Babies being born without fathers in the home. Babies being aborted before they have a chance to be born. Mentally ill people wandering the streets. Opioid addiction skyrocketing. Able-bodied men not even interested in working. Can anyone doubt that America’s social problems are getting worse? But what can we Christians possibly do about any of them?

Well, in the first place, we should remember that the world into which Jesus was born was just as messed up as ours, and perhaps even worse. After all, slavery was both legal and common in the ancient world. And very few people had any kind of choice about the laws under which they lived, much less about who would make those laws. In fact, regardless of its glorious trappings, the Roman Empire was nothing more than a military dictatorship.

But the earliest Christians set out to do the little that they could. They tried to encourage each other, and they shared their belongings with those who were in need. They also tried to mitigate the worst of the abuses that existed in the culture around them: for example, when Roman families abandoned their babies to die, Christians adopted them. And as the followers of Jesus demonstrated and explained the love of Jesus to the people around them, they eventually made a huge change in the culture.

Maybe that’s why Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed. It’s so small, it doesn’t look like it could possibly make any real difference. But it grows and spreads out to make a shrub large enough for birds to build nests in. Great things can come from small beginnings.

And why is that? Because of the lesson we learn from verses 26 through 29. After all, no farmer really knows how seeds grow into plants. In fact, regardless of the immense learning that modern scientists possess, no one can fully explain how chlorophyll uses the power of sunlight to transform carbon dioxide into sugar. No, it is God Who makes the plants grow until they are ready for harvest, just as God is the One Who softens hard hearts and opens deaf ears, drawing people to Himself and changing their lives.

So, it doesn’t matter how few we Christians may be, or how small the resources we may command. Let us shine our light of love, no matter how great the darkness may be around us. For nothing is impossible for our God, and none of our efforts are too insignificant for Him to use for His glory.

Mark 4:26-34 (NASB)

26 And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil;
27 and goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts up and grows– how, he himself does not know.
28 “The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.
29 “But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30 And He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?
31 “It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil,
32 yet when it is sown, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.”
33 And with many such parables He was speaking the word to them as they were able to hear it;
34 and He did not speak to them without a parable; but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples.