Weeds Among Us

Text: Matthew 13:24-29,36-43

Title: Weeds Among Us

Sermon Theme: God allows evil until the time when his people are ready to be harvested.

Goal: to encourage Christians that evil is allowed only until the time when the harvest is ready.

Need: The problem of evil and our lack of success may make Christian wonder what they are doing wrong in the world.

Sermon Outline

Introduction of how we feel things are not going God’s way.
God sows only Good seed
Satan sows evil and evildoers into the world
The harvest will be judgement day for all.
Encourage Christians that in spite of evil, Christ will separate at the harvest.

Sermon in Oral Style:

Congregation,

What are the toughest parts of being Christians today in Canada? If we lived in Indonesia or Africa, the toughest part would probably be the persecution we suffer. But I think the toughest part about being a Christian in Canada today has two sides to it.

The first reason it is difficult to be a Christian in Canada today is because horrible things happen in the world, and there are horrible people. Genocide, disasters. Whatever evil you want to name, even though God is good, there is evil in the world. No matter how far we have matured in our faith, we can accept that it is tough to believe in a good God when awful things happen in the world.

The second reason it is difficult to be a Christian in Canada today is because the scientific mindset of our world today demands that every loose end of our faith has a nice and tidy solution before it can even seem realistic. So when we get into a discussion with an unbeliever about the problem of evil, we feel like we have to have all the answers for God. We believe that we must have solid proof that God can be good and the world can have evil.

The passage that we are looking at here can help us in our own struggle with the issue of evil existing in the world. But it should never make it so that we pretend for ourselves or pretend before others that we can figure out God completely. God is a mystery that Christ has revealed in a way that our simple sinful little minds can only begin to understand.

That’s part of the reason why Christ speaks in parables. He teaches the overwhelming, intense things of God in simpler, yet profound stories. Verse 34 that comes in the parable right between the two sections that we read for this evening says, “34Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. 35So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.”

But the parable that we hear in this chapter is one that is supposed to help the disciples deal with the problem of evil in the world. As they see persecution all around them, where is God in all of it? And as they witness and share the good news of Christ at the risk of their life, why don’t all the people they witness to, feel as compelled to follow Christ as they have been? Why?

Why can’t we make disciples more easily? If we are truly trying telling our friends and neighbors about Christ, why is it so difficult to make them see how great God is? And when they come to us with questions of why there is evil in the world, what reason do we have for God not just squashing it, putting an end to it?

Christ encourages Christians in many ways through this parable, but when it comes to dealing with evil and sin in the world, we should be encouraged in three ways.

The first point is about what Christ and God have done in the world. It says in verse 37, “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 sons of the kingdom.”

The farmer is Jesus Christ. The field is the world. And the good seed are the believers, the sons of the kingdom. Notice what kind of seed Jesus plants. He plants only good seed. Its not like Jesus has a bag of seed that is just kind of a variety. Like the different mixes of grass seed you might find in the stores. Christ spread only goodness and only.

This is just one passage that reminds us that evil, and the people who commit themselves to a life of unbelief are not the way they are because of anything God has done. The ones that are bound for eternal life, and those who lived converted lives are the way they are entirely because Christ selected them as part of the good seed he would sow. God can’t be blamed for evil. He created only what is good.

But that doesn’t answer why there is evil in the world. That’s where the next characters in the parable come in. Verse 38 and 39 say, “The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.” The reason there is evil in the world is because the Devil is at work and always has been. The ones that Christ hasn’t chosen don’t belong to him. They belong to the evil one.

That is why the world is full of evil, its because the devil has filled the world with evil.

But that shouldn’t take away all the mystery and the tension with that problem of evil. We will never be able to figure God out or figure out his workings entirely. Why does Christ allow the devil to sow the seeds of evil in the world. Wouldn’t an all knowing God know that it was going to happen in his creation. Couldn’t an all powerful God put an end to it?

We will never know completely, but what the parable does explain extremely clearly is that there is going to be sin trouble in the world. This reality we live in will always be filled with joy and grief, with sin and good deeds, with people who follow the truth and those who ignore and hate the truth.

And they are going to live together for as long as the world exists the way it is. There will be no separation of the good from the evil. In the parable, a servant goes up to the master with what seems to be common knowledge. “Shall we go out and pick out the weeds.” Why not, that would make sense. Get rid of the weeds so that the good crop can grow without them.

But the Master says no. Don’t get rid of weeds so quickly. His reasoning tells us at least in a limited extent why evil is permitted in the world. He says it is for the good of those good plants that have been infiltrated by weeds. God tells us that the reason sin remains in the world is that so each and every person can reach the purpose that he intended for them.

Every person has a reason for living and part of that is bearing fruit for God. It is having a life full of blooms in celebration of who God is and what he has done for his people. God wants every one of his people to make it to maturity in their faith fulfill the purpose that God has given for them.

To send the servant out to pick the weeds would inevitably lead to some wheat being harvested too soon, before its time. Before it could bear fruit the way it was intended. This has nothing to do with the age a person dies, but it explains why there is still the delay in the return of Jesus to rescue us from life with weeds among us. The full number of the elect must happen.

This idea of full number forces us to think about two other places the full number is waited for. First in Romans 11:25 talks about hardening the hearts of Israel until the full number of the Gentiles have come in. And even more potently Revelation 6:10-11. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. [1]

Why does evil remain in the world, it is so the numbers can be completed. So everything can come to complete fulfillment.

And the minute it does, it is all over. That is the harvest. Our passage says the harvesters that go out into the field are God’s angels. And they start first with the weeds. At the end of time, when the numbers are complete, when our souls and our lives have all fulfilled their purpose given by God, it is evident who is wheat and who is weeds. The angels start by taking out all of those who have grown up and proved themselves to be sown by the enemy. They are taken up, they are bound up and thrown into the fire.

That is the moment that God will finally have his perfect field. That is the time when this world will finally equal his kingdom.

Its not that God has been deceptive or unjust by allowing evil to exist in the world. He is simply operating from a perspective that has so much more than our tiny weed filled lives on his mind. He is waiting for the time when it will be right.

But the last thing we need to remember though is that until the harvest is taken, the time is not right to try and distinguish completely between the weeds and the wheat. As believers, as people called to minister to this world and spread the love of Christ, it is never up to us to decide who in this world is a weed and who is a wheat. The church is the place of growing and nurturing. But not determining who is in the kingdom and who is out.

And it means we can expect there to be weeds among us. Especially as we seek to tell others about Christ. We can expect to be ignored. We can expect to not make any friends through our Christian witness. There are weeds among us but we must treat every one like they are open to hearing the gospel. There are weeds among us, but it does not change our task. Spread the love of God and move others to saving faith.

We are to live in this world. Making disciples of all nations. We are to work on our own hearts, but also on the hearts of others. And until the harvest is gathered in. We still have work to do.

When there is evil, when we don’t have God all figured out. Take comfort in the fact that the harvest is coming. In the midst of weeds, continue to trust God and bring his truth to even the coldest hearts around us.

This is God’s will from his word. And all God’s People Say. AMEN

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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Re 6:10-11