Those of you who have tended lawns and gardens know how important it is to keep weeds under control. You have to pull them out or use chemicals. It’s a lot of hard work, especially if you have to figure out what is a weed and what is a good flower or blade of grass. After all, sometimes the difference is not obvious because some weeds look like good flowers or grass and vice versa. At times like this, don’t you just want to say, “The heck with it!” and let someone else do the dirty work?

The parable of the wheat and the weeds talks about a similar situation. In Jesus’ day, it was common for a mischief-maker to sow darnel over the original crop. Darnel looks almost identical to wheat until harvest time, and it is mildly toxic. The servants wanted to uproot the darnel immediately, but the landowner insisted that it grow with the wheat until harvest time. Otherwise the wheat would be destroyed along with the darnel because the roots of both plants would be interwoven. At harvest time, the darnel would be separated from the wheat and burned as fuel.

This story is a metaphor for the harvest of the good and the bad that is coming. The bad will be burned like the darnel, and the good will be gathered into the barn or, in the case of Christians, taken to heaven. Jesus taught that on that day God will judge or reward the people. The lawless will suffer in hell, while the righteous will rejoice in heaven. The righteous are those who come to Jesus in faith to be cleansed from their sins. Jesus will clothe them in his righteousness.

The parable of the wheat and the weeds answers two questions: How can good and evil coexist in the world and what can we do about it? There are two planters, two plants, two plans and two prospects. The meaning of the parable is that as Jesus introduces the kingdom of heaven into the world, Satan and his followers will do everything they can to resist the kingdom. In the end, the kingdom will triumph. In this story, the field represents the world, not just the church.

Sometimes the enemy-Satan-makes our job as sowers of the seed called the Good News harder. We are to spread the news of Christ’s love, but sometimes we are hindered by Satan and the world. Sometimes these evil plans are disguised as good plans or good people. It’s not always easy to distinguish the good and the bad. Sometimes a person we think is good turns out to be bad and vice versa. We must not be quick to judge others. Patience must not be confused with condoning evil. Evil, especially evil that is disguised as something good, will become recognizable at harvest time.

We do not live in an ideal world. We are constantly faced with decisions to which there is no clear answer. Some decisions we’ll get right, others we’ll get wrong, and still others we won’t know if we were right or wrong for months or years, but we still have to make them. No matter how we did, God loves us anyway and promises that he will hold all of our choices and our lives together in love.

Good and evil exist side by side in our world, including in our churches. It is not our job to weed them out because we can’t see the hearts of the people. The true sower of salvation is Jesus. Only Jesus has the power to transform hearts. He is the one who saves sinners through the preaching and witnessing of believers. Our job is to see that we remain true believers and not become hypocrites. It is also not our job to weed evil out because our standards and God’s standards are not the same. Out standards are not perfect, but God’s standards are perfect. What we decide is evil might be good in God’s eyes, and what is good in our eyes might be evil in God’s eyes.

To make things worse, we have both wheat and weeds in our own lives. We have our good points and our bad points, and all of them combine to create who we are as people. If we get rid of the weeds in our own lives, we get rid of our own bad parts, but we also change parts of who we are as people. Removing the weeds might make us more Christ-like, but we also end up removing a part of ourselves. Besides, as I mentioned earlier, we might end up removing parts that are good in God’s eyes and keeping parts that are bad in his eyes simply because our standards and God’s standards are not the same.

We know better than to judge others, but we do it anyway. We judge people based on how they look, social status or where they live. For example, when I was a teenager I had a paper route for several years. One time my supervisor asked me to take on a new customer who was a member of the lower class. My parents did not want me to accept her as a customer because they were concerned that she would not pay, but my supervisor convinced them to change their mind. Their concern was based on the customer’s social class, but this customer was one of the best I had in terms of paying for her newspapers.  In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I had to go back to her house to collect her money and still have fingers left over.

We might have the desire to be perfectionists, especially when it comes to other people. If we find ourselves dwelling on their faults or wondering why they don’t act and feel and think like we do, or if we find ourselves getting frustrated or annoyed by their weaknesses, perhaps we are expecting too much of them. Also, we might be failing to respect the differences we have in terms of culture, experience, background, character, personality or temperament.

Jesus teaches that God’s kingdom doesn’t come all at once. It was started when Jesus was born, it continued after his death and resurrection, and it will end when he returns to judge everyone. God doesn’t tell us why he lets good and evil exist together. We can only conclude that somehow it glorifies God to allow evil to exist. God’s kingdom is a mixed bag of good and evil, and it’s not always clear which is which. As such, we’d do well not to try to judge people. We must not judge others because we could destroy the good with the bad. Jesus has set high ethical standards and is troubled by Christians who do not live up to them. Unlike God, we do not know the hearts of people.

This story invites us to costly discipleship. The very real evil that exists is not to be answered by attacking and destroying the people who are responsible for it. Doing so only adds to the harm. Our response is to be forgiving and to be willing to trust in God’s purposes.  We are not to tolerate anything that can’t be tolerated. Sometimes we do have to deal immediately with people who are obviously evil such as dangerous criminals, but at other times we must not rush to judgment. If we want to receive grace, we must be willing to extend grace. In the final act of salvation, the tensions that exist within us and with all of God’s creation will finally be resolved and put to rest and we shall live in peace with God and each other for eternity. Until then, they coexist even within us, so that to root out the one would be to destroy the other.

Loving the sinner and hating the sin means being tolerant of those who are different from us. Loving the sinner and hating the sin means holding people accountable for their actions, but always being willing to forgive. It means affirming the good in people instead of always looking for the bad, and of all places, this ought to be true in the church because it is seldom true in the world.

We can still see weeds in ourselves and others. Instead of being discouraged, we should be hopeful. Good seed has been planted in us and is growing. The burden of the struggle isn’t ours alone. We get help from Jesus the landowner. He knows what is happening and helps us sort things out.

We are not the final judge of the world-that is God’s job. We are to remain faithful to God’s word even during hard times, but if we do go astray, we have opportunities to mend our ways. We have the time and the grace we need to make the changes we have to make.

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, NKJV (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013)
2. Greg Laurie, “What Exactly is a Tare?” Retrieved from www.harvesst.org
3. Pastor Dick Woodward, “Why Evil?” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
4. Augsberger, M.S. & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 24: Matthew (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982)
5. MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible, NASB (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 2006)
6. Dr. Philip W. McLarty, “The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.” Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
7. Pastor Steve Molin, “Mom, Where do Weeds Come From?” Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
8. The Rev. Charles Hoffacker, “Let Both of Them Grow Together.” Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
9. Jude Siciliano, O.P., “First Impressions, 16^th Sunday (A).” Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
10. Exegesis for Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
11. Donna Stanford, “Bible Study: 6 Pentecost, Proper 11(A).” Retrieved from http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com
12. David Lose, “Pentecost 6A: On Wheat, Weeds and Ambiguity.” Retrieved from www.davidlose.net
13. The Rev. Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, “Problems beyond Our Power to Fix.” Retrieved from www.day1.org

How many of you have ever planted a garden? If you have, then you know that one of the biggest enemies of a good garden is weeds. Weeds will rob the soil of the nutrients that help your plants to grow and many times they will choke out good plants. What can you do? Well, you could take a hoe and chop down the weeds, but if you do that, you will probably chop down some of the good plants by accident.

Another way to get rid of the weeds is to buy some weed killer. This stuff will really kill the weeds. The biggest problem with weed killer is that it doesn’t know a thistle from a tomato plant. It kills every plant that it touches. Sometimes, it is best just to leave the weeds alone until it is time to harvest the crop. Then you can separate the weeds from the good plants.

One time, Jesus told a story that compared his church to a garden that was infested with weeds. Sometimes there may be people in the church that don’t really belong. They do things that aren’t very loving and they don’t seem to believe what the Bible teaches. They sometimes say hateful things about the other members of the church and try to hurt them. They are like weeds in a garden.

The parable of the wheat and the darnel answers two questions: How can good and evil coexist in this age? What should we do about it? The key to understanding this parable is to think in pairs: there are two planters, two plants, two plans and two prospects.

The field where the seeds are sown represents the world. The man who sows good seeds is Jesus. The man who sows darnel is Satan. Christians represent good seeds. Darnel represents evil people. The harvest represents the end of the world. The reapers represent the angels.

In Jesus’ day, after a field had been sown with wheat, a mischief-maker might sneak into the field and sow darnel over the original crop. Darnel looked almost identical to wheat, but it had no market value. Only at harvest time, when the crop was fully grown, could the farmer distinguish the true wheat from the worthless darnel.

In its initial stages of growth, darnel closely resembled wheat, and that resemblance made it almost impossible to identify. As the plants matured, the roots of the weeds and the wheat intermingled, making them almost impossible to separate. Any attempt to pull the weeds also pulled the wheat. Separation was necessary because darnel was both bitter and mildly toxic. If it was not removed before milling, darnel ruined the flour. The usual solution was to separate the grains after threshing by spreading them on a flat surface and having people remove the darnel, which was a distinct colour at this stage, by hand.

This is how Satan works. He will plant his seeds among Christians, including in the church. They will talk like Christians and use words that Christians use. When they do something evil, people will say, “I can’t believe that a Christian would do such a thing!” Maybe they were darnel among the wheat. Christians are capable of sinning, but some people are imitations.

The servants and the owner had two different plans for protecting the good seed. The servants wanted to uproot the tares sown by the enemy and dispose of them immediately. But the owner wisely insisted that both be allowed to grow until the harvest. Otherwise, the wheat would be destroyed because it could not be distinguished from the tares.

We will always have darnel among the wheat. We will always have plants that undermine the Word of God. It’s not our job to weed those people out. We don’t see their hearts. Our concern should not be who the hypocrites are, but whether we are hypocrites ourselves. Our job is to take care of ourselves, to take heed and make sure that we are true believers.

Because there are two sowers, evil is in our midst. We are uncomfortable today with the devil and for the most part preachers ignore it in their preaching. The ignored devil sneaks in by back doors through the appeal of the occult, the magical, the falsely supernatural, prophecy conferences, astrology, the New Age movement or other means. The devil doesn’t cease to exist because we say he ceases to exist. On the contrary, he reappears in more grotesque or subtle forms in popular or polite culture.

God allows the righteous and the wicked to live alongside one another, and He has decided not to tell us why. We must conclude that somehow and in some way, it glorifies God to allow this to happen. We must leave these questions with our faith in the character of God.

The situation will change one day, but for now we must remember that not everyone has faith. It’s useless for us to do the sorting. Our standards are lower than God’s perfect standards. Besides, a bad seed or evil person might turn out to be a good seed or a faithful, righteous person. If we do what we think is right by sorting what we think is evil from what we think is good, we might put the good with the evil and vice versa. If we try to rid the church of the weeds in its midst, we might not recognize its true members.

For example, an expert who was evaluating a potential football coach said of him, “He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation.” He was talking about Vince Lombardi, who later became the successful football coach quoted for saying, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Eighteen publishers turned down a story about a seagull written by Richard Bach. His book, entitled “Johnathan Livingston Sea Gull”, was finally published in 1970 and in five years it sold more than 7 million copies in the United States alone. After legendary Fred Astaire’s screen test the director who evaluated him wrote, “Can’t act, slightly bald, can dance a little.” It just proves the old saying, “Ya’ just never know!”

We don’t know why God allows evil in the world, the church and our hearts. The parable doesn’t answer this, but it doesn’t ignore the problem of evil in our midst. It doesn’t even give an easy answer to the questions, “Will evil or good have the last word? Who’s going to win?”

Jesus rejected the idea of pulling up the darnel. He said that it is to be left alone until the harvest (or judgment). The wheat represents Christians and the darnel represents the enemies of Christianity. One day the Lord will send his angels (reapers) to separate the tares from the wheat. The tares will be burned, but the wheat will be gathered into the barn (heaven). Satan will do all he can to destroy Christians, but he will be fully exposed and dealt with at the final judgment.

The future of the darnel (the lawless) and the wheat (the righteous) are described in verses 40-43. The lawless are destined to experience the fires of hell, where they will live in eternal misery. Conversely, the righteous will live in eternal radiance and joy. Their King will also be their Father!

Satan does not sow thorns or briars or brush; he sows darnel, which is impossible to distinguish from genuine wheat until harvest time. In the world today, children of the kingdom are sown in a field where they are saturated, entwined, covered and surrounded by the children of the evil one-and sometimes it is hard to tell them apart. The true sower of the seed of salvation is God himself. Only He has the power to change hearts.

The righteous are those who come to Jesus in faith to be cleansed of their sin and guilt. Jesus will clothe them with His own righteousness. Every good seed that is planted in our hearts comes from God. He prepares the soil of our hearts. He will till it, but we must prepare the soil. We do this by the way we live our lives. We must allow the Word of God to inform, shape and guide all aspects of our being in the world. Part of this process includes sharing what we learn from the Scriptures.

This parable is a story of grace for us. As we consider our own lives and recall the mistakes we have made and the wrongs we have done, most of us are glad that we have had the time to change and work things out. Most of us are also glad that we have had the space to let the wheat grow and bear a rich harvest.

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013, pp. 1305-1306)
2. Augsberger, M.S. & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 24: Matthew (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982, p. 18)
3. MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
4. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
5. The New Testament Commentary, Vol. 1-Matthew and Mark. Part of Wordsearch 11 Bible software package.
6. Jude Siciliano, OP, “First Impressions, 16^th Sunday (A).” Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
7. “Sower.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
8. T.M. Moore, “Love Sows.” Retrieved from www.ailble.org
9. Greg Laurie, “Cheap Imitations.” Retrieved from www.harvest.org
10. Greg Laurie, “What Exactly is a Tare?” Retrieved from www.harvest.org
11. Richard Neill Donovan, “Exegesis for Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.” Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
12. Pastor Dick Woodward, “Why Evil?” Retrieved from crosswalk@crosswalkmail.com
13. “Weeds in the Garden.” Retrieved from www.Sermons4Kids.com

When I worked at a local lumber mill several years ago, part of my duties included grading lumber. By that I mean separating lumber according to its qualities as determined by both the National Lumber Grading Authority rules and common sense. In other words, I was separating good lumber from bad lumber. Some of this was done before the lumber was planed, and some was done after.

The parable of the weeds and the wheat is a similar situation. The weeds and the wheat are growing up together, and the servants want to pull the weeds. This is understandable, because according to Leviticus 19:19, weeds made a field unclean, along with sowing more than one kind of seed in a field. The master tells the servants to wait until both are fully grown and ready for harvest, because until that time the weeds and the wheat are identical in appearance. Also, because the roots of the weeds and wheat are intertwined, pulling up weeds would also mean pulling up wheat. At harvest time, the weeds are to be gathered separately, bundled together and used for fuel, while the wheat is ground into flour.

The parable has some grain of truth (no pun intended!). In Palestine, a type of weed called darnel grass grows. In its growth and form it strongly resembles wheat, but it produces either an inferior kind of grain or none at all. Because of its similarity, it is extremely difficult to separate from genuine wheat. Also, its taste is very bitter and when eaten either separately or when mixed with ordinary bread, it causes dizziness.

Jesus and the disciples sowed the good seeds of the Christian faith in their time, and true Christians are to sow the same seeds today. In Jesus’ time, as is the case today, the devil and his cronies sow seeds of evil among the good seeds. In both cases, good and evil produced fruit together in the same spot.

This parable outlines the course of history from Jesus’ time to the Day of Judgment. It explains why evil persists all over the world. It emphasizes the proper way to think about the world and the course of human history. It also suggests how we as Christians should be investing our time, talents and energy until Jesus returns. We are to continue sowing the good seeds of the kingdom until the kingdom begins to be seen wherever we raise Christ’s banner

We are like the farmer who carefully sows good seed in the field of our lives. We work hard to raise a good family; make good relationships; help a loved one battling with a disease; fight for better schools, healthcare, peace and the environment. If the world was fair, the good we do would always yield good results, but in many cases the good we work for looks like it is going to have the life choked out of it by the reality of our world.

We live in a world where good and evil coexist, and there’s not much we can do about it. Sure, we can resist evil and temptation, and we must resist them, but we can’t get rid of them. In fact, it isn’t even our job to get rid of them. That will be God’s job on Judgment Day. If we try to get rid of evil on our own, we will fail, because the standards we use to separate good from evil are much lower than the standards God uses. Also, evil and good are intertwined in our society. In addition, good is often disguised as evil, and vice versa.

In the 1600s, the Puritans made a concerted effort to purge the church of all those who weren’t of pure faith, and so, didn’t belong. They also tried to remove pagan symbols from celebrations of Christmas and Easter. In both cases, they failed. After all, if there’s no place in the church for sinners needing to be accepted and loved, there’s no place for us. The church needs constant reformation and positive action, including the quest for holiness, but it must avoid unrealistic purism—what is needed is that elusive thing called balance. No one is so useless that they can’t be used as a bad example.

A man was stopped at a traffic light, waiting for the light to turn green. When the light changed, he was distracted and he didn’t budge. The woman in the car behind him honked her horn. He still didn’t move. She honked again, and by this time she was pounding on the steering wheel and blowing her horn non-stop. Finally, just as the light turned yellow, the man woke up and drove through the light. The woman in the second car was beside herself. Still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her car window. She looked up to see the face of a police officer. “Lady, you’re under arrest,” he said. “Get out of the car. Put your hands up.” He took her to the police station, had her fingerprinted, photographed, and then put her in a holding cell.

Hours passed. The officer returned and unlocked the cell door. He escorted her back to the booking desk. “Sorry for the mistake, lady,” he said. “But I pulled up behind you as you were blowing your horn and cursing out the fellow in front of you. I noticed the stickers on your bumper. One read “Follow me to Sunday School.” The other, “What would Jesus do?” So, naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.”

Many people claim to be followers of God, and they often fool others into thinking they really are. They speak pretty words—or at least words that sound pretty to others—and they mislead many. Any follower of God with experience in the real world, however, knows that talk is cheap. Only those who produce fruit that is consistent with their claims to be followers of God can be trusted. Are we walking the walks or merely talking the talk? What about those who put themselves up as leaders? Think back to the cases of evangelists such as Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggart. In both cases, these so-called men of God were brought down by the evil weeds of greed and lust.

Sometimes even so-called experts and people who should know better can’t predict how things are going to turn out. An expert evaluating a potential football coach said of him, “He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation”. He was talking about Vince Lombardi, who, though he lacked motivation, was the successful football coach quoted for saying, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Eighteen publishers turned down a story about a seagull written by Richard Bach, but “Jonathan Livingston Sea Gull” was finally published in 1970, and in five years it sold more than 7 million copies. After Fred Astaire’s screen test, the evaluating director wrote, “Can’t act, slightly bald, can dance a little.”

Even parents can’t always judge their own children’s abilities. Louisa May Alcott, known for the classic “Little Women,” was encouraged by her parents to find work as a servant or seamstress. Parents today are sometimes the same, even if their intentions are good. Then again, parents are human, not gods. They don’t always know if their children will turn out to be angels such as Mother Teresa or Desmond Tutu, or a mass murderer.

The Kingdom of God is a mixed bag in which weeds and wheat grow together, side by side, and we can’t always tell them apart. We will always have evil among us. It is not our job to weed evil out because we don’t see the hearts of people we judge as being evil. Our job is to take care of ourselves, to take heed and make sure we are true believers and not hypocrites. Good and evil will both grow stronger until God judges the world and all evil is destroyed. God answers to no authority, but he will deal gently with people until Judgment Day in order to set an example for his people. On the Day of Judgment, God will deal with the counterfeit Christians and those he judges to be evil and unrepentant at the same time.

As Christians we are to practice forgiveness and patience. Revenge (in this case, pulling the weeds) resolves nothing, but only increases evil. Judgment and criticism run rampant in our world. For example, many of you might remember the children’s TV show called “The Muppets”. Two of the characters were the two old men who sat up in the balcony every week and heckled and criticized the jokes and performances, but they always returned for the next show. Unfortunately, there are Christians who act the same way. They see many flaws, but they show up week after week. They point out the flaws in other Christians or church programs, but they do not volunteer themselves to help everyone see how it could be done better.

If we try to judge others and get rid of evil, we run the risk of going against Jesus’ advice to not be concerned about the speck of dirt in our neighbour’s eye when we have a plank in our own eye. To do so might give us a “holier than thou” attitude. Judging others is a sin in God’s eyes.  In our own lives, there might be more weeds than we care to admit and getting rid of them is easier said than done. For example, those of you who, like my mother, do knitting as a hobby know what it is like to unravel several rows of knitting to fix a mistake.

The more we think we know about who can safely be called an evildoer beyond redemption, the more we prove ourselves to be not only inept gardeners, but immature weeds. But those who are mature know who they are, and they know who they’re not. The mature know that they are not the judge of the nations because they know the judge personally. It’s Jesus. And we’re not Jesus, as we know when we’re following him.

The devil and his helpers will try to capture our affections, pollute our minds, corrupt our godly priorities and infest our every practice. They will infect our work with an obsession for self-advancement, and will replace interest in Kingdom endeavors with distractions and diversions. They will try to persuade us that we are better to enjoy entertainment and fun than the hard work of spreading the Good News.

The kingdom begins when Jesus sows the good seed and draws people to him, but the devil always tries to work against him. The harvest will take place when Christ comes again at the end of the age. The kingdom of God and the Gospel of that Kingdom come with spiritual violence against the world’s weapons of unbelief. In the power of the Spirit and Word of God, every opposing force will collapse under the advancing weight and thrust of the realm of grace and truth of Christ.

Sometimes weeds spring up that we didn’t have anything to do with. When that happens, we must focus on God’s goodness, and not on the problem that caused the weed to spring up in the first place. We can do this through faith in the Son of God. It is his love that binds us to him and protects us from the evil one.

Loving the sinner and hating the sin means being tolerant of those who are different from us. Loving the sinner and hating the sin means calling people into accountability for their actions, but always being willing to forgive. It means affirming the good in people, instead of always looking for the bad…and of all places; this ought to be true in the church because it is so seldom true in the world.

This is a parable about mercy. While the forces of good and evil will be sorted out some day, there is still time for change until that day comes. It is a story about grace, patience and hope. Don’t we often look back on our own mistakes and become thankful that we had time to change and make amends? Aren’t we glad that God gave us the chance and the help we needed to work things out?

Bibliography

1. The Rev. Donald Lawton, “A Call to Move On”. Speech delivered on Friday, May 27, 2011 at the 143^rd Synod of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
2. Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible, NASV
3. Jude Siciliano, OP, “First Impressions, 16^th Sunday (A)”. Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
4. T.M. Moore, “What Kind of World?” Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
5. Joel Osteen, “When Weeds Spring Up”. Retrieved from www.joelosteen.com
6. T.M. Moore, “The Good Seed”. Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
7. T.M. Moore, “Your View of History Matters”. Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
8. Greg Laurie, “Wheat and tares”. Retrieved from www.crosswalkmail.com
9. T.M. Moore, “The Struggle for Supremacy”. Retrieved from www.colsoncenter.org
10. Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament-Matthew 13:24-30. Part of Wordsearch Bible Software package.
11. The Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, “Is the World More Hostile to Christians?” Retrieved from www.arcamax.com
12. Greg Laurie, “Time Will Tell”. Retrieved from www.crosswalkmail.com
13. Chris Haslam, “Comments, 10^th Sunday after Pentecost-July 20, 2008”. Retrieved from http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/apr16m.shhtml
14. Girardian Reflections, Year A. Retrieved from www.girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper11a.htm
15. Preaching Peace. Retrieved from www.preachingpeace.org/lectionaries/yeara-proper11./
16. Sarah Dylan Breuer, “Proper 11, Year A”. Retrieved from www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2005/07/proper_11_year_html
17. Saturday Night Theologian, 20 July 2008. Retrieved from www.progressivetheology.org/SNT/SNY-2008.07.20.html
18. The Rev. Dr. Joanna Adams, “Why Can’t We Pull Up the Weeds?” Retrieved from www.day1.org
19. The Rev. Charles Hoffacker, “Let Both of Them Grow Together”. Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.org
20. Pastor Steve Molin, “Mom, Where DO Weeds Come From?” Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.org
21. Dr. Philip W. McLarty, “The Parable of the Wheat and Tares”. Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.org
22. Mike Benson, “Analysts”. Retrieved from www.welovegod.org

How many of you have planted a garden? If you have, you know that there is a lot of work involved such as preparing the soil, pulling weeds, and watering the soil. Perhaps the most important task is planting seeds. There are at least two ways to plant the seeds. One is to kneel on the ground and plant the seeds. Another way is to walk along and scatter the seeds, and that’s the example Jesus used in Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23.

Jesus cast his message far and wide to convince people that God loves them and is inviting them into a new way of life. He expects us to cast the same message far and wide. Anyone who is open to this message can receive it. It is something they could not have received on their own. When they receive it, they are blessed because they have heard and seen something that has been hidden from the rest of the world.

The parable of the sower has three main elements: the sower, the seeds and the soils. The sower represents the Lord, the seed represents the Word of God, and the soils represent four categories of hearers, each with a different response to God’s Word.

In Jesus’ day, sowers would drape a bag of seed over their shoulder, and as they walked up and down the often-uncultivated furrows, they would throw handfuls of seed across the ground. Preaching the word of God is like taking God’s seed-the Word of God-and scattering it everywhere.

The wayside soil represents the calloused heart. In Palestine at the time of Jesus, narrow ribbons of grounds divided the fields. These ribbons were rights of way, travelled so frequently that their surfaces were as hard as concrete and the seed could not penetrate the soil.

The stony ground represents the casual heart. The stony ground describes not a field filled with rocks but an area of limestone covered by a thin layer of dirt.  The seeds would fall and immediately take root, but because their roots could not go deep enough to draw moisture from the ground, the plants would wither in the heat. In a similar way, some people appear to be converted and seem to experience explosive growth, but soon fall back into their old ways of living. Jesus is not speaking of losing one’s salvation-He says that such people never had salvation to begin with. Instead, they had only a shallow, emotional experience.

The thorny ground represents the crowded heart. This soil has weeds that eventually choke out the seed. The soil has four kinds of weeds: the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this world, the lust of other things, and the pleasures of this life. The enemy here is not internal but external. The hearts of the third set are divided. Their hearts are crowded. The shallow nature of some people who receive Christ lies in their impulses, compassion, intentions and surroundings. They are easily swayed by the influences of the world. In contrast, those who bear fruit look beyond worldly experiences and move into a rich, deep relationship with Jesus.

The sower knows that the variety of seeds will determine his crop. In the good soil, among responsive people, there is still variation, but there is still a harvest of faith. The good ground represents the converted heart-the person who hears the Word, allows its truth to sink in, and is genuinely saved. Just as there are three levels in not believing the Word of God, there are also three levels of productivity in the hearts of those who believe. Some produce fruit a hundredfold, some produce fruit sixtyfold, and some produce fruit thirtyfold. But Jesus presents no category where a believer produces fruit “zerofold.”

The enemy of the Word in the first soil is the devil, represented by birds who snatch away the seed. The enemy in the second soil is the flesh that can’t handle the heat of the sun. The enemy in the third soil is the world and its system-the pleasures, riches and cares of this life. The proof of genuine salvation is not shown by listening to or emotionally responding to the Word, but by the fruit.

Whoever hears Jesus’ word, labours to understand it and then goes on to bear fruit represents the good ground in the parable. Significantly, Jesus does not commend those who produce thirty times what was sown any less than those who produce a hundredfold. In His time, an excellent yield was tenfold (10 harvested for one sown); these numbers in Matthew indicate that the harvest will far exceed anything any of His listeners had experienced. Those who accept His Word aren’t always successful by the world’s standards.

Jesus often used parables, He used them to hide the truth from believers while making it clear to His disciples. Unfortunately, he didn’t always succeed, as the second half of the reading shows. Jesus’ veiling of the truth from unbelievers was both an act of judgment and an act of mercy. It was judgment because it kept them in the darkness that they loved. It was mercy because they had already rejected the light, so any exposure to more light would only increase their condemnation.

The parable of the sower shows the risk of sowing the seed of the Good News, but it assures us that much of the seed will bear a harvest. The sower is not upset by areas of inadequate soil or areas where the Good News is not accepted wholeheartedly. The sower realized that the good soil will yield a good harvest. The story focuses on the message of the kingdom, and respectively on Jesus and His followers as preachers of the kingdom.

Before we can bear fruit, we have to prepare ourselves to receive the seed of God’s Word, just like a farmer prepares the ground before he plants seeds. We have to admit to ourselves that we are sinners who are living in darkness. Just like a farmer waters the soil, we have to let the Holy Spirit water our souls to receive the Good News and accept Jesus as our Saviour. Only then can Jesus plant His Word in our hearts to bring forth the fruit of righteousness in His time, especially during life’s trials.

God wants us to hear, understand and apply His words and instructions. He doesn’t see us as vaults in which He hides His Word. He sees us as gardens in which His Word can sprout and grow. Receiving the Good News means becoming like Jesus. It means changing our character and outlook. As we spend time with Jesus and get to know Him better, His thoughts will become our thoughts. His purpose will become our purpose. God can’t help but share His love, grace and mercy and will do so recklessly and wastefully, because God alone knows that grace is never exhausted and love is never wasted.

Jesus’ parables revealed the true nature of the responses and decisions of the members of His audience. Those committed to the Kingdom of God would seek and find understanding. Those who were uncommitted—perhaps listening only because of the initial excitement—would reject the teaching as unintelligible.

Those who receive the Word and become true followers of Jesus will undergo times of hardship, times of trial and seasons where they will feel as though God is far from them. There will be times when other people give them a tough time for no reason other than the fact that they are Christians. We and they must remember not to build our lives on approval of other people. We must build our lives on Christ.

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013, pp. 1303-1305)
2. Augsberger, M.S. & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 24: Matthew (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982; p.18)
3. MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
4. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
5. The New Testament Commentary, Vol. 1-Matthew & Mark. Part of Wordsearch 11 Bible software package.
6. Greg Laurie, “How Do We Bear Spiritual Fruit?” Retrieved from www.harvest.org
7. “The Good Soil.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
8. Jude Siciliano, OP, “First Impressions, 15^th Sunday (A)>” Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
9. L.B. Cowman, “Streams in the Desert.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
10. Alfred Edersheim, “Why Did Jesus Teach in Parables?” Retrieved from Jesus.org@crosswalkmail.com
11. Richard Neill Donovan, “Exegesis for Matthew 13:1-9,18-23.” Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
12. Greg Laurie, “Shallow Roots.” Retrieved from www.harvest.org

The first seven chapters of the Book of Romans have focused on the power of sin in our lives, and they have set the stage for chapter 8 by discussing Paul’s ideas about sin. Romans 8:1-11 is an entrance into friendly territory. It talks about the Holy Spirit, which was not mentioned in the previous seven chapters. In chapter 8 alone there are 21 specific references to the Holy Spirit because this chapter is practical in showing us how important the Holy Spirit is in our daily lives.

Paul contrasts life in the flesh with life in the Spirit, and Romans 8:1-11 focuses on setting our minds on the things of the Spirit. Paul works with the idea that God’s Spirit raised Jesus’ dead body and that same Spirit lives in each and every one of us. The Holy Spirit gives life to our bodies and personalities. We are like God because we are made out of the same stuff and substance as God. God’s Spirit sets off our spirits inside of us.

The power of evil is not dumb. It always attacks us when we are the most vulnerable and the weakest. Paul identifies our four weakest areas as sex, anger, drunkenness and orgies and pride. In other words, we are at our weakest when we are in our sin-filled nature. Romans 8:1-11 crucifies and kills our sinful nature and lets the Spirit gush out with great power.

Life in the flesh means a life of sin, selfishness and worldliness. In contrast, life in the Spirit is a life of holiness, giving and Christ-centeredness. Life in the flesh leads to a body that is dead in sin, but a life in the Spirit leads to a life in Christ. When the Spirit lives in us, we are brought to life and we are redeemed from the grave just like Jesus was brought back to life and redeemed from the grave after his crucifixion.

When Paul talks about the sins of the flesh, he talks about all the sinful behaviour that exists in our world, and that is in contrast to the peace, joy and love that exists in the Spirit. We have been created as embodied persons, claimed by the promise of baptism and focused on the Spirit who redeems us to all that is good and true. Concern for worldly pleasures is bad, concern for spiritual life is better. This is often difficult for us to do, especially if we have to work on Sundays or when we are tempted by the sinful world. If we have the Holy Spirit, God will give us the strength to resist temptation.

The Old Testament law was weak because humans could not keep it, so God sent Jesus. Jesus met the demands of the law that were rightly made against the people. The Holy Spirit living in us allows us to obey God’s laws. It helps us reject our old earthly ways. It is also the hope of every believer. It regenerates our human spirit when we accept Christ as our Saviour.

By sending Jesus, God fulfilled the law for us and condemned sin. We are freed by the Holy Spirit. The law of the Spirit is in contrast to the law of sin and death. The Spirit gives us a new focus and a new freedom. We do not need to fear death or God’s wrath. Death is not the end. It is the beginning of unending, complete redemption.

God is a powerful judge who punishes us when we need it just like a parent punishes a child when the child needs it. God punishes us because he loves us and he wants to keep us on the straight and narrow path. God convicts us of sin, but he sets the conviction aside when he says, “Go, and sin no more.” God will not judge us unless we have never been saved. Our good deeds are not enough to save us because even our greatest deeds are filthy rags in his sight because of his perfect standards. If we are in Christ, our punishment has been transferred to Jesus, so we are not condemned. Judgement Day for us took place at Calvary, so our judgment day is behind us. Non-believers still have to face their own Judgment Day. As pardoned sinners, we live our lives by following the Spirit. Only then can we be a true image of God.

Christ and the Spirit are fully God and work together. Since Christian bodies are not yet redeemed, they still die even though they are freed from the condemnation of sin. The presence of the Spirit within believers testifies to the new life they enjoy because of the righteousness of Christ that is now theirs.

The Holy Spirit is the cure for sin and death. The law of sin and death is more deadly than an electric shock. Life in the Spirit changes us. Sin has killed our bodies and we can’t help ourselves, but Christ helps us. To live in Christ requires a radical transformation that renews our minds. That does not mean that we will not have any more struggles. In fact, Paul mentions his own struggles with sin in Romans 7:15-25. Walking in the Spirit is a relationship issue. Specifically, it is an issue of our relationship with God.

During a recent Olympic Games, the Huffington Post ran an article about the brain-training secrets of the athletes. Gold medal champions know how to train their minds like they train their bodies. Using mental exercises, they’ve learned to tune out distractions, reduce stress and focus on staying on top of their game. Using mental imagery, they visualize their performance in exacting detail, for studies have found that mental practice is almost as effective as physical training. Olympians meditate to calm themselves down. When they get into a “flow mindset,” they say they’re “in the zone.”

Christians should be experts at cultivating the mind and soul. The Bible tells us to train our minds as we train our bodies—to reject anxiety, to focus on trusting the Lord, and to visualize the green pastures, still waters and abundant life God has promised. The Bible tells us to meditate on His Word and get “into the zone” of the spiritual mind. Peace comes from trusting our Saviour—to be spiritually minded is life and peace—and that’s why he keeps those in perfect peace whose minds are stayed on him.

When we set our minds on the things of God, we do not allow sin to gain a foothold in our lives. If we do not forgive ourselves we remain enslaved to sin because we still feel guilty. We still condemn ourselves, but Jesus will never condemn those who believe in him. If we do not believe in Christ, we can’t please God by being good.

God does not save people who do good deeds unless they believe in Jesus. We can‘t escape sin by our own efforts. We can only escape sin through faith in Christ as mentioned in Romans 7:26.

Good deeds by themselves do not fulfill God’s law because they are produced for selfish reasons by a heart that is opposed to God. Jesus even said in Matthew 9:13,”I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  

To put it another way, a couple recently wrote a letter to Billy Graham. In that letter they stated that another couple in their apartment complex said they know they’re going to go to heaven when they die. The writers asked how the couple could say that. The writer added that the couple seem like good people, that it’s arrogant for anyone to claim they’re good enough to get into heaven. Here is Billy Graham’s reply:

“Many people, I’m afraid, hope that God will let them into heaven, since they’ve been honest and good and kind toward others. After all, they think, isn’t this what God expects of us?

But you may be surprised to learn that the Bible tells us otherwise. The Bible says God’s standard is nothing less than perfection — and who can claim to be perfect? In other words, if you had committed only one sin — just one — it would be enough to keep you out of heaven. God is absolutely pure and holy, and we’ll never be able to stand in His presence on our own. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

This is why we need Christ, for only He can forgive us and cleanse us — and He will, as we turn in faith to Him. And this, I suspect, is what your neighbors have discovered. They know they aren’t good enough to go to heaven on their own, and they have turned to Christ for the forgiveness and mercy they need.

And this can be true of you. God loves you, and He offers you the gift of eternal life right now — a gift paid for by His Son, Jesus Christ. Why not reach out and accept that gift today, by inviting Christ to come into your life? The Bible’s promise is true: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).”

Jesus said in effect that the things we offer to do and the promises we want to make in exchange for our forgiveness are just offerings to help us get over our guilt. He would rather give us forgiveness as a gift. The Holy Spirit is a gift for all believers. It does not have to be earned. When we are saved we can repeat the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty I’m free at last!”

The process of change from life in the flesh to a life in the Spirit is a gradual one. This can be very frustrating to us because we live in a society that promises instant results and instant gratification. We want to make real changes in our lives, but many of us are looking for a magic pill to solve all of our problems. We have to open ourselves to the wonderful and unpredictable Spirit that is flowing so freely and so full of life all around us. True change is a long, slow process. It is a daily practice that will eventually result in change and growth.

Bibliography

1. Cecil Murphy, “My Powerful Judge.” Retrieved from www.cecilmurphy.com
2. Dick Inness, “The Law of Life.” Retrieved from www.actsweb.org
3. Dr. Tony Evans, ”Extreme Makeover.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
4. Exegesis for Romans 8:1-11. Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
5. Dr. Neil Anderson, “Relationship, Not Regime.” Retrieved from Crosswalk@crosswalkmail.com
6. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, NKJV (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing, 2013)
7. Dr. Ed Young, “Watch Your Mindset.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
8. Briscoe, D.S. & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 29: Romans (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982)
9. MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible, NASB (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 2006)
10. ESV Study Bible. Part of Wordsearch 10 Bible software package.
11. Dr. David Jeremiah, “Get in the Zone.” Retrieved from www.davidjeremiah.org
12. Jon Walker, “Jesus Offers Mercy, Not Condemnation.” Retrieved from www.purposedriven.com
13. Stephen Davey, “Hiding Our Sin.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
14. Pastor Edward Markquart, “Christ’s Spirit and My Spirit.” Retrieved from www.sermonsfromseattle.com
15. Pastor Edward Markquart, “Christ’s Spirit and Put to Death Our Human Nature.” Retrieved from www.sermonsfromseattle.com
16. Billy Graham, “How Can Someone Know They’re Going to Heaven?” Retrieved from www.arcamax.com

Have you ever noticed that there are always some people who can never be satisfied or happy with anything? Jesus did, and in Matthew 11:16-19,25-30 he compared the people of his day to children who can’t be satisfied by any game or activity, whether it is festive or sombre. Their actions reflected their lack of wisdom.

Jesus wasn’t the first person that the Pharisees didn’t accept. The people rejected John the Baptist because of his lifestyle, and they also rejected Jesus because he socialized with people who were sinners. The people of Jesus’ time knew that a Messiah was coming and that he would set them free. The problem was that the people were expecting a military-type of ruler who would drive out the Romans and return Israel to the glory days of the reign of King David. They were not expecting a simple, humble servant.

Like Jesus, John the Baptist was seen as someone other than who he really was. He was seen as a demon-possessed lunatic, and Jesus was seen as a glutton. John’s austerity in dress and food underlined the severity of his message. Jesus, on the other hand, went to where the people were and became a participant in their condition, if not their sin, where the joys and sorrows played out in families, towns and cities. 

The people of John’s and Jesus’ time rejected God by rejecting his messengers; neither approach pleased them, because neither man fit into their mold, so they lodged contradictory complaints. In both cases, the wisdom of the courses of action of both men was proved only by the results. In other words, the ends justified the means. We often want the Jesus we want, when we want him. The people in Jesus’ time were the same, and he was frustrated. The problem for those who reject Jesus is their awareness that taking John the Baptist and Jesus seriously requires people to change their lives.

The elite did not accept John the Baptist or Jesus-the poor did. The same situation exists today. There are those who think that they are so high in society that they don’t need God. Then there are those who are so downtrodden and suppressed by society that they eagerly accept Jesus’ teachings.

There is an interesting contrast in this passage. Jesus is contrasting Man’s Law with God’s Law. Man’s Law was formed as the result of the Ten Commandments. God gave the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people to guide them through the moral traps of life, but well-intentioned people added on to the law until it became its own trap. Religious professionals prided themselves on their observance of the law, but even they couldn’t avoid breaking the law. The common person did not stand a chance of perfectly observing the law. All of these rules and regulations were a huge burden on the people. The law was a dispensation of terror.

The Pharisees’ rules were a burden in their time, just like man’s rules can be a burden in our time, especially when dealing with the government. If you don’t have every single “I” dotted and every single “T” crossed, dealing with the government can be a heavy burden. Not walking in step with the establishment is hard work and can be dangerous, but it can be done, and has been done in the past by people such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa.

The world’s way of lightening burdens has always involved transferring the burden to a scapegoat, usually the poor. God hears our cries and can understand the difference between cries of pain, hurt, anger, frustration, joy and deep need. He longs to hold us while we cry, not saying anything, but showing immeasurable love through his powerful embrace.  God will bring strength out of brokenness. He releases us from the bondage of having to prove our worth. We can live freely and lightly. He will never give us more than we can bear.

Jesus came along and said to the Pharisees, “Look, guys-you don’t need all of these man-made rules and regulations. You don’t need rules stating how far a person can walk on the Sabbath, or how clean they have to be in order to be part of society, or what type of work people can do on the Sabbath. That is not the intention of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are rules for how people are to live their lives and treat their fellow man. They are not meant to be a spiritual strait-jacket, but you, with your rules and regulations and determination to obey the letter of the Ten Commandments, have forgotten about the spirit of the Ten Commandments.” People might be learned in religious rules, customs and teachings, but our main source for understanding God’s ways doesn’t come from that knowledge. It comes from receiving Jesus and his message. In fact, strict observance of the law can make us blind to the Spirit’s freedom that Jesus is offering us.

Jesus went a step further and replaced all of these laws with the two Great Commandments-love God and love people. He told the Pharisees, “Look at how much easier and less demanding the Great Commandments are. They are a common-sense approach to living the life God wants us to lead. If people obey these two commandments, they will form the basis for how people live their lives. “

Jesus’ invitation to come to him speaks to everyone who is oppressed. Jesus reaches out to everyone who will listen to him. He doesn’t care about our reputation or social status. He cares about our hearts. Those who are “heavy laden” endure something that is laid on them from an outside source. Today, we would call it burnout. Jesus’ form of rest is not the absence of work, but rejuvenation and refreshment.

Most of you have seen oxen that are harnessed together by a yoke. They share the burden and work together so that one doesn’t have to do all of the work or shoulder the entire burden. Oxen are trained for a specific position in the yoke, so when they are put in the other position, they refuse to move, much like the Pharisees refused to change for Jesus or John the Baptist.

In Jesus’ day, the term “taking the yoke” meant coming under the leadership of another person and following in his or her footsteps. When Jesus tells us to take his yoke, he is inviting us to submit to his authority. If we submit to him, he will give us rest by sharing our burdens. We all need rest. That’s why God created the Sabbath. A Sabbath changes the pace of our lives. It helps us restore our strength and helps us be still. It helps us to let go of our grip on our lives. Jesus is asking us to let him be in control of our lives. He wants to guide and direct our lives. As the old saying goes, he wants us to “let go and let God”.

Some of the yokes we put on ourselves are because of unresolved guilt and unrealistic expectations. We want to prove that we matter, but God tells us that we do matter. He created us to be with him and fulfill his unique mission in our lives. His load is light and it is a radical alternative to the ways of the world. Christ will help us handle life’s demands.

Jesus’ easy yoke is not an invitation to an easy, carefree life, but it is deliverance from the man-made burdens of religion. These burdens are the guilt of sin and its side effects such as depression, anxiety, fear and doubt. If we accept the rest Jesus offers, all we have to do is accept his teachings as well as the obligations he will lay upon us. He invites us to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Taking Jesus’ yoke requires us to radically change our behaviour. That is not an easy thing for us to do. We get comfortable with the way things are. It’s like our favourite pair of shoes-it just feels so good, especially for society people. Sometimes it’s hard for society people to be humble.  Their attitude is summarized by the words of this old song: “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way.” Christ blesses the humble. The humble have a power that is beyond their natural abilities.

Jesus promises to give us rest when we find our rest in him. He is our burden-bearer. He allows us to draw the line where we can say, “Enough is enough,” but we have to decide to accept his invitation.  When we turn the circumstances of our lives over to him, he lifts us up and infuses our hearts with fresh hope and wisdom. Some situations are just too difficult for us to handle, but nothing is too great for God. In the words of the famous old hymn:

What a friend we have in Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer

He promises to refresh our weary souls when we cry out to him.

A sermon preached on Matthew 11:28-30 actually changed lives in a small rural community where two leaders of the congregation were quarreling bitterly over a decision about which they disagreed. When the minister pronounced the benediction and left the sanctuary at the end of the service, he wondered why the congregation did not follow him to the door where he normally greeted them. He returned to the sanctuary and found the two leaders embracing each other in tears while the rest of the congregation stood around in amazement.

As we come together to worship every week, we admit our hunger for God. God sees our emptiness and feeds us the choicest food, the flesh and blood of the one who invites us today to take his yoke upon us and learn from him for he is meek and humble of heart. We can let go of the heavy yokes of this world and take up the blessed yoke that is no burden, the yoke of acceptance of our own beloved self in Christ, the yoke of acceptance of the beloved nature of other weary, heavy-laden ones still striving all around us.

Bibliography

1. Craig Condon, “Rest for the Weary.” Retrieved from www.sermonsfrommyheart.blogspot.ca
2. Jeremiah, David: The David Jeremiah Study Bible, NKJV (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013)
3. Exegesis for Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
4. Dr. Neil Anderson, “Under the Same Yoke.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmaikl.com
5. Berni Dymet, “Dog Tired.” Retrieved from Christianity.com@crosswalkmail.com
6. Jon Walker, “Try Harder or Trust More?” Retrieved from www.purposedriven.com
7. Dr. Ray Pritchard, “A Friend of Tax Collectors?” Retrieved from www.keepbelieving.com

“Nothing I do is ever enough!!!”

Have you ever heard someone say that? Have you ever said that or thought that yourself?  Sometimes no matter how much we do, how much we say, how much we pay, how much we save, how much we exercise, etc., it just never seems to be enough. Jesus knows how we feel, because he went through the same thing here on earth.

Jesus wasn’t the first person that the Pharisees didn’t accept. Like Jesus, John the Baptist was seen as someone other than who he really was. He was seen as a demon-possessed lunatic, and Jesus was seen as a glutton. John’s austerity in dress and food underlined the severity of his message. Jesus, on the other hand, went to where the people were, a participant in their condition, if not their sin, where the joys and sorrows played out in families, towns and cities.  The people of John’s and Jesus’ time rejected God by rejecting his messengers; neither approach pleased them, because neither man fit into their mold, so they lodged contradictory complaints. In both cases, the wisdom of the courses of action of both men was proved only by the results. In other words, the ends justified the means. We often want the Jesus we want, when we want him. The people in Jesus’ time were the same, and he was frustrated. The problem for those who reject Jesus is their awareness that taking John the Baptist and Jesus seriously requires people to change their lives.

The elite did not accept John the Baptist or Jesus-the poor did. The same situation exists today. There are those who think that they are so high in society that they don’t need God. Then there are those who are so downtrodden and suppressed by society that they eagerly accept Jesus’ teachings.

There is an interesting contrast in Matthew 11:16-19,25-30. Jesus is contrasting Man’s Law with God’s Law. Man’s Law was formed as the result of the Ten Commandments. God gave the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people to guide them through the moral traps of life, but well-intentioned people added on to the law until it became its own trap. Religious professionals prided themselves on their observance of the law, but even they couldn’t avoid breaking the law. The common person did not stand a chance of perfectly observing the law. All of these rules and regulations were a huge burden on the people. The law was a dispensation of terror.

Jesus came along and said to the Pharisees, “Look, guys-you don’t need all of these man-made rules and regulations. You don’t need rules stating how far a person can walk on the Sabbath, or how clean they have to be in order to be part of society, or what type of work people can do on the Sabbath. That is not the intention of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are rules for how people are to live their lives and treat their fellow man. They are not meant to be a spiritual strait-jacket, but you, with your rules and regulations and determination to obey the letter of the Ten Commandments, have forgotten about the spirit of the Ten Commandments.” People might be learned in religious rules, customs and teachings, but our main source for understanding God’s ways doesn’t come from that knowledge. It comes from receiving Jesus and his message. In fact, strict observance of the law can make us blind to the Spirit’s freedom Jesus is offering us.

Jesus went a step further and replaced all of these laws with the two Great Commandments-love God and love people. He told the Pharisees, “Look at how much easier and less demanding the Great Commandments are. They are a common-sense approach to living the life God wants us to lead. If people obey these two commandments, they will form the basis for how people live their lives. “

Most of you have seen oxen that are harnessed together by a yoke. They share the burden and work together so that one doesn’t have to do all of the work or shoulder the entire burden. Oxen are trained for a specific position in the yoke, so when they are put in the other position, they refuse to move, much like the Pharisees refused to change for Jesus or John the Baptist.

When Jesus tells us to take his yoke, he is inviting us to submit to his authority. If we submit to him, he will give us rest by sharing our burdens. We all need rest. That’s why God created the Sabbath. A Sabbath changes the pace of our lives. It helps us restore our strength and helps us be still. It helps us to let go of our grip on our lives. Jesus is asking us to let him be in control of our lives. He wants to guide and direct our lives. As the old saying goes, he wants us to “let go and let God”.

Jesus lived enough days on this earth to experience weariness-in body, mind, spirit and heart. Weariness can come in all forms and can last a long time. Some weariness moves into depression and despair. Thus, for Jesus to extend rest for the weary, he is giving hope to those who are burdened. That hope is named-Jesus.

Jesus promises to give us rest when we find our rest in him. He is our burden-bearer. When we turn the circumstances of our lives over to him, he lifts us up and infuses our hearts with fresh hope and wisdom. Some situations are just too difficult for us to handle, but nothing is too great for God. In the words of the famous old hymn:

What a friend we have in Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer

He promises to refresh our weary souls when we cry out to him.

In order to understand God, we have to get rid of our rules, intellect and common sense. We have to become spiritually helpless like children and come to him with curiosity, naïveté and trust. We have to come to him in simple, child-like faith. This isn’t easy to do, especially because  as we move from childhood into adulthood, we are often jaded or shaped by our experiences.

A child young enough not to have been taught otherwise knows how much he or she needs help. A child innocent enough not to be caught up in the world’s deception knows that he or she is loved just as they are. In fact, it is not even a matter of knowing-for the infant in our arms, it is a matter of experiencing love, being held by love.

The Pharisees’ rules were a burden in their time, just like man’s rules can be in our time, especially when dealing with the government. If you don’t have every single “I” dotted and every single “T” crossed, dealing with the government can be a heavy burden. Not walking in step with the establishment is hard work and can be dangerous, but it can be done, and has been done in the past by people such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa.

The world’s way of lightening burdens has always involved transferring the burden to the scapegoat, usually the poor. God hears our cries and can understand the difference between cries of pain, hurt, anger, frustration, joy and deep need. He longs to hold us while we cry, not saying anything, but showing immeasurable love through his powerful embrace.  God will bring strength out of brokenness. He releases us from the bondage of having to prove our worth. We can live freely and lightly. He will never give us more than we can bear.

Most of us go through life with burdens that weigh heavily on us. Like potatoes in a pressure cooker, we know the meaning of stress. Regardless of what our burdens are, Jesus wants to come alongside us and heal us. He wants to properly clean the wounds of our lives. It will take time and it won’t be easy, but if we keep ourselves surrounded by Jesus, the source of life, we will be healed. And when we are healed, we will experience the love, peace, hope and rest that Jesus can bring.

It is easy for us to get caught up in a “hurry-worry syndrome”-doing too much, driving too fast, eating too quickly, and juggling too many things. It all seems important at the moment, but later we realize that much was done at the expense of cultivating deeper and meaningful relationships with those we love the most. Being held hostage by the tyranny of the urgent is not how we were meant to live.

A sermon preached on Matthew 11:28-30 actually changed lives in a small rural community where two leaders of the congregation were quarreling bitterly over a decision about which they disagreed. When the minister pronounced the benediction and left the sanctuary at the end of the service, he wondered why the congregation did not follow him to the door where he normally greeted them. He returned to the sanctuary and found the two leaders embracing each other in tears while the rest of the congregation stood around in amazement.

Jesus’ easy yoke is not an invitation to an easy, carefree life, but it is deliverance from the man-made burdens of religion. These burdens are the guilt of sin and its side effects such as depression, anxiety, fear and doubt. If we accept the rest Jesus offers, all we have to do is accept his teachings as well as the obligations he will lay upon us. He invites us to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

As we come together to worship every week, we admit our hunger for God. God sees our emptiness and feeds us the choicest food, the flesh and blood of the one who invites us today to take his yoke upon us and learn from him for he is meek and humble of heart. We can let go of the heavy yokes of this world and take up the blessed yoke that is no burden, the yoke of acceptance of our own beloved self in Christ, the yoke of acceptance of the beloved nature of other weary, heavy-laden ones still striving all around us.

Bibliography

1. Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible, NASV
2. Wycliffe Bible Commentary. Part of Wordsearch Bible software package.
3. ESV Study Bible. Part of Wordsearch Bible software package.
4. The Rev. Dr. Trace Haythorn, “Jesus’ Invitation to Paradox”. Retrieved from www.day1.org
5. The Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad, “I Will Give You Rest”. Retrieved from www.day1.org
6. Jude Siciliano, OP, “First Impressions, 14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A”. Retrieved from www.preacherexchange.org
7. Billy Graham, “What Can I DO to Help My Family?” Retrieved from www.arcamax.com
8. Selwyn Hughes, “Danger in the Home”. Retrieved from www.crosswalkmail.com
9. Les Lamborn, “Keeping Busy”. Retrieved from www.rbc.org
10. Kelly McFadden, “A Time to Heal”. Retrieved from www.crosswalkmail.com
11. Pastor Ken Klaus, “Finding Rest”. Retrieved from www.lhm.org
12. Gwen Smith, “I’m Frustrated”. Retrieved from www.crosswalkmail.com
13. Kelly McFadden, “Use Your Gifts and Talents to Help Others”. www.crosswalkmail.com
14. Charles R. Swindoll, “Trauma”. Retrieved from www.insight.org
15. Gwen Smith, “Between Faith and a Hard Place”. www.crosswalkmail.com
16. Charles F. Stanley, “Cease Striving”. www.crosswalkmail.com
17. Jim Burns, “Do You Have Anything that Needs Exchanging?” www.crosswalkmail.com
18. Charles F. Stanley, “Letting God Handle Your Burdens” www.crosswalkmail.com
19. Charles R. Swindoll, “Take Time”. www.insight.org
20. Jim Burns, “Thinning”. www.crosswalkmail.com
21. Greg Laurie, “The Two-Part Invitation”. Retrieved from www.harvest.org
22. Billy Graham, “Does God Understand the Way I Feel?” Retrieved from www.arcamax.com
23. Robert H. Schuller, “Give God Your Burdens”. Retrieved from www.hourofpower.cc
24. Notes from Peter Anthony’s Bible Study on the Gospel of Matthew
25. Eddie Lawrence, “Stress Survival (Pt. 1)”. Retrieved from www.riverworn.com
26. Steve Arterburn, “To Whom Will You Surrender?” Retrieved from www.newllife.com
27. Leslie Snyder, “Tears”. www.crosswalkmail.com
28. Girardian Reflections, Year A. Retrieved from http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper_9a.htm
29. Rev. Beth Quick, “Have It Your Way”. Retrieved from www.bethquick.com
30. Exegesis for Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.org
31. Daily Discipleship, Copyright 2008 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
32. Fr. John Boll, O.P., “First Impressions, 14^th Sunday (A), July 3, 2011. Retrieved from www. preacherexchange.org
33. The Rev. Canon Charles K. Robertson, “Never Enough”. Retrieved from www.day1.org

There is one struggle that all of us as Christians have. It is the struggle between knowing what is right and doing what is right.  In other words it is the conflict between good and evil. Believers have the ability to sin because of the legacy from Adam that we can’t do anything right.

The conflict Paul is talking about in Romans 7:15-25 is a form of spiritual warfare. It is like the game of tug-of-war. As we learn to say no to sin and yes to God, we are given a renewed spirit, vigor and understanding. Paul talks about this struggle by talking about his own personal struggle with good versus evil. In his eyes, he failed to do any good and he could not completely comply with God’s law. God’s Old Testament law demanded perfection. The law does not save us from sin, but it does show us the character of the giver of the law-God. The problem with the law is that is reveals human weakness when compared to the law’s perfect standard. The Pharisees tried to compensate for this by coming up with a list of 612 do’s and don’ts, but they only reinforced the point that we can’t completely obey the law. God’s law pulls us heavenward, whereas the law of sin pulls us toward hell. Jesus gives us eternal life through him, and escape from the flesh is also through him. Jesus dealt with sin through his death and resurrection.

Paul’s situation is similar to that of a drug addict who quits “cold turkey.” Many times the addict relapses and starts using drugs again because the problems that encouraged the addict to start using drugs are still present. The key to lifelong recovery lies in treating the mind. Paul was “addicted” to his past, sinful life, and we as Christians can become “addicted” to our past sinful lives without a strong faith in Christ.  Only Christ can rescue us from our “cravings.”

Like Paul, we have a constant struggle when it comes to doing the right thing. We know what is right, but when it comes to doing what is right, we often fail, and the harder we try, the more likely we are to fail. The alternative is to give in to sin, but the result is eternal damnation. There is a third alternative-one that was provided by Jesus’ death and resurrection. What is impossible for us to solve on our own has been solved by God’s grace. Jesus has freed us from the damages caused by this inner war. If we genuinely seek to do God’s work in our world, we become better people of faith.

Jesus explains this in Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. He explains that we do not need to follow man-made rules such as the 612 rules the Pharisees made to make certain that the people did not break any of God’s laws. Jesus even replaced the Ten Commandments with the two Great Commandments-love God and love people. God’s grace gives us the freedom to enjoy the rights and privileges of being out from the bondage of sin and man-made laws. Everyone is different, and God loves variety because he loves each and every one us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us on the cross. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we are restored to God.

Our daily decisions, no matter how small, usually shape a lifetime, and wisdom is found in making the most of each and every opportunity. All of our decisions matter to God because they impact our lives and the lives of others.

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, NKJV (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013)
2. Swindoll, Charles R.: Swindoll’s New Testament Insights on Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan; 2010)
3. Pastor Steve Molin, “Conundrum:  (n.) A Puzzling Question or a Problem.” Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
4. Charles R. Swindoll, “Defining Liberty, Part Two.” Retrieved from www.insightforliving.ca
5. Pastor Ed Young, “Decision Effect.” Retrieved from www.edyoung.com
6. Exegesis for Romans 7:15-25. Retrieved from www.lectionary.org
7. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible, NASV (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 2005)

Our world is full of fear and uncertainty. Here in Nova Scotia, we’ve just passed through the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve recently seen a mass shooting. Several Canadian air force personnel who were based in Nova Scotia died in a helicopter crash off the coast of Greece. Society has changed in ways that threaten our values, beliefs, and way of living.

Have you ever thought that God was asleep during your time of need? Perhaps you called out to God at that time, but you didn’t hear an answer. Psalm 121:14 says that “He who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps.” He is always there, but we must remember that He will answer our requests in His own time and in His own way.

Sometimes God uses the storms of life to teach us something or to accomplish other purposes. We might not like going through the storms of life but they can teach us things. There are things we can learn in hardship and crises that we can’t learn anywhere else.

This is why the passage from Matthew 8:23-37 might be helpful for us now. Matthew wrote his gospel for Christians in the latter half of the first century. They were battered and tempest-tossed by their circumstances. Many of them were facing hardship and ostracism and alienation from their families, friends and neighbours because of their commitment to Jesus. They were being discriminated and persecuted, sometimes to the point of death. The story of Jesus calming the storm resonated with them. It calmed their fears and gave them reason to hope that not all was lost. It gave them hope that at some point they would come through this storm.

The Sea of Galilee is famous for violent storms that occur without warning. When the terrified disciples awakened Him, Jesus first rebuked the disciples for their insufficient faith. Jesus reminded the disciples that when He is with us, we are safe. Only Jesus can get us through the storms of life. He then rebuked the wind and the sea so that a great calm descended upon them. Jesus is both the human being in need of rest and the Sovereign Creator who can calm a storm.

Jesus rebuked the disciples for their fear, but He also recognized the faith they did have. Faith copes with problems beyond our power by engaging God’s power. Jesus wasn’t bothered by the storm because He trusted that God would get Him and the disciples to the other side.

When the disciples asked Jesus for help, they showed confidence in Him. They went where sinners and Christians should always go when they feel that they are in danger. Only Jesus can save us from the storms of God’s wrath.

Jesus was constantly inviting His followers to witness and participate in situations that were beyond their understanding and their comfort level. He constantly says, “Believe in Me. Trust Me. Watch and see what I can do.” Jesus is inviting us to lead a different kind of life in our world.

Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness. It unleashes a swarm of anger-stirring doubts. Fear creates a form of spiritual amnesia. It makes us forget what Jesus has done and how good God is. Jesus takes our fears seriously. We don’t have to be afraid.

Stability in the storms of life comes not from seeking a new message, but from understanding an old one-namely, faithfully reading, studying and obeying God’s word. In this story, Jesus is the perfect picture of having God’s peace in the storm.

This story teaches us to speak to our fears. Jesus rises up and rebukes the wind and it ceases at the sound of his voice. We may not have the power to calm waves and storms, but there is power in our speech, and speaking boldly to our fears can help us overcome them.

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New Kings James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; pp. 32-33)
2. Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament. Part of Wordsearch 12 Bible software package.
3. Augsberger, M.S. & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 24: Matthew (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982; p. 18)
4. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
5. Lucado, M.: The Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson; 2010; pp. 1307-1308)
6. Pastor David McGee, “You Have Been Called.” Retrieved from Crosswalk@crosswalkmail.com
7. Br. David Vryhof, “When Fear is All Around.” Retrieved from www.ssje.org
8. Pastor Greg Laurie, “Always Watching.” Retrieved from www.harvest.org
9. Pastor Greg Laurie, “Hurricane Grace.” Retrieved from www.harvest.org
10. Max Lucado, “The Effects of Fear.” Retrieved from email@maxlucado.com
11. Allen Jackson, “Ordinary People-Extraordinary Path.” Retrieved from contact@intendministries.org

Mom wiped her hands on a kitchen towel as she went into the den. “Uncle Jim and Aunt Karen are coming over tonight to celebrate Dad’s birthday,” she said.

“Awesome!” Kyle bounced on the couch, never taking his eyes off the television screen as his thumbs tapped the buttons of the game controller.

“Have you learned your Bible verses for tomorrow’s Sunday school lesson?” Mom asked. “You’d better get that done before they get here.”

Kyle shook his head. “I’ll have time after this game,” he assured her.

Later, Kyle joined his mother in the kitchen and sat on a stool at the counter. “Have you learned those verses yet?” she asked.

“Not yet. The game went long,” said Kyle, eyeing a platter on the counter. “Yum! Cookies! I didn’t know you baked today!” He reached out to take one.

“I didn’t,” Mom said, playfully acting as if she would slap Kyle’s hand. “I baked them last week to take for coffee time after church, but we didn’t need them all. These are the leftovers. They’ve been in the freezer, and we’ll have them tonight.”

“Can’t I have one now?” Kyle asked. “Tonight I’ll be too full from Dad’s birthday cake.”

Mom shook her head. “The cookies are the cake,” she said.

“No real cake?” Kyle asked, frowning. “But you make the best birthday cake!”

Mom shrugged. “I’ve been busy, and I figure the cookies will have to do.”

Kyle shook his head. “You’re having leftovers for Dad’s birthday?” he asked in protest. “Doesn’t he deserve some of your time, too? And a cake?”

Mom looked at the platter of cookies. Then she looked at Kyle thoughtfully. “You’re right,” she said. “And your heavenly Father deserves more than just a few leftover minutes of your time.” She leaned on the counter. “A minute or two to learn your Bible verses after the video game is giving God your leftovers.”

“Oh!” Kyle looked at the plate of cookies. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” He pushed away from the counter. “I’ll get to them right now.”

Mom smiled. “And I ‘ll get working on that birthday cake!”

In Genesis 22:1-14, God tested Abraham. He wanted to know if Abraham would sacrifice the son he and Sarah waited for. Abraham obeyed God’s call. He was taught to believe in God and His simple word. Abraham must have been torn between sacrificing his son and the promise God made. Abraham believed that if Isaac was sacrificed, God would raise him from the dead.

Satan tempts people to bring out their worst; God may test His beloved ones to bring out their best. The people closest to God often find themselves in the midst of the biggest tests. But Christians must remember: God will only ask them to do what He will enable them to do.

All people have three parts to their personality: intellect, emotions and will. Each was included in this test as God sought to refine Abraham to a purer faith. When God commanded Abraham to offer his promised son as a burnt offering, Isaac was approximately fifteen. In this defining moment, God asked Abraham to take all of his future hopes-all that Abraham expected from the Lord according to His covenant-and surrender them on an altar. Although this instruction made no human sense, he did not argue or plead; he simply obeyed.

The phrase “rose early in the morning” which was also used when God told Abraham to send Ishmael away, anticipates actions that were particularly difficult to accomplish. Abraham’s obedience was so complete the he split the wood for the burnt offering in advance, realizing that wood at the site of the altar might be scarce. Moriah was about 45 miles north of Beersheba, a journey of three days at that time.

The Hebrew term translated as “worship” describes the specific act of a person bowing all the way to the ground. More important is the force of the verbs here- “worship” and “will come back to you” express great determination and faith. Abraham in effect told his servants, “Once these acts of worship are complete, Isaac and I will return.” Abraham had no precedent for believing that God would somehow bring his son back to life after the offering, for no one had ever seen a resurrection. Nevertheless, he trusted God to do the impossible, maybe because he had already seen God deliver the impossible through Isaac’s birth.

Just as with Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, God spoke at the very moment Abraham needed to hear from Him: just as he took the knife to kill Isaac. God did not want Abraham’s son to die; He wanted Abraham’s submission to Himself. When God said, “Now I know that you fear God,” He validated Abraham’s deep faith.

In Hebrew, the phrase “to fear God” describes saving faith; it also indicates one who values God as God, in awe, wonder and worship. In Scripture, fearing God takes priority over every other response to Him. This may be the one reason God tests the faith of His servants.

God does not accept human sacrifice. Man is morally unclean and is therefore unfit for sacrifice. God provided a substitute for Isaac. Similarly, He provided a substitute for the punishment we deserved. Only an unblemished lamb was acceptable for sacrifice. That’s why Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. He was sinless, so He was the perfect sacrifice.

Abraham’s confidence that God would provide was rewarded, for God rewards those who honour Him. God reaffirmed His covenant to Abraham with the most steadfast of oaths. The phrase, “The Lord will provide” is a fitting name for Moriah because God provided not only a ram in Isaac’s place but also a Saviour in humanity’s place.

Isaac was a type of suffering son who willingly submitted to the Father’s will; therefore, Isaac is a picture of Jesus and His sacrifice. Abraham is a picture of God the Father who (in the words of Romans 8:32), “did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” The ram was a type of lamb who died as a substitute for our sins.

All of us will be tested at times. Tests reveal things that can’t be known any other way. God uses these times to allow us to discover something about ourselves. For example, God often gives us a vision only to allow it to die first before the purest version of the vision is manifested. When God gives us a vision and darkness follows, waiting on God will bring us into accordance with the vision He has given us if we wait for His timing. If we don’t wait for God, we do away with the supernatural in God’s undertakings.

God demands that nothing can mean more to us than loving and serving Him. That’s why He tested Abraham, and he passed with flying colors.

God tells us to fear Him. When we fear Him we will obey His law and hate all manner of evil. This pleases God and brings us into the experience of His pleasure. When we love God, we will do what He shows us to do. We have to do these three things:

1. Be certain about what He is calling us to do. We are called on to listen and wait for Him to restate and reinforce His directions.
2. Picture yourself in what you are afraid to do, and then prepare to carry out your obedience in faith.
3. Trust God to do what He intends to do in our particular situation.

This story makes the point that everything we have-even our lives and the lives of people we love-belongs to God. He gave them to us in the first place. This story assures us that God will provide for us and that He will be present.

Do you give God cookies instead of cake? Do you give Him your best, or does He get your leftovers? Do you spend quality time in God’s Word, or just a few spare minutes after you’ve finished your book or game or time with friends? By putting God first in your life, you are giving Him your best. Like Abraham in today’s Scripture reading, put what God wants you to do at the top of things you have to do each day. He wants your best so He can make you all He knows you can be. No matter what circumstances we are facing, we must follow God’s example. We will never know how deeply we believe in God until we have to face a crisis. We should place our faith in Him.

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New Kings James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; pp. 32-33)
2. “Cookies? Or Cake?” Retrieved from newsletter@cbhministries.org
3. Barnes’ Notes on the Old Testament. Part of Wordsearch 12 Bible software package.
4. Briscoe, D.S. & Ogilvie, L.J,.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 1: Genesis (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1987; p.187)
5. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
6. MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
7. Os Hillman, “Listening to the Father’s Heart-March 21, 2020.” Retrieved from tgif@marketplaceleaders.org
8. Os Hillman, “His Vision, His Way, In His Timing.” Retrieved from tgif@marketplaceleaders.org
9. “Abraham Believed.” Retrieved from www.LivingFree.org
10. Joni Eareckson Tada, “A Faith Test.” Retrieved from communications@joniandfriends.org
11. T.M. Moore, “The Fear of God (5).” Retrieved from www.ailbe.org
12. Thea Lunk, “Only Son Isaac.” Retrieved from today@thisistoday.net.
13. Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Commentary on Genesis 22:1-14.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2138