I live just outside of Washington, D.C. From this vantage my family and I can travel to hundreds of different museums and monuments within 30 minutes from leaving our suburban home. We aim to see them all, but we are starting with the basics. This weekend we hit the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. I was most moved by the Jefferson memorial. Within the rotunda there are a number of quotes from our third president that stand in stark contrast to our politicians of today. It is easy for me to lament the decline of our elected officials while acquitting my own sinful behavior. I can grieve that our world has shunned God, but I am ultimately responsible for what I do with the Word of God. Will I abuse it or will I allow it to transform my life?
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.” These are inscribed on the northeast portico of the Jefferson Memorial. They are excerpted from various writings of Thomas Jefferson on the topics of liberty, justice, and slavery. Most notably, they are found in correspondence between Jefferson and the father of our country, George Washington. Jefferson points out a truth that should give us pause: God’s justice cannot sleep forever.
Why then does a just God wait to deliver his judgment? “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Though it is widely held that the author of the Declaration of Independence was a deist and not a Christ follower, his words nonetheless ring true to believers. We serve a God who, through His love and patience, allows us the liberty to choose either sin or righteousness. It is God’s patience that guarantees our liberty. God graciously allows us to turn from the sin that condemns us and freely offers us life everlasting. Though patient, God is also just. Because He is just, He will not abide our sin forever.
Matthew 13 recounts the parables of Jesus Christ. Parables are stories that convey truth to those who seek truth (and conceal truth from those who despise truth). In the parables, Jesus says, “He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matt 13:9) What He is saying is that people, us included, may physically hear or read His words, but the one who listens and seeks understanding with his heart will truly hear. Romans 10:17 tells us, “faith comes from hearing…” Listening intently in order to seek truth is the type of hearing to which Paul refers in that verse.
Hear with your heart Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds. (Matt 13: 25-30) “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weedsamong the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servantsof the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
Jesus explained this parable to his disciples later in the chapter, but here is the gist. The sower is Jesus and the field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, those who profess Christ. The enemy is the devil and the weeds are his children, all who reject the gospel of Jesus. When Jesus sends his angels to reap, the weeds will be cut down first and the wheat will be taken up. The wheat that is taken up are those who have been made righteous in Christ and they will be with their Father in Heaven.
For some of you who read these words, you are sure that you are a weed. Some of you think you are wheat, but are deceiving yourselves. Some of you are wheat, but your roots are entangled with the weeds, so you have been choked out from bearing a fruitful harvest. Some of you are good wheat bearing good food.
First things first, what is wheat? “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” (Rom 10:9). If that describes you, then you are wheat. Anything other than that, you are a weed. But take heart, God is patient and He does not want you to be cut down with the weeds.
Look around. The weeds are thick. As my family’s day in D.C. drew to a close, we approached the Lincoln memorial. The grounds were crowded with thousands of people. I counted at least a dozen different languages being spoken. There in the midst of the crowd on the steps where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I have a Dream” speech stood a man preaching Christ and the future that awaits unrepentant sinners. He was at full rant and no one paid him any attention. Then he simply read the words of the Gospel and I heard my wife Jennifer say, “Amen.” He who has ears, let him hear. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” (Heb 4:12). The seeds of the Sower will find purchase in the soil of the hearts of those who seek Christ.
Brother and Sisters of Element, Jesus will wait, and has waited, for two thousand years, but He cannot be expected to wait forever. Will we tend to the garden, or do we plan to wait for the Gardner Himself to cut the weeds down? I have to agree with Thomas Jefferson. I tremble when I realize that God is not only patient, He’s just. We cannot continue to say, “live and let live,” while our family, friends, and countrymen grow deeper and deeper roots in their sin. True liberty comes not from satisfying your every desire, but from the freedom that God offers us in Christ. Christ promised us life more abundantly, and when He reaps His harvest, the wheat of righteousness will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of His Father.
So my weedy friends, if you have kept reading this far, perhaps you do have ears to hear the truth. You too can serve a God who is not slow as some might count slowness, but has been patient toward you, not wishing that you should perish, but that you may understand repentance. If you are wheat with tangled roots, seek God in His word and let your roots grow deep in His rich soil. If you are a weed, give your life to Christ and He will pull you up by the roots and make you a new creation. He will plant you anew as wheat to bear fruit for His kingdom.
Tell your friends.
