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Realizing the presence, promise, and power of the Kingdom of God.
The Scriptorium

From Small Beginnings

Big things can happen for the Kingdom. Luke 13.18-21

Luke 13 (4)

Pray Psalm 80.8-11.
You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
You have cast out the nations, and planted it.
You prepared room for it,
And caused it to take deep root,
And it filled the land.
The hills were covered with its shadow,
And the mighty cedars with its boughs.
She sent out her boughs to the Sea,
And her branches to the River.

Sing Psalm 80.8-11.
(St. Theodulph: All Glory, Laud, and Honor)
You set us free from sin, Lord, and planted us in grace.
We rooted in Your strong Word have spread from place to place.
Our shadow covered mountains, our branches reached the sea;
Your grace flowed like a fountain of life, abundantly.

Read Luke 13.1-21; meditate on verses 18-21.


Preparation

1. What two metaphors did Jesus use to teach about the Kingdom of  God?

2. What do the two metaphors have in common?

Meditation
The people of Israel, upon returning from Babylon, began to rebuild the temple of the Lord. But they became discouraged, so that they faltered and left off building. The new temple appeared to them small and insignificant. Not what they’d imagined or hoped. It was not worth the effort. But the prophet Zechariah spoke the Word of God, insisting that God would finish this great work and telling them not to despise the day of small beginnings (Zech. 4.8-11).

Many in Jesus’ day became impatient waiting for Him to usher in God’s glorious Kingdom. They were looking for big things now, and they sought for themselves as much as they could get from Him. When He didn’t deliver as they expected, and they’d gained all they wanted, they screamed for His death.

But Jesus explained that the Kingdom of God worked from small beginnings – like a tiny seed or a bit of yeast – to produce great effects. Like the seventy souls who went down to Egypt in Joseph’s day but became a teeming multitude by the time of the Exodus. The Kingdom works within and through us. It begins with small things, transforming us from glory to glory into the likeness of Jesus, then working out through us to flow rivers of living water to the people in our Personal Mission Field (2 Cor. 3.12-18; Jn. 7.37-39). Perhaps the Kingdom looks like a very small presence in you at this time, and perhaps you have become discouraged and have stopped seeking and working for it.

Do not despise the day of small beginnings. When the Lord is in them, every mustard seed gesture of love, every grain of yeast word of grace and truth, will take root and, like the vine of Israel, grow and increase, and bear much fruit. Do not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not faint (Gal. 6.9).

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that a man “took and put in his garden; and it grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches” (Lk. 13.19).

The Kingdom of God is also like “leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened” (Lk. 13.21).

The man took and put the seed in the ground, and it grew into a tree so big that birds nested in its branches. The woman took and mixed in the leaven until all the flour she had was leavened to bake much bread.

There was a widow who sought out the prophet Elisha because she and her two sons were being hounded by a creditor. When asked what he could do for her she responded that all they had left was a jar of oil. So he told her to, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few.” She gathered some jars, went into her house with her sons, shut the door behind them, and began filling the empty jars with the oil supply she had. When the last jar was filled, Elisha instructed her to “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest” (2 Kgs. 4.1-7).

Here is the caveat, the irony, or the catch: “Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, ‘Bring me another vessel.’ And he said to her, ‘There is not another vessel.’ So the oil ceased.”

How does this work out in our own Personal Mission Field? Are we planting any seeds, or mixing in any leaven, and borrowing enough empty vessels? Hopefully, we’ve tossed out a few seeds, mixed in sufficient yeast to bake a biscuit, and gotten one or two pint-size mason jars. This is certainly something, and much better than nothing. But do we diligently study our book on horticulture, cooking, and preserving? That Book that is “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4.12)?

Kingdom work is serious work and demands activity on our part—planting, leavening, gathering. Imagine work that is so effective birds will nest in it; bread will be baked from it; and abundance will be experienced because of it.

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2.15). However, we can’t divide it if we don’t know it and aren’t in it. We must be in the Word daily to “obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4.16).

Small beginnings begin and end in the Word. We cannot do Kingdom work without the power found in the Word through the Holy Spirit. “Without Me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15.5). But with Me “nothing will be impossible” (Lk. 1.37).

Plant multiple seeds, mix in more leaven, and by all means, gather more jars!

For reflection
1. Small things. That’s what the Lord is looking for to advance His Kingdom through you today. Such as?

2. We don’t work for salvation, but we must work it out, seeking the Kingdom as we go. Why is it so important that we be grounded in the Word of God as we pursue this work?

3. How can believers encourage one another in making daily small beginnings? Whom will you encourage today?

The kingdom of the Messiah is the kingdom of God. May grace grow in our hearts; may our faith and love grow exceedingly, so as to give undoubted evidence of their reality. May the example of God’s saints be blessed to those among whom they live; and may his grace flow from heart to heart, until the little one becomes a thousand.
Matthew Henry (1662-1714), Commentary on Luke 13.18-22

Pray Psalm 80.12-19.
Will you be a seed, a bit of leaven, for revival, renewal, and awakening? Seek the Lord to begin a great work of revival in you and to spread it throughout your Personal Mission Field. Pray daily for revival.

Sing Psalm 80.12-19.
(St. Theodulph: All Glory, Laud, and Honor)
Now You in wrath have spoken and bruised Your chosen vine.
We languish, Lord, are broken by wrath, deserved, divine.
Once more, Lord, hear our pleading: return and heal this vine!
Look down on us, so needy, and show Your love divine!

Though we be burned and perish because of Your command,
Revive us, Lord, and cherish this son of Your right hand.
Then let us not return to our sinful, selfish ways,
but call on You and learn to surround You with our praise.

T. M. and Susie Moore

You can download all the studies in our Luke series by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (Williston: Waxed Tablet Publications, 2006), available by
clicking here.

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
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