This sermon was delivered to Holy Trinity in Ayr,
Ayrshire, Scotland on the 20th July 2014
(a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).
(This is a modification of a previous sermon for a larger congregation).
Today's readings: Isaiah 44:6-8, Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23, Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.
“Please join me in my prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
Introduction:
Good morning … that was a real fire and brimstone reading that, Eh! … Being “thrown into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. … Well, talking about gnashing of teeth … my wife, Christine always has an answer for me … always … you know, those answers that cut right through you. … The other week there, I said to her … “that’s it I am not going back to that church”, and she said “why”, “why because it is full of hypocrites” ... and as quick as a flash she said … “I wouldn’t worry about it, they have certainly made room for you”!
Now I jest, I thought that was funny, but what is not funny, is that I am doing the sermon … and this reading today is all about hypocrisy, … and as always, … I am the last one to speak on such matters, so please forgive me as I muddle my way through todays sermon as I can be the biggest hypo-crypt of all. …
So I will start with the subject of conflict in the church … well, conflict in general, as we do not need to look to hard these days to discover that we are living in a world full of conflict. There is conflict between nations … conflict between our political parties … conflict between towns and cities … between neighbours … between our families … and of course … conflict between our spouses; … so why should the church be any different?
I mean … conflict in the world can be understood … but conflict in the church is a completely different story … aren’t we all supposed to be worshiping the one and only son of God? … Yet there is conflict between all the religious sects … between church leaders, and even between the members of the congregation themselves. … But why should there be conflict between God’s children … the brothers and sisters of Christ?
Well, Jesus tells us why in this Parable … he shows us that there is conflict in this earthly kingdom, and we are not to be fooled. … He even gives us two reasons for this conflict: … the first is the most obvious … yet rarely acknowledged … and that is because there is an enemy called Satan, who is the direct enemy of God himself … and to get at God … he strikes at his children … and there is no better way to do this than by causing conflict in his church, … true?
And the second reason for conflict is because there are false Christians in the various congregations, those whom Satan has no problem in using. Jesus himself said so in, Matthew 7:21 “Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but only he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven”. …
These kind of people are wolves in sheep’s clothing … they operate as Satan’s fifth column, his undercover agents in the church … and these, and the true Christian cannot … or will not be separated until the final harvest at the end of the age … so they will keep on causing trouble. … And worse, we will always have them, and we will always have conflict, so get used to it.
So how are we to deal with it? Well to start with, we all know that the cost of conflict is always very costly for both parties: ... war is such a waste … but this passage suggests three ways to deal with that conflict. …
1. Be Perceptive to the enemy.
The first way to deal with it is to be perceptive to the enemy. Verse 25 “but while everybody was asleep, an enemy, (that is Satan), came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away”. Notice he went away, he was sly; he did not stay to watch, or say, “I did that”. … He did the deed and left … and he left everyone in confusion as to how the conflict arose. … He sowed the weeds while everyone was asleep.
Now in both ancient and modern warfare, it is or was common practice to destroy the enemy’s crops: because this would weaken and demoralise the soldiers and their families; particularly the soldiers as according to Napoleon who said, “An army marches on their stomachs” … and we all know this only too well, remember Hitler’s U-Boats in the North Atlantic during the Second World War, U-boats trying to sink every allied ship … why, to try and starve Britain into submission. …
And the Allies, they were no angels either, they developed anthrax for the same reasons in Operation Vegetarian, (I kid you not), that anthrax was planned to infect enemy cattle by dropping food pellets for them … cattle which would then be eaten by the German citizens, and thereby causing death by the millions; … but thank God this was never used.
This is a terrible example of an enemy sowing bad seed, but such bad seeds are sown by bad people every day as we all know. … You yourself may have sown such a bad seed!
So we must therefore be aware of what Satan is up to, as we cannot afford to fall asleep, and that is why the scriptures are filled with warnings to be alert. Ephesians 6:18 says, “Be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” And 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” … … I like that verse because we all know people like that, people who leave destruction in their wake.
… Satan easily embroils the church in conflict because … we Christians aren’t paying close enough attention to his actions, and nothing blinds our spiritual perception faster than tolerated sin … and so we must be aware of what is going on in the world around us. … What Satan calls an alternate lifestyle … God calls immoral living ... and he tells us in Matthew 6:8 “that such people will never enter His kingdom in heaven.”
Yet, it is not the place of the church to judge … nor condemn and execute such sinners, (you know, like the early Puritans who were always putting people in the stocks, and worse), but it is our place to call sin what it is, it is sin, and therefore to call sinners to repentance by explaining the word of God.
We must also be aware of what is going on in our churches, and to do that we need to be involved in the activities of the church and with those around us. We must also be aware of what is going on in your own lives, as never is our perception so warped … as when we look at ourselves; true?
The truth is … most of us do not know ourselves as well as we should, or … as well as we want to … but in case you are worried … there is a difference between a Christian struggling with sin, and hypocrisy. … A Christian struggling with a sin will approach God and say, “Father, this is a weakness in my life, I am truly sorry, please help me with it”. God through his word truly welcomes that kind of prayer, and he does promise to help.
A hypocrite on the other hand, doesn’t struggle in overcoming their sin, they struggle in not being caught, and even then they will try and wriggle out it … by denying it, or blame someone else. … They certainly would not pray to God about it. … So … we fit into one of these two categories, there is no third.
2. Be Patience.
… And this then takes us to our second strategy for facing up to conflict, and that is patience. … Interestingly, the weeds in question were known as bearded darnel, and if this plant was consumed it could cause dizziness and nausea. … And Bearded Darnel looks very much like wheat until the heads are formed … and that is why no one in the parable realised that there was anything was wrong at first … well not until “the wheat sprouted and formed heads”, and that is when the servants realised that weeds had been sown; … and that is why they wanted to pull them out immediately.
However the owner knew that that being so similar, that not all of the servants could not tell the difference between the wheat and the weeds all the time and it was therefore much safer to wait till the final harvest to insure the identity and safety of the true wheat … and as we read this morning, by destroying the weeds you had every chance of destroying the wheat.
… The servants were therefore ordered to be patient … and it is the same with us, because we cannot tell the difference between a true Christian and someone who merely professes to be one … for sure. Our human judgment has it faults, and so we must wait patiently for God to judge … and deal with it which he will.
Think about it, how many times have you judged a person wrong? … I know I have, and I know I will probably do it again … our judgment is fallible … and that is why the Bible says in Romans 14:4, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls”. We are therefore not to pass judgment on others because they are not our servants … they are servants for God to judge, and him alone.
Romans 14:1 goes further and says, “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.” Christian harmony should not depend on 100% agreement on all matters pertaining to the Christian life; instead our motto could be, “in essentials - unity, in non-essentials - liberty, but in all things - charity”.
1 Corinthians 13:13 simply says, “And now abide in faith, hope, and charity; … but the greatest of these is charity”, and that is the wellbeing of others. … In fact, we all know the saying, “Good things come to those who wait”, well we must wait patiently for the judgment of all things, which will take place exactly when God decides and not before, and I am well aware, this can seem like an age.
Being patient is a necessity in dealing with conflict, and my wife will tell you that this is a part of this sermon that I really need to hear myself, and wait patiently for God’s judgment … in God’s timing … because as we all know, when we get impatient and rush things … what happens … we certainly make a royal mess out of things. …
3. Be Prepared.
And so this then brings us to our last strategy for facing up to conflict, and that to be prepared. … The weeds, that is the Bearded Darnel were only able to pretend to being wheat for so long … as their true identity would be revealed; and so it is with those who are false, they too can only conceal their true nature for so long, because eventually “their sin will find them out”, as written in Numbers 32:23.
In this parable Jesus clearly teaches us that there will be a day of judgment in which the wheat will be clearly separated from the chaff. … This means the righteous will be separated from the wicked, and on that day, there will be weeping, (which is emotional suffering), and gnashing of teeth, (which is physical suffering) and so we must be prepared to stand before our God. … But we are not to be afraid, as I have said so, so many times; you will only be asked one question … and that is this, that are you able to call Jesus your Lord?
Matthew 24:42 says … “Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come”. In other words, we are to be prepared at all times for Christ’s return … or our death which ever come first … because we could be called to account at any time … and most probably when we are least expecting it.
Conclusion
So are we prepared to stand before our God and be judged? Have we trusted in Jesus to save us from our sins? Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Now, wages are something that we earn, and therefore deserve. Question … do we deserve to die and be cut off from God’s presence forever because of our sin … of course we do, but we have a saviour who died for us, and who died to pay the price for our sin … that we may live in the presence of God forever.
… Notice too verse 23 also said, “… but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So it would be a shame to waste the possibility of eternal life, yet many do; … many seem to know better.
The gift of God is eternal life with him. … Question, how much does a gift cost us? … Nothing, it is free … and that means that eternal life can not be earned … we cannot work for it … all our good and bad deeds are nothing … we can only receive salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord … as he was the one who suffered and died for us, … he was the one who rose again from the dead, in order to pave the way for us by forgiving us our sins, and destroying the Sin of the world in us forever … and that includes all our sin so that we can live with him, in his kingdom for all eternity.
We are therefore so blessed to call Jesus Christ our Lord, and by strength through humility, we give him charge of every area of our lives … switching from the worlds way of living to, his way of living. … And before I finish, I would like to make one final point and that is this: I am told that one of the things that a wheat farmer learns early on is that … when harvest time comes; the real wheat is so heavy with grain … that the whole plant begins to bow.
… In contrast, weeds never bow, but our Lord Jesus himself bowed in humility. Philippians 2:8 says, “And being found in fashion as a man, he (that is Jesus) humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”; … and this is where the strength through humility comes in with Jesus, because verse 9 goes on say, … “Wherefore God highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: … That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … of things in heaven … and things in earth … and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.
What a powerful passage of scripture, Jesus humbled himself and he is now above every name that can ever be named. … What a wonderful saviour we have in Jesus. Amen.
Let us pray,
Father we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that he died all those years ago to pay the price in full, for our sin.
We thank you Father that we belong to you, and that we do our best to live for you … even though we fail. Father please forgive us, as you know our hearts to be true, and you know it grieves us to fail you. Father please forgive us!
We thank you also Father that you exalted Jesus to the highest of the high, and so bless us Father or strengthen us, or cure us from our Sin, from our Sickness … from Poverty … from Shame … from Rejection … or anything other weakness that is not from you, or complements you. … …
Father heal us please, in Jesus name, Amen.
