Becoming A Mustard Seed
PROBLEM – DISCOURAGEMENT OF THE TIMES
- Have you heard the old adage that all you need is a “mustard seed faith”?
- We are in an age of disorientation, confusion. Our Political judicial systems are contradictory and hypocritical
- New year reflections are filled with loss and gain which lead to a less hopeful future.
GOD – YOU ARE GOD’S SEED
Matthew 13:31-32 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
- Jesus was speaking into a culture where people expected big and dramatic.
- God designed it that this seed would reside in people like you and me, earthen vessels who are very imperfect and fallen. Today we’re gonna talk about what it means to become a mustard seed.
- Bible examples: Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, the disciples, Jesus.
- When the tree grows…
Revelation 11:15 The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.
APPLICATION – EXTERNAL VERSUS INTERNAL SIGNIFICANCE
- We need to be content with small steps. That’s all life is. Small steps that you take every day so that when you look back down the road, it all adds up, and you know you covered some distance.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
- Just like the disciples, so many of us in the church didn’t sign up for this mustard seed thing. But we soon realize its power.
VISION – SIGNIFICANCE IN HEAVEN
- I finish with a great story that is told by a Christian thinker of the twentieth century named C.S. Lewis. He was an Englishman. He wrote a story about a man that goes to heaven. He has a host. They’re swinging around heaven, and he sees this beautiful parade, and at the foot of the parade is this glorious, beautiful, regal woman. And he thinks, Oh, is that a queen? Is that a monarch? And his host says, “No, not at all. It’s someone you never heard of. Her name was Sarah Smith, and she lived in the suburbs.” “Well, she seems to be a person of particular importance.” The host says, “Oh yes, she’s one of the great ones. You’ve heard that theme in your country. Earth and fame in heaven are two quite different things. Right?” The man hadn’t heard that. He says, “Well, who are all these young men and young women at her side?” And the host responded, “They’re her sons and daughters.” “Oh, she must have had a very large family.” “No,” the host says, “every young man or boy that came to her back door to deliver something became her son. Every girl that she met was her daughter.”
- We are in the midst of a long winter. Focus on tilling the soil of your heart. It’s okay that you’re not changing the world right now, Jesus insists on that being his job. Our job is to release our death grip on achieving our own significance by transferring our dependence onto him.
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