Matthew 13:24, Jesus tells another parable. This is called the parable of the weeds. It goes like this. The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a man who sowed good seeds in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

So when the plants came up and bore grain, the weeds appeared also, and the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, master, did you not sow good seed in your fields? How then does it have weeds? And he said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servant said to him, then what do you want us to go gather them? But he said, no, lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time, I'll tell the reapers, gather the weeds first, bind them in bundles to be burned, and gather the wheat into my barn. Now verses 31 through 33 are two more parables. We'll look at those in a few weeks. We'll get back to them. Verse 34 and verse 35 is Jesus' short explanation for why He teaches in parables.

We looked at that two weeks ago, so I won't rehash it now except to say He's telling these parables to obscure the truth from the crowd, but penetrate the disciples' hearts. So everybody goes away, and the crowds leave their house in verse 36, but the disciples have a question. They ask, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the fields. Verse 37, Jesus answered, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world.

The good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they'll gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace.

In that place 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 indeed the word of God. All the parables in Matthew 13 are given to you to prophesy or describe the church age before the church age has ever happened.

Do you remember the church has not always been in the world. When Jesus is telling these parables, he's telling them to a bunch of people that don't know what a church is. They have never heard of elders and deacons. They don't have the Lord's day where people gather for worship. They don't have baptism.

They don't have communion. They don't have church pews. They don't have a six story cross on the roof of a building, they have never seen anything like this. They don't have cell phones and cars, but they don't have churches. Can you imagine?

And so Jesus is describing the church to them in a way that most of the people will not understand. Why is he doing it that way? Because remember, most of the crowd is antagonistic towards him. They are not disciples. They are there for the show, for the miracles, for the food, but not for the faith.

They're there to be entertained. Many of them are there because they're conspiring how to kill him. We learn that in Matthew chapter 12. Even his family is there. His family does not believe in him.

So they're on the outside of the of the group, so to speak. They want Jesus to come inside. They're afraid. They they think he's out of his mind. They're concerned for him.

So they're trying to call him in. The crowd is pushing in on him, and so instead of following his family and going indoors, Jesus pushes out on a boat to get some space, teaches the crowd, but he teaches them in a way that they will not understand. However, the mystery of the parables is that these truths that he's saying have the capacity to penetrate the believer's heart. He's doing this so that when he goes away, he's not gonna be with them forever, when he goes away, they will remember that he taught them about the church. He does that here in the parables.

He does that in Matthew 16 where he says the church will be founded on the confession of Jesus as the savior, the Christ, the Messiah. He does it in Matthew 18 where he talks about elders, introduces them and says they're gonna keep the Church pure. He does that in Matthew 28 when he sends the Church into the world to preach the gospel. And then in acts two, the Church begins, and it begins with persecution. People are turned against it, and they're antagonistic.

They're fighting it, just like they did to Jesus. So at that time, you're going through suffering and difficulty from persecution. It is encouraging to remember that Jesus taught you about this. Before it happened, he taught you. And the first way he teaches them is with these parables.

The first parable, the longest one, the archetypal parable, the one that the others are patterned after, the prototype parable in that sense, was the parable of the sower. We looked at that last week. The parable of the sower was the man who throws seed, The seed is the gospel. The man is the evangelist going to the world throwing the seed. Some seed falls on hard hearts.

Hearts that love the world. Hearts that don't want to be persecuted, and the seed bounces off, choked out by weeds, dies. But some seed falls in good soil and grows and produces a spiritual harvest. That's the first parable. And the disciples didn't understand, and Jesus explains it.

The next parable they ask about, not the next parable he told, remember he told lots of parables that day, but the next one they asked about was the one we just read, the parable of the weeds. Now both of these parables have a lot of similarities. They're both agriculture, seed, for example. They both describe the word of God as a seed. They both describe the sower as advancing the kingdom of God in the world through the people of God.

So they both have a lot of similarities. But there are big time differences. I'm going to spend a few minutes to talk about the differences because the key to understanding the parable of the weeds is to understand how it is different than the parable of the sower. Right? So the parable of the sower has only good seed.

Remember, that was the main point. Only good seed. Don't mess with the seed, don't get genetically modified seed to make the gospel more culturally appropriate. No. Only use the right seed.

There's good seed, but there is good and bad soil. In contrast, the parable of the weeds has good and bad seed, but only good soil. The parable of the sower, the field is your heart. The parable of the weeds, the field is the world. The parable of the sower describes weeds as the love of riches.

The parable of the weeds, weeds are sown by the enemy. In the parable of the sower, the problem is the human heart. In the parable of the weeds, the problem is external. It's somebody not involved who inserts himself. In the parable of the sower, you have converted and unconverted people both in the church.

In the parable of the weeds, you have converted and unconverted people both in the world. And the way, the most basic way to synthesize all this is this way. The parable of the sower is about the world in the church. The parable of the weeds is about the church in the world. That's the difference.

The parable of the sower, you don't respond to anything. Like the gospel just bears fruit. But the parable of the tares, it requires a response because weeds and wheat are growing together. These are obviously familiar images. Jesus tells both these parables to a crowd of people to convince them that he knows evil is coming, the gospel will be rejected, and what are they supposed to do about it?

The short answer is that both of these parables tell you not to do anything about it. One commentator calls this messianic pacifism. I like that phrase. Messianic pacifism. There's there's weeds in the fields, and the parable of the sower doesn't tell you to do anything about the weeds.

Some people are not going to believe the gospel. Move on and sow seed elsewhere. The parable of the weeds. There's weeds growing up in the world. There's evil in the world.

Let's go after it. And Jesus doesn't go after it. He tells you to leave it be. Both these parables help prepare you to understand how the church is supposed to respond in a world where there's evil. That's gonna be my big question this morning.

Alright, so zone in. How is the church supposed to respond to evil in the world? That's what this parable is about. I'll give you an outline that describes evil. I hope this will help you process your thoughts as we navigate this parable.

Evil is not. It's all negative. This is a description, a counter parable. It's a description describing the limitations of evil, things evil can't do, things evil can't be, things evil is not. And before we get into it, there is this basic paradox, Christianity kind of 101 here, is that Jesus reigns, but evil remains.

God is sovereign, and yet there's evil in the world. Jesus ascended into heaven, and we live in a fallen world, and evil is still here. So Jesus came and died on the cross, rose from the grave, defeated sin in his body on the tree, you know, vanquished sin and the Devil by resurrecting from the grave and ascends up to heaven, and but evil is still here. That's kind of infuriating. That's the paradox.

God is sovereign, but evil is here. Evil is foreseen. Evil is inevitable. And Jesus knows all about it. So let's look at this parable.

First, evil is not random. Evil is not random. That's the first point this parable makes. It's not that evil just happens. You know, weeds just happen, especially in Virginia.

I pulled weeds in my yard yesterday. It's like five degrees today, and there was weeds growing in my yard yesterday. And I don't remember ever planting those weeds. They just appear. This parable is not like that.

The weeds in this parable don't just appear. The main point of this parable is that those weeds are put there by a personal force. The enemy. The enemy comes and plants tears or weeds in the fields. Commentator sells these weeds or something called darnel weeds.

Darnel wheat is their kind of technical name. I don't know anybody named darnel, but they're named after a bad weed. And this is something supposedly a common occurrence in the Roman Empire. These people would take these darnel wheat seeds and throw them in the fields of their enemies. Soldiers were known to do this.

If a community rebelled, they'd do that to the fields. People would do it to enemies of, you know, property disputes and all of this. And those weeds are nasty, nasty creatures. First of all, they look more or less like weeds. They're, you know, darnel weeds are about three millimeters wide, and wheat is about five millimeters wide.

And so that's just, I mean, that's a small difference. A trained eye could see it, though. That's the point, is that somebody who's doing wheat all the time can identify the difference. But to the to the the layman, they look just like wheat until right before they blossom. When they blossom, the darnel wheats, they fall down and they open up to this toxic fungus that grows inside of them.

It's toxic to birds. It can kill birds. It's toxic to people for sure. So this is not a harmless prank. Also, when it blossoms, it wraps itself.

It falls down and wraps itself around the wheat. Wheat, meanwhile, blossoms up. I'm sure you've all seen wheat fields. It blossoms up, and so that's the difference between these. Once they bloom, it's obvious, but until they bloom hard to tell this was so common the Roman Empire made it against the law they made it a capital offense to sow this kind of seed in your enemy's field nevertheless people did it and so when Jesus uses this analogy it's one the disciples would have been familiar with even if they hadn't experienced it themselves.

It was common enough in the world they would have known what it was. Second of all, Jesus tells us that the enemy is the devil. He says that in verse 40. I'm sorry, verse 39. The enemy who sowed them is the devil.

The weeds don't just happen. There's a personal force behind all evil that does it, that brings it to bear in the world. The weeds, by the way, in verse 41 are all the causes of sin and all lawbreakers. That's the weeds. Every evil act in the world, every person who opposes the wheat, every person who is outside of the gospel is living for themselves, who doesn't put their faith in the Lord is antagonistic towards the wheat.

That's the point. I know it's common to say, you know, there's what about neutral people? Somebody who's not a wheat or a tare, not a wheat or a weed. Have you gardened before? Like, there is no middle ground.

It's not like, oh, I didn't plant that, but it's actually kind of kind of helping there. No. There's wheat and there's weeds, and those that are contrary or outside of or opposed to the gospel are the weeds. There's lots of different kinds of weeds in the world, of course. There are people that just live for themselves.

There are people that are self righteous, that live for the benefit of others, but, you know, it's a way to put themselves forward. There are people that live in flagrant rebellion against God, that lie, that lust, that murder, that steal, that covet, that commit idolatry, that do 10,000 sins, that are basically lawbreakers. Notice it doesn't even go into the different categories of sin in verse 41. It just says all sin and all lawbreakers are all weeds. And they don't just happen.

The Devil is behind them. Last week, we talked about how the Devil is the source of all false religion. Every religion, contrary to the gospel, has the devil as the head, as his father. He is the fountain of all lies. But here we're talking not just false religion, every kind of religion.

Matthew 14 is going to talk about how every sin comes from the human heart. The people sin because their heart sins. Their heart is the fountain of evil. But here in this parable, we learn that the Devil is behind even that. The person who says I don't even believe in the Devil is still doing the devil's will.

Jesus says, you lie because the devil's your father. And you say, I don't even believe in the devil. To which Jesus says, I don't know, you sure look a lot like him. There's a family resemblance here. Highly offensive today to say this kind of thing, isn't it?

First of all, to call massive categories of people weeds, not politically correct. But Jesus goes further than that and says they are doing the work of the devil, even those that don't believe in the devil. They're contrary to him. In other words, evil's not just random. It doesn't just happen.

How is that encouraging to these disciples? Because it reminds them when they encounter evil, when they encounter persecution, which they will, church starts in Acts two, persecution starts in Acts three, when this goes down, Jesus knew about it. It's not something that just happens. Jesus knew it would happen. Jesus knew who was doing it, who was responsible.

He knows all about it. Whenever God is at work, Satan is also at work. In that sense, evil is inevitable, evil is subversive, evil is deceitful, but evil is known by the Lord, limited by the Lord. The devil is working while the people are sleeping, of course. Did you notice that little detail on this?

The workers went and took a nap. This is the glorious doctrine of naps. Amen? It's not that they're being lazy. It's that they these guys are working dudes.

They worked, and now they need to take a nap. And while they're taking a nap, the devil comes in the field and does his work. And you know who's not sleeping in this is the landowner, the master. He knows what's happening. He knows the source of all evil is the devil who does not sleep.

He's always at work. That should encourage us that the Lord knows about it and is sovereign over it. It is not random. Devil is a personal being who has personal action. Secondly, evil is not fixable.

It's not fixable. That's the lesson from the workers in this parable. Evil is not fixable. The workers get up, and this is some period of time after the devil left, of course, because the wheat is has germinated and is starting to grow, and the workers are doing their rounds in the field, and they recognize the the star anel wheat. They see it, and they have they have three questions.

And their questions are kind of amusing, but, you you know, we can laugh at them a little bit, but recognize that these are our questions when we find evil in the world. We ask the same questions when we find evil in the world. So the servants in verse 27 have recognized, sorry verse 26 they recognize the weeds verse 27 they come to the master and they said to him master did you not so good seed in your fields In English, you communicate the expected answer to a question by your tone of voice. Greek has grammatical instruction. The implied answer to this is yes.

But in English, we just, you know, we just communicate that with the tone of our voice. Like, you know, maybe a husband has heard this before. Are you wearing that? I don't know. Did you mean to burn dinner?

Like you've heard have you heard that question before? It's it's kind of a ridiculous question. Did you mean to plant good seed? Like, were you at Home Depot and you saw the bag of wheat and you saw the bag of weeds and you looked at it and said, I don't know which to choose. Obviously, the master wanted to plant good seed.

That's the obvious answer to the question. So what next then? If the master wanted good seed, the second question, why then are there weeds in the fields? How did they get there in verse 27? How then does it have weeds?

If you planted wheat, how come there's weeds? This is our their how is our why. This is how we ask the question. God, if you are good, why then is there evil in the world? If you're casting good seed, and you are sovereign and you are loving and you are a good God who is in control, why are there weeds everywhere?

Implication, did you take a nap also? And we go through this also when we encounter suffering and evil in the world. Our first question is God, did you know about it? Obviously God knows about it. If you notice that when you first encounter suffering or hardship in life, that's normally how your prayers start.

God, I just want you to know about this situation. You know, of course, God knows about this situation, but that's how we start our prayers. God, I want you to know about what so and so is going through or about this thing over here. God knows about it. We move on from that to the next one.

I don't know why this is happening. I don't know, you know, that's that's where we go. Why is it happening, Lord? Why is it happening? If God is good, how can suffering be in the world?

This is such a common question. Theologians have a name for it. Theodicy, it means if God is good and God is in control, how can there be evil? It's this idea that all three of those things can't be true. And if you notice when we read this parable, the Master never answers that question.

He tells them the enemy went in, but he does not tell them why he let the enemy in. Why didn't he stop it they don't get to know that they asked it they don't get an answer the Bible has lots of answers for why there's evil in the world there's evil in the world because of the devil of course but why does God allow it The whole book of Job is about that, that God is sovereign, he's in control, he limits the Devil, but he allows the Devil to work because ultimately, God receives more glory from defeating the Devil, forgiving sin, and comforting people in loss than he would if there was no sin in the world. And this is the most basic way to say it. God God's glory is more magnified from a world with a cross and an empty grave than it would be from a world with just the Garden of Eden. God's glory is more on display in a world where mankind falls into sin, Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden, people have suffering in life, they're experiencing hardships, there is evil in the world, real evil in the world in a very profound way, and yet Jesus forgives sin on the cross, rises from the grave, people can have their sins forgiven by placing their faith in Christ, and they see how God is at work in all things for our good and for his glory.

That is a more powerful display of God's glory than had Adam and Eve never ever sinned. That's fundamental to Christianity. And in specific instances, sometimes you get to figure it out. Sometimes you see an act of evil in the world that you don't understand, and then a month or a year or ten years later, you realize what God was doing with it, how it actually worked to glorify God more than had that thing never happened. Sometimes you get to see that, but not always.

I might even hazard a guess that not normally. Normally, you're like the workers in this. You don't get to understand why God was allowing it. You know it's for his glory, but you don't get the details. This is why this is such an important parable.

Faith is the ability to trust God during those trials. Doubt is the ability to say, I don't trust you, God, unless you can answer the why. So question, is God aware of evil in the world? Answer, yes. Question, why is evil in the world?

Answer, to glorify God. Question, what should I do about evil now? That's where the workers go in verse 28. So the servant said to the master, do you want us to go gather the wheat and gather the weeds? Do you want us to go out and get the weeds out of the field?

That's what they wanna do. They wanna go to war. They wanna get the sickle and go get the weeds out. But the master says in verse 29, don't know, lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with it. They're wanting to help the master out, And the master says, no, you're not gonna know what to do.

You're not good enough at determining wheat from weeds. Remember, trained I could, and the master says, I'm not risking it. Also, you've got, like, boots and stuff, and you're walking you're stepping on the wheat to go after the weeds. Ultimately what the master knows is you're going to do more harm to the field by going after the weeds than you would if you just let everything grow They wanted to help Jesus out And Jesus says don't leave them alone. This is in a sense the partner parable or the opposite parable to the Good Samaritan.

The point of the Good Samaritan parable is don't just stand there, do something. But this parable teaches you don't do something, just stand there. I think it often takes more faith to stand there than to do something. Because we are confronted with evil in the world, and this is our activist tendency that is in our heart. We are confronted with evil in the world, and the activist inside of us wants to go fix it.

But that is just it's pride. It's puffing up our own ability. It's thinking more highly of us than we ought. It's thinking that we have the ability to go get the weeds, that we have the skill to identify what a weed is. But we normally don't.

This parable, in many ways, is given to us to confront our activist nature. We want to help God out, but often we help God out. We just get in his way. This is the disciples who see the city that's rejecting Jesus and says, Lord, let's call down fire from heaven. Let's purge these weeds once and for all.

And Jesus says, no, don't. The Lord rebukes through this parable those with activist tendencies to take matters into our own hands our ultimate task is to reach sinners not to fix society you know the workers are supposed to be doing is planting more wheat Take care of the wheat. The wheat will grow. The New Testament mandate for the church is to be evangelists into the world. There is no New Testament mandate to right the wrongs of the world.

That doesn't mean the church doesn't care about evil. Doesn't mean that the church is not bothered by suffering in the world. Of course not. That's the great fallacy of human thinking. And I've heard people say this very, very frequently.

If the church isn't attacking this evil, that means the church doesn't care about this evil. And that's the fallacy. That's not true. It means that if you focus on weeding you're not focusing on sowing we're better at sowing than weeding we harm when we weed we don't harm when we sow Now, I don't want to get too sidetracked off the point of this morning's message, but there's whole I could preach a whole sermon on the role of Christianity and the gospel in transforming society. I know I can do it because I've done it several times before.

The gospel does work in society. This is the example of the book of Philemon. The book of Philemon upends the Roman institution of slavery, ends up unwinding slavery in the Roman Empire, and ultimately transforming the world because of it, but it does so without telling the Church to go after slavery. Just do the casting of seed, the watching of wheat grow, that has the natural effect of transforming things from the inside out. Also, the Lord does raise up certain people and gives them certain opportunities to stand for righteousness in a transformative way.

And I'm so thankful for those people. There are the William Wilberforces in the world. There are the modern day abolitionists and those that oppose the social wrongs of the world. There are those that God has raised up in the Church, and I'm so thankful for them. But that is not the church's role.

The church's mission is to foster evangelism while making mature followers of Jesus Christ, not to fix society, and I fear that the church gets so distracted by weeding, by trying to right the social wrongs, it loses its mission. This parable stands as a rebuke because ultimately evil is not fixable by the church. Thirdly, evil is also not a threat, and you have to have these two points paired together. It is not a threat to the wheat. And that's what the master's response is in Verse 30.

Let them grow together. Do you notice in this, the wheat is never at risk? The wheat's never at risk. The master has more skin in the game, so to speak, than the workers do. It's the master's field.

If the weeds take over, worst case scenario is the workers gotta go get a different job next year. They can go work for the enemy. The master, he's the one invested in this, and the master is the one who says take a step back. You almost wonder if the enemy wasn't banking on some sucker falling for the idea that it's his job to fix the world. That the enemy sowed the seed hoping that one of the workers would go into the field to weed it out the master says just calm down a minute man take a step back take a deep breath the weeds are not going to win they're not going to win Satan is real Satan is powerful but Satan is going to lose And good wheat can withstand the test of weeds.

I hope, I hope that you do not allow the presence of weeds in the world to make you question the sovereignty or goodness of God. I hope the fact that you see evil and suffering in the world doesn't make you think that God doesn't care. Somebody wrongs you and you think, oh, God must not care. Somebody wrongs you and you think God doesn't know, God doesn't care. You see evil in the news or in the newspaper or in the world and you think, oh, God must not care.

That's just not true. God does care, but He just cares on a different timeline than you are on. This parable reminds us of the parables about the kingdom and the King has everything under control. The kingdom is not being threatened. It's Psalm two all over again.

The Lord is enthroned in heaven. And the nations rage, the Lord will be enthroned on his holy hill, and he's going to laugh at the nations who rage against him. People conspire. They want to sow weeds in the kingdom, and the Lord laughs. God's response to evil in this parable is to let it alone.

That does not mean he's indifferent. Remember, he has more at stake than the workers. He's not passive he's not callous he might look that way at a moment but looks can be deceiving he's not preoccupied with pulling weeds because he knows the wheat is going to grow and he knows the weed is going to expand. He also knows that we are bad at pulling weeds because we're ignorant and unable. We don't know the difference between wheat and weeds.

And so he takes his time and lets them grow. Aren't you glad the Lord didn't pluck Moses when he looked like a weed out of Egypt? He murdered the dude and you think cut him down. And the Lord says, no. Give him forty years in the desert with some fertilizer.

He'll be okay. Aren't you glad the Lord didn't get rid of David when he murdered the guy? You think that's a weed. Cut him down. The Lord says, no.

Give him some pruning. We'll prune him. Prune him back a little bit. He'll be Okay. The weeds don't ultimately threaten the wheat, and the Lord knows that.

Finally, evil is not victorious. Evil is not victorious. He says in verse 30, I'm going to gather I'm going to get the reapers. These are in the interpretation the angels, he says. In verse 41, he describes the reapers as the angels.

Gather the weeds first, bind them in bundles to be burned, and bring the wheat into my barn. That's what's going to happen. It's going to separate the wheat from the tares, separate the wheat from the weeds, bind them up, and burn them. Now normally you wouldn't bind the weeds. You wouldn't cut the weeds down and then bind them up.

Of course not. But that's what the angels are going to do. It's an image for gathering. It's an image for judgment. Notice also in this that even at the end of the age, it's not going to be the church's job to to pull the weeds.

That's not a job we ever get. They ask, can we go do it? And Jesus says, not now and also not ever. He has his own workers for that. Special, highly qualified reapers are going to come and they're going to weed the field.

And this is what God often uses. In Genesis 19, it's the angels that judge Sodom. In Exodus 12, it's the angel that brings the death of the firstborn. In Psalm 34 verses five and six, it's the angels that drive God's enemies out from in front of him. Acts chapter 12, Herod Antipas is opposing God.

It's an angel that strikes him dead, not Peter who who is in the wings. If you know anything about Peter, he would have done it. In Revelation seven, it's the angels that are held back from their judgment, and then they're unleashed. In Revelation 15, they're the ones that are pouring out the bulls of judgment on the earth. And I'm even thinking of in second Thessalonians.

Right now, evil is dominant in the world, but the man of lawlessness cannot come until the one that restrains him, speaking of the spirit working through the church, is removed. Right now, evil is restrained because the Church's presence here on the Earth is restraining it. The time is coming when the Church is removed and the men of lawlessness will be there and the Antichrist will be unveiled, and then the angels will come. Jesus will come in power and great glory with his angels to bind the weeds. And we wait for that day, and it's so tempting to just wait for that day and think that the Lord is too slow.

The Lord is indifferent, the Lord is slow because He's not going after them right now. But the Lord isn't slow as you might count slowness. He's patient. He's abounding in steadfast love and mercy. He's patient because he doesn't want to go weed the garden when he still has weeds that he's gonna turn into wheat.

He's patient, not willing that any of his elect should perish. And aren't you glad he didn't weed the garden before you became wheat? You were weeds at some point. You think, why doesn't God God weed the garden? Because he has some weeds that he's still gonna turn into wheat.

You know, weed and wheat are not permanent conditions. You can be a weed and become a wheat. I'm so thankful the Lord waits, so thankful he waited for me to go from weed to wheat. I'm so glad time didn't run out, but the time will run out. Two Peter three ten, the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

The heavens will pass away with a roar. The earth and all the works that are done in it will be exposed. So the Lord is kind towards us. He's patient towards us, and he tells us don't don't go on weed patrol. Do not go on weed patrol.

Sow seeds and let the church grow. The Lord has it under control. So what are you supposed to do then? You're in the field. You're working in the field, and there are weeds everywhere.

What are you supposed to think about God? How are you supposed to live in a world where there's so much evil? You're supposed to go beyond this parable and get your eyes off of the field and onto the cross. Do you remember evil makes so much more sense, why God allows it, when you look at the cross? That defines our shape here, that evil is sinful and God punishes sin, and he pours out the wrath that is owed for every sinner that will ever believe.

He pours out that wrath on Jesus Christ so that Jesus suffers and dies in our place. That shapes the way we see evil. So you're getting frustrated by all the weeds in the world? You get discouraged and you get overwhelmed? My advice to you is to get your eyes off of the field, get your eyes off of the weeds, look at the hill behind the fields, look at the cross on top of the hill behind the field, and let that cross transform the way you think about the world you live in.

God, in the eyes of our heart, we do look for a hill far away. We do look for the cross on top of that hill that shows us how much You hate sin and how much You love us. You're a loving God who is abounding in steadfast love and mercy. You are not slow, but You are patient. You're not callous, but you are forgiving.

The cross reminds us of both of those truths. I'm thankful for the people in our congregation that do so much good in the world, but I do pray you would guard our hearts from the arrogant idea that it is our job to change the world. We know the gospel is at work in the world, and we want to be facilitators of the gospel. So use us to take the gospel to the world. And, God, evil breaks our heart.

We see suffering in the world that is beyond description. Help us get our eyes off of the weeds and onto the cross. Only you can do that. Set our eyes on that hill far away. We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. And now for a parting word for pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today or if you wanna learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.