Sermon 7-20-08

Our Old Testament reading says there is no other God like the True, Holy, Almighty God of the Bible. Why is there no one else like Him? Christianity is the only religion where God does it all for us. He paid for our sin, He lived a perfect life for us, He draws us to Him, He gives us faith – He does everything for us. In every other religion God’s favor has to be earned. There is no other God like our God.

Old Testament – Isaiah 44:6-8 This is what the LORD says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come – yes let him foretell what will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

Our second reading from the Book of Romans explains what you hear in the news all the time. If you watch the news or the weather channels you know that floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, all of creation, is groaning, on edge, waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Epistle –Romans 8:22-25 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Our Gospel Lesson for today tells us that when God’s Word goes out as seed into the world it always bears some fruit

Gospel – Matthew 13:24-30, 35-43 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.’” 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 sins 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.

Sermon –

We are in that part of the church year where we read a lot of the parables. A parable is an earthly story that illustrates truths about the Kingdom of God. Parables are interesting because at times they are hard to understand; they take some thought and the power of the Holy Spirit to understand them. Why did Jesus spoke in parables? And as we know, when we have a question of God we can ask Him - and find the answer right here in the Bible!

The disciples came to Jesus and ask Him that same question (Matthew 13:10). He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you but not to them.” The word “you” refers to believers; those who have confessed their sins and believe that Jesus died on the cross and paid for their sins; believers will be given the secrets of the kingdom of God. Verse 12 continues, “Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have (in other words, an unbeliever, a person who has rejected God), even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing they do not hear or understand.”

Jesus also spoke in parables because it fulfills Old Testament prophesy. Psalm 78:2, written 1000 years before Jesus appeared, tells us that one of the ways people would be able to know the Messiah had come is that He would speak and teach in parables about the mystery, the secrets of the Kingdom of God. And Matthew 13:34 says, “Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world’.” At the end of the day when Jesus was alone with His disciples, they told Him they didn’t have the foggiest idea of what this parable was about (Verse 36), so Jesus explained it to them and they wrote it down. And He explains it to you through the Bible today. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today; the mysteries, the deep things, the hidden things of the Kingdom of God.

There are five points that Jesus makes in today’s parable: 1) Only God can cause people to believe. God’s Word, the Good Seed, goes out into the world and only that can bring belief. 2) The devil creates the evil in the world. Just as God’s good stuff goes out to create believers, the devil sows his seeds of evil in the world. This is very important to remember because most of the time it is God who gets blamed for the bad things in this world. 3) God lets both good and evil exist in this world and grow together. People ask, “Why doesn’t God just get rid of the evil?” It’s not in His plan for now, he is letting both good and evil grow and exist side by side for now. 4) The end is coming; God will end the evil. It hasn’t happened yet, but Judgment Day is coming and God will stop the evil. Those who do not know Jesus as Savior will be separated from the believers; the believers to eternal life in heaven, the unbelievers “to that fiery furnace”. 5) Don’t try to judge or determine who is saved and who is not saved because you’ll drive yourself nuts! And - you won’t be able to come up with the right answer! Only God knows who is saved and who is not saved so don’t try to judge someone else’s faith; leave the judgment to God, He will separate at the end of the age.

What is also very important in this parable is that Jesus says, “He who has ears, let him hear.” The Greek word for “hear” means “to hear with understanding” not just “to hear a noise.” It means “understand what God is saying to you”. So we want to take the points from our Gospel Lesson, go through them one-by-one and really listen to what Jesus says. We want to “hear with understanding” because God is revealing the secrets of His Kingdom to you this morning right here in the words of Scripture. So, what is God saying to us?

God plants His seeds in this world; it is God who makes believers. If a person confesses their sins, believes that Jesus died for their sins, and is saved, it’s because God enabled them to do it. The Bible says you didn’t choose God, you didn’t choose Jesus, He chose you. He reached out to you, brought you to faith through His word and the Sacraments. And Jesus says, “If you have ears, understand what this says.” This reveals a very important secret about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Did you ever wonder if you are in the right religion? There are oodles of religions; will you be surprised on Judgment Day? Sometimes we think, “My religion was the thing to do when I was a kid. Everyone around me was a Christian, so therefore I’m Christian. My parents were Christians and I’m a product of my environment. If I had been raised by parents in another religion I’d probably be that religion, so how do I know if I’m in the right religion?”You know because Christianity is self authenticating. We talked a little bit about this during Easter and I want to repeat it again because it is so very important. You can worship any false god in the world, you can even create your own false god; you could take a rock and make a god out of it all on your own. But what is Jesus telling us in this parable? He is telling us that we cannot become believers; we cannot worship Jesus as our Savior unless God enables us to do it. And if God has to enable us to do it, then God is the True God and we’re in the right religion. You wouldn’t be sitting here this morning unless God brought you to faith and brought you here, you can’t believe on your own.

There was an excellent example of this concept in Bible Class this morning. Someone told about the difficulties in witnessing to unbelievers; people say, “Christianity is a bunch of baloney; who could believe that stuff?” This is what Christianity sounds like to the outside world; true faith is only spiritually discerned by the power of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. You know you’re in the right faith because God brought you here. You can’t believe unless He has enabled you to do it. It’s not tradition, it’s not because you’re a product of your environment; you are a product of God! He who has ears let him hear.

The devil plants his evil in this world. God always gets the blame for everything that goes wrong. The things that go wrong in this world are not God’s fault and you have this secret knowledge about the Kingdom of God – the devil plants his evil in the world. The bad stuff, the things that go wrong are there because the devil plants them there.

God allows the good and the evil, His believers and the work of the devil to exist and to grow side-by-side. You may wonder why God does that; why doesn’t He just eliminate all the evil? That’s a very good question. Is anyone hungry this morning? It’s time for a mid-morning snack. I brought some snacks with me, a banana which is very good for you, and I have the evil – Double- Stuffed Oreos! Boy, are those things good! So these are your choices for snacks, what are you going to choose? I’ll tell you what I chose so far this weekend – Double Stuffed Oreos – there’s hardly any left in the bag! But say for example I didn’t have any Double-Stuffed Oreos to choose from, all I had was a banana; I would have to choose the banana. And then if I said, “I eat healthy!” what would there be to that? The banana was my only choice! It’s the same thing with God. Look at God as the banana. Look at evil as Double-Stuffed Oreos. God shows us that He brought us to faith, brought us into His kingdom, forgave our sins, assured us of eternal life in heaven, and said He will never leave us or forsake us – how are we going to respond to that, what are we going to choose? If God eliminates all the evil in the world, we are always going to choose God; there would be no other choices.

Or what if God would eliminate absolutely everything else you could do on Sunday morning except come to church and worship Him? What would everyone be doing? We would be robots; we would be in church worshiping God. So God lets the evil flourish because He doesn’t want people worshiping him because they are robots, He wants people worshiping Him because they love Him, because they care about Him, because they want to serve Him; that’s what He wants to see. Having been brought to faith by God, who are you going to worship, who are you going to spend your time with? Is it things of God or is it things of the world? God wants to see who you are going to follow. He lets good and evil grow together so we have a choice.

God also lets good and evil grow together because He wants to show how powerful He is; He wants to show His might and power. He can take every bit of evil that the devil is growing in this world and use it for His good purposes. Case in point: when the devil used the evil in this world to crucify Jesus Christ, what did God do? He brought good from it! It was the opportunity to pay for sin and reconcile you and me to God forever! So God lets good and evil grow together so that He can show His power over the evil and use it for His purposes. He who has ears, let him hear.

Evil will end someday. We know why God doesn’t end evil now. He will end it someday and it will be Judgment Day. There will be no more evil, He will send the devil and all his workers and all the evil to hell. That’s what this parable in Matthew says. The philosophers have speculated about the outcome of good and evil for centuries. God is going to return and the evil will end; believers will go to heaven and unbelievers will go to the fires of hell. That’s what’s going to happen, that’s the secret things of the Kingdom of God. He who has ears, let him hear.

Lastly, don’t try to determine who will go to heaven and who won’t. Don’t try to judge people, don’t play that game; God says we don’t know! You and I can’t see in a person’s heart, so don’t try to judge who has faith and who doesn’t; let God decide. This is good knowledge to have because so often we get ourselves in turmoil when a friend or relative dies and we don’t know if they are going to heaven. Don’t even speculate - let God be the Judge. We never know how God has worked in a person’s life or how He may have reached them with the Gospel Lesson in the final minutes of their life. We don’t know, so don’t try and judge. Our job is to pray for them and bring them God’s Word. It is the power of God’s Word that converts, it is the power of God’s Word, the Good Seed, that goes out and makes believers. So pray for them and bring them the Good Seed of God’s word and let God handle the rest. You may be surprised when you get to heaven that all the people you thought were going to hell are actually there. God’s Spirit is effective.

This is just one of the many parables that are designed to reveal to believers, and to no one else because the rest of the world doesn’t care, the secrets of the Kingdom of God. To review, God plants the Good Seed, God makes believers. The devil plants his evil. God lets good and evil grow side by side so that we have a choice. The end is coming for evil. Christ is going to return; the believers will go off to heaven and unbelievers to the fire of hell. Don’t try to judge, let God handle it, let God do the separating, He lets good and evil grow together so we have a choice. Let God decide who goes to heaven and who doesn’t and you’ll have peace. And, as Jesus would say, “He who has ears, let him hear.”

Prayer -

Heavenly Father, sometimes parables can be confusing. Yet, Heavenly Father, You have revealed to us in this parable the secrets of the Kingdom of God. Thank You for doing that. Help us to be good stewards of your secrets. And help us to get the word out that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Thank you, Lord, for revealing Your secrets; help us to respond by bringing Christ into the lives of others. And we pray all this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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