“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.”
Why do you think Jesus used parables about farming and planting? The parables painted pictures of understanding for His hearers. Unlike our current times with advancing technology, 1st-century society depended greatly on farming so most everyone would understand about growing things. On the other hand, most of us today only see the finished products - vegetables and fruits - ready to cook or eat. We are accustomed to immediate things (fast-food, apps, etc.) and can forget what it takes to prepare and wait.
In our seemingly instant world, not everything can be instant. Waiting is a concept somewhat foreign in our current time. At one point in time when you took a picture, you had the film developed and waited to pick it up, sometimes a day later. Oh, the humanity! By the way, that was less than 20 years ago. Your life, nor mine, can be summed up or completed in a day, can it?
You are a work in progress
Jesus used The Parable of the Mustard Seed to describe how the kingdom of God comes from humble beginnings, a tiny seed, and grows to be a great flourishing tree. Aren't we like this too? We enter this world not as a finished product but as life in need of care to grow. God isn't growing his kingdom from gold or diamonds, which are lifeless, but from the lives he gives true life when we confess Jesus is Lord.
You and I have something in common - we are a work in progress. Our growth - spiritual, intellectual, physical, or other - is a process and the progress isn’t instant. The mustard seed Jesus talks about in this parable is tiny, yet it grows into a plant that can be 15 feet tall. What was once quite small grew proportionally very large. Our salvation is instant but our sanctification, growth in Christ, takes time. We don’t grow from a mustard seed to a tree in a day. God growing us in spiritual maturity will be continuous until we see Him face-to-face.
As works in progress, we have to, well, work. We don’t get an instant download to our brains (though some of my prayers might have had that request). We do, though, have help. The Holy Spirit! Know that we aren’t in this alone and unguided. Paul says it well in Philippians 2:12–13, “...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Our progress is guided by God for God! You may have ambitions for yourself but they will never be as good as what God wills you to do.
You will be challenged
Now, this next statement must be said loudly. Progress does not come without adversity. As plants grow, they are susceptible to attack by bugs, animals, disease, and even other plants (see Matthew 13:24-30 for the Parable of the Weeds). As you grow in faith and life, you will face challenges you have never faced before. Do not to get discouraged! Your progress as someone who is spiritually maturing and trying to navigate in this world will be an uphill climb. It's been said, “You can always tell when you are on the road to success; it’s uphill all the way.”
Paul tells us, in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We have an enemy that is going to do whatever they can to trip us up, get us to lose hope, get us to question where we are in the process. Will you be flawless? No. Our sin may have been taken to the cross with Jesus but we will not fully be without sin in these bodies. When Satan deceived Eve then Adam in the garden, the mess-in-the-flesh began.
Have you ever heard of or read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis? Though a work of fiction, it reads like reality to a believer who has experienced adversity and setbacks in the progress of life. The story is about a senior demon in Hell, Screwtape, who is mentoring his nephew, Wormwood, through various written letters to help Wormwood guide his “patient” to fall away from their faith.
Screwtape closes one of the letters to Wormwood with the following: “But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,”.
What we can take from this is that our good progress can be disrupted and altered. Our small, gradual, and continuous sins aren’t as noticeable as the obvious nuclear ones. We will more likely go off course by settling for little sins here and there. Then the enemy swoops in with shame and isolation. Then he has us to himself. Think this is uncommon? It is more common than you might think.
The good news is you can overcome challenges. Do you have a friend who is a follower of Jesus? Do you have a student pastor who says they are there to help? Do you have a group leader who wants to help you grow? Loving Jesus and growing in His word is a team sport. We need each other because we were made to be together as a community. That feeling to go at it alone is sin and the enemy working on you. Get your team together and fight!
You will endure and persevere
One of my favorite passages in scripture on enduring comes from Paul in Romans 5:3-5 where he tells us, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
You heard that right. Rejoice in our sufferings. James tells us something similar when he says to count it all joy when we meet trials (James 1:2). How in the world can we have joy in our challenges? “Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Think of something you have pursued but was also very challenging. A sport, an instrument, a competition, a whatever. Was what you pursued something you had a great love for and wanted to achieve? The setbacks weren’t as great as the reward were they? The setbacks also gave you a different perspective and grew your character, didn’t they? You endured the process and persevered in the progress. Our progress as followers of Jesus will be like that.
Until the day you see Jesus, you will be a work in progress. So will I. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful because He doesn't leave us in the state in which He found us. He sent us the Spirit to work in us and on us. Praise God for that gift and the continual hope! The result will be so much greater than any individual challenge the enemy gives us. Satan may get a few punches in here and there but, spoiler alert, Jesus wins!