the creatures she loves and cares for. And the woman is so beautiful, so regal, so honored that the the narrator assumes that she must be Eve. How could there be anyone greater? But when when he asks, his guide tells him, oh, no.

No. She's someone you would have never heard of. Her name was Sarah Smith, and she lived in the Northwest suburb of London. But she is one of the great ones. And he explains, she had no family of her own, but every person she encountered was met with love like a son or a daughter, and every animal that came into her yard was loved and cared for.

She's one of the the great ones, he says. So it's like when you throw a stone into a pool and the concentric waves spread out further and further and further. Who knows where it will end? Like a seed. Plant it.

Water it. Keep it in the sun. Who knows what will grow? Right now, it's inauspicious. It's unimpressive.

Small. Small now does not mean small forever, especially when the life and the seed is the power of God. Let's pray. Father, we confess, we acknowledge that the word small does a pretty good job of capturing who we are and what we have to offer you. None of us are all that impressive.

None of us are on top 10 lists or making huge waves, but each of us is offering you a small gift of our own faithfulness, of our love, of our joy. And we're asking that you would take the smallness of the gifts that we offer, the prayers that we pray, and that you would plant them and water them and grow them through your own power. So that what we begin here and now and in these small moments becomes the place where an innumerable number of people can find life in your name. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.