Small Things In Christ Turn Into the Biggest and Best Thing
Luke 13:18 ¶ He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?
Luke 13:19 It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
Luke 13:20 ¶ And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
Luke 13:21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”
Before contact lenses were disposable, they were expensive and important. I mean, one contact lens was important enough that, if it fell out of somebody’s eye, you stopped the whole party to search and rescue that thing. Even if it took the rest of the night.
If you ever plant lettuce, take my advice, get a little kid to help you. Those seeds are insane. They are about as big as the period on this sentence — on your iPhone 6. You need little tiny fingers and a lot of tedious patience to deal with such things. But in about 2 weeks, you’ll see where you accidentally dropped them all over your garden.
These are all a picture of the Kingdom of God. It starts so little. I mean tiny. I mean minuscule. Like did it do any good to tell your co-worker “I’ll pray for you,” when you left for Christmas vacation? Did any kingdom impact happen when you waved across the grocery store to that old middle school teacher you had? (She probably still remembers that skateboard incident and would have been happy to avoid you.)
The Kingdom of God advances in tiny steps. I had the Gospel shared with me hundreds of times, but it was a conversation after going to see Dracula that led me to believe Jesus died for my sins. When a frustrated high-school evangelist saw me working at a church years later, he came right up to me and said “I gotta know what happened!”
Seeds and yeast (and contact lenses and lettuce seeds) are almost invisible when they start their work. But eat a big cheeseburger on a tortilla sometime and you appreciate the work that yeast does.
Jesus says that His kingdom always starts small. Without even noticing it (Have you ever watched bread rise? You have a very peaceful life.), the Kingdom of God grows in people — sometimes without them even noticing it themselves.
The Holy Spirit is at work right now in things that you don’t yet know about. He is moving in people in ways that show no evidence, but that’s the point. For seeds and yeast, you just keep the environment right and wait. God’s kingdom is exactly the same. As we create an environment that helps the kingdom grow, we know that God is at work and we leave room for Him to show off.
Zechariah 4:6,10a
[6] Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.
[10] For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice
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