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Aug 18, 2019

Weeds in the Midst of Wheat

Passage: Matthew 13:24-43

Speaker: Ben Seneker

Series: The Parables of Jesus

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: evil, righteousness, patience, judgement, good, revenge

We are all immortals (see Lewis quote below), designed to be His and with Him forever. However, this world is filled with believers and unbelievers. God, in his holy, loving and gracious timing, is in charge of when - and how - the separating of believers and unbelievers will occur (i.e. the ‘harvest’).  How, then, are followers of Jesus to live in the meantime? How does this future event inform how we view this present age?

ORDER of Worship

CALL TO WORSHIP: 1 Peter 1:3-4,13

READING: Romans 5:6-8,10-11 

MUSIC:

  • Come Christians Join to Sing
  • Jesus Lover of My Soul 
  • Our Great God 
  • Trust You
  • Yet Not I But Through Christ

PRAYER: The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

For Thine is the Kingdom

and the power and the glory

forever and ever Amen. 

MESSAGE:  Weeds in the Midst of Wheat

CENTRAL TEXT: Matthew 13:24-30 & 36-43

24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” 37 He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

RESPONSE: Communion

BENEDICTION: Colossians 1:11-14

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Genesis 3:14-15
  • Genesis 50:20
  • Matthew 26:47-56 / Luke 22:35-53
  • Luke 9:51-56
  • Romans 5:6-11
  • Romans 12:19-21
  • 1 Corinthians 15:40-46, 50-55
  • 2 Peter 3:1-11

MEDIA:

8.18.19 Album

  • Spiderman: Dark days ahead but hold on to hope. 
  • Bosch: How does a homicide detective deal with evil & tragedy without faith?
  • Wilcox: Seems like a hopeless story but Hero is coming, He'll show the way.
  • Gladiator: justice is coming, time for honoring self will come to an end.
  • Killer Seed: the weeds will be removed and the grass will flourish, guaranteed.
  • Heniz: anticipation is making me wait, taste and see that it (will be) good.
  • House: need to know there are consequences, without eternity nothing matters
  • I Robot: detective separates good robot from bad robot
  • Johnny Cash: You can run on for a long time...Sooner of later gonna cut you down.
  • Magnificent 7: She wants righteousness but will settle for revenge
  • Mumford: I will wait for you
  • Munich: there is a cost for taking justice into our own hands
  • U2: I waited patiently for the Lord, how long to sing this song
  • Walking Dead: you're either the cattle or butcher
  • Charlie Bit Me: time of peace interrupted with pain by a brother, one who deviously laughs at sibling's suffering

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Can you remember a time when a lot of hard work went ruined? What happened? How did that unfold? How did you respond?
  2. What impulse(s) do you see the parable encouraging? What impulse(s) do you see it pushing back against? Why?
  3. Where, if at all, have you seen attempts to overturn what seems like malice backfire? Even if you haven’t witnessed something like that, in what ways can you imagine the effort to fully remove an evil presence end up making things worse?
  4. How does Jesus demonstrate, in what fulfilled his good news of the kingdom, the principles he’s outlining here? In other words how did He practice later what He preached through parable here?
  5. Here’s the rub: how do we exercise the restraint he emphasizes here while still seeking to show the love that seeks to help those (if not ourselves) under the weight of ideas or forces opposed to God?

QUOTES:

  • ”Convincing us to believe he doesn’t exist might be the finest trick the devil has ever played.” - Elizabeth Bruenig

  • Evil must be fought; but the how of the fight determines everything. . . .We are incapable of “doing good” by violence without doing a great deal of harm.” - F.D Bruner

    “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

  • “For love to be truly be loving, there must be judgment. If there is no judgment, then there is no hope for a slave, a rape victim, a child who has been abused or bullied, or people who have been slandered or robbed or had their dignity stolen. If nobody is called to account before a cosmic judgment seat for violence and oppression, then the victims will never see justice. We need a God who gets angry. We need a God who will protect His kids, who will once and for all remove bullies and perpetrators of evil from his playground.” - Scott Sauls

  • “When Robert M’Cheyne met his dearest friend Andrew Bonar one Monday and inquired what Bonar had preached on the previous day, only to receive the answer “Hell,” he asked: “Did you preach it with tears?” That we cannot do until we have come to recognize our own great need of grace to save us from the wrath to come, the terrible nature of that judgment, the provision that God has made for us in Christ, and the calling he has given us to take the gospel to every creature in the name of the One who did not come into the world to condemn it but to save it.” - Sinclair Ferguson

  • “Chewie. This can't help me. There'll be another time. The Princess. You have to take care of her. All right?” - Han Solo (The Empire Strikes Back)

  • “. . .if God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make the final end to violence God would not be worthy of our worship.” - Miroslav Volf

  • “So long as the Church is on pilgrimage in this world, the good and the sincere will be mixed in it with the bad and the hypocrites. So the children of God must arm themselves with patience and maintain an unbroken constancy of faith among all the offences which can trouble them.” - John Calvin

  • “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” - CS Lewis

BOOKS / ARTICLES 

SERMONS / TALKS: