The Gospel Wins In History

Matthew 13 is home to some of the most popular parables of Jesus, some of the most well-known. And there are some short ones and punchy ones, and I think some parables too, in particular we're going to talk about today, that are often misunderstood and it seems as though the commentators don't want Jesus to have said what he said, as my friend says.

So, Matthew 13, it's a significant passage, there's a lot here, and so let's get into it, let's unpack it. Matthew chapter 13, and let's actually start in verse 18. I'm going to move from verse 18 down, there's a reason why, because there's some context here about something Jesus says in the parable of today, that I think that will help with.

So, here we go. Matthew chapter 13, verse 18, hear now the words of the living and true God. Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.

He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, and another sixty, and another.

Thirty.

He put another parable before them, saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then doesn't have weeds?

He said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servants said to him, then do you want us to go and gather them? But he said, no, less than gathering the weeds, you root up the weed along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.

And at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the weed into my barn. Here it is. 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.

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 nest in its branches. He told them another parable, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hidden three measures of flour till it was all leavened.

All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables, indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the word, thus far as the reading of God's word.

Let's pray together.

Father, God, I need you, Father, to teach today by your spirit, where we call upon you to get the speaker out of the way, God, we call upon you to bless us with understanding, help us to see and to understand and to believe, and God, please guard us from error.

Help us, God, to be filled with the hope that we have for the future, that God, you are the one who sows, who ultimately is bringing about the fruit, and you are the one that's going to fill the world with the leaven of the gospel, and God, please help us, Lord, to be changed by this.

Most of all, God, please change us through these parables that we read about today, and please, Lord, cause me to decrease in Christ, to increase in Jesus' name, amen. So much to say, these parables, those last two we heard from there of the seed, the mustard seed coming into a tree, the birds of the air nesting in the branches, and the leaven and the lump of dough leavening the entire, permeating the entire loaf.

It does something to change you. If you can't see that, then hopefully at the end of today's message, you'll see that these parables ought to change your entire perspective on the future of the gospel in the world, the kingdom of God, the church, the success of the gospel, but also in terms of God's pattern and how He does things in the world.

He does it with insignificant things. He does it with small things that become very large things. He makes the insignificant significant. He takes something that's not mighty, and He makes it mighty. That's what God does.

That's His pattern in the world. And these parables about the kingdom are not cryptic, strange things that really have no relevance or bearing on your life. I want to say this. If you're in Christ now, you are fulfillment of the parable we just read, that seed becoming a large tree.

You are fulfillment of it, and if you're in Christ today, you ought to see in these parables that God's pattern for the kingdom of God in the world is to take very small things and grow them into large trees.

That's what God does. And I want to say that I know we don't like that. We want the thing to drop, right? Let it fall from the sky. As a matter of fact, I would say there is a dominant version of eschatology today.

It's the eschatology of the moment. It wasn't always this way. As a matter of fact, when America first began, the dominant eschatology was ours. Our eschatology, a view of the future where Jesus wins everything.

He rules over every single realm. There's nothing that's going to be untouched by His lordship. Jesus wins in history. But the prominent eschatology of the day, the kind of thing you read about in Left Behind series, the Tim LaHaye version of the future, the Hal Lindsey version of the future, the prominent eschatology of the day doesn't want Jesus to have said this.

Doesn't want Jesus to have said this, that we have this thing that starts very small and ends up growing very, very large. We have this leaven that ends up permeating the entirety of the loaf. It fills the entire thing.

That sounds like success. That sounds like giant success. That sounds like nothing's going to be left untouched by Jesus' rule and reign. Yet, we want the thing to drop, right? We want that kingdom to just come down and obliterate history.

And that is, by the way, the popular dominant view of the moment, right? Some people say Jesus tried to bring the kingdom, and because the Jews of His day rejected it, Jesus wasn't able to bring the kingdom.

And so what that means is the kingdom is on hold. There's this little gap we're in right now where the kingdom is put on hold, and what's going to happen is, is after a lot of destruction and mayhem and a lot of degradation and a lot of decay, Jesus is going to finally swoop back in in history.

He's going to rescue the church, and He's going to come, and He's going to bring His kingdom, and it's going to obliterate everything. It's going to drop.

Bam!

Iron fist. He's going to rule within the world, and that's the view. And because that's what we want, we don't want to wait. The Jews didn't want to wait either. They didn't want to wait. Jesus comes in.

He is this lowly son of Joseph and Mary, adopted by Joseph, literal son of Mary. He comes from Nazareth, this nothing little town. They don't have a large budget. They don't have a lot of money. They're struggling to make things work.

Sounds a lot like apologia, but So they're moving into this whole thing with Jesus, and they see Him, and they say, what's significant about you? I mean, Jesus comes into the world looking a lot like a mustard seed, right?

Insignificant, barely see it in your hand, and they didn't like that about Jesus. It's what bothered them, I think. Maybe for some of them, most of them, it's what bothered them the most about Jesus. This is not what we expected.

I read in my Bible that it says, in Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, that it's El Gibor, the mighty God, the father of eternity, of the increase of His government and of peace. There will be no ends on the throne of David to establish it with justice and righteousness forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. I see Isaiah chapter 2, that all the nations stream up to the mountain of God, and the law of God, the Torah, goes forth from Zion. Isaiah chapter 11, that He's a signal for the nations.

Psalm 22, that all the families of the earth are going to return to worship the Lord. Psalm chapter 2, ask of me, the Father says to Jesus, and I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession.

Psalm 72, He shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the.

Earth.

Psalm 1101, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. They know that. They got their Bibles. They've been to Jewish Awanas and the synagogue, they know it all.

They got it memorized, right? It's in their hearts. And now here comes Jesus.

That's the king of the world.

This is the one that's going to establish justice, who's not going to stop. He's not going to faint or grow weary until He establishes justice in the earth, the coastlands waiting for His law, and it's Jesus of Nazareth.

Are you the king? He says, I told you. Right? Tell us, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you're the Messiah, say so. He says, I told you. And the reason you can't hear me is because you're not of my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice and they come. I give them eternal life and nothing can stand in from my hand. And Jesus does not fit the bill according to their own presuppositions. Because why? Because they see Jesus, they're like, you're the Messiah?

You're telling tales out of the schoolyard. There's no way you're the Messiah.

Why?

Well, if you're the Messiah, then why are we still under the boot of Rome? Why are we being ruled by Caesar?

Why?

Right? How could you possibly How are you the Messiah when Caesar still reigns on his throne? You're supposed to have a throne where you conquer the whole world with salvation and redemption. How are you the Messiah?

That can't be possible. Because they couldn't understand that God works his kingdom into the world like leaven in a lump of dough. He works his kingdom into the world by death that comes to life. He works his kingdom into the world in mustard seed kinds of way that you could barely see in your hands, but it turns into a giant tree before you even realize it.

You can't hear the tinkering. You can't hear the working. Like if you're sitting next to a lump of dough that's been leavened, you can't hang out next to that lump of dough and hear the hammers banging, the nails being hit.

You can't hear the saw blades moving back and forth. You can't hear the construction workers and the beeping and the sound. You can't hear the building. It just happens. But when it happens, it permeates the entirety of the loaf.

You don't just go back checking on it when it's not fully completed yet saying, well, I guess it's not working. You have to give it time. It's working its way through the loaf. And we don't like the idea we never have of waiting on God.

We don't like the idea of having God be the sovereign over the leaven. We don't like the idea of God being the sovereign over the growth of that seed into a tree. We'd rather just have trees plopped into place.

As a matter of fact, that's what we do today, right? Long time ago, what'd you do? You had to get seeds. You had to till the ground. You had to put stuff in.

Be patient.

Water.

You had to wait, right? And you had to just wait till it did what it did. Now we're like, where's the local nursery, right? Let me go buy some trees that are already made. I'll plant those, right? Let me go get the stuff that's already in position.

I'm going to plant those.

By the way, that's what I do.

Confession, right? I said, oh, it's Arizona. I want to build. I want some peach trees and apple trees, and I'm dreaming, right? Like yeah, right.

Okay.

And I'm like, I got this desert landscape here. I'm going to make it work, right? And so, you know, I dug things up and I went and I bought pre-grown trees, right? Put them all in the ground and covered them all up.

I have no idea what I'm doing, and so they all died, right?

But that's what we want.

I want the thing to just be there. I was like, I got like, oh, I want a garden in my backyard, right? Fantastic. So what did I do? I went and I just plopped all the trees already made into my ground, right?

Because I'd rather have that. I don't want to wait for it. And that's what we're like. The Jews of Jesus' day, many of the Christians of today. I want the kingdom to drop out of heaven from the sky and obliterate everything, and then everything's done.

And Jesus contradicts that. He says, it's a mustard seed that becomes a large tree, and the birds of the air nest in its branches. It's like leaven in a lump of dough. It permeates the entirety of the loaf.

You see, the Old Testament expectation was the kingdom was going to come into the world and bring forgiveness and salvation, Jew and Gentile together, worship of God taking place all over the world. Now Jesus comes into that context, and they're expecting it, and he says, the kingdom of God is like this, insignificant to large growth, leaven, lump of dough.

That's what it's like.

And so that's the background, and we have to ask the question, is this new? Is Jesus shocking us? He walks into the world, he's already surprising them because they're only reading parts of their Old Testament and not the whole story.

They're missing the portions about the passion of the Messiah, the death of the Messiah, the resurrection of the Messiah. They're missing it. But is Jesus coming in with a novel interpretation of how the kingdom works?

Is it something ultimately new that they should have gone, oh, it's not like I thought. It's not slow growth to large, fruitful end. It's something different. No, actually, it's the Old Testament pattern.

It's how the Bible said the kingdom was coming in the world. I want you to go to the text, two texts to start with. Daniel 2. Go left in your Bible. Daniel chapter 2. Daniel chapter 2 is one instance of the Old Testament revelation, something written hundreds of years before Jesus comes into the world in his earthly ministry.

And this is one of those snapshots ahead of time of what the kingdom would look like. Here it is. Daniel chapter 2, verse 36. Daniel is given a dream to interpret. And so now he gives the interpretation of the dream.

I can't give you the full exposition today. I'm just going to read it so you see the expectation. Here we are from the ESV, Daniel 2 .36. This was the dream. Now, you will tell the king its interpretation, you, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all, you the head of gold.

He's interpreting the dream. Another kingdom, inferior to you, shall rise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which you shall rule over the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things.

And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, should be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mix with the soft clay.

And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle, as you saw the iron mix with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, and as iron does not mix.

With clay.

And here we go.

And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand.

Forever.

Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, a great God has made known to the king what shall be after this.

The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.

Why quote that? Here it is.

Daniel tells the king, long before Jesus comes, you had a dream. God gave you the dream. Here's what the dream means. I'm going to interpret it for you. There's going to be four kingdoms, and it's during the time of the fourth kingdom that God himself will establish a kingdom that will last forever.

It will never end. And you notice how it's described, it's described like this stone, this insignificant little thing that comes into the world, and it ends up obliterating everything and becoming this kingdom, a rule that stands forever, and nothing ever ends it.

So here's these earthly kingdoms, Babylon, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. It happened just like Daniel said, and it was in that context, the time of the fourth kingdom, that Jesus enters with his kingdom, and it's a kingdom that's never been destroyed.

2 ,000 years of history of God's people, the kingdom of God, ruling and reigning. Jesus is ruling and reigning in the world, and he's filling the earth up with 11 of his gospel, expanding the borders of his kingdom all over the world, but it starts like this little stone.

And the text actually says that the stone becomes a mountain, and it fills the entire.

Earth.

So we go from this little rock, this little rock that's insignificant and nothing, and it ends up filling the earth and becoming this mountain, this huge thing. It was insignificant to significant. It was small to large.

That was the expectation. But I'm going to give you another one. There's another passage. Now I don't have time to explain all the details. I just want to show you that this was the expectation. Ezekiel chapter 47, Ezekiel 47, and again, I wish we could spend time here.

I'm just going to scrape the surface of this so you see this was expectation. Now Ezekiel gets this vision of the future temple, and we know from Scripture that's not a literal earthly temple. Jesus is the new covenant temple, right?

But I want you to see this imagery, this vision of the new covenant temple that Ezekiel paints. He says that there are, listen, waters flowing out of the temple, and if you read the book of Revelation, those are the waters of life coming out of the new Jerusalem to fill the whole world.

And listen to the call in Revelation. I just want to tell you what it says. It says, come and drink.

Come.

If you're thirsty, come drink from the waters of life. It says that from the city, the new Jerusalem, not the old one that's been destroyed, not the old one, not the harlot wife, not that one, but from the new Jerusalem, it says, Jesus' bride.

It says the waters of life flow, and there's an invitation, come drink to the world. It says in the city are the saved ones, and outside of the city are the unsaved ones, but that water is coming, and it says, come drink.

Now Ezekiel has a particular vision, and I want you to see the gradual nature that moves into fully encompassing the world, and here it is, Ezekiel chapter 47. Now watch. Here we go. We'll start in, okay, three.

Verse three.

Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits and then led me through the water, and it was ankle deep. How deep? So he's going out now into this water, right?

And this guy goes out, and the water is only ankle deep. Again, he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was knee deep. Again, he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was waist deep.

Again, he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through, and he said to me, son of man, have you seen this?

And so the vision coming out of this new covenant temple is the water comes out, the waters of life come out, and it starts off, it's only ankle deep, and it gets a little further out, and it's knee deep, and a little further out, and now it's waist deep, and it gets to the point where it's swimmable, it's encompassing everything.

That's how this looks in this vision of the future for Ezekiel, and this water of life flowing out. So we've got a stone that becomes a mountain, we've got water that gradually fills to the point where you're just engulfed in this river.

That was the Old Testament expectation, and Jesus comes in in the same line, he says the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is like this, a mustard seed, and it becomes this large tree, and the birds of the air nest in its branches.

Now let's do this real fast, if you go to, I want you to keep a finger in Matthew 13, and let's just explain a quick bit on the background, okay, so Matthew 13, I'll read.

The parable.

He then, 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. 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.

Let's start with the seed, shall we? The seed. Now, I just want to say, being an atheist dramatically impacts, apparently, your ability to read the Bible, for some reason. It dramatically impacts your ability to not only read the Bible, but to read the Bible in context, its historical context.

So, atheists have lots and lots of chestnut arguments, especially internet atheists. They have lots of chestnut arguments they like to throw out at Christians to try to lop their heads off. One very popular argument against the Scriptures, given by atheists today, who apparently, again, have a hard time reading the Bible like they would any other document in history, they'll say things like this, is Jesus God?

And we say what?

You better believe he is.

They'll say, does Jesus know everything perfectly? Our answer is what?

Yes.

Now, of course, we all say that when Jesus humbled himself and became a man, a servant, and humbled himself to the obedience of death, Philippians chapter 2, he made himself of no reputation. And of course, there were attributes of Jesus that were veiled during his earthly ministry as a man that he voluntarily submitted to, right?

However, can God make a mistake?

No.

No.

Can God sin?

No.

Can God have an error?

No.

An error of judgment?

No.

An error about the universe?

No.

Now, the atheist says, okay, great. Granted, he's God, and he can't make an error. So then they'll say, I'll prove to you that Jesus is not God. You say, okay, give me your best. And they say, Jesus said in Matthew 13 that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds.

Ha-ha! Jesus didn't know that there are other seeds smaller than the mustard seed. Therefore, Jesus is obviously wrong, not God. Your Bible is a fiction. It's mythology. It's man-made. Now, the first question I ask the atheist is,.

A, why does that matter given that your ancestors were bacteria? That's A. B, I ask the atheist, do you read historic documents in the same way you just read the Bible? Because Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, amen?

Yes.

Jesus is a Jew in the first century, amen? And in the Mishnah, there is a listing of seeds. There is a seed list of kosher seeds. Do you want to know what the smallest seed in the list is? It's a mustard seed.

So, Jesus, who's a first century Palestinian Jew, knows what the listing is of kosher seeds according to their law, and the mustard seed was in there as the smallest of the cultivated.

Seeds.

So, when Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, is talking to Jewish followers, he says to them, the mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, when it's planted, becomes a giant tree that's bigger than a man. Now, what's interesting to talk about in terms of the seed itself, Jesus says in John chapter 12, verse 24, John chapter 12, verse 24, truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Jesus says, this is the pattern of a seed. This is the pattern.

Seeds have to first die to come to life. And so Jesus, apparently in the parables, the sower is the son of man. It's Jesus. And when the seed goes into the earth, it first has to die, and then it comes to life.

And so Jesus shows the word of the kingdom is like a seed. It has to die to come to life. And then Jesus shows us that he is not only giving us a parable of how seeds work and how his kingdom works, but he even goes into that pattern himself and demonstrates it with his own life.

He becomes like that seed that dies and rises again. And Jesus calls us to follow him in that pattern. The kingdom of God is like a seed, small and significant. It must die to rise again and be given new life.

And Jesus says, you must come and you must die and rise again like little seeds. And Jesus shows us he's the premier example of going to die and rise again. Jesus gives us a pattern for the working of the kingdom that is dying and rising again.

So listen, it shouldn't shock us, brothers and sisters. Listen, it can't shock you. It can't startle you. It ought to not startle you as a Christian. When you labor in the world for the glory of God and the kingdom of God, and it comes with death, and it comes with pain, and it comes with insignificance and smallness, that's the pattern.

If you say, Pastor Jeff, I'm laboring for the kingdom, I'm doing these things for the kingdom and it seems so insignificant, it just feels like I'm dying. It feels like nothing's being accomplished. It looks so small.

I would say, praise God, you're winning. That's how God does this. Don't despise the day of small beginnings. The way the kingdom of God works in the world is it works through death that comes to life.

It works through seeds, small seeds that look like they have no power, nothing to accomplish God's purpose, and then they do. How do you know that God is in this? Well, because there's absolutely nothing in you that can accomplish it.

How do you know God's in it? Because it looks like a lot of death. How do you know that God's in it? Because it looks so insignificant and small. It looks like we are unworthy, incapable, not strong, not able at all.

That's how you know God's in it, because that's the pattern of God's kingdom. It's seeds that become large trees. It's dying to living. It's amazing when you look at the history of God's kingdom in the world.

Follow me on this. We are the beneficiaries of the death and life and the labor of believers long before.

Us.

If you look at the history of the church, all of our heroes, many times our heroes, the great ones of the faith, in their day, they were seen as the antagonists. In their day, they were seen as the troublemakers.

They really were. Those people and their ministries that we see today as giants, in their day, it looked many times like they were losing. I could give you so many examples. Here's a great one. I want you to get to know him, so I'm going to tell you about him.

George Whitefield. He's one of the great preachers of the last 2 ,000 years of history. He preached over 18 ,000 times in his life. Over 18 ,000 times. I told you before that he literally preached himself to death.

The day that he died, he wasn't feeling well. He was ill, and he preached that day, and he was staying in somebody's house, and they had guests there, and on his way up the stairs, super ill, he stopped and turned around on the stairs, and he preached to the people who were there for a long period of time, and he went up to his bed and died.

He just preached, and preached, and preached, and we say, oh, the Great Awakening. George Whitefield, the giant of the faith, George Whitefield changed the world through the gospel, and the answer is, yeah, he really did.

The Great Awakening brought the light of the gospel in America and in England. God did huge things through George Whitefield's preaching, but you know what? In his day, George Whitefield was seen as a troublemaker.

People say, George Whitefield, do you know what he did? He went out into fields, and there were literally 10 ,000 people that came to listen to him preach, and there was no amplification. There's no microphone.

There's nothing to broadcast his voice. He just stood there in a field, and he preached the gospel, and he said, repent and believe, and he says, you must be born again. You got to check your heart to see if you've been raised in newness of life, and the amazing thing is that George Whitefield started in England, and he was a pretty popular preacher in England.

He was pretty well-known, and then he went over to the United States. He went over to the colonies, preached the gospel there. He did some work there. He was big into orphanages, huge into orphanages, and then he came back to England.

About five years passed. Listen, five years, five years, and when he got back to England, he had seen that now the churches had moved away from this really solid preaching to now they're preaching like self-help messages, your best life now, how to be a better dad, and friends with benefits.

You guys have seen the billboard, right? We teach these sort of topical, you know, make your life better with Jesus, you know, be a cooler Christian, you know, whatever they are, and that's how the preaching was in England, and so Whitefield gets back to that, and now he starts preaching the hard truth of God, and the ministers in England said, this is too rough, too serrated edge.

Get out.

Get out, and so yeah, George Whitefield was in the fields preaching the gospel to thousands.

Why?

Because the institutional church said, get out. You're a troublemaker. You shouldn't be here. Don't do what you're doing, and so he preached the gospel in the fields to the people who would come and listen to him because there was so much perverse preaching going on in the churches, and so yeah, George Whitefield, God used to bring about the great awakening.

Yes, he did, but George Whitefield was seen in his days as a godly troublemaker. He was seen really actually as a troublemaker, and he used to preach the gospel. Listen, as boats were crossing the ocean to get back and forth from England to the US, they used to bring the boats together and tie them up just to sit and listen to George Whitefield preach.

We look at his life and his history, and we say, praise God for men like George Whitefield, and we say, yeah, praise God, but in his day, he was a seed that needed to die. In his day, he wasn't seen as, we love George Whitefield.

It's my friend Doug Wilson that says, we love, we love our dead heroes and troublemakers and our living conformists, right? We love our giants like John the Baptist, right? I love John the Baptist, he's a giant.

No you don't, if he's living next door to you, right? I love George Whitefield, right? Oh, the guy that the church kicked out into the fields? I love Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the hands of an angry God.

Yeah, real popular sermon today. You see, we love, again, our living conformists and our dead troublemakers.

Why?

Because they're safe back there.

They're safe there.

That's why we like them. We build monuments to the troublemakers, but we love the modern conformists. And I, of course, I borrowed all of that from my friend Doug Wilson, because I think it's powerful in terms of how you think about the kingdom of God, a seed that becomes a massive tree.

Now think and consider, Jesus says, it's the smallest of all seeds. Seeds must first go to die and then come to life, but Jesus says, when this tree grows, it becomes larger than the other plants, and these trees, these mustard trees, can become the size of a man.