God’s Handiwork

In Matthew 13 Jesus lays out seven different parables about what the Kingdom of God is going to be like.  And across them there are two overwhelming themes: our role in the kingdom, and what the kingdom is going to look like.  Jesus makes it clear to the disciples that the world we live in is a broken one, filled with hurt, pain, and some really colorful and at times challenging people and circumstances to do ministry in.

 

What is even more important is the second theme: our role and God’s.  Jesus lays out in a number of the parables that our role as human beings is to simply do what God asks for us to do.  To be faithful with the work of our hands, to be willing to use our time, our money, our talents, and our lives to serve God and do his work in this world.  Jesus then promises what God will do, if we will give of ourselves to him:

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.” Matthew 13:31-32 ESV

This parable like others share this message.  God can and will take the work of our hands, and transform them into something greater.  God is promising that if we will be faithful and giving of ourselves, He will take it and transform it into something greater for his glory.  Are you willing to faithfully give, share, and step out in faith, trusting that God will make it into something greater?

 

Pastor Bill