The Story the Wheat and the Weeds (Luke 8:4-18)

Creekside Community Church 951 MacArthur Blvd San Leandro, CA 94577 Series: The Stories of Jesus By: John Bruce, Pastor January 16, 2011 The Story the Wheat and the Weeds (Luke 8:4-18) Robert McKee is probably the world s best known and most respected screen writing lecturer. He taught USC s School of Cinema and Television before forming his own company, Two- Arts, to take his lectures on the art of storytelling worldwide to an audience of writers, directors, producers, actors, and entertainment executives. McKee s students have written, directed, and produced hundreds of hit films, winning 18 Academy awards, 109 Emmies, 19 Writers Guild Awards, and 16 Directors Guild of America Awards. I recently read an interview the Harvard Business Review did with him on the role of story telling in persuasion in the business world. According to McKee, a big part of business is persuasion, persuading people to buy your product and persuading the people who work for you to reach certain goals. There s a couple of ways you can do that. McKee says you can do it the conventional way with facts and figures and graphs and quotes - which usually only succeeds in getting people to argue with you about their facts, figures, graphs and quotes, and even if they re persuaded, you ve only touched their intellect. Or you can unite an idea with an emotion by telling a story. Because in a story, you not only can weave in a lot of information, you can arouse people s emotions and energy. Telling stories is a far better method of persuasion than arguing. Which is why Jesus told stories which the Bible calls parables. A parable is a short, simple story taken from everyday life which has a deeper meaning. We re going to look at a different story of Jesus each week between now and Easter; at what that story meant to those who heard it first and then what it means to us. We began with the story of the soils because Jesus explains what it meant. Today we re going to look at the only other story Jesus told where He explains what it means and then we ll talk about what the story means for us today: the story of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13. "Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. Most of Jesus stories picture the kingdom or rule of God in the world today. The Jews expected the kingdom of heaven to be a political kingdom with God s Messiah reigning over the world in Jerusalem and making everything right that is wrong - because that s what the Old Testament taught. But the Old Testament also taught that kingdom will not come until Israel repents and believes in the Messiah - something that wasn t happening during Jesus ministry. So Jesus tells these stories to describe what the kingdom of God will look like between the first time He came and the next time He comes - the time in which we re living. The kingdom is now an invisible, spiritual kingdom which Jesus describes in this story. "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. This is the place the line between practical jokes and dirty tricks is crossed. Imagine having a neighbor who hated you so much that one night, he snuck into your garden, sowing seeds of weeds everywhere. You d have a ton of work to undo what he d done. But suppose you were a farmer and he sowed weeds in your crop. Now he s endangering your livelihood. You could lose the entire crop. Because tares are a weed which looks just like wheat but is poisonous to eat. Even experts can t tell them apart. The seeds of wheat and tares are similar and the plants are indistinguishable - until the wheat bears grain. Remember, the parables are taken from everyday life and so apparently, this kind of thing went on. The ancient Romans had laws on the books forbidding this very thing. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' Up until this point, the crop has looked great. But now it s evident that a lot of the plants in the field are weeds. And he said to them, 'An enemy has done this!' The slaves said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?' "Do you want us to pull out those weeds?" But he said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares, 1

you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn. " Matt 13:24-30 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." As we saw last week in the story of the soils, Jesus disciples don t understand the parables any better than the crowd. But they ask. By the way, this will be the last parable which Jesus explains. Next week, we re on our own. And He said, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, that s what Jesus calls Himself and the field is the world; The man who sowed the good seed is obviously the owner of the land and Jesus is the owner of this world. and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; In the story of the soils, the seed was the word of God, but in this story, the seed is people who have been transformed by the word. God scatters His people throughout the world in order to bear fruit and reproduce more disciples of Christ. Christ s strategy to win the world has always been quiet infiltration, scattering people who have been transformed by His Spirit and His word throughout the world to win more people to follow Him. Because what wins people to Christ is not big events, not church services, not pastors, but ordinary Christians living extraordinary lives, scattered throughout society who give the people who know them the opportunity to see Christ in them and to hear about Him through them. One thing we ll see in a number of Jesus stories is how the kingdom grows quietly and invisibly through the influence of the sons of light. Infiltration is Christ s strategy but imitation is the devil s strategy. Jesus goes on to say, "and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, " Remember, tares are indistinguishable from wheat - the plants look exactly the same - until the wheat bears fruit. That s why when Jesus warns of false prophets, He says, "By their fruits you will know them." The devil scatters his people - people who are rebels like himself - but who look like Christians and talk like Christians among the sons of the kingdom to ruin the harvest of people coming to know Christ. There are people who are in obvious opposition to Christ - atheists, people from other religions - but they don t do half the damage phony Christians do. How many people have you seen turned off to Christ and to church because of what so-called Christian said or did? "and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." Matt 13:36-43 Notice that the tares and the wheat will continue to grow together until the final judgment and then they will be separated from one another and the true children of God will be revealed as they are clothed with the same glory as their risen Lord while the phonies are thrown into hell. So what s the point of the story? Until Jesus returns, there will be real Christians and there will be counterfeit Christians in the kingdom of God. God is scattering His children around the world and the devil is scattering his. There will always be good people and there will always be evil people in the church, people who have truly been born again as God s children and people who pretend to have been born again. And this became immediately evident in the first century church. It s easy to romanticize the early church and to imagine that the first Christians didn t struggle with the problems churches have today. But history tells us that not much has changed. There were false Christians in the first century church just like there have been false Christians throughout history. Jesus had his Judas. Peter had Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. In Acts 8, Simon the magician appears to become a Christian until Peter exposes him. In Acts 20, Paul warns the leaders of the church of Ephesus that after he leaves, savage wolves will arise from within the church and seek to lead the people away from Christ. You read through the epistles of the New Testament and time after time, we see that the biggest problems the early church faced were from within: people bringing paganism and legalism and mysticism and gnosticism into the church, dressed up in Christian terminology. The church has always had tares - just like Jesus said it would. So what do we do with this story? I think what the owner says to his servants in the story applies directly to us. What do we do about phonies and hypocrites? Institute another Inquisition? Purify the church? Remember what happened in the story? The slaves said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?' But he said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Purifying the church always hurts the innocent as well as the guilty. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; 2

Here s what I think Jesus is saying to us. "Allow both to grow together until the harvest." I d like to suggest some ways this command applies to us today. First, "allow both to grow together until the harvest," means we don t give into despair about the condition of the church. We don t give up on the church or throw away our faith because every Christian we know doesn t act like Jesus. I ve met a lot of people over the years who have stopped attending church. My mom was one. She said, "They re all hypocrites and I m not going back." She was disillusioned with her church. And there were hypocrites in her church. You ask, "How do you know?" Because there are hypocrites in every church. That s the point of this story. The real and the counterfeit will grow up together until the harvest. The fact that there are people who call themselves followers of Jesus but act like followers of the devil shouldn t shake our faith. Because Jesus said this would happen. History is full of examples of pastors and leaders and godly people who seemed to be following Christ, only to fall away from Him, some into immorality, others into heresy, others into greed. And as a result, people s faith was shattered. "If he s not real, then the faith he preached must not be real either." But Jesus said there will always be tares among the wheat until He returns. So don t freak out when it happens. Our faith is in Him - not in any person. Second, "allow both to grow together until the harvest," means we don t attempt to separate ourselves from the tares. Christians have been on a quest throughout the history of the church to form the pure church. We sure were when we started Creekside 20 years ago. We weren t going to make the mistakes other churches were making; we weren t going to be full of lukewarm, compromised Christians, we weren t going to honor our denominational traditions over the Bible, we were going back to the blueprints from the first century and design a pure church. I don t think there s anything wrong with wanting to improve the product. There are a lot of things we can improve in and when you start a new one, it s just smart to learn from the mistakes of the others. But no church will ever be pure because no Christians are pure. We re all infected with sin and that infection influences our minds, our emotions and our wills. And there will always be tares in every church, counterfeit Christians whose perspectives, values and priorities are shaped by the culture and - frankly - by the devil rather than by the Bible. As a result, some Christians become nomads, moving from church to church in their search for the perfect church and others stop attending altogether and worship at home as a family and call that church. Yet Jesus said, "Allow both to grow together until the harvest," We re not to leave the church to the tares and we re not to throw the tares out of the church. Instead, we re to love the church, the bride of Christ, as imperfect as she is because Jesus loves her and keep working together to make her everything the Bible says she s to be. Third, "allow both to grow together until the harvest," means we re not to judge each other until the harvest. Because it s not until the harvest that judgment comes and the tares are removed out of the wheat. And Jesus does the judging. I can t tell who the real Christians are now - and neither can you. You can only know if you re the real deal, and we ll talk a little more about how in a minute. Until the wheat bears fruit, it is indistinguishable from the tares. And so, if a person tells me he s a Christian, I take him at his word - until the fruit of his life makes it obvious that he s not. But I thought Christians were to judge one another. I thought that if you see your brother in sin, you re to tell him and try to persuade him to repent. And if he doesn t, you re to take a couple of more people with you to talk with him. And if still doesn t repent, he s to be brought before the church and if he still doesn t repent, he s to be asked to leave the church until he does repent. And that is what Jesus says in Matt. 18. We are to judge behavior - not to condemn but to help. But we re not in a position to judge a person s salvation or the value of their service to God. That s why Paul writes in 1 Cor 4:3-5 " But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God." Paul says, "You re not my judge; Christ is. So let s stop judging each other and instead wait for Jesus who will sort everything out in the end. He knows the things hidden in the dark. He knows our true motives. And at the harvest, everybody else will know. The righteous will shine and the wicked will be removed. 3

Fourth, "allow both to grow together until the harvest," means that since I ll always be surrounded by tares, I need to be careful not to be gullible. When I was younger, I read a lot of books and listened to a lot of speakers about how we grow as Christians. As a result, I incurred a lot of damage. Because what I read and what I heard these speakers say was that I didn t need to do anything to grow spiritually; if fact, I couldn t do anything to grow spiritually; that my only responsibility was to trust God. Surrender myself to Christ and passively wait for Him to grow me up. I heard a lot of people describe the joy and the power that came when they gave up trying to live the Christian life and simply began trusting Christ to live it through them, to let go and to let God. I wanted to be holy, I wanted to be obedient, I wanted to be free of my sins. But it didn t work for me. I would let go and let God but He didn t seem to want to get involved. I continued to struggle with the same sins year after year. I began to doubt my faith, doubt that all this really worked, doubt that Christ really was all that powerful in me - until I read my Bible. And I discovered that while the Bible does say that we can t do anything apart from Christ, it also says that it is only as we get engaged and obey and act that we actually experience His power. The life the Bible describes isn t passive at all. It s active. It s 100% me and 100% God. My life changed once I understood that spiritual growth is a partnership. There are things God must do (and has done) and there are things I must do. But for years, my spiritual growth was stunted because of false teaching. Nobody warned me that just because a book is written by a Christian, or just because someone went to seminary or is highly respected in the church doesn t guarantee they re right. Which is why the New Testament warns us over and over to beware of the false prophets, to not associate with people whose teaching does not conform to the words of Christ, to be careful that what we believe is what the Bible teaches. Because in this field, the wheat is surrounded by tares and by a lot of confused wheat. Not everything Christians say or write is true. I m not saying they re not sincere; I m just saying that sometimes they re sincerely wrong. That s why we need to test everything people tell us, every sermon we hear, every book we read by what the Bible says. Our faith is in the word of God, not in what any person tells us, no matter how educated or successful or famous they may be. Your faith needs to be in the Scriptures, not in what I say or what anybody else says. The point of the story of the wheat and the weeds is that until Jesus returns, there will be real Christians and there will be counterfeit Christians in the kingdom of God. So how do I know if I m wheat or just a weed that looks like wheat? A son of the kingdom or a son of the evil one? Jesus gives us a clue at the end of the story. Remember, He said, "The Son of Man will send forth His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness." The tares are by nature lawless people. The apostle John develops this further in chapter 3 of 1 John where he contrasts the behavior of the children of God with the behavior of the children of the devil. Look at 1 John 3:4. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. Lawlessness means living outside the law or living without laws, refusing to recognize God s authority over us. His commands and laws, mean nothing to us. We don t care or even consider His will for our lives. We live only for our will. And lawlessness is the essence of sin. Sin isn t just breaking laws, it s rejecting the very concept of law. Nobody tells me what to do. I m in charge. I m in control, and I ll do what I want. Now the word "practice" is the key to understanding this passage because it appears all the way through it.. When John talks about practicing sin and lawlessness, he s talking about sinning, living without law, living under no authority but my own, as a habit of life. Its what I do naturally, almost unconsciously. It just feels right. Look at what John says a little later in 1 John 3:9-10 "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother." Anybody can say they know God. Anybody can say God has spoken to them. It s easy to be fooled by people who sound spiritual. But John says the one thing people can t fake is their basic nature. The person who practices righteousness as a habit of life - not just an occasional good deed - is born of God. The person who practices sin as a habit of life - not just an occasional sin - is of the devil. A good tree produces good fruit and a bad one produces bad fruit. Our normal, everyday behavior reveals our true nature and our true nature reveals our true family. That s why John says that if I ve truly been born of God, it will change my nature and my habits. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, (habitually) because he is born of God. Notice that John doesn t say that he who is born of God doesn t practice sin. He says He cannot practice sin - because he s born of God. We re all infected with sin and we all naturally practice sin. It s just our nature. I can t change my basic nature but God can. And because of the great love He has for us He sent His 4

Son to become a man to free us from our slavery to sin. Jesus was the first and last man to live a truly righteous - the life that Adam and all his children were created to live - so that His Father can credit that righteousness to all who simply trust Him. He died the death we deserve to die, bearing the punishment for our sins on the cross so that we can be released from the guilt of our sins. He rose from the dead, defeating death for humanity so that we can live eternally and not die. And when we put our faith in Him, He comes to live in us and makes us new people. The person we used to be dies and a new me is born with a new nature, the nature of a child of God. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He changes our basic nature through the new birth. He frees the slave of sin by making him a new man. That s why John doesn t say that if I m truly born of God, I shouldn t practice sin. He says I can t practice sin, because Christ s nature (His seed) is now in me and I m a new man. Which is why John summarizes the entire chapter in vs. 10 with By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. Is John saying that if I sin, I m not a Christian? That I haven t really been born of God? That I m a tare in the wheat? No, John is not saying that the mark of a true child of God is sinless perfection. In chapter 1, of 1 John, he says that anyone who says he doesn t sin is deceiving himself. We all sin and will continue to sin until we enter eternity. So what s changed? We all sin but we can no longer practice sin - habitually, automatically and mindlessly. Before Christ came into my life, sin was natural for me. I didn t even think about it. When it was uncomfortable for me to tell the truth or the truth made me look bad, I automatically lied - without even thinking about it. When I wanted something, I went after it, never considering whether God wanted me to have it or not. When somebody offended me - depending on how big they were - I either lashed out or simmered inside, never questioning whether I was in the right or not. The only law I considered was the law of my own desires. But when I asked Christ to be my Savior and Lord and He came into my life, all suddenly that changed. I didn t stop sinning but I stopped sinning automatically and habitually. In the first few weeks of having Christ in my life, I began feeling bad about things I had never felt bad about before. Things I used to do without thinking, I couldn t do any longer without feeling bad about them. I didn t stop sinning but my attitude toward sin changed. For the first time, sin bothered me because I had been born again and had a new nature. For the first time, there was a war going on inside of me between good and evil. What used to be natural to me had become unnatural and what used to be unnatural became natural. I still sinned but I could no longer practice sin - habitually, mindlessly and automatically - because Christ was in me and had changed my nature from a son of the devil to a son of God. So how can I tell if I m truly born again? By this the children of God and the children of the devil (What Jesus called the wheat and the tares) are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. If you believe that Christ is in you, let me ask you some questions. Has your life changed since Christ entered into it? Do you have a growing desire for righteousness and a growing disdain for sin? Does sinning bother you or are you still mindlessly sinning as a habit of life? Righteousness is the inevitable result of union with Christ and the new birth. I know there are tares among the wheat at Creekside. Because Jesus said that there would be true Christians and counterfeit Christians until the harvest. And my great concern as your pastor is for people who attend our church and consider themselves believers - who really aren t. Now is the time to figure this out. At the harvest it will be too late. If you re religious but you re not sure you ve been born again, make sure this morning. Believe the gospel, that Christ died to save you from the guilt of your sins and the power of your sins, that He releases us from our sins by His blood. Ask Him to be Your Savior and Lord, to come into Your life, and to change you and trust Him to do it. 2011 Creekside Community Church. All rights reserved. Approval to duplicate is granted with this copyright included. Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE (except where note). The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission. 5