Parables No.9 The Mustard Seed

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave 1 Corinthians, we're going to read from chapter 1 from verse 18. 1 Corinthians, chapter 1 from verse 18.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, But to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise And the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, And the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many of you were influential.

Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong.

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things And the things that are not to nullify the things that are So that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you in Christ Jesus, Who have become for us wisdom from God, That is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence of superior wisdom, As I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you Except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and in fear and with much trembling.

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, But with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, So that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, But on God's power. And all God's people said, Hallelujah. Blessed songs cannot repay For we can only wonder At every gift you send At blessings without number And mercies without end We lift our hearts before you And wait upon your word We honor and adore you Our great and mighty Lord Then hear our gracious Savior Accept the love we bring That we who know your favor May serve you as our King And whether our tomorrows Be filled with good or ill We'll triumph through our sorrows And rise to bless you still To marvel at your beauty And glory in your ways And make a joyful duty A sacrifice of praise O God, beyond all praising We worship you today And sing the love amazing That songs cannot repay For we can only wonder At every gift you send At blessings without number And mercies without end We lift our hearts before you And wait upon your word We honor and adore you Our great and mighty Lord Richard read earlier Has all that is there Wrapped up in what our Lord is saying He's teaching about the kingdom He's relating what he has to say In parables And this is the third or fourth In this chapter And they're all based on agriculture The language of the land We've been dealing with parables The parables that our Lord taught Several in our selection on Sunday evenings And we're gradually bringing this series to a conclusion And here is one of the shortest statements That our Lord makes Perhaps only rivaled in brevity By his comment on the pearl of great price Mark 4, 30 Again, the Lord Jesus said What shall we say the kingdom of God is like? What parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed Which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground Yet when planted it grows And becomes the largest of all garden plants With such big branches That the birds of the air can perch in its shade The statement goes on That with many similar parables Jesus spake the word to them A parable is something that puts across In language that needs greater thought A spiritual truth It can be used in less than spiritual fashion I suppose there's something of the parabolic In this notice seen Barring the entrance to a farm in Wiltshire Trespassers who think that the admission is free Are advised that one of the bulls Will charge them later Here is our Lord And he's telling us about the most important thing On the earth today Now people would probably In our generation laugh that statement Out of court Because they would not feel That what our Lord has to say really is The thing that has most import In our world, but it does He's talking about The kingdom of God And he's putting up a rhetorical question A rhetorical question is something that you Ask, but you don't really want the answer supplied Because you're going to give it yourself What shall we say? The kingdom of God is like And then he goes on To tell us Our Lord Jesus was Emphasizing the fact of the kingdom Almost when he was inarticulate As a little baby He's born and men come from the east And they say where is he That is born king Of the Jews Not prince This is the uniqueness of Jesus He was never born a prince Not in the classic sense You could refer to him as the prince of peace But he comes with full regality He's not like Prince Charles Waiting to be enthroned one day He's born as a king And the last book of Revelation will tell you That ultimately as far as The human political scenario is concerned The kingdoms of this world Shall become the kingdoms of his Christ And God's son shall reign Forever and ever So here is our Lord asking This most surprising question Coming from the background That is his Where is he that is born King of the Jews Ask the wise men While our Lord starts to talk About a king And about the entry into the kingdom And as our Lord Surprises the magi Because he is born in the Humble atmosphere of Bethlehem And as those church members To whom Paul refers in 1 Corinthians Surprise those who Read, who composes The early church Because well they are Mainly insignificant people Nonetheless The emphasis is placed Where Jesus wants it to be On the kingdom He comes as a child And he brings into his kingdom Those people Who are lowly And lacking in influence And so He puts up his question What shall we say the kingdom of God Is like And his answer, well It is like a mustard seed It's like the plant Of humble Origin Our Lord never went In for overstatement Now you and I Often do that, I was tempted Forgive me because I've used this illustration before But it's a long time ago I was tempted to a little bit of overstatement Some years ago Incognito, I was In Guildford At a house warming Occasion Somebody A solicitor approached me and said Where do you come from, so in a convivial Fashion, I said Worthing, oh Worthing He said you've got a church, so I said yes He said which one, he said I said the Tabernacle So he said Tony Sargent's The minister there, so I said yes He said what's he like Now bear in mind he's a lawyer So I said Well I'll tell you one thing, he's never preached Without my being present Perfect opportunity For overstatement I managed to resist the temptation What shall we say The Kingdom of God is like Like the armies of Alexander the Great Unstoppable Like the administration Of the Roman Empire, brilliant With it's Common lingua franca With it's road system With it's organisation What shall we say The Kingdom of God is like Here in the 20th century Like the Rockefeller Institute Like some great Commercial enterprise That has gone throughout the whole world Our Lord Engages in understatement It's like A mustard seed The smallest Seed You plant In the ground The Jews had a Proverbial expression Like a mustard seed Even doctors would use it They would talk about a drop of blood Like a mustard seed A pin prick Let me coin a word I often do when I run out of The ones in the English dictionary There is something Mustard seed-ish About the Christian gospel Did you hear me? Oh little town of Bethlehem How Still we see thee lie Galilee of the Gentiles The county where Jesus Is born Can anything good Come out of Nazareth You see You consider the originator Of Christianity And you find him to be Well Tucked away In the obscurity Of some northern village In Palestine In the most less salubrious parts He reaches thirty And he's hardly ventured Outside his Home county The men that he draws Into his entourage Are not on the whole men Of great wealth or influence He moves around And they say of him he's very much Like a Like a nomad A lesser kind Which he takes and uses To illustrate himself Makes reference to the foxes And the birds being better off than he is Because well the foxes have holes And the birds have nests On one occasion having spent Some three years in public ministry He's in front of the Roman procurator The most important citizen That there is in Palestine And this man looks him up and down And he hears the claims that Jesus Has been making or are being made About Jesus and he says in Utter confusion Are you a king? And there wasn't much to suggest At the cosmetic level That our lord Was a king Strange stuff That kings are made of When this Acclaimed monarch Is led away like a Common criminal with a bleeding back And pinned on the Torture rack that the Romans Often use to cause A man to expire of life In the most painful way Ever conceived What shall we say The kingdom of God is like? It's like a mustard seed The plant Of humble origin And men and women if you are going to be A member of that kingdom you too Will acknowledge Not with some uriah heap Forced humility but from the Depths of your being that in the sight Of God You're really At the human level Not worth his favour You see It's only the lowly person That can enter the kingdom The person who Recognises that really he is nothing He's got to the End of his tether That there is a sense in which When the publican went into the Temple that day Jesus relates the Parable and he beat upon his breast As though he hated the sin that was there There is a sense in which All of you have to come to that point To be able to enter the kingdom Because The kingdom of God is only Open to those that are of a humble And a contrite disposition So our Lord Says in introducing this theme What shall we say The kingdom of God is like? It's like a Mustard seed The smallest seed That you find On the Soil In Palestine But moreover Our Lord Jesus goes on To tell us a little bit more About this plant Because he Enlarges upon his Statement By telling us That as you plant it in the ground It grows And becomes the largest Of all garden plants On another occasion Jesus speaking about a Corn of wheat makes reference To the miracle of nature Unless a corn of wheat falls into the ground And dies it abides alone And the same Obtains in regard to this mustard seed It's so teeny weeny you can hardly See it And yet it contains Within it A hidden strength Properties Which are not obvious to the untrained Non-horticultural person Properties actually That are not just to do With the way that it can respond To the soil And the sun But if you were to crush it you could use it If a snake Struck out and injected you With its venom If you were poisoned by some Other means Then according to the Old Jewish medical law The crushed mustard seed Would come to your aid Because there is Healing property in the mustard seed As there is healing property In the gospel of our Lord Jesus And the one who proclaimed That gospel John Baptist once had a Confliction, a problem in regard to faith And he dashes off a telegram So to speak to the Lord Jesus And he says, are you really the Christ? And Jesus responds to his cousin, look The blind see The deaf hear The dead are raised There is healing That stems from the Ministry that I represent It was not obvious When you saw him But when you watched him at work You came to the Conclusion that in this carpenter From Nazareth there is more than just An ordinary power There is a healing Ability That mustard seed has not only medical properties It has a fiery essence Have you ever made a mistake With the mustard That you've added To your beef burger And instead of Generously Applying it over the Whole of the Entrapped meat Between the sandwich You had one blob And you took A bite And my It seemed as though you had a Pentecostal effusion Granted to you by McDonald's There is a fiery Essence In the mustard seed The story is told In the ancient world of King Darius Sending a sack of sesame seed To Alexander the Great And in that action he was Indicating that his forces were as Numerous as the sesame seed So what does Alexander do? He sends him back A sack The sack is filled with mustard seed And the message was clear My men are active My men are fierce My men are powerful My men are full of vigor Don't you see? The message that Jesus came to proclaim Is a fiery Message It's a message with power within it The kingdom The kingdom of God, what is it like? It's like a mustard seed plant A plant which Is of humble origin A plant which has the hidden strength Of medical properties Of fiery essence And even more renowned It is a plant that has growth potential It's possible For a mustard Seed plant To rise ten feet within a season For a horse That's going by To stop and take some sort of refuge Some shade Under the plant When our Lord came into the world There was just himself And that little group of eleven That little group of eleven True men But when the day of Pentecost came There were one hundred and twenty people Who were following the Lord Jesus' instructions They were in an upper room And by the time you make your way Through the Acts of the Apostles You discover that hundreds and then thousands Of folk in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria Are being added to the church And by the time you get to the end Of the Acts of the Apostles They're saying this Of the followers of Jesus These are the men who have turned The world upside down It's an amazing thing The power that there is in the gospel There's more Richard was quite right this morning When he referred to Iraq and Iran And all that's happening In terms of gospel conversion In these days It is computed that in the Muslim world More people have been won to Christianity In the past years Of this century Than all the other centuries Put together What does this help to underline? The fact that The message of the kingdom Which causes the expansion Of the kingdom Has growth Potential There's healing And there's power And there's an ability To reproduce All wrapped up In the kingdom So you see how our skillful Saviour Has deliberately Chosen this incident To illustrate Great truth What shall we say the kingdom of God is like? What shall we liken it unto? Blow the Roman Empire And Alexander the Great We don't need any of these Humile illustrations Let's take this little thing from nature And use that As A means of Informing people Of the potential Of the message Of the kingdom of God But then As you go on to Listen to our Saviour more You'll find that that Mustard seed Is a plant of surprising refuge Let's go on in the parable Yet when planted It grows and becomes the largest Of all garden plants With such big branches That the birds of the air Can perch in its shade Our Lord was skilled In Scripture Brought up to know Scripture Doubtless he had at the back of his mind A statement found in the prophecy Of Ezekiel If you've got an NIV perhaps you'd like to turn to it For there in the 17th Chapter of this Little red but vitally Important book You find the Lord God talking About the kingdom He doesn't use The metaphor of a mustard seed But he does home in In the area of Horticulture and growth And in the 23rd verse of Ezekiel 17 You read On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it It will produce branches and bear fruit And become a splendid cedar Birds of every kind will nest in it They will find shelter In the shade of its branches All the trees of the field Will know that I the Lord Bring down the tall tree And make the low tree Grow tall I dry up the green tree And make the dry tree flourish You see all the principles of the parable Within that particular statement God uses what is insignificant And he causes this tree To become more lofty Than all the other trees And into this tree fly the birds Where they find refuge And not only refuge But they find something to eat Because many of the listeners to our Lord When he's teaching on this memorable occasion Will have witnessed sights When flocks of birds Have stopped by The mustard seed plant And taken Not only The benefit of the shade Under its branches But have greedily Eaten what for them Is very attractive Fair Our Lord Jesus Will teach the disciples And make it clear to us That he has come on earth Not just for the Jewish people He has come for every man And every woman He wants people of every nationality To be born again That's the reason Why he came into the world He comes in one sense As God's tree And upon him there is a foliage Within him there is a fruit If you go to the last chapter of the book of Revelation Again The metaphor is taken and plundered Used a little differently But the same principles obtain Speaking of the benefits Of the life and death of our Lord Jesus The writer says In the second verse On each side of the river Stood the tree of life Bearing twelve crops of fruit Yielding its fruit every month And the leaves of the tree Are for the healing Of the nations Why does our Lord Tell this parable Well simply because he wants people To understand The reason why he has come into this world You see it is true That the most important thing is That men and women become Followers of him Part of what he has Come to establish And it may well be that Folk may feel Well I'm not holy There are so many things that are wrong In my life There is no way that I can ever be a child of God So Jesus In his most sensitive Fashion Makes you feel At home as you listen to him And he Disabuses you of the notion That you've got to be something great And something outstanding To be one of his followers What is the kingdom like Is there anything more Ordinary I ask you Says the Saviour Than the grain of mustard seed Indeed there is not And there is a sense in which all that Mustard seed represents In its orderliness Is encapsuled In me I'm the man of a humble background I'm the shoot of a withered root Of David I've come into this world Without the fanfare of human Authorities I've been born in the backwoods of Bethlehem Raised in Nazareth Despised by ordinary men Look at me, I'm just ordinary At one sense and yet I'm more than Ordinary, look again And what you discover within me The man with healing properties The man with tremendous Power The man who can mesmerize the crowd So that people confess who he is Now, says the Lord, the same Principle applies I come not for the mighty, not for the lusty Not for the politicians, not for the philosophers Not for those who feel They do not need me I come For the ordinary person The one Who's failed The one who seems to have Utterly no potential at all For him I have come And not just the Jewish Ordinary person But the Gentile too So come to me Come with your sins The leaves of my tree Will cause Absolution Come with the weakness And the fire of my spirit will Warm your belly and send you out Into a world to make an impact For me Come with your utter inability to make an impact Upon society And I will breathe into you a spirit Of growth So that those who you tell of the gospel Will listen to what you have to say And they will become part Of the fruit that you bring to me As the kingdom Is extended And as my name Is glorified You see my friend As I said right at the beginning and now as I conclude This address The most important thing, are you listening? In the whole Of this world Is the kingdom of God For the day Will come When this Jesus shall return And establish His visible Reign And only those Who have Responded to him Acknowledge their sins And confess that his death on the cross Has paid the penalty For those shortcomings Will live with him In an eternity Yet To be Are you one of these people? Have you made your Peace with God? Are you prepared for the day When Jesus shall reign As does the sun Its successive Journeys run His kingdom stretched from time To time Till moon I forget the final verse We'll be singing it In just a moment But is the Is the challenge Of this hymn Something that is Causing your commitment Right now to our Lord Jesus The challenge Of the parable Of the mustard seed Let's pray In just a moment For you to Ensure that your own relationship with the Lord God is right You say how do I become a Christian Well it's It's very simple and yet it's very profound There needs to be An acknowledgement of your Deficiencies You need to say to the Lord I'm sorry for the things That I have done That are wrong You need to appreciate Who He is And what He has done on your behalf Say a prayer Something like this Lord God Though I don't understand all the preacher says This I know I want my eternal destiny To be secure I believe Jesus came For someone like me I confess my sin I confess my sin I'm sorry for my sin I ask for His forgiveness Fill me With His spirit Put fire In my soul And use me In the grand work Of encouraging the growth Of the kingdom of God Until the Saviour returns Amen Amen