Heaven Comes to Earth, pt4
Leadership in Context with Keith Tucci
Episode 117
The parable of the mustard seed is the shortest of Jesus’ parables. That doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t have a lot to say He was just able to say what He needed to in a concise way. (Something that some of us can learn a lot from.)
Matthew 13:31-32
He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a person took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all the other seeds, but when it is fully grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches.”
The seed is about the Kingdom. If you plant a seed, there is a process. The Kingdom is built by a process. Paul said, “One plants, one waters, but God gives increase.” That is a great summation of a seed mentality. When God is doing something, there is a process involved, and we should not neglect that process.
The mustard seed plant is unique in that it is the seed we eat and not the plant. The plant is not a tree, but a bush that grows very fast and has beautiful flowers. The flowers it produces has pods with little, tiny seeds. It is a seed-producing plant. Its fruit is its seed.
Our fruit is our seed. Our fruit is not just what we get in our temporal life. Our fruit is not just what we can see grow. The fruit of the mustard seed is that it produces more seed. The Kingdom of Heaven is about producing seed. It is about sowing seed.
In this parable, Jesus focused on the size of the mustard seed. It was small and yet produced more seeds. Don’t discount the size of the seed. An oak tree is an acorn that stood its ground.
The birds are able to rest in the branches of the bush grown from the small seed. If we are producing fruit, there is a refuge in our lives, a place for people to come for rest and protection.
Matthew 17:19-20
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” And He said to them, “Because of your meager faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Here Jesus is not referring to the small size of the mustard seed. “If you have faith as a mustard seed…” We have faith with the same nature as a mustard seed, pure faith that will reproduce. The purpose of Jesus putting things in our hands is to sow a seed so that that seed will reproduce. We are not to consume seed, but to reinvest the seed.
In Matthew 13, Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like the mustard seed. It is a little seed that you put in the ground, it bears a lot of fruit, and in the process of bearing that fruit the birds take rest and the bush sticks out in the garden. The local church should be the same way—a safe place, a place of ministry, a place of shelter and nurturing. The local church and the Kingdom at large should be all of those things, but those are not the product. The product is that we produce seed.
You might have something small you need to sow—time, talent, treasure—and expect God to do something with it. Don’t forget to take the seed from that blessing and re-sow it. The Church can become religious consumers if we just give ministry to people without teaching them that God wants to use them. The seed is to be sown to produce more seed.
Join us next week as Keith Tucci continues to put leadership truth in the context of the local church. And as always, please like, share, rate/review, and invite others to listen. See you next week!
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