Over the past few months, I have been faced the challenge of
choosing how to react to certain issues. It’s caused me to dig into the New
Testament and see how Jesus dealt with normal, everyday, sin-filled people who didn’t
follow Him.
Last week I wrote about 3 Bible stories that helped me
understand Jesus’s heart for unbelievers. Over the weekend, I was also reminded
of Jesus’s parable of the wheat and the 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 uproot 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
We have weeds everywhere, in our churches (even in our small
groups), in our schools, at work, in government, in every group we are a part
of. I admit, my natural response is to pull them…get them out of my “wheat”.
After all, we all know that weeds suck up vital nutrients and can even choke
out the things we are trying so hard to grow.
Jesus says no. HE says to leave them be. Why? Look at it again:
“‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you
may uproot 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.’”
Oh my goodness, how many young Christians have been hurt by
church turmoil? Church splits destroy young, immature Christians. Jesus says, “let
me deal with the weeds when I get ready. YOU focus on the task at hand…growing
wheat.”
Another interesting little nugget… notice that the weeds aren’t
separated until the wheat is ready to harvest. Thinking about people I have
known throughout my life and ministry, I can think of several who LOOKED
like “weeds”, but were really just very immature, new Christians.
We have to give everyone time to trust Jesus and to mature in their faith.
Our job is to grow wheat.
Give them good fertile soil. Water them and let them soak up the Son so that
they grow deep strong roots and are able to withstand all the storms of life.
We can trust Jesus with the Wheat...and the Weeds.
We can trust Jesus with the Wheat...and the Weeds.
