Kingdom of God Series - Small, Quiet, Growing

So let's read, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew 13.

And I'm going to read two really small parables.

And I think they're small just to prove a point.

And if you look at where these two parables are placed in Matthew 13, 31, there's place between a much longer parable that Jesus told about weed and wheat.

And then he actually gives very rarely where Jesus has told a parable to a group of people, and then later, Scripture says, that in private, the disciples came and said, what did that mean? What did you mean when you said that? And Jesus gives an explanation of what that parable means.

That's in Matthew 13.

But in between Jesus giving that bigger parable, there are these two small ones.

And it says, here's another illustration Jesus used.

The kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, is like a mustard seed planted in a field.

It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants.

It grows into a tree.

The birds come and make their nests in its branches.

Scholars have kind of looked up what Jesus most probably was talking about was a plant, Brassicus nigra, black mustard.

And it can grow to like sort of two to three meters tall and very fast.

So quite a large for the tiny, tiny seed it is.

And then he carries on and he says another parable, even smaller.

Jesus used this illustration, that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is like yeast that a woman used to make bread.

And even though she put only a tiny amount of yeast into three measures of flour, it permeates every part of the dough.

That three measures means it's an exorbitant amount of flour.

Jesus is proving a point that no matter how small the kingdom of God may appear, how insignificant it is compared to the environment that it comes into, the kingdom has an effect.

It changes.

It moves.

It shifts.

It heals.

It restores.