Last Monday morning, I had the opportunity to minister to 35 older people from the old age home that I used to go to with Pastor Xavier. Some of you might remember this. I used to accompany Pastor Xavier every month to that old age home. It stopped when I had more responsabilities with leading Genesis groups. Pastor Xavier wanted me to have Monday off.
Every once in a while when he is unable to go to the home to minister, he asks me to. That makes me happy. I love challenges to minister and preach.
This time, I had 2 days to prepare. As I sad, I like challenges.
God and I had chatted about the weeds in my heart and what weeds there are in general all the time while I was working. This is what I ministered to the older people at Vue Du Cap on the following Monday:
A weed is a plant in an undiseried place - it is a nuisance, a useless plant, a destructive thing. The King James Version of the Bible calles this hemlock in the Old Testament (Hosea, Zephaniah) and tare in the New Testament (Matthew 13)
We might all have had times to spend in a garden...may it be our own or someone else's. We water the garden, we prune the plants and we pull out the weeds.
Let's look at our heart as a garden and Jesus as our gardener. Now I want to go with you to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13 verses 24 to 30. It is where Jesus talks about the parable of the weeds.
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’
6 Truths about a WEED:
- they are persistent
- the are always growing
- take it out at the root
- be vigilant because a weed grows fast
- don't take out the weed to early -you must know what is the weed and what is the good plant
(there is more and you can add on to that!!!)
36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
37 He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear
I love that the disciples didn't get the fool picture of the parable in the first place. Well, most of them were fishermen. They knew their way around fishing and all the things about fishing....but farming and weeds??? No wonder that they asked Jesus more about this parable.
Once, I worked in our church garden. Our Pastor had asked me to take out the big weeds and boy were they big. However, there was this one weed that I took out that also had some blosssoms. I was convinced it was a weed only to feel bad when the Pastor told me that I just had successfully outrooted a plant. Oh boy! But it looked sooo much like a weed.
When weeds grow slowly beside a plant, there is a tiem when itis hard to distinguish between the good and the bad.
Now transfer that into our lives: the longer I walk in sin, the longer I let the weed of sin/temptation ect grow in the garden of my heart, the harder it is to distinguish what is good and what it bad.
Now go to your heart garden....look around. The gardener is always there...he is taking good care of it but he also needs your permission to pull out the weeds. In fact, it is you who needs to pull out the weeds, the gardener only helps.
How does yoru garden look like? Are there flowers? and what kind? what colors?
I always find a place where there is weeds growing...but I also see different patches of different flowers. One patch is full with the most beautiful sunflowers!!!
I want my gardener Jesus take care of my garden well and when he points out some weeds...I want to pull them out together with him.
In terms of FAITH I want to be like a weed: always persistent, always growing :)
