Hoe your Spiritual Garden
Matthew 13:24-30 13:36-43
Message:
I trust you have been enjoying this spring weather and I hope you have gotten your hands dirty in the garden. Today we listen to Jesus give us a wonderful Parable about the Weeds in the Garden. Last Sunday our girls and boys of the Sunday school worked on the weeds around our church gardens even working in the cold and rain. What great examples they are.
This week we want to listen to Jesus as He tells us to address the weeds in our spiritual lives.
You will notice that Jesus said the weeds showed up “while everyone was sleeping” Matthew 13:25
I’m sure you know how quickly a neglected garden can become overgrown. Well our spiritual lives if left unattended can become choked out by the weeds if we let them. The Bible has a word that speaks to this; Proverbs 24:30-31
“I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; 31 thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.”
Have you fallen asleep in areas of your spiritual life?
Do you have a quiet time with God’s word or a prayer time regularly?
How about church attendance?
Do you only make it to church when it’s convenient or just for those special days?
The Bible warns us about neglecting the fellowship of other believers.
Hebrews 10:24-25
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Friends we are living at a time when we need to be more supportive of one another than ever before. The weeds are starting to over grow areas of the garden but few seem willing to address the problem.
Those weeds are patient to wait it out until there is something of value to be seen in our spiritual lives. Only after we begin to grow in Christ does the enemy present himself. Until that time both weeds and wheat grow side by side quite content to tolerate one another.
Matthew 13:26
The Masters servants notice the problem and ask for direction. “Do you want us to pull them up”? Matthew 13:28
But the Master says no let them grow together.
This dear Saints is the nature of our world today. Our Heavenly Father is willing to let Saint and Sinner grow right alongside each other. We share life in a garden with those who do not share a love or faith in our God.
It is a very strange thing because God provides the light and the rain and the earth to both wheat and weeds but still the weeds seem unwilling to recognize their benefactor. Instead they resent Him and the fruit of His field.
The weeds seem determined to prevent any of the good things of God from growing to maturity. The weeds want to deny the wheat a place in this garden we call earth.
We have seen that most violently this past week in Manchester England where the weeds attacked so many young innocent lives. Our God is aware of their behaviour and Jesus tells us of the fate awaiting such weeds in this parable.
30 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 13:30
Jesus explains this parable for us…” “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Matthew 13:37-39
We grow in Christ in a world where we must live amongst the weeds while trying to bear fruit for God. How deep do your roots go? Are you planted firmly in the love of the Saviour or is your faith shallow as you are surrounded by the weeds?
No friend we must put our roots deep into the soil that is the love of Christ. Jesus will personally take care of the weeds. We need to focus on being fruitful on growing above the weeds.
James 1:17 tells us;
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Saints we must stretch out in these days to grow tall above the shadows of the weeds around us. We must demonstrate that the love of God is greater than the hate of His enemy. We must grow together sheltering one another from the encroaching weeds among us. We must grow true and full and ripe ready for that day of harvest.
Let there be no sleeping Saints among us. Let there be no sluggard who neglects his patch of field. Let the Holy Spirit take hold of us for He is the hoe that can cut away the roots of the enemy. Open your hearts to the word of God and drink it in like the spring rain.
Our God is sending the Lord of the Harvest very soon and we must prove fruitful so that we can be distinguished from the weeds.
40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 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. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
Matthew 13:40-43
Saints are we able to hear this warning in our day?
The signs of the times are an ever present warning that we must hoe our spiritual garden. We are part of a field of promise for our Lord. We are to shine like the sun. We are not alone in the garden for the Lily of the Valley is with us showering us with His beauty and fragrance. He is white and pure and is the flower among the weeds and the wheat.
“He’s the Lily of the Valley, in Him alone I see
All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.”
Draw close to the Saviour in these times and you will be a part of His harvest.
Look not to the weeds but to the Lily of the Valley.
Amen.
