A Parable Summer - The Wheat and Tears - The Kingdom

OPENING PRAYER

Father we come to you this morning alive in Jesus....

Father, you spoke the world into existence when you created all things. You have revealed your self through what you created by your words. You have revealed your self in the written words of your scripture and through your Son Jesus who is the exact representation of your character and nature and the radiance of your Glory.

Speak this morning new life into your children to give us the light of the knowledge of your glory in Christ.

Give us the grace to receive your Word and rejoice in it.

Convict us of our sins, convict us of the all sufficiency of your son Jesus so that all of us would turn every area of our whole life over and follow Jesus. Speak new life to all of us so that the weak in faith may strengthened, the young in faith be grown, the naive in the faith would be made wise, and the timid in the faith would be made bold and Christ’s body, the church would be built up by you adding to the number each day those who are being saved. I pray all of this In the mighty and holy and abundant Name of Jesus.  - and all God’s children said?

GREET AND INTRO

Good morning everyone!! Good morning on everyone worshiping this morning through live stream.

If I have not had a chance to meet you either in person or through live stream;  My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship. 

Let me encourage everyone this morning on live-stream - Don’t just WATCH - Participate!! Connect with someone else. Pray for those watching even if you don’t know their name.

Our FB check-in and Instagram “location Tag” ministry partner for the month of June is WATSI.

WATSI is CROWD FUNDING that organizes funding for life changing surgical medical treatments for people in the poorer parts of the world. This could be anything from neurological or skeletal surgeries for a child that cannot walk to, children with cleft pallet to sight restoration surgery for the elderly.

Every FB Check in or IG location tag that we do sends money to WATSI help fund medical treatment around the world.

So grab your phones and go to FB or IG and check- in or drop a Location Tag and lets feed some kids.

LETS GRAB OUR BIBLES

either electronic version or the actual book kind - Open it to Matthew 13:24-30 today as we walk together this summer through the Parables of Jesus.

The Elders have been praying that through this time in the Parables of Jesus that we would deepen in our understanding us Jesus, That we would know His thoughts, We would Know his ways, That we should know His heart - Ultimately that we would know Him.

My Prayer over this weeks message is that grace would overflow us. That we would recognize our own propensity to put people in categories and that we would understand the world view of Jesus and His kingdom and we would place the Gospel, and the advance of His kingdom above all. Possibly even above our own sense of reason and order.

TRUTH

Matthew 13:24–30 NASB95

24 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?’ 29 “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.” ’ ”

Matthew 13:36–43 NASB95

36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” 37 And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, 38 and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 “So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. 41 “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

ENGAGEMENT -

I have heard someone say recently that the central essence of our experience ad existence as human beings in life is suffering. It is an interesting concept for sure and one that is someone a reality. We come into this world thriugh suffering - Chilld biurth\

WE leave this world in death and that is suffering -

All kinds of experiances with other people events and circumstances that bring about suffering.

There are also experiances with other people, events and circumstances which bring us great joy.

Often times it can be the very thing that brings about suffering can end up being a source of great Joy. Child Birth - The Passing of a believer in Jesus. Repair of a relationship, Navigating life.

It is also something interesting to understand about what we do as humans tha tis unique is that we are the only part of creation that purposfully suffers for our tomorrows, for out future, and to have things in our life that we would not have without the suffering.

We are the only, ones who have “the future” in our minds and hearts and stratagy and, we work, we toil, we delay in our gratification and sometimes in havving what we want or need today to get what our dreams and aspirations give us the desire that we have.

Sometimes - Events happen, circumstances arrise and other people cause something to happen that would seemingly delay or put off or we precieve totally destroy our dreams and aspirations whether that is a reality or not.

When that happens - We react usually with some sort of negative emotion, hurt betrayal, a sense of loss or potential loss, and we not only experiance suffering but we also casue suffering.

All at the same time - Everything that we do as humans, for the most part is to eleminate suffering as we see it.

THe realit is we dont know our toomorrows, We dont know what events or circumstances are coming, we dont know what other people will do or not do and so this brings about a certain amount of Caios in our life or at least a big sense of One.

Naturally as Human beings we dont deal with caios very well. We like order and so we do wat we can to have and establish order at what ever level order precieved by us. FOr some order is in much higher detail and for others order does not have much detail at all.

TENSION

The Problem that we have is that this causes us to develop what I have come to understand in my life and what is easily observed is “the shoulds and the housld nots”

It is the SHould in our life that might actually be at the root of part of our suffering.

Things “Should be this way” or things “should be that way” - I should do this” or I SHould do that” -

WE see this in policy - we see this child rearing, we see this in every area of life.

It is also the sourcce of conflict. When we see or experiance other not doing a should that we think they should - or worse doing a shouldnt when we tink they shouldnt -

THis is specially true when we look at people that we are directly involved relationsly with -

Whe you are in relationships with other people you will experiance this dinamic of “shoulds”

You see when you are in relationship with another person - No matter the time and length of that relationship nor the depth of that relationship - You are influancing that other person and they are influancing you. You affect them and they affect you.

The deeper problem that we have in this area of our desire to relieve our suffering and should and should not is that, our attemt to bring order into what can feel like caios is that we are usually only in long term relationships with others that - for the most part - match up with our should and should nots.

With peorpl that repond to us in the way that we think they should - People that make choices for the most part that we think they should -

Nothing particulary wron with that - Except it often times - and i find more times than not - it causes us to lean away form relationships, instead of lean in. It causes us to look to the reponse instead of looking to grace - IT places us in a position and a response to the world where we love the law and we stop reponding to others with the law os love - Especially when it is a relationship that we are pouring effort and time into.

IN this parable Jesus brings in a view of the world and God’s kingdom that collides with what can so easily develop in our hearts.

BACKGROUND

Here in Matthew - Earl in Jesus ministry - He has grown up - Chosen His 12 guys - taught in the temple- Done a large nuber of mirables, Preached the sermon on the mount and moved from Jarusalem up north to the region of Galalee and He is speaking to large numbers of people. Jesus has a hughe folowing -

Here is where We find this Parable of the Wheat and Tears - this parable only apprears in matthews biography of the life of Jesus.

Intercorrilated and intertwined with several other Parables of what are a group of parables called “kingdom’ Parables. Accross the Gospels of Matthew mark and luke there are what some theologins say are 11 such parables.

This set of Parables begins with the arable of the Sower and Seed and is the basis by which we must look and understand all of the parables.

I get that theologins think there are 7 kingdom Parables, but I think if we were to look at all of the parables of Jesus, we might understand he speaks in Kingdom terms.

Tears - What are Tears in this Story - WE might think about it as just weeds -

More than just weeds - Tears are a Specific kind of weed. Some of your translations will say Darnel or Zizania -

This is a specific kind of plant that is translated to us as the word Tears - This is a plant that looks alot like wheat - Infact it can ook like wheat all the way up until harves time.

Wheat Grains turn Brown but this plant the grain but turns black.

in the oder of Parable this is what most would agree is number 6 -

It come on the heals of The central parable of the sower and the seed - The Parable where Jesus says if we don understand that one we will not understand the other 39 parables he will speak.

UNPACKING

It is in plane language. Agg terms to an agg people.

An Illistration that all can understand

common occurances

Bell Pepper - Bananna Pepepr

rest - Sleeping - important - must have.

Tears not notices until grain heads are maturing -

Slaves of landowner -

Jesus Explanes - Jesus is the Landowner and the Owner of this world - HE has brought the knigdom of heaven down - Let of discussion about what exactly is the kingdom - Let take the simplest path this moreing -

Jesus says it is at hand - Which means its has come here - It has at least partially come here in the life person and work of JEsus- Jesus said several chapters earlier in him teaching us all how to pray that we are to pray for the kingdom that it would be a reality on earth as it is in heaven. More on this in a bit.

Jesus is the land owner - The Bible says that by him and for him and through him all things were made and that nothing was made apart form jesus -

The field that the seed get sown is the world -

Wheat - kingdom people - Enemy Devil - Harvest - End of Age -

This is the parable where Jesus begins to unpack what grace and forgiveness look like. What trust in God really looks like.

APPLICATION AND INSPIRATION - As graylyn comes

Grace - Forgiveness - Changing from Tears into wheat - Peace and contentment -

THis is what happends - This is the transformation of the Gospel.

THE GOSPEL

In the beginning when this entire thing called life got started, many years ago, God, out of His perfect love, created all things and He created man in His own image. God and man were in perfect relationship with one another. God gave man one boundary that they should not eat the fruit of a particular tree. But man looked at the fruit, saw that it looked like it would taste good and was told by his enemy that it would make man like God. The instructions from God started to not make sense to the man and he made a choice independent of God to begin to live a life that made sense to man and took a bite of the fruit of the tree. In doing this he rebelled against God. When he rebelled against God his relationship with God was broken and with this rebellion came death. The Bible calls this rebellion sin.

Each one of us is born into this same broken state. Because we are, we naturally rebel against God. Because of our own rebellion against God our relationship with God is broken. This brokenness overflows into every area of our life. Because we broke our relationship with God we broke our ability to establish a relationship with God: this brokenness overflows into our ability to have a healthy relationship with each other; our ability to have a healthy relationship with the created world around us; and into our ability to have a healthy relationship with ourselves. WHY - Because we all are naturally in rebellion against God. This leaves everything and everyone in a broken state and in desperate need of put back into right relationship with God our creator. The Only one capable of repairing this degree of Brokenness is God Himself.

The Gospel, the Good news is that God is putting all things back into right relationship with Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ. God restores people back into a right relationship with Himself by calling all men to faith. And He restores, recovers, redeems and reconciles back into right relationship with Himself, those people who turn their whole life to Him in a living faith. An act the bible calls repentance.

Faith in what? Faith in the historical facts that God, in His loving kindness, provided all of mankind an open door of being in relationship with Him by taking on flesh and dwelling among us as a man named Jesus. Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, lived a morally perfect life, never rebelling against God, as a completely innocent person freely accepted the sentence of death on a roman cross. Faith in the fact that when Jesus’s blood was being poured out on the cross and He died; Faith that He, as God, paid the price for our rebellion and satisfied the Wrath of God and in doing so all of our sin and rebellion against God is completely forgiven. Faith in the historical event that 3 days after His death God raised Jesus from the dead by the same power that created all things and in those two acts of dying and being raised from the dead, Jesus defeated Sin and Death once and forever for all who believe.