Grace to Grow

Wheat and weeds, growing side by side until the harvest. This week in Matthew 13, we explore the grace that gives us time to grow, the enemy who sows in the dark, and the fruit that finally sets the two apart.

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The paper version. If not, it'll be on the screen. We're going to be in Matthew. We're picking up where we were last week in Matthew chapter 13. I'm excited about the idea that we're going to spend a few weeks in Matthew together.

It's very intentional. And God has a word for us. So we are going to be looking at Matthew. I titled my sermon today, or Jesus did. Grace to grow, Grace to grow.

That is where we are. That is the picture. And we're going to be in Matthew chapter 13. And when you have found it, if you will stand to your feet in honor of His Word. And we will pick up verse 24.

We're going to do 24 to 30 and then skip down to verse 36. This is what it says. Jesus put before the crowd another parable. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who who sowed good seed in his field. But while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away.

So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then did these weeds come from? And he answered, and an enemy has done this. The slave said to him, then do you want us to go and gather them?

But he replied, no, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest. And at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned. But. But gather the wheat into my barn.

Verse 36. Then he left the crowds and he went into the house. And as his disciples approached him, saying, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. And he answered, the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom.

The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evil doers. And they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Let anyone with ears listen Father, we have ears today. Would you help us to be attentive to your word? Holy Spirit, I need you. I depend on you.

I am nothing without you. So, Holy Spirit, would you come and teach us from your word that is alive and that is active and that is powerful? God, we need it today. Speak to every heart in this place, and that is listening online to you be all. Glory, King Jesus.

Amen. And you may be seated. This parable as we read it. I don't know that I had ever heard a sermon on the parable of the weeds. So I was super excited to find what God had for me this week.

We last week heard about the parable of the soils. Pastor Marshall was explaining how Jesus was sitting by the lake and what that meant. And here I was thinking, I just like the idea of Jesus sitting by the lake. There was so much more. Thank you, Pastor Marshall.

But Jesus is sitting by the lake and this large crowd gathered. And if you know the story, he gets into the boat and pushes off so he can speak to the crowd on the shore. I love the visual. I love that the word of God gives us that visual of Jesus getting to the boat and stepping back to speak to the crowd. And he teaches with what is a parable.

And you may have heard that a parable is a simple story. Sometimes to me, it's not very simple. Anybody else. Sometimes these simple stories seem complicated or complex, but Jesus uses an illustration to teach his spiritual point. He teaches on this idea of the key kingdom of heaven, or some say the kingdom of God.

And I thought to myself, jesus, you spoke a lot about the kingdom of heaven. He reminded me that you remember John the Baptist when he came on the scene, what did he preach? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is near. Repent.

And then you remember John the Baptist was put into prison and Jesus went forward in the same teaching. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. The kingdom of God is here. And I asked myself, what does that even mean, Jesus, the kingdom of heaven, what does that mean? Is this heaven?

Is this here? And the answer is both. It is a present reality and. And a future hope. When he talks about the kingdom of heaven, it's a present reality.

When we accept the gift of salvation, we enter in and put ourselves under the authority of the lordship, the headship of Jesus. We enter into the kingdom of heaven now, but then we live in that. And then our future home in the kingdom as well. It is both present and future. Why did he teach so much on it because it's our eternity.

It is what we're called to do, to enter now so we can have a future home with him later, now and then it's important. So he teaches on the parable of the soils. If you got to hear the message last week, or if you didn't, you can go back and watch it. It's beautiful. The title of the message was Extreme Extravagant Grace.

The idea that God is pouring out seed everywhere, even though he knows some seed will fall on rocky paths. Even though he knows some seed will fall on 565 and is not a good place to plant a garden. He sows anyways, because that is his nature. The takeaway for me last week was so anyways, no matter if you think the person will receive it or not, so anyways, so kindness anyways, so love anyways, so patience anyways. You're not responsible for what they do with the message.

God doesn't cause us to have that responsibility of them receiving him. But. But he does give us the responsibility of sowing sow anyways. And so then he gets to this place and we're picking up right after the parable of the sower, this parable called the parable of the weeds. The parable of the weeds.

And I thought, well, why don't we call it the parable of the wheat and the weeds? Some call it the parable of the tares. Tares, meaning false wheat. False wheat. Why parable of the weeds?

Well, if you count it, it says the word weeds eight times. It says wheat only three times. This teaching was not focused on the wheat. It was focused on the weeds. So we call it the parable of the weeds.

That's why we call it that. Jesus says the kingdom of heaven could be compared to this. And he gives this beautiful picture that we just read from the text about this farmer who sows good seed. And then while everyone is sleeping, an enemy comes and sows weeds among it. And then when it sprouts up, the servants are like, what in the world?

Why are there weeds here? Should we go gather them? And you get this picture. And then it says, verse 36, that Jesus pulls away from the crowd. And the Holy Spirit stopped me there, and he said, you know what?

That's a reminder to us. Sometimes we really like the crowds. Sometimes we like the attention of the crowds. Jesus says, you know what? There's time for crowds and there's a time for pulling away.

There's a balance. We see that in Jesus. You also see that who the. The disciples go to Jesus and say, could you explain to us what this means? Could you explain to us what this parable means?

Take away. When we don't know, we go to who does know. When we don't know, we go to Jesus. We can ask him. We don't understand Jesus and he teaches us.

We learn that from the disciples here. So they ask him for some godly insight and he breaks it down. Now, if you're a note taker like me, this is beautiful. You just get real busy right here, just writing. This is what it says.

It says, the one who sowed good seed is Jesus, the son of man. He tells us who it is. Thank you, Jesus. He says, what is the field? The world?

What is the good seed? People of the kingdom, what is the weeds? People of the evil one. Who is the enemy? The devil.

What is the harvest? The end of the age? And who are the harvesters? The angels. Jesus himself explains that parable.

So then we say, okay, Pastor Emily, we're done. We can go home now. Not so fast, not so fast. So we're going to break down what this means. First, us.

Number one, the wheat versus the weeds. The wheat versus the weeds. The wheat vs. The weeds. The weed here was referred to as the darnel weed.

Say darnel. It's just fun to say the darnel weed. And what this means is in the Middle Eastern climate there, this darnel weed look nearly identical to wheat. So when the seeds were sown and they begin to sprout up, you can't tell them apart. The wheat and the weeds look almost indistinguishable from each other.

In the early stages, you can't tell the difference. Now there's a danger of the weed. What's the big deal? Now, because this is just us here, I'm going to share this little funny with you. We.

When I was studying, I'm not a farmer, not a harvester, don't know much about weeds. And so I decided to do a Google search, what's the danger of the weeds? And all of a sudden I was learning lots about the danger of cannabis and I realized I was in the wrong Google search. So that's just a takeaway. There were some dangers, but that's not my focus today.

Okay, so here, what is the big deal? Well, the idea of these weeds is it could contaminate the wheat crop. It could destroy. It turns out that weeds have poison in their roots. There's poison.

If you ingest too much of the weeds, it's toxic to humans or animals, it can kill you there is a weed, funny fact, called the giant hogweed. And if you touch it, you can get third degree burns. True story, third degree. It causes permanent scarring. Some of you know that when weeds start, it's almost.

You can't stop them. They just keep spreading and spreading. Weeds can grow through concrete. That's how resilient they are. Back in the Bible times, this idea of going and creeping onto someone's property to sabotage their fields, it really happened.

They actually had fines. It was illegal to do this. They would creep over and sow seeds of weed to destroy someone else's crop. This was really happening. The problem is you don't know the difference between the wheat and the weeds until it's fully grown.

How do you know the difference? Well, the weeds never produce fruit. So one day that wheat begins to bloom and to grow grain, and then you can tell them apart. But at first you can't tell the difference. It's only when the wheat becomes mature and bears fruit and the weeds never do that, you know.

The difference between the wheat and the weeds becomes apparent when the wheat matures. So what's the point? The good seed is Christians who have repented and entered into a relationship with Jesus. And the evil ones, they can look similar for a time. The Christian and the world can look similar for a time.

But there should be a time in the life of a Christian when the fruit of the Spirit begins to boil over and the fruit of the Holy Spirit becomes apparent. And the world knows that you are wheat because of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is only when the wheat becomes mature that we can tell the difference. The world will only know that you are good seed, that you are wheat because of the fruit that begins to bloom and mature in your life. So if you never bear fruit, how does the world know?

How does the world know?

The world can see the evil in comparison to the Holy. Another way of saying that is because the holy becomes apparent. The evil is made clear. Can you see the weeds? The wheat and the weeds are not the same.

Remember, on the inside of the weeds is pointed poison. It's dangerous. Don't touch that. But only when the wheat matures and bears fruit do we know it's not a weed. Are you maturing in Jesus?

Are you living Spirit filled? Is there fruit of the Holy Spirit evident in your life? Or have you settled for looking like weeds?

Number two. There are two sowers. There are two sowers. How many sowers are there? There are two.

Y' all are listening. And I Like it, Number one is the one who plants good seed. And it says, he plants good seed. Where? In his field.

In his field. Now, who is that farmer? That's none other than Jesus himself. Jesus is the farmer. He calls himself the Son of Man, showing his deity.

It refers back to the book of Daniel with the prophetic language when they say someone like the Son of Man is coming. Who is the Messiah? Jesus is on the scene, and he is teaching about this farmer who sows good seed, the Son of man, showing his deity. He is going to sow. And what does he do?

He sows good seed. So. So I asked myself, what does it mean to sow? What does it mean to sow? It means to place seeds in or on the ground for future growth.

The definition, you look this up, it actually means to scatter on the ground in order to grow. Wait, wait, did you hear that? To scatter, to grow. And I thought, well, thank you, Jesus, because here at harvest point, we gather on Sunday, but then we scatter in our groups for what? For growth, for discipleship.

We scatter to grow. That's what the sower does. He scatters for growth. And I love this because it says he sows what? He sows good seed.

Good seed. And I looked up, what does good mean here? And the word means genuine, beautiful, honorable, precious, noble, praiseworthy. This is how Jesus refers to you. Noble, honorable, praiseworthy, genuine, beautiful seed.

And he scatters it in his field. And I love that he says his. He takes ownership. This is whose world this is. This is Jesus world.

And he says, I'm going to scatter this genuine seed all over the world. Friends, there's an owner of the field, and that is Jesus Christ, and he is scattering us for growth. You have a purpose today. You have been scattered where you are, in your family, at your job, your community, on purpose. Scattered there to show growth on purpose.

Planted to be salt and light. You, friends, are planted on purpose. We are here now on purpose, and we are sowed to grow here. But the danger is there's not just one farmer. It said there was another one.

There was a second sower. And who was that? The enemy. The enemy. Satan, who plants the weeds, says he came at night when he saw opportunity, when he thought someone else was resting.

Satan will sneak in and sow bad or evil seed. He takes advantage when the farmer is resting. What's the point? The devil is real, friends. The devil is real.

Jesus confirms the existence of the enemy with this parable. You don't have to wonder. Is There really a Satan? Is there really a devil? No.

Jesus is teaching. He says, there is an enemy, and his name is Satan. We have an enemy. We have an enemy. And do you wonder what Satan comes to do?

What does John 10:10 tell us? He comes to steal, kill and destroy. That is what his intention is. He wants to steal from you. He wants to kill you.

He wants to destroy you. He has evil plans for your family. He has evil plans for your reputation. He has evil plans for your ministry. He wants to steal, he wants to kill.

He wants to destroy. And he tries to creep in under the shadow of darkness when you're not expecting it. He is real and Jesus is confirming his existence in this very text. He is good at being sneaky. But if you listen to the rest of John 10:10 and I'm about to get excited, help me, Jesus.

In the end of John 10:10, what does it say? He said, but I have come. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Who wants full life? Anybody else want full life?

The word here for full means more abundantly, exceedingly. And you look it up in the Greek and this excites all of Emily. And it says this, much more than all. And I said, okay, Jesus, what is much more than all? He says, you think about all I have for you, but the life I give you is much more than all.

I can't even put that into words what that means. You're going to let the Holy Spirit just sit right there and show you individually what much more than all means. That is who he is. That's good. So number three, he says, allow them to grow together.

Allow them to grow together. Now notice in the parable here, Jesus points out that the servants came to the farmer and said, did you not sow good seed in your field? I love this question. Hear their question, Jesus, if you're a good God, why is there evil here? If you sow good seed, did you not say you sowed good?

Because I'm looking out at this field and there's some weeds up in here. Did you not say that you sowed good seed? Where did these weeds come from?

If you're good and this is your field and you sowed good, then why is there evil here? Why are there weeds here? They don't belong here. Jesus, why would a good God allow evil in this world? And listen to the parable as Jesus answers the question to that is very simple.

What does he say? He says, an enemy has done this. An enemy has done this. It's A simple answer. God did not sow evil in this world.

God did not sow evil here. That was never his intention. But we have an enemy. We have an enemy, and sin is prevalent here. The truth is that while we are here, there is good and there is evil and we are coexisting.

There is good and there is evil, and we are coexisting. And Jesus is saying that he allows it. What? What? Listen to the next question the servants ask.

Okay, so you didn't sow it, but there's evil here and the enemy sowed it. So. So do you want us to go and gather them? Jesus, do you want us to go and pull all them weeds up and let's get rid of them? Has anybody ever felt that way?

He says, do you? Can we just handle that here now and just be done with it? And the farmer says, no. Why? Here's the thing.

When the weeds and the wheat are growing and looking very similar, what was happening under the soil? The roots have become intertwined. And if you pull up the wheat too early or pull up the weeds too early, you can pull up the wheat with the weeds. He said, you may try to pull up just the wheat, but you'll pull up the wheat with it. He said, no, it's not time yet.

He did not want the wheat uprooted. So in his kindness, he waits to remove the weeds. Notice the grace to grow. The extravagant grace of the sower that we talked about last week, allowing grace for us to grow. Jesus says, and I love it, and I think it's beautiful.

Let both of them grow together. Let both of them grow together. You may not like that. Jesus says, let both of them grow together until the harvest. Growing together for a certain amount of time.

Isn't it dangerous, Jesus? Isn't that a dangerous idea to allow wheat and weeds to be together? Have you thought this through? Because we thought you would come on the scene and set up your kingdom here and destroy all them weeds. And Jesus says, I come to break all kinds of expectations.

The idea that you have of my kingdom looks different than my idea for my kingdom, and it's not time yet. Because I am a God of grace. I am a God of grace. A grace to allow my wheat to mature and bear fruit. And I don't want any to die and to perish.

So I'm going to give grace for the weeds, pleading that they would turn to me. I allow time. 2nd Peter 3, 9. God is patient not wanting anyone to perish. He said, there's a time for Repentance.

Now is the time where redemption is possible. You see, the heart of Jesus, the heart of the Father, the heart of the gardener. Now is the time that they grow together. You may think, you know, Jesus could have, at the time when we accepted Christ as our Savior, took us from earth and put us in heaven with him. He didn't do that, did he?

He allows us here because of grace. Because of grace. So we're sowed here intentionally. We're sowed here on purpose. We're surrounded by weeds.

During the time of possible redemption, we. But what good is an unfruitful plant that just blends in with the weeds? What use is there any for useless wheat? Hmm?

Number four. A harvest is coming. Harvest is coming, friends. He allows the wheat and the weeds to grow together for a time when. But there will be a reckoning.

There will be a harvest. Judgment will come. There will be a separation. There will be a time when the wheat and the weeds will no longer be together. He says, at the harvest, I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles.

For what? To be burned. But gather the wheat into my barn.

There's a whole message there about burned or barn, but I'm not going there. But harvest is coming. And he says many aren't thinking about it. Many of us aren't even paying attention, that there's coming a day when there will be a separation. We have friends that are weeds.

We go to school with weeds. We have family members who are weeds. Do you think about that? There will be a time when they will be separated and the time of redemption will cease. The time of opportunity for repentance will be no more.

Now is the time. Now is the time when there is opportunity for salvation. What does he say? He says there will be a time when what's going to happen? There is sorrow.

There is weeping and gnashing of teeth. When you think about weeping, you think about sorrow, you think about tears. And then that phrase, gnashing of teeth. When I've heard that growing up, whenever I heard that being preached, gnashing of teeth, I thought about pain, that you were in so much pain that there would be gnashing of teeth. But if you study the Word in the Bible, yes, it means pain.

But even more than that, I look at the Word, how it's used throughout Scripture when it uses the word gnashing of teeth. It is anger. This anger. They are gnashing their teeth in anger. They will realize that they have missed the opportunity to be in the kingdom of God forever.

There will be a harvest. Friends. How many die every day while wheat is in the field? What are we doing? What are we doing?

This life, this brief life that we have here is not about money. It's not about followers. It's not about how many likes we have on Instagram. We have a purpose here as wheat. It matters.

Friends. What do we do with our time? How is our prayer life? How is your prayer life? Do you weep for souls?

Do you pray for our missionaries all over his field? Are you praying for your loved ones that don't know him yet?

What do we support with our finances? What do we support with our with our money? How do we spend our time in our activities? Are we even thinking about the weeds that are around us? How do you serve?

Have we settled for being useless wheat in the time where this is the time of redemption and it is possible for weeds to turn to him? Have we settled for being useless? Friends? He has planted you where you are on purpose. And he has allowed us grace to grow together for this time.

For this time. If you won't pray for them, then who will when it comes to your family, if you won't plead for them, who will? Grace. Grace. He says a time will come when the righteous will shine like the sun.

Don't you love that beautiful verse? The righteous will shine like the sun. There will be no darkness. There will be no evil. There will be no weeds.

Where he says, in the kingdom with our Father, our future hope. But until then, friends, will you heed this lesson from the Messiah? How does he end this passage? He says, he who has ears, let him hear. Will you reflect on this parable?

Today is the day of salvation. If you have not accepted Christ as your Savior, you know that if you died now, you would spend eternity away from him. I have really good news for you. You. And the good news is today is a day of salvation.

You have an opportunity to enter in into the kingdom of God today.

Some of us already have a relationship with Jesus, but are we living a spirit filled, fruitful life? Or are we just worried about our own desires? Are we living as wheat among the weeds? Or are we fruitless and we just blend in with the weeds? Are we missing the opportunity that God has for us to right now shine as wheat for him?

Will you live spirit filled? And some of us need to just pray? Would you make me useful wheat Jesus? Will you make me use wheat? Wheat?

It's not our responsibility to come up with our own fruit. We don't stick fruit on us that's the Holy Spirit's job. But we surrender ourselves and say, will you make us useful wheat? Friends, will you stand to your feet where you are? I'm going to pray for us.

We'll have a time of response.

Holy Spirit, we thank you, thank you for this parable, this parable of the weeds where you've showed us very clearly the difference. Sometimes the wheat and the weeds are almost indistinguishable. But there comes a time when the wheat will sprout and bear fruit and then the world knows the difference. Holy Spirit, we need you to transform our lives that we could be fruitful and we could be useful wheat for you. Father, you have planted us.

You have planted this good seed all over your field. Why you want to use us? You want to use us in this world? Jesus, we don't want to miss this opportunity to serve you as useful wheat. Father, now is the time of salvation.

Now is the error of redemption. There will be a time where we will be separated. But now you have us here on purpose, intentionally. Jesus, will you help us to have passion about being about your business? Father, the world tries to distract us and make us think that this is our agenda and we have our own calendars and we have our own busyness and we are.

But you want to use us there on the soccer field, you want to use us there at the gym, you want to use us there in our neighborhood. Father, make us useful weed and Jesus, I pray that if there is someone here that knows they are a weed, that knows they are a weed and have not accepted you and they're feeling that call even now they're feeling you're speaking to their heart, you're drawing them. What a gift that is that you speak to us. What a gift that is that you call us. Holy Spirit.

I pray that they would have the courage to step out of their seat to come and kneel on either side here and ask you to come and make your home within them and fill them with your spirit. Jesus, for some of us here that know you, but know that we have not been living spirit filled lives that we have been blending in with the other weeds. Father, forgive us, forgive us. Strip any of our own self desires away so we can be used completely for you. Fill us, Holy Spirit, with all of you take away all of our own self.

Make us useful. We pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.