The Power Of Small Beginnings

Big promises are easy to market. Real change is harder to spot. We start with the story of the Fyre Festival, a spectacle that looked enormous and delivered disappointment, then pivot to Jesus’ surprisingly humble images for the kingdom of God: a mustard seed and hidden leaven.

We unpack why the mustard seed parable matters for anyone who feels stuck in the “small” stage. God repeatedly chooses what looks weak, ordinary, and overlooked, then turns it into something sturdy enough to shelter others. That means you don’t have to panic when the crowd is small, the progress is slow, or the impact feels invisible. Small beginnings are not a sign of failure, they’re often the way God gets the glory.

Then we sit with the leaven parable and what it teaches about spiritual growth that happens quietly, from the inside out. The Word of God and the Spirit of God can transform a person, a family, and a church community over time, even when there’s no immediate evidence. The takeaway is simple and demanding: persevere, keep praying, keep showing up, keep planting seeds, and trust God with the growth.

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Transcript

Scripture Reading And Prayer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And then I will invite us to stand for the reading of God's Word this morning. It comes from Matthew 13, verses 31 through 33. The Word of God reads this way. He put another parable before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds. But when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. He told them another parable the kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. And you may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word.

The Fyre Festival Illusion

SPEAKER_00 0:50

In 2017, entrepreneur Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule began promoting a new music festival. There's an uh if you haven't seen it, there's a Netflix documentary about everything I'm going to describe here. So if you're interested, you can dig into that. But it was a festival the likes of which the world had never seen. The Fire Festival was to become the world's most premier, luxurious art festival, bigger and better than Coachella or Burning Man or anything else. It was to take place on a private island in the Bahamas. And tickets for this festival began in the thousands, with some packages costing even up to tens of thousands of dollars. The marketing for the Fire Festival was spectacular. Models and influencers flooded Instagram with images and videos of yachts and luxury villas and gourmet food, and it promised to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Thousands of tickets were sold. But the problem was that most of the marketing was an illusion. When the festivalgoers arrived at the location, they found not luxury villas for their accommodations, but FEMA disaster relief tents and wet mattresses. They did not find gourmet meals as the Instagram videos promised, but cheese sandwiches and styrofoam boxes. They did not find celebrities or world-renowned musical acts as they thought that they would, but one local band from the Bahamas that no one had ever heard of. It was one of the more famous cases of fraud in recent memory. Billy actually went to prison, I think, for that, but he's back out, and I think he's working on the next one. So don't give up. That's the lesson. The Fire Festival promised to be significant and life-changing in the most important event of the year, but it was an illusion. In reality, it turned out to be insignificant, mismanaged, and the biggest disappointment of the year. We're in a summer series on the parables of the kingdom, and the parable, the two parables that Jesus gives us today teach us that God's kingdom is the exact opposite of this. The fire festival looked enormous, but it was hollow. The work of God often looks small and ordinary and even insignificant. Even after Jesus ascended to the Father, after he was crucified and he rose again in power and he ascended. Even after that, the church at the beginning of the Book of Acts was a ragtag group of about 120 uneducated disciples. It did not look significant. But appearances can be deceiving. Some things begin with great fanfare, but ultimately they amount to nothing. And some things begin almost unnoticed, but eventually change the world. And this is the work of God. The things that God does may seem insignificant or small at first, but ultimately they have the greatest impact. So let's consider three angles of this from our parables this morning.

Three Marks Of The Kingdom

SPEAKER_00 4:20

God's kingdom starts small, God's kingdom works quietly, and God's kingdom grows beyond expectation. It starts small, it works quietly, and it grows beyond expectation.

The Mustard Seed Starts Small

SPEAKER_00 4:38

So first, God's kingdom starts small. The great and marvelous works of God begin small. The mustard seed teaches us that God delights to choose small things and make them into great things for his glory. Jesus says in verses 31 and 32, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. Jesus loves to teach about God's kingdom using the most basic and ordinary and everyday images. Everyone would have been familiar with the mustard seed. A mustard seed is about the size of a coarse grain of sand. It's very small. But there is a surprising amount of potential in that small seed. If all the seeds of the garden plants were laid out on a table in front of you and you didn't know what they were, and you had to guess which one would produce the largest plant, you would never in a million years choose the mustard seed. You would never guess that that small seed was able to produce such a large plant. And this is why it's a great illustration of the kingdom of God. Because God delights to take the smallest things, the things that you would never guess have such powerful potential, and the things that seem the least significant. He loves to choose these things, and he loves to make them great, and he loves to do great things with them, so that he gets the glory, not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord. When God decided to create a holy nation, when all of the nations were set against him in Genesis 11, and he decided that he would make a nation for himself. When God determined to deliver his people from slavery in Egypt, he did not raise up a mighty warrior, he did not raise up a Samson, but he raised up an eighty-year-old shepherd named Moses, who had a stutter and couldn't speak well, and he said, I will send you, and you will deliver my people from Pharaoh, the mightiest ruler on the face of the earth. God's people later wanted a king, and they chose Saul, a tall and handsome and warrior king. Maybe he looked a little like this. But Saul failed to deliver them from the Philistines, and when God determined to deliver to deliver his people from the hand of the Philistines, he chose the youngest son of Jesse, the ruddy shepherd boy named David, the one whom no one would have expected or chose. When Jesus selected the apostles who would turn the world upside down in his name, he did not choose the religious leaders and scholars and the great people of his day, but he chose a few fishermen and a few tax collectors. One of the amazing things about the hero stories in the Bible is that all of the stories of God's deliverance and the hero stories, when he raises up a hero, they they often begin with a baby. They often, or they often begin with a barren woman or a barren couple unable to have children. They begin with such a small, insignificant thing. And this is where God's salvation begins. It's right there. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 27, sorry, uh chapter 1, verse 27, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are. That's incredible. God chose even the things that are not. He Abraham and Sarah, they did not have a child. God chose the things that are not to bring nothing to the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. It seems that all of the marvelous works of God begin with the smallest and the most unlikely people, so that it may be clear to all that these things are not accomplished by human strength or wisdom, but by the power and the mercy of God. The great and marvelous works of God begin with the smallest and the most unlikely things. One of the most important events in The Lord of the Rings that turns the tide of the story in the second book, in the Two Towers, is the assault of Isengard and the fall of Saruman. The mighty and the powerful Ents, the giant tree people who inhabit Fangorn Forest, who otherwise mind their own business and they do not meddle in the affairs of men, they are inspired to rise up and to join the fray. And to everyone's surprise, they come down from the forest and they assault and destroy Isengard, the wizard's veil. Gandalf says, a thing is about to happen which has not happened since the elder days. The Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong. So how did this marvelous tide-changing event happen? Well, it started with the arrival of two unlikely hobbits. Mary and Pippin stumble into Fengorn Forest, and they unwittingly convince the Ents to rise up. And again, Gandalf says, The hobbits were brought to Fengorn, and their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains. Even as we talk here, I hear the first rumblings. It's an incredible quote. That story teaches us not to underestimate the power of small stones that are able to start a great avalanche in the mountains. The great and marvelous works of God always begin with the smallest stones. So do not let smallness discourage you. Israel was once a mighty and a glorious nation under David and Solomon, with a beautiful temple that rivaled the wonders of the ancient world, but they were cut down and that temple was destroyed. When they were allowed to return, only a small group chose to return. The majority of the Jews had grown comfortable and they had grown prosperous living in exile, and they lost sight of their calling and their identity. And on top of this, it was very hard to return to the land. It was like the wild west, it was like the westward expansion. Other people were living there. They were under-resourced, and the temple that they rebuilt was nothing compared to its original glory. Many of that struggling pilgrim community were on the brink of discouragement. But into that discouragement the prophet Zechariah spoke, and he said, For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. We read that in our reading of the law. Do not despise the day of small things. Do not be discouraged if you put yourself out there to lead a Bible study or a community group and two people show up. Do not be discouraged if you if you pour your heart into a performance or into a teaching for a small audience. Do not be discouraged with a new small business that is not very profitable in its first few years. Do not be discouraged when a small church like ours grows slowly. All of these things, these are the days of small things. Do not despise them, because we know that like the mustard seed, small things in God's hands have tremendous potential to change the world. And before you know it, they can become the largest of all of the garden plants. You might speak a truth in a small gathering that makes an impact in one person that continues to resonate on and eventually becomes an avalanche or a great flood that washes away much evil. And you might not even know it. You might not even know how God will use that small act. All of the marvelous works of God start small. So do not be discouraged about being small.

The Leaven Works Quietly

SPEAKER_00 13:19

So the kingdom starts small, but also the kingdom works quietly. The kingdom of God works quietly and unnoticed. Jesus gives another image in verse 33. It says, He told them another parable. This is another image that would have been very familiar to all of Jesus' hearers because they baked bread in their homes every day. There were bakeries in the ancient world, but for most people their bread was baked at home, so everybody did this. And there are three interesting things about leaven, or yeast as we know it, that teach us about the kingdom of God. The first is that leaven transforms. As the leaven does its work, it completely transforms the loaf or the host that it's put into. If you make sourdough bread and if you pitch your yeast, and if you come back and check on it in 12 hours or then 24 hours, or then even longer, if you give it even more time, the longer that you give the leaven to work, the more the dough is transformed as it develops this beautiful natural webbing and you pull it apart and it's it's completely, and it's really on the inside. You don't see it so much on the outside, but on the inside, it's completely transforming the substance. It changes what it touches, and so does God's kingdom. When the kingdom of God breaks into a person's life, things start changing. Or when God's kingdom breaks into a family or a household, the environment begins to change. And if you just give it time and you come back and check on it, week after week and year after year, things will change. Or when God's kingdom breaks into a city through a church community, unexpected things start to happen. So leaven transforms. Another interesting thing about leaven is that it is hidden. Jesus says that the woman hid the leaven in the loaves. So the leaven gets mixed in and you don't even know that it's there. It becomes invisible. It does its work almost imperceptibly. It's not like the putting the mentose in the diet coke and has an explosive effect immediately. It works in a hidden, in a quiet way. You've heard the expression that we overestimate what can be accomplished in a day, and we underestimate what can be accomplished in a year. And I think that's very true. The leaven is like this. It does not appear to be doing anything at first. And if you were to take a snapshot of it at any moment in time, it would look inactive. But over several hours and over the course of days, it completely transforms the host quietly and invisibly. So it is with God's kingdom. As the Spirit and the Word of God begin to work in a person or in a family or a church or a city, it may not look like anything is happening at first. But come back in a month. Come back in a year. Check on it again in ten years and see what the Word and the Spirit of God has done. What a profound change. It's hidden. The third interesting thing about leaven is that it works by itself. It doesn't need your help. It has a life of its own. It literally is a living thing. Once it's hidden in the loaf, the baker can walk away, and the leaven reproduces and transforms and does its work without any help. So it is with God's kingdom. We may share the gospel or we may speak a word of truth to a friend, and it may have no immediate impact. And we wish that it did. We wish that they came to their senses. We wish that we saw people come to repentance in faith, or whatever, whatever it is. But it has no immediate impact. But God's word does have a way of getting stuck in the mind and taking root and growing. And over time it can have a profound effect, all without our knowledge and without our help. There's another parable that Jesus told about the farmer who goes out to sow the seed and then he goes to sleep and it grows up all by itself and he doesn't know how. And he doesn't need to know how. All he needs to do is sow the seed. God's kingdom works and grows quietly and often unnoticed. I recently heard a story from a preacher about ants. He was reading in Proverbs, and the Lord impressed a verse upon his heart, Proverbs 6, 6 through 8. It says, Go to the ant, O sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. So the Bible says, the Bible tells all of us to go to the ant and learn and consider this little magnificent creature of God. And so he obeyed what the Bible says to do, and he bought an ant farm. And he put it in his office, and he watched the little ants go to work building their little ant city. And they would walk from one end to the other, and they would pick up a grain of sand and they would carry it back to the other end, one grain at a time. And he thought, You silly ants, don't you see that this is useless? One grain of sand at a time. At this rate, you won't finish your city in a million years. And then he left for vacation. And when he returned, he he forgot all about them. And when he returned, he was astounded. The diligent little ants had built an ant metropolis while he was gone. Slow and steady, one grain at a time. In each moment, it looked slow and looked like nothing was happening. But over time, before you know it, it's too late to stop them. They've built the metropolis, and they even have Aunt Superman living in it. So go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways. God's kingdom works in the same way. God is working quietly and invisibly on the edge of our perception. Many times it seems like nothing is happening, but just wait.

Perseverance In Prayer And Work

SPEAKER_00 19:52

So, the application is that we must persevere. We need perseverance. If God is at work quietly and slowly and invisibly, then one of the most important ways that we can respond is simply to persevere, simply to keep showing up and to persevere in doing good works, to keep praying for that difficult situation. Do you know that the Lord doesn't just want us to pray, but he wants us to keep praying? Jesus told a parable about that, the the parable of the judge, the unjust judge, the widow who's always begging for justice. And Luke tells us that he told that story to the end that we would keep praying and not give up. Some of my kids have been praying for things for what they feel like is a long time. And they say, Why hasn't God answered this prayer? I've been praying for days that God would answer this prayer. And I have to remind them and myself that, you know, the Lord doesn't just want us to pray, He wants us to keep praying. And that's why He doesn't always answer our prayers immediately. We must keep praying. Persevere in prayer and in doing good works. Keep looking for opportunities to share the gospel. Keep going despite setbacks and failures in business or in our career. Keep reading the Bible with your kids. Keep trying to read the Bible with your kids. One step at a time, one grain of sand at a time, bit by bit. There's a wonderful Spurgeon quote that was on the back of the bulletin a few weeks ago. By perseverance, the snail reached the ark. That's a great quote. Perseverance. Learn from the snail, learn from the ant, these little creatures of God. Did not Jesus teach us that by faith we can move mountains? Maybe we're just too quick to give up. Be of good cheer and encouragement. Keep going. God is at work, quietly and secretly.

Growth Beyond Expectation

SPEAKER_00 21:59

And finally, God's kingdom grows beyond expectation. The small works of God can grow far beyond our wildest expectations. These parables are not just about small things, they're also about large things. The small mustard seed turns into the largest garden plant. It comes to dominate the garden. It's so large that it provides an infrastructure for life. The birds can build nests in its branches. The image of birds nesting in branches comes from the Old Testament. It refers to all of the nations finding a home in this great kingdom infrastructure. And likewise with the leaven, Jesus says that the woman hid the leaven in three measures of flour. And it's easy to pass by that without noticing what he's saying because the Greek term that's used here is actually a technical term. It refers to a significant amount of flour. This measure is a significant amount. This would be enough to feed about a hundred people, this three measures of flour. So in the parable, three small pitches of yeast come to have an enormous and disproportionate impact. The point being made here is that even the smallest things in God's hands can have a surprisingly large impact. We tend to think that significance belongs only to large things, only to large churches, to large ministries, to large gifts, large accomplishments, large opportunities. But God delights to begin with small things, a mustard seed, a pinch of leaven, a few fishermen who will become fishers of men, a carpenter's son, twelve disciples. The small works of God often grow far beyond what anyone could ever have imagined. In the 1850s in Boston, there was a man named Edward Kimball. Do you know who Edward Kimball is? You should. You will. By the end of this illustration, you'll all know. By trade, he was a carpet salesman. But on Sundays he volunteered as a Sunday school teacher at his church. And there was a young man in his class that concerned him. The young man attended church and he attended Sunday school, but Edward was not convinced that he truly knew the Lord. And so one day he decided to visit him at his place of employment. The young man was a shoe salesman. And Edward showed up and he shared the gospel with him again, and he urged him to repent and to believe in Jesus Christ. And that day the young man responded in faith, and Edward went about his life grateful for what God had done in this shoe salesman's life. But the Word of God was only beginning. The young man developed a deep passion for evangelism, and he began gathering children from the streets of Chicago and bringing them to Sunday school. He began sharing the gospel wherever he could, and soon opportunities opened up for him to preach, and then opportunities opened up for him to preach to thousands and then tens of thousands. And eventually he became one of the most influential evangelists in the world and founded a school to train future pastors and Christian leaders. And that young man's name was D. L. Moody. God did a mighty work through D. L. Moody, but it all began with a carpet salesman who taught Sunday school and cared enough to have one conversation. Do you see what Jesus is teaching here? The small works of God have a way of growing far beyond what anyone could ever have imagined. It began with the small thing. So this changes our goals. It should change our goals. If it is true that God is at work through the small things, and if it is true that God is at work quietly and invisibly, and if it is true that small thing that the small things of God will grow beyond what we ask or imagine, then what should our goals be? Our goals should simply be to keep showing up, to keep being present, to plant the seeds of God's word wherever we are, to hide the leaven, and God will do the rest. And to trust in God. Wherever it is that we are, in our neighborhood, in our workplace, in our own household with our family, our responsibility is to show up and to depend upon the Holy Spirit, and to speak God's word with patience and with winsomeness, and to have great hope and anticipation for all that God might do. Our goal is not to grow, only God can give the growth. We would like to grow, but only God can do that. Our goal is not to have a big impact. I would love that. I would love for this church and for our ministry to have a big impact, but only God can determine the impact. Our goal is simply to be available to God wherever we are and to leave the rest in his capable hands.

Jesus The True Mustard Seed

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Ultimately, the real mustard seed is Jesus Christ Himself. Even though Jesus is by nature the greatest, he made himself the least. He made himself the smallest. He emptied himself of his glory, and he became small and obscure and unknown, and no one had ever heard of him. Sure, Jesus attracted some crowds in his day, in his ministry, but in the end, he was abandoned by all of them and even by his closest friends. And even after his resurrection, his followers numbered only 120. But on that good Friday, in an obscure part of the world, in an obscure part of the Roman Empire, in an event that did not make any headlines on that day, the Son of God died for sinners. And God worked a marvelous work of grace that is continuing to bear fruit to this day and has changed the world forever. And it can change your life forever, too. Because if Jesus touches your life, he will change you. The work that he began in you, he will see through to its completion. He is faithful to do it. Small at first, invisibly in the moment, but over time, you will become unrecognizable. We will resemble him. When we see him as we as he is, we will be like him.

Closing Prayer And Sending

SPEAKER_00 28:33

To this end, let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for this encouraging parable of the kingdom. And we thank you for our teacher, Jesus, who brings this to us in terms that we can understand. Help us to understand and help us to receive these words that He has for us today. We pray, God, that we would not be discouraged at small things. We pray that you would encourage us to be persistent and faithful and persevere and to persevere like the ant and like the snail, to keep going bit by bit, even if it seems slow. We pray, God, that you would fix our eyes on your kingdom and your son and his glory, and to entrust all of these things to you, knowing that you will do far more with them than we ever could in our own power. So in this church, Lord, help us to trust in your power and your spirit in our own lives, in our families, in our church community, and in our neighborhood and city. And we ask all of this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand and give glory to God.