July 30, 2023         Text:  Matthew 13:44-52

Dear Friends in Christ,

Ladies and Gentlemen step right up.  You have come to the right place this morning. (Not that sitting in the Lord’s sanctuary is ever the wrong place to be.)  You are going to get from Jesus three parables for the price of one.  As we get tired of looking at higher grocery prices the Lord has a three for one deal that you cannot pass up.  These parables taught the disciples.  These parables are going to teach us.  We need the guidance, don’t we?

“BASIC TRAINING WITH PARABLES”

What treasure might you find in your home?  When Toni and I first got married I told her if this ministry thing didn’t work out, I had a box full of baseball cards that would be worth something someday.  We might have enough for a week of living expenses!

The first treasure is hidden in a field.  This parable has a Christological interpretation.  The field is the world, the treasure is us (the hearer), and the man is Christ.  Christ gives up the glory of heaven to win salvation for you.  This is the first teaching moment.

The second parable is a little different.  The man goes in search of pearls.  He knows a good pearl when he sees one.  When he finds the best one, he sells all he has to buy it.  We too have a treasure.  That treasure is the gift of Jesus Christ.

Looking at my baseball cards as a treasure, what I have done with them over the years?  Mostly they sit in a box on a bookcase.  Occasionally, I will get them out to relive childhood or scratch the itch of curiosity.  Is there something better I could be doing with them?  I could put them in a nice photo album to keep them in a more pristine condition.  They would then be more valuable when sold.  Maybe I don’t understand the treasure.

This is what happens with the pearl of faith you and I have received.  God sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we might receive this treasure.  Isn’t it a treasure to know that God sent his Son to take on human form and to carry our pain and sorrow – even die on a cross – so that Paradise might be restored.  This the second rung in our basic training.

Our third parable is like the parable of the weeds which was our sermon last Sunday.  Remember the commission the Lord gave to the disciples to be “fishers of men?”  Here the fishermen haul in both good and bad fish.  Because of the bad fish we know the devil is still at work.  The disciples as fishermen have no authority to execute judgment before the net is hauled in.  The nets of God gather good and bad alike for the eternal sorting that is to come.  The bad fish are not dead; they were caught alive, but are worthless for eating like the fruit from the bad tree.  The bad fish are discarded into the fiery furnace as a continuation of the illustration of the weeds.  The basic training concludes with this parable, or does it?

Now Jesus wants to know if these 12 men have understood what He is talking about.  As is their nature, they all answer, “Yes.”  How about you?  Do you understand?  You know the story of Jesus and what He has done for you.  You come to the cross weekly to thank Him for the gift of forgiveness.  

Has the treasure cost you?  Would you give up your prized possessions to keep this treasure?  Do you have the answers you need in life or are you still searching for the pearl?  Our pearls we go in search of are:  science for cures; philosophy for purpose, psychology for understanding.  They are fine pearls, but they are not the pearl.  They look nice, but they do not answer the deeper problems of life.  The Holy Spirit leads us to the pearl of great value.  We realize that only this pearl has the answers to life’s questions.

It is easy to say yes to the confession of sins when we read it from the hymnal or bulletin.  We answer yes to “do you intend to amend your sinful life?” but then we fail to keep our promise after the benediction.  We have given the right answer, but do we answer in faith?  We do if our answer of yes in wrought in faith through the conviction of God’s Holy Spirit.  Jesus knows our minds and builds our answers.  God works in us to give us new insights and a new conviction of our faith.  God can produce new commitments and a new way of life.  Jesus can bring new life to our bungled past.

Well, how has basic training gone?  Hasn’t it been a blessing to be taught by the Master?  What an enormous treasure we have in Jesus Christ.  This true pearl answers all of our questions in this life.  We joyfully receive the great treasure of forgiveness and eternal life.

Amen.      

July 23, 2023         Text:  Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Dear Friends in Christ,

During June when we got very little rain our grass did not grow.  But did you notice what else didn’t grow?  The weeds.  Very little yard work was needed.  No spraying, no pulling.  The weeds were dormant.  Once the rains came and the grass started coming, here came the weeds.  After finishing mowing, the next minutes were spent pulling weeds.  You too?

That is the point of our parable in Matthew’s gospel.  Along with the good seed of wheat there have to be weeds.  Sometimes that is hard for us to take.  Why does it have to be that way?  Let’s let Jesus explain.  

“PATIENCE . . . HIS HARVEST IS COMING”

The weeds are growing.  Love of possessions, godless ideologies, false beliefs, misguided thoughts on marriage, the church, the family.  More and more weeds keep popping up.  Are they going to overtake everything?

Even more dangerous weeds are the false theologies of the church.  Alternate ways to heaven, clergy that aren’t clergy, the prosperity gospel, keeping the law.  These all turn people away from Christ and His work.  Many of us have been to other churches, with Christian in their name and they barely mention Christ.  How can that be?  Weeds!

How do we deal with the weeds?  Some of us want to be weed-whackers.  We figure it is up to us to give these charlatans a good spray of Roundup.  It is true we do not want to aid or even passively accept what we see in society or the church.  We are encouraged to speak the truth.  We are expected to witness for Christ and His Word.  We are to take a stand on the Lutheran Confessions as we have been catechized.

Jesus though gives us a warning.  Don’t become an out of control weed-whacker.  It is not up to us.  The master of the house tells the servant to let the weeds and the wheat grow together until the harvest.  Because of the intertwining roots, if we start pulling up the weeds, we will also pull up the wheat.  Now is not the time to act, but to wait, to be patient, to suffer the difficulties with hope until the harvest arrives.  The Greek compound verb “grow together” is found only in this verse of the Bible.  It serves to underline again how intermeshed the weeds and wheat have become during their growth, as a result of the enemy’s clever strategy.  Yet, we know that the strategy will fail.

With this assurance, we who live and work and serve in the Lord’s Kingdom can continue to be confident of what we do.  In spite of the fiercest opponents, the naysayers, the lying teachers and those taking the wrong path, we know that the Lord’s harvest will come according to His will and Word.  Patience, my child.

Ok, Pastor, but “what about all the damage and loss the church is undergoing as these weeds grow?”  It is reasonable to feel anxious at times, but again look to the parable and what the Lord says.  God will do the judging.  “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace.  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (v. 41-42)

He knows all and sees all and He will do the weeding.  After all, He is the one who from eternity devised the plan, the only plan, that could save any of us.  We all deserved to be uprooted and thrown into the fire.  Our weed like behavior can infest others.  But God sent his Son to take our fiery torment, to suffer the pains of hell for us at the Calvary.  Because Jesus has paid for the sin of everyone, God will allow no one to be uprooted until the last stalk of wheat has been brought to saving faith. 

Our impatience can get the best of us.  You might think that Satan and the weeds are choking the harvest.  You want action, but see you aren’t God.  This is part of our spiritual test.  How patient can you be?  The day of redemption is coming.  God will not, I repeat will not tolerate evil indefinitely.  It is up to Him to bring in the harvest and separate the weeds from the wheat.  The reformers suffered evil and falsehood in the Church even more than us.  They in fact refer to this parable in the Augsburg Confession.  They knew as we need to acknowledge that there are hypocrites and wolfs in sheep clothing who mix with true believers in the Lord’s Church here on earth.  God will judge them for who they are.  It is not your job or your place.

We have to fight the urge to pull all the weeds.  When working in our yards, do we ever get all of them?  Never.  It is the same with the weeds in our world.  The devil is evil.  People buy into the lies.  Mankind has always had opposition to Christ.  Have confidence, Christian men and women.  The Lord teaches us to wait patiently . . . knowing that His harvest is coming.

Amen.