THE PERSON AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS
THE PARABLES Parables of Growth and Value
The main theme of Jesus' parables is that Jesus the Son of Man has come to usher in the kingdom of heaven and that our response to Jesus determines whether or not we enter that kingdom, that is, whether or not we are saved. In these next 2 sets of parables Jesus deals with the following 2 issues:
PARABLES OF GROWTH (13:31-33)
When Jesus was on earth, the kingdom of heaven consisted basically of Him and His 12 disciples. Surely some of the Jews scratched their heads in bewilderment when Jesus claimed that He was the One who was bringing in this kingdom of God. After the Jews read the OT, they thought of the kingdom of heaven in grander terms than just in terms of one king and 12 followers. Wasn't the fact that Jesus' kingdom consisted of only 12 followers proof enough that Jesus was not ushering in the kingdom of God and that He was NOT the Messiah?
Just this same objection was pitched to me when I was in Israel with a group from our church. After I baptized a group from our church in the Jordan River, a Jerusalem Fox News reporter with microphone in hand and camera in tow approached me with the following argument: "Aren't you disappointed by how small the Holy Land is? When you read about it in the Bible, it seems bigger than life? Aren't you disappointed with how tiny and insignificant it is?"
In these 2 parables Jesus warns His listeners not to be deceived by the smallness of His band of followers. Simply because something starts out small does not mean it ends up small. In fact something very small can actually become quite large. The first parable Jesus uses to illustrate this point is that of the mustard seed:
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field,
And this is smaller than all other seeds,
But when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree
So that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.
In the ancient world the mustard seed was considered the smallest of seeds. (Although we now know that there are smaller seeds because we've seen them through microscopes, the people of Jesus' day did not have access to microscopes.) The phrase "smaller than the mustard seed" became a proverb to describe how incredibly small something was. Yet even though the mustard seed is incredibly small, it still produces a rather large plant. Just looking at the seed, you would never think that a bush/shrub 10' high would emerge from that tiny little seed. Yet that is exactly what happens. The mustard plant becomes so large and has such a large span, that even the birds of the air can come and nest in its branches. You would have never thought that would happen just by looking at the mustard seed, at the beginning of the mustard plant.
The point of this parable is not how small the seed is or how large the mustard plant is. As was said earlier, some seeds are smaller, and many trees are a lot larger. The point is the contrast between how small the seed is and yet how large the plant it produces is. Something so very small can produce something so very large. In the same way the kingdom of God may just start out with Jesus and the 12; however, it has turned out to be a vast entity which not only today has over 2 billion adherents but which has outlasted the march of time for the past 2000 years.
The poem One Solitary Life says:
He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty
He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself
He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied him
He was turned over to his enemies
And went through the mockery of a trial
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing
The only property he had on earth
When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend
Nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind's progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life
Nothing could be truer than the above poem. If it doesn't convince you Jesus is God, nothing ever will.
Back to our Jerusalem Fox News correspondent. When she asked me if I was disappointed in how tiny and insignificant the holy land was in light of the fact that the Bible makes it seem like it is bigger than life, I responded: "Ma’am, it just shows you that Jesus is bigger than life because in no way could Jesus have come from such a tiny place as this and make the impact that He made unless He was truly God the Son." Her assistant behind her was beaming. She was not so pleased; it did not make the Fox News newscast that evening in Jerusalem! But that did not make those words any less true. The insignificance of Jesus and His beginnings and His surroundings and yet the incredible impact He made just underscore the fact He is the Son of Man who has ushered in the kingdom of God.
The second parable Jesus uses to illustrate this point is that of leaven:
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven,
Which a woman took and hid in 3 pecks of flower until it was all leavened.
This second parable emphasizes again the smallness of the beginning of the kingdom and its great effects. Leaven is small, and yet it affects the entire 3 pecks of flour, producing an enormous quantity of bread.
Yet, this parable also stresses the hiddenness of the kingdom. Too often when we think of kingdoms, we think of things which can be measured, for example, how many weapons the kingdom has, how much wealth it has accumulated, how much territory it covers, etc. You can't do that with the kingdom of God because it is not a kingdom of this world. Things may be going on in the kingdom of God that you can't observe. As a result, you can't evaluate the kingdom like you evaluate other things.
Although I meet with several men's groups during the week, I don't know everything going on in their lives. Recently I had a pleasant surprise when Tom Chiles told me what was going on in his life. Tom has been attending a Bible study at his house for the past 3+ years. He told me that he and another guy at work wanted to start up a Bible study using the materials we use in our men's groups. That was some time ago. What is neat is that this past week he told me that 12 people are attending that study. It is the largest of all the studies going on attached with our church! That is marvelous and I didn't even know it. Kameron Smith told me that he was going to start basic Bible studies for men who grew up in church but have since been alienated. I didn't know he was thinking those thoughts. You simply can't evaluate the kingdom based simply on what you are doing or what you are observing. God is marvelous, doing things we will probably never know about.
The outflow of this is that we are to have faith. Faith implies that many times we don't know what is going on. It's not our responsibility to know everything that is going on; it's our responsibility to be faithful to Jesus and to continue doing the things He would have us do. When we do that, then we get the results He wants us to have. We may not have the results others think we should have; however, we are going to get the results HE wants us to have. In due time, especially on the day of judgment, we will know what impact we did or did not make. In the meantime we are to keep on trusting Jesus.
I've seen the result of Christians being patient and trusting that the Lord was working in their situation, and I've seen the result of some Christians not being patient and trusting that the Lord was working in their situation. In 1998 we sensed that the Lord was wanting us to experience more freedom in worship. We knew this would not happen if we kept on being chained to the hymnals. We tried to use the screen with the projector to help us with choruses; however, we were definitely getting some resistance. It would have been easy to give up and move on; however, while all this was going on, without our knowledge the beams in the sanctuary roof were pulling away from the walls. Within the year the church roof collapsed, destroying every hymnal in the church. All we had left to show words were the screen and projector! The next Sunday we started using the screen and projector, thereby giving us more freedom in worship. We never looked back from that point on.
On the other hand, a local pastor was really doing some neat things with his congregation; however, he ran into resistance with some of the older members because he wanted to do some creative things in worship. In order to accomplish this, he was going to need to have extensive modifications done to his sanctuary. He got impatient though and threw in the towel, running for greener pastures. Within 3 months after he left, the church he had abandoned burned down to the ground, forcing the congregation to build a new church with all the contemporary items he had wanted in his church. Faith and patience are of the essence.
PARABLES OF VALUE (13:44-46)
When Jesus ushers in the kingdom of heaven, it enters a world which has its own set of values. Some things in this world are considered valuable, while others are not. The question becomes, "How does the kingdom of heaven compare in value to other things in this world?" Is the kingdom of heaven one of many valuable things in life? Is family more important than Jesus and the kingdom of heaven? How does the worth of Jesus and His kingdom compare to the value of your job?
The first parable Jesus uses to address this issue concerns that of a man who stumbles upon a treasure chest hidden in a field.
The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which a man and hid again,
And from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
This story is not as preposterous as it seems. Whenever an invading army would approach a village, people from the village would take their treasure and bury it out in the field so that the invaders would not find it whenever they ransacked the village. Most likely the owner of the treasure died during the invasion and with him the knowledge of the treasure. This man stumbles upon this treasure. When he discovers it, he reburies it and sells all that he has in order to buy that field--and with it the treasure.
Notice several things about this parable.
Several elements in the first parable are also found in the second parable.
Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls,
And upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought that pearl.
Elements in this parable include
"And everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name sake will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life" (Matt. 19:29).
Again
"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matt. 10:37). (It's even rougher in Luke 14:26: "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.")
I have noticed a disturbing trend among ministers my age. Some of them will not leave their present position of ministry until a certain child in their family finishes school, normally the 8th or 12th grades (end of jr. high or end of sr. high school). Now if the Lord wants them to remain in their present position until their child graduates, that is one thing; HOWEVER, to turn down automatically a calling from a certain church because your child has not finished school is no reason to turn down that calling. If Jesus wants me to go to another city to minister, the last place Nathan and Molly need to be is Corsicana. Jesus is not just taking me into account whenever He leads me somewhere. He perfectly understands my family's dynamics and works in light of those dynamics.
Jesus is quite clear: "If you are not willing to give it all up for Me, then you are not worthy of Me."
It is so sad what we have done to Jesus. I fear that today our view of manhood is Ashton Kutcher. I saw him in a movie the other night and couldn't believe how soft he really was. He was so unmanly. When I saw him at an awards banquet with Demi Moore, I was nauseated. We have made Jesus to be like Ashton. Jesus though is radical, and He demands radical commitment. Do not fool yourself into thinking He is satisfied with anything less.