Mat 13:33; The Mold that Took Hold (parable of leaven).Sunday April 6, 2025 Intro: Define terms Leaven: fermented dough, used to make bread rise by producing carbon dioxide through fermentation, giving it a light, airy texture.
Religion: the thought that rituals and works are the basis of spirituality. Sometimes we define Christianity as “true religion.”
Grace: Unmerited blessings given to people. Nothing about the people deserves them.
Covenant love (agape): Unconditional love that seeks blessings for others at all costs. THE MOST radical thing in the world.
Mat 13:33.
Leaven in every other NT text is bad.
Mat 16:6-12
Mar 8:15 "Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod."
The leaven of Herod is the thought that life depends on power, position, wealth, influence, and being liked in general. Has this permeated the church?
1Co 5:6-8 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Leaven of immoral degeneracy: grace and forgiveness makes obedience to commands less stringent. (has this idea permeated the church)
Gal 5:7-9 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
Leaven of moral degeneracy: the spiritual life is sustained by rituals and living righteously.
Neither rituals nor righteous acts sustain the spiritual life - they are the fruit of it.
How can the kingdom of heaven be like leaven?
Some interpret this as the one instance in Scripture where leaven is good. I’m not so sure.
Main idea: The church has been diffused with good and bad and every Christian is responsible to choose faith in the good.
The choice is obvious in God’s Word. The real problem comes when people are looking in other places.
If we simply look at diffusion, just like the mustard seed was expansion, then we know from history that the church has been filled with good and bad.
I’m going to label the good diffusion in the church faith in the Word of God.
I’m going to label leaven as everything else that has diffused itself through the church - every falsehood about Christ, salvation, spirituality, works, grace, the Holy Spirit, etc., etc.
Good diffusion: the spiritual life gifted by the Life from heaven.
Vine infographic.
Resurrection life:
Phi 3:7-11 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
When good diffusion produces fruit in a life, all the glory goes to God (Rev 4:11).
Application: Avoid leaven.
Leaven in the church says that this love for Christ can be compromised.
Beware: Likened to leaven, false ideas about anything essential to the spiritual life, from salvation to fruit, will eventually diffuse itself throughout the whole of your theology and shrivel up your spiritual life.
There is a leaven is immoral degeneracy and moral degeneracy. They are both deceptive.
The Corinthians made it through 1 and 2 and then grafted themselves to another vine: paganism.
The Galatians made it through 1 and then grafted themselves to another vine: religion.
Signs that you are not attaining to the growth of the vine are: self-righteousness, seeking self-pleasure first, personal prosperity first, lack of sacrifice for others, no desire for greater personal sanctification, immorality, no covenant love.
Communion:
Jesus’ death on the cross was an atonement.
Atonement in the OT was an offering, usually an animal, that made atonement. In this case atonement is something like avoiding punishment. But when Christ hung on the cross for six agonizing hours, naked, beaten and cut to shreds more than any man ever, the Bible says something about Him that could never be said of an animal:
2Co 5:19, 21 God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Atonement by Christ means much more than avoiding punishment. It means that Jesus Christ paid sin’s due penalty and so turned away the wrath of God from any who would believe in Him. He took our place and was judged in our stead, taking our sins upon Himself. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.”
There is another theory of atonement that is a perfect example of leaven in the church. A leaven that destroys the hope of salvation for any who believe it.
It is called the moral influence theory of atonement. It is theory that states that Christ’s atonement was not about being judged in our place so that God could forgive our sins. The atonement was rather about revealing God’s love, His character, and His will for humanity to be righteous. Then, by Christ’s example on the cross, we are motivated to change. So in this theory, this leaven, Christ doesn’t change us by grace, but He motivates us to change ourselves and love like He loves.
This is the worst kind of leaven because it contains aspects of truth while at it foundation holding on to the lie that mankind can save himself. You cannot and no matter how motivated you may get by the sacrifice of Christ, and no matter how much you try to love your enemies because you are stirred by His example, you will remain light years away from salvation.
Look again at 2Co 5. That is the truth of the Word of God and the love that those words reveal is radical, illogical, and unreasonable. It is insane because it is God’s love for you.
When any person, regardless of race, gender, age, socio-economic status, believes in Jesus Christ as their Savior because He personally died as a substitute for them, being judged for all their sins, that person is saved forever.
In light of this, I’ve chosen Mat 26 for our communion celebration.
Mat 26:26-32 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." 27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. 29 "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."
30 After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
31 Then Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, 'I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP OF THE FLOCK SHALL BE SCATTERED.' 32 "But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee."
I want to invite anyone listening to believe in Christ as their Savior who died in their place on the cross, judged for their sins, and raised again on the third day. Celebrate your first Easter as one of Christ own, saved eternally. |