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by Sandy Shaw
We are reading in Matthew Chapter 13 where Jesus teaches that Parable of the Mustard Seed. Jesus Christ the king is speaking and teaching about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven.
We think of the word kingdom as a territory with borders, but Jesus is meaning a kingship where Jesus is King, and where His kingship is acknowledged.
Rejecting Jesus means that you are not in His kingdom.
Isaiah Chapter 9 teaches us and explains that the increase of His kingdom there shall be no end.
The day will come when everyone will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is king and some will wish they had acknowledged it earlier and sooner.
Do you ever feel you are in a minority, or that you are embarrassed because of Jesus?
Do you feel you are on the losing side?
Are you mocked and laughed at and ridiculed, and regarded as holding onto something from which most have moved on from holding onto?
We do not look at the church here. We are dealing with the King. Jesus is not talking about the church. Jesus is challenging us with the demands of the King and the kingdom.
Verse 33 – The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, which a woman took, and mixed into a large amount of flower, until it worked right through the dough.
The kingdom of God is like yeast - working away - secretly - hiddenly - invisibly - imperceptibly.
It is just working away, and at times no-one know what is happening.
You cannot see it, but when it begins to work, you cannot stop it.
You cannot stop God working. No man can stop God working.
Jesus is not just talking about expansion now, but inward permeation.
Jesus is speaking about what permeates us, and our thinking, and our commitment, and our priorities. We will not rise unless we have the yeast.
You do not stand watching and waiting for the dough to rise. Normally, one goes and gets on with something else. It takes time and it cannot be hurried.
The slow watches of the night, no less to God belong, is a reassuring verse from that great hymn.
This is spectacular. We joke about watching paint dry or grass grow, but Jesus implies that it can be as exciting at times as watching a batch of dough rise!
But it is certainly powerful and irresistible. Try putting a lid on it!
Remember the woman on the bus on a hot day in Florida. She had a broken oven, and she had hoped to bake bread. It was all ready and she discovered trouble with the oven. Her mother called her to come over to her house and she caught the bus and as she travelled the five miles across the city the yeast began to work and the dough in her basin began to rise and rise!
When the yeast starts to do its sovereign work there is no way it can be stopped and it can be a little messy to begin with. The yeast was just getting on with the job it was meant to do.
Or, the man tarmaccing his drive, and one year later in February that little snowdrop broke through. Life was able to split the black death, and break through that hard black crust.
Our quite straightforward task is to obey Jesus Christ and to go out into unevangelised humanity with the seed and the yeast, and even if we feel small and insignificant the command remains the same – “Go!”
A mustard seed - some invisible yeast - a new appearing - a fresh moving of the living God – anything can happen when we are moving in the kingdom of God. We cannot programme that.
If the seed and yeast is where it is supposed to be it will do the work which only it can do.
The world is looking for sensations. The world is not for Jesus.
Alexander 'Sandy' Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness - on the Moray Firth Coast - not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40am, New Orleans time, at wsho.com.
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