7/17/22 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 “We All Need Patience!”

15 Jul 7/17/22 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 “We All Need Patience!”

7/17/22  Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43          “We All Need Patience!”

I think that it would be safe to say that most of us know a little about farming or gardening.  I know there are those who say that anything they plant will die.  That may be the case but at least you know enough to plant the seed.  As I was preparing for this sermon I found a definition for weeds that I really like.  A weed is a plant that doesn’t belong where it is.  We all know that ragweed, mustard, crabgrass and dandelions are weeds.  Right?  But wait a minute.  There are places in this country where people eat dandelion greens.  I had mustard greens when I was in Kansas City.  I could say some more about this but I think I will just move on.  There these wouldn’t be considered weeds.  Also grass can become a weed if you plant it and some of the seeds land in your garden.  Grass is unwanted in a garden.  There are many examples of plants that are considered a weed here and not a weed somewhere else.  Our Scripture today talks about weeds in our gardens and what we should do about them.  This is quite a reading and I think that we should pay attention because Jesus tells us to do something that we don’t like to do.  Let’s see if we can live our lives according to Jesus, with patience.

Melvin Newland tells of a young couple from a small Midwest town who boasted to all their friends and neighbors that they were going to New York City.  They were going to fly but they could only spend one day there.  The highlight of their trip was to see the Broadway play, “My Fair Lady.”  No one else from their town had ever been to Broadway so they were impressed.  Finally the day came and they went to New York City and they took a taxi to the theater only to find that “My Fair Lady” was sold out.  Now what were they going to do.  After all the bragging they didn’t dare return not seeing this play.  So the couple looked around and they found a couple of ticket stubs on the sidewalk and the picked them up.  Then they bought a program that described various acts of the play.  Then they went home singing, “I Could Have Danced All Night.”  They told everyone that they had seen this play.  You see, they had gone to the theater, they had ticket stubs, they had a program and they knew the music.  The trouble was that they never saw the performance.  I think that this story is applicable to many areas of our lives.

This has applications to our Scriptures also.  We begin with a farmer who has planted his field.  There should be nothing unusual about this.  We live in a rural area and we know that in the spring we go out and plant our crops.  Then the farmer and all the others in our reading go to sleep as they had finished their work.

Again this is not unusual.  It is something that we would all do.  Whether we are farmers or we are wage earners, after a day’s work we will probably go to sleep unless there are some extenuating circumstances.  After all we live in a world that is pretty safe.  Or is it?

The next thing we read is that the enemy of the farmer comes in the night and plants weed seed in amongst the wheat.  Then he slunk away like the dirty coward that he was.  I think that this is one of the most graphic pictures we get of just what a low down rotten scoundrel the devil really is.  I cannot imagine someone doing such a terrible deed.  We work all day to get things planted and someone comes and plants weeds while we sleep.

This passage is exactly what has happened to our society.  People try to tell us that the Bible isn’t relevant but it is more relevant than anything else in the world.  Years ago, God planted this country and we were given to populate it.  Everything went fine for the first 150 years or so.  We were a country that made mistakes.  We were in wars and had all kinds of troubles.  This is just like any other country in the world.  About the only thing that we had going for us was our belief in Jesus Christ.  The church was the pillar of our society.  There are lots of people in this world today who hate it when people like me bring this up.  Our country was founded upon the Bible and the principles of the Bible.  And that’s a fact, Jack!  That is how we have gotten this far in the world.

But then things started to unravel after WWII.  For some reason we decided that we could succeed without Jesus.  If you read in the Old Testament, this type of thing happened all the time and it often was every 200 years or so.  Our fields had been planted and now we had fallen asleep.  Then 70 or 80 years later, we are starting to wake up again but it just might be too late.  Once again we might have to rely on a remnant to pass the word onto the next generation.

Satan may be a monster but he is very smart.  He is far smarter than you or I without Jesus.  He didn’t just come along and start the idea of unmarried people living together as if married.  He planted that seed 80 years ago as he told us that we didn’t have to be so pure.  The movie industry has helped Satan in this area.  The movie industry as a whole is very evil!  Ever so gradually, the movies have devolved into societal comments that pretty much say that anything goes.  If it feels good, then do it.  We let men marry men and women marry women!  These are all gradual concepts that were planted while we were asleep.  It is to the point now where some Christians, and I will not say most Christians, are up in arms about these things.  However, these troubles our own fault.  We have not stood up for Jesus but have been the quiet majority.

As we continue in our reading we find that it was some time before the people discovered that the weeds were there.  When they first came up, they looked like the wheat.  This reminds me of the wild oat weed that used to grow in our wheat back home.  It looked just like the wheat until it started to head.  By this time the weeds are choking out the wheat.  It must be time to do something about this.

I think that I can confidently say today as I look out at you that there are not many weeds among us.  I might be wrong because our human weeds look just like us.  Remember that God tells us that it is what is on the inside that counts.  Anyway, I think we are pretty safe here, but that is not the case when we leave this service.  The weeds are everywhere in our society.  They tell us that we can skip church most Sundays.  They tell us that it is ok to use a little swearing when we talk.  They tell us Sunday is just another work day and should be treated as such.  They tell us that our Bible is as wrong as wrong can be.  Satan has planted the weeds amongst us and they are busy trying to choke out our faith.

The text doesn’t tell us but I think that this farmer was probably a pretty smart guy.  He probably knew that the weeds were there as he could tell them apart.  Then finally the people who help him come and tell him about the weeds.  They want to rush out and pull up all the weeds that are hurting the crop.  But the farmer says, “No.”  He tells them that they will wait until the harvest.  He is demonstrating a whole lot of patience.  Often times this is the kind of patience that we don’t have.

I also want us to think about what would happen if the workers all went out and pulled up the weeds.  First of all, they would trample many of the good plants.  Remember that the farmer planted good seed so there would be many good plants.  But it doesn’t matter how good the plants are if they are trampled.  Their yield would be greatly reduced.

Another thing that will happen is that when the workers pull up the weeds, the root system for the good plants will be damaged.  If the weeds are close enough to the good plants, the good plants could even be destroyed.  So there are two ways that the good plants may be damaged and you may be able to think of some more ways.

The last thing that could happen that I’m going to mention is that the workers could pull up good plants by mistake because the weed and the wheat look alike.  Once again, it is only the farmer who really knows the difference.   So he tells the workers that they will wait until harvest to get rid of the weeds.

I think that one of the things that God is trying to tell us is that we have to be patient.  We like to jump on the bandwagon and condemn people who don’t think the way we do as far as religion is concerned or anything else for that matter.  We like to be judgmental and we don’t like to be wrong.  God is telling us to be patient.  If we go ahead and try to do things our own way, we will probably do it wrong.

One of our biggest problems in this country is that we are a proud people.  This causes us to think that we are never wrong.  We never make mistakes.  Most of you know that I spent 25 years working for the Post Office.  In that time I saw a lot of changes and new ideas.  Some of these ideas were a complete bust.  They were total failures.  But if you asked the Post Office about them, they would tell you what a great success these failed ideas were.  You see, the Post Office, the government can never look bad or be wrong.  The Army Corp of Engineers is another example.  If you asked them to tell you about their mistakes, you would only hear silence because they have never made any.  And all of this so called perfection spills over into our personal lives.  Most disputes are because someone is more right than someone else and they won’t back down.

I must move on if I’m going to finish as there is enough material here for many sermons.  When the harvest time comes, the harvesters will gather the wheat and bring it into the barn.  They will also gather the weeds and burn them.  This is pretty plain.  The wheat goes to the farmer’s barn and the weeds will be destroyed by fire.

I don’t think we need to be rocket scientists to understand this.  The farmer is Jesus Christ and the workers are His angels.  This is a passage that contains the judgment to come.  That’s right, I said judgment, but this is not our judgment.  This is God’s judgment and it is final!  If you remember that there are only two choices.  You are either for Jesus or you are against Jesus and working for the devil.  When you die and you are with the devil, you will be destroyed by the fire.  It is that simple.  These are the rules and there will be no negotiating after death.  This is why it is so important to tell people or show people the love of Jesus Christ.  Someone’s life may depend on what you do or say.  Being a Christian is that important.

This is hard for us to remember in our lives.  We get bombarded by so many things that Satan throws at us.  We only need to read the newspaper to see this dark side.  In our personal lives we can also see the weeds of Satan.  We find ourselves unhappy, lonely, prideful, and deceitful or any of the bad traits that Satan so freely gives out.  I know this is hard but remember who has won the war.  Remember who is going to go to the eternal fire.  Remember how much Jesus loves you and know that things will be good eventually.  It also takes work on our part to beat back the devil, and Jesus is there to help us every step of the way.

As bad and judgmental as this passage sounds to the non-believer, I think that there is some really good news here.  I know that I’m not always the brightest bulb in the marquee.  There are so many things that I don’t understand.  In this passage, Jesus is addressing the crowds in the beginning.  Then after they leave, the disciples ask Him what this story means.  They didn’t get it.  They didn’t understand.  Notice what Jesus did.  He simply explained the story again in a way that the disciples could understand.  Jesus Christ has patience for them and us.

Jesus has so much love for us that when we don’t understand what He is saying, He will help us to find different ways of understanding.  This is why a passage means so many different things to different people.  Jesus wants you to understand.  This patience also spills over to your sin.  Every problem in this world has its roots in sin.  If you were God, you would have given up on us a long time ago, but not Jesus.  He will not give up on us as long as you are breathing.  This is so very important.  As long as the harvest time isn’t here yet, He will try to bring us into the barn with the rest of the wheat.  He doesn’t want any of us to be weeds.  This is why I always say that no matter what goes wrong, take it to Jesus.

A while back someone told me that my preaching is on the cutting edge, meaning that I talk about things that many pastors don’t talk about.  One of those things is judgment.  I talk about judgment because there is judgment in the Bible and we are usually in the wrong.  For me it is all right here in the Bible and it needs to be addressed.

And as much as there is judgment in the Bible, there is also love.  This is a book of love especially if you are a believer.  I would even guess that as believers, we often times fail to see all the judgment that God has for people.  As believers it is easier for us to see the love because the love is much more important.  It is our job in this extremely broken world to help others see this love, to experience this love.  Let’s leave the judgment to God because we aren’t good enough to do it.  Then let’s become a people known for our love.  Invite someone to church.  Invite someone to fellowship.  Invite someone into the arms of Jesus Christ as you represent Him on this earth.  Jesus loves us all, no matter who we are or think we are.  Praise the Lord for this love and patience.   And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.