“A Mustard Seed
Kingdom”
June 17,
2012
I Samuel 15:34-16:13 and
Mark 4:26-34
Stephens City UMC
Grace and peace to you
from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I.
Today our country
is celebrating Father’s Day.
A. Thanks dads and you certainly don’t have an easy job.
1. Fathers can make a big difference in the life of a
child or even later when that child becomes a young adult and sometimes that
effect changes history.
2. While they weren’t technically Father and Son one of
the early church fathers, St. Ambrose, played a vital role in the life of the
younger St. Augustine, and if there hadn’t had been an Ambrose there might not
have been an Augustine.
3. Augustine was important in his day and age because he
lived during the collapse of the Roman Empire.
4. Many and I do mean many, people, thought that the end
of the Roman Empire meant the end of the world.
5. People feared that chaos would reign and order would
never be restored.
6. Augustine wrote his famous book City of God to help people realize that there are earthly kingdoms
and earthly kingdoms come and go, but there is a heavenly kingdom and that
heavenly kingdom is eternal.
7. The people of the world settled down after hearing
what Augustine wrote and in essence the world began to breathe and live again.
8. But Augustine was only around to write what he did
because Ambrose looked at him and saw a young man that God could use and
Ambrose and God would not give up on Augustine.
B. One would think that Ambrose was influenced by the
account of Samuel and David that we heard in our Old Testament lesson for
today.
1. The prophet Samuel had been told by God to go to the
house of Jesse in Bethlehem in order for God to reveal who was to replace Saul
as the next King of Israel.
2. The first son who appeared looked perfect for the
role, but God said, “No, not that one.”
3. Other sons entered the room and each seemed to be
exactly what anyone would want in a king, but God said no to each one.
4. Finally, Samuel had to ask Jesse if he had any other
sons.
5. Samuel replied that there was one more.
6. The one left was small and young and was out working
as a shepherd.
7. Samuel asked for him to be sent for and when little
David walked into the room Samuel was informed by God that this was the one who
would grow into a great man and a king.
8. God looked not on the outside but on the inside and
indeed, David did grow into a great man, king and religious leader.
C. When Ambrose looked upon Augustine it was not difficult
to see that this was a brilliant young man.
1. However, Augustine was also a wild young man.
2. Even though Augustine was in college in the late
400’s, like 16 centuries ago, he was as wild as any college student of our day
and age.
3. One would not have expected Augustine to achieve a
life of holiness nor that from such a small seed there would grow a religious
giant.
4. But that is exactly what happened.
5. For some reason God selects little shepherd boys and
wild fraternity guys to grow into great religious leaders for the sake of the
kingdom.
6. God the Father looks not on the outside, but on the
inside.
D. Ambrose, who was Augustine’s spiritual father, was
aware that from seemingly small things, God brings the greatest of things.
1. Ambrose knew his Bible and was intrigued that God
Almighty would have His only begotten Son to be born in a manger and grow up
with an earthly father who was a carpenter in a small village called Nazareth.
2. Ambrose pulled together the nativity story with the
mustard seed story and wrote “The Lord himself is the grain of mustard seed…He
chose to be crushed; he chose to be planted in the earth as a seed. For it was
in a garden that Christ was taken prisoner, and likewise buried; he sprung up
in a garden, where he also rose from the dead…Plant the Lord Jesus. He is a
seed when a man takes hold of him; he is a tree when he rises again…”
3. In Ambrose’s understanding Jesus himself was no bigger
than a mustard seed, but because of his love for humanity and commitment to the
will of God he made himself a sacrifice from which grew the ever-expanding and
unending Kingdom of God.
4. From the tiniest of seed came an entire universe of
consequences and more good than people could ever dream of.
5. In a sense you could say that Jesus’ passion which
carried him to the cross and his trust that God would raise him from the dead
was his Father’s Day gift to the one he truly loved.
6. So often we talk about what Jesus’ going to the cross
and rising again has done for us and what it means to us; think about what
Jesus did meant to God His Father.
II.
On this Father’s
Day what can you do for God your heavenly Father?
A. Obviously you are not going to top Jesus and this
isn’t a competition but what can you do for God this Father’s Day?
1. Here’s a story that might help and I may have told it
before but if so it’s a good one worth telling again.
B. The story comes from Elmer Bendiner’s book, The Fall of the Fortress, and describes
a bombing run over the German city of Kassel during World War II.
1. Bendiner’s plane took off from their base in England
and he writes, “Our B-17 was barraged by flak from Nazi anti-aircraft guns.
That was not unusual, but on this particular occasion our gas tanks were hit.
Later, as I reflected on the miracle of a twenty-millimeter shell piercing the
fuel tank without touching off an explosion, our pilot told me it was not that
simple.”
2. “On the morning following the raid, (the captain) had
gone down to ask our crew chief for that shell as a souvenir of unbelievable
luck. The crew chief said that not one shell but eleven had been found in the
gas tank – eleven unexploded shells where only one was sufficient to blast us
out of the sky. It was as if the sea had parted for us. Even after thirty-five
years, so awesome an event leaves me shaken, especially after I heard the rest
of the story.”
3. “Our Captain was told that the shells had been sent to
the armorers to be defused. The armorers told him that intelligence had picked
them up. They could not say why at the time, but eventually we were told.”
4. “Apparently when the armorers opened each of those
shells, they found no explosive charge. They were clean as a whistle and just
as harmless. Empty? Not all of them.”
5. It turned out that the shells were manufactured in
Czechoslovakia which was occupied by the Nazis and the Nazis had forced Czech
citizens to work in a munitions factory.
6. Of course, the Czechs wanted the Allies to win and did
not want to build munitions would be used against their potential liberators.
7. That was why when the armorers examined the empty shells
they found one with “a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in
Czech ….Translated the note read, ‘This is all we can do for you now.’”
C. Ah, but what they did was a lot.
1. It started as a mustard seed.
2. Granted it was eleven empty shells but that meant
everything to the crew of that B-17 because it gave them life.
D. A voice told a prophet long ago to keep looking for
the one God had chosen to be the leader of Israel.
1. He obeyed and kept looking for he trusted when God
said that God did not look on the outside but on the inside.
2. A voice told Ambrose not to give up on Augustine and
he obeyed and Augustine wrote a book in one of the darkest times as far as the
world was concerned and the light of hope shone forth.
3. A voice told some Czech munitions workers not to put
explosives in shells and they obeyed and a flight crew was spared from death so
that they could continue to liberate others from tyranny and eventually return
home to their own families.
E. The heavenly Father to whom that voice belonged still
speaks and He still has fun with mustard seeds.
1. Perhaps there is a mustard seed gift you can give to
God this Father’s Day?