Change in the World: "Leaven Response" 3-15-26
Overview
Gently confronting the person for the purpose of leading them to repentance, but the church, they were looking the other way and Paul writes, do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of yeast as you really are unleavened. It's not something that we can stand back and say the world is amass without saying and we're amass because we contribute to the mess of the world because of our sin. We have a cherished gift, the gospel, the gospel, Proclaim that, because that's the Leaven that changes people and changes things. It's like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was Leaven.
Transcript
Would you open your Bible's please with me to the Luke 13th chapter if you're using a 3s
Pew edition of Holy Scripture this morning? 8s
You're going to find that in the New Testament page 66. 10s
Luke 13th chapter for our time in God's Word. 14s
The world is a mess. 20s
It's a mess. 24s
That's not really breaking news, is it? 26s
But you see with your own eyes on the news, you read the articles. 31s
You hear it in the size of people. 38s
You hear their concern as they express about things going on. 43s
The world's a mess. 53s
It's just a mess. 56s
How can we be a people that make a positive influence in a world that is a mess? 61s
How can we be a positive influence? 73s
Because God does not call us to be depressed. 78s
He doesn't call us to be discouraged. 83s
He doesn't call us to be despondent, rather. 87s
He calls us to be determined to do what he calls us to do and to delight in what he is doing. 92s
Determined, do and delight. 112s
So to the question then of how can we be a positive influence in a world that is a mess? 118s
Jesus gives a picture. 130s
Use a very, very common image to communicate the direction that we should go. 134s
It's what I'm going to term the 11 response. 145s
The 11 response. 150s
We see in Holy Scripture that in the two words for food and bread in the Hebrew are really synonymous 155s
terms. 165s
Bread and food was just understood as really the same word. 167s
There were two different words but there were synonymous. 173s
In the homes in ancient day there was a grinding stone. 176s
There was an oven and people would make bread. 182s
That's what they did. 186s
They made bread. 188s
There was barley bread and wheat bread and special bread. 190s
There was show bread. 194s
Understood also as the bread of the presence, 12 different loaves that were laid out in 198s
the tabernacle and then the temple to follow that represented the 12 tribes of Israel. 205s
There was unleavened bread. 214s
That bread used to remind the people of how they had to leave and haste at the Passover 220s
time. 228s
In which God was freeing His people out of under the hand of an oppressive Pharaoh 229s
propelling them to the promised land in the people to observe the Passover year. 235s
After a year and part of the observation was the eating of that unleavened bread which reminded 243s
them of the haste in which they had to leave, reminding them of the slavery. 249s
And then there's also leavened bread, leavened bread. 260s
That little leaven that is put with the dough and the fermenting process starts. 270s
Carbon dioxide is released and the bread rises. 281s
And it's that story, that picture that the Lord Jesus Christ uses. 289s
He ties it with the understanding of the kingdom of God. 300s
Remember the reign and rule of God in our hearts. 302s
Look, please with me, adverse 20 of our text. 306s
And again, He said, to what should I compare the kingdom of God? 310s
What should I compare to the reign and rule of God in the heart? 315s
It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all 322s
of it was leavened. 331s
That leavened permeating the dough and the bread rising. 335s
That kingdom of God associated with leavened just permeates things. 345s
But interestingly, most of the time when leavened is referenced in Scripture, 354s
it's in the negative. 364s
It's in the negative. 367s
For example, in Matthew the 16th chapter, we read this, when the disciples reached the 369s
other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 377s
Jesus said to them, watch out and beware of the yeast, the leaven of the Pharisees and the 382s
Pharisees. 390s
Now Jesus wasn't warning about the yeast that the Pharisees and the Pharisees had because 392s
they had forgotten the bread. 397s
No, He was warning about the influence that the beliefs of the Pharisees and the 400s
Pharisees could have and how it could permeate. 406s
It's echoed in Luke 12th chapter. 413s
Jesus said to them, watch out and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. 415s
Paul in 1 Corinthians 5th chapter. 425s
There's a situation of unrepentance in the church and the church is just looking the other 430s
way. 437s
They're not doing anything about it. 437s
That's not love. 441s
Love would be as instructed in Scripture. 443s
Gently confronting the person for the purpose of leading them to repentance, but the 448s
church, they were looking the other way and Paul writes, do you not know that a little 453s
yeast leavens the whole batch of dough clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch 461s
of yeast as you really are unleavened. 470s
For our paschal lamb, our Passover lamb Christ has been sacrificed, therefore let us celebrate 475s
the festival and not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened 483s
bread of sincerity and true. 491s
Galatians of 5th chapter, Paul's addressing a situation in which people were trying to 495s
to self-justify themselves. 501s
Believe in Jesus and in order to be safe, you have to keep all the law. 504s
And Paul writes, you were running well. 510s
Who prevented you from obeying the truth? 515s
Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you and here it is again, a little 518s
yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. 525s
So most of the time when leaven appears in Holy Scripture, it's in the negative. 535s
The negative example, not how Jesus is using it. 541s
Look again in our text, verse 20. 546s
And again he said, to what should I compare the kingdom of God? 551s
It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all 558s
of it was leavened. 567s
The positive example, most are negative. 575s
The world's amass, and that's not a positive evaluation, is it? 588s
And when someone asks you, what's the matter with the world? 598s
Well, what's the matter with it? 603s
We have a very, very simple answer. 607s
And the answer is this, sin. 612s
That's what's the matter with the world. 620s
That's why the world is amass. 624s
Because sin permeates the entire world. 628s
And we contribute to it because we're sinners. 640s
It's not something that we can stand back and say the world is amass without saying 651s
and we're amass because we contribute to the mess of the world because of our sin. 655s
And the whole host of confessions that we use on Sunday morning. 666s
And the whole host of them, they all reflect the depth of our sin, the breadth of it, 670s
and the height of the sin, they all express how we contribute to the world being amass. 679s
But what does God do? 697s
God sends his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the cross, he bore the mess of the world. 701s
He bore the sin of the world. 712s
He bore your neighbors sin, and he bore your sin in my sin. 716s
And he won to the shed blood of the Pascal Lamb, the Christ, he won forgiveness. 724s
He won the reconciliation of a world that's amass with him through the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ. 732s
Luther said this. 754s
He said, our Lord wishes to comfort us with this Simultood and gives us to understand that when the gospel, 759s
I'll catch this as a piece of new heaven, has once mixed itself with the human race which is the dough, 776s
it will never cease till the end of the world. 790s
But we'll make its way through the whole mass of those who are to be saved. 796s
Despite all the gains of hell, the Leaven, the gospel will make its way through the dough. 806s
In ancient day, when a Jewish girl was going to be married, her mother would give to her a piece of unleavened dough from a batch of bread that she had just baked. 827s
She would give it to her right before the wedding. 846s
It was a cherished gift from these brides, because that piece of unleavened dough was to be taken by the woman. 852s
As she now began this new household in ancient day, women were the primary bedbrake bakers. 869s
And so she would receive that gift from her mother. 880s
Reminder of her home, 885s
Reminder of the goodness from which she came, and a reminder now as she began in her new home, 889s
to take and to bake the bread, a cherished gift. 900s
We have a cherished gift. We have a cherished gift, the gospel, the gospel, 912s
Proclaim that, because that's the Leaven that changes people and changes things. 927s
Because it changes the heart, that's what affects. 945s
And catch the detail in the story. 959s
Verse 20. And again, he said, to what should I compare the kingdom of God? 964s
It's like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was Leaven. 973s
You know, the three measures of flour here, that's 50 pounds. That's going to make a lot of bread. 986s
What's the point? The Leaven works its way through no matter how large. 997s
The Leaven works its way through. 1013s
World's a mess, but be encouraged. 1026s
Leaven response, Leaven response. 1034s