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The last few days we I have shared some thoughts on Harvesting based on the Parable of the Weeds from Matthew 13. That parable reminds us of the Harvest that will take place at the last day when our Lord returns to announce His judgment on this world.

However, just because there is a final harvest does not mean you can just sit back and do nothing. There is work to be done now.

Over the years driving throughout this country I have seen all kinds of crops. Huge fields of corn, wheat, soybeans and cotton. Where we lived in Sherman, Texas for almost 30 years there was a field directly behind our house. For probably twenty five of those years they planted “winter wheat” in that field. I watched as that field would sprout and grow, then watched it turn from green to yellow to mostly tan. It is an indication that the time of harvest is near.

That is the kind of thing Jesus was speaking of when He said, “The fields are white for harvest” in the words of the King James Version, or in the NIV:

John 4:35   I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

Now is the time to get picking. Yes, there will be a final harvest, but just like those blueberries I described a few days ago were in various stages of development, some will ripen and be ready before others. Crops mature at different times. You and I are to be the workers in the harvest field now.

Matthew 9:37-38  “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Those workers are to be you and me, the followers of Jesus. We have work to do now. People are dying without faith in Jesus. You need to share Jesus with those you know and support the work of others who are sharing Jesus by their lives and words and actions.

A few years back, my granddaughter Jayden told us a story from when she was in Kindergarten. She and her sisters were baptized here at Grace right before her dad, Scott, married our daughter Bethany. At that time she was soaking up all the Bible stories her parents were sharing with her. She told us on the first day of Kindergarten, she told everyone in her class, “If you want to know about Jesus, meet me at the purple slide at recess and I’ll tell you all about him.”  She said no one came. But that’s not the point. She was ready and willing and able to share what she knew about Jesus. That is the attitude we all need to have.

God will sort out the weeds at the end. Our job until then is to bring in the crop. Share the message of Christ as Savior so the Holy Spirit will work through that. Keep the faith and share the faith.

Matthew 13:36-43  Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 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. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

This is one of those parables where Jesus tells us exactly what He means. Jesus sowed good seed, believers. The devil comes along and sows the weeds, his followers. And notice that the field is the WORLD, not the church. There will be both believers and non-believers in the world until the final harvest. God will sort out the weeds at the end. His judgment will be announced on the basis of whether or not you believe that He is your Savior. Those who believe that Jesus died to pay for sin and rose in victory over sin and death and Satan will receive the benefit of all He accomplished. Those who don’t believe are the weeds that will be cast into the fire. God’s judgment makes the determination.

Something worth noting here: since the field is the WORLD, and not the church, this does not tell us that we must simply put up with sin and unbelief in the church. That is not the case, not the point being made here. We try to lead all sinners to repentance and faith. We point out errors in a loving effort to lead people to turn from their sin and to their Savior. This is something the followers of Jesus will want to do. It is neither kind nor loving to tolerate or ignore sin. Instead, we point it out to help people grow in their lives as followers of Jesus and become more and more like Him.

However, here will always be weeds with us in the world until that final harvest. We may not always know who they are, even though we think we do. You need to be careful how you treat others. Just because you think someone is a weed does not mean he or she is in God’s sight. And it is His judgment that matters, not yours or mine. For all you know, you may be a weed in someone else’s eyes. Our task in the church is to love each other as Christ loved us, and to be just as loving to those outside the Church. You are to use God’s Word to grow in being Christ-like and help your brothers and sisters to do the same. It will all get sorted out by God in the end.

Matthew 13:24-30   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 root up 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.'”

A few years ago Cheryl and I found a blueberry farm north of Bonham. The first thing I noticed is picking blueberries is a lot easier than picking blackberries! Blueberry bushes don’t have any thorns. The lady who ran the place started explaining to us all the different varieties she had available in her patch: “TifBlue”, “Premier”, and a couple of rows of “Climax.” I had no idea there were different varieties of blueberries! And once we got started we could not remember which ones were which. The way we operated was pretty simple. If we saw some ripe berries on a bush, we’d pop one in our mouth and see if we liked the way it tasted. If it was sweet, we started picking. If it was more on the tart side, we went to the next bush or the next row. Some bushes were loaded with ripe berries. Other bushes were picked clean. Some had a few ripe berries but many more green and white and reddish looking ones that were in various stages of ripening.

That experience reminded me of the reading above. While picking blueberries may not be what you think of when you hear the word “harvest,” that is what we were doing. We were harvesting. Because we were doing it by hand, we could be selective about which berries we picked and which ones we skipped over. It is a little different in a wheat harvest. You wait until the entire field is ready, they you cut it all down to collect the grain. You also need to separate the wheat from the weeds. While that is done mechanically in our world today, the Gospel lesson talks about harvesting by hand, manually separating the crop from the weeds.

Jesus tells us that the final harvest is coming, it is a certainty, it will take place. We will stand before our God as our Judge. Those whoe trust in what Jesus did for us all will be saved. Those without faith will not. This passage speaks of it in terms of the weeds being separated from the wheat.

Do you know what a weed is? By definition, a weed is something growing where you don’t want it to grow. Bermuda grass is what I want to grow in my yard, but when it is growing in the flower bed, it is a weed. And isn’t it funny how it seems to grow so much better where you don’t want it? The same is true for farming. Wildflowers may look pretty on the side of the road, but they are more than a nuisance in a crop – they can cut into the profits.

The congregation I served in Oklahoma had a lot of wheat farmers, and they told me that in every harvest there will be weeds. You try your best to keep them to a minimum, but they will be there. However, the situation described in this lesson is an intentional sowing of weeds in the crop. The weeds would sprout with and resemble the wheat at first until it was too late. Evidently, someone sowing weeds was something that happened so much in those days that there was a Roman law that specifically addressed this act and made it criminal. In this parable, the weeds would be left alone until the final harvest so that none of the desired crop would be destroyed. The owner was so concerned about the wheat that he doesn’t want any of it uprooted by pulling out the weeds.

Tomorrow we’ll look at how Jesus explained this parable.

2 Kings 5:1–14 ¹ Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. ² Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³ She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” ⁴ Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. ⁵ “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. ⁶ The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” ⁷ As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!” ⁸ When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” ⁹ So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰ Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” ¹¹ But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. ¹² Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage. ¹³ Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” ¹⁴ So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.  

We all have a bit of Naaman in us. We have our own ideas about how things should be done. We look for grand gestures and mighty displays of power. While God is certainly capable of such things, He often chooses to use simple, ordinary things.

He used water to cleanse Naaman. But it was not just the water. It was God’s power at work through the water. Naaman simply received what God was offering Him there. If you continue reading this chapter, you will see that it was offered free of charge.

The same is true in Baptism. Simple water, combined with God’s Word, is one of the ways God gives us the cleansing from sin that Jesus earned for us. It costs us nothing but was very costly to God. Jesus earned it with His life and death. Faith simply receives the blessing God gives.

Something that looks so simple, plain and ordinary is the power of God at work in our lives. He has His own way of doing things.

Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

Luke 6:43–45 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

I’ve had a few issues with my garden this spring, but it has started producing. I had my first tomato this week, and several handfuls of strawberries already. We have had plenty of rain so far, but I have an automated watering system on my garden to make sure the plants are kept watered throughout the growing season.

I also have three small peach trees which all have fruit on them already. We’ll see if the birds get them again this year before I do.

You have to know where to find the fruit. I don’t go out to the cedar trees expecting to find peaches. I don’t look for strawberries on my cactus or irises.

Healthy plants that are properly fed and nourished produce good fruit. What comes out of you is what is in you. It won’t come out of you if it is not in you.

A person who had the love of God in his or her heart will let that flow through to others. That will be the kind of fruit he or she bears. When you are fed by God’s Word and sacraments, you have the assurance of forgiveness because of what Jesus has done for you. You know you belong to God and will live with Him forever. You will strive to be the person He has called you to be because you are grateful for the free gift of salvation He has already given to you.

A person who does not have this assurance in his or her life will have no reason to strive to bear good fruit.

What kind of fruit is your life bearing?

In my retirement I have the opportunity to listen to a lot of other preachers, something I didn’t get to do a lot of when I was in the pulpit every Sunday. I would guess you can imagine that preachers listen to other preachers with a critical ear, and I certainly do. But I do so not to be critical of the speaker. Rather I listen so that I can dig deeper into God’s Word myself. I want to see whether or not what they have said lines up with what God has told us in His Word. It causes me to question whether my own understanding of Scripture needs refining.

Let me give you some examples. Recently I heard someone talking about the gifts of the Spirit laid out in Galatians.

Galatians 5:22–23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

He then proceeded to identify this passage as Law, because it shows us how we fall short of God’s desire for us. That made me think “huh?” After all, the passage says “Against such things there is no law.” But he was correct. It was talking about living the new life to which God calls those who have put their faith in Jesus. We strive to live according to God’s Law as a grateful response to knowing we have been saved.

Then there was the pastor talking about “Doubting Thomas” and he wondered whether or not doubt was sin. He said “maybe.” He suggested that doubt comes from questioning your faith. If it causes you to dig deeper into God’s Word for answers, is it sin? I saw his point. But it made me think “Huh?” because a literal translation of the Greek in John 20 has Jesus saying to Thomas “Be not unbelieving but believe.” Perhaps we can think of doubt the same way we think of temptation. Being tempted is not sinful. Giving in to the temptation is.

I tell you this today because I don’t want you to think I have all the answers figured out. That is why I go back to the Bible. Always. “What does the Bible say?” That is my only reliable source of information about God. That is where I find the message of His overwhelming love that led Him to do whatever was necessary to buy me back from sin and death and give me forgiveness. And there is so much more in there for us to study and drink in and apply to our daily living.

When things make me think “huh?” I go back to the source.

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

Genesis 3:1–6 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”  “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Scripture records the entry of sin into the world in just six verses. One tiny act by Eve, eating the fruit they were told not to eat, brought death into this world. They had been warned not to do so

Genesis 2:15–17 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

She repeated that warning to the serpent, but the Devil was cunning and made it seem like a good thing to do. “Don’t worry…you won’t die.” So she ate it. Then she gave some to Adam, who was right there with her, and he ate it. That sin would be passed on to all their descendants

Some try to lay all the guilt at the feet of Eve. We are told that she was deceived by Satan (2 Corinthians 11:3), but she would still be held accountable for her sin. I wonder what was going on in Adam’s mind while all this was going on, since we are told he was there with her. Was he not paying attention? Did he tell her not to do it but she did it anyway? Why did he eat it so readily? Was he afraid of missing out, that she would have something he didn’t have? We do not know what he was thinking, but we do know he readily joined her in her sin.

How many times has peer pressure made you do something you knew you should not do? You are with your friends who convince you to go along with the crowd. It is a powerful influence. Even when you know better, even when you have promised you would never do that, you let yourself be convinced to do something you know is outside of God’s plan for your life. And once you have done it, Satan uses it against you for the rest of your life, reminding you that you are fallen and sinful.

Because death entered this world, Jesus chose to enter the world, too. He would die the death that the sin of Eve and Adam and all of us deserved. He could do that because He lived without sin. And God accepted His payment on our behalf. Our faith in Jesus grabs hold of what He earned. And then He defeated death for us by rising on the third day. We are in the season that reminds us to celebrate His Resurrection, but we do well to celebrate it every day.

Remembering the victory Jesus earned for you will help you resist temptations, including peer pressure.