"GOD RULES!"
Matthew 13:33
Introduction: This morning I want to talk to you about the kingdom of God. It is something about which I have seldom preached. I use as the basis for my message the one sentence parable called the parable of the leaven. It simply reads, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal until it was all leavened." This one sentence parable is one of my favorites of all of our Lord’s parables. It is so because of its simplicity, power and scope all contained in only a few words. What it says is this: God’s rule may start small but doesn’t stop until it has conquered all.
You and I are people uncomfortable with the terms of a monarchy. Kings, queens, princes, princesses, kingdoms and realms are all fairy tale phrases to our mind. We are intrigued by the affairs (literal and figurative) of the British Royal family and find it strange for there to be such interest in an institution that no longer has any true power or authority. So when we come to the Bible and we read or hear the words about the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven it leaves us unimpressed.
While our American 21st century minds struggle to identify the New Testament shows us that the kingdom of God was at the very heart of the teaching of Jesus. This expression is found in sixty-one separate sayings in Matthew, Mark and Luke’s Gospels. Counting parallels to these passages, the expression occurs over eighty-five times. It also occurs twice in John (3:3,5). It is found in such key places as the preaching of John the Baptist, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matt. 3:2); Jesus’ earliest announcement, "The time has come… The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15); the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, "your kingdom come" (Matt. 6:10); in the Beatitudes, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3,10); at the Last Supper, "I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God" (Mark 14:25; and in many of Jesus’ parables (Matt. 13:24, 44, 45, 47; Mark 4:26, 30; Luke 19:11).
If this was so important to Jesus why does it not mean more to us? Or better, what does it mean to us? That is what I hope to answer today as we discover three key principles about God’s rule. I want us to understand that God’s rule starts small but doesn’t stop until it controls all. This verse tells us that God’s rule conquers without our control, belongs where it isn’t wanted and continues until it conquers completely.
The first thing we need to understand is what is Jesus talking about when he says, "The kingdom of heaven". Quite simply it means the rule of God. God’s kingly rule or sovereignty. The Old Testament contains no references to the kingdom of God. However, in the Old Testament God is spoken of as ruling. The Old Testament emphasis on God's sovereign power over all kings and kingdoms sets the state for the New Testament teaching.
The kingdom of God was the central image in Jesus’ preaching and his ministry. In His parables Jesus spoke of the kingdom in many different ways. He said that the kingdom is like a farmer (Matthew 13:24), a seed (Matthew 13:31), yeast (Matthew 13:33), a treasure (Matthew 13:44), a pearl merchant (Matthew 13:45), a fishnet (Matthew 13:47), an employer (Matthew 20:1), a king inviting people to a marriage feast (Matthew 22:2), and ten young women (Matthew 25:1). He spoke also of the glad tidings of the kingdom (Luke 8:1) and of the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11). What did Jesus mean when he spoke of the kingdom of God? He meant, quite simply, the rule of God. The kingdom of God is the reign of God. This is best understood if it is distinguished from what Jesus did not mean. He was not speaking of a geographical area such as the Holy Land or the Temple. He was not speaking of a political entity such as the nation of Israel or the Sanhedrin. He was not speaking of a group of people such as His disciples or the church.
Rather, the kingdom of God is God’s ruling. It is the sovereign reign of God. This rule is independent of all geographical areas or political entities. It is true that the rule of God implies a people to be ruled, and Jesus called upon people to enter the kingdom. The kingdom itself should be distinguished from the people who enter it.
Now one of the hard things to understand about the kingdom of God is exactly where it is and when it is going to happen. Jesus speaks of the kingdom as being within those who followed him and he also described it as something that was yet to be established in an outward, literal sense. What we must understand is that for Jesus the rule of God was both something already done but yet to be realized. It is in one way already here, for God’s rule has been established in human hearts throughout the world individually, it has been established in the institution we call the church, and it is seen in different pockets of our world where the gospel has transformed a people’s way of life. On the other hand, it’s obvious that God’s rule hasn’t been completed because there are still places where the lives of people are yet to be transformed by God’s power. It’s already here but not yet!
As a boy growing up I was fascinated by the stories of World War II. I remember going to the Malco in Hot Springs and watching the movie "The Longest Day" which was the story of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. I read a few years ago the story of that event recounted by Stephen Ambrose. Flying over the coast of France, I hoped just to get a glimpse of the beaches of Normandy where this climactic battle was fought. You see its significance was that when the first allied troops went ashore at 6:30 a.m. on June 6 it meant the end of Hitler’s rule of Europe. That end would not be realized until May of 1945. Those who clung to life on those early morning hours could not have known that then but we know it now. The conquering of Hitler’s forces was already done but not yet realized.
God’s rule is just like that. It is already completed but not yet realized. That’s why Jesus describes it so simply by saying it is like leaven or yeast. He is referring to the fungus used to make bread. It’s the powder that comes in that packet from the grocery store or the "starter" that a friend gives you to use to make sourdough bread. The yeast or leaven has a power of its own. When you place it in the flour along with the other ingredients it begins to do what it is supposed to do without your control or mine. It seems insignificant, yet it makes a world of difference. It works silently, invisibly, contagiously and totally.
What Jesus says to us is that God’s rule conquers without our control. God’s plan to conquer this rebellious world, our very human church and our own sinful lives is ultimately something out of our hands. Our planet can resist His rule but He will still conquer. The church of Jesus Christ may be seen as weak and inept but God’s rule will prevail. The individual Christian falters and fails to be all that we want to be but His rule over, in, and through our lives still conquers. It is already now but not yet. Regardless of what we see or say God’s rule conquers without our control.
That’s a pretty simple analogy. The image Jesus gives is of a Galilean woman who puts the leaven or yeast in the equivalent of about a bushel of meal. That amount was all that a woman could knead and the bread that resulted would feed about a hundred people. What you see is that the leaven is placed in a larger mass of material and because of its pervasive, penetrating, permeating power the meal is transformed into dough to make bread. Notice, though, that the substance—yeast—which has a power all its own, is placed by someone else into a substance that needs transformation!
Where does all of this begin? It begins when an individual responds to the rule of God in their own life. When you responded to the gospel, which is the message of God’s rule, you were transformed. This simple message does, as Paul said in II Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come." We are changed people because we have surrendered our life to the lordship or rule of Jesus Christ. Then we become ourselves like yeast or leaven sharing that transforming power with those who have yet to be changed by it. Those transformed people gather into groups which we call churches and those churches begin to transform their places in the world. Soon, because of that transformation, a place untouched by God’s rule becomes the center of the rule of God!
In Jesus’ day there was no other power greater than that of Rome. Its influence reached to the farthest shores of the British Isles to near the borders of India. It controlled all of Northern Africa and vast portions of northern and central Europe. Yet when a baby was born to a Galilean peasant woman named Mary, whose husband was Joseph, in a stable in a forgotten village called Bethlehem, that empire’s transformation was a certainty. Where armies of men could not conquer the power of the cross of Jesus Christ would, for in less than 300 years Christianity ruled where once Caesar’s emblem controlled.
Last Friday a group of women and men led by a woman named Kathy sat on picnic tables behind a grocery story on Huntington Avenue. The area is known for its drugs and decadence. They open a Bible and tell the story of Jesus. That area’s transformation is sealed and certain. On Sunday nights once a month at the home of a couple named Dick and Rose Marie a pastor from Memphis opens a Bible written in Mandarin Chinese and teaches and preaches this transforming story. Last week our young people took this story to the places it is not yet recognized in the city of Arlington, Texas. Their lives are changed but they were there because there are lives needing to be changed.
You see, God’s rule belongs where it has yet to be recognized, wanted or realized. The transforming truth of the rule of God is to be taken to the very places we think it is least likely to be found. That means in the heart of a person in the streets of a city in the United Stated or elsewhere or in a village in a Third World country. The rule of God is to be taken, told and used to transform.
The amazing power of yeast is that it works its way throughout the flour until it completely changes the flour. That is what Jesus says that God’s kingdom, God’s rule, does—it doesn’t stop until it rules all! Again it is obvious that this is not yet true. There are places, people and powers that have yet to submit to His rule. It doesn’t matter, they will. Paul described it in I Corinthians 15:20-28 as an event at the end of human history that Jesus Christ will bring all things under the rule of God. He said, "For He has put all things in subjection under His feet…that God may be all in all" (I Corinthians 15:27-28).
It means that the rule of God will continue until He determines that the world has heard the story. Jesus said, "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14). We cannot stop taking this gospel until the whole world has heard.
It means the rule of God will continue in the church until she is transformed completely by its power. Paul would write in Ephesians 5:27: "…that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless." John writes of this ultimate transformation in Revelations 19:7 as the church is at least ready for the final union with her Lord: "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready."
It means for you and me that the rule of God will continue to transform us until there is nothing left that doesn’t look like Jesus! Paul would say in Romans 8:29, "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren." John would write in I John 3:2: "Dear Friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." He is not satisfied until all of us is transformed by all of Him.
There’s a song that says, "All I want is all you have. All you want is all I have." Ultimately, our Lord gets what He wants—all! All the world, all the church and all of me! He will not stop, God’s rule continues until it conquers completely.
Conclusion: God’s rule begins small but it doesn’t stop until it conquers all. That rule of God is out of our control, belongs where it is resisted, unwanted or unrecognized and continues until it rules completely. So what do we need to do?
Ultimately the rule of God begins within me. Stuart Garrad write in a song called "Sanctify" that says this: Here I am in that old place again, down on my face again, crying out I want you to hear my plea, come down and rescue me. How long will it take? How long will I have to wait? And all I want is all you have. Sanctify. I want to be set apart right to the very heart. Prophesy to the four winds and breathe life to this very place. How long will it take? How long will I have to wait? And all I want is all you have. And all you want is all I have. Lifted up, I’ve climbed with the strength I have right to this mountain top. Looking out, the cloud’s getting bigger now. It’s time to get ready now.
"God Rules!" It’s time to get ready now!
Sunday, July 18, 1999
Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor
First Baptist Church
Jonesboro, Arkansas
btippit@fbcjonesboro.org