Sermon Tone Analysis
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Text: Matthew 13:33
Theme: The leaven of the Kingdom will bring great joy and satisfaction to the people of God.
Almost everyone loves a good story — even short stories.
The parables of Jesus have always been of deep interest to believers.
They are picturesque stories of familiar scenes in nature or everyday human life, and are easily remembered.
Most Christians know and can recite at least some of them.
They delight us and they enlighten us.
Some of the parables have very clear meanings.
Parables like the Three Soils, the Good Samaritan, the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son leave little wiggle room for interpretation.
Some of Jesus’ parables are more puzzling.
None more so than the one we will look at this evening.
The Parable of the Leaven is one of the shortest of the parables — only twenty-four words.
Yet many conflicting conclusions have been arrived at by devout and learned men as to this parable’s meaning.
The key to understanding the parable is, I believe, two-fold.
1st, it’s context.
The parable comes right after the story of the mustard seed.
That parable is a story of something small producing enormous outward growth.
The parable of the leaven is a story of something small that produces enormous inward growth.
Both are pictures of the Gospel of Grace going out into the world.
The gospel has an inward affect in that it changes a sinners eternal destiny, and temporal worldview.
The gospel has an outward affect in that sinners who have been changed by grace come together in a body called the Church which has an outward affect in that it changes the community.
2nd, the properties of leaven help us understand the meaning of the parable.
It’s what leaven does that is the focus of the parable, not what leaven is.
Wait a moment, and I’ll explain that.
“He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.””
(Matthew 13:33, NIV84)
I.
A LITTLE BIT GOES A LONG WAY
1. had you been in the multitude gathered along the shore line that day to hear Jesus speak and teach, your heart may have been a bit disturbed as well as discouraged after hearing the first two parables
a. in the Parable of the Soils, Jesus indicates that only a small number of people will ever be receptive to the gospel
1) not all who hear the Gospel will receive it
2) most human hearts will be like unreceptive soil – rocky and hard
b. in the Parable of the Sower, Jesus tells us that the Devil will be doing all he can to undermine God’s Kingdom work in this world
1) he will use false brethren, and false prophets preaching false gospels and even false Messiahs to counterfeit the true gospel
c. these are not overly-encouraging descriptions of Kingdom growth!
2. after hearing these stories the disciples might be wondering “Just how big will this kingdom be?
What kind of kingdom is this going to be where most people don’t want to be a part of it?”
ILLUS.
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