Kingdom of God Parables: The Kingdom Is Already Here

Bishop Strickland opened Sunday’s sermon with a distinctly Southern observation: down here, folks often tell a story about a story just to tell a story. And maybe, he suggested, that’s exactly what Jesus was doing in Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52.

Parables Stacked Inside Parables

In a single chapter, Jesus piles parable upon parable — the mustard seed, the leaven hidden in flour, the treasure buried in a field, the pearl of great price, the net cast into the sea. Each one a small window into something much larger. Bishop Strickland framed it simply: Jesus was a master of the layered story, and the kingdom of God parables in Matthew 13 are his richest collection.

But these aren’t just clever illustrations. Each parable makes the same quiet, radical claim: the Kingdom of God is not something coming in the distant future. It is already here.

Already Present, Already Growing

That’s the word Bishop Strickland brought on Sunday. The Kingdom isn’t waiting on us. It isn’t locked behind a church door or reserved for some later age. Like a mustard seed that quietly becomes a tree, or yeast working unseen through a whole batch of dough, God’s kingdom is already at work — in you, in your neighbor, in every place the Gospel is spoken and lived.

“We’re not isolated just in the church,” Bishop Strickland reminded us. The Word and the Kingdom go with us everywhere: into our workplaces, our neighborhoods, our families, our ordinary Tuesday afternoons.

All Things Working Together

He also drew on Romans 8:26-39 — Paul’s great declaration that all things work together for good for those who love God. Even when we can’t see it, even when we don’t have the words to pray, the Spirit intercedes. Nothing — not trouble, not hardship, not anything in all creation — can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That’s the kingdom of God parables in a sentence: small, hidden, unstoppable, already here.

Carry It With You

If Sunday’s sermon landed anywhere, it was here — the Kingdom isn’t something to wait for. It’s something to carry. Walk out of worship and the Kingdom comes with you. Share the Gospel and it keeps growing. That’s the mustard seed. That’s the leaven. That’s us.