If you have your Bibles I’d invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 13.  Matthew 13 contains a series of seven parables, all of which focus on the theme of the kingdom of God, and all of which are designed to teach us about unexpected aspects of the kingdom.  The disciples themselves expected the Lord Jesus Christ’s kingdom to come in a different form in which it appeared.  And so the Lord Jesus used these parables to teach His disciples and us about things in the life of the kingdom that a little bit different from the way we might have expected them to be.  We’ve already looked at the parable of the sower and the parable of the tares in Matthew, chapter 13.  In the parable of the sower, we learned that though the Old Testament prophet said the kingdoms of the world and…