[0:00] All right, we are talking about stories of the kingdom. As you just saw from the intro video, we are starting a brand new series this morning.
[0:11] ! So if you weren't here last week, that's all right. You are in for the beginning of a brand new series. Would you take your Bibles with me? If you don't have one with you, there should be one in the seat back in front of you. There's the Bible app that you can download on your phone.
[0:26] But everybody looking at a copy of the Word of God this morning, let's go to Matthew chapter 13. We're starting this series on the parables of Jesus. These parables were stories that Jesus would use to tell an illustration of a point, a greater point and truth that he was trying to teach.
[0:45] So, we're starting out this morning with the very first parable that we'll be covering in this series, and that is the weeds and the wheat.
[0:57] The weeds and the wheat. Matthew chapter 13, we'll read from verse 24 down through verse 30. For sake of time, I'm going to go ahead and read while you are finding your place.
[1:13] Matthew 24, I'm sorry, Matthew 13, verse 24. Jesus presented another parable to them. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
[1:27] Now, let me stop right there before we go any further and draw your attention to those words. The kingdom of heaven may be compared. Throughout the scriptures, throughout the gospels especially, you'll see Jesus telling these parables, and oftentimes he'll say the kingdom of heaven is like this.
[1:50] And then he gives us this parable, this story which would illustrate the truth or the point he was trying to make. So, that's why we're calling this series Stories of the Kingdom.
[2:00] If you asked somebody in this room to define the kingdom of God, we might struggle a little bit to do it. I was in a room full of pastors, Texas Baptist pastors across our state, gathered in Waco, and the speaker said, would you all be able to define the kingdom of God for me?
[2:22] There was dead silence. And then a couple of guys ventured an explanation of what the kingdom of God is, and we all had a little bit different idea of what the kingdom of God is talking about.
[2:36] Well, let's try to wrap our head around it because apparently Jesus thought it was pretty important. So much so that he gave these parables to illustrate what the kingdom of God is.
[2:47] So, let's pick it up back in verse 25 as he says, The kingdom of God can be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while people were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and left.
[3:00] When the plant sprouted and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared. The landowner's servants came to him and said, Master, didn't you sow good seed in your field?
[3:12] Where did the weeds come from? An enemy did this, he told them. So, do you want us to go and pull them up? The servants asked him. No, he said.
[3:23] When you pull up the weeds, you might also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time, I'll tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first, and tie them in bundles to burn them.
[3:41] But collect the wheat in my barn. So, the title of our sermon this morning, our message from the scriptures is this, The Weeds and the Wheat.
[3:55] Did you know that this morning, you could be either a weed or a wheat? Hopefully, we'll understand what he's talking about as we dive a little further into this passage.
[4:08] Can we pray together and ask God to bless our time? Lord, I pray that right now you would give illumination by your spirit to the words that you've given us. You taught this lesson to your followers so many, many, many years ago, and yet still today, as your followers, it's a lesson that we need to hear.
[4:25] I pray that you would impact us and change us from the inside out to better reflect you. And it's in Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. All right, so let's look again at this passage. Jesus says the kingdom of God is like this.
[4:38] The kingdom of heaven is like this. The man goes and sows good seed in the field. So the first truth that we uncover here is there's nothing wrong with the seed.
[4:51] The seed is not the problem. The seed is not the problem. Would you look back up in that passage just a little bit earlier, verse 3. Matthew 13, but back up to verse 3.
[5:04] Jesus tells them many things in parables, it says. And the first one he shared here in this instance is, consider the sower.
[5:14] You know, we're talking about one who goes out and sows seed, trying to get something to grow. So the sower went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path. The birds came and devoured it.
[5:26] Other seed fell on rocky ground. It didn't have much soil. And it grew up quickly since the soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up, it was scorched. It had no root. And it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns.
[5:37] And the thorns came up and choked it. Other seed fell on good ground and then produced fruit. Some hundred, sixty, thirty times what was sown. Do you understand the constant thing in that passage?
[5:50] The problem with the results of the seed was never with the seed itself. The seed was never the problem. The problem was always what happened after.
[6:05] So, the truth we must understand, that I believe Jesus is trying to teach this morning, is the gospel is the seed.
[6:15] What do we mean by the gospel? Well, that word literally means good news. The good news about Jesus. That is the seed. And there's nothing wrong with the seed.
[6:27] So, as we are going out into this world, whether it be in our homes, or our neighborhoods, or our workplace, or our friend group, or even just strangers that we encounter throughout our day, as we are in our circle of life, we are meant to be like this sower and sow seed.
[6:49] Go out and sow good seed. Now, you might be sowing bad seed, and then you'll get bad fruit. But if you sow good seed, then you have an opportunity then to see the fruit of the good news of Jesus pop up in your life.
[7:08] So, there's nothing actually wrong with the seed itself. There might be something wrong with the sower, and where he's sowing the seed.
[7:19] There might be something wrong with other weeds or thorns that pop up alongside it, and we're going to look more in detail at that part of it. But the gospel, the good news of Jesus, there's nothing wrong with that.
[7:30] And so, don't let the message change. Unfortunately, do you understand that in churches across our world, sometimes the message has changed. There is a truth, and then everything else is not truth.
[7:47] Do you understand that? There is truth, and if it's not that, then it's a lie. The truth is, you and I are sinners.
[7:57] We each have our own sins, but we are sinners, every one of us. We share that in common. Goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, and from then on, the Bible teaches us, sin passed upon everyone, all of us.
[8:16] We have all sinned. We've all broken God's laws. We've all broken God's commandments. So, we were in need of someone to help us. You can't go back and rewrite what you've done.
[8:28] You can't even start from now and never mess up again. None of us are capable. We're all gonna mess up. We're all going to willfully break God's laws. That's who we are.
[8:40] So, we need somebody to help us. Well, there was only one, both willing and able, to do that, and his name is Jesus.
[8:51] That's right. And if you didn't know that, then I hope that good news just brightened your day today. Because Jesus is the one, the only one, willing and able to do something about this sin problem.
[9:04] And he did. That was God's plan from the beginning. And so, Jesus left his throne in heaven, came down, humbled himself, took on human flesh, became one of us, lived this life, suffered all the same struggles that we suffer, dealt with the temptations that we deal with, but he did it without ever sinning.
[9:27] He became our example of how to live this life. And he walked among us. He healed us. He served us. He met our needs. He taught us.
[9:38] He came to seek and to save the lost. And he's still doing it today. He's still seeking. He's still saving.
[9:49] Every time we see somebody hop up in those baptism waters and give that public expression of their faith, they're showing that Jesus saved them. He sought them.
[10:01] He found them. And he saved them. So the seed is not the problem. The seed is that message. That still changes lives today. That still is the good news.
[10:13] A lot of news out there. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Whether you turn on Fox or CNN or something else, you'll find news and most of it probably doesn't make your day brighter.
[10:24] But there is good news. And that's from Jesus and that's what we promote. That's what we sow and then let God bring fruit.
[10:39] So the seed is not the problem. But then the second part of this passage that we see, I'm going to get back to it on the screen for you here. Verse 24. He sowed good seed in his field but while the people were sleeping, what happened?
[10:53] The enemy came. Well, if you're a follower of Jesus, who's the enemy? That's right. It's not your neighbor. It's not that guy who cuts you off in traffic. Okay?
[11:05] It's not the person who's going at you on social media. That's not your enemy. The enemy is Satan. There is an enemy and he is trying to undermine and destroy what God does in this world.
[11:19] Now, he's always going to fail but he's going to give it his best effort. And so the enemy came and he sowed weeds among the wheat and then he left. Did his work and took off.
[11:31] And when the plants sprouted and produced grain, the weeds also appeared. So the work of the enemy was there. And I can promise you, the enemy will always sabotage.
[11:44] The enemy will always sabotage what God is trying to do in this world and in your life. The enemy's not just going to sit by quietly and let God turn your life around and make everything how it ought to be.
[11:58] The enemy's going to fight back. I'm sorry to tell you that. That's how sweet heaven is going to be someday. When our race on this earth is run and our time is complete and God brings us home to heaven, we get to live this perfect, wonderful, forever, eternity with Jesus.
[12:14] And there's no enemy to fight against. But until that day comes, the enemy is trying to hold on to the darkness. He's trying to not let any more turn to the light.
[12:26] So he's going to sabotage. And what does he do? He doesn't just go pull up the good seed that was sown.
[12:40] Number one, I don't think God would, God definitely would not let him do that. What he does is he tries to make it hard to tell what came from good seed and what came from bad seed.
[12:54] So he goes and sabotages. He's sneaky. He's a trickster. So, let's look back at the text.
[13:08] Verse 25. He sowed weeds among the wheat and left. When the plants sprouted and appeared, the weeds also appeared.
[13:23] Now, understand a principle about this. In your copy of the word of God, it might say tares instead of wheat. T-A-R-E-S.
[13:33] Anybody have a Bible that says tares? I figured there'd be a number of you. And it basically means the same thing. Let me share a little truth here. The weeds can look like wheat.
[13:47] This was a common problem. Honestly, it still is a common problem. We have any wheat farmers in here? I didn't think so. We were, if we were in the Midwest, you know, we might get some more of that.
[13:59] But the weeds can look like wheat. I want to show you a picture. On the left, the words are probably hard to see, but on the left, you've got Darnell.
[14:11] Or Darnal. Anybody know how to pronounce that? We'll go with Darnell. It works for me. And then on the right, you have wheat. To the casual observer, if you're walking through a field, would you easily be able to identify the weeds, tares, Darnell from the wheat?
[14:31] Yes? That's good. Most of us can't. It's a very, very common problem in agriculture when it comes to wheat is it's hard to identify.
[14:42] Now, as it grows come harvest time, it's easier to identify. The weeds will get these, the Darnell, the tares will get these dark seeds, and then the wheat will have the nice white seeds.
[14:58] But early in its stages, it's very, very hard to distinguish the tares or the weeds from the wheat.
[15:11] Do you know what's interesting? Is that the enemy was not just trying to get rid of the good man's crops. He was trying to make it hard for him to pull up the good crops and not pull up the bad crops with it.
[15:29] Not be able to identify which is which. Do you realize that Darnell over here, these tares, are poisonous both to humans and animals?
[15:43] They can ruin a field. They can take over. They can absolutely ruin what he's trying to do. Do you understand the point that Jesus is making here?
[15:56] The enemy is tricky in how he sabotages God's work on this world. He doesn't always just try to stop the message of God.
[16:09] Sometimes he tries to sabotage it by putting a different message in with it. He tries to put people who are not truly followers of Jesus and put them into a church of Jesus followers.
[16:26] He tries to make something that kind of looks like Jesus and kind of looks like Christianity but it's got a very different purpose and it's poisonous.
[16:40] There's all kinds of illustrations of that. Sometimes the tares don't even know or realize when it comes to spiritual tares and weeds they don't understand that they're being used in this way.
[16:54] They're just trying to live their life. Just trying to get what's best for them. And sure why wouldn't I join this church bunch of moral upstanding citizens. Yeah that's me too.
[17:05] But they have their agenda and it does not mimic God's agenda. They have their priorities that don't align with God's priorities. And all of a sudden when those people have been in a church for a while and they start raising their family in that church they are promoting a different kind of Christianity than Jesus left us with.
[17:28] And all of a sudden churches can start to get sidetracked and they can start to get overrun with tares with weeds. This is the principle that Jesus is teaching his followers saying be careful the enemy is going to bring up those among you who will try to get you off track.
[17:50] Try to change the priorities that I gave you. The weeds can look like wheat but when it's harvest time God will know the difference. He will separate the wheat from the tares.
[18:04] He will separate the wheat from the weeds. So the enemy will sabotage and the hard part is the tares or the weeds can look like the wheat.
[18:18] Another thing the weeds roots go deep. They go deep. The weeds roots go much deeper than the wheat's roots do.
[18:33] I don't know if I said that very well but you know what I'm trying to say. The tares have these long roots that go in deep and then they spread out and they can start to choke the roots of the wheat, the good crop that the sower was trying to produce.
[18:54] The weeds roots can go so deep in a church or in a community of Jesus followers that it can start to choke out what God is actually trying to do through those followers of Jesus in this world.
[19:12] Unfortunately, you see it all the time. That's often why churches end up dying. That's why churches end up closing, shutting down because the devil got in there and sabotaged them.
[19:26] His roots went so deep that it choked out everything else. We must recognize when there are certain values or priorities within certain people that don't align with God's values and priorities.
[19:45] You know what the crazy thing is? We have to check our own heart and see if our own values and priorities align with God's with our lives, with our families, but especially when it comes to our church.
[19:58] There is nothing that Satan wants more than to just make our church ineffective. He doesn't even necessarily want to close us down if he can just make us ineffective for God's kingdom.
[20:15] So when you're looking at God's kingdom, by the way, God's kingdom was, is, and always will be, but if you're looking at advancing God's kingdom on this earth right now, which is what God told us to do, then how would we go about it?
[20:36] Well, we would go about it by sharing the good news of Jesus with other people. What if the devil got in and said, no, no, no, no, no, that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is not sharing the good news of Jesus, the most important thing is having a nice group of like-minded people that you can enjoy your life with.
[20:58] Well, that sounds good, right? I want a nice group of like-minded people that I can enjoy my life with. I think we all do. Funny thing is, God told us to do that.
[21:11] He said you should, one of the functions of the church should be to have a nice group of followers of Jesus that you can do life with together. But if that becomes the priority, then what happens?
[21:26] We become this us for and no more kind of group of people. This click, this private club of people that it's like, hey, this is who we are, this is what we're about, and if you don't fit in, you can't sit with us.
[21:42] You can't come in these doors and we'll look at you sideways and somebody's wearing their hat in this building. Unbelievable. Weren't they raised better than that? There's all kinds of examples of how that could play out.
[21:57] it's not about our little group all looking alike, thinking alike, acting alike all the time. It's about all of us together trying to be like Jesus.
[22:13] He's going to take us different places in different ways, but he's going to do it together. And we need to take him to the people outside these walls.
[22:25] Truth is, sometimes we need to take him to the people inside these walls too. But the weeds roots can go so deep that over time a church can begin to prioritize different things other than taking Jesus to everyone who needs to hear.
[22:42] And that's when a church can start to get so steeped, so cemented in their own traditions, their own values, what they feel is most important that they are resistant to anything else.
[22:55] and if Jesus himself walked in and said, I want you to stop doing this and start doing this, they'd say, well, we're not sure about that. Committee's going to have to recommend it, we're going to have to put it to a vote, Jesus.
[23:10] We have our way of doing things here. Now look, I'm not attacking committees or votes, but we have to ensure that what the committees value, what the votes reflect, is what Jesus values.
[23:26] And if we have adopted traditions or practices within our own church over nearly 150 years that don't reflect the values of Jesus Christ himself and what he left for this church to accomplish, then we've got to look at that and say, have we let some weeds in?
[23:49] Have we let some tares go up? Have those roots started to spread and choke out what God wanted to do here? There's a very practical application for this lesson that Jesus was trying to teach.
[24:02] And so what does he say happens to the roots of the weeds, of the tares? What does he say happen? You pull them up. You pull up the weeds and you pull up the roots, you pull up the wheat, all at the same time when harvest time comes.
[24:17] You don't do it early. Don't worry, we're not going to go through this church right after the service ends and say, you're a wheat, you're a tare, you get out, you can stay. Somebody might do that to me too, so we'll pass on that idea.
[24:33] He says, no, you don't know, you can't know who's a weed and who's wheat. God knows, he keeps the account. When the time comes, they'll expose themselves.
[24:46] It'll be easy to tell. And then we'll send the tears off to be burned. So, the next part on your bulletin here, produce for the barn or poison to be burned.
[24:59] We've been talking a lot about fruit lately. We've been talking a lot about bearing fruit for Jesus. We've talked about this Who's Your One campaign. If you haven't been a part of that and you walked in and you saw signs everywhere that said, Who's Your One, you're probably wondering what that's all about.
[25:15] Well, that means that we are supposed to share the good news of Jesus with people. So, let's start with one. Let's start with one person in each of our lives that you say, I need to share Jesus with that person.
[25:26] So, I'm going to pray for them. I'm going to ask God to give me opportunities to share Jesus with them. And then I'm going to pray for boldness that when those opportunities come, I won't be too scared.
[25:37] I won't be too nervous. Or I won't be too shy. I will have the words to say to share Jesus with somebody in that moment. This is my one person that I'm going to focus on.
[25:48] Maybe God will send me somebody else along the way. But I'm praying for this one and I'm going to work toward seeing this one hear the good news of Jesus and become a follower of his. So, we've been talking about this and that's called bearing fruit.
[26:03] Jesus gives us this picture. He says, I am the vine. You are the branches. If you abide in me, then you will bear the fruit that comes from me. Now, you might be abiding in yourself and you bear the fruit that comes from yourself.
[26:17] You might be abiding on the internet and you bear the fruit that abides from that. You might be abiding and spending your time in focusing on having your heart attached to all kinds of different pursuits in this world and you will have the fruit that comes from that.
[26:33] But if you abide in Jesus, then you'll have the fruit that comes from Jesus. That's what's called produce in the barn. He wanted to grow wheat. So when it's time for harvest, he collects the wheat and he puts it in the barn.
[26:47] The tares don't go in the barn. They're poisonous. They get burned. They get bundled up and they get burned. And I think it's interesting that he said they get burned because there is a real punishment for those without Jesus.
[27:02] and I wish it wasn't this way. But unfortunately the Bible is pretty clear that those who die without Christ are condemned to an eternal punishment in a lake of fire called hell.
[27:20] It's a terrible place. God didn't create it for you. He created it for Satan and all of his angels. But those of us who broke God's laws and rejected his payment for our sin.
[27:35] Rejected his son's sacrifice to redeem us. Remember that song we all messed up on the words earlier? Redeemed. What does that word even mean? Why are we even singing that song? Redeemed means you bought something back.
[27:49] We were God's. We were his creation. As we said earlier, Adam and Eve's sin. Sin passed upon all of us. We were all born now with this sin nature. God could have just made us robots.
[28:00] Right? Could have just made us automatically do whatever he wanted us to do. But he gave us this will. He gave us this choice. He gave us the ability to choose to obey him or not to obey him. Well man, that's certainly a more meaningful relationship.
[28:11] If I have the choice to love you or not love you and I choose to love you, that's meaningful, right? If I had no choice, there's nothing special about that.
[28:23] But when we had the will, the opportunity to accept or reject Christ and we reject him, then we end up in the same punishment that was reserved for Satan and his demons.
[28:39] Poison to be burned. There are people who sit in church every Sunday, year after year after year, and they're going to be bundled away as poison to be burned.
[28:51] Why? Because they're not wheat. They're weeds. They're tares. I cannot imagine, seriously, I can't even begin to guess who it would be in this church, but statistics would say there are people in our church who are weeds, who are tares.
[29:14] And my prayer is that they would not suffer the punishment of poison to be burned. verses 47 through 50.
[29:33] Back in Matthew 13, we'll be done in just a moment. Verses 47 through 50. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a large net thrown into the sea. It collected every kind of fish, and when it was full, they dragged it ashore, sat down, gathered the good fish into containers, but threw out the worthless ones.
[29:54] So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out, separate the evil people from the righteous, and throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
[30:06] Now, if you just read this passage in a vacuum, you would say, well, I don't want to be evil, I want to be righteous so I don't get thrown out. So I better be good, I better mind my manners, I better eat all my vegetables, I better be as good as I can be, right?
[30:25] But if you read that context, not all by itself, but in the passage, that passage in the whole context of scripture, then you understand what it means to be righteous or evil.
[30:38] Evil means God has not imputed or like stamped his righteousness onto you. evil means you are still just like everybody else without Jesus.
[30:53] Guess what? Before you got saved, before you consciously made the choice to place all your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, you were evil too.
[31:06] And then God made you righteous. righteous. Now if that hasn't happened for you, then I pray that you would become righteous, not by your righteousness, but by his righteousness today before you leave this place.
[31:22] You'll have an opportunity to in just a moment. But he says he's going to separate the evil from the righteous. That doesn't mean he's going to separate the people that act the best on the outward appearance, on the surface.
[31:38] It means he's going to separate those who have been stamped by Jesus' righteousness, by his blood, been washed clean. That sacrifice that he made on the cross.
[31:51] Easter's coming up. We're going to talk. The whole world is going to pause for a minute and think about bunnies, carrots, and Jesus' resurrection. I don't know how those things came together. And the bunnies and carrots are fine.
[32:06] But Jesus' resurrection, after his death, his sacrificial death, is what makes all the difference for you and for me. Then you are made righteous in God's eyes, not because you're a good guy or a good girl, but because Jesus made you righteous.
[32:28] And then he can help you be righteous after that. So are you produce for the barn or are you poison to be burned? Are you fish that will be put into containers and used for a good purpose or will you be thrown out?
[32:45] Here's the difference between ripened wheat and tares. See wheat over here? It bows over when it's ready to be harvested.
[32:57] It's got these white seeds. The darn ale, the tares remains erect and it has these dark poisonous seeds. Are you produce or are you poison?
[33:13] Are you used for a good purpose? Or are you going to be thrown out? It's a hard question we have to ask ourselves. We've got to look back at our own salvation experience.
[33:25] are we a genuine follower of Jesus or have we just been trying to be a good person? Have we just felt like oh I've always been a Christian. No you haven't.
[33:36] You were born without him. You must receive him. You must receive him. Ezekiel 36 and we'll be done.
[33:48] I have good news for you. Would you turn back in the Old Testament to Ezekiel right before the book of Daniel? Kind of turn to the middle of your Bible and then look around until you find Ezekiel chapter 36.
[34:05] I have good news for you. God can turn the weeds into wheat. God can change you from a weed into wheat. Right now you might be sitting here and even though you have felt like you're a good person you belong here.
[34:22] This has been your church for many years. You might actually be a weed. And Satan is hoping that you stay that way and you keep sowing your own agenda and you never become wheat for God's purpose.
[34:40] but God can change you. 2 Corinthians 5 17 says if any of us are in Christ he is a new creature. Old things are passed away.
[34:51] All things are become new. Now look at Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36 verse 25. I will also sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. He will make you clean.
[35:03] I will cleanse you from all your impurities. All your idols. Verse 26. I will give you a new heart. a new heart. A new heart. And put a new spirit within you.
[35:15] His Holy Spirit. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.
[35:29] God can change you from a weed into wheat. But not if you resist him. only if you embrace him. Only if you say yes.
[35:41] God will not change everyone. Some, I don't know why, I can't understand him, I can't understand his mindset, his ways are much higher than my ways.
[35:54] But some were created with God having the foreknowledge that they will not come to me. They will not turn. They will not accept. They will stay evil and wicked.
[36:06] I will never be able to impute or stamp my righteousness onto them. But some of you will. Some of you will. And I pray that before my time on this earth is done, God uses me to turn many to righteousness.
[36:24] Many who he calls, many who he draws, can hear the good news from my lips. And I hope that's your prayer too. I hope that's your prayer too. Because it's going to take all of us to grow his kingdom.
[36:38] It's going to take all of us for his children to come in. So, our takeaway this morning is simple. Are you living like weeds or wheat?
[36:53] What's your function? In your home, in the community, in this church, what is your function? Are you living like weeds or wheat?
[37:07] I know on the surface you'd probably say wheat. But go below the surface. Look at what your priorities are. Are your priorities God's priorities? Or are you holding on to different priorities, different values that lead us to different places than what God called us for?
[37:28] What did he come for? He came to seek and save the lost. Is that our purpose? May God give us the same purpose that he did and may he make us wheat for his good pleasure, for his good purposes.
[37:47] We'll give him all the glory for it. Would you bow your heads with me right now? God, I pray that in this moment you would reveal to us by your spirit whether we are in you or not.
[37:59] So many people in this world think they're Christians. They're convinced they're Christians because they grew up going to church.
[38:13] Someday, as you teach us in your word, they're going to stand before you and say, Lord, I did all these things in your name. I was a good person.
[38:25] I did community service. I helped people when I had the chance. Why are you now rejecting me? And you're going to look at some of those people and say, I never knew you.
[38:39] Depart from me. You can't be here. I never knew you. God, those are sobering words for me, for every person in this room.
[38:52] Are we truly your children? children, has there been that moment where we turned to you and placed our faith in you? Not just to help us through a tough time in our lives, but for the forgiveness of our sins, where we humbled ourselves before you and said, God, I know I'm a sinner.
[39:11] And I know that's why you sent Jesus to die on that cross, was to pay for my sin and everyone else's. I know you're God. You rose from the dead. I believe in you.
[39:22] I place my faith in you. And with your help, I'm going to follow you the rest of my life. God, if that moment has come, then we can stand together and we can say, yes, I am wheat.
[39:35] I might not be perfect, I might mess up, but I know my standing with God. Give everyone in that room confidence in that truth, personally, individually, for them.
[39:52] It's in Jesus' name we pray. Right now, as Jared's playing, let's keep our seats just for a moment before we dismiss. In my prayer just a moment ago, I gave that prayer of saying, God, I humble myself, I place my faith in you, forgive me of my sin and make me your child.
[40:13] Would you bow your heads with me just so we have some privacy right now? If that's you, if you've never done that, I'm not asking if you've been in church, I'm not asking if you call yourself a Christian or if you're a good person, I'm saying, have you ever done that?
[40:29] Placed your faith in Jesus to forgive your sins and make you his child? In the privacy of this moment, would you slip your hand up and say, that's me, I need to do that. I haven't done that.
[40:41] Just slip your hand up right now and I'll pray for you. Thank you. For the rest of you, would you say, am I behaving as a weed or as wheat?
[40:53] Am I serving my own purposes, which, man, Satan might be using to poison the whole crop? Or am I behaving as the wheat that God made me to be? In this moment, would you pray and ask God, make me serve my purpose for you in this world.
[41:13] Behave as your child, not as weeds that need to be pulled. We'll give God the glory for you.