Rewards

  

Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Focus: Judgment

Function: to help people see that God is fair in the end

²⁴He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, ²⁵but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

³⁶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴²and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

Good morning to the beloved Children of God.

I love the way this passage helps us see the difference between letting God be the judge or trying to do the judging ourselves.

And in the process, it gives us the comfort that God will indeed be a fair judge at the end of the age.

He speaks of how in the end, our own sense of justice will shine like the sun as it is exposed as the loving response given to us by spirit’s power.

Jesus spoke in parables so that we can take the time to ponder the meaning of his statement and apply them to our lives. Oftentimes he speaks mysteriously and it confuses people who are not interested in learning from him but are listening in order to judge his words.

Remember, Jesus came preaching a radical message that appealed to the poor and the downtrodden and was despised by the rich and powerful because he condemned their selfish greed. The gospel writers explains it this way: “They loved money more than God or people.” Because of this, Luke 16:14 tells us they sneered at his teaching about giving up greed. Apparently, they spread ridicule about Jesus loving response to others. They mocked the idea of empathy. Mocking empathy is a worldly value and is not consistent with the love of God. God rewards those who care for the least of these.

And I want us to understand that this passage is about reward. Hence, the title. But the reason I emphasize this is because one might think that it isn’t so much about rewards as it is about punishment since the verses mention the angels collecting the evil deeds and burning them up in the fire.

So, let me segue into grace a little bit. Grace is the gift of God’s forgiveness for us without us being able to earn it. It is a gift from God and it is given to everyone by God unconditionally.

We receive it for ourselves by simply trusting God to love, heal and restore us by God’s gift of love for us.

We trust God by following the leading of the Spirit in our lives as she leads us to give up selfishness and see the needs of the world that is hurting around us.

God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others.

And all of this is inspired and led by the Spirit of God inside of us, the church, the body of Christ here on earth.

Grace means that God loves and forgives.

Grace means that God will not punish.

So what is he talking about here with the fire that burns up evil deeds? Well, clearly he is not speaking of people being burnt up. That isn’t love for them.

God is not the God of revenge but of restoration.

And God’s restoring process is to burn up our evil deeds, or our not loving habits and replace them with the peace and love of God’s presence in our lives.

God rewards good deeds and forgives our sins.

The Apostle Paul picks up this theme in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15: ¹²If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

I am not particularly fond of marketing Christianity as an investment in heaven. We should do good deeds in order to gain a better eternity because we do good out of response to the love inspired by the Spirit inside of us, not for selfish purposes.

We are motivated by love, but it does appear to be true that every person will be judged by the quality of our works.

Here is the grace part of it: The bad deeds are forgiven and burnt away while the good deeds are purified and brought to light.

Our sins are forgiven and our good deeds are remembered.

The one who forgives even though the person never repented will get their heavenly reward. They forgave in faith.

The one who sacrificed their self and their health to keep their family going did so in faith and God will certainly reward.

The one who gave their life for the good of the many will certainly get a reward.

The one who works and serves and never gets any recognition here on earth does indeed have an heavenly reward and the good news is that they will get recognition for it.

I introduced the message with the thought that it is God who does the judging and not we ourselves.

The Lord will separate the good from the evil and the Lord will let the two grow up together.

I used to think that it was my job to pull up the weeds because they inhibit the health of the good plants.

But I realize that I am full of weeds as well as good seed. I am far from perfect and I need God’s Spirit to remind me.

I believe he isn’t talking about people, but he is talking about our habits and perspectives.

Sometimes God frustrates us, I call it trips us in order to pick us up. God does it to heal us from our selfish ways.

It happened to me a few months ago in a profound way.

I was at the car wash behind a car that was having difficulty, so I changed to the other lane. As I changed lanes, the gate opened before I could get up to the bar code reader. I didn’t know what to do so I sped up to go through because, you know, the gate was open.

When the manager stepped in my path. I stopped my car and he cussed me out. When I calmly told he the gate was open and I thought I was to go through.

He was relentless in his attack on me so I did something bad. I rolled up my window and raised my middle finger at him.

So he decided to somehow stop the car wash from washing my car. I went though again, and we had another confrontation where I tried to explain that the gate was open and I was confused.

And he stopped the car wash again.

My anger got the best of me and I couldn’t let it go.

But what I couldn’t let go was the fact that my response to him was not Christlike

I was convicted by the Spirit of letting my anger rule my heart instead of the Spirit of God.

Now this happened all the way in Beavercreek, but I kept worrying about what would happen if the man saw me in my pastoral role and remembered my attitude towards him.

And God’s spirit kept haunting me. I was worried that God wanted me to go back there and shake his hand. But as I prayed, I realized that I was not in the wrong and the guy must have been having a bad day.

And then I remember we have a forgiveness ceremony at Kairos on Saturday night, and I have to get over this anger so that I can stand pure before God.

So, in the middle of the night, I get up to pray a lot in the middle of the night. I speak to God and I am asking God why this could have happened.

And it was like the Lord spoke to me these words: “I tripped you so that I could pick you up.”

In other words, God could have stopped that guy from being anal retentive but God didn’t. Instead, God let me go through it to expose to me a place where God wanted to heal me.

And it worked. By the Spirit, I find myself much less impatient when driving because God reminded me that God is in control of my life, even my failures.

God took a bad seed that sin planted in me and is replacing it with a peaceful response.

The good deeds surface to the top and God washes away the sin. Let God work.