At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” During this series, we are spending our time together looking at a series of statements by Jesus that are recorded for us in an account of His life that has been preserved in the New Testament of the Bible, called the gospel of Matthew.
During this series, we are discovering how Jesus described the kingdom of Heaven. During this series, we are discovering how one enters into the Kingdom of Heaven. During this series we are discovering how one should live as part of the kingdom of Heaven. And as we go through this series, our hope and our prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit, in our heads, hearts, and hands in such a way that we would live lives that reveal and bring the light and love of the kingdom of Heaven into the areas of influence we have been given.
Last week, we looked at an event from history where Jesus sent the twelve disciples on a short-term mission trip and discovered the timeless truth that the kingdom of heaven is either enthusiastically embraced or violently opposed. We discovered that no one walked away from a conversation with Jesus about the kingdom of heaven saying “eh, whatever”. Instead, Jesus made it unmistakably clear that the message and teaching of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven will be either enthusiastically embraced, or it will be violently opposed.
Now a natural question that could arise here is “Well, if the kingdom of heaven is seeking repentant people who respond by enthusiastically embracing the claims of Christ and the message of the kingdom of heaven, what happens to those who violently oppose the claims of Christ and the message of the kingdom of heaven? And what about those who do not violently oppose the claims of Christ and the message of the kingdom of heaven, but just disagree? I mean some people just do not believe what you believe. So how can you say that the kingdom of heaven is either enthusiastically embraced or violently opposed. And what happens to those who do not feel the need to repent so that they change the trajectory of their live that is moving away from God back to God so as to believe, trust and follow Jesus as Lord and leader?”
Another question that often arises at this point sounds something like this: “Well Dave, how do you know who is truly a follower of Jesus and who is not? I mean there are a lot of people who say they are Christians, but they sure do not act like Jesus. And there are a lot of people who do not go to church, but they treat me better than those who do go to church? So how can you really know who is a part of the kingdom of Heaven and who is not a part of the kingdom of Heaven that Jesus is talking about?”
If those questions are running through your mind, I want to let you know that you are bringing up some great questions. So how do we know who is a part of the kingdom of heaven and who is not? I mean, it’s not like members of the kingdom of heaven have a large tattoo of a cross on their foreheads that was placed there by Jesus Himself that identifies them as actually having a personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and Leader, right.
You see, one that the things that concerns me the most as a pastor is the reality that you might think that you are a part of the kingdom of heaven when in reality you are not. Some of you have not entered into a personal relationship with Jesus that provides the forgiveness of sin and the relationship with God that you were created for in the kingdom of heaven. And the reality is that I do not know who you are. And neither do the people around you.
You see, you can come to church every Sunday, you can show up to a community group, you can even serve in a ministry, and still not have come to the place where you see the need for a relationship with Jesus Christ. You can wear the right clothes and be in the right places and even give the appearance that you are doing the right things, and still not know Jesus.
For some people, it is quite evident that they are opposed to the claims of Christ and the kingdom of Heaven. They violently oppose it and let you know that they violently oppose it. Yet, for others, their opposition to Christ and the kingdom of heaven does not reveal itself as obviously. In our culture, we call these people passive aggressive, or passive resistant. While they may be violently opposed to the Jesus, Bible, church thing, they hide their opposition well. We may not see their opposition until years later. Or we may never truly know their opposition. And if that opposition is revealed, the hurt and pain that it inflicts can be even more painful.
So how can anyone really know who is a part of the kingdom of Heaven and who is not a part of the kingdom of Heaven that Jesus is talking about? How can we really know who is truly a follower of Jesus and who is not? This week, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at an event from history that reveals for us the reality that this issue is not a new issue. And in this event from history that we see Jesus reveal for us a timeless truth about the kingdom of heaven that will help answer these questions. So let’s jump into this event from history together, beginning in Matthew 13:24-28:
Jesus presented another parable to 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 tares among the wheat, and went away. 26 "But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. 27 "The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' 28 "And he said to them, 'An enemy has done this!' The slaves said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?'
Matthew begins to give us a front row seat to this event from history by explaining that Jesus began to tell another parable about the kingdom of Heaven to the large crowds that were following Him. Now a parable is an earthly story that reveals a deeper spiritual truth. In this parable, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a man who sowed good seed in his field. This parable would have connected with the crowds listening to Jesus, as they lived in an agrarian society and had seen this scenario play out throughout their life.
Jesus explained that after the seed was sown, an enemy of the man who owned the field sowed tares in the midst of the wheat that he had planted. Now a natural question that arises at this point is “what is a tare?” That’s a great question. A tare is a type of weed, which was also called a darnel. Now this weed was exceptionally dangerous to wheat for two reasons. First, the tare was a dangerous weed because the tare developed extensive roots that would compete with the wheat for nutrients that were necessary for its survival.
Second, and more importantly, the tare was so dangerous because the tare was almost indistinguishable from the wheat in appearance. And as the wheat and tares grew side by side, they would be virtually impossible to differentiate between the wheat and the tares. Jesus then explained that the slaves, upon seeing what was happening in the field, reported to the owner what they had discovered and asked permission to go into the field and remove the weeds.
Jesus then continued His parable by revealing how the owner, upon recognizing that his enemy had planted the weeds, and knowing the danger that these weeds presented to the wheat, responded to their request. So let’s look at the owners response in Matthew 13:29-30:
"But he said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 'Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"
Jesus continued His parable by stating that the landowner responded to the slaves request by explaining to his slaves that they needed to allow these dangerous weeds to remain growing alongside the wheat until it was time for the harvest. The owner explained to his slaves that at the harvest, after both the weeds and the wheat were removed from the ground, the reapers would be directed to separate the wheat from the weeds.
After separating the weeds from the wheat, the reapers would be directed by the landowner to gather up the weeds to be burned. Then the reapers would be able to complete the harvest by safely placing the wheat into the landowner’s barn. Now a question that could naturally arise here is “Well Dave, if the wheat and the tares look so similar, then how are the reapers supposed to separate them? If it is virtually impossible to differentiate between the wheat and the weeds, then how are the reapers supposed to do what the landowner had asked them to do?”
If that question is running through your mind, I want to let you know that you are asking another great question. And to answer this question, we first need to understand a little bit more about wheat and tares. You see, while it is virtually impossible to differentiate between the wheat and tare as they grew, at harvest, when both plants reached maturity, a difference emerged.
The ears of wheat, which is where the fruit of the plant is produced, would become so heavy that the entire plant would end up drooping downward, while the tare would remain upright. In addition, at harvest time, the wheat would have a brown appearance when ripe, while the tare would be black. And by the time of the harvest the wheat plant would be sufficiently mature and strong enough not to be destroyed by the uprooting of the tares, which would not have been the case if the slaves would have went in earlier to attempt to remove these weeds. So at harvest time, there would be a distinction that would allow for the safe harvest of the valuable grain and the destruction of the dangerous tares.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, well that’s a great agricultural story, but what does that have to do with the kingdom of heaven? What is the deeper spiritual meaning that we are supposed to apply to our lives? If I have just described what is running through your mind, I just want to encourage you. I want to encourage you because, just a few verses later in this event from history, we see the disciples, ask Jesus the very same questions.
We will look at those questions later this week…
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