Last summer my daughters Katie and Sara asked if they could take our dogs Shadow and Reba for a walk. Now Shadow is a black lab and he needs to walk because he has a bit of a weight problem. Reba is 12 and is deaf but always willing to take a spin. I live on a gravel road that is surrounded by farmland so when we left our driveway we turned up the road and walked toward the farm at the end of the road. The dogs were having a blast running around smelling this and that and my girls were just putting along yelling at the dogs, who paid no attention to them, and collecting rocks to take home to show mom.
About halfway to our destination Katie saw these beautiful yellow flowers so she started picking them. At first she just picked one or two and handed them to me and told me to hold them for mom. Then Sara started picking these beautiful yellow flowers which seemed to be everywhere. In just a few minutes my girls had both my hands full of yellow flowers and both of them also had a handful so we decided we should turn around and bring our prized flowers back home to show mom.
We walked even slower on the way home because the girls didn’t want to drop any of their precious flowers. When we walked in the door the girls ran up to mom and presented her with her gifts. When I made it in the door I presented my peace offerings as well and mom took every one of those dandelions and put them in a huge vase and set them on the counter.
Weeds come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Some of them flower and look absolutely beautiful and others will poke you and make you bleed. Some weeds are hard to identify as tender shoots but as they age their identity will become clear.
Jesus knew what a weed was and he used a picture of weeds growing in a field to describe a spiritual problem. Last week we learned about the sower who sowed his seed on a path, in the shallow soil, among the weeds, and in the good soil. The parable told us to get planted in the good soil, get planted in the word of God. If you don’t your spiritual life will be shallow at best or never grow at all. The parable we are going to look at today reveals that weeds are everywhere and sometimes we just have to grow in spite of them.
Let me draw the picture for you. Jesus had so many people following him on this particular day that he couldn’t even teach. The crowds were massive and Jesus always the opportunist took the opportunity to lead the crowd to a lake where he had them sit on the hill facing the lake and he stepped into a boat and pushed it out a little way from shore and began to talk to them about weeds.
“Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. "The owner’s servants came to him and said, ’Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ " ’An enemy did this,’ he replied. "The servants asked him, ’Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ " ’No,’ he answered, ’because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ " Matthew 13:24-30 NIV
This was ancient terrorism. Enemies would often plant weeds in their opponent’s fields to keep their food supply from reaching harvest. An unwise leader would have all the weeds pulled up and would often ruin their good crops in the process. Remember, they didn’t farm in neat little rows like we do today, they just threw the seed out there and whatever grew, grew. The weeds would be growing in the same dirt right next to the crop.
The disciples understood the whole enemy trying to ruin the crop thing, but they needed a little help drawing out the spiritual application. Jesus left the crowd and explained it to them.
“Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field." He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” Matthew 13:36-43 NIV
This parable is very specific. In it the farmer tells his servants to let both the weeds and the wheat grow together until harvest time. Then the weeds will be separated from the wheat. God knows the difference between the wheat and the weeds and he will separate them.
McDonalds is one of the most recognized restaurants in the world. They spend millions and millions of dollars researching where to put their stores. The do demographic studies and feasibility studies to make sure that when they open a new store, it will have a great chance of success. Their strategy has taken them to just about every country in the world.
Burger King has a different strategy. All they have is a pair of binoculars. So every time they want to open a new store all they do is locate a McDonalds, buy the land across the street, and build a brand new Burger King. They figure that if McDonalds thinks their store will make it at a specific location, theirs will too.
In your life you can guarantee that if God plants you in the perfect neighborhood, Satan himself may move in next door. If you land the perfect job Satan will send in his cousin. The enemies of God are relentless in their pursuit of destruction. He will do anything he can to ruin you or destroy you or get you to lose focus so that you are incapable of reproducing anything at all.
Jesus often uses fruit or grain or crops to illuminate a spiritual truth. That truth is that every plant or crop or tree has the potential to make more of itself. If the crop can reach harvest, that one seed has the potential to multiply and make more of its kind. This is true of weeds or wheat, corn or thorns. That’s just a fact of nature.
But there is something you can do to fight back against the weeds in life. You don’t have to get choked out. You can fight back and here is how.
How to keep weeds from growing in the garden of life
Outnumber the weeds.
One of the best ways to keep weeds from growing in your life it to simply outnumber the weeds. You may live next to a thorn or work with a cocklebur but that doesn’t mean that you have to let them take over. Jesus tells his disciples to grow up into maturity and multiply. He says we are to make disciples.
It doesn’t matter where you are planted because wherever you are planted God wants you to produce a crop. Just because you are the only person with Christian values in your company God doesn’t want you to give up and get overrun by weeds. He wants you to grow and mature and produce a crop. He wants you to go out and help transform lives. He wants you to fight back and do everything you can to spread the hope that you have. We need to multiply and outnumber the weeds. Step out in faith and start spreading the good seed. You can do that in a variety of ways. One of the ways we are spreading seed here is through music.
Our worship trams here are great. They play great music every week and help you and I enter into a worship experience where we can sing about God. A few months ago a person in our congregation asked if our boy band had written any songs and if they did how much it would cost to get them recorded on a CD. Our drummer Matt knows a grammy award winning producer in Omaha so he made a phone call to find out. The producers name is Jason and he said he would cut us a deal and produce a CD for Freshwater for a fraction of the normal price. So the boy band took a leap of faith and has been driving back and forth to Omaha for the past month recording a new CD. They also came up with a name for themselves and we mounted their logo right here on the wall. They are called “Transparent” and their first CD comes out as soon as we finish raising the money to pay for it. We only need another $6,500 bucks to start producing CD’s that we can hand out to help outnumber the weeds.
A woman who is now a part of our congregation said that when she first came to Freshwater she was absolutely blown away by the quality of the music. Now everyone is going to get the opportunity to get a handful of seeds in the form of a CD to toss around and see what grows. In order to get this CD finished we are asking 65 people to invest $100 each to buy a pre-release certificate for a CD so that we can begin to plant seeds through music. I don’t know about you but I want to be a part of that. I want to invest in music that moves people closer to Christ. I want to challenge 65 of you to buy your pre-release certificate copy today after church.
Our church competes against MTV, drugs, movies, the mall, and PS3’s for people attention. And we will do whatever it takes to reach people for Christ and expose them to God’s love.
Outgrow the weeds.
Everything takes nourishment to grow. If you want to grow faster than the weeds around you, you need to cultivate your spiritual life. Come up with a plan on how you are going to grow spiritually. Get connected in a small grow to grow roots. Water your life with the word of God. Pray, serve, help, just do whatever you can to outgrow the weeds. AT Freshwater we have a slogan that says worship and hour, serve an hour. We want everyone to make the choice to worship God for one hour, then stick around and serve for another hour to help fertilize someone else.
Don’t give in to complacency. Don’t quit growing because the weeds will never stop pursuing you and they won’t leave you alone once you quit growing. They will try and consume you.
Out-produce the weeds.
In this parable Jesus used wheat as an example and the weed everyone knew he was talking about looked like wheat at first, but as it matured, it was useless. But even though the weed is useless it still had a purpose. That purpose is to multiply itself and make more weeds.
If you put yourself in the parable as the wheat you need to produce more wheat than your enemy does weeds. Grow like crazy and drop seeds everywhere. Take a risk.
Ever since Freshwater began we have been very intentional about making disciples. We have been intentional about maturing and multiplying, both as individuals and as a church. We have an excellent one on one discipling program that is growing in leaps and bounds. And we also are multiplying as a church. Today in your program you were given a blue half sheet that details a brand new type of service we are starting on Saturday nights. It’s called the Journey and it’s going to be what’s called an emergent church. We are starting it because we want to outnumber the weeds in this community by making more disciples. This new experience is designed to help people get planted in good soil and start producing so that we can outnumber the weeds. This worship experience will be unlike you have ever seen before because it radically redefines what church is and how it’s done. We have cultivated this service to reach out to the next generation so that they can make a difference.
Jesus says: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” John 15:16 NIV
Every year my neighbor plants corn or wheat or beans in the field across from my house. And every year the dandelions come out in force. The farmer plants intentionally and the weeds just blow in with the wind but they are always there. But come harvest time, the combine only takes the good crop and disregards the rest. God knows the wheat from the weeds and he knows whether or not you produced any crop or if you just took up space. I want to invite you to fight the weeds by outnumbering them. I am asking you to fight the weeds by outgrowing them. And I am asking you to out-produce the weeds by partnering with Freshwater to produce good things. AMEN.
