Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Mystery of the Kingdom: From Microscopic Seed to Monstrous Tree (Matthew 13:31–32)

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The Mystery of the Kingdom: From Microscopic Seed to Monstrous Tree (Matthew 13:31–32) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reform thinking. I am really looking forward to
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  this one. We have a massive stack of
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  research on the table today, and we're aiming to fix what I think
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  is a pretty common misunderstanding.
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  We're turning our attention to one of the most famous and maybe
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  one of the shortest stories Jesus ever told.
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  It's Matthew chapter 13, verses 31 and 32.
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  The. Parable of the Mustard Seed.
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  That's the one, and I think for most of us, especially if you
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  grew up in the church, went to Sunday school, this is, you
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  know, the quintessential nice parable.
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  It's cute, it's comforting. You have this tiny little seed,
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  and it grows into this big, beautiful tree.
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  It feels like the biblical version of a motivational
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  poster. Small things can become big
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  things. Exactly.
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  Don't give up that sort of thing.
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  It definitely has that reputation.
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  It is, Well, it's usually the go to text for building programs.
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  We're fundraising campaigns, isn't it?
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  Look at what our small offering can become.
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  But the research we have in front of us today suggests
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  there's something else going on here, something a little more
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  drawing. We have two very distinct
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  theological lenses to look through today.
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  On one hand, we have this view of the parable as a message of
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  encouragement, this divine growth that just seems to defy
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  all logic. But then we have this other
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  stack of notes that points to a darker, almost cautionary
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  reading. A reading that suggests this
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  growth might actually be, well, monstrous.
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  And that is the tension we need to sit in.
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  It's what one of our sources calls the scandal of small
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  beginnings. You have to remember Jesus is
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  presenting the Kingdom of heaven not as a conquering army, which
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  is, you know, what everyone wanted, right?
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  But it's a tiny, insignificant seed.
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  And that raises a massive question.
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  Is the growth of this Kingdom a shelter for the nation's, or is
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  it some kind of biological anomaly that ends up harboring
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  evil? And that's the mission for this
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  session. We're going to open up these
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  interpretations, specifically through the lens of Reformed
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  theology in the Westminster Confession, to try and
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  understand what this means for the visible church today.
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  Because if we get this wrong, we either end up in despair because
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  the church looks weak, or we end up in pride because the church,
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  it's powerful, but for all the wrong reasons.
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  Precisely. And to get there, we can't just
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  jump to the tree. We have to start with the
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  context. We have to look at where Matthew
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  placed this story. Right, Let's set the scene.
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  This is Matthew 13. This isn't just a random
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  collection of, you know, agricultural tips.
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  No, not at all. Matthew 13 is a pastoral answer
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  to a specific anxiety. You have to put yourself in the
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  sandals of the disciples for a moment.
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  They've been following Jesus. They've seen miracles.
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  But the national response, it's fractured.
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  The leaders are hostile, the crowds are now they're
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  superficial. And Rome is still in charge.
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  Let's stay on that for a second. Rome.
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  We say that word Rome and we think of marble statues and
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  aqueducts. But for a 1st century Jew, Rome
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  was a boot on the neck. It was brutal.
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  I mean, you had heavy taxation. You had Roman soldiers who could
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  commandeer your property or your labor at any given moment.
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  You had the constant reminder that you are a conquered people
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  in your own land, the land God promised to Abraham.
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  The messianic expectation wasn't just save me from my sins.
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  Oh no, it was save me from Caesar.
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  They were looking for a hammer. They were looking for a
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  sledgehammer. They wanted the Son of David to
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  ride into Jerusalem, rally the troops and drive the pagans into
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  the sea. I mean, that was the air they
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  breathed. That was the hope that got them
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  out of bed in the morning. So there's this huge question
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  hanging in the air. Jesus, if you are the Messiah,
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  why isn't this working? Why aren't we winning?
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  Why is Pontius Pilate still comfortable in his palace while
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  we're sleeping in fields? That's the crisis of perception.
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  That's what one of our sources calls it.
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  The disciples expected the Kingdom to just burst onto the
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  stage. They wanted immediate political
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  splendor. They wanted a cedar on a palace
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  hill. And instead.
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  Instead, they get a Galilean preacher, a handful of ordinary
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  followers, fishermen, tax collectors, you know, nobodies,
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  and a whole lot of rejection. It's the already not yet
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  tension, isn't it? But I want to dig into this
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  concept of the mystery Kingdom that came up in the notes
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  because that seems to be the key to unlocking why the disciples
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  were so confused. It really is.
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  The mystery Kingdom is a crucial A crucial distinction that some
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  theological traditions make. Think of it this way.
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  Imagine you're standing on a plane looking at a mountain
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  range. In the distance you see two
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  massive peaks. OK, I have the visual.
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  The first peak represents the first advent of Christ, His
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  suffering, His death, His atonement.
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  The second peak, the higher one behind it, represents the second
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  advent, His returning glory to judge the nations and set up his
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  eternal reign. OK, right now, from where the
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  Old Testament prophets stood, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah,
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  those two peaks look like they were right next to each other.
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  From their angle, they saw the suffering servant and the
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  conquering king as one continuous event.
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  They lacked depth perception. Correct.
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  They didn't see the valley in between the peaks.
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  They didn't see the huge gap. That gap is the church age.
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  That's where we live now. It's the period where the king
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  is absent bodily. He's ascended and the Kingdom
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  grows through influence, through the Spirit, through the Word,
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  not through military force. So Matthew 13 is Jesus
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  explaining the rules of the road for this valley.
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  He's telling them, God, guys, we're in the valley now.
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  It works differently here. Yes, absolutely.
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  Look at what comes right before the mustard seed.
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  You have the parable of the sower, and what's the lesson
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  there? The seed is good, but the soils
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  are different. Right, the reception is mixed.
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  It's very mixed. Some people just won't get it.
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  The birds, Satan snatch it away. The sun, persecution scorches
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  it. The thorns, the worries of this
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  world choke it out. Which is not exactly a pep talk.
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  I mean, if I'm a disciple expecting 100% conversion rate
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  because God is on my side and Jesus tells me actually,
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  actually three out of four times the soil is going to reject the
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  seed, I'm feeling pretty down. And then right after that you
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  have the wheat and the tares. Which is arguably even more
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  terrifying, the idea that the enemy comes and sows weeds right
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  in the middle of the good crop. And the Masters response is
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  shocking, isn't it? Let them grow together, he
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  doesn't say. Go RIP them out now.
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  He says wait. Wait until the harvest.
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  Wait until the harvest. So that's the context.
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  The field is mixed. Evil exists alongside good.
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  The Kingdom is not going to purge the world of evil
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  immediately. So just imagine the emotional
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  weight on the disciples. They're discouraged.
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  They're looking around at a mixed field, hostile leaders in
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  a confusing message. And into this sober atmosphere,
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  Jesus drops the parable of the mustard seed.
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  So it's a corrective. It corrects 2 things.
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  It corrects despair, the cynicism that says we're too
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  small, This whole thing is failing.
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  Let's just go back to fishing. And it corrects triumphalism,
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  the demand for immediate glory, the demand to, you know, call
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  down fire on the Samaritans. So let's look at the seed
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  itself. Verse 31.
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  The Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.
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  Coco Sinapes is so. Tight.
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  But seriously, why mustard? I mean, if I'm starting a
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  Kingdom that's going to take over the world, I'm thinking
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  oak. I'm thinking cedar of Lebanon.
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  Something robust. Mustard is well, it's a
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  condiment. It's what I put on a sandwich.
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  It's anti heroic. That is the rhetorical force of
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  the image. In 1st century Palestine the
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  mustard seed was proverbially the least of all seeds.
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  Now we know scientifically there are smaller seeds like orchid
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  seeds or whatever, but Jesus is speaking to Galilean farmers.
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  His audience, yeah. In their context and their
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  garden experience, this was the symbol for nothing.
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  It was the micro Tehran the smallest.
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  It really emphasizes that scandal we talked about in the
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  intro, the scandal of small beginnings.
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  It does. I mean think about the
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  incarnation. How does God enter the world not
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  as a warrior on a stallion, but as a baby in a Manger?
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  A Carpenter from Nazareth crucified King.
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  The seed mirrors the King. So the outward appearance is
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  deceptive. Completely.
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  It possesses an inward principle of life, but outwardly it looks
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  like nothing. It looks like failure.
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  If you looked at Jesus on the cross, did he look like a king
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  who was about to take over the cosmos?
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  No, he looked like a criminal. He looked like the end of the
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  movement, not the beginning of it.
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  That is the point. The Kingdom is hidden in
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  weakness. It's hidden in smallness.
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  And there's a human element in the verse, too, which a man took
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  and sewed in his field. Yes, and notice the ordinariness
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  of that action. The man isn't described as a
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  strategic genius. He isn't a marketing expert.
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  He isn't holding a revival meeting with lights and fog
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  machines. He's just a sower.
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  He's just a sower. He took and sewed.
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  It calls to mind that Kingdom advance happens through means.
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  It happens through preaching, witnessing the simple planting
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  of the truth. It's not accidental drift.
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  No, it's intentional planting. But the power isn't in the man's
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  wrist action, the power is in the seed.
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  One of our sources really highlights this.
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  The seed has a destiny determined by its nature, not a
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  size. You can't judge the DNA of the
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  movement by the size of the gathering.
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  OK, so we have this tiny, almost embarrassing seed and then we
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  get to the pivot point of the parable.
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  But when it has grown. And here's where it gets
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  fascinating. And here is where our sources
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  begin to diverge. And I mean really diverge.
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  Right, because the text says it is greater than the garden
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  plants and becomes a tree. Genetide Engine becomes a tree.
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  So let's look at viewpoint one first.
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  This is the view from source. Say this is the view that says,
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  look at this amazing divine disproportion.
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  Correct. In this view, the tree
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  represents conspicuous greatness and stability.
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  The argument is that Jesus is using comparative language to
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  show that the end result completely outstrips the
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  beginning. He's saying do not judge the end
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  by the start. The Kingdom won't stay small.
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  Right. It will not remain this private
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  sentiment or this tiny Jewish Renewal movement.
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  It is going to become a public history shaping reality.
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  So it's a message of hope. It refutes the idea that small
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  beginnings mean failure. It's saying we may be small now,
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  but just wait. We're going to be massive, yes.
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  It becomes a tree. It becomes visible, it becomes
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  durable. It stands against the skyline.
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  It suggests that the which will eventually cover the earth, or
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  at least be a dominant feature of history.
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  It's pure encouragement for the discouraged disciples.
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  But, and this is a big but, source B looks at that same
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  phrase, becomes a tree, and sees something completely different.
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  They see a biological anomaly. They see something wrong.
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  They do, and this is based on botany which is fascinating.
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  We have to look at the Greek word used for the plants origin
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  category, La Shan, la Shannon. What does that mean?
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  He means a garden herb, a vegetable.
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  Think spinach or Roux or, yeah, well, mustard.
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  The Mishnah, the Jewish oral law, strictly classified mustard
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  as a garden plant, not a tree. You don't climb a mustard plant.
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  You don't build a tree house in it.
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  So it's a shrub, basically. It's a shrub, even in the
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  fertile soil of the Jordan Valley, where things grow
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  aggressively. A mustard plant might get 10
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  feet tall. It might get a thick, woody
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  stem. But it is a sharp It's
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  essentially a weed. A weed.
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  It's an invasive species in a garden.
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  If you let it go, it takes over, but it does not become a timber
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  tree. It does not become a dendron,
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  which is the word for a proper tree.
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  So when Jesus says it becomes a tree, Genetidendron Source B
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  argues he isn't just using hyperbole for it gets really
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  big. He's describing A mutation.
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  That is the argument. The herb has exceeded its
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  natural genus. It has become something it was
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  never meant to be. This is the monstrous
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  interpretation. Wow.
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  The implication here is that the mystery Kingdom, what we call
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  Christendom, adopts the structure of a worldly empire.
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  It puffs up. It becomes an institutional
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  power structure like Rome, rather than remaining a humble
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  spiritual Organism. That is a heavy critique.
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  It suggests that the institutional church as we see
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  it throughout history might actually be a distortion of what
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  Jesus intended. Well, consider the history.
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  We go from the early persecuted church, small, vibrant,
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  dependent on the Spirit hiding in catacombs, to the post
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  Constantine church. When Christianity becomes legal
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  and then official. Exactly.
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  Suddenly in the 4th century, it becomes the state religion.
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  The church has immense political power, it has wealth, it has
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  armies, it has popes who can dethrone kings.
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  It looks like a tree in the Daniel Four sense, a worldly
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  empire. So the argument is that the
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  church decided it didn't want to be a herb anymore.
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  It wanted to be a cedar. It wanted to look like the world
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  in order to reach the World. And in doing so, it became
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  unnatural. It became a monstrosity.
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  And that brings us to the birds, because you can't have the tree
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  without the birds, the text says, so that the birds of the
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  air come and nest in its branches.
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  The interpretive crux, this is where the fight really happens.
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  Because if you take the positive view, the birds are great.
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  They're the nation's finding shelter.
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  It's a beautiful picture of inclusivity.
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  But if you take the negative view, the birds are the bad
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  guys. Let's follow the negative
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  reading first, primarily from source B.
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  The principle here is a core Reformed principle, Scriptura
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  Scripturum interpretator. Scripture interprets scripture.
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  We don't just make up meanings, we look at how the author uses
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  the words elsewhere. Correct.
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  So we look at the immediate context.
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  In this very same chapter, Matthew 13 verse four and verse
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  19, Jesus talks about birds. In the parable of the sower.
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  In parable the sower, the birds come and devour the seeds sown
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  on the path, and Jesus explicitly identifies them.
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  He says the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown.
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  So in verse four, birds equal Satan or his agents.
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  Right, it's explicit. So the argument goes, if birds
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  represent the evil one in verse 4, why would they represent the
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  nation's or the righteous in verse 32, just a few sentences
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  later? It would be inconsistent.
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  Matthew would be a sloppy writer.
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  Well, Source B argues he's a very careful writer.
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  He wouldn't use the same symbol in the same discourse to mean
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  two opposite things without a very clear marker.
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  Therefore, the presence of birds in the branches of this mustard
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  tree is not a sign of health, it is a sign of corruption.
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  Wow. So the picture is the church
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  blows up into this unnatural institutional power structure,
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  and because it's so big and worldly, it becomes a nesting
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  place for the enemy. Yes, the visible church grows
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  large enough to shelter false teachers, heretics, and what the
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  Westminster Confession calls synagogues of Satan.
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  It becomes a haven for worldly philosophies that want the cover
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  of religion without the power of the Gospel.
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  Wait, hold on. That feels like a massive leap.
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  You're telling me that in Sunday school when we colored pictures
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  of this big friendly tree with cute little Bluebirds, we were
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  actually drawing demons? According to this reading yet.
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  That is dark. It is dark, but you have to ask.
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  Look at church history. Has the institutional church
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  sheltered evil? Have we seen wolves in
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  shepherd's clothing? Have we seen the church used to
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  justify wars, inquisitions, greed, all sorts of horrible
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  things? Well.
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  Yes, of course we have. Then the interpretation has
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  teeth. It explains why the Church on
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  Earth looks the way it does. It's not a sanitized, perfect
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  institution. It's a massive worldly structure
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  where evil can find a comfortable home.
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  But surely Source A has a rebuttal to that, because birds
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  in a tree sounds like a pretty nice image if you aren't
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  thinking about verse 4. And I have to imagine there's
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  biblical precedent for good birds.
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  There is, and Source A leans heavily on the Old Testament
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  background. This is where we get into
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  intertextuality. You have to look at Ezekiel 17
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  and Daniel 4. Break those down for.
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  Us In Ezekiel 17, God gives a prophecy.
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  He promises to take a tender twig, a messianic symbol, from
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  the top of the cedar and planted on a high mountain in Israel.
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  And he says it will grow into a noble cedar.
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  And the text says under it will dwell every kind of bird in the
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  shade of its branches. Birds of every sort will nest.
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  In that context, the birds clearly represent the nation's
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  the Gentiles gathering under the protection of God's Kingdom.
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  So it's a picture of the Kingdom expanding to cover the whole
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  world. It's missional.
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  Yes, and Daniel 4. Remind me Nebuchadnezzar's
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  dream. Nebuchadnezzar's dream He sees
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  himself as a great tree reaching to heaven, and the text says the
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  birds of the air dwelt in its branches.
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  It represents his empire and its expansive dominion.
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  So Source A argues that Jesus is just Using standard biblical
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  imagery. Tree plus birds equals a Kingdom
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  with imperial reach and a place of shelter for the nation's.
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  So the rebuttal to the negative view is symbols can shift,
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  context is king. Precisely just because a lion
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  represents Satan in First Peter 5 crawling around like a roaring
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  lion, doesn't mean it can't represent Jesus, the lion of the
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  tribe of Judah in Revelation 5. Context determines meaning, and
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  here Source A points out the bird's nest.
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  The Greek word is catascono. It means to dwell, to settle, to
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  find shelter. That implies the trees creating
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  space for habitation. It's not the predatory snatching
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  we saw in the soils parable. So the positive reading sees
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  this as a missionary text. The Kingdom creates A realm
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  where nations and outsiders find shelter and refuge.
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  Yes, but even Source A admits A nuance here, and this is where
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  we start to synthesize things. If the tree is the visible
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  church, and it provides shelter for every kind of bird, well,
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  that implies A mixture. It implies that as the Kingdom
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  expands, it attracts all sorts. Not everyone nesting in the
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  branches is necessarily grafted into the vine.
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  Correct. You might have people who love
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  the community, the church, they love the morals, they love the
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  music, they love the political influence.
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  They are nesting in the structure.
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  But are they born again? Are they part of the invisible
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  Kingdom? Not necessarily.
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  Which actually brings us to a point of synthesis.
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  Because whether you see the tree as a monstrosity harboring
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  demons or a divine shelter for the nation's, both views seem to
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  agree on the current reality of the Church.
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  That is the key, and this is where we have to look at this
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  through the lens of Reformed theology and the Westminster
• 17:52
  Confession of Faith, specifically that crucial
• 17:55
  distinction between the visible and the invisible church.
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  Let's define those terms just so we are all on the same page,
• 18:01
  because Invisible Church sounds like a ghost story or something.
• 18:04
  It does, but it's a vital theological concept.
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  The invisible church consists of all the elect, all those who are
• 18:10
  truly united to Christ by faith, past, present, and future.
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  Only God sees who they are. You cannot look at a person and
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  know with 100% certainty if they were in the invisible church.
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  OK. And the visible church.
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  The visible church consists of everyone who professes faith in
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  Christ along with their children.
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  This is the institutional church, the church.
• 18:29
  You can see the Presbyterian Church down the street, the
• 18:32
  Baptist Church on the corner, the Catholic Cathedral downtown,
• 18:35
  all of it. And the Westminster Confession
• 18:38
  calls this visible church a corpus permistam.
• 18:42
  A mixed body, The confession says the visible church is the
• 18:45
  Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of
• 18:47
  God. But it also says in this WCF
• 18:50
  chapter 25 Section 5 that the purest churches under heaven are
• 18:54
  subject both to mixture and error.
• 18:56
  And it gets stronger. It does, it says, and some have
• 18:59
  so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but
• 19:02
  synagogues of Satan. There's that phrase again.
• 19:05
  Synagogues of Satan, the Westminster Divine's didn't pull
• 19:08
  any punches. They lived in a time of massive
• 19:12
  religious upheaval. They knew that just because a
• 19:14
  building had a cross on it didn't mean the Gospels being
• 19:17
  preached inside. So if we take the mustard seed
• 19:19
  parable, the tree is the visible church.
• 19:21
  Yes, and whether the birds are nations seeking shelter or
• 19:24
  heretic seeking cover, the reality on the ground is the
• 19:27
  same. The tree contains things that
• 19:29
  are not the seed. The visible church is mixed.
• 19:32
  That helps reconcile the 2 views, doesn't it?
• 19:35
  Source B warns us that the structure can become corrupt and
• 19:38
  monstrous. Source A encourages us that the
• 19:40
  structure will grow and provide influence and shelter.
• 19:44
  Both are true. The church grows, it becomes
• 19:47
  massive, it influences history. But in doing so, it becomes a
• 19:50
  home for a lot of stuff that isn't pure gospel.
• 19:53
  And this prevents us from falling into two ditches.
• 19:55
  Source A warns US against over allegorizing.
• 19:59
  If we try to make every twig and leaf a coded doctrine, we miss
• 20:02
  the main point certainty of growth.
• 20:05
  God is doing this. And Source B warns US against a
• 20:08
  lazy ecumenism that just idolizes size.
• 20:10
  Precisely just because the tree is big doesn't mean it's
• 20:13
  healthy. Source B reminds us that bigness
• 20:15
  isn't the standard of truth. Just because a denomination has
• 20:18
  millions of members and political clout doesn't mean
• 20:21
  it's faithful. In fact, that very size might be
• 20:23
  what attracts the birds, the liberals, the opportunists, the
• 20:26
  wolves in sheep's clothing. But, and I love this point from
• 20:29
  the research, the king is sovereign over the tree.
• 20:31
  That is the comfort. Christ is the Lord of history.
• 20:35
  He's not surprised by the birds. He isn't up in heaven panicking
• 20:38
  because a heretic God ordained or because a church started
• 20:41
  acting like a corporation. He permits the mixture.
• 20:45
  Remember the wheat and the tares let both grow together until the
• 20:48
  harvest. He allows the tree to grow,
• 20:51
  birds and all during this age of patients.
• 20:53
  So where does this leave us practically?
• 20:56
  I mean, we have listeners who are pastors of small churches,
• 20:59
  listeners who are in big denominations, listeners who are
• 21:02
  just trying to figure out their place in the Pew.
• 21:05
  How do we live in this mustard seed reality?
• 21:09
  Let's break it down first for the discouraged.
• 21:11
  The person in the small ministry may be you're a pastor in a
• 21:14
  rural area where mom discipling her kids and it feels like
• 21:17
  nothing is happening. The mustard seed phase.
• 21:19
  Right Source A calls for faithfulness without frenzy.
• 21:23
  This is such a crucial application.
• 21:25
  We are conditioned to measure God's work by worldly optics.
• 21:29
  If it's not trending on social media, if the numbers aren't up
• 21:31
  and to the right, we think God has left the building.
• 21:34
  We want the tree without the waiting.
• 21:36
  We do, but the parable says the seed is alive even when it looks
• 21:40
  like nothing. That reminds me of a farmer I
• 21:42
  knew. He planted corn and for weeks
• 21:46
  you see nothing, just dirt. And if you were impatient, you'd
• 21:50
  go out there and dig it up to see if it was working and.
• 21:52
  You'd kill the seed. Right, you have to trust the
• 21:54
  process. Exactly.
• 21:56
  A seed doesn't need you to yell at it to grow, it needs to be
• 21:59
  planted. The disciples job is sowing, not
• 22:02
  manufacturing spectacle. The power is in the seed, the
• 22:06
  word of God, not in the sower's charisma.
• 22:09
  So if you are being faithful, you can relax.
• 22:12
  The growth is God's department. That is freeing.
• 22:15
  It takes the pressure off. But then there's the flip side.
• 22:18
  What about the bird catchers? This is the application from
• 22:20
  source B and it is so vital for elders and office bearers.
• 22:24
  If we accept that the tree, the institutional structure attract
• 22:27
  birds or false elements, then discernment is non negotiable.
• 22:31
  We can't just be happy that the parking lot is full.
• 22:33
  No, absolutely not. Source B actually criticizes the
• 22:36
  use of steroids in the church, metaphorically marketing,
• 22:40
  entertainment, watering down the message to be relevant or seeker
• 22:44
  sensitive. When we use worldly methods to
• 22:47
  force the seed to become a tree faster than God intended, we
• 22:50
  create a monstrosity. We create a haven for worldly
• 22:53
  philosophies. We build a nest for the birds.
• 22:55
  It's like we are trying to tape branches onto the mustard plant
• 22:59
  to make it look like a cedar. That is a great image.
• 23:01
  Yeah, and it's fake. Real growth is organic.
• 23:04
  It comes from the life of the seed.
• 23:05
  Artificial growth is just structure, and structure without
• 23:09
  life is just a hotel for demons. So the elders need to be
• 23:12
  watching the branches. Do they need to ensure that what
• 23:15
  is being taught is the seed, the true gospel and not just bird
• 23:19
  chatter? They need to protect the flock
• 23:21
  from the influence of the world that inevitably tries to nest in
• 23:24
  the church. And for the everyday believer,
• 23:26
  the person sitting in the Pew, living in this already, not yet
• 23:29
  tension. It is about balance.
• 23:31
  Source A tells us to resist triumphalism.
• 23:33
  Stop demanding a pure, perfect ruling church right now.
• 23:36
  That's for the next stage. Stop getting angry that the
• 23:39
  church is messy. It's supposed to be messy.
• 23:41
  It's a field with weeds. It's a tree with birds.
• 23:44
  But don't become cynical. Right.
• 23:46
  Resist pessimism. Stop thinking the gates of hell
• 23:48
  are prevailing just because you see some birds in the branches.
• 23:52
  The tree is still standing, the Kingdom is still growing, the
• 23:54
  seed is working. And source B adds, Repent of the
• 23:58
  idolatry of bigness. That is a hard one for us
• 24:02
  moderns. We love bigness.
• 24:04
  We trust bigness. If a conference has 10,000
• 24:07
  people, we assume God is there. If a Bible study have 10 people,
• 24:10
  we wonder what's wrong. But truth is validated by
• 24:13
  Scripture, not by the size of the crowd.
• 24:16
  We need to be content with being the faithful twig Ezekiel talked
• 24:19
  about rather than trying to build Nebuchadnezzar's prideful
• 24:22
  tree. It really comes down to S.
• 24:24
  That brings us to a really interesting final thought.
• 24:27
  We spent this time looking at the tension between the humble
• 24:29
  seed and the massive tree, and it makes me wonder about the
• 24:32
  culture of Christianity we see around us today.
• 24:35
  How so? Well, if the Kingdom grows
• 24:37
  mustard seed style because the king came servant style, humble,
• 24:42
  rejected, you know, what does that say about our modern
• 24:47
  obsession with celebrity Christianity?
• 24:49
  That is the provocative question.
• 24:52
  Are we trying to build a Daniel Fore tree?
• 24:54
  Are we trying to build an empire that impresses the world on the
• 24:57
  world's terms, with big names and big buildings and big
• 25:01
  influence? Or are we content to be the
• 25:03
  Ezekiel 17 twig planted by God, growing according to his design?
• 25:08
  It is a challenge for every one of us listening.
• 25:10
  You might be nesting in the branches, you know, enjoying the
• 25:12
  community, the music, the culture of the church.
• 25:14
  But the real question is, are you grafted into the vine?
• 25:17
  Are you connected to the life of the seed itself?
• 25:20
  Because eventually the harvest comes and the birds will be
• 25:22
  chewed away, Only the fruit remains.
• 25:25
  That is a lot to chew on. Thank you for walking us through
• 25:28
  this. It has certainly changed the way
• 25:29
  I will look at a jar of mustard from now on.
• 25:32
  It was a pleasure, a very important parable.
• 25:34
  And to you listening, thanks for being with us on Reformed
• 25:37
  Thinking. We hope this helps you see the
• 25:39
  Kingdom a little more clearly. Until next time.