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The Patience of Faith
Life can be confusing sometimes.
We grow up with certain expectations and then we quickly discover that things rarely lineup with what we expect.
And when we become Christ followers, the same thing happens.
We expect God to be a certain way and we discover that in every way He is greater and better than we knew.
We expect church to be a certain way, filled with certain people, only to find out that it doesn’t work that way.
Illustration: The heartbreak that I experienced when a leader I looked up to while I was attending a church eventually ended up not being as godly or good as I thought.
God is perfect.
God is good.
God is love.
And God is better than anything we’ve ever been told.
But Christians are working toward perfection.
We are growing in grace and learning to be good.
We are learning to love like God.
Christians often fail to live up to the expectation placed upon them.
We are living in a time where people are leaving the Church, often followed by a departure from the faith altogether.
In many cases, it is because we have created a culture that creates false and untenable expectations.
We hold individuals, and especially leaders, to a standard that they rarely can live up to.
One of the reasons that people turn away from their faith is because of pain and hurt that takes place in churches.
From other “Christians” or from church leaders.
What are we to say to these things?
How do we overcome the hurts that we’ve experienced at the hands of church people?
The Wheat and the Weeds
Jesus taught many parables about the kingdom.
One of them was about wheat and weeds.
This parable at face value is simple, but it raises some problems that theologians and everyday Christians have grappled with throughout the years.
As we hear this story of Jesus we recognize that Jesus often used concrete things to reveal spiritual truth.
Here we have a man who sowed good seed in his field but while his men slept, his enemy came in and sowed weeds.
Some translations call the weed “tares” but the word is zizania “the darnel” which is what the Jews called “bastard” or “degenerate” wheat.
It is common to Palestine and resembles wheat, The difference is that the grains are black and in the earlier stages of growth, it is virtually indistinguishable from wheat stalks.
Notice that the servants were surprised.
They knew that he sowed good seeds.
But the master knew it was an enemy who sowed the weeds.
Notice that the servants wanted to go and gather the weeds.
But the master, concerned for the wheat, did not permit them.
He did not want the wheat to be damaged.
He told them to let both grow up together until harvest time and then they would be separated.
Notice that the weeds would be gathered first and then burned and after that the wheat would be gathered into his barn.
A few verses later, the disciples asked Jesus to explain the meaning of the parable to them.
He didn’t rebuke them.
He answered them.
As He explains, Jesus explains the symbols.
The sower is Jesus, the Son of Man, which is a title that speaks of authority to judge (cf.
Daniel 7:13-14, Matthew 28:18, John 5:30)
The field is the world
The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom
The weeds are the sons of the evil one
The enemy is the devil
The harvest is at the end of the age
The reapers are angels
The sons of the evil one will be gathered and burned with fire at the end of the age
The angels will take everything that causes sin and all of the lawbreakers and through them into the fire
In the fire, there will be weeping, a sign of judgment, and gnashing of teeth, a sign of pain.
The righteous—good seeds, sons of the kingdom—will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father
With Jesus offering the keys to understanding the parable, let’s revisit it:
This is a story that pertains to the kingdom of heaven.
The Son of Man sows good seed—the truth of God’s word (per the parable of the Sower and Jesus’ explanation in Matthew 13:18)—in His field, which is the whole world (Psalm 24:1).
Those who receive that word and begin to grow according to it are the sons of the kingdom (cf.
Genesis 1:11, where seeds bear after their kind).
While it was night—this present age (cf.
Romans 13:12)—under the cover of darkness and his servants were sleeping, the devil—the enemy—sowed degenerate, bastard (fatherless) wheat.
He planted sons of evil in the same place as the sons of the kingdom.
When the servants of the Son of Man realized that there were people of the devil among the people of the kingdom, they wanted to separate them.
But the Master did not permit that because he did not want to damage the sons of the kingdom.
When the Day of the Lord comes, at the end of the age (2 Thessalonians 2:2), the Righteous Judge and Lord of Lords will send His angels out to separate and gather the wicked and the righteous out of His kingdom.
The wicked, who are lawbreakers, along with everything that causes sin will be gathered, judged, and punished in the fire.
Just like when the sun shines from behind the clouds, the righteous will shine brightly when the darkness and separation has taken place (cf.
Daniel 12:3).
The Church Has Wheat and Weeds
One of the things that we need to understand that is that the church has both wheat and weeds.
There are true followers of Jesus and there are false ones.
The problem is that it is difficult to recognize who is who.
We cannot judge by present appearance.
Only at the end of the age, when judgment comes, will we know who is who.
In other words, the church will always be a mixed community.
This creates situations where we could be hurt.
Not everyone who calls themselves a Christian is one.
This is why we need to focus on Jesus.
We do not define our faith based on the people in front of us or around us or behind us.
We define our faith, and the quality of it according to the standard of Jesus.
We can never judge the final outcome of a person.
That authority and responsibility alone belongs to God.
We are not called to judge, but we are told to discern the fruit of a person’s life (Matthew 12:33-37).
Before we start looking around and trying to discern who are weeds, we need to remember that the measure which we judge will be judged back to us.
Before you reach for the speck in someone else’s eye, make sure you’ve dealt with the logs in your own (Matthew 7:1-5).
The Lord is Patient
One of the key messages of this parable is one that many people struggle with.
It deals with the patience of God.
Instead of immediately removing the weeds and acting against the enemy, the master told the servants to leave them and let them grow.
Ultimately, this is for our good and God’s glory (cf.
Romans 8:28).
The Apostle Paul alluded to the fact that believers would judge angels.
He said this in connection with how the Corinthians were letting the world judge between believers instead of the church being involved (1 Corinthians 6:1-7).
In other words, the church was supposed to be demonstrating growth in grace by working through the weakness and sin of others in a Christlike way.
All Will Be Made Right at the End of the Age
The last part of the story is given to the disciples as a means of encouragement.
The Judge of all the earth will do right (cf.
Genesis 18:25).
The righteous will be rewarded:
For standing fast
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