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Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds1 among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants2 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?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the 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.”’”
(ESV)
36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” 37 He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Good morning. If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Matthew chapter 13. I'm glad we took time to say the Lord's prayer together. I'm becoming more and more aware of how much prayer is needed, in this time, especially in our country's history. A story from the bible that keeps popping in my mind over and over, these last few weeks.
Joel Brooks:It's from Mark 9, and it's after the mount of transfiguration. Jesus comes down from the mountain and he finds his disciples, struggling trying to cast out a demon from a young boy. They can't do it. And the disciples are very puzzled by why they cannot. Of course, they've tried all the same things they've done in the past which have worked, but this time it won't.
Joel Brooks:And so Jesus comes down and they ask him, why why couldn't we cast out the demon? Because Jesus just cast the demon out. And Jesus said, well, this kind can only come out by prayer. And that image is just been stuck in my mind. Essentially, what Jesus is saying is sometimes evils in too deep.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes there's a demon just end too deep. And and what you've done in the past will not uproot this. You can't just throw a book at it. You can't just speak at it and expect something that deep to go away. And I've been thinking about that just concerning all the things that are hitting our country right now, which is multifaceted.
Joel Brooks:But there are some deep deep sins that we're having to confront. And you can't throw a book at it. You can't just speak into it. This is something that only comes out by prayer. And so I want to just encourage you, church, to be praying and praying that God brings out, uproots the evil, that we have been living with for so long.
Joel Brooks:And once again, this is multifaceted. It's deep rooted, and we need the Lord to come and to do this. So that was free. That's free for y'all. I get paid to actually now open up Matthew 13.
Joel Brooks:So if you do, if you have your bibles, Matthew 13, we'll begin reading in verse 24. 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 seed 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?
Joel Brooks:How then does it have weeds?' 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?' But he said, no. Less than gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest. And at the 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.
Joel Brooks:Down to verse 36. And 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. He answered, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.
Joel Brooks:The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is at the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. And the son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law breakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Joel Brooks:Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears, let him hear. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me. Father, we ask that through your spirit, you would give us ears to hear, that the word we have just read would be like a seed falling on fertile soil and would grow in our hearts and bear much fruit.
Joel Brooks:I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Jesus was such a good teacher. He told such engaging stories that everybody loved listening to him.
Joel Brooks:And so the crowds grew. And of course, after listening to Jesus, people would walk away thinking that was so profound. I could picture the disciples as the crowds disperse and they run up to Jesus and first say say, you did a great job. You know, what he said was so profound. It was life changing.
Joel Brooks:Peter is saying, you know, it was deep. It was really really deep. Very deep. And, I mean, just to make sure we're on the same page, Jesus, would you mind explaining it to us? Jesus does.
Joel Brooks:And the way he goes through it, he talks to them like they're little children, in which he spells everything out. He connects every dot. He says, okay, kids. The sower, that's me. The sower's me.
Joel Brooks:The field, well, that's the world. The good seed, that's the sons and the daughters of the kingdom. The weeds, well, they are the sons and the daughters of the evil one. Just to be clear, when I say evil one, I'm referring to the devil. The harvest was the close of the age.
Joel Brooks:And the reapers, well they're angels. He he connects every dot. He sounds like me when I'm explaining the Lord of the Rings to my children. Of course, Lord of the Rings, it never leaves my bedside table. My kids haven't read it, but they have watched the movies and I'll watch it with them, and afterwards I'll say, so what do you think?
Joel Brooks:And they're like, yeah, it was it was good. I'm like, oh, good. I mean, come on. I mean, didn't he get Aragorn? Aragorn, he's he's a returning king who who brings healing in his hands.
Joel Brooks:He's like Jesus. Of course, Gandalf is kinda like Jesus too. He's got the power. Let's not forget Frodo or all the hobbits. The hobbits represent humanity, but Frodo also represents Jesus because he's carrying our sin to Mount Calvary, I mean, to Mount Doom.
Joel Brooks:And, and so I I'm going through everything with them, connecting every dot, and they just roll their eyes because they know I'm just getting started. And Jesus here, he explains it all to them like they're children. And it's a really good thing he does so Because we have to confess, we would not understand this parable if He did not explain it in such a way. How could we? I mean, the parable right before this, the seed meant something else.
Joel Brooks:The seed was the word of the kingdom. Now the seed are the sons and the daughters of the kingdom. The soil in the previous parable was a person's heart. Now the soil is the world. Jesus changes up the images on us.
Joel Brooks:And can I say, this is just why I wanted, for the first two parables I preached, to pick 2 parables that Jesus explained himself, Because the imagery is gonna be a little harder to figure out as we move on in the parables? Martin Luther, when he was preaching on this text, he talked about the importance of prayer and listening to God for understanding of these parables. Because it says, you can't just guess at the allegory. You can't just assume things, or you'll get it wrong. You need Jesus himself to explain this to you.
Joel Brooks:So what is Jesus teaching us here in this parable? Well, he's teaching us that although he has changed our hearts, although we are redeemed, we still live in a world that is filled with evil. The devil has come and has sown weeds in our midst. And I would say it's not just true of sowing evil in the world. Our own hearts has still had some evil sown in its midst.
Joel Brooks:And Satan does this. The only reason he does this is to destroy. He doesn't have any grand schemes of building anything. Satan's not trying to build anything. His only intent is to destroy what god has sown.
Joel Brooks:But notice how the Lord has put his power in check. Satan doesn't have the power to actually pull up what God has sown. He can't do that. Jesus was very clear in John chapter 10 that nobody could snatch us from his hand. Nobody can pluck us out of his hand.
Joel Brooks:Satan can't pull us up. His power is limited to sowing seeds of evil around us. So this is what he does. And this is the world that we live in, a world in which good and evil grow up side by side. In other word, we live in words we live in a world that Jesus has come, the kingdom has come, and yet it is also coming.
Joel Brooks:This parable teaches us about the now and the not yet nature of the kingdom of God. The kingdom has arrived. It's here now. It's also not here in full. We see this the moment Jesus is born.
Joel Brooks:When Jesus is born, the kingdom has come. The Messiah has come. And so you have angels singing in heaven. You've got, you've got shepherds probably dancing and running on their way to the manger. You've got wise men traveling from afar, bringing their gifts to lay before the Messiah.
Joel Brooks:And at the same time, you have babies being slaughtered. The kingdom has come. It's also not here in full. You see this in John the Baptist. When John the Baptist was asked to announce the coming of the kingdom, John the Baptist is like, really?
Joel Brooks:I get, yes, sign me up. I'll wear whatever you want me to wear. I'll eat whatever you want me to eat. If I get to announce the Messiah, there's no better task. If you can't be the man, the next best task is to announce that the man is coming.
Joel Brooks:It's kinda like if you've ever been to person, at a That was loud. Alright. If you've ever been the person who gets to, when you're little get to announce at a surprise birthday party that the birthday boy has arrived. I mean, next to being the birthday boy himself, it's the best task. You get to be at the window, you're looking out, and you see him come.
Joel Brooks:And you get to run into the room and tell everybody, he's here, he's here, everybody get ready be quiet. But if you wanna complete that analogy to what John the Baptist did, John the Baptist said, he's here, he's here, and then he gets thrown in prison and his head cut off. The king arrives, but at the same time there's incredible evil. Evil is still in our midst. We have 2 ages coexisting at the same time.
Joel Brooks:There's the wheat, and there's the weeds. The kingdom is both now, and it is not yet. And we often find this language throughout the Bible. As, as the Bible speaks of salvation, we are both saved, and we will be saved. We are adopted, and we will be adopted.
Joel Brooks:We are new creatures in Christ, yet God has not made all things new. The Lord reigns, yet he hasn't made his enemies his footstool. So we live in this age where the messiah has come. He has sown his wheat, And the devil has come and has sown his tares. And they coexist right by one another.
Joel Brooks:Now I have found that most Christians make the mistake of of leaning too far in, either into being a a the Kingdom is now, or leaning in the other direction. So the Kingdom is a not yet. And they lean into one of those two camps. You know, the last few years, the Enneagram has become quite popular. If you haven't heard of the Enneagram, god bless you.
Joel Brooks:It's a it's a personality diagnostic tool, as well as a cult. It's it's both of those things, in in which you you assign a number 1 through 9 of a certain person's personality is one of those numbers. I'm apparently an 8, big shocker. I'm an 8 with a wing 9, or a 9, wing 8. If you think there's no way I could be a 9 wing 8, talk to me afterwards.
Joel Brooks:I would want to talk to you, but I'm also scared of the confrontation. So so we we usually we we we love having those personality diagnostic tools, but I wanna add one more. I think it could separate people into the now and the not yets. The nows, they're the ones who believe the kingdom's come. It's here.
Joel Brooks:Their first instinct when somebody is sick is to pray for healing. Because God wants that person healed now, and if we have just enough faith, they're healed. The nows believe that every endeavor done in faith will prosper. The nows believe that all brokenness in this world can be healed now. With prayer, one can be freed of any struggle with sin.
Joel Brooks:So those are the nows, the kingdoms here. And then we have the not yets. The not yets, well, their first instinct when they come across somebody who is sick is mourning. I'm so sorry. Doesn't it stink living in a fallen world?
Joel Brooks:They look at the brokenness of the world and they don't think how this can change. They don't pray for change. Instead, they just have a longing for heaven. And often, they might just give in to sin because who can really be delivered from sin in this lifetime? And I found that usually Christians fall into one of these two extremes.
Joel Brooks:And, by the way, the nows are really irritated by the not yets, and the not yets are really irritated by the nows. If 2 nows marry one another, they're the most irritating couple you can imagine if you happen to be a not yet or vice versa. But Jesus here, he teaches us the kingdom is now and it is not yet. I have come, I have planted my children in this kingdom, and the evil one has come and he has planted his children. And they grow up side by side.
Joel Brooks:Now, the type of weed that the devil plants is a particularly evil weed. Some of your translations might call it a tear. The Greek word is the word darnel. Some of you have a footnote there that says, literally it says, Darnell. And Darnell is a weed that is still plaguing the Middle East today.
Joel Brooks:Darnell looks identical to wheat. Matter of fact, they look so much alike, it's called a mimic weed or it's called wheat's evil twin. Outwardly, it's nearly indistinguishable from wheat. But inside, darnel is actually toxic. If you eat just a little bit of it, it can make you sick.
Joel Brooks:If you eat a lot of it, it can actually kill you. It it's it's a horrible weed. The only way to distinguish between darnel and wheat is you have to allow both of them to grow up and then you actually can see wheat changes as it begins to get the heads of grain. Once it bears fruit, it begins to distinguish itself. Jesus looks at this Darnell and He says, this is a perfect illustration for the work that the devil has done.
Joel Brooks:Satan's strategy can be seen here. His strategy is this, that we would all look alike. That the weed on the outside would look nearly identical to the Christian on the outside. Of course, we see this in the south, you know, what Flannery O'Connor called the Christ haunted south, where everybody looks like a Christian. Everyone is at least a member of a church.
Joel Brooks:Everybody at least says they go to some church even if it's the CEOs, the the Christmas Easter only Christians. You're still a member there. Weeds, they could be committed to the same causes as the wheat. They can read the same books. They can share the same morals, yet inwardly, they don't believe the gospel.
Joel Brooks:Outwardly similar, inside they don't have a heart that's been changed by Jesus. And so here we get to look at the devil's strategy. He he gets us to look alike and then notice where he sows his seed. He sows it right in our midst. And let that sink in, church, that the major work of the devil is not outside the church, but in the midst of the church.
Joel Brooks:It's scary because we don't have clean enemy lines. You don't have a field of wheat and then a field of tares. What you have now is it's all mingled together and it's nearly indistinguishable, yet there is a war going on. We're intermingled. Once again, Jesus is talking about the now and the not yet nature of the church.
Joel Brooks:And it's a sobering picture of the church that he gives us because he says in our midst, there are people who look like us, yet their hearts are radically different. And whether they know it or not, the enemy, the devil, has planted them in our midst in order to destroy us. So how are we to respond? How is the church to respond to this evil in her midst? Well, in this parable here, the, the servants, they come up to the master with a plan.
Joel Brooks:They said, hey, we get rid of this for you. You want us to just pull up the weeds? In other words, do you want us to rip up the weeds by force? And the master says, no. No.
Joel Brooks:Because you might mistakenly pull up some wheat. And I I will not allow that to happen. Let the 2 grow side by side and I'll sort it all out later. Jesus is adamant here. We are not to pull up what we think or assume is a weed.
Joel Brooks:My wife, she loves one of her favorite plants is lenten roses. She loves these plants because they're one of the very first to bloom. They bloom when the season of Lent begins. She has planted them all over, our our backyard and our front yard. And most of them have done fairly well, but they haven't done as well as she would have liked.
Joel Brooks:And so she's always telling me, are you killing these? Like, are you mowing over them? Because they they they're really planted very close to where the grass is, and so she thinks I'm just mowing them over. And I said, no. I'm not at all.
Joel Brooks:If anything, like, I'm trying to help them out. I'm weeding all around them. And she goes, you're doing what? I said, yeah, I'm weeding all around. She goes, that's what's happening.
Joel Brooks:She said, it'll when they first grow, they look identical to clover. They're identical. And I'm looking around me like, here's all this clover. I'm thinking I'm doing my wife a favor. I'm working in the yard.
Joel Brooks:I'm ripping up all of this clover, and all I've been doing is destroying her lint and roses in our front and our backyard. And Hear me. Jesus cares for us way more than my wife cares about her Lenten roses. He's not gonna risk even a single stalk of wheat being pulled up by mistake. He says the wheat and the tares, they look so much alike, you could wrongly judge.
Joel Brooks:So leave all judgment to me. I alone see the heart. I alone can judge, and I will judge. Judgment will come. Don't think I'm I'm letting people off.
Joel Brooks:Judgment will come at the end of time. Some of you will be gathered into my barn. Some of you will be burned. But I will not risk losing even a single stalk of wheat until that time comes. So Jesus is teaching us here that we're not to judge.
Joel Brooks:He's also teaching us that we are not to ever use violent means to uproot evil. That's what the servants were asking. Can we just go ahead and kill the weeds? You kill them. You you rip them up and you kill them.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus says, never. Church, there have been times throughout our history in which the church has forgotten or ignored this parable of Jesus, and they have tried to forcibly remove evil. The church has tried to forcibly remove evil from her midst. You look at the crusades, you look at the inquisition, you look at the burning of heretics during the reformation. And what was happening during all of these attempts as the church was trying to remove the evil that instead of far far from removing the evil, what the church did was became corrupt and became evil.
Joel Brooks:The church ended up uprooting itself during those times. The church cannot ever use violent means to uproot evil without harming itself. Instead, what Jesus is calling us to do is live right next to it and to keep on growing and to bear fruit. Do you see your task clearly spelled out, Christians? It's this, grow.
Joel Brooks:Grow. Grow. Bear fruit. And then I will come and sort it all out later. Know now that this would have gone against every farmer's instinct.
Joel Brooks:I mean, farming 101, for those of you who remember that class. In farming 101, you were taught, no. You pull up the weeds the moment they come up. Otherwise, they're gonna choke out the plant that you want to grow. And even though the weeds and the, or the wheat and the darnel look so much alike, it's a farmer's job to get down there and try to distinguish them, and to pull up the weeds.
Joel Brooks:Otherwise, what they have sown will get choked out. Isn't that what Jesus talked about in his previous parable? Remember that? The whole point of the seed growing among the thorns was that if you let the seed and the thorn grow side by side, the weed or the thorn is gonna choke out what the sower has cast out or cast a plant. But here, Jesus, what he does is he changes the imagery.
Joel Brooks:And in doing so, he teaches us something new about this seed that he has sown. This seed, which once again is the sons and daughters of the kingdom, the seed is Christians. What he's telling us is this seed will persevere until the end. Perhaps a better way of stating this is this seed will be preserved to the end. Jesus will not lose 1.
Joel Brooks:Yes. We're correct when we think weeds should choke out the wheat. The darnel roots here, they go deeper, And if left unchecked, they would certainly choke out the life of the weed wheat. But Jesus says, I will not let that happen. They're not gonna they're not gonna choke you out.
Joel Brooks:The wheat is going to grow even in the midst of all these weeds. The church will be preserved even in the midst of terrible evil. Christians will grow. Christians will bear fruit. Nothing Satan can throw at us can thwart that because we have been planted by God himself.
Joel Brooks:So despite Satan's best attempts, Jesus is promising us here that there will be a harvest. Church, we live in evil times, But hear me. The church has always lived in evil times. Always. Because we live in a time in which the kingdom is here, and it's not yet.
Joel Brooks:But Jesus is saying we need not fear this time, because he will preserve us and he will safely bring us home. Till then he gives us this task. Grow. Don't judge. Grow.
Joel Brooks:Grow. Grow and bear fruit as you wait on me. Pray with me church. Father, we pray that through your spirit, we would indeed grow. We realize that that's our task as a church, that we keep putting our roots deep into you.
Joel Brooks:We soak up the nutrients of the gospel, and we just keep growing and growing so that we might bear fruit. Lord, we thank you the way you preserve your church in the midst of great evil. Our confidence is in your work, not in ours. We love you, Jesus. We pray this in your name.
Joel Brooks:Amen.