Small & Treasured

Mustard seeds, hidden yeast, buried treasure. In Matthew 13, Jesus reveals that God uses the smallest things for the greatest purposes—and that you're the treasure He gave everything to buy.

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Turn to Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew. Guess what book we're in.

Guess what chapter we're in. 13. Yes. Matthew 13, Matthew 13 and verse 31 is where we're going to find ourselves. Matthew, chapter 13.

As a church family, we have been in the chapter A13 for the past two weeks. And we are still there again. It is a gift. And God has more he wants to share with us. So if you'll stand to your feet, we're going to go down to verse 31.

If you're there, say Amen.

All right. Jesus, put before the crowds another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds. Say smallest.

But when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and they make nest in its branches. He told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed it with three measures of flour and until all of it was leavened. Skip down to verse 44. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and they hid.

And then in his joy he goes and sell all that he has and buys that field again. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. On finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had, and he bought it again. The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind. And when it was full, they drew it ashore.

They sat down and they put the good into baskets, but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have you understood all this? They answered, yes. And he said to them, therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

Father, thank you again for your word. Your word is active. Your word is alive. God, I pray that the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart will be acceptable in your sight. Oh, Lord, you are my strength.

You are our Redeemer. Get glory in your house. Amen. And you may be seated.

When I looked at this passage and I saw parable after parable in kind of a rapid fire fashion, I thought to myself, why did they choose all of these together? Why are they all in this Sunday. Why together? And so Jesus helped me in my mind to break these down. When you start to look at them and what they mean, you kind of have the first two parables that go together, the second two parables that go together, and then a future.

So we've got two. Two future. Say that with me. To. To future.

Okay. And so as we break this down, it helps me to understand. We will look at the first two parables first. The first one is the parable of the mustard seed. Say mustard seed.

Mustard seed. The parable of the mustard seed. In this parable, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like this seed that someone took and sowed in the field, the smallest. But when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs, in fact, becomes a tree, and the birds come and make their nest in it. He says, there's one who sowed in his field.

And when you heard that language, you may have remembered back way back, a few Sundays ago, when we had the parable of the soils. We talked about how the sower, the extravagant sower, which is God himself was. Would sow on all kinds of soil, even 565. He would just sow anywhere because he wants all to have an opportunity to come to him. The one who did the sowing was God.

The one who sows the seed is God himself, or a minister that God has called. The one who does the sower is God. You hear the language in his field. You may have remembered the parable of the weeds. Remember the good sower who sows good seed.

And Jesus says, that's me. Jesus is the good sower in his field. Meaning in the world. Similar language you find here where he says the sower. I want you to remember, if you take notes, you might write this down.

God is the one who does the sowing. God does the sowing. And here also the parable of the yeast. He says, like a woman who's mixing the yeast with the flour. God does the action.

God is the one who does the sowing. God is the one who pours out the yeast. Interesting. He uses the example of. Of a mustard seed.

Uses the example of the yeast. Now, the mustard seed, he says, it's the tiniest, it's the smallest of seeds, but it grows and it becomes strong. It will grow to become a place of shelter, a place of safety, a place of blessing. But when it first starts, it's the smallest. It's the very smallest.

This leaven, if you will. What even is leaven? Do we even know how it works, really? We don't. But you see this woman who's mixing leaven into a large quantity of flour.

My translation that I read from, it says, three measures of flour. And I said, what does that even mean? You're talking 50 to 60 pounds. So this is a lot of flour. This is going to feed a lot of people.

This little bit of leaven, that could feed the crowd. We. Why do you think God would use the example of a small seed? It's on purpose. It's to demonstrate a point that what we think is insignificant, what we think is useless.

It is too small, it is too weak. In fact, it is no good. A mustard seed is what God would use to impact the world. He would use something so very small. Do you know?

To us, it seems insignificant. But small is by design. Small is by design. What we label as small, God says is significant. What we think is minimal and not worth mentioning and not worth my time.

God says that that is on design. That is on purpose, that is powerful. What we see is minuscule. God sees as miraculous. God has a way of using small.

I love the text in Zachariah Zechariah 4, verse 10. This is what it says. Do not despise the small beginnings. For the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. What we think is small.

The Lord is rejoicing. He rejoices to see the work begin. Friends, it starts with one step. The kingdom of God. It starts with taking one step.

One small prayer, one small surrender. One yes to his call. We may say it was just a youth camp. God sees a surrendered heart. You know, Billy Graham and some of our young people may not know who old Billy is.

Billy Graham, God used and he would preach these crusades where thousands of people would hear the gospel. But did you know that Billy Graham started with one step? When he was 15 years old, almost 16, he attended a service. And God spoke to his heart as he sat in the pew, and he made his way down a path and stood before the altar. As Billy Graham stood there, 15 years old, he looked to his right and there was a woman who's standing there at the altar beside him and tears are running down her face.

And he thought to himself, I better go back and sit down because I'm not feeling what she's feeling. And as he thought about turning and going back to his seat, a gentleman came up behind him and led him in the prayer of repentance. It was a simple prayer. It was a small prayer. And he rededicated his life to Christ.

It was interesting because he said in the moment there were no bells that went off. He didn't hear the angels singing. In the moment he didn't have that strong reaction, but he had a sense of peace. He had a sense of peace and he went back. And it started with one act of obedience when God spoke to his heart.

And he took that one step to go to the altar. Have you been there? That one small step? It's a small step. But what happened as he began to spend time each day reading the word, each day praying, going to Bible study, going to youth meeting, each day having his devotion time, God would begin to speak.

And then God opened doors. In God's timing, in God's timing, he opened doors for, for old Billy Graham. And it's estimated that, get this, over 3.2 million people gave their heart to Jesus under the ministry of Billy Graham. 3.2 million. You see, it started with a small step.

It started with a simple prayer. It started with a 15 year old boy. And God got the harvest. Do you see? It starts with small.

Don't despise small beginnings, friends. Tiny things have great impact. Tiny things have great impact. Have you ever had a splinter?

It's tiny but it hurts. Anybody else ever had a kidney stone? I have. Oh, they're tiny. You may not see them jokers, but they make an impact.

A blood clot can be small, but it has an impact. Tiny things have great impact. What about a text message?

What about the time you walk out of that family situation and you feel overwhelmed and you feel distracted and you look at your phone and sister from the church has just texted you that she's praying for you. It's a small thing, but it's impactful. That moment that you get that call from your mama that she's praying for you, your grandpa, just thinking about you. Small things. Two days ago, my friend, she posted on Facebook, she's in Pensacola on vacation.

She lives in Decatur. She's in Pensacola on vacation with her husband. They're enjoying the beach, they go to the Walmart. She's got a shirt on that says, you are enough. It's a small shirt, three little words, you are enough.

A 16 year old girl approached her on the aisle. In my imagination it was the chip aisle, I don't know. But there in front of the Laves and the Doritos, this girl comes up to her with tears falling down her face.

She tells my friend that she has lost her mama and she is depressed, she's distraught.

My friend was able to grab her and tell her words That a mother would tell their daughter and speak into her and prayed for her there in the Walmart. It was a small thing, but it was a God thing.

When I got to camp this past week, on Monday, I went to a counselor meeting, and I sat down after the meeting. I stood up and a girl approached me. A lady, young lady, 20s, maybe early 30s. There she is. Her name is Bailey.

Bailey approached me. She said, you may not know who I am. Y' all gonna have to pray for me this morning. I have not slept. I'm a bit emotional.

Help us, Jesus. So Bailey comes up to me and she says, you may not know me, she said, but I used to be at Di Di's daycare. Now Di Di is Diane. Diane was my husband Ryan's great aunt. She has gone on to be with Jesus.

We call her Graham. Graham never married. Graham never had children. But Graham loved my husband. That was her boy, and I got to marry into it.

So Graham was loved in Bay Springs, Mississippi, because she had a daycare. Dada took care of all the kids. When Di Di went to retire, she picked some of the kids and brought them to their home. And she kept kids in her home. And after me and my husband got married, for a portion of time, we lived in Bay Springs, Mississippi, with Dada.

And so I got to be around these kids here. I was probably 21 years old. Bailey would have been probably around 11 at the time. She said, you may not remember me, but you were going on a mission trip. And I was going to Belize for six weeks, and I was trying to raise money.

And Bailey decided to do a lemonade stand because she wanted to raise money to help Emily get to Belize. She said, I. I didn't really know why I was doing a lemonade stand, but I liked you, and so I wanted to give, and so I wanted to do this lemonade stand. She said, but I didn't know about coming to be a counselor. I've never done camp before. But at the church I'm going to, they showed a preview video.

We showed the video a few weeks ago, and at the end of the video that they saw was Pastor Ethan and me and inviting them to come. And she said, I saw you on the video, and I knew that I was supposed to be there, and it was confirmation to me that I was supposed to go. Fast forward to Thursday. And I got to hear her testimony, and she pulled me aside and she said, Emily, at 15 years old, I started doing drugs with my family, started doing drugs with my parents. I thought it was okay, because they did it.

She ended up losing both of her children, lots of drugs. She ended up being arrested. She has a huge testimony. But the day before she was arrested, she had hit her rock bottom. And she prayed and she said, jesus, if you will save me from this, could you save me from this?

And the very next day, she gets arrested. And she was mad. She didn't connect the dots right at first. But later that week, the next week, women came in to teach the Bible in the prison. And she said, I asked them for a Bible because I was so bored.

So I asked them, can I have a Bible? And they said, we don't have money to give out Bibles. We bring Bibles. And then the Bibles leave and we just can't afford to bring Bibles. And she said, I understood.

She said, a few days later, the woman came and brought her a Bible. She began to study, and she realized, oh, I prayed that God would save me the day before I was arrested. A few days later, it was her birthday, her birthday. And one of the men she had been living with decided to get enough money to come and bail her out. And she said, they told her, pack up your bags, you're going home.

And she said, I was so afraid because I knew if I left with him, I was going to use drugs again. I. I wasn't excited to leave. I didn't want to leave. So there she's walking with her stuff to the front. They look at her and they say, no, go change clothes.

You're going back. And she said, I wasn't angry. I just turned around and went on back. They said, that guy who came to guide you, he brought a check. We don't take checks here.

He's going to have to bring cash. And she said, no problem. And she went on back to jail. Fast forward. They found a rehab for her.

She. She spent a year at a treatment center surrounded by godly individuals. She stayed three months after she graduated. She now attends Kingdom Church, Giving glory to God. And it was at Kingdom Church.

Now she's been reconciled with her children. They were at camp, too. Her marriage. Her husband went and got treatment as well, has his own testimony. And there at Kingdom Church, she was seen and saw the video.

And God spoke. I want to use you to speak into teens who are going through certain things that you know all about. And I felt worthless. And I thought, who am I to go to camp and be a counselor? And then Emily was on the screen saying, you were going to be there.

And I remember that at one point, in my life. I did a lemonade stand for her when she was going to the mission field. Do you see? It's the small things. But Jesus was behind it all.

Jesus was behind it all.

When you look at the Bible and you see God working, doesn't he work through small things? You look at the Old Testament, you see, oh, Abraham, God says, I'm going to use this one man. You think to yourself, what was special about Abraham? He's going to be the father of many. But that fellow didn't have no children at first.

How's God going to use him? But he did. You think about Jesus Christ himself in the incarnation. He came down in the womb of Mary. Microscopically small.

You think about Jesus in the manger. Small, but all power. I can tell you that Jesus is in the business of using small things. If you want to build a home, do you see the walls and the roof right away? No, no.

It can take weeks, it can take months for that thing to start taking shape. But it takes a long time just shoring up the foundation. God is working even. Even below the dirt. You think about that mustard seed.

You don't see the tree that's providing shelter right away, but there are roots that are growing down deep. The faith begins to grow. You begin to learn. You put your trust in Jesus. You see his faithfulness.

And then the fruit of the Spirit begins to bloom, and it becomes a place of safety, a place for others to be blessed. At camp with the seniors, it looked like maybe writing the sin and just covering it with red paint. And you think, well, that's small. It's not small.

You think about the teens at camp taking a stone and thinking about a label that they had given themselves or someone else had given it, and then dropping it, releasing it. Oh, it sounds small. It's just a small stone. It's not small. To the preteens, it was them sitting in the congregation and hearing the very voice of their shepherd.

Call them by name, and then take one small step to the altar and give their hearts to Jesus. It may seem small, it's not small. A little yeast permeates the whole dough. There's an old hymn that says, little is much when God is in it. Little is much when God is in.

It starts with Jesus. The twelve disciples, the hundred and twenty in the upper room. Three thousand get saved with Peter. The gospel begins to spread through Judea and Jerusalem and to the uttermost parts of the earth, and it's still growing. The kingdom of God is like a small seed or a Small amount of yeast that transforms the world.

The kingdom of God growing in us and through us for his glory. That's the first set of two. The second set of two. You look down at verse 44. He says it's the parable of the treasure.

Like a treasure hidden in a field that someone found and hid and enjoy. They sold all that they had to buy that field. Verse 45, there's a merchant, he's looking for fine pearls. He finds one of great value. He sells all he has and he buys it.

Now, one way of looking at these two parables is for us to be the ones that are searching. We're looking for the treasure, and we'll give away everything else to have that, to enter into the kingdom of God. We would give everything else away because of the joy of having the treasure and being in relationship with Jesus. Absolutely. Is a treasure.

One way of looking at it, as we're the ones that are searching for the fine pearl. And when we find it, we give away everything else so that we can buy that pearl and enter in relationship with Jesus. But there's another way to look at those parables. When you think about all of Matthew, chapter 13 and each parable, the one who does the action is God. The one who does the action, the one who does the sowing, the one who does the mixing, the one that is pursuing is God himself.

And for some reason, we get down to this verse 44, and we flip it and we begin to be the ones that do the action. But what if it's still God who does the searching? God is the one who finds the treasure. God is the one who finds the pearl. You see, in this particular portion, God is the one who does the searching.

And we are the treasure. We are the treasure. For. For the joy of having us, God would give up all. God would give up all.

He would give up his most treasured possession. He would give his very Son. For what? For us, you are the treasure. You are the fine pearl that he is willing to give all in order to redeem and to purchase, to make us his very own.

He gives all that he is for all of you. You're the great pearl. Deuteronomy 7, verse 6 says this. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you.

It's easy for me to think, well, maybe that was just speaking to the Old Testament. Maybe he chooses the person beside me. No, this is God speaking to you. The Lord, your God has chosen you. Out of all the people on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples. You're the fewest of all people. But it was because the Lord loved you. And he kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and he redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Friends, you are the one chosen.

You are the one redeemed. You are his treasured possession. You see, God will start with what's small to accomplish great works. Go. God chooses to use us small for kingdom work.

And when we think about God being willing to give all that he has for us, shouldn't our response be to offer all of our smallness to him? God gave all to have all of us for all of his purposes. God gave all to have all of us for all of his purposes. Why?

Why? Because a harvest is coming. A harvest is coming. Look at verse 47. You've already went through four parables.

This is this last parable. It says this. A net is let down in the lake. When they pull it up, they catch all kinds of fish. When it's full, the fishermen pull it out onto the shore.

The good fish they put in baskets, and they threw the bad away. He says, so it will be at the end of the time when angels will come and they will separate the good from the bad, and the wicked will be thrown into the furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, it's interesting. I find it interesting that the word here for net is only used one time in the whole New Testament. This particular word that we just see as net, but actually it is a drag net.

What this means is two boats would go out and drop the net and then pull it back into shore. Or they would take one boat, drop the net, and then pull ropes to pull it back to shore. This would have floats along the top of the net and would have weights at the bottom of the net, a drag net. And so when they pulled in, they would set it up in an area where they knew there would be a lot of fish. But it would pull in anything that was bigger than the gauge of the net.

So the idea here is when they dragged in, they would get a haul of things, not just fish, but they would have other sea life, or they would have weeds, or they would have junk that's been thrown into the lake. The idea here is that at the end of age, there is going to be a gathering of all. And there will be a separation from the wicked and the holy. As you read these words, you should be reminded of the parable of the weeds. These are sister parables.

In fact, in the Greek, it uses the same language, the very same words. So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will do the gathering. The law breakers, all evil, the sinful, it says, throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Very same words in the parable of the weeds.

Your version may say gather, gather. In this version, it says that they will be sorted. But in the Greek, it is the very same word which means collect. Very same word. We're supposed to see them side by side.

Jesus wants us to see the connection between the parable of the weeds and the parable of the net. Here the point is the same for both of them. That there will be a time when there will be a harvest at the end of the age. And, friends, there will be a separation at that time. There will be a separation.

There will be those who chose to put their faith in Jesus with that one small step. And there will be those who wanted nothing to do with Jesus. There will be a separation. And it will be an eternal. An eternal separation from God or an eternal sharing in the glory of God.

And guess what? We get to make that choice now. We get to make that choice now. There are only two options. And Jesus is speaking this over and over because he wants us to see that the kingdom of heaven is now and future.

The present reality and the future hope. And so Jesus closes this text by talking to his disciples. Friends, that's us. We're gathered here together, our small group here. And Jesus looks at us and he says, do you understand?

Which I think is a loaded question myself. But he looks at his disciples and he says, do you understand? And the disciples were all, like, waiting. What are they going to say? What did Peter say?

And the disciples say, yes, I'm not quite sure they understood it all, but they understood enough, and they said, yes. And then he says, therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like. And then he gives a mini parable. So he's asking them, do you understand? Do you understand that I'm giving you parable after parable after parable to tell you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

I want you to know what my mission is for the kingdom of heaven. Because this becomes your mission. It's important I want you to know the mission. So he says, every scribe, what was a scribe? You think about a scribe.

But a scribe was someone who had set themselves into studying the Torah. They had spent hours studying the Word of God. They were teachers, they were students of the Word. That should be us. It says, therefore every scribe, every student of the Word has been trained for the kingdom of heaven.

Trained, huh? What does that mean? The word in the Greek for trained there is, which means be a disciple. Be a disciple. Mat the word is the same as Matthew 28 when he says, go there for and mathe tuo make disciples of all nations, baptizing him in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded.

It's the same thing he's saying every one of you who say you are a Christian, to say you are a follower of Jesus, you're my disciple now. You will be like one. And he says this mini parable, like one who builds a home and then pulls out of the treasury. Treasury meaning the place where you store your price, your most valued possessions. Same word as he tells them he looked for the treasure.

Same word. You will pull out old and new things to teach other. What he means by that is all of the Old Testament, all of the words I have given you, you're going to use that, you're going to study that, and you're going to use that to then go and share with other people and new things. The things I am sharing with you now, the things I'm going to continue teaching you, I want to use you to be my disciples, to go teach, to spread the good news. You see, the kingdom of God grows in us and it grows through us that we're the students, that this is our kingdom mission, to be his disciples.

You, small thing, are a treasure to him that he would give all that he has to redeem you, which is a huge thing, so that you can then share with others and have huge impact. So friends, as we're closing today, three questions that I would like for you just to talk you and Jesus. Number one, what small step does Jesus ask of me today? What small steps step does Jesus ask of me today? Number two, he gave everything for you, his treasure.

Will you give all of you to all of him? He gave everything. There's nothing else he is withholding. He gave it all for us. Will you give your all him?

And number three, in light of that day, at the end of time, that day that is harvest, how will I live this week thinking of that day?

How will I live this week thinking of the future day of that harvest, Will you stand to your feet? Every eye close, every head bow. Three questions, Jesus, what small step do you ask of me today? Jesus, you gave everything. You call me your treasure.

I don't want to withhold anything from you. Is there something that you're asking me to surrender to you?

And in light of that day of harvest, how will I live this very week?

Jesus, I pray that in this time of response that as they have this opportunity. Jesus, will you speak to hearts in this place? Father, the kingdom of God was your mission and you want to use us in that same way. God, you're in the business of using just small things for great kingdom work. Whether it's a T shirt, whether it's a relationship that I had with someone as a little girl, whether that was a text message that was sent and you, Holy Spirit, led us, whatever it is, small steps that have great impact for the kingdom of God.

Father, I pray that in these next few moments as we have this song of response, that if you ask of us to take a small step forward, we would obey God. Speak to hearts as you see fit in Jesus name, Amen.