Jesus' Promise: The Gospel Fills The World

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So now Jesus gives us these parables. There's seven parables here before us, and Jesus starts, of course, you know the parable where Jesus is talking about the one who scatters the seed, and you've got different kinds of grounds, and you've got all these different scenarios where the seed doesn't actually take root, really take root, and then you have the one where it does take root and it bears fruit some 100 -fold, 60 -fold, and 30 -fold.

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Jesus describes the parable. He explains the parable. But there are two parables back -to -back that I want to emphasize here, and let's start it in chapter 13, verse 31.

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It says, he put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.

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It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

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And then the one we just read, it's easy to read, it's a short one. He told them another parable, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hidden three measures of flour until it was all leavened.

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So back -to -back, Jesus gives us two parables that speak to progressive growth, progress in history, starting from something small and insignificant that ultimately gets to a place where it's surprising and shocking.

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You weren't necessarily ready for it. If you saw that mustard seed in your hand, you wouldn't think it's very significant until it goes in the ground and you give it time and you give it sun and you give it water and it becomes a tree that's as big as a man and the birds of the air nest in the branches.

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It looks like nothing and it becomes a big something. And then Jesus, right on the heels of that, tells the next one and he says it's like yeast in a lump of dough that actually permeates the entirety of it.

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Now, how could we ever think that the kingdom of God is ultimately going to fail in history?

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How could we think that the kingdom of God could be thwarted in history? How would we ever get the idea that the mission of the gospel will fail in history when

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Jesus gives us two popular parables that speak directly against the idea that there is failure in history?

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This is the kind of parable that speaks of so much victory that many commentators may wish that it wasn't in there.

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Because if your system says that history basically is going downward for the people of God, if your eschatology says that the church needs to be rescued by Jesus because it's ultimately destroyed and all of society is destroyed, then you can't really embrace the truth of this parable.

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Because you see, yeast does something. It is powerful. It's potent. When it gets in, you can't stop it.

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Once it's there, you're not going to be able to pull it out. You see, when this yeast gets into this lump of dough, these measures of flour, it permeates the entirety of it.

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And we're already in. Jesus already planted that yeast into that dough.

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And so the kingdom of God is there. It's unavoidable. It can't be thwarted. It won't be stopped ever.

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This speaks to total permeation. It gets through the entirety of the loaf. Now we need to speak quickly in terms of unpacking the passage to what is yeast in the

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Bible. Why do we interpret this way? Are we being consistent in our interpretation? But before I actually explain the yeast and three measures of dough,

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I want to give you that backstory quickly. It needs to be laid down, especially for those of us that are new to this discussion.

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The Old Testament told us things about Jesus long before he came. Lots of things, down to his identity.

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Who is it? Isaiah 9. It's God himself. Where's he coming from? Micah 5 .2, from Bethlehem.

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What's going to happen to him? Psalm 22, hands and feet pierced, dogs surrounding him.

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They cast lots for his clothing. He is railed against there in Psalm 22.

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We learn from the Old Testament, Isaiah 53, that he was going to be pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.

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The chastisement for our well -being would fall upon him and by his wounds would be healed.

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We learn from the Old Testament that he'd be numbered with the transgressors, that he would justify the many as he would bear their iniquities.

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All the details, all of them. You've got the symbols, the parts and pieces that are pointing to Jesus.

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They're just shadows. Jesus was the substance all along. They were just the shadows. They were the things that pointed to the main thing, which was

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Jesus. You've got temple. You've got priest. You've got animal sacrifices. You've got all these things that are just shadows.

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They're not the main thing. Jesus was always the main thing. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.

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They were just these rehearsals for the big day. You've also got, in the

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Old Testament, significant promises that threw the Jews. It threw them.

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They couldn't get it. Why? Because they saw the picture of the kingdom of God. It encompasses all of history.

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It destroys all opposition. They knew the most popular verse for them. It was in the

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New Testament the most times. Psalm 1101, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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That's total victory. That can't be the church losing in history. That can't be the kingdom being vanquished.

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That's total victory. They knew Psalm 2, where the father says to the son, in the

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Old Testament, he says, ask of me. I'll give you the nations for your inheritance. I'll give you the very ends of the earth for your possession.

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And then God says to the kings of the earth, be wise, obey the son, or you'll perish.

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They knew Psalm 22, that all the families of the earth are going to return to worship God. They knew Psalm 72, that he would have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

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They knew the text of Genesis 4910, that Shiloh would come and to him would be the obedience of the nations.

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They knew the Abrahamic covenant, that he would give Abraham descendants as numerous as the what?

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Stars. They knew the promises, which is part of the reason they saw a man from Nazareth as insignificant mustard seed.

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They just couldn't see it. They just couldn't understand it. How can you be the king of the world that's going to bring

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Jew and Gentile, every tribe, tongue, nation, language, back to God?

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How can you, Jesus of Nazareth, be the one that's going to bring salvation to the ends of the earth?

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How are you going to recreate everything? How are you going to take us out of this brokenness and fall and disharmony?

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We know what Adam did. We know there's sin in the world. We know the world is not the way that it ought to be.

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We see the hurricanes and the earthquakes and the disease and the death. We see it all.

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How are you going to bring the new creation, Jesus? You're from Nazareth. Isn't this

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Mary and Joseph's son? I know you. How are you the one? You don't have any money?

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You don't have any ability to tax anybody? You don't have any armies? You've got no internet, no cell phone, no nothing.

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You're going to change everything? Please. You see, they couldn't see it because they understood what

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God said was going to be the all -encompassing nature of the kingdom, and then they looked at Jesus and they said, how?

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How is this God -man, this king on a tree, pierced and bleeding from me?

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How is he going to change the world? They didn't see it because they knew what history had to be, and this didn't look like the guy that could fulfill it.

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That's the backstory. And then Jesus comes in. He says, well, it's like this. It's like a sower with seed.

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It's going to work like this. Just know there's going to be different grounds, and sometimes it penetrates a ground that's made ready for it, and it bears fruit, and the other ones, they're not real.

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And it's like a person who sows seed, and it's a wheat field. Don't ever forget it was actually a wheat field, not a tare field.

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It's a wheat field, and tares are in there too. An enemy, the devil, plants those tares, but don't worry.

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At the close of the age, I'll send the reapers, and they will take out of my kingdom these evil ones.

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To do what? To leave the wheat there. And then Jesus says, it's like a mustard seed.

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It's insignificant. It doesn't even matter. And it becomes this large thing that towers over even a person, and the birds of the air nest in the branches.

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And he says it's actually like leaven in a lump of dough. Here's the point. Why stress it? This is why I'm stressing it. Because we don't like it.

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Let's be honest. We don't like it. We don't like it. I'll say it like my friend says, Douglas Wilson, he says, we want the 82nd

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Airborne, right? We want you to drop the kingdom of God in history, obliterate history, be done with it, finish it all, let victory be victory, but can you do it like now?

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Now, now. Not later, not over time, not small to large growth.

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I want it now. And so we see the parables, and the truth is we're resistant to it because maybe it clashes with our traditions, it clashes with our eschatology, and maybe we don't like the fact that God has chosen to change history through progress, through time, through insignificance, through people who don't seem to matter, that God shames the wise, and he uses people that others call fools, that he actually uses the weak to accomplish his purposes, that he uses the small to accomplish his purposes, and doesn't, by the way, can

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I just say this quickly, doesn't it seem like exactly what God would do to bring himself glory, that he would use the things that everyone says is insignificant, the thing that everyone says can't accomplish very much, to accomplish his purposes, and why?

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I think I know why. So that he gets the glory, so that he gets to boast, because you know at the end of history, it wasn't us that did it, it could only be

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God, and so Jesus gives the parable of this leaven in a lump of dough, and I want to stress why use it as a positive thing, because watch, what is the common usage or way the

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Bible uses leaven? When we hear the word leaven in scripture, what is leaven commonly used as a metaphor for?

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Sin, false teaching, right? It absolutely is commonly used as sin or false teaching, right?

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Sinful influence. But let's go to the text so you can see, Jesus does use leaven to talk about sin.

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In Matthew 16, 6, Jesus warns us to beware of the leaven of the

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Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees, these were like the conservatives, these were the ones who took the

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Bible literally, these were the ones that were seen as the fundamentalists, right?

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They were the ones who believed in a literal resurrection, they were the ones who took their Bibles seriously, right?

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They believed in a form of piety that ended up becoming legalism, and Jesus says, beware of the

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Pharisees. And he said, beware of the Sadducees, who were the Sadducees in the first century? Well, they were the liberals. They were.

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The Sadducees didn't believe in a literal resurrection, and that's why they were Sadducee.

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That is one of the oldest, lamest Christian jokes ever, but I had to give it to you, right? So the Sadducees were like the theological liberals of the first century, that's really what they were.

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So Jesus says, beware of both those, right? Beware of the ones that are just hypocrites, right? They look real, they look conservative, they look like they are rigorous, right?

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But they're really just Pharisees, right? They tell you all these details, put things on your back that are not in a word of God.

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They tell you, you've got to dress this way, you've got to eat this way, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. Why? Because that pleases God. And what are they really putting on you?

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Not the commandments of God, the commandments of men. Jesus says, beware of their leaven. Beware of the leaven of the Sadducees.

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Jesus also says in Mark chapter 8, verse 15, beware of the leaven of the

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Pharisees. And Herod, Herod was a wicked leader. And Jesus says, beware of the leaven of the

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Pharisees and Herod. The Bible also uses leaven in a way to describe sin in other places as well.

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Galatians chapter 5, verse 9, as Paul, listen, as Paul condemns the false teaching of the

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Galatian heretics, they believed, watch. It's not enough to believe through faith in Jesus, you are declared righteous.

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You also need to come under the old covenant system, shadow by keeping circumcision.

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Paul says, preach that gospel, it's not the gospel, it's another gospel. He says, so beware of their leaven.

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He says this, watch. You let these false teachers in, you let them preach this false message of salvation that it's faith plus anything for justification.

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He says, don't you know that a little leaven leavens the entire lump? Don't you know you let this in, it's going to fill up the entirety of the lump, which by the way, brothers and sisters, is why we should be so active and hostile and opposed to false teaching and false teachers within the church.

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Because a little leaven leavens the entirety of the lump, and Paul warns them, don't yield to these men.

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And Paul says in Galatians 5, these guys who want to circumcise, they want to play with knives,

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I hope they go all the way. I hope they cut themselves off. So much for being sweet and kind, the 11th commandment of the evangelical church in the

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West, right? And so Paul says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump, don't tolerate it.

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Then you have another example in 1 Corinthians 5, chapter 8, where Paul says about the

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Passover. Listen, do Christians today celebrate Passover? Yes, and no, not in the old way, in the shadow way,

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Jesus is our Passover, he's accomplished his work, but yes, we do celebrate

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Passover in its ultimate sense. And that is Paul tells them to get out of them the leaven of malice and wickedness.

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And he says, don't you know, a little leaven leavens the entire lump, don't let this malice and wickedness be in your body because it will leaven the entirety of the lump.

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I got to just say as a side here, Christians, particularly today, Christians in America, we often say, oh, it doesn't really matter,

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I mean, be gracious, right? It doesn't matter what you take into your head or into your home.

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It doesn't matter what you read, what you watch, what you listen to, right?

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Doesn't really take any effect. It doesn't matter like what you allow within your body and its context because, you know, ultimately it's not us to judge, right?

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And Paul says, don't you know that a little leaven leavens the entire lump, purge it from you, get it out.

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And so, yes, the Bible does use leaven to describe sin, to describe false teaching, but, but, but, but, the

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Bible also speaks about leaven in a positive way. In Romans 11 verse 16 is a reference to Paul using leaven in a positive way, leavening being something as a good thing, a powerful thing.

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And I think I'm going to borrow this once again from my friend Doug Wilson. I think he did an excellent job describing this.

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This is important. Watch. As Christians, we can't see a word in the Bible like leaven and say that leaven always means sin, false teaching, evil, because the

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Bible doesn't use it that way. It uses metaphors in different ways. I'll give you an example as to why you don't want to cram one theological understanding into a word across the

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Bible. Here's an example. And again, I'm borrowing this, but I think it's fantastic. In the

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Bible, Jesus is called the lion of the tribe of Judah, the lion of the tribe of Judah.

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Now, you could say, because you see Jesus is called the lion of the tribe of Judah, that lions are always good and magnificent and majestic.

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Why? Why? Because Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah. Well, you're going to run into problems if you say, let me force that image of Jesus into every example of lion.

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Because give you another example. Peter says to Christians, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

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And so there's an example of lion being used in a way to describe Satan in how he acts with believers.

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So you can't say leaven means sin and false teaching everywhere, because the

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Bible doesn't do that. Leaven in the scriptures represents potency and growth.

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Leaven describes what something does, not necessarily what it is.

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Leaven represents potency and growth. Again, Douglas Wilson, fantastic description there.

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But let's go to the text here and recognize, watch, leaven being used in a context of sin and false teaching is common in the

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Bible, but not restricted to that metaphor. Why do I believe that leaven here is being described as a good thing?

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Well, because number one, three points, because of Jesus. If you go to your

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Bibles, to Luke, keep a finger there in Matthew, to Luke chapter 13 in verse 21,

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Luke 13, 21. Jesus gives the parable there, and actually start in verse 20, and it works like this.

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And again, he said, to what shall I compare the kingdom of God? Now in this context, the way that it's worded in Luke, Jesus, it makes it stronger.

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What shall I compare the kingdom of God? Now by the way, just quickly, this is important, remember

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I told you, don't take your pastor's word for it. Remember I told you the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonymous?

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Here's an example of where Matthew calls the kingdom of heaven, and what does Luke call it? Kingdom of God.

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So there's just an example, but he says, to what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven.

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So first reason as to why the leaven is good is because Jesus says that the leaven is the kingdom of God.

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That's not a sinful thing, that's a God thing, that's a good thing. And so Jesus, number one, he says that the leaven is the kingdom of God.

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That can't be bad, that can't be evil. Second point as to why the leaven is good, it's next to the parable of the seed that becomes a tree.

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Both parables describe something insignificant that becomes big and powerful, something that grows progressively, and both point to victory.

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The third point is, in the other parables, Jesus makes distinctions between the good and the evil.

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Example, Jesus gives the parable of the seed and the different grounds. One of them makes it in, one of them bears fruit.

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In one of those grounds, what do the birds do? What do the birds do?

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They come and snatch away the seed. So Jesus makes distinctions in the parable of the good versus the evil, right?

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The affected versus the non -affected. In the next parable, Jesus gives of a wheat field, he says an enemy comes and sows darnel, or darnel, right?

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Into the field, and then Jesus makes a distinction of pulling the wheat and the darnel.

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Now, in those three reasons, we see good reason to see the kingdom of God as the positive aspect as good as permeating the entirety of the loaf.

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It's a reference to what leaven does, not necessarily to what leaven is.

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Now, there's a good example too in Scripture of leaven being described as a good thing.

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In Leviticus, in the Old Testament, chapter 23, verse 17, there is description of the

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Feast of Weeks. Now, who knows, who knows their Bible, what is the

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Feast of Weeks in the New Testament? Anyone know? Pentecost.

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Watch, Jesus is our Passover, amen? He's the Passover. Jesus dies on Passover, he is the

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Passover lamb, he sheds his blood, Jesus gave the meal of wine and the bread.

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Now, watch, because it was Passover, what kind of bread were they eating at that meal?

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Unleavened bread. Unleavened bread. But, after Jesus died and rose again and appeared before eyewitnesses and then ascended into heaven, when the church gathered around, why were all those nations gathering into Jerusalem?

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Why do we have Jews from all over the empire who speak different languages?

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Why are they pouring into Jerusalem at this time? It was the

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Feast of what? Weeks. Weeks. And, watch, what were you supposed to eat during the

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Feast of Weeks? Leavened bread or unleavened bread? Leavened bread.

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And in Leviticus 23, 17, there's description of the people of God, listen, when they left

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Egypt, they were supposed to get all of the leaven out of themselves.

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Watch, they were not supposed to leave Egypt with leaven from Egypt.

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It was symbolic. They were supposed to purge themselves of all that stuff in Egypt and have all the leaven scraped away.

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So, when they got into the promised land, watch, God said, now have a feast of leavened bread.

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And it's new leaven, not from Egypt. Not the old stuff. Because why?

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They weren't supposed to carry into the promised land all of their practices, customs, and all the stuff from Egypt.

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Because what would they have done? If they had done that, they would have created Egypt 2 .0.

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In the promised land. So God says, watch, purge it. Get it out. And when you get into the promised land,

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Leviticus 23, the meal was supposed to be leavened. So is leaven always evil in scripture?

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No. It was actually commanded by God. Quick excursus, important excursus, watch how

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Christians, watch, we do this as Christians. We go to one of two extremes.

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We do it a lot. We go, okay, watch. The people of God were supposed to leave

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Egypt, purge, and after this period of being purged in the wilderness and detoxed in the wilderness, they come into the promised land.

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So watch, you want nothing from Egypt. Why? Unbelievers.

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Pagans. Right? And so what do the fundamentalists of today do? They say, there's nothing good in Egypt.

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Right? Unbelievers. Pagans. Polytheists. Get that leaven of Egypt out of you.

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Leave it behind. And that's the one end of the extreme. The other extreme says, oh, it doesn't matter.

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Right? We're all image of God. Take whatever from Egypt. None of it matters. Just sort of kumbaya, right?

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And take all the beliefs and everything in. That's the other extreme. Can I just point something out? One. God told his people, leave

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Egypt and clear out the leaven. Bring none of it with you. But then what else did

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God tell them to do with the stuff in Egypt? He said, you go and you take the gold from the

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Egyptians. Right? So what does that mean? It means they actually left

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Egypt and went to the land that God promised them with the gold that the

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Egyptians had produced. So yes, leave behind the leaven of the pagans, but it doesn't mean you can't ransack the pagans and take their stuff, right, that they've created.

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As my friend also says, and I'm quoting him a lot today, we just need to know the difference between getting gold from Egyptians and dumpster diving in the

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Egyptians' backyard. So yeah, you can take gold from Egyptians. Now, remember that Passover was unleavened,

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Feast of Weeks or Pentecost was leavened. Now let's talk here, now that we see that the kingdom of God is the leaven in the three measures.

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Now watch, admit this. When you see this in the text, Jesus says three measures, you don't have any idea what that means.

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And I don't have any idea what that means because we're not making a lot of bread, right? And most of you are saying, oh, like leaven, like a

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Fleischmann's yeast pack, right? Like I go buy that stuff from the store, 38 cents at Fry's, right?

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I got the yeast in the pack, but we don't know what it means normally to like create our own starter, to make our own sourdough, it's not our thing.

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So let's go to the text. What does it mean that there's a woman with three measures of flour? Well, it's actually a pretty big deal.

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Now a measure in the Bible, the system, how you measure it, a measure is three homers.

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Okay, that's the way it's described. It takes 10 homers to make an ephah, so three measures is an ephah.

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Now in modern times, an ephah is called a bushel.

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Now I didn't know what that was, and so I had to look it up. And you can still buy bushels of flour today.

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And if you look up bushel of flour, a bushel, which is what's being described by Jesus, three measures of flour,

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Jesus is describing a bushel. A bushel of flour is 60 pounds of wheat flour.

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So this woman in the story that Jesus is saying, a woman who hides leaven in a bushel, three measures, is a woman putting leaven into 60 pounds of wheat flour, which would make 42 one and a half pound commercial loaves.

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This is not a woman baking a little bit of stuff for her family.

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This is a woman who's essentially got a bakery, right? She's very, very dedicated.

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She's got a lot of work to do. So here in Jesus' story, a woman who hides leaven into three measures of flour is a woman who is baking about 42 one and a half pound loaves.

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That's a lot. Now this is used in the Bible elsewhere. This is where you got to actually take your

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Bible and let the whole story speak. Remember, watch, we are not the first ones to open this book.

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There are 2 ,000, there's 2 ,000 years of history behind us of Christians opening this book.

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We ought to glean from their experience and teaching as long as it is consistent with the word of God. And in this day when

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Jesus said this, watch, there was about 2 ,000 years at least of specific dedicated history to Israel, the people of God.

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They knew their Bibles. They knew the Bible stories. So when Jesus says three measures of flour, it's something they heard before.

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Couple examples, Ezekiel and Ezekiel 45, 24. This was the amount of flour presented in sacrifice.

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Hannah also uses this amount in 1 Samuel 1, 24 when she brought it to the temple when she was dedicating

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Samuel to his service. Another example of three measures of flour in the

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Old Testament is Gideon. Gideon made this amount for the angel of the

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Lord in Judges 6, 18 through 19. So this isn't the first go around with this.

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This isn't the first time they heard it. Now another place I think is most significant,

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I need you to go there with me. So get ready to leave Matthew 13 and follow me because this is huge.

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This is the punch. Are you ready? This is the punch, I think, of the story. Go to Genesis 18.

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Now thankfully, thankfully, in my Bible, when it gives you the little numbers and the references to go to next to the verse, in my

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Bible, thankfully, whoever did the notes for this Bible also put Genesis 18 next to this parable.

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How do you like that? I'm not the only one that sees it. Christians have all pointed to this.

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Now Jesus says, a woman hid leaven in three measures of flour.

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Now do you, watch. If you're a Jew waiting for the kingdom and the Messiah, and you know your

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Bible, you've been sitting at Sabbath in synagogue, hearing about the coming kingdom and the promises to Abraham and your people,

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Jesus says, hey guys, a woman had hid leaven in three measures of flour.

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Instantly, they should have known, oh, Sarah, that's

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Sarah. Genesis 18, and the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre.

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As he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him.

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This is Abraham, and now the three men come to Abraham.

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When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, oh Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.

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Let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree while I bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on since you have come to your servant.

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So they said, do as you have said. And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, quick, three measures of fine flour.

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Knead it and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man who prepared it quickly.

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Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

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So watch. First and foremost, this is crazy, because the text doesn't just tell you

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Abraham's talking to the pre -incarnate Christ. It doesn't just say to the

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Jews, oh, hey, by the way, that's God, pre -incarnate Christ who's going to come save you from your sins.

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But Abraham knows, because whose sight does he find favor in? Just some guy, some angel, or the favor in the sight of God?

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And so he bows down before the pre -incarnate Christ and he says, stay.

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Just get a morsel. Now watch. Now that you know what three measures is, that's hilarious.

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Hey guys, hey, just come for a morsel of bread. A morsel? And he runs off in excitement, hey,

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Sarah, make 42 pounds of bread. Right?

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Now watch. Watch. Sarah, the woman, gets these three measures of flour and they bless the angel of the

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Lord and he sits there and he sups with Abraham. And only after the three measures of flour do you get this statement from the

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Lord about Sarah. Verse 9, they said to him, where is Sarah, your wife? And he said, she is in the tent.

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The Lord said, watch, I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son.

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And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. So watch. She gets the three measures of flour, the woman, and the three measures of flour, and the

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Lord says, I'm going to bless Sarah with a son. Now we know the promise, right?

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That Sarah was going to have a seed and ultimately that seed is Christ.

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And here you have Sarah with Isaac, her son, this little leaven that begins to leaven the world and gets all the way to Christ.

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Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a woman who hides this leaven in three measures of flour.

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It starts off small and insignificant and permeates everything. Watch. Who would have thought that this insignificant nobody in the middle of some desert in Palestine has anything to do with the world being healed and redeemed?

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Who would have thought that this barren woman, this old woman, this childless man and woman, who would have thought they would have had a son that moved its way to another son, to another son, to another son, all the way down to Jesus, the king of the world?

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Who would have thought that God would have done something so spectacular with this insignificant leaven? And Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, that a woman hid in three measures of flour.

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Well, what does leaven do? It's powerful. It's alive. It fills the entirety of the loaf.

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You see, here's what you can expect from the kingdom of God according to Jesus. It looks like nothing and then it becomes this big something.

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It sits there in that loaf and it quietly moves and makes the thing do what it's called to do.

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You see, the thing about leaven that's important is that you're silly for running back to look at its progress.

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Don't we do that? Jesus says the kingdom of God is going to fill the entire world. It's going to permeate all of it.

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This massive three measures, it'll get all of it. And what do we do? We're like the kids in kindergarten class.

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We've got the experiment in front of us. The teacher says, come along kids, here's the dough and now let's put the yeast in it.

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And then the teacher sets it down and every two minutes the kids are coming back going, it's not doing anything, right?

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Because it's all about perspective. If we keep running back to that dough saying that it doesn't look like it's actually filling up, we don't get the point of leaven in a lump of dough.

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It works quietly. It works constantly.

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It works without you being able to tell every moment before the naked eye.

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It works because that is the power of leaven and what it was made to do.

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Jesus, it is promised in Isaiah 43, 19, he's going to create rivers in the desert.

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It is promised in Revelation 21, 5, behold,

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I am making all things new. Jesus doesn't say,

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I am making all new things. He says, behold, I'm making all things new.

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In Isaiah 65, 17, the Bible says that God is creating a new heavens and new earth. And in the

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New Testament, the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 says that behold, if anyone is in Christ, he is a what?

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Come on now, tell me louder. He's a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

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In Christ, we are a new creation. Jesus is making all things new.

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What God is doing in the world is he is putting all things into subjection to himself.

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I want you to see the text and we're done today. I'm going to leave you with the word of God to speak to you about the yeast and the three measures of flour.

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Go to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1.

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Of course, this is a popular text we love to go to with the Mormons, the

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Jehovah's Witnesses, because it just shouts to them about Jesus being God. I want you to see it.

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Do it in context. Colossians 115, he is the image of the invisible

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God. That's Jesus, the firstborn of all creation. Protocos, he has preeminence.

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He is the heir of all things. For by him, Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

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All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

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And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

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For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

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Paul couldn't be any clearer. Jesus, he's God. He's the one who created everything in existence.

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He holds everything together. Right now you're being held together by this Jesus. And it says this, that Jesus is going to reconcile all things to himself, whether in earth or in heaven.

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So watch what things is Jesus going to reconcile to himself? All things.

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Where? Heaven, right? Spiritual things, spiritual things, things to do with the church, right?

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Those things, those are that's what Jesus is concerned with. He's concerned with spiritual things. It says that Jesus is reconciling all things, whether in heaven or on earth, everything being reconciled to God.

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And watch, somebody challenged me. I posted, hey, we're going to do this thing on the leaven and the loaf.

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I said, many people today concerned with the end of the world. As a matter of fact, did you know that September 23rd is supposed to be the rapture of the church?

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Did you know that? It's the new one. We're not talking about Harold Camping's failed prophecy from a couple of years ago.

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This is a new one. September 23rd is supposed to mark either the rapture itself or the start of the tribulation and the rapture.

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How many times have you been here before? How many times, watch, in your lifetime have you been here before?

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Where you hear the prophecy pundits and all the people saying, Jesus is coming at any moment.

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With all this fixation on, we had the full solar eclipse, and then we've got this hurricane now in Texas, and now a hurricane now,

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Irma, in Florida, all these things, all these catastrophic things. We have all this stuff happening in the world, and what's it mean?

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At any moment, we're getting raptured out. The world is ending. Well, my suggestion is this.

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It's more likely that we are in the infancy of the church. Why do

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I believe that? Well, because the whole Bible teaches something about the kingdom of God in history, and every enemy being placed under the feet of Jesus, and the very last enemy is death.

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After every enemy is defeated, 1 Corinthians 15, then the last one is death, and then

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Jesus doesn't bring the kingdom, he delivers it over to the Father as a completed victorious thing.

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Also, the Bible says that all things are going to be made subject to Jesus. All things, in heaven and on earth, and I look around today, and I see the failure in my own life.

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The failure of the church all around. I see evil, I see sin,

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I see brokenness. I see a creation that is still being put under the feet of Jesus, and I think we have a long way to go.

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So rather than focusing on being raptured out of the world, and any moment being taken away, what we ought to be focusing on is what

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Jesus says. He says, occupy until I come. That's the original occupy movement, and ours is righteous.

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Jesus tells his people, he says, the meek shall inherit the earth.

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That Abraham's descendants, Paul says in Romans, will inherit the world. Jesus teaches us that he has all authority in heaven and on earth, and he says, go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey. And if you look at the parables that Jesus teaches, that leaven needs to be worked throughout the entirety of the dough.

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And the promise is, is that it will. And so here's my question.

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Do you and I despise our smallness? Do you despise the insignificance?

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What does God call us to when he says that there is this kingdom that is like leaven and a lump of dough?

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Well, it means, watch, you can't get it out. You're not going to stop it.

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And here's what the world needs to know about the kingdom of Jesus. You will not win.

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He will win and have victory over history. He will fill his kingdom up in this loaf.

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It will make its way all the way through and nothing can stop it. It's already in there.

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You can't get it out of there. It's going to do its job. And though you think you can stop it, you can't mess with it.

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It's going to permeate the loaf. It's going to work its way through because that's what leaven does.

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Think about history for a moment. Think about the mustard seed. Think about the leaven of 11 very confused disciples.

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Jesus dies. People are like, well, he's failed. Then Jesus rises from the dead and appears.

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And you've got almost nobody at Pentecost of any note. Very few people. And those very few people over a course of time turn the

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Roman Empire on its head. You've got a Christian walking into Ireland and turning people who are barbarians into Christians.

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You've got Christians on a little boat called the Mayflower making their way over the

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United States, coming over here to bring the gospel and the kingdom of God. This nation only exists today because of Christianity.

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You're welcome, world. Think about the things of the kingdom of God, that leaven in the lump of dough.

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This is from D. James Kennedy's book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born. Here's a couple things about the leaven in the lump of dough.

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Hospitals, which essentially began during the Middle Ages because of Christians. You're welcome, world.

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Universities, which also began during the Middle Ages. In addition, most of the world's greatest universities were started by Christians for Christian purposes.

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Literacy and education for the masses. Capitalism and free enterprise. Representative government, particularly as it has been seen in the

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American experiment. The separation of political powers. Civil liberties.

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The abolition of slavery, both in antiquity and in more modern times. Modern science.

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The discovery of the new world by Columbus. The elevation of women. Benevolence and charity.

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The Good Samaritan ethic. Higher standards of justice. The elevation of the common man.

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The condemnation of adultery, homosexuality, and other perversions. High regard for human life.

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The civilizing of many barbarian and primitive cultures. The codifying of setting to writing of many of the world's languages.

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Greater development of art and music. The inspiration for the greatest works of art.

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The countless changed lives transformed from liabilities into assets to society because of the gospel.

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The eternal salvation of countless souls. That leaven got worked in.

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And what are you starting to see? It's working its way through.

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And what we can't say as believers is that I despise this day of small beginnings.

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Because you know what yeast looks like? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

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It's insignificant. It seems like absolutely nothing. Yet it is potent.

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And what we can say is we can look at our lot. And we can say, well all

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I have is a wife and these kids. All I have is this job.

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All I have is my little apartment. All I have is my singleness. All I have is this little ministry on the side.

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All I have is this small thing. But don't you know that the way that God works in history is with this insignificant small thing that ends up changing absolutely everything?

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If you put a little bit of leaven in a lump of dough, it's going to blow it up. And so what

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God does is He uses you and I as the means to blow things up. To change the course of history.

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Just consider for a moment. If you look at your genealogy. Not your physical. Your spiritual.

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Your genealogy spiritually. What do you know? What do you know? You know about the guy or the girl that told you the gospel that led you to Jesus.

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That's what you know. Right? I know about the person who told me the gospel. I read that thing.

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I know that. And most of us don't even know the person that's behind that. Right? But think about this.

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In all of our genealogies spiritually, moving all the way back through time, there was an insignificant nobody somewhere in the middle of nowhere that was totally faithful over the small thing that God gave them to do that led to you knowing

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Jesus. Don't despise the day of small beginnings.

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Don't ever look at the half -made dough and say,

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I guess it's not working. I'll end on this point. My wife, I told you.

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And it's so cool. I just realized. It dawned on me today. I didn't tell my wife,

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Hey, we're doing this thing on like leaven coming up. Could you start working on some sourdough bread?

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Give me an idea, like a feel for it. I'd landed in this after she already started the process of doing that at home.

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And I could tell you that there have been times where Candy's trying to work this situation out and she gets like the leaven going.

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She's trying to get the starter running. There's been a few times where she goes back and I've watched my wife in the kitchen with the starters and like the leaven in the flour.

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I've watched her go back and just stare like a weirdo at all of this flour working with the leaven.

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And I've watched her and the kids have watched her go in and sort of like obsessed by looking at it. I think it's dead.

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Does it look dead to you? Like, you know, I think it's dead. And that's what we do. We keep going back to that dough and we keep saying,

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I think it's dead. And I can tell you by the times that Candy has gone to it and she's obsessed and said,

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I think it's dead. And then it turns out that the next day she goes, no, it was alive and it made some of the best bread.

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You see, what we can't do is keep trying to tinker and change how that leaven works its way through.

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Sometimes you just have to let leaven be leaven and trust God with the outcome. And believers, you and I are part of this kingdom of God which is already in the measures of flour.

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It's going to work its way through. Your job and my job is to trust Jesus and to obey

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Him and don't despise the day of small beginnings. Labor and work and be the means of God as He takes all things and puts them under His feet in victory.