Change in the World: "Leaven Response" 3-15-26

Overview

A Leaven Response to a World That's a Mess

The world is a mess—and the diagnosis is not complicated. The problem is sin, and we are not innocent bystanders. Sin permeates the whole world, and we contribute to that mess by our own sin. Yet God does not call His people to be depressed, discouraged, or despondent. He calls us to be determined to do what He has called us to do and to delight in what He is doing. The question, then, is how we can be a positive influence in a world like this. Jesus answers with a simple kitchen image.

In Luke 13:20-21, Jesus asks, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened." Three measures is roughly fifty pounds of flour—a huge batch—and yet the leaven works its way through all of it. That's the point: the reign and rule of God in human hearts permeates, quietly and completely, no matter how vast the dough. Notably, leaven almost always appears in Scripture as a negative image—the corrupting "leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" Jesus warned about in Matthew 16:6 and Luke 12:1, or the leaven of malice and unrepentance Paul confronts in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 and the legalism rebuked in Galatians 5:7-9. Here, however, Jesus turns the image to the positive: the gospel is leaven of a different kind, mixed into the dough of humanity, and it will not stop working until the end of the age.

The reason this leaven works is the cross. God sent His Son, who bore the mess of the world—your sin, your neighbor's sin, the world's sin—and won forgiveness and reconciliation through His shed blood as our Passover Lamb. As Luther put it, once the gospel has mixed itself with the human race, it will never cease until the end of the world but will make its way through the whole mass of those to be saved, despite all the gates of hell. That is the cherished gift entrusted to us. In ancient households, a Jewish mother would give her daughter a piece of dough from her own kitchen as the bride began a new home—a treasured reminder and a starting point for nourishing others. The Church has been given a far greater gift: the gospel itself, which alone changes hearts and therefore changes everything.

So when you survey the headlines and feel the weight of a world that is genuinely a mess, do not give in to despair. Be determined. Delight in what God is doing. Proclaim the gospel where He has placed you, confess your own sin honestly, and trust that the leaven Christ has hidden in the dough is still at work. A small piece, faithfully placed, changes the whole batch.

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