Right when I see King Jesus in heaven, his first words are not
going to be Job well done, good and fruitful servant.
His words will be Job well done, good and faithful servant.
Chapter 4 Towards the end of the chapter, we're looking at verses
26 all the way to the end of the chapter, and and 34.
We've got two parables, almost identical parables, but there's
some unique differences in how the parables operate.
We'll look at that this morning, but here's what both of the
parables have in common. This morning.
We're thinking about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God, how
it grows, what it's like, who grows it, and what it does to
the rest of the garden all around it.
Two parables. Both of them are fantastic, But
let me catch this up before we look at those parables and mark
Chapter 4 towards the end of the chapter, here's what you've
missed. If this is your first Sunday
here, Jesus has officially, publicly launched his ministry.
He's endured temptation from Satan and the wilderness.
He's healed the sick. He's casted out demons.
He's teaching. And as he's done all of this
publicly, what he's done is he's gathered a crowd of people
around him to say that Jesus is the most compelling person who's
ever lived. To say that Jesus has the most
interesting person who has ever lived is a bit like calling the
Grand Canyon sizable. True enough, but an
understatement of epic proportions.
Everybody who hears and teaches drawn to him, and they hang on
his every word with with jaws that hit the floor.
And so there's Jesus by the seaside, a crowd of people
around him. And Jesus launches into these
parables about how the Kingdom of God changes the world.
These parables are short stories filled with everyday
environments and ordinary objects.
The Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters a seed in the
field. Everybody's like, I know what
that looks like. The Kingdom of God is like a
light that you don't hide under a bed.
People are like, I don't know what lamps look like.
So there's ordinary objects and ordinary environments.
And yet when you dig into that, hidden in the ordinariness of
these parables are heavenly truths.
And so as Jesus and his disciples begin to listen to
Jesus teach in parables, some people get it.
They're hanging on. Jesus is every word.
They find him to be a phenomenal public order.
Other people are frustrated by the parables, and so they walk
away And the disciples in the middle, and I think it's assumed
to say this, are just a little bit of they're a little bit
anxious about the way that Jesus's teachings are being
received. There's an anxiety that begins
to settle among the disciples. They would prefer that Jesus
would just teach plainly, right? You're the Messiah, you're the
king. Make it plain.
Don't hide the truth, right? This is not hard to understand.
If you were there, you'd probably feel the same way.
It would be a bit like you showing up to church on a Sunday
morning, bringing a friend who doesn't know the gospel, really
hoping and praying for a clear gospel presentation, and instead
having a pastor who gets up there and says, OK guys, life
with. God is like 3 sets of
footprints. In this snow you'd be like
dikey. Make it plain.
This isn't why we tied at this church.
You can understand their anxiety.
So let me start here. Life with God is like three sets
of footprints. In the snow since the middle of
winter, an Iowa snowstorm comes along.
School is canceled, so three boys go out to go play in the
snow. As they run out to a Prairie
Meadow filled with snow, they see an open, empty, covered with
snow gleaming white surface that nobody has yet stepped on.
So the boys decide to play a game.
Since there's no footprints there, let's find out who can
walk the straightest and farthest line into the distance.
So the boys walk as straight and as far as they can, and when
they get to the end of the Prairie, they stop and they turn
around and they see three sets of footprints in the snow.
However, only one of the sets of footprints could be said to be
straight. So the boys said, all right,
what was your strategy? Boy, #1 says, Well, my strategy
was since my feet are carrying me, I just kept my eyes fixed on
my feet. But as my feet continued to move
forward, what ended up happening was I lost sight of the distance
and I walked in a zigzag in the wrong direction.
OK, boy #2, what was your strategy?
He said. Well, I thought maybe what I
would do was take in as much as I could of my surroundings.
So I I walked and I looked to the left, I looked to the right,
I looked at all the trees I could in the distance.
But as I continued to look around without even knowing it,
I just started walking in circles.
So they said, the boy #3, you're the one who did it.
How did you walk a straight line in the snow out here in the
Meadow? And what the boy said was this.
All I did was I fixed my eyes on one tree in the distance.
I never looked away from it. And I walked towards that tree
and that tree alone. And that's what produced the
straight line of footprints. So fun, Parable, let me ask you,
what do you see when you look behind you?
Don't physically look behind yourself right now, but
mentally, when you look behind yourself, when you look behind
your life, what type of footprints do you see?
Is it a zigzag Walking in the wrong direction, always catching
the flashiest thing that comes to your eye?
Always chasing all the trends? When you look behind yourself,
do you see circles spiraling in the wrong direction?
Maybe wholeheartedly pursuing something but in the wrong
direction? Or when you look behind your
life, do you see one straight line of footprints?
And if you don't and you want to change the world this morning,
how would you walk a straight line in this world?
What's what is the one tree to fix your eyes on in the
distance? Well, luckily Jesus tells us
that answer. Let's go ahead and stand for the
reading of God's Word. Couple parables within a
parable. Verse 26.
Jesus said the Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed
on the ground. He sleeps, He rises night and
day, and the seed sprouts and grows.
He knows not how the earth produces by itself.
First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
But when the grain is ripe at once, he puts in the sickle
because the harvest has come. Here's Parable #2 goes on to
say, with What can we even compare the Kingdom of God, or
what parable shall we use for it?
It's like a grain of mustard seed.
That's about the most politically incorrect thing
Jesus could have said. Don't worry, I'll tell you why.
Eventually. It's like a grain of mustard
seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all
the seeds on the earth. Yet when it's sown and grows up
and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large
branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in a
shade. And so with many such parables,
he continued to speak the word to them as they were able to
hear it. He didn't speak to them without
a parable, but privately, as he always does if you push into
Jesus and ask them for clarity after church, privately to his
own disciples, he explained everything.
You can have a seat. So Jesus has gathered a crowd of
people around him while he stands beside the sea, teaching
in parables. And one thing that we have to
take note of when we think about this crowd around him is that
it's incredibly diverse. Just an incredibly diverse crowd
of people around you. You got Gentiles, you've got
Jews, you've got zealots. In fact, even if usually Jesus
12 disciples, you have incredible amount of diversity
among them. You've got Jewish zealots on one
hand, Roman tax collectors on the other hand, and everything
in between them. So there's tons of distinctions
between these people and what they want and how they want to
accomplish it. But they do all share one common
desire. And the common desire is this.
They all desire to change the world.
It's not hard to see why. In their historical setting,
everything around them was crumbling.
You look at the Roman government, things are
atrocious. In the Roman government you have
Caesar leading people, manipulatively, demanding
worship from his people and crucifying people as treasons as
as as treacherous. If they don't worship him, OK,
so things are not going great in the Roman government.
If you looked at that, you would say I want to change the world.
But if you look at Judaism in the 1st century, it's not that
much better, right? You look at what's going on in
the temple, you have money hungry people and they're taking
advantage of religious people. You even have Jewish leaders,
Jewish priests who have gone to bed with the Roman government
and have basically modified their message in order to stay
safe with the Roman government. And so no matter what you look
at, all these people are waiting for the Kingdom of God to come
change the world. And even though you're 2000
years removed from that world, I hope you feel at least a similar
way when you look out into the world.
I hope. You think, man, I hope God
changes that world. I hope when you look at the
world, you say, I want to change the world.
Changing the world is precisely what this crowd of people around
Jesus want to do. But the big questions are, how's
it going to happen? Is it going to happen by
military force? Is it going to happen by
protest? Is it going to happen with
fireworks and fog machines and strobe lights?
How to phrase the question theologically?
How will the Kingdom of God overcome the world?
And that question is the purpose of Jesus's 2 parables this
morning. So here's what I'm going to do
for the rest of the sermon. I'm going to preach a sermon
that I never thought I would preach before because in my
pulpit ministry for the last six years, I've always been the type
of preacher who makes fun of preaching.
That is, how to do lists or tips and tricks on how to follow
Jesus. I've always been the guy who's
like that is so lame. But today, here's what I'm
doing. I'm going to spend the rest of
our time together preaching 1 long list of things, one long
list of ideas. And here's the sermon title of
the sermon I never thought I would preach How to Change the
World in Eight Simple Steps. Cole six years ago would have
made fun of Cole today, How to Change the World in Eight Simple
Steps. Let's start with step number
one. You'll notice that all of these
parables point in this direction.
If you want to change the world then you have to imagine a world
that you can't imagine. Notice how Jesus preambles both
of the parables here in. In verse 26 he says the Kingdom
of God is as if and then verse 30.
With what can we even compare the Kingdom of God?
So both of these preambles are ways of Jesus talking about the
Kingdom of God and define the Kingdom of God.
And showing that human terms of defining the Kingdom of God is
impossible because the Kingdom of God is not of this world.
You can point at something earthly and say it's kind of
like this. You can point at something on
earth and say, well, it's it's kind of like that, but it
transcends everything in this world.
And so if the Kingdom of God is new to you, here's a really
simple definition. The Kingdom of God is an
invisible Kingdom that's in heaven, but it's currently
invading earth. The invasion of heaven has
already started, but it won't be completed until Jesus returns.
And the Kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is declared King
and his words and laws are obeyed and enjoyed.
You guys with me. The Kingdom of God is whenever
and wherever Jesus has proclaimed as King and his words
are delighted in and obeyed. And this Kingdom, not only is it
not of this world, it's in direct confrontation with this
world. Direct confrontation In fact,
what the Kingdom of God does is it unmasks the Kingdom of this
world. I I bet a couple of you saw this
prank a couple months ago. Did Did anybody in here?
I'm curious. Did anybody see the Payless shoe
prank from a couple months ago? Just you.
OK, so only a couple. OK.
Atticus you saw. OK, that's good.
OK, so this is brilliant. I'll tell you what I'm like.
I was ready to go buy some Payless shoes after I heard
this. So what?
Payless shoes. Did is they opened up and and if
you don't know, Payless Shoes is a discount shoe store.
Great stuff. They opened up a fake luxury
shoe store in Los Angeles and pulled a prank.
It was a fake luxury shoe store. They they branded it as luxury,
right? But they put their shoes in the
store and in the grand opening there's a literally a line of
people who formed around the outside of the door and they
took $35 shoes and sold them for $650.
I'm not good at math, but that's an 1800% markup.
And what I love most is that they interviewed the people who
bought their shoes too. And so there are these people
who are holding up these $35 Payless.
Shoes and and they go well. The thing I like most about
these shoes is how elegant and sophisticated they are.
And one person says I wrote it down.
One person says the best thing is I can tell it was made with
high quality materials. And so.
These people are spending their money on discount shoes at an
18, 100% markup and then in the. Interview.
They let them in on the prank. They're like, hey, the shoes you
just bought are $35 Payless shoes.
And one lady just goes. She just goes shut up, right?
Oh, here's the best part. They called the luxury store
Palessi. The world tries to scam you too,
right? This is what the enemy does.
The enemy puts the things of this world, hollow vein, empty
things in front of you and tries to convince you that it's
luxury, that it's it's quality. That you'll it'll finally fill
your happiness. That that this, this worldly
thing will finally satisfy your soul.
Spend your money on these things.
Spend your attention on these things.
Spend all your energy and effort on these things, these things
that we make and platform in front of you and put a price tag
on. I mean, how many of us in this
world have finally achieved some worldly goal that we really
wanted to accomplish? And we're like, that's going to
be the thing that finally makes me happy.
And you get it and you're just like, shut up.
It just doesn't satisfy, doesn't feel the whole.
It's just worldly satisfaction, worldly purp, worldly pleasure.
It's just hollow. And what the Kingdom of God says
to the Kingdom of the world is. It's just Payless.
It's cheap. And as your pastor, I don't want
you standing before King Jesus one day in judgment as he lets
you in on the prank going shut up all those things I invested
my time and energy on. They were actually worthless.
Both of these parables about the Kingdom of God are going to let
you in on the prank, the Kingdom of God.
Not only does it unmask the Kingdom of the world, it shows
that the Kingdom of this world is just chaffing the wind just
blowing away temporary. And so as a believer, if you
really want to change the world, you should know that human
Thrones and human human dominion will ultimately be cast down,
that worldly satisfactions and worldly treasures won't last.
But the the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom that will endure
forever. So the big question is, OK, how
do we build into that? And that brings us to our second
easy tip on how to change the world #2 If you want to change
the world, yeah, sleep at night. What?
You read a You read a book about changing the world and it's like
page one, hustle, page two, hustle.
Page three, what are you, a Sissy hustle?
And when Jesus talks about changing the world, let just
here's Jesus's words. Verse 27.
The Man Who Changes the World who plants a seed that grows.
He sleeps and rises night and day.
While you're sleeping what does the seed do?
The seed sprouts and grows and you got to love this.
The man knows not how don't you love that he's like how's this
happening. All I did was scattered.
I went to bed and and it's just been it's just been growing.
Well let's dig deeper here. So what Jesus is saying is the
Kingdom of God is like a seed. It starts out miniscule, tiny
and surprisingly, almost shockingly, it it grows.
And at the very least, the fact that Jesus tells us that the
seed scatterer sleeps and is surprised at the growth of the
Kingdom of God. At the very minimum, what Jesus
is letting us in on is that the growth of the Kingdom of God is
totally the result of God's sovereignty.
Now I like that word sovereignty.
I use it a lot. If you've been at frontier for a
while, you hear me use the word sovereignty a lot.
So let me just define that for us really quickly.
The word sovereignty is usually used to describe 3 concepts in
one fell swoop. Power, presence and control.
So to say that God is sovereign is to say that God is all
powerful over everything, that He is present everywhere, and
that He is in control of everything, including, and this
is pretty obvious in the parable, this seed.
So while while you're asleep, God is sovereign over the seed,
while you're asleep, God's making it grow.
And so to me. Sleeping seems to at least be a
symbol of trust or a symbol of giving up control.
What's the difference? And so if you're an overachiever
and you got super excited when I told you that the message this
morning was going to be How to Change the World, I've got a
crystal clear word for you. This parable clearly shows us
that we don't control the outcomes of our faithfulness
more times than usual. We're surprised.
Hey bro, that thing you did three years ago really blessed
me. What?
It's gross. Here's the way RC Sprole, a
great preacher, says it. He says, quote, You are
responsible for the faithfulness.
God is responsible for the fruitfulness.
So you need to enjoy being faithful to God and giving up
your American obsession with results.
It's obsession with results that makes people burn out on
Christianity. It's obsession with results that
makes the Kingdom of God feel like hell on earth.
It's obsession with results that makes us spiritually
constipated. You're afraid to say the wrong
thing, do the wrong thing. You're obsessed with outcomes.
You want to control them. And if that's you, look at the
parable. Jesus's word to you is this.
Sleep at night. Scatter sleep.
So even though your role in changing the world is to sleep
at night, strangely enough, that doesn't mean that your role in
the Kingdom is one of passivity. Let's go to tip #3 on how to
change the world. Yes, you got to sleep at night,
but tip #3 is you. Also, you got to get out of your
cot. Here's what I mean by this is
you begin to build the Kingdom of God on earth.
You're going to begin to spread the message of the Kingdom.
You're going to begin to tell people you love all around you
about King Jesus and how King Jesus died on the cross and he
forgives all of your sin and he covers you with grace by faith
alone, Through grace alone. And how after Jesus was
crucified, he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.
And so he rules and reigns over the entire world.
And that story is called the gospel.
And what Jesus says in this first parable is that the gospel
is the seed of the Kingdom of God.
And so if you, if you want to change the world, the gospel is
the seed that you're going to need to scatter.
Jesus refers to sharing. The gospel is scattering the
seed. And then look at verses 29,
scatter the seed. It grows by surprise.
And then you should have a sickle ready for when the seed
grows into a into a harvest. And so what's going on here is
that God is in control of the growth of his Kingdom.
He controls the growth. Amen.
But he doesn't rule over the world by just snapping his
fingers in heaven. He doesn't rule over the world
by just waving a magic wand in heaven.
He rules over the world by working through you, the seed
scatterer you are to scatter the seeds.
You're to be prepared with a sickle for when the harvest
comes. Another way of phrasing this is
really simple. You actually have a mission in
the Kingdom of God, and that is good news.
There's a there's a sociologist who made this excellent note
about what happened in in the Blitz during World War 2 in
London. It's just it's it's an amazing
story to think about. So in all throughout London
before the blitz of World World War Two, there were these
psychiatric wards that were filled with men who were
catatonic. They were, they were laid up in
these cots and and and they were, they were really
catatonic. They couldn't do anything.
They could barely get out. They were, they were stuck in
the psychiatric ward, almost paralyzed.
And then the Blitz happened. Germany started bombing, bombing
London. And so all the sudden, all over
London, they're just explosions everywhere, buildings falling
apart, people getting hurt. And because of all of the all of
the bombing there, there was way too much for the current people
in their, their fire trucks and their ambulances to take care
of. So you have all of this bombing
and you don't have enough people to drive the ambulances and to
to drive people to the hospitals.
And all of the sudden in London, these men in the psychiatric
ward, they've been catatonic, laid up in their cots.
All the sudden there's this need.
They don't have enough people to drive people to the hospitals.
All these sudden, these catatonic men start getting out
of their cots, walking out of the psychiatric ward and driving
ambulances and fire trucks to help people out.
What do you make of that? Here's 1000 things to make of
that. Here's here's one.
If people don't have a mission in this world, we'll get
catatonic in life. It's like you give people a
mission in this world, They'll crawl over broken glass with a
smile to accomplish the mission. It's it's an amazing story.
If theologically, if all God did was love us without giving us a
mission, we would be catatonic while feeling the warm fuzzies.
But because God loves us so much, not only does He save us
into his Kingdom, but He gives us a mission and a purpose.
And here's the way it works. Hey, these seeds.
This is my seed. I'm going to make it grow.
You don't have to stress about making it grow.
You don't have to be anxious about making it grow.
You don't have to stress about the strategy for for scattering
it. I'll make it grow.
You just get to scatter it. That's the mission.
I don't know about you, but that's a mission that I'll get
out of my cop for. So when you think about tip #2,
sleep at night and you think about tip #3, be involved with
the mission. How do you reconcile those two
things? Well, that brings us to tip #4
on how to change the world, except the paradox of tips
number two and three. Turns out that embracing God's
sovereignty over everything, embracing God's sovereignty over
the growth of the Kingdom of God, It turns out that what that
does is it generates participation, not passivity.
I don't know how. Just try it.
Try trusting God to be in control of everything and then
just being on mission with them and see what happens.
And so if you're with me in this sermon so far, congratulations.
You are halfway to being able to change the world.
And that brings us to our fifth tip for changing the world.
And for this one, we're going to dip into the second parable,
which is similar to the first one, but a little bit different.
So here's tip #5 on how to change the world.
If you want to change the world, you have got to ruffle some
feathers. So Jesus transitions into the
second parable, and in the second parable he compares the
Kingdom of God not just to a generic seed, but to a mustard
seed. Okay.
Catch this One of the reasons why this is brilliant is because
1st century Jewish people hated mustard plants.
Hated them. I mean, the literary brilliance
and humor of Jesus in this parable is just spot on.
Your average 1st century Jewish person loved gardening, right?
For a lot of different reasons. Obviously their culture was more
agricultural than ours. They gave prominence to the
Garden of Eden. So they love gardening, their
household economy and depended a lot more on on gardening.
And so they they absolutely just, they loved, they loved
gardens. But do you know what mustard
plants would do? Mustard plants were these stinky
little seeds that were almost invisible that would creep into
your garden. And what it would do is it would
choke out all of the vegetation around it.
And so and so don't miss this. A mustard seed is a revolution
in a garden. It doesn't just grow, it chokes
out the rest of the of the garden.
They hated mustard seeds. And Jesus is like, hey, the
Kingdom of God is like that. It's like a mustard seed.
This is brilliant. It's a deep cut and an
extraordinary prophecy. Because if you know history,
what does Christianity do? Well, if you know history, what
Christianity does is it begins as a little revolution among 12
losers and one Jesus. And then the mustard seed gets
planted and crushed, Jesus is crucified and his body is
literally lowered into the ground.
And then what happens is the seed begins to grow.
Jesus is resurrected, and then the real growth starts to
happen. And the Kingdom of God doesn't
just grow. What it does is it chokes out
all the other vegetation around it in the garden.
It chokes out all the paganism in the world around it, right?
If it were not for the Kingdom of God, we really don't have any
real reason to think that we would live in a world without
ritual childhood sacrifice. Christianity overthrew that.
Christianity choked out Paganism and as Christianity continue to
grow throughout the years, almost unbelievably it
overthrows and overtakes Rome. And then somehow, someway over
the next 1015 hundred 2000 years, in the year 2023, it's
this full grown mustard seed that has branches that reach all
the way over to Des Moines, IA so that you can be part of it.
Isn't that amazing? And so, as you seek to change
the world, just know there's two universal truths about the
Kingdom of God. First, the world's going to
think of it like mustard. People aren't going to like it.
Sometimes they're going to criticize it.
But #2 mustard plants always win.
So the Kingdom of God, I need you to hear me on this.
The Kingdom of God will be victorious.
It will continue to grow unstoppably.
People will be saved, People will confess that Jesus is Lord,
people will be filled with the Holy Spirit, people will be
forgiven of their sins, people will be clothed in the
righteousness of God, and Jesus will finally and fully return to
establish the Kingdom of God in its fullness.
I know sometimes it doesn't feel like that in the Western world,
but if you struggle with pessimism, here's a quote from
GK Chesterton from 100 years ago.
Quote Christianity has had a series of revolutions throughout
history, and in each one of them Christianity has died.
In fact, Christianity has died many times, but it has always
risen again, for it has a God who knew the way out of the
grave. Mustard seeds win.
Which brings us to our 6th tip for changing the world.
If you want to change the world for the love of God, don't use
them. Don't use a measuring tape is
what Jesus says in verse 31, The Mustard Seed.
Here's one of the reasons why he likes the parable of the mustard
seed. It is the smallest of all the
seeds on earth, so apparently I look this up.
A mustard seed is roughly the size of a period at the end of a
sentence in 10 point font. It looks like this.
I put it on my hand for you. Those are my sermon notes.
Put it on this hand for you. Can you see it?
No, it's right there. Yeah, you can, can't you?
Carpenter, is it there? Can you tell us?
It's right there. Here's the point.
It's hard to see. That's the way it starts.
Starts small, and so if you measure the success of the
heavenly Kingdom with earthly tools like measuring tapes, you
miss the point. You often think that for the end
breaking of the Kingdom to happen, you've got to have
flashing lights, the perfect word or be a pastor.
When in reality it starts like this.
A small word, an act of prayer when you don't feel like it,
encouraging a brother or sister, reminding your parents of the
gospel and what Jesus has done. Just these teeny tiny ways.
Jesus is referencing, I think, not just what you do to plant
the Kingdom of God on earth. I think he's also referencing
the smallness and ordinariness of how his own ministry appears,
because the nature of his kingship doesn't match what so
many people thought the Messiah would be like in the minds of
most people. They thought that when the
Messiah came, he would overthrow Rome with violent force and
military coercion. But it's mustard.
It's a mustard seed, right? Instead, the strange and odd
king, he achieves victory not by killing, but by dying now, by
coercion, but by love. His Kingdom started like a
period at the end of a sentence, and I think it would be wise for
those of us in the room who want to change the world to not
despise small things. Going to church, praying in the
morning, reading the Bible in private, forgiving our enemies,
showing our children how to delight in Jesus.
Because even though a mustard seed starts small, like a period
at the end of a sentence, small, when you put several periods
together in a row, that's called an ellipsis.
And in the English world in ellipsis, 3 periods in a row
means that the sentence isn't ending, but that the story is
continuing. dot, dot, dot. So don't, don't use worldly
tools to measure the success of the Kingdom of God.
Which brings us to our seventh point.
Here's a 7th tip for how to change the world.
If you want to change the world you got to be for the birds.
And this is where the parable of the mustard seed goes from
ruffling feathers to just straight up offensive.
When the Kingdom of God finally grows into a mustard plant with
branches it makes room and this is verse 32 for quote the birds
of the air to make their nest and its shade.
Birds and the Old Testament is a common reference to the gentiles
of other nations pagans. So what Jesus is saying is that
his Kingdom is going to grow to have branches that stretch so
wide that all the different birds of the air all over the
all over the world will make a home for themselves in the
branches of His Kingdom. You guys know the phrase ask for
the birds. It's always like to say
something lame, right? Like I have movies for the
birds, Cole's, mustaches for the birds, That's for the birds.
Bring you back. It's like a mustard seed.
No it's not. It's not.
It grows pretty fast. It's for the birds, right?
Usually a reference for something that's lame.
But luckily for you, Jesus is for the birds.
And the reason why that's good for you is because to a 1st
century Jew, you're a bird. And so Jesus saves people from
all over, weird people, some of whom you don't even like.
And again, that's good news, because to some people you're a
person they don't like. And so you got to realize that
Jesus and his Kingdom is for the birds.
The least likely the ones from over there, the ones over here,
is Kingdom is diverse. Not in the sense that it makes
room for other kings. It doesn't.
It's a theocracy. Jesus is king and his his word
goes, but it is diverse in every other way.
It's diverse in the sense that it's designed to be multiethnic.
It's diverse and that it's supposed to include intelligent
people and average people and people with mental, mental
disabilities. It's diverse and that it
includes old people and children and everything in between.
And that means that it's going to include some people you don't
like because Jesus saves people that you don't like, because
it's Kingdom. It's going to grow.
It's going to spread branches all over the world.
It's going to and Jesus is going to change the world.
And that brings us to our 8th and probably most important
point and tip for how to change the world.
If you want to change the world, then eighth, you should repent
of thinking that you can change the world.
Can't do it. It's not in your power, it's not
in your strength, and it's not your mission.
This whole sermon has really just kind of been a farce and a
parody for this exact point. So you can go and take your
notes from one through 7, crumple them up and throw them
away. Well, don't.
They're filled with truth. We looked at the biblical text,
but there is one premise that as you relisten to the sermon, you
need to get rid of. And that's the premise that you
are the one in any of these eight points that's changing the
world. It's not your job.
It's Jesus's job, Your job. Be faithful, your job.
It's the gist. Seek first the Kingdom.
If you don't do that, if you pressure yourself to change the
world, if you, if you become obsessed with results, it's
going to be deaf. Like don't pressure yourself to
change the world. Don't even put the pressure on
yourself to save your children or your friends.
Because if you do that right, all you're in charge of is the
faithfulness, not the fruitfulness.
And if you focus on your evangelism and if you focus on
your ministry and mission, like their statistics for the back of
a baseball card, life will feel like death.
And I know that because I have the temptation to do that.
And if I be totally honest with you guys, sometimes when I think
of my life in terms of results, I just get sad.
Like I'm disappointed with how little impact I feel like I've
had for the Kingdom of God in the world.
I like. I like I I wish that more
friends of mine had been saved by the gospel because of me.
And I wish that more people had been saved by the gospel because
of my preaching. And I wish that there were more
people who have been saved by Jesus because of my my, my, my
ministry in my life. My life has not produced the
results that I wanted to. It hasn't.
You know what my comfort is? God brings the growth.
That's God's job, right? When I see King Jesus in heaven,
his first words are not going to be job well done, good and
effective servant. His first words aren't even Job
well done, good and fruitful servant.
His words will be Job well done, good and faithful servant.
So just seek first the Kingdom of God.
I love that parable about the footprints in the snow because
it illustrates this perfectly. Setting your sights on yourself
is just looking at your feet. Setting your sights on the world
is just looking at everything around you so that you form a
zigzag path that makes no difference in the world.
All the changing, all the shifting.
And so when you look back at the footprints you left behind,
it'll just be a circle or a line in the wrong direction.
There's only one thing that never changes, Jesus.
And so the one tree for you to fix your eyes on in the distance
is the tree that Jesus died on. And if you focus on the Kingdom
of God, on Jesus first, it's going to leave a legacy for the
Kingdom, so that one day when you go to sleep and wake up in
heaven, you're going to be surprised and be like what you
did that with. Those things leave a straight
line behind. Seek first the Kingdom of God.
And Jesus isn't asking you to do anything he hasn't done for you.
Because even if your life has been a zigzag pattern, even if
your life has been circles in the wrong direction, there is a
straight line from the tree in the distance to you because
Jesus has sought you with a singular focus.
He has sought you from before time even began.
He emptied heaven to come and pursue you with a B line.
So seek first the Kingdom and just let Jesus sort out the
results and the outcomes. I mean, Jesus's life appeared to
be no bigger than a period at the end of a sentence would have
ended. Jesus's life appeared to be a
failure at first. The 1st 30 years of his life
were lived in complete obscurity.
He never traveled outside of the Middle East.
As far as we know. He never married, he never had
kids. Everything we know about him is
crammed into three years of ministry.
Even that ministry ended with him being condemned as a
criminal. You could not imagine a smaller
start for his Kingdom Couldn't do it.
That's the smallest start you can imagine.
But what does a mustard seed do? It's planted, it's crushed, and
then it begins to grow and it begins to choke everything else
out. And then it grows and puts out
branches that are so wide and extends so far that 2000 years
later all the way in Des Moines, IA, is a branch for you to make
home for yourself in the Kingdom of God.
So seek first the Kingdom. I got a lot of a lot of us.
We don't seek first the Kingdom because we don't know how
mustard seeds work. But now you do.
So let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for
being a mustard seed king, Being a king who seems obscure, who
seems to be without results, who starts small and yet changes and
transforms the entire world. That's a king that I want to be
on mission with. And so, Lord, I just pray that
we would not be a church that despises small things.
You don't have to be a church leader to change the world.
You don't have to be a pastor to change the world.
You don't have to be a public speaker to change the world.
You don't have to have 10,000 followers on social media to
change the world. You just got to scatter, sleep
and be prepared for the harvest with the sickle.
So, Lord, would you equip us to do just that?
It's in the precious name of Jesus that we pray these things.
Amen.