The Stories of Jesus Part 2: The Kingdom of Heaven is Like… (Matthew 13:24-52)


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Sermon Notes

We are in a series talking about the Stories of Jesus. Don’t you just love stories? I like a good story just as much as the next person. Sometimes the plot is pretty straight forward, but sometimes they catch you off guard. Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that you thought was going in one direction and then at the end it goes a totally different way? We call that a plot twist.

Think about the most famous plot twist you can think of. For me it is the fact that in Star Wars, Darth Vader is set up to be this notorious villain which Luke must face in order to destroy the evil Empire. It’s a pretty straight forward plot. But plot twist (and spoiler alert for all of those who have yet to see Star Wars, I mean its only 50 years old now), Darth Vader turns out to actually be Luke’s father. Crazy right?

But even more crazy is the fact that the Jewish people thought that the story of the Messiah was also pretty straight forward. When he came, they thought that he would come with great power, overthrow the Roman occupation, and reestablish Israel as the world’s greatest kingdom! But, plot twist! Jesus, the true Messiah, didn’t come to establish his kingdom here on the earth, but rather in the hearts of his followers. And guess what; some people couldn’t understand this; they couldn’t grasp it. So to explain it to them, Jesus gave them parables.

Last week Jesus explained the Kingdom of God like this; “a sower went out to sow seeds.” In that parable the Kingdom of God is revealed to be Jesus the sower and the Gospel His seed. Those seeds which fall on good soil; good and faithful hearts, will grow to be a part of His kingdom.

This week we are going to look at the remainder of the kingdom parables in Matthew 13. A kingdom parable is a story used by Jesus to explain the differences between men’s expectations of Christ’s kingdom and it’s actual spiritual realities. And as we look at them we will find that too often what we expect from Jesus and what we get from Him are quite different, but in the end it is exactly what we need. Though The Kingdom of Heaven May Be Different Than What We Had In Mind, It Is Still The Greatest Kingdom We Could Ever Hope For.