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Sacramento Central SDA Church

The Parables of Jesus

Chris Buttery

The Parable of Jesus: Hold the Mustard

You know, folk have, prophets of all would have loved to have lived in this day and age.

There's a story that I read not too long ago about a fellow by the name of Frank Zizmanski.

Frank Zizmanski was a football player for Notre Dame back in the 1940s.

He played as center and probably to the right of that a little bit or the left of that occasionally.

Frank was an excellent player for Notre Dame and could easily have let it certainly go to his head, but he was known for being modest about his abilities and the skills in his game.

1 day Frank had been called to the to witness a civil suit in South Bend, Indiana.

When he was called to testify, the judge started asking him questions.

Are you on the Notre Dame football team this year?

Continuing to inquire, the judge asked his final question, How good a center are you, Frank Zizmanski?

Now Zizmanski kind of squirmed in his seat because he was known for not liking to brag on himself but he responded and said, sir I'm the best center you've ever had.

Well now his coach, a man by the name of Frank Nehi was in the courtroom that day and he heard Zizmanski's response and naturally he was surprised.

He knew Zizmanski always to be unassuming and modest so when the proceedings were over he went over and he took Zizmanski aside and he asked him why, Zizmanski, why did you make such a statement?

Well Zizmanski blushed and he said, well I hated to do it coach, after all I was under oath.

When, friends, when you've got to tell the truth, you've got to tell the truth.

And telling the truth is necessary, especially when it has to do with correcting a misconception about the kingdom of God.

Now, if somebody were thinking, were to think certain things about God's kingdom and what they thought was wrong, it would be most definitely important and imperative to make sure that the person has a right conception of the kingdom of God, or else that individual could be led astray, could cause a person even perhaps to be lost.

That's why when Jesus was here on planet Earth he made up made every attempt to clear up any misconception anybody had regarding his kingdom.

That's why Jesus wasn't about to let people think something different when it had to do with the matters or matters of eternal consequence and he did this of course through the use of parables.

We've been talking about some of Jesus parables to help fallible mankind get a grasp on eternal realities.

Jesus used comparisons, he used some form of attachment, He placed 1 thing by the side of another to be sure that no 1 would be confused and left out of the picture with regard to the most important subjects delivered to mankind.

Now I wanna take you to another parable here this morning.

So would you turn there with me to Mark chapter 4, and we wanna take a look here.

In this particular instance, Jesus is seeing he needs to set the score straight, so to speak.

He again needs to tell the truth about the nature of his kingdom.

And it was really for his disciples that he was giving this explanation.

He gave this illustration to those who had called upon his name and had pledged themselves to his cause, hopeful in seeing the kingdom of God grow and taking on more citizens than were presently there as they thought were there.

Now Jesus gave a wrong explanation here, it could cause them to become easily discouraged and dispirited, unenthusiastic about what they signed up for.

Actually, it's likely they were already beginning to wonder whether being connected with this controversial teacher was such a good idea.

They might have been asking why more people weren't signing up like they had.

Why were there only a handful of them when there should have been many more?

Because isn't this man about to establish his kingdom here on earth?

And it's likely that if the disciples were questioning the sides of their group, no doubt they were being influenced by the religious leaders of the day.

These religious leaders wouldn't have been careful to keep their thoughts to themselves about this new teacher and this band of new disciples.

So you can probably imagine that the leaders made a little fun of the fact that Jesus only had a few followers, especially considering that they thought and he had said that he was here to establish his kingdom.

I mean come on Jesus, how do you expect what you to do what you say you're going to do with only a handful of believers?

How are you going to do these great things without wealth, without power, without prestige and honor.

You know, it's kind of always the way, isn't it, when someone seems sees you cutting in on their show and you don't mean to do so intentionally.

Some folk are just bent on belittling and ridiculing.

They can't stand it, so they mock you and they laugh at you, and instead of moving over and making room for you, they resort to disparagement and vilification.

So Christ knew their thoughts, and he read their hearts of these religious folks.

He's not about to let the jealousy of these individuals contaminate his disciples.

So Jesus is going to set the score straight in this parable and encourage his followers and you've got to love Jesus for doing that, amen?

And Jesus said, and Aaron read that fairly well here this morning, so thank you son.

Mark chapter 4 verses 30 to 32 it says, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God?

Or with what comparison shall we compare it?

It is like a grain of mustard seed which when it is sown in the earth is less than all the seeds that be in the earth but when it is sown it groweth up and becometh greater than all the branches so or sorry than all the herbs and shooteth out great branches so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it." Now probably this is another thing you're going to have to get used to me saying and that is herbs, because you see that there is an H in front of the E and the RBS.

And I understand folk around here like to say herbs or something and the H is silent, but it is an H and so you say herbs, or at least I say herbs.

And so Jesus is sharing here with what comparison shall we compare the kingdom of God.

In fact Christ is bringing, drawing his followers into, or his hearers into consultation as it were, inviting them to participate in the quest for truth and he leads them to the mustard seed as they begin their journey.

Jesus said the mustard seed is like the church on earth.

That's what Jesus was saying And you've got to wonder whether there could have been anything better to use to illustrate a profound truth than a mustard seed.

And as we unravel this parable you're going to see that Jesus couldn't have used anything better to get his message across.

Now, no doubt there are some here today that enjoy their mustard, and I wouldn't want to deprive you of that.

Has anyone ever heard of the Mustard Museum?

All right, we got a mustard lover right here, okay.

So mustard museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.

Now the fellow by the name of Barry, Barry Levinson, he was the founder and the curator, he's the curator of the National Mustard Museum.

And he said that it came about because of the Red Sox, the Boston Red Sox.

Apparently in 1986, his favorite baseball team lost the World Series, and so Barry went to an all-night restaurant, not an all-night restaurant, an all-night supermarket, trying to find the meaning of life and he passed through by the mustard in the mustard aisle there a thought popped into into his head if you collect us that is the mustard they will come well they did and they have apparently Barry's Museum sports get this 5624 mustards I didn't even know that there would be that many.

5, 624 mustards from all 50 states and from over 70 countries in the world, which would obviously make his collection a sight to behold.

Now with all due respect, I'm certainly not interested in mustard.

Now that may have been perhaps because back in the day when I was young, I may have said something in front of a grownup, and instead of getting my mouth washed out with soap, someone put a little mustard on my tongue and I can still taste it to this day.

I don't know but to this day, to this day, if I'm asked if I like mustard I ask folk just to hold, put a hold please, hold on the mustard.

So what was Jesus driving at in the parable?

The mustard seed in Jesus' day was the smallest of all the seeds sown by Palestinian farmers, far smaller than wheat, far smaller than barley, for instance.

A mustard seed today is only about 1 millimeter in diameter.

You know what a centimeter is, and you just divide that into tens, you get 1 millimeter, you see.

Actually, it's the smallest of all the herb seeds that there is.

That's why in Jewish literature, for example, the mustard seed is frequently referred to denoting minuteness.

So I'm no expert, but I understand that there are, in general, 2 types of mustard seeds.

You've got the yellow variety and you've got the black variety.

Both herbs are used widely in cooking, but it's highly likely that it was the black variety Jesus was referring to here in his parable that grew in the wild in abundance in Palestine in those days.

So whereas the yellow mustard seed was a low-lying plant or shrub, not growing to more than about a foot or 2 from the ground, the black particular, the black variety, the black variety of mustard seed would reach heights to about 6 to 12 feet with branches about an inch thick.

So when Jesus says it grows to become a tree, which is what we read, it grows to become a tree, he's not referring to the mustard plant's nature, but he's really referring to its size, you see.

You've seen other little herb bushes, right?

You've got, that's all slipped, you've got thyme, you've got rosemary, you've got oregano, oregano.

You've got all those types of things, right?

You didn't know that we said oregano, what was it, oregano, there it is.

It's oregano, but those are small lying herb bushes, right?

But this thing just takes off 6 feet, that's where I'm at, and beyond.

And that's a herb tree or a herb bush, biggest of all the herb bushes.

Some things are probably beginning to form in your mind with regard to what Jesus is trying to drive out.

The Parable of Jesus: Disappointed Expectations

Well let's pray just 1 more time if you wouldn't mind just bow your heads as we go into our message.

Father, thank you again for your presence and for being with us.

Thank you for giving us clarity as we open your word in Jesus' name and we thank you, Amen.

Some of you may have heard of the individual who put his face up on the screen here, Armand Hammer.

Any of you heard of the name Armand Hammer?

The chairman of the Occidental Petroleum.

Now he died December of 1990 at the age of 92 and when he died he was a legend.

He had done things people only dreamed about.

He had become a successful businessman and a person of influence with presidents and a generous philanthropist and patron of the arts.

USA Today called him a giant of capitalism and a confidant of world leaders and flamboyant crusader for world peace and a cancer cure.

Other reports cited his many accomplishments, such as making his first million by the age of 21, providing humanitarian aid to Soviet Russia in 1921, and improving US-Soviet relations and receiving numerous awards granted by over a dozen countries.

Also, the biographies written about Hammer before his death in 1990 described him in glowing terms.

The story was that he saved his father's pharmaceutical company while he was still in medical school, traveled to the Soviet Union in his 20s, made huge amounts of money in business there and bought and amassed a huge collection of priceless czarist artwork and treasure and made a fortune selling them all here right here in the United States.

He later went on to buy Occidental Petroleum Corporation turning it into a multi-billion dollar organization.

Now most people thought he was a business genius but after he died the truth about Armand Hammer came out.

Armand Hammer's image was actually a result of a carefully crafted public relations campaign that spanned 7 decades.

He manufactured much of his personal history.

He continually controlled information about himself, hiring ghostwriters to create fictitious autobiographies of his own life and even created a company, Armand Hammer Productions, whose mission was to make films promoting him.

All these efforts were made to disguise a deceptive man who used people like objects and then threw them out like trash when he was finished with them.

He allowed his father to go to prison for him.

He hid himself from his only other child, an illegitimate daughter.

It's no surprise that when at Hammer's funeral on December 13, 1990, it was poorly attended.

His son Julian didn't appear and neither did his family, the family of his 2 brothers.

His pole bearers were his chauffeur, his mail nurse, and other personal employees.

The story of Arm and Hammer reveals the disturbing truth that people aren't always what they appear to be on the surface.

Some people are mere pretenders bluffing their way through life to hide who they really are.

Maybe you've run into, we've run into people like that from time to time.

Why would anyone want to live to fool anyone is beyond me.

But the fact remains, pretenders exist and when found out, how disappointing, especially when expectations run high for these individuals.

Now, unfortunately, these experiences aren't isolated to the world but they've found their way also into the Christian Church.

As a matter of fact, Jesus addresses these 2 issues in another story that he shared.

Now if you'd turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13 and this is where we're going to be, Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew is the only gospel writer that actually touches on, deals with, this particular parable or story that Jesus spoke.

It's in Matthew chapter 13 and we'll look at verse 24 through 30.

Another parable put he forth unto them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.

But while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.

But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit then appeared the tares also.

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou or didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?

He said unto them, An enemy has done this.

The servants said unto him, wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

And he said, No, lest while you gather the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest.

And in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." And so Jesus talks about pretenders in the church.

These 2 issues with regard to pretenders and how to handle disappointed expectations.

I'm not sure if it was put up on the screen, maybe we can put that up on the screen as well.

I want to make sure you get the essence of this particular parable.

The parable of the wheat and tares speaks to the issues of the pretenders in the church and how to handle disappointed expectations.

All right, so Jesus shares the parable, the disciples come to him after actually nearly pleading, can you please explain this?

So jump there with me to Matthew 13 and verse 37 and we'll look at how Jesus explains His own parable.

Aren't you glad Jesus helps us with this 1?

Yeah, all right, Matthew chapter 13 and we're at verse 37.

And He answered and said to them, he that sows the good seed is the son of who?

The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked 1.

The harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels.

As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in fire so shall it be in the end of the world the Son of Man shall send forth his angels and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the son in the kingdom of their father who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Sure, all right, we've got our ears on so let us hear.

Who is the sower according to Jesus in this parable?

The sower in this parable is none other than himself.

That's exactly right, the Son of Man, this is Jesus.

It's encouraging to know that Christ introduces himself in this parable as the Son of man.

This is not an easy presentation for me to make here today but Jesus reveals himself as the Son of Man.

So in the parable what is the field that the seed is sown into according to what Jesus said?

He said that's right, he said it's the world.

Jesus said it's the world, but it's okay to understand this as the church in the world.

We're talking about what, friends, the kingdom of what?

Of God, the kingdom of heaven, That's right, the church on earth.

When you jump down to verse 41, the Son of Man shall send his angels and gather out of, where, friends, his kingdom.

You notice that eventually the tares are going to be gathered out.

And where are they gonna be gathered out of?

So definitely, this is referring, definitely can't be referring to the world, but we can understand this to mean the church in the world.

This is referring to God's kingdom on earth, the kingdom of his grace, you see.

Remember, it's in the church that the followers of Jesus grow and ripen for the final harvest.

But the parable deals solely with the development of his followers.

So we can understand when Jesus said the world, he's talking about the church in the world.

All right, then Jesus reveals that there are 2 groups of people in the church and we'll put the slide up as well for this 1.

There are 2 groups of people revealed in the church.

You've got the good seed who are the children of the kingdom, or in other words, those in the church that are born of the word of God.

These are folk who are converted, you see.

They're genuine followers of Jesus, they are authentic.

Now, by the way, for these folk, the authentic, for the authentic, theirs is more than a profession of faith in Christ but a possession of Christ in the life.

Their creeds and their deeds are congruent, you see.

And this happens not because they're born with some special advantage, but because they've opened their hearts wide to the truths of God's word and allowing God's work of grace to be worked out into their lives, you see.

The Parable of Jesus: The Company You Keep

We're going to continue here again with another story, another parable that Jesus taught and unpack.

Actually, a couple of them here this morning.

We'll do 2 in 1 and enjoy learning and sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Some of you have probably heard the Latin proverb, he who lies down with dogs, rises with fleas.

And that's no shot at dogs or dog owners, just wanna, it's a Latin proverb.

It's a good word of caution that we should watch the company we keep.

But can you always tell what a person is made of by the company he or she keeps?

The old adage birds of a feather flock together does have significance when we're talking about like attracting like.

But what I find interesting is that those who were the most unlike Jesus seemed to be attracted to Him And those who professed to be righteous were jealous of him.

When we read these stories in the Bible, go with me to Luke chapter 15, and we read an incident that took place very similar to what I've been describing here.

Those that were unlike Jesus were attracted to him, while those that profess to be righteous were jealous of him.

Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.

And the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them.

The Pharisees were insinuating that Christ liked to associate with those who were clearly sinners and that he was indifferent and that he was insensible to their lifestyle.

Perhaps they were suggesting here birds of a feather.

They made this accusation because of jealousy, and they were jealous because a man like Jesus, a righteous man, a good man, should have been keeping company with the likes of them, the religious folk.

He was instead giving attention to and working among an altogether different group of people.

These religious leaders who said that they were the guardians of society were mad because that he whose life of purity had often awed and condemned them continued to extend sympathy to these social, what they considered to be social outcasts.

Now the Pharisees, They were just mad at the fact that those who never came to church would go and listen to Jesus.

It was a paradox for them that they couldn't understand.

Those who considered themselves paragons of righteousness felt uncomfortable in the presence of Jesus.

Whereas those who made no claim to righteousness whatsoever, they felt curiously drawn to Jesus.

What made these 2 groups of people different?

Well, first of all, the Pharisees, they were hypocrites.

Pharisees and the scribes were hypocrites, and the publicans and the sinners, they didn't have any pretense.

This created that divide between the 2 groups.

1 class felt no need, while the other class felt their need of righteousness.

1 was content with their own righteousness, while the others knew it had no righteousness to offer at all.

These religious leaders often felt condemnation in Jesus' presence.

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Series

The Parables of Jesus

The Parables of Jesus: Our First Service

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

The Parable of Jesus: Hold the Mustard

33m

The Parable of Jesus: Disappointed Expectations

37m

The Parable of Jesus: The Company You Keep

28m

The Parable of Jesus: Kingdom Always First

28m

The Parables of Jesus: Noun or Verb Christian?

28m

The Parables of Jesus: When Jesus Finds No Fruit

28m

The Parables of Jesus: Authenticity. Period!

28m

The Parables of Jesus: A Matter of Generosity, Not Just Desserts

28m

The Parable of Jesus: Preparing the Way of the Lord

28m

The Parables of Jesus: Our First Service

28m

Sound Doctrine