E65 TRANSCRIPT Why leaven Jesus and Kingdom happy hidden influence Makes you chosen before time
www.crazygoodgod.org
Nancy Teague
nancy@crazygoodgod.org
May 3, 2023
Hey, welcome to Crazy Good God podcast. I’m Nancy Teague and thanks for joining me!
00:15 The previous episode showed God called us with a holy calling and Jesus chose each one of us, we didn’t choose Him.
To confirm always called and chosen I want to use Jesus’ parable on leaven. Have you ever thought what a beautiful lump of dough you are? In fact, you are in the big lump of dough of humanity! Goodness, we’re even touching on Quantum Mechanics in its discovery of entanglement. Hey, if you want to be wowed at you and your universe, Steve McVey just published “Quantum Life” available on Amazon.com. McVey’s book will increase your value, your faith, and wonder.
01;05 Back to dough. In Luke – Jesus asked, “To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” I’ve made bread from scratch, perhaps some of you have? But, I’ve never made bread like this woman did.
01:27 Robert Farrar Capon explains in his “Parables of the Kingdom” that this was not just a loaf of bread. Three measures = a bushel of flour, equivalent to sixteen 5 pound bags. Total weight 80 pounds of flour. Add about 42 cups of water weighing almost 20 pounds makes for 101 pound lump of dough. Talk about a workout! Good thing hidden leaven is what does the real effective work! HIDDEN LEAVEN INVADED THE WHOLE BUSHEL PLUS WATER (couldbe picture of Holy Spirit). LEAVEN CHANGED ALL THAT MEANS ALL WAS INCLUDED!
02:17 The Kingdom of God is like leaven, hidden in the world. The Kingdom is always at work unseen. It is a mystery that leavens the whole world. No one is excluded from the influence and expansion of the kingdom. That big lump of dough is the whole world – past present future. This big lump of dough, the whole world, is affected by God’s invasive, inclusive loving presence. Not one bit of flour was left out of being part of the dough.
02:52 To help visualize and grasp the presence power of yeast, AKA the kingdom, listen to Capon’s words - ‘once yeast is in the dough it is an intimate part of the lump, indistinguishable from it, undiscoverable in it, and irretrievable out of it, so is the kingdom in this world.’
Perhaps you might be thinking so-and-so is not in the Kingdom. Think again – the Kingdom in so-and-so is undiscoverable and irretrievable. You or so-and-so cannot take out the Kingdom! God’s leaven leavens the whole lump, the WHOLE WORLD!
03:42 Alrighty, one more point to help you see why leaven is a beautiful picture of His happy invasive Kingdom. In Proverbs 8 – about God, Jesus, and humanity.
“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old.
I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; while as yet He had not made the earth or the fields,
or the primal dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there,
when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside Him as [c]a master craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men.”
05:02 Gosh with all this rejoicing about mankind how did we get to an angry God!? Hmm, a future episode.
Capon concludes on the Parable of Leaven, “this parable insists that the kingdom enters the world at its creation…and there has never been any unkingdomed humanity anywhere in the world.”
Some will be offended by Capon’s statement and even Jesus’ leaven parable because they have determined standards to judge who is in and who is out. But Jesus is in the whole lump of dough.
May you see the beautiful point of leaven – God’s Kingdom of happy hidden influence transforms all.
Until next Wednesday, Bliss to you and never forget God is absolutely crazy about you!
References: 2Tim 1:9 Jn 15:16 Lk 13:21 Jn 16:13,14 Rom 5:5 Pr 8:22-31 Eph 1:4