Weeds Among Wheat: Trust God's Harvest and Timing

``No matter what political spectrum you find yourself in, if you look at a particular news site, you'll find that there's plenty of evidence of evil in this world. And as people who believe that Jesus is king, who has come to usher in his kingdom of justice and peace and love and joy, when those things are presented in stark contrast to the evil that we see in our world, it makes us wonder whether or not the kingdom of God is coming or here at all. [00:00:32] (32 seconds)  #KingdomVsChaos

Why is there evil in the world? Because there is an enemy of God who is presently still at work. This means all the evil in this world is not random. It has a cause. There is an enemy of God who is at work in this world. Described in this parable as at nighttime when the servants of Jesus are rightly resting at night, laboring after a hot day, and the enemy comes in at night, sneaks into the field, and plants weeds alongside the wheat. [00:06:35] (33 seconds)  #ChurchPlantingIsWarfare

This reminds us that everything that is done for God and his kingdom, every good thing done to advance his kingdom will not happen without opposition. Every single effort of God's seed planted in this world, sons and daughters who are establishing His kingdom, living rightly, proclaiming the gospel. Every time we try and do anything for the sake of the kingdom, there will be opposition. Every time you as an individual actively engage in God's kingdom, there will be opposition. [00:07:08] (42 seconds)  #KingReignsEvilRemains

And so when we cast vision and pray and learn about church planting, I want you to know there will be evil in our midst. It is going to be spiritual warfare and so when we plant it, there's excitement, there's a lot of energy around that idea, but I want you to be deeply aware that if we try and do anything for the kingdom of God, tries to expand God's presence in this world, there will be evil. [00:07:50] (30 seconds)  #DoubtFromDistraction

By simply saying we want to do it, there may be more evil in our midst because there is an enemy who is at work trying to stop, but we'll see he cannot stop the work of the king. [00:08:19] (17 seconds)  #SlowToCondemn

Evil is a present reality because there is an enemy at work. It is not random. It's not merely the sins of people, although that's how the evil one works. There's an active person who God permits for a time to work in this world. Now this idea of an enemy going out in the analogy here of planting weeds alongside the wheat was not just imaginary. [00:08:36] (27 seconds)  #ChurchPrioritiesCheck

They come with questions that actually I think reveal growing doubt and speculation regarding their master. They're asking rhetorical questions that they already know the answer to, and I think the questions that they're asking are not just neutral, and I think they're meant to be a warning to us if we have ears to hear. When you shift your focus away from the master to the enemy and the problems in the world, it's very easy to fall prey to doubt and speculation about your master. When you pay more attention to Satan than you do to God, it's very easy to start questioning the goodness and justice and authority of God. [00:11:12] (43 seconds)  #GospelOverPolitics

They know exactly who their master is. They know what he has done. They'd ask him, didn't you plant good seed? And so they didn't know the answer to that. But their focus is now shifting away from the master to the enemy and it's causing them to doubt him. When they see the weeds in the field, they come to question what they think they know about their master. [00:11:55] (23 seconds)  #ActWithWisdom

And here here at least say this positively. No matter how bad things look, no matter how many weeds are out in the field, God is still good. But our temptation is to doubt it. No matter how things are in the world, I took a look at the news just briefly on Friday. It's a lot of terrible things at the local level, at the national, at the international level, from a economic level, from health every single level. No matter how chaotic, no matter how many weeds are out there, God is still good. [00:12:21] (36 seconds)  #GodIsGoodAlways

You notice how their how question is our modern why question? We see corruption, weeds in the world and we ask why is there corruption, Lord? This past week, maybe you read about immorality of Philippiansi And we ask, why, Lord, is there immorality? Or you see injustice, maybe even in your job. You look at that in the world and you say, why is there injustice, Lord? Is God good but not powerful? Is he powerful but not good? Is he good and powerful but just unaware or ignorant or indifferent? Why? [00:13:24] (45 seconds)  #EnemyAtWork

Faith trusts God's answer even if we don't have all the details, doubt demands God to explain things. God gives an answer. There's an enemy hesitant on this. We want more though. We demand that God explain things. When we see weeds in the field, maybe your response is speculation and doubt. [00:14:24] (26 seconds)  #StayFocusedOnJesus

That's so descriptive of us today. Jesus rebukes them because they wanna do something. God's either rejecting you, just call down fire to destroy them all. They wanna run into the field to deal with weeds. Now again, this isn't a sermon on what to do. There is a place for activity in some way. There is a time to act, but often it's not the way we think. [00:16:45] (27 seconds)  #EvilCannotWin

This is calling into question our desire to try and do something way too quickly before we understand. The unfortunate reality of this desire to respond by digging up weeds, trying to deal with the evil is that the church in America is more concerned with weeds than we are with the gospel. You ever notice? If you look at the church today, just in our country, don't think about the world, I don't I don't really know the church in the world that well, but think about the church in America. Are we more concerned with evil than we are with God himself? [00:17:12] (34 seconds)  #WrestlingWithWhy

Are we trying to do something about the evil or are we actually about the things of the Lord that he calls us to do in terms of making disciples, proclaiming his word? We think it's our job to deal with non Christians. It's a sad thing. We we we think our job is to go out and dig up the weeds to deal with the evil people. It's a sad reality when people in our country know where Christians are politically than they know what we think about Jesus. Maybe we're too busy with the weeds or thinking we can do something about the weeds than we actually are about the master. [00:17:46] (37 seconds)  #EvilHasAMaster

Maybe you're distracted. Maybe you've taken your eyes off the master and now you're growing in doubt and speculation. Or maybe you're not growing in doubt and speculation, you're distracted by trying to spend all your time on the weeds rather than the things of the master. [00:19:11] (18 seconds)  #ProtectTheWheat

His answer to their request is a very simple, no. Don't mess with my field, servants. I'm more concerned with the wheat. You seem to be wrapped up in the weeds. He's telling us if we mess with the weeds, we may get in the way of what he's doing with the wheat. [00:19:47] (22 seconds)  #PatientOverReaction

Maybe we should be very careful about canceling people or following certain people because maybe we actually don't know the difference between weeds and wheat. Maybe we should be very slow to condemn and very slow to follow. What may look like wheat actually may be strong weed. [00:21:32] (23 seconds)  #FaithNotDemand

It appears at first when Jesus tells his servants who wanna go cut down the weeds that he's indifferent. But here's the thing we need to understand. He's not indifferent. He's not impotent. He just has a different timeline than we do. He has a very different expectation of how to deal with things than we do. We want to deal with evil and weeds now, but he wants to let it grow together until the harvest. He can tell the difference. [00:24:19] (31 seconds)  #TrustGodsTiming

We can't. And the reason he's gonna explain why he lets them grow together, but he he's gonna deal with them. What happens to evil at the end? He deals with it. He wins. He waits until the end of the age, and then he sends his reapers, we know to be angels, to deal, and he can separate out. He can carefully understand who the weeds are and he will separate them out to be burned and he will gather the wheat, the good seed that bore fruit into his barn. God is waiting until the end of the age, the harvest to deal with evil, where his kingdom will reign eternally, justice will prevail forever. [00:24:50] (39 seconds)  #KingdomFacesOpposition

See here's what happens to evil at the end, evil cannot win. Satan as much as he's trying to do something to damage the kingdom, he cannot stop the kingdom of God. The evil one's busy planting weeds in the field but no matter what he does, God will have his harvest at the end. [00:27:21] (27 seconds)  #DontCreateMoreWeeds