We've been spending, we're going to spend a few weeks going through Matthew chapter 13.
Matthew chapter 13 has these parables in it.
Parables are these stories that Jesus told, and he's comparing.
He's comparing one thing to another.
He's telling about one thing in order to teach us something.
And these are kingdom parables.
So he's saying stuff like the kingdom of God is like this.
And he's saying this not to teach us about the seed or the farm or today the weeds and the wheat, but he's saying it to teach us something more.
He's saying it to teach us something bigger, something divine.
And so the kingdom of God is the power of God entering our world.
It's the forgiveness of sins, it's the taking away of condemnation, the taking away of shame, but it's more than that.
It's bigger than that.
It's about how all things will be made right.
That eventually this broken world, economically broken, racially broken, family wounds, abuse, that all of this mess will one day be made right.
And the kingdom of God also creates the question: what does it mean for God to reign in us?
What does it mean for God to be in control of my life?
What does that mean?
Is it just another beatdown to outperform another Christian?
Or does it mean something more?
And so Jesus tells this story, verses 24 through 30, and then he takes a break from the story and he tells another story, which we're going to talk about next week, and then he comes back and explains the first story.
So we're just going to concentrate on the first story, and then next week, that story that's in the middle, we'll go after it.
So here we go, Matthew 13, 24 through 30.
The text is in your bulletin.
He put another parable before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.
So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.
And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
How then does it have weeds?
And he said to them, An enemy has done this.
So the servant said to him, Then, do you want us to go and gather them?
So they're like, Hey, do you want us to pull the weeds?
You want us to get rid of them?
But he said, No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.
Let both grow together until a harvest.
And at harvest time I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.
Okay, so the gist is that good and bad coexist for a season, and then another season will come.
And spoiler alert, the farmer's God.
Go ahead and just go ahead and I'll let you know.
The farmer's God, which is crazy, because the thing that the farmer says is is crazy.
I mean, the people here are an agricultural society, and so of course, of course, all the workers say, hey, should we pull all should we pull the weeds?
Like we should pull the weeds.
This is what you should do.
You pull the weeds.
When I walk through my yard, when you walk through your yard, whether you pull your weeds or not, right?
Okay, maybe you don't.
Whether you should, whether you do or don't, you know you should.
Maybe you walk by them, but you know you should pull them.
Like we know we should get rid of the weeds.
There's never a moment when you walk through and you go, this is great.
I'm just gonna really let the weeds go.
This is the best choice for my yard.
We know we should pull them.
But the point of the story is not a lesson of farming, it's a bigger lesson, and it's a lesson about how the universe works, it's a lesson about how the God of the universe works in this world, and then it actually says something to us.
And the story quickly becomes a reality, right?
Because while they're asleep, the enemy comes and plants weeds, and the word there is xania.
And so this weed, it looks just like wheat.
It looks exactly like it until harvest.
And then it never bears fruit.
So all the time, all the time it's there amongst the good, and it is just sucking life out of the soil, and it is taking up space.
And maybe you're here and you know zazania.
Like, oh, I know zazania.
I know that abuse, I know that wound, I know that loss, I know that betrayal.
I know weeds.
I know that feeling of failure that I can't shake.
Or that feeling of failure I can't shake because somebody else won't let me shake it.
Or that prejudice you feel, or that betrayal.
Or maybe just worn down by the continual difficulty of your kid or your parent or your girlfriend or your spouse or your job or traffic or shopping at Walmart, and there's three lanes open, and there's like 50 lanes, right?
And you're like, this is weeds, this is the Xania.
This is a broken world, right?
Broken system.
And so the quick natural response from the workers is, should we pull the Xania?
And he says, no, no.
Let them grow together.
We could end up pulling up some of the good stuff.
What's just clear and it's so difficult for us is that the farmer just he doesn't care to fight a minor battle.
He's after something bigger, and what's hard is that the lesson is, is that God concedes for the weeds to exist for a while.
Not because he likes it or because he doesn't love you, but because he is still working through the suffering.
And catch this, he's still working in the person who causes the suffering.
Right?
We always want justice when suffering is done to us, but if we ever cause suffering, now we're ready for a moment of grace.
But one day it'll all be made right.
And maybe this is heartbreaking because you are heartbroken, yet it actually explains a lot because it relieves you of trying to make God into somebody he's not, or trying to get him to want to operate in this world in some way that he has no intention of working right now.
It relieves you from the false belief that this present universe is fair.
Right?
I mean, this is why the evil guy gets power in the world.
This is why the immoral person can keep getting the better deal.
It's why certain evils are legal and other really good things can become illegal.
That's why someone, it's possible, can never pay for the wrong they do.
That's why your life's harder than you want it to be.
Because weeds and wheat coexist.
And I'm like you, I'm like the workers, I am frustrated with this parable.
I mean, this week, I'm just frustrated with this parable because I want justice now, or at least I think I do.
I want justice for everybody else, not necessarily for me.
I want it for everybody else, and I want the brokenness that's out there, I want justice out there for that shooting or that abuse or that addiction.
I mean, this is all about God's sovereign patience in this world.
And so I mean this week I'm I was just hearing some real hurts from some different people, began to relive some of my own hurts and my life.
And you feel you ever you hear, you hear stuff or you and you get tight like inside.
Just your chest tightens up.
I just wanted to go back on sabbatical, to be honest.
And two things developed in me was first just frustration with God.
I mean, just real frustration with him.
Like I'm just tired of seeing this stuff.
I'm tired of hearing about it, I'm tired of dealing with Zazania.
I don't like that there's this coexistence of wheat and weeds.
I don't like this.
I'm tired of this.
And yet you look at the farmer in this story, and he's operating without an ounce of hesitation.
Right?
The farmer never seems stressed about his good crops.
There is no fear in him.
There is no anxiety in him.
And and all of a sudden, I I found this like flip side in me that there was also this awe of God.
That in a world where there's the existence of weeds and wheat, that he has this patience and he has this, he's not afraid.
But I I mean the the reality is that I ended up it with frustration.
Just sorted frustrated.
And then I found myself remembering just God's sovereign, worry-free patience, and then reading in this text how much that the kingdom of God is at work in us, and that the enemy can do nothing about it.
See, nothing in the text is about the enemy uh harming the good crop.
You are not Zazania.
And those Zezania will irritate you, and perhaps Zania will make you weep.
The kingdom is in you.
And the kingdom is coming to this world, and he can do nothing.
The enemy in darkness can do nothing.
And then I realize that my my life, my story can be written either in frustration with God, or it can be written in awe of God.
And I recognize that if you decide to write your story, if you write your story in the awe of God, I recognize that this requires humility and trust and a sense of mystery of how all this kingdom is gonna play out.
How is he working good amongst these weeds?
Now let's read the second half of the parable because Jesus starts to break the parable down even more.
And so then the second half, uh, there's some terms we're gonna read, and when I read them, you're gonna it's gonna maybe create a little like confusion, or maybe you're not quite sure what that word means, or what do we mean by that?
And so there's four terms I want to give a definition of before we read the text.
And the first is the sons of the kingdom.
So we could say children of the kingdom.
I mean, these are Christians, is what this is.
It's those who have entered God's rest, known solely in the person of Jesus, and he has taken upon your guilt and your sin, and he has given you his righteousness.
So that's who that is.
The devil's the next.
We could also use the word the liar.
This is the person, or maybe you want to think about more of a personal force in the world.
This is evil in the world.
He is the source of lies and confusion.
He is the source of zania.
Evil is darkness.
It's that which does not have the origin or the home and the goodness and the light of God.
It is confusion, it is lies, it is hurt, it is despair, it is the darkness of debauchery, but it is also the darkness of pride and self-righteousness and self-deliverance.
And then we're going to read the word hell, the idea of hell.
And the Bible uses all sorts of imagery for hell.
We read about fire, we read about gnashing of teeth.
And the point is that this is a place of isolation and decomposition of the soul.
That the soul is apart from its creator.
Hell is the loss of the supportive and needed presence of God.
A person who says their whole life, I just don't need them.
I'm good.
I will deliver myself.
And they get what they want.
They get to be isolated from God.
So let's read this very difficult text.
Verse 36.
Then he left the crowds and he went into the house, and his disciples came to him, saying, Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.
And he answered, The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
So that's Jesus.
The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.
The weeds are the sons of the evil one, or the liar, the devil, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all who call the all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace, into that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.
He who has ears let him hear.
So what does all of this mean for us?
Well, it's an alarming statement in 2015 America.
It didn't used to be an alarming text.
It's just an alarming text now.
All of this used to be very quite accepted.
The idea of eternal hell, eternal heaven, this was actually quite accepted.
It's just recent that we have such difficulty with it.
People used to just refuse it, but they kind of knew or agreed with it on some level.
Now we're just not even quite sure if there's even existence of these things, but the text says it and Jesus says it.
What does this mean for us?
Well, maybe it simply means you quit fighting God to be or to do something he has no intention of doing until the kingdom fully comes.
He's saying this will happen, but it's going to happen in another season.
Maybe it means for you, some humbling conclusion that you are not the center of the universe and you don't get to make up truth.
You don't get to determine who's good and bad.
Yet you're a precious part of the universe.
Maybe it means for you, you get to finally stop trying to sort good people and bad people.
We love to do this sort of thing.
I mean, this is our self-righteous crusade in life to sort people and then put ourselves in the better category, and it helps us make feel better about ourselves.
Listen weeds are no good, but weeding seems to be the wrong path for us.
Weeds are no good, but weeding seems to be the wrong path for us.
And in this text, it just seems so passive to live alongside weeds, doesn't it?
You read it, you're like, what does this mean?
I mean, does this mean we just like put up with everything?
And I think there's a difference between like uh community and nation and personal.
And there's some passivity in the personal that we will trust God to sort it out in the end.
But I wonder if it's incredibly freeing.
That's what I wonder.
I've been wondering all week.
I mean, what if you didn't have to be the judge?
What if you didn't have to be the moral police?
What if you were simply called to graciously and patiently live beside all people, a human next to a human?
Six months ago, a fireman came to uh my little girl's school.
And so she learned everything about how in your house you need an escape plan, and you know what door to go to, where your parents' bedroom is, and if you have a window in your uh in your bedroom, do you have a ladder for that window?
And she learned all this information, how to you know you can crawl and check the doorknob and you know, all that kind of stuff.
So she comes home and she's ready to share all of this information with us.
And I'm like, thank you, fireman.
This is great because we're now gonna deal with this at our house.
And so all day she's just sharing the information, and then that night we put them all to bed, and then uh this little one came out.
You hear the little footsteps down the hallway, and the first time it's like you know, sister is making noises, and so walk her back down.
Hey, sister, can you please not make the noises back in bed?
And then five minutes later, little footstep, da da da.
My legs hurt, you know, that that one if you have kids, you remember that.
And so legs hurt, all right, let's deal with that back in bed, and you know, a few minutes later, da da da.
And each time it's like, you know, getting a little more amped, she's getting a little more amped up, and then finally it's just like, hey, babe, what like what what's going on?
Like what's bothering you?
And she just says, what if there's a fire?
Like, what if there's really a fire?
Right?
And and here is the father's privilege.
Here's the father's gift.
You don't have to worry about that.
That's why I am here.
This is what the farmer's saying.
I mean, this is what God is saying.
All these weeds that you can't control, that's why I am here.
And I just wonder, what does that mean for a church that listens to that farmer?
What does it mean for you?
What does it mean for your heart?
What does it mean for your relationship with your neighbor?
What does it mean for your family that would listen to that farmer?
Uh a great pastor and author, Robert Capin, he notes that this phrase, let them grow together.
Remember when the farmer said that about the weeds and the wheat, let them grow together.
That word let is a fet, which meat is translated to permit or to allow, but it can also be translated to suffer, and it can also be translated to forgive.
So it's possible Jesus is teaching us about the kingdom, and while he's teaching us about God's sovereignty, and he's teaching us about the kingdom and how he will make all things right and how justice will come, he's also saying to us, forgive.
That's the way forward.
Well, that's easier said than done, right?
Because actually Jesus, when he calls us to forgive, how does he call us to forgive?
Always and forever.
70 times seven, a way of saying, you always forgive, it's never ending.
And how good are we at that?
Well, eventually we break down in that pursuit because eventually we withhold love or withhold a little bit of time or just a little bit of affection or attention.
We find a way.
We say we forgive, but a lot of times we'll find some way to make that person pay in some degree.
And so we don't forgive perfectly, and yet that's even another reminder for us that we actually need his forgiveness, which is perfect and is never-ending.
And it's just this divine, dizzying cycle for us of how much we are called to something, and yet we can't do it perfectly.
And yet we were reminded back that we need an outside source of righteousness, of absolution.
We need God's provision.
We need Jesus the Christ.
And what we realize is that our story is not just written in the awe of God, it is so much written in the grace of God.
That it's written in both of those things.
And I don't know what you see, uh, but I think if you look at the weeds long enough, you eventually see bits of yourself.
I'll reread something we read just a few weeks ago, Titus 3, 3 through 5.
Listen to this.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
See, he's saying, Paul's saying here, we were weeds.
We were Zizania.
But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of the regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
So we may be wheat, but there was a day when we were weeds.
But the goodness and the kindness of God came to us, and he saved us not because of our works, but because of his work.
So our story is written in the awe of God, but it's written in the grace of God.
And even now, today, I know you because I know me.
We're not perfect.
So even today, we need this goodness and this kindness.
And he gives it.
So, brothers and sisters, may the kingdom come in you.
May we live amongst the weeds and live freely and forgive.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you that your kingdom is coming.
That you will make all this right.
The hurts we cover up, the hurts we ignore, the hurts we feel, the hurts that are coming.
You know them all.
And God, thank you that you are sovereign.
And while there is mystery in this, because we are frustrated at times, you have no fear.
You have no worry.
You have no anxiety.
And that there will be a day when all is made right.
And until we come to that day, would you help us in this day to live freely because of your forgiveness in us?
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.