Affective
Matthew 13: 33, “Another parable spake he unto them; “hThe kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in ithree †measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” [1]
I. Yeast
A. Fungus
B. Forgotten
II. Yet
A. Forsaken
B. Future
III. Yield
A. Full
B. Forever
Introduction: Last Sunday we heard what Jesus said about a single grain of mustard seed. What has that to do with heaven? The week before that we heard about wheat getting overrun by weeds. What has that to do with heaven? This week we are hearing Jesus’ words about yeast or leaven. Leaven does rhyme with heaven. Maybe we are getting closer.
Jesus used all sorts of things to remind us of how heaven is. In all these parable or similes Jesus didn’t say that these things should remind us of what heaven will be. In each of these illustrations Jesus said that heaven is.
We are unable to think as God thinks because we are restricted by time. We are bound to this planet or plane. An airplane is so named because whatever level we are on, whatever is the surface that we are sitting on, that is called a plane. Cars and trucks ride on the earthly plane. Unless something messes up with gravity, earthbound vehicles can’t fly very far. Our perception of normal is based on our earth-bound existence.
When you are in a boat in shallow water, sometimes speed is your friend. You can pass over underwater obstacles if you have a little speed because the boat will lift out of the water as you speed up. It works to a point. Hydroplane boats skip across the surface of the water with nothing more than the propeller in the water. For the person who is afraid of boats, going faster in shallow water is scary. The things that Jesus was explaining made no sense to many in that day and in this day.
He was patient with them, and Jesus is patient with us. These things that we are hearing and learning about as Jesus was describing what heaven is like might seem foreign right now. Many things in the Bible seem foreign and unnecessary until the time of revelation comes. He will either take you to a place of discomfort or He will allow someone else to do it. When you finally give in to Him and allow Him to take you through that which you wanted so much to avoid, then it will make more sense than most anything you have experienced.
The title of this message is “Affective.” There are things in your life that have affected you; that have molded you into the person who God can use for His kingdom. He allows things to affect you often that seem harsh. Remember all Jesus went through prior to and including the cross. How can we even think that God is harsh with us. All things that He takes you to, He will take you through, and then you will be faced with the decision again to go on with Him or to keep fighting Him.
Sometimes people will hurt you and you will believe that you have found the bad guy. God could keep you from the bad guy if He didn’t have something that would grow your faith through the experience with that guy. Looking back is OK if you can remember the blessing and get past the pain.
There have been songs written about imagination. Imagine this, no more anger against the one that God allowed to grow your faith. Only love for God and others as you understand what was not easy to understand before. Jesus wanted us to know what heaven is like because He came to allow us to find that for ourselves. I truly believe that is also what heaven is like. There was no other human who could tell us what heaven is like. Jesus knows. Let Him affect you.
Jesus wants us to know something about where we are going. Asaph was one of the musicians that King David appointed to bring worship. Asaph wrote several of the Psalms. This is what Asaph prophesied in Psalm 78:2-4 about Jesus, “bI will open my mouth in a cparable: I will dutter edark sayings of old: 3 Which we have heard and known, And four fathers have told us. 4 gWe will not hide them from their children, hShewing to the generation to come The praises of the Lord, and his strength, And ihis wonderful works that he hath done." [2]
Scripture: The scripture for this message is Matthew 13:33. Please Stand Under the reading of God’s word.
Prayer: Please be seated.
Message: There is much said in the Old Testament about unleavened bread. Jesus used examples in His parables about the dangers of leaven as it affects the baking of bread and changes the nature of how dough rises. In this case it doesn’t seem that Jesus is talking against using leavening. So, can we draw a conclusion that Solomon was correct in Ecclesiastes chapter three? Is there a time to every purpose under heaven after all?
We draw conclusions that there are some things that we must not allow. For me it is social media. Many have read what I write and hear what I say about the way social media has corrupted our society. Instead of making people more social and wanting to come together, this so-called social media has driven people to separate themselves from each other. It is a choice which the social media executives cannot make for the individual. I can only choose to attend church myself and cannot blame others for my decision. I can try but will only answer for myself before Jesus.
There are many instances when social media has been used to further the gospel message. It is up to the individual how he/she uses that which they have received. There is a time when the Jews would use unleavened bread as part of their worship and witness. For a person to claim to be fasting or refraining from a thing for a time as a sign of worship is good. Should that person hide and do what they say they are not doing is deceitful and it will not be tolerated as worship but will be considered as blasphemy.
So it is with people who claim things about themselves on social media and are actually doing the opposite. That is blasphemy or lying and will be something to confess to at some point. I have enough trouble without the world knowing every step I take away from God.
So now to the focal verse. Leaven… Yeast… A thing that is mixed with baking flour to cause the dough to rise and make the cake or bread fluffier and fuller. What is yeast? Yeast is derived from fungus such as tree mold. Toadstools or mushrooms are fungus. Fungus grows in a climate that is damp and mostly hidden from sunlight. It normally doesn’t form because someone has cultivated it. Fugus usually grows in a place that people have forgotten about until they just happen upon it.
Who would or who did come up with the idea that drying fungus and beating it into a powder called yeast or leavening, then mixing a small part of the powder with baking flour, would make dough rise? How did yeast ever come to be in the first place? They had it way back in Old Testament times. It is certainly not new.
In Jesus’ parable or simile, a certain woman hid some leaven in a quantity of flour. She hid it in the mixture. Perhaps because of the phobia about mixing unleavened bread for worship with leavened bread, she hid it perhaps for a later time.
The scripture goes on to say, “until.” She hid it until she was ready to use it after the full measure was leavened. Why didn’t she use it right away? Only God knows. This is a parable anyway. It is a story that Jesus told to illustrate another point. Maybe it actually happened, maybe it didn’t.
Sometimes preachers use illustrations to make points and the congregation gets so caught up in the illustration that they miss the main point. Jesus used parables not to teach us how to make bread with yeast, but to understand how just a little gospel message can spread and change to fullness in a person’s life. Let’s not get too caught up with yeast bread. I sure do like it though…
The woman didn’t use it right away. She put a little in the flour until the mixture and the time was just right. Pretty much she forgot about it until the time was right. We do that with faith. We start out with a little and think we’re doing OK putting it away. All of a sudden, the time comes when that faith is tested beyond what we can imagine, and it grows to support us until we find that God has taken us through another trial stronger and bigger in faith than before.
There were times in my life when I felt as though God had forgotten me. I thought that my thoughts were hidden from Him. But now the future is now and not in the future anymore. Now that faith has grown without my cultivation. Now that faith has come to fruition while I thought I was in the dark.
Now! The whole faith is leavened. Faith is perfected. The kingdom of God is real, and it is now within you. God knows that the fullness of time has come for that faith which has grown to His recipe is ready in me, in you. Now the Christian is fully His forever and nothing and nobody will ever be able to separate me from My Savior.
Prayer:
Invitation: Paul said in Romans 8:38, “For I am persuaded, that neither ldeath, nor life, nor rangels, nor sprincipalities, nor stpowers, nor things uwpresent, nor things uto come, 39 Nor xheight, nor xdepth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from ythe love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [3]
It took much testing and kneading and mixing and prodding until Paul could finally stand under that kind of faith. The kingdom of heaven comes in like a very small unnoticeable thing into a person’s life. Maybe it started with asking someone to pray the prayer with you. Maybe it seemed that there was no change right away. Maybe there were harsh things that started happening and you said what’s the use. Maybe life seemed no different now than before.
Never believe for a minute that anyone is better than you or quicker to receive than you. This is from a man who was saved at thirteen, attended seminary before I was thirty, quit being involved in church to sit on the back row until I was fifty-two and about to lose my sister to cancer. She asked when it was enough. It was enough. I finally went back to school at fifty-four years old. Finally, nothing and nobody was going to dissuade me from seeking His kingdom again.
Something happened as the Gaither song goes. You know that you were touched way back when. Something was hidden in you that wasn’t evident until just about everything else was gone. Just when you needed Him most, there God is and He will never withdraw His love from you.
Please don’t look at that person beside you to decide what kind of an affect God is going to have in you. It is a personal relationship that Jesus died for you to have, and it has nothing at all to do with anyone else. He is causing you to rise to the occasion that He has planned for only you and nobody else. Are you ready or waiting to see what others will do? Let Him change you and you will be changed. Consider as we sing…
h Luke 13:20, 21.
i Gen. 18:6. So Judg. 6:19. 1 Sam. 1:24.
† The word in the Greek is a measure containing about a peck and a half, wanting a little more than a pint.
[1] The Holy Bible: King James Version (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Mt 13:33). (2009). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
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b So Ps. 49:4. See Matt. 5:2. Cited Matt. 13:35.
c See Num. 21:27. Comp. Prov. 1:1.
d See Ps. 145:7.
e Prov. 1:6. See Judg. 14:12.
f See Ps. 44:1.
g Job 15:18. So ver. 5, 6. Deut. 4:9. & 6:7. & 11:19. Joel 1:3.
h See Ex. 12:26.
i ver. 11 (Heb.), 32.
2 Ibid., Ps 78:2–4). (2009). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
l Comp. Cant. 8:6.
r See Matt. 18:10. Comp. Gal. 1:8.
s 1 Cor. 15:24. Eph. 1:21. & 3:10. & 6:12. Col. 1:16. & 2:10, 15. Comp. Luke 12:11 (Gk.). Tit. 3:1.
s 1 Cor. 15:24. Eph. 1:21. & 3:10. & 6:12. Col. 1:16. & 2:10, 15. Comp. Luke 12:11 (Gk.). Tit. 3:1.
t Song 39. 1 Pet. 3:22.
u 1 Cor. 3:22.
w 1 Cor. 7:26. Gal. 1:4. Heb. 9:9.
u 1 Cor. 3:22.
x Eph. 3:18. So Isai. 7:11 (Gk.).
x Eph. 3:18. So Isai. 7:11 (Gk.).
y ch. 5:8.
[3] Ibid., Ro 8:38–39). (2009). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
