MISSION SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 13:31-32, MATTHEW 28:19-20
MAY 3, 1992
Shortly after the first millennia AD, it was King Cnut, one of the greatest kings in all of history, king of Denmark, king of Norway, and king of England, who took the crown from his own head and placed it at the base of a statue of Jesus Christ. In the middle of the 19th century, it was Queen Victoria, queen of Great Britain, Empress of India, who in honor of Christ, in the moment of her installation during the singing of the Hallelujah chorus, bowed to honor Jesus Christ as King of Kings. At the end of her life, at the dawn of this century, Queen Victoria said her greatest desire, the longing of her heart was to take her crown and place it at the feet of Jesus Christ.
You see, the wise have always known and understood that earthly kingdoms rise and fall, but there is one kingdom that remains forever and that one kingdom that remains forever is the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The purpose of missions is to serve the kingdom of heaven. The purpose of missions is to serve the kingdom of Jesus Christ. As we conclude this missions festival week, I would like us to focus on three parables of the kingdom. The first parable is Matthew 13:31-32. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed or planted in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest of shrubs. It becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make their nests in its branches.” You see, the kingdom of heaven starts small, but it’s meant to grow very big.
Now, a little over a week ago, scientists using NASA’s COBE satellite made an incredible discovery. They discovered gigantic clouds at the very edge of the known universe. They have called this discovery the most significant discovery in the last 20 years in the field of astronomy and cosmology. These large gaseous clouds are gigantic, one of them so massive that it’s length, the length of this cloud spans two thirds of the known universe. The length of this one gigantic cloud is 10 billion light years, 60 billion trillion miles in length.
Now, scientists say this discovery is so important because for them it confirms what they have called the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory, of course, states or teaches that all the matter of the universe was once condensed into a submicroscopic, incredibly dense dot of pure energy. When the universe began, this incredibly dense dot of pure energy just exploded. It just exploded outwards in all directions, forming particles, and then ultimately over time forming gaseous clouds that just shot outward. Scientists believe that these gaseous clouds ultimately formed stars, planets, and the galaxies themselves. Scientists tell us the universe is still expanding. They believe, however, that there is sufficient mass in the universe so that one day the expansion in the universe will cease and gravity will have its effect and the universe will begin to implode and to draw in on itself.
Scientists believe that these clouds they’ve just discovered, that in looking at them they are seeing the birth of the universe itself. You see, the furthest clouds are 15 billion light years away. This is what they tell us. They claim the universe is about 15 billion years old. The light from those clouds that they are seeing 15 billion light years away have taken 15 billion years to reach our eyes, so that what they are seeing is the universe in its beginning before those clouds were able to form stars and planets, solar systems and galaxies. Now, the head of the research team, an astrophysicist from the University of California, Berkeley, said that it was like looking at the moment of creation. He said it was like looking at the handiwork of God. Of course, whether God actually used the Big Bang to create the universe is debatable. After all, it’s only a theory, but it does provide an accurate illustration of the kingdom of heaven.
Because, you see, the kingdom of heaven began as a very small mustard seed. It began like a dense dot of pure energy. As the Son of God came into our world, He chose 12 and He sent them forth and the kingdom has just exploded outward. Today, 1,600,000,000 million men and women claim to believe in Jesus Christ. There are 1,600,000,000 million nominal Christians. Only God knows how many men and women truly believe, but the kingdom grows. The kingdom of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven, is far greater than this universe. The kingdom of heaven will never implode. It will never cease to be. It will never suck in upon itself.
The Bible says of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Thou oh Lord did found the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands. They will perish, but Thou remains. They will grow old like a garment, like a mantle Thou wilts roll them up and they shall be changed. But Thou are the same and Thy years never end.” It says in Isaiah that of Christ’s kingdom and of its increase, “there will be no end.”
The Bible tells us that if we believe in Christ, if we believe in Him as Lord and Savior, if we’ve entered His kingdom, if we are citizens of His kingdom, then we are called to be part of this explosion. We’re called to be part of the kingdom’s growth. That’s why we have the great commission. That’s why Jesus Christ said, “Go into all the world.” He said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go ye therefore into all the world, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” He said, “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
You see, His kingdom will never die. Jesus Christ said, “I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” We have a choice. We have a choice to serve His kingdom or to serve ourselves. Christ said, “Seek first My kingdom.” Why do we have missionaries? Why do we send them forth? Why do we pray for them? Why do we support them? That His kingdom might explode and the gospel might go forth to all nations. Why do we seek to grow where we are? Because of the increase of His kingdom there shall be no end.
In the second parable here, the parable of leaven, Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, may be compared to leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal or three measures of dough until it was all leavened.” Unfortunately, this parable is sometimes mistranslated. Some translations say the kingdom of heaven may be compared to leaven which a woman took and mixed with three measures of dough until it was all leavened. But you see, in the Greek, it doesn’t say mixed. It says hid. Hid in three measures of dough. The kingdom grows, but as it grows, there’s a certain hiddenness to it.
Now, if you’ve been reading the newspapers recently, you know that there is something growing on the Wisconsin-Michigan border. It’s growing and it’s big. It’s real big. It’s a single organism, a single entity, a single life form. Scientists now believe it’s larger than any other organism on planet earth and it’s still growing. It covers 37 acres on the Wisconsin Michigan border. This single organism weighs perhaps 1,000 tons. It’s still growing. An underground blob is spreading. It is not a plant, not an animal, but it’s a living organism. In 1,000,600 years, it’ll reach the city of beer and bratwursts. It’ll reach the city of Milwaukee.
It is now 1,500 years old, and scientists believe that it will live for millennia to come, still growing. They call it Armillaria Bulbosa. It is a fungus. DNA tests prove that it is a single organism and this fungus is growing. Now, I know this is going to come as a surprise to many of you, but the Bible tells us that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a fungus. The Bible tells us the kingdom of heaven is like a fungus. The Greek word is the word “zum?.” It’s translated leaven. Leaven was a kind of fungus. It’s from the family of fungi. Leaven was a specific type of fungus that was placed within the dough, a yeast that would ferment it and cause it to rise and to be flavored. The Bible says the kingdom of heaven has been planted into this world, into the dough of this world like leaven. Hidden, but meant to grow and meant to spread, but always hidden.
You see, there’s something about the kingdom of Christ that when it begins to be a little too visible and a little too prominent, bad things happen. It’s meant to grow kind of hidden in the dough. In China today (and Gene and I and many others of us went to China just a few years back) there are visible churches you can see. They have been endorsed by the Chinese Communist government. In every province, there’s a Protestant church and a Catholic church—one Protestant church, one Catholic church for the entire province. This way the Chinese government can say freedom of religion.
The Chinese government must approve the pastors of those visible churches. Those pastors are not allowed to mention that Jesus Christ is King of Kings. Those pastors are not allowed to mention the second coming of Jesus Christ. I must say, by and large, those visible churches in China are dead. But you see, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven, is growing in China, hidden. It’s growing underground. Missiologists tell us that perhaps there are 50 million men and women, 50 million Christians in, the underground church in China, and it’s spreading. It’s growing. It’s always been that way with the kingdom of heaven. It’s always been that way with the kingdom of Christ. Somehow when the kingdom of Christ becomes a little too visible, bad things happen.
When Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of Rome, bad things happened. The kingdom of heaven was never meant to be established politically. I might say (and I know this is perhaps controversial, but that’s okay) I’m not sure the kingdom of heaven was meant to be established electronically either. Well, I’m sure that there are some valid Christian ministries on television, but you see, somehow the kingdom of heaven gets tweaked when it’s promoted electronically. Strange things have happened in the age of the televangelists. But you see, the kingdom of heaven was meant to grow relationally—not so much politically or electronically, but relationally by the power of the Spirit, underground meant to grow relationally. That’s why we send missionaries forth. That’s why we encourage you to support these missionaries, and that’s why we encourage you to go forth into your neighborhoods, your communities, your places of work, and share your love for Christ with others, that the kingdom of heaven might grow relationally.
The kingdom is hidden in the dough. I mean, only God knows who really believes. Only God knows. You see, there’s another parable of the kingdom, the parable of the dragnet, and it tells us that the gospel of the kingdom goes through the sea of the world like a drag net, and it gathers fish of every kind, but the fish won’t be sorted until the end of the age. Only God knows who truly believes in His Son. The kingdom of heaven is hidden. But the call for you, the call for me, is to make sure that we believe and that we are committed to Christ. We believe in Him as Lord and Savior, and we seek first His kingdom.
There’s a third parable here, and with this we’ll close. The third parable tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found, and in his joy covered up and went and sold all that he had and bought that field. You see, the gospel you believe in is a treasure. The gospel you share is a treasure. The gospel the missionaries carry to the nations is a treasure. The world is spiritually destitute, impoverished, and the gospel is a treasure.
I know most of you have heard of Easter Island. Perhaps you don’t know a whole lot about Easter Island. In the next couple of minutes, I’d like to share with you more than you’d like to know. Easter Island is a very strange island. Easter Island, the volcanic island in the South Pacific, is one of the most remote places on planet Earth. It’s a thousand miles from civilization. It was given its name by a Dutch Admiral explorer named Jacob Roggeveen, who discovered the island on Easter Sunday, 1722. Of course, Jacob Roggeveen was not the first to discover Easter Island. There were others who had come to Easter Island many years prior.
In fact, the first people came to Easter Island around the year 450 AD. Archeologists used to believe that it was Polynesians who first came to Easter Island. But now they believe that it was South American Indians who first came to Easter Island 1,500 years ago. They were a strange people who had a written language that looked something like hieroglyphics. They did a very strange thing. These South American Indians, they built massive statues. They built massive statues. These statues are 20 feet high, that is the average height. A few of them are over 60 feet high, carved of stone, giant monoliths. The average statue weighed 20 tons, and a few of them weighed more than 200 tons. These statues formed the very heart of their religion. Each statue represented a person with long ears. Each statue represented an ancestor of these South American Indians, and they were into ancestor worship.
For a long time, archeologists didn’t know how they carved these statues or how they moved the statues, but now they have discovered the stone quarry on the banks of the volcanic mountain Rano Raraku. They can see the statues and how they were being carved. They have discovered how they moved the statues over land and brought them to the sea. They’ve discovered that these people built ahus. They built these religious centers, 250 of them, around the island. On each ahu, on each stone platform, they put a number of moias. The moais is what they call the statues. They worshiped these statues. The making of the statues consumed their life, their entire life. They had little time for fishing or planting or building. Everything, all of their energy, was consumed by statues. The carving of the statues took them years. To move the statues and the worship of the statues was everything.
In the year 1680, something happened. They abandoned their religion. In the year 1680, archeologists found, about that time the stones in the quarry on the banks of Rano Raraku were just abandoned, partially carved (a little bit of the face) but just abandoned. The stones, the giant statues that were being hauled to the sea, were just abandoned, left to fall on the ground halfway to the sea. The statues on the ahus, the statues that were on the platforms were knocked over, discarded. The whole religion was discarded. They found that it was about that time and a little bit earlier that Polynesians arrived in the island. The Polynesians had a different religion. Initially, the South American Indians captured the Polynesians and used them as slaves, but there was a slave revolt and the Polynesians won. Therefore, the statues were carved no more. They were no longer hauled to the sea. The ahus were no longer built, and the moais were cast down.
These Polynesians had another religion. Their religion was the religion of the birdman. They worshiped a God called Makemake. He was the supreme power of the universe, they believed. He was evil. He would take the souls of the dead and steal them and eat them. These Polynesians lived in fear and they lived in caves where they built little statues of Makemake. They sacrificed their young to try to ward off his wrath. They ate their young, believing that this was required to ward off the wrath of Makemake. So they lived in fear, cannibals. And archeologists have found their caves and they found their statues, and they found bones of little boys and girls eaten.
You see, in the middle of the 19th century, Christians came. In the middle of the 19th century, Christians came. Polynesians had lived in caves for 200 years. I ask you, why did Christians come? Did they come in proselytizing arrogance, or did they come in love? Did they have a treasure to offer? They had a treasure to offer. People came out of their caves and they ceased to be cannibals. They heard about forgiveness of sin and a precious gift called eternal life. Why have we been entrusted with the gospel? We’ve been entrusted with the gospel because it’s a treasure.
We live in a world of synergism. People say, “Oh, all the religions are the same. We just got to boil it all down to some single essence. They’re all the same.” That’s garbage. People who speak that way are ignorant. They’ve never studied the religions of the world. Some of the religions of the world are diametrically opposed to each other. The Bible says, “Jesus Christ is the only name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved.” Jesus Christ said, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me.” The world’s in darkness, and we’ve been called to bring the light, not in arrogance, but in love.
I hope and pray you believe that, and you have a passion to see the gospel go forth because you love people and you love Christ. You see, that’s what we are about as a church. We are not ashamed of the gospel. We believe it’s the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. We want to see the kingdom grow here in Denver and we want to see the kingdom grow all over the world. The kingdom of heaven is a mustard seed, it starts small, it started small but it’s growing. It grows underground. It’s a treasure for a world in spiritual poverty. Let’s close with a word of prayer.