Matthew 13: 31
"The Kingdom of Heaven is Like a Mustard Seed"

In all of these seven parables there is little to go on as a guide to interpretation of them except that each one focuses our attention on some aspect of the Kingdom of Heaven.  It doesn't so much teach us as it prompts us to discover the thing that the Lord has in mind and in our discovery to be challenged by the truth.

In this case we are clearly given 3 elements: First, a seed which is very, very small.  There have been people who have labored the idea that the seed had to be the smallest seed in the whole world, but no doubt the use of the mustard seed by Lord was prompted by the fact that mustard seed was unusually small and (as other references in the Gospels and ancient Jewish literature suggest) a proverbial object for smallness.  The second element is -- given the smallness of the seed -- the hugeness of the tree.  Early geographers of Palestine at the turn of the century speak of going through groves of mustard trees in which the trees were higher than a rider mounted on a tall horse.  That would be a sizable tree in a desert land where there were no big trees such as we have.  They were the largest of trees locally and proverbially speaking.  The third element to take note of in the construction of the parable is the connection between the seed and the tree: that little grain of a seed produced first a shrub and then a tree thousands of times its size.  And there was a necessary connection, a genetic connection between the seed and the mature tree.

There are at least four ways in which I think that this parable applies.

I. FIRST, IT APPLIES HISTORICALLY

1. By historically I mean that it is an explanation of Christianity as a historical phenomenon.  In 5 or 6 B.C. (not in 1 A.D. as might be thought from the erroneous calendar we use but 5 B.C.) when the incarnation came to pass, the Second Person of the Godhead became incarnate and about 30 years after that became a public person and after 3 years died an ignominious death followed by resurrection and, 40 days later, ascension. 

2. Historically it was a small movement and a relatively low-key event in history. Contemporary historians of the century (with the exception of his disciples) have not left us a record of his person.  (There is an encomiastic reference in Flavius Josephus but it is universally not thought to be authentic.)  There were no earthquakes or tidal waves or cosmic signs or angelic messengers publicly proclaiming the Gospel from the heavens (with the exception, of course, of the quite localized angelic ministry at his birth).

3. But that tiny seed was to grow so that by our time in history it has become a considerable shrub in the sense that it has touched every nation on earth and has, in fact, substantially influenced many of those nations.  But it is destined to cover the earth and touch every person who lives here:  We believe that   prophecy teaches that after the Second Coming of Christ, there will be an age called the Millennium in which the glorified Christ will rule over the whole earth and his resurrected saints will serve under  him.  The little grain of mustard seed will have become a great tree.

There is a tendency of Christians sometimes, without even meaning to do so, to try to sensationalize Christianity and even conjure up supposed miracles out of the sense that it is supposed to be spectacular.  We don't need to help out God by conjuring up miracles through emotional means or by falsifying statistical data and interpretation.  We don't need to help out God by the use of Madison Avenue advertising techniques.  God has purposed that in this age his power and reality will be seen by faith.  The age of magnificent display and the unquestionable presence and power of God when sinner and saint alike will see the hand of God is yet to come. And it will come!  All the earth will worship the Savior-King and peace and prosperity and blessedness will be the rule and not the exception.  It will be the full-tree fruition of the movement begun with the small mustard-seed beginning.

II. IN THE SECOND PLACE, THE PARABLE IS AN EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN THINGS ABOUT SALVATION.

1. When a person trusts Christ it is as if a mustard seed germinates and begins to grow. He may little appreciate what has happened to him except that he believes the Gospel promise that if anyone comes to God through Jesus Christ his sins are forgiven and the righteousness of Christ is charged to that persons account.  In the years following he will grow through the process which we call sanctification.

At the end of his life he will likely die as all others have done up till now and his soul will go to be consciously with the Triune God in heaven.  At the end of the age Christ will come and that person's soul will be reunited with his resurrected body and will live in indescribable blessedness forever and forever in the presence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

2. All of this is traced back to the seeming small thing of a presentation of the Gospel, or even a "chance" hearing of some aspect of the Gospel; then the individual trusting Christ as his Savior; and  the often difficult time he experiences,  trusting in the mercy of God for  the all-too-short years of  his earthly life.  And that faith way back there at the time of the person's conversion will have eventually issued in a life that is dominated by the truths of the Gospel and the mentality of serving Jesus which is as if a substantial and useful shrub has grown out of the seed.  And eventually, in the next life, that shrub will have grown into a huge tree of blessedness and glorification to God that will last forever.  And all of that huge, full-tree blessing will be traced back to that humble beginning of the mustard seed event of  the individual having responded positively to the gospel message.

III. IN THE THIRD PLACE THE PARABLE APPLIES AS A CHALLENGE TO DISCIPLESHIP.

1. It behooves us to learn that the Christian life is not experiencing the completed tree right now but planting a seed and growing a healthy seedling and a useful shrub with the understanding that the great tree comes later -- in the after-life.

Life is filled with situations for the true Christian where he makes choices not to do what his more unsanctified part would tell him to do or to do what God tells him to do and gives him the opportunity to do in serving the Savior and not "laying up treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break through and steal."  When he does this, he is nurturing a plant that will grow and grow and will eventually become a great tree of reward in the life which is to come. 

2. Present day Americans are the worst people for seeing this in 2000 years of Christian faith!  The present culture teaches them that they can have everything now and that they shouldn't wait for anything or anybody.  The rising generation of adults is the most coddled, the least disciplined and the most unaware that they are these things of any generation in historical memory.  But the mustard seed principle sets a standard for Christians in that generation that is just the opposite of the majority view.  If anyone is determined to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and give himself fully to the Christian life and to the service of the Lord, it will be a seed that will, in the life after this one, be a huge tree of satisfaction and blessedness.

IV. FINALLY, IT APPLIES AS A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DAILY LIVING.

1. Zechariah 4 (4: 10) records the expression: "Who hath despised the day of small things?"  Christians are as apt as everybody else to do so.  God's people need to beware lest they forget God's working in the small, non-spectacular things in their lives.  They need to beware of "despising the day of small things."  The Lord is working mightily in your life!  See that you follow him in the small things -- the mustard seed things of your life -- because they are the seed for the "large trees" of his working and eventually of his blessing later on.

2. Don't discount the non-spectacular things: providential happenings, interventions, insights, opportunities.  For every large and outwardly impressive thing the Lord does in your life, he does a hundred mustard-seed projects.  And these small projects, instances, interventions, often have huge outcomes both in this life and in the next.

Can you remember some time when you met a person who was to become God's messenger in your life and your whole outlook and practice of Christianity was radically effected by the contact?  I can point to dozens of such instances in my life.  Don't expect that God has to thunder down from the heavens for it to be a valid intervention of God.  God is active in your life every day you live upon the earth.  Don't be like those who deny this and conjure up miracles to convince themselves of the hand of God in their lives when, in reality, he is very involved in mustard-seed sized things.

And don't fail to see his hand in circumstances.  More often than not God is leading you by circumstances if you have the wisdom to read them aright.  They are only little mustard seeds but mustard seeds that, if you take account of them and take advantage of them they will grow into substantial trees.

3. And be about the Father's business even if it is in the small, mustard-seed sized things. Remember that 

Little is much if God is in it
Man's busiest day -- not worth God's minute;
But much is little anywhere
If God the business does not share;
So work with God and nothing's lost
Who works with him does best and most.