All right.
Family.
I've been debating all night.
If I was going to tell you this, but I decided I'm going to tell you.
See, there's this weird thing.
And before I tell you, there's this weird thing.
There's this dilemma I think that that adults deal with.
So play with me here.
Kids have no problem saying this, but adults, for whatever reason, we're
secretive, and we try to make it a secret when we do these things.
And so I'm just going to be a kid for a second because I'm excited.
It was my birthday on Friday.
Hey. That's it. Yeah.
Come on.
Clap.
First service was like, first service was like, jump in.
And you guys were like.
What is it with kids?
Like, kids can tell you, like, months.
My birthday is coming up.
You're like, when is it in?
In January.
And you're like, yeah, it's not coming up.
But for whatever reason, adults. Right? Yes.
When does this happen?
When do adults we start, like keeping it secret.
I was with a couple of friends on Friday, and I was sitting there.
We were having some coffee, and I wanted to say it, but I didn't
because I'm an adult.
Kids are like, hey, it's my birthday, and they'll just say it.
So anyway, it was my birthday on Friday.
Thank you.
I celebrate all month.
You guys got a couple more days to do that.
I'm just kidding.
Anyway, one of my favorite things I share that because on Friday,
April 24th was my birthday.
I work in an elementary school, like most of you guys know, and I'm
walking around this little first grader, cutest little girl.
Besides, my daughter walked up and she's like, hey Mr.
White, I heard it was your birthday.
And I'm like, you heard right.
Now go tell everyone.
All right. I want you to go.
She's like, I got you this. And she.
She hands me this rock.
Cute, right?
So I'm holding the rock, and I'm like, man, I've always wanted one.
Like, this is a nice rock. It's great.
It's like, that's not a rock.
What is it?
So I said, what is it?
She's like as an egg.
It's cool.
What's good? So I say, what's going to hatch?
You know what's going to hatch is chicken gum pop out of this thing?
She's like, no, no, no, no.
And it was just like a classic mic drop moment.
She looks at me and she says, Mr.
White,
anything you want will hatch from the big.
It's cute.
Right?
I wish life was that easy,
because $1 billion would have been hatching out of that thing.
Anyway, it's a great day.
It's a great weekend.
We. I'm wearing my baptism shirt because we are going to celebrate.
We're going to party for my birthday and for all the celebrations later today.
There are 40 up to 40 people going into the pool with us later.
And just by like,
really quick, raise your hand if you're planning to get baptized today.
Hey, real quick, praise God.
Praise God.
And just so you all know, if you're like,
yeah, I said yes to Jesus, I follow Jesus, but I haven't been baptized.
We don't cap it at 40.
All right, so come on and join us. Party.
Give me a hug for my birthday and get baptized if it's right.
If it's the right time for y'all, it'll be at 1:00 at Pastor Carl's house.
If you're not sure where he lives, come
talk to me or one of us in between services.
We will tell you his address.
All right, 1:00.
Speaking of Pastor Carl, I am not Pastor Carl.
If this is your first time here.
Know that I'm not Pastor Carl.
The main guy.
Pastor Carl has a great opportunity today.
He's in Fresno.
He is at a church
who is celebrating their one year anniversary today.
So that's kind of cool, right?
A church
that we have been supporting and praying for.
If many of you, some of you remember Pastor Sean Samuel.
So Sean and his wife, he was the big Samoan guy.
He started church in, in an area
of Fresno that, that that needs some Jesus.
And so one year in Pastor Carl is over there.
He's encouraging them.
He gets to represent us, a church that we have been supporting.
So thank you all one year in.
But hey, real quick, would you mind, father, we pray for that church
remedy chapel.
We thank you for what you're doing in that church.
We thank you for what you're doing in Pastor Sean and Martha,
his wife of the leaders of the people, and in that neighborhood.
Now, God, we pray
that you would continue to move mountains,
that you would do miraculous things in that place.
And we thank you for our pastor Carl.
May you give him words this morning of encouragement,
but also
words of pushing
forward towards the kingdom.
In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. Amen.
My name is David.
It's my birthday on Friday.
We haven't met yet.
Let's meet today.
We're in the series called Kingdom Now.
We've been walking through this series for a long time.
We've been reading
verse by verse, chapter by chapter, the book of Matthew, calling the series
Kingdom now and the reason we're calling it Kingdom.
I guess I can start with this.
A lot of people think, and many of us maybe think, but I know a lot of
there's a lot of ideas that that you live life.
You walk through life.
You do the best you can, and then one day you die.
You either go to heaven or you go to the other place.
Right?
And and so when we when we think this and many of us do,
we think when we hear the word kingdom, we think of the word heaven.
But as we walk through Matthew,
as we actually hear Jesus's teachings,
he actually paints a very different picture than that.
He invites us into this idea
that the kingdom is now like right
now, and.
I want to even pause right there
before I even say another word and say like that is for you today.
Like you are invited into a life
with the King, with God
in your current reality, whatever craziness is happening.
So the kingdom is now, and that's the name of this series.
But but if I'm honest, and if I took a moment to be real,
I hear these words Kingdom.
Now I see.
We see Jesus talking about the kingdom is now.
And that this question pops into my brain.
Then.
Then why doesn't it look like it?
If the kingdom is now,
then why is there there pain and suffering?
Why did I have to go through that?
Why did I have to watch that
happen to that innocent child?
I know Tim and I have spoken a little bit about this idea of this question
that many of us have wrestled with, but but really it boils down to
if there is a loving God and if there is a kingdom,
then why does this trash and why does this bad stuff happen?
Most of us know we've been around long enough.
We've lived long enough to know that when people walk away from church,
when they walk away from their faith, or when they give up on their their belief
in God, it's not because of some logical thing they came to.
It's because of pain, right?
We we know, we we know people.
I've had friends.
I've looked them dead in the eye.
And they say there's there's zero chance you will ever see me worshiping a God.
When I had to go through that.
Today,
I want to be sensitive to that.
But I also know.
That today
we get to dive into the tension of that
Jesus is actually going to talk about it.
And so if you would, we're going to jump into a parable.
We've been walking through Matthew and up until now,
Jesus is walking around ancient Israel.
He's healing people.
He's doing crazy miracles.
And there are some people who are like, yeah, Jesus, we love you.
You're cool.
There's other people there like that. Is Satan right there?
So it's a mixed response.
And so Jesus begins to teach
these parables, their stories.
A parable is a made up story in school.
We call it fictional that teaches a spiritual truth.
Last week, Carl, at the beginning of Matthew 13
talked about a parable of seeds
scattered on different types of soil.
If you weren't here, it was at the beginning of Matthew 13.
There was a rocky soil, there was a footpath,
there was thorns, and then there was fertile soil.
Today Jesus is going to tell a story or a parable about
not the soil, but what's growing.
All right.
And I get to teach through that.
And then after that, he he Jesus talks about this other parable,
a really famous parable about a mustard seed, how the kingdom of heaven
is like a mustard seed.
And then he shares how the kingdom of heaven is like yeast in a dough.
And then Jesus comes back and explains the parable we're going to talk about today.
So today we have a gift not just to hear from me.
We get to hear from Jesus.
But I want to start with the end in mind.
Jesus tells this parable.
He's talking.
He give him parables, and then all of a sudden he explains the parable.
And he ends with this line, and just listen to this.
He he explains it all.
And at the very bottom of my part today, he says this
whoever has ears, let them hear.
He tells the story, he explains it.
And then he says, if you have ears,
may you hear that?
Which is funny, right?
He's speaking to a crowd.
They all have ears.
We all have ears.
He's not saying, hey, hey, just hear me here.
He's saying, hey, if you have ears, I want you to lean in a little bit.
And so we're going to start with that.
If you're willing
to use your ears and let them hear.
Now, I'm gonna ask you to slip your hand up right now.
Cool.
And it's okay if you don't want to go
and keep your hands up, because I want to pray for you.
Go and keep your hands up if you're willing.
If you have ears and you're willing to let them hear.
Because I think there's something very there's something very spiritual
and there's something very special about actually saying, yes, God, I'm
actually leaning in right now and it's okay if you're not ready.
But father, over the hands that are raised right now,
I pray that you would open our ears.
I'm gonna raise both my hands.
I need both ears right now.
I pray that you would open our ears and let us hear you in a fresh way today.
In a unique way today, in a way that we need it today.
Help us focus in and listen to your words.
In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. Amen. Cool.
Thanks for being willing.
A little context we've been walking through Matthew.
Jesus has been healing people. People are mixed there.
They're wondering who this guy is.
Is he this this savior type of guy that he says he is?
Or this thing keeps messing me up, man?
Or is he like,
is he the Savior or is he like just this crazy guy?
They're trying to figure this out, and he's at this point where he is
speaking and a whole big crowd comes to him.
So big, bigger than this, that he gets into a boat
on the beach and the crowd surrounds him on the beach.
And then it says he speaks.
He serves teaching these parables.
And so I want you not to read along with me right now.
I want you to just listen.
I want you to use those ears that we just said, yeah, we're open.
I want you to use those ears and just listen,
because this would have been what they would have done,
all right?
And then we're going to talk about it
and you're going to talk about it.
I actually want you to think as you're listening.
What do you notice about this story?
What do you wonder?
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
Sound good?
So Jesus told them another parable.
He said, the kingdom of heaven is like a man
who sowed good seed in his field.
But while everyone was sleeping,
his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat.
And then he went away.
When the wheat sprouted and formed heads,
the weeds also appeared.
The owner's servant said to him and said,
sir, didn't you plant so good seed in your field?
Where did all these weeds come from?
An enemy did this,
he replied.
The servants asked him, do you want us to go and pull them up now?
He answered, because while you are pulling the weeds
you may uproot the wheat with them.
Let both grow together till the harvest.
At that time I will tell the harvesters
first, collect the weeds,
tie them in bundles to be burned,
then gather the wheat and bring them into my barn.
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
Jesus told this story to a bunch of listeners,
and I'm going to ask you right now, what do you notice?
What do you wonder?
Talk to the person next to you.
Tell them. What did you notice in that story?
What did you wonder?
And then if you have no one to talk to or if you finish early, text me.
Not an essay, just oh, phrase or a sentence.
What did you notice?
What did you wonder? Sound good?
The guy like two minutes. Go.
All right.
I got some texts coming in.
Got about one minute wrap.
You can start wrapping things up and text me if you like.
All right.
Hey, thanks for participating in that.
Sometimes we're so quick
to try to explain everything without actually hearing it ourselves.
Pretty much Jesus is telling this story and he's like, hey, there was a farmer.
First of all, he says, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven
is like a farmer who's who's sowing seeds, good seeds.
And then all of a sudden, when the workers are asleep, an enemy came
and he planted weeds among the wheat.
The servants, they say, hey, where are these weeds come from?
And the the farmer says, an enemy did that.
Do you want us to go pull them out?
And no, no, no, no, at harvest time will separate them
and will burn the weeds and or the tears.
Some of your Bibles might say,
tares will burn that, and we will put the wheat in the barn.
I want to read a couple of these.
This is the first one
says the weeds are going to burn in hell like people who don't come to Christ.
Happy birthday.
Hey, if this is your first time to flip side.
Hey, welcome.
We're talking about people burning, but.
Yeah, that's that's good.
Yeah.
Someone said
I noticed he let them grow together.
Oh, as a mother, I often want to take out all the bad I see in my children.
I'm feeling convicted to leave some of the weeds till the proper time.
That's cool.
Someone said weeds do not change good seeds.
We may not know who is evil.
Someone just wrote happy birthday.
That wasn't the assignment.
Someone said Jesus will take care of the bad.
We need to focus on his good to thrive.
Good and evil together till the end.
And then he allows us to choose.
He did not want to lose any of the wheat.
It's a good point.
He didn't want to lose even one of them.
He wanted to save all of the wheat.
Let God separate the weeds from the good.
Someone said good will prevail.
And there's a bunch more coming in.
I'm going to stop there.
A really interesting parable story.
And what we just did was we enacted we
we participated in the story
most of the and a little context.
Jesus, at this point, he's on the beach of the Sea of Galilee,
surrounded by agriculture.
So he is speaking to people who know exactly what he's talking about.
If he was on a baseball field, he would have said, the kingdom of God
is like a baseball field, but he's not. He's in farmland.
So he's saying, the kingdom of God is like a farmer.
Now, a couple just to add on to some of those because they're so good.
But he says, the kingdom of God is like,
he doesn't say, the kingdom of God will be like one day, or
the kingdom of God was like, the kingdom of God
is like right now.
Currently,
another weird little notice
was that when the enemy planted the
the weeds, did you guys catch that?
The farmer planted good seed.
The the the evil or the enemy planted weeds?
Two different complete different words.
Actually, in the Greek the word seed is not used for the word weed.
It's literally this word tzaneen.
So when the the farmer plant seed,
the enemy plants this lion.
And it's not really used anywhere else in scripture except for that moment,
and that Tzaneen is the word we get for tares.
Some of your Bibles might say tears, some of it, but it's a type
of weed called in the English word darnall.
If your name is Darnell, I'm sorry man.
But that's the way out.
And what's kind of interesting about this is, is this.
This is what wheat looks like when it's growing.
I'm not a farmer.
I just know what it looks like on the box of Cream of Wheat. And.
But it doesn't look like that normally, right?
Like, normally it's like golden, right?
But when we or wheat is growing, it's green and it has stalks and it has these
little heads in it, the weeds
or the tears that is described in this parable
looks like this as it grows so very similar, almost identical.
So this is wheat and this is what we would call Darnall.
Darnall.
Now when Jesus is speaking to these farmers, they're all nodding their head.
They're like, yeah, this is how fields work.
And we've seen this happen, which is interesting.
I wouldn't think anybody would do something like that.
But this there was an actual Roman law that punished people
who planted Tzaneen in somebody else's field.
It was punishable by death.
This was a well known thing.
If you didn't like somebody, you just plant weeds in their field
and you're not just trying to make their day bad,
you're trying to ruin their field and harvest.
As Jesus is telling this parable
to these workers and farmers, they're all going, yeah, I get it.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I hate when that happens.
I saw Uncle Fred happened to him and it was terrible.
It was.
But then Jesus changes the story a little bit, right?
Because.
Because then he says, do you want to we want to go pull him up.
He says, no, no, no.
Harvest will do that later.
Because this is the interesting part.
As Darnell grows, it
stays green and kind of grayish, and it actually produces
these little heads that end up turning black, very different from wheat,
the golden wheat, and so very identifiable.
Okay.
But it takes time.
I just wanted to give you a little bit of context
before we actually jump into Jesus's explanation, because because Jesus
then tells a parable about a mustard seed, tells parable about a waste or a yeast.
And then if you have your Bible, would you turn to Matthew chapter 13?
We're going to read his explanation together.
So Matthew chapter 13, and I'm going to start in verse 36.
So all these people, they're listening, they're nodding their head.
They're like, yeah, we get it. Jesus.
We understand the field.
But they're also thinking this, what's he talking about?
Who is he talking about?
Who am I in the story?
But then they're left to wonder.
Verse 36.
You guys ready for this? This is I love this part, he says.
Then he left the crowd.
So Jesus gets off the boat and he leaves the crowd.
And he he went into a house.
It says his disciples came to him and said,
explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.
This is kind of cool because
Jesus speaking the disciples are sitting right here
imagining like, you guys are the disciples.
Jesus is telling the story.
Jesus leaves, goes into the house, and then you come up to me and he's like,
hey, hey, real quick, that one story told, can you explain it to us?
Why? Because.
Because we're we're wondering
what is the weeds?
What are what are you talking about?
So let's let Jesus explain.
Verse 37 says, he answered,
the one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man.
The field is the world,
and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom,
the weeds, the people of the evil one,
and the enemy who sows them is the devil.
The harvest
is the end of the age, and the harvesters
their angels.
Verse 40.
As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire,
so it will be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom
everything that causes sin, and all who do evil.
They will throw them into the blazing furnace,
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the kingdom of their father.
Whoever has ears, let them hear.
Disciples are like Jesus.
You just describe this moment and these weeds are with the wheat.
Explain it to us.
And he he lays it out for them.
So I don't need to give you
any more clever explanation other than let's look at what Jesus said.
So I have a couple of just observations.
Observation one Jesus.
He literally says, the one who sowed good seed is the Son of Man and the enemy.
That's the devil.
Right off the bat there is good and there is evil.
Right off the bat, when Jesus says,
The Son of Man is the one who sowed, sees,
he is making a couple of major claims that everybody in the audience,
his disciples, would have immediately known what he was talking about.
The Son of Man was a title
that's used all throughout the Old Testament
to describe the coming Savior of the world.
Jesus, very often, when he's
referring to himself, would call himself the Son of Man.
And so he's literally saying, I'm the farmer
in that story I told.
I'm the farmer guys.
And if that's if that's true, if he's the farmer, he's
pretty much saying that the kingdom is here because of me.
And if the kingdom is here because of me, that means I'm the King.
He is stating to his disciples, I am the king of this field.
And then he says, I was planting good seeds.
Everything good in the field was of Jesus,
was of the farmer.
The Bible says every good thing
comes from the father.
I also noticed this, that
not everything growing in the kingdom
is from Jesus, right?
Not everything
growing is from him, but the farmer.
Jesus has final authority.
He says, I will
know which is which when the time is right.
Not your time. My time, he says.
So let me let me share this little idea with you from the beginning.
From the very beginning.
Let me say this the kingdom is now,
but it's a little bit messy,
and it doesn't look the way
we hoped it would.
The kingdom is now, and it definitely does not
look like what the ancient Israelites would have thought it would.
They would have hoped
that the kingdom came and it was clean rows of beautiful wheat,
not a weed in sight, because that's what they thought the Savior would do.
He would come in with a sword and just wipe out the Romans,
and it would just be beautiful fields of wheat.
But Jesus saying, no, no, you got it wrong.
The the title The Enemy is the devil.
The Bible says that the devil prowls around
like a roaring lion looking for souls to devour.
It wasn't like the enemy
was just going to work and was like, let me just throw some.
There is intention.
There was work,
there was planning involved
from the devil's part.
The devil literally has it out not to destroy,
not to just mess up the the farmers day, but to destroy the harvest.
Okay.
Simple observation.
I have a big idea that I'm going to walk through as the next 15 minutes.
The big idea is this.
You can't always control
what growing around you,
but you can control what's growing in you.
And let me unpack that for a second.
As Jesus makes this claim, the the people are listening.
They're wondering, who are we in the story?
Who are we in the story?
And they're going to
they're going to come to find out that there are multiple people in the story.
My second observation is is pretty simple,
but he defines he goes down and he defines everybody in the story.
Right?
He says the farmer is the Son of Man, the enemy is the devil.
He says, the good seed is a people of the kingdom.
Some of your Bibles might say, children of the kingdom or sons of the kingdom.
The weeds are people of evil or wickedness.
He says, the enemy,
the enemy is the devil.
He said, the harvest is the end of the age.
And then he says, the harvesters are angels.
They may notice he missed one.
He missed one.
He describes everything in the story except one thing
the servants, the workers.
It's a very different word.
When he comes to Max and says the harvesters will harvest.
The workers are very different.
The people listening to the story would have been like, oh, that's me.
I'm the I'm the worker.
Do you remember what the workers wanted to do?
Hey, there's weeds over there.
Do you want us to go pull them out? No.
Why is it that us humans.
We want to fix everything.
We put our Bob the builder hat on, and we.
We start working on things, working on relationships.
We start really trying to dig into our kids, how they grow up.
We start trying to.
I see this happening over here with my friends.
I'm just going to try to solve this thing.
Like, what is it about this idea
of solving and fixing things that we have innate in us?
They wanted to do it.
I was looking at some studies.
There's a there's a cognitive study that says
one of the basic needs of human
humanity is to be in control of things
right there with water and air you need
if you're in control of it, that feels like you're living.
And so there's this idea that from the beginning,
Jesus is saying, I'm the farmer.
The workers want to fix it,
but it's not their job.
It's my job.
He's saying, I will do that later.
There are parents in this room that have been constantly on their kids, trying to
form them and and get their hands and and I'm just telling you right now,
Jesus is saying, I am going to fix that when the time is right.
You do your best with the soil around it,
but you worry about you.
After that, the servants
never show up again in the story.
So really quick.
Not everything that needs fixing needs fixing right now.
Don't rush the process of what God
is doing around your life and in your life.
And then I felt led to say this.
Karl and I were talking, and there's this idea that that God's patience
is not permission for the weeds to go rampant.
God's patience is mercy.
It's mercy because of this
that can't really tell yet.
Some things that start off really good, you find out later
they weren't that good.
I said the big idea earlier, you can't control
what's growing around you, but you can control what's growing in you.
I'm sure you say this all the time to your girls.
I say this all the time to my boys.
You can't control
too much of the baseball field.
That ball hits a rock, bumps over your shoulder.
Hey, hit the rock!
You don't swing. That umpire rings you up.
You can't control the umpire.
You throw, your first baseman hits the glove off, and the guy is safe.
Or the girl safe. You can't control that.
You can't control yourself, your attitude.
And so there's this idea that you cannot control.
I say control a whole lot because what is
if there is a control freak, right?
Some of us, no one, some of us are one.
What's lacking trust?
Some of us have been in
or in marriages where it just feels like we're
married to a controlling person.
Do they not trust us with that?
If I'm in trying to control everything, that means I'm not trusting the process
at some point.
Janet, you just got to let them go out there and swing it.
You can't control the at bat
control is this human thing.
When we don't have trust, what Jesus is
saying is, hey, you're just the worker.
Trust me,
trust me.
You can't control what's growing around you,
but you can control you.
It's funny,
I just thought this was kind of a funny little thing, but in Luke nine
and I'll just read this, there's Jesus and his disciples
are walking into a village and they weren't received well.
They were like, hey, we're mean.
We're you know, they were like being, you know, rude to Jesus.
And it says this,
but the people there did not welcome Jesus because he was heading for Jerusalem.
When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked Jesus.
They said, Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?
They wanted to fix it.
Jesus, it says, but Jesus turned and rebuked them.
There's another kind of a funny
little moment to the night Jesus was betrayed.
He's sitting there in this all of orchard with his disciples,
and Judas walks up and gives him a kiss.
Right.
And that's the sign for the the guards to arrest Jesus.
As one of the guards is coming up to arrest Jesus, Peter flings out his sword.
Remember what he does, and he chops off his ear because he's trying to fix it.
And Jesus, if you remember the story, Jesus picks up this ear
and he heals the man, pretty much saying, Peter, stop it.
This ain't for you to fix.
This is I'm going to fix all of this, but it's in my time.
Interesting connection about ears though, right?
Only Jesus is the one who can heal ears.
And he's the one who said, if you have ears,
let them hear.
Observation three
pretty black and white at the end, right?
There's this difference between the wheat and the weeds.
There's really no gray area.
There's no third option.
It's I did this talk a while ago,
and the title of the talk was Gray The Way Forward.
And my argument was that hardly anywhere in life
is that black and white, most things are gray.
It's like somewhere in the middle.
And but that's not what this part is.
This is black and white.
There is a harvest.
There is real separation coming.
And it sounds like it's irreversible.
The weeds are thrown into the fire.
It's not like, oh, well, let's jump out.
No, they're thrown into the fire to be burned where there is, he explains.
Where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,
a description of hell that's used often in the Bible.
Weeping. I'm so sorry.
I lived my entire life, and I'm so in full of regret
that I lived and I did not do something right.
Or there's gnashing of teeth, which is
I am so angry that I'm being burned.
I'm so angry at God, I'm gnashing my teeth.
And so that's hell, how he's describing it.
And then do you remember what he says about the other side of the wheat?
It says they will be put in the barn
where the righteous will shine like the sun
in the kingdom of their father.
There is a clear difference
between wheat and weeds, but it takes time,
and there's a process to it.
Really quick little thought distinction.
Some of your Bibles, when Jesus describes it says the good seed is sons
or people of the kingdom.
The actual Greek word is children,
children of of the heaven, and same word is used.
The weeds are children of wickedness.
And so as the listeners are hearing
Jesus tell the parable, they immediately say, I'm one of the workers.
But then Jesus leaves it with wheat and weeds
being separated, just like sheep and goats are separated.
And now everyone's wondering in the crowd,
wait.
Am I a wheat or am I a wheat?
He says it's the sons, the children
of heaven, who are the the, the wheat.
And I just wanted to read this because I think it explains it beautifully.
Just listen to this.
This is all the way back in first John.
It says, dear children, same exact Greek Greek word.
Do not let anyone or anything lead you astray.
The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
The one who does what is sinful is of the devil.
Because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
Then he says this.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy
the devil's work.
The reason Jesus came was to confront
evil in your life and the lives around you.
Unfortunately, it's not on our timing,
but Jesus came to confront it and he will.
No one who is born of
God will continue to sin, born of God like a child of God.
No one who is born of God will continue to sin because God's seed.
Same word from our parable.
God's seed remains in them,
and they cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God.
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil.
Are you guys ready?
Anyone who does not do what is
right is not God's child, nor
anyone who does not love their brother and sister is God's child.
Pretty black and white.
In other words, Jesus says a little bit later he says,
you will know them by their fruit.
As they grow, the wheat
becomes edible and you can make a bunch of things with it
bread and cream of wheat and weeds and stuff.
As that grows, as the heads begin to form, check this out.
They become poisonous to humans,
but you can't identify him because you have to wait for them
to mature before you can separate them.
You will know them by their fruit.
And I want you to know this.
We don't need to figure out who the weeds are around us or around him.
We just got to settle with who we are because you can't control
what growing around you.
But you can control what's growing in you.
In the end, God doesn't separate
by who they're hanging out with
or where they are in life.
How does he separate them by what they look like?
By their identification?
And that only happens through transformation.
Another moment, a church leader comes up to Jesus.
How, how must how do I how do I get into heaven?
He says, you must be born again.
Weird, right?
We hear we say this word in church a lot.
Oh, was I were you born again?
Born, born again means you become by transformation
this supernatural miracle that you become a child of righteousness.
Only one way, John says you become righteous
by putting your faith in Jesus, by recognizing
I'm not good enough in saying I need a Savior, I need a farmer.
So if you haven't been listening this whole time,
I want to wrap up with this real quick.
I need you to listen to this.
We can't control anything around us, but we can control a couple of things.
We can control who we follow.
We can control what we feed on,
and we can control what we focus on.
Who you follow.
Jesus walks up to people.
This is his story, right?
And he literally says, hey, would you follow me?
And they have either a yes or a no.
Just like when the wheat becomes wheat and the weeds become weeds.
If if you have not chosen Jesus to follow, then who are you following?
Everybody and everything is following something, right?
We tell this. I tell this to my kids all the time.
If you're following or if you're a I mean, who in the world are you following
following your friends?
Are you following that podcaster?
Are you following whatever
Jesus is saying? Follow me.
You can control that.
If you haven't done that verbally in a long time, here's a moment right now.
Say this in your head Jesus.
I choose to follow you today.
I choose to follow you.
Help me not follow those things.
And you know what?
Those things are in your life.
You can choose what you feed on.
I love going to the pantry, and I can choose anything I want.
As an adult with a birthday, I get anything I want, right?
But you get to choose.
And if you continue to feed on trash,
your life will show it.
You can.
If you choose good food, your life will show it.
What are you watching on TV?
What are you listening to?
Who are you hanging out with on a daily basis?
I was listening to a podcast.
I really liked this one podcast.
Great.
It's funny, it's insightful, but one day I was just like thinking, what am I?
What am I filling my brain with?
Because it's definitely not of of the kingdom.
And I had to really think about what I was feeding on.
In a minute we're going to have communion.
And Jesus literally says, this is my body feed on me.
If you are not feeding on the Holy Bible.
It sounded really old school how I said that.
But if you're literally not in the Bible
on a daily basis, you are starving yourself.
And there's if after you fast, there's a couple of things you could do,
Dave, you can just go straight to the junk food
because it's I'm craving it, or you can hold off and wait for the good food.
I'm telling you, if you're not reading this daily,
you are feeding on something other than what's good.
Read the Bible every day.
We have flip journals in the little room over there that will help guide you.
But feed on this feed on joining us on a on a regular basis.
This is a family feed on each other of like, hey, I need to talk through this.
Would you pray for me feed on worship as Jeff and the family leads like
this is what we need to be feeding on and you have a choice.
The last one was focus.
What are you focus on?
I saw this painting.
I thought it was kind of interesting.
It was painted by a guy named Lucas Van Gasol.
He painted our parable that we just talked about.
He painted it in the 1600s.
He's from Europe.
And his style was unique because this is called a world, world landscape
if you look.
Most paintings are just like one image.
But his was he painted the entire world.
In the one painting, you can see the farm, you can see trees, you can see
buildings, you can see people over here, you can see this little animal.
You can see it all. But.
But he painted it really uniquely because most viewers.
Will you like, immediately focus on one thing right front and center.
The evil one.
This represents the evil one.
Joe, you can come on up here.
This is the evil one.
And our eyes immediately go there because it's really easy to see
everything around us that isn't going right.
What did the disciples say to Jesus?
They say, Hey, Jesus, would you tell us about the the weeds in the field?
Would you explain the weeds?
They didn't say the wheat.
They immediately thought about the weeds.
And how often are we so quick to look at the weeds all around us?
Sometimes my wife and I will go on a walk and we'll look at our house and be like,
there's a weed, there's a weed, there's a weed, right?
We see a field and sometimes we see only weeds.
You have a decision what you can focus on, because you could focus on this field
that you can't see anything yet because it takes time.
You can focus on these buildings, the barns over here
that the wheat will get into.
You can see the fire that this painter
painted, this bonfire that they're burning the weeds in.
You can see there's actually work happening over here.
There are people working.
But instead we often focus here.
And I want to challenge you today to focus on the good,
to focus on
the Savior, to focus on your target.
Seek first the kingdom of heaven
and the rest will be given to you.
I'm going to let Joe.
We're going to do communion right now, but I want to I want to close
with this phrase, this this thing that Jesus said in John 15.
Jesus said this.
He said, I am the true vine.
My father is the gardener.
He cuts in me anything that doesn't
bear fruit,
he he prunes
what does so that it would be even more fruitful.
Then he said this you are already clean because of the words I have spoken to you.
Remain in me as I remain in you.
For no branch can produce fruit by itself.
It must remain in the vine.
Neither will you bear fruit, and less
you remain in me.
You will know them by their fruit.
You will know the weeds between the wheat based on what they produce.
Joe, would you like to lead us in communion?
Good morning everybody.
So now we're going to transition into this time of communion, and
we are reminded that God is sovereign,
in full control and above all things.
He reigns in authority and power.
And yet
in our in our time,
we often grow complacent.
And we treat this moment,
and even at times God himself as familiar
instead of holy.
God is not.
God is not
somebody that will treat us familiar.
He is worthy to be praised,
and he is to be feared
not in terror and but in all.
He is to be revered, honored,
and approached with our full reverence.
So I want you to each take a moment
to yourselves and reflect, confess,
and realign your hearts before him.
So I'll give you a few seconds to do that
into the one here, or some of you
that have not yet made the decision to follow Jesus, this this moment for you.
Also, I invite you into this time
to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross and through his resurrection.
And in your own words, come before him and say something along the lines of,
Lord Jesus, I come before you, admitting that I have sinned,
that I have lived a life of my own for far too long.
It is now before you I surrender and accept your gift of grace.
I believe that you died for me on the cross, that you rose from the grave
on the third day, and are now alive and well at the right hand of the father.
I completely surrender my life to you.
And if you've prayed that prayer, I welcome you into the family
you are born again.
So it was on the night that Jesus was betrayed,
that he had a meal with his disciples, that he took the bread,
gave thanks, and said, this is my body which has been given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
So let us take a breath.
In the same way
Jesus took the cup, saying, this cup is a new covenant
in my blood which has been shed for the remission of sin.
As often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.
Let us take of the cup.
Go ahead and bow your heads with me, and let's pray.
Heavenly father, we give you thanks and praise for this day, for the life
you have given us, for sending us your one and only son.
And we pray that we will honor you
in our week, that we will be intentional in everything that we do,
that we won't only live for Sunday, but that we will live
for you every single day, putting you above all else.
Lord Jesus, we give you thanks and praise that you died for us, that you obediently
walked this earth and followed what your father commanded.
And we thank you for dying
on the cross for our sins and raising from the grave on the third day.
Holy Spirit, be our guide and direct our path,
that we will honor God and His Kingdom every day of our life.
Clothe us in your power and strength, all glory, forever and ever.
In Jesus name, Amen.