“Living With the Weeds”

Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30; 40-43

The sin that infiltrates our lives, and, at times, may seem so impervious to faith, is all around us. And whether you see it as weeds or unruly growth, as dirt or darkness, it is always with us, and we have to deal with it somehow.
Sin is the default in our lives. Just as darkness is the result of no light, and not the other way around, just as a hedge will grow wildly without pruning, and shapely growth is a continuing effort, just as weeds will grow, not only without our attention, but in spite of our attention,
sin will be rampant in our lives, and righteousness requires attention to the details of faith.

It’s been said that “The fruit of the Spirit must be cultivated. All that grows naturally is weeds.” (Homiletics Online) But what about those weeds?

Read Matthew 13:24-30

Kim Henning writes:
It’s a frustrating story, weeds and wheat together. But it’s also real. You raise your children, and you pray for them. You take them to worship — you surround them with good friends, good influences. And then they go to school, and they come home with words that you hoped they’d never hear, much less be repeating. And they watch television and they experience a world of extramarital affairs and uncommitted relationships and rape and drugs and alcohol. And it’s like wheat being surrounded by weeds.

It’s real, and what we would pray to God is this: “Take the weeds away!” Take away the evil and the temptations and the anxieties. Pull those weeds. Take away the wars and the human hunger. Take away the divisions between humanity. Yes, our prayer would be no less than Jesus’ prayer, “Father, if it be your will, take this cup from me ....”

And she continues:
But the kingdom of God is here on earth and wheat and weeds grow side by side, lest in pulling out the weeds we disrupt the wheat as well. Weeds and wheat — side by side. We are not afforded a monastery — where we could get away from the problems of this world. And our church does not give us the option of saying, “This one stays, but this one goes.” “Judgment is mine, says the Lord.” So where does this leave us? Wheat, weeds, together.

—Kim Henning, “Those weeds! Oh, those weeds,” July 21, 2002, Grace Congregational Church Web Site, graceucc.org.

Now please don’t misunderstand Jesus’ parable. He isn’t telling us that sin doesn’t matter – that we should simply be accepting of the fact that it exists, and not to be concerned about it. What we need to be diligent in is this: Know who the “enemy” is and how he works, and take a stand against his sowing the seeds of sin – those that produce crops of doubt, of pride, of envy, of inactivity, of greed, of all kinds of forbidden fruit. If we can interrupt the sowing, we can limit the growth of weeds in our lives.
As an example, have you ever known someone who has had an addiction to pornography? Once it gets a hold on your life, as with all sin, it is nearly impossible to break its grasp. The only way to fight it is to keep it from ever entering your life in the first place. I have a dear brother in Christ who struggles with this affliction. It entered his life many years ago, and even though he has rejected it over and over, it still makes a comeback from time to time. He has been unable to destroy its influence – all he can do is to seek the help of others to limit its growth and spread. Never, ever think that you can do it alone!

Our parable for today tells us that only at the harvest will the goodness and the wickedness be separated, and all evil will be destroyed. But my question is this – God can do anything, so why doesn’t He destroy it now and spare our lives from the torment of sin?
I’ve never come up with a great answer – just that it has to do with free will. It has to do with our lack of diligence and vigilance. Remember the parable? Verse 25 tells us that the enemy came and sowed the weeds while “everyone was sleeping”. Sin creeps in while our guard is down, while we are tired or weak, while we aren’t caring intently for our faith through intentional prayer, worship, study, and ministry.
These are the times when the enemy strikes. It isn’t a time of major battle – it’s a war of subterfuge. Satan knows that a frontal attack won’t work – the forces of righteousness would see him coming and will be ready. But a subtle, behind the scenes, below the radar approach will almost always be effective. Satan knows what will work and what doesn’t, and will use the tactics that will work the best against us.
And the greatest weapon in Satan’s arsenal is that of personal blindness and plodding tolerance. If something is fun or stimulating, how can it be bad? Doesn’t God want us to be joyful? The truth is that the Lord wants us to be righteous in Him, not carefree in our independence!

Writer Kathleen Norris studied the parable of the weeds and the wheat in Matthew 13, and then observed, What I found in the story was a sense that God, knowing us better than we know ourselves, also recognizes that we are incapable of separating the wheat from the weeds in our lives .... I began to see God's fire, like a good parent's righteous anger, as something that can flare up, challenge and even change us, but that does not destroy the essence of who we are. The thought of all my weeds burning off so that only the wheat remains came to be seen as a good thing.
--Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), 317.

Read Matthew 13:40-43

Through the power and grace of God, our “weeds” can be stunted and confined in this lifetime, but they will never be completely destroyed until He comes back to oversee the harvest of souls. That is when the separation will occur. Until that day, we must live with those pesky weeds cluttering up our lives.
So how do we keep those weeds from overtaking us, from choking the very faith out of our hearts and minds and souls?

Ephesians 6:10-20 describes the spiritual armor that is so important if we would have our faith preserved. I won’t take the time to include the entire passage here, but suffice it to say that the donning of these attributes is vitally important every day of our life. From the moment we awake in the morning until our eyes close in sleep at night – we must actively be on the alert for the enemy’s sowing the seeds of doubt in our faith and conceit for our sin. Without the Lord’s armored protection, our walk will never be acceptable.
Paul concluded this passage in Ephesians (verses 19-20) with these words – “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”
He is an “ambassador in chains” – a chaining that doesn’t limit, but rather keeps him tied directly to Christ in all matters. It keeps him close to the source of goodness, and gives him a guardian against the enemy. It allows him to never have to cringe in fear – not of God, and not even of Satan.

We can never let our spiritual life sleep, we must never become complacent in matters related to our faith, and always, we must remain chained to Jesus Christ.

He is our great protector, our vision, our truth, our reason. And when the enemy does gain an opportunity to sow some of those choking weed seeds, trust Christ to starve them, and to hem them in, and to cause them fits, and know that one day, He will see to it that they are completely removed from our life and cast into the fire that completely destroys.

Hallelujah! Praise God! For He alone is faithful.