When the World Seems to Be Winning

How should we respond when we feel as though wickedness in the world and compromise in the church are prevailing over the kingdom of God? In Matthew 13:24–43, Jesus teaches on the nature of the kingdom of God—or, as Matthew more characteristically says, “the kingdom of heaven.” He does so by presenting three parables to help us understand how this kingdom grows: the parable of the weeds, the parable of the mustard seed, and the parable of the leaven. And as we will see, these truths about how the kingdom grows provide encouragement and perspective to the people of God in difficult days.

Christ’s Teaching About the Kingdom

The subject of the kingdom is significant in the teaching and work of our Lord. In fact, the first statement of His public ministry was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). In saying this, Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom was at hand because the King had come. It is the King who brings the kingdom and rules over the kingdom, and it is the King who reminds us of the blessing we find in the kingdom.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus twice speaks about the kingdom: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3, 10). In these passages, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom for the afflicted, for the struggling, and for the weak. He comes to the people with encouragement, bringing a word of blessing to those who are struggling: “The kingdom is coming.”

Throughout His ministry, Jesus returns to the subject of the kingdom from different angles and in different ways. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He instructed them to pray for the kingdom: “Your kingdom come” (Matt. 6:10). He also issued a warning about the kingdom: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). In the Sermon on the Mount, He taught, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).

Jesus also told His disciples, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 13:11). This means that the reality of the kingdom of heaven is not immediately obvious to everyone. We must be taught about it. We must be led into it. These truths about the kingdom must be revealed to us, and in these three parables in Matthew 13, Jesus tells us about this kingdom and how it grows.

As Christians, we long to see the Word of God and the truth of Christ spread. We often think about how we can serve the Lord, how we make Him known, and how we can be effective in proclaiming His Word to the world. As we consider these questions, we would do well to recognize the point of these parables. In them, Jesus teaches that the kingdom does not grow in exactly the way we might think it should grow.

We’ve all likely had an experience in our lives where we’ve thought, “Why is the Lord doing things this way?” We’re too pious to say it out loud, but we might even secretly think, “I would’ve had a better plan.” That is precisely the situation that Jesus addresses in these parables.

A Deliberate Mess of Wheat and Weeds

In Matthew 13:27, the servants ask the master: “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?” The master in this parable represents Jesus, who is in charge of everything. What He wants to happen will happen. He has all power and authority, and He has sown good seed, His Word. This parable comes just after the parable of the sower, so the ideas of seed, sowing, and fruit are on Jesus’ mind. The question comes from the servants: “If you, the powerful master, have sown good seed, why do we see weeds coming up?”

There is an implicit criticism in the servants’ question. It’s as if they are saying: “You could have done better than this. Did you get the seed on sale? Is it a mixture of good seed and bad seed? It’s obvious when we look at the field that we don’t see beautiful, straight rows of wheat growing. Instead, we see wheat and weeds growing together. It’s a mess.”

I suspect that we all—in various ways and at various times—see life as a mess: Why is it going the way it’s going? Why couldn’t it be simpler? Why couldn’t it be better? If Jesus is in charge, why aren’t things more obviously successful in the advance of His kingdom? That’s the real crux of the issue. However, what the servants see as a mess is not a mess according to Jesus.

If you were to walk into my office, you’d think it was a mess. My wife will hardly look through the door. She just shakes her head and says, “How can you get anything done in that mess?” I answer: “I know what’s in every pile. It’s not my fault that there aren’t enough places on the shelves for books so that they have to be piled up all around. I grant that it’s a mess, but it’s an unintentional mess.”

By contrast, Jesus is saying here that the mess of this world is not unintentional; the mess of this world is deliberate. The evil one is opposing the advancement of God’s kingdom. There is a deliberate effort to undermine and subvert the growth of His kingdom. The enemy sowed weeds in the field when we weren’t watching, and we need to understand this reality. We face a spiritual battle in which the work of Christ is being opposed by the evil one. It is a mess. It is a struggle. But we shouldn’t be surprised. Jesus knew that this would happen. He knew there would be opposition.

When we look at the life of our Savior on the surface, we might say that His life was a mess. He faced great opposition. He apparently failed in His mission because He was arrested and executed. But Jesus is saying in these parables, “I am accomplishing My purpose.”

Christ’s Strategy for the Weeds

The servants, seeing the weeds among the wheat, come up with what seems like a good strategy: “Do you want us to go and gather them?” (Matt. 13:28). They ask whether they should go and pull out the weeds. After all, why not remove them while they’re still small? Why not help the wheat grow more effectively by removing the weeds?

One of the most difficult parts of child rearing, in my opinion, was taking my children out on Saturday mornings to pull weeds in the yard. They would come up with various tactics to try to evade that labor. It was good to see their strategic thinking, even though they employed that thinking to devise reasons to go back into the house for one thing after another. Similarly, the servants in this parable seek to employ strategic thinking to remove the weeds, reasoning: “Why shouldn’t the weeds be pulled up now? Why shouldn’t Jesus be in charge now?”

Throughout the history of the church, there have been those who wanted to advance the kingdom of Christ by taking dramatic action to suppress unbelief and untruth. Christians can sometimes be tempted to use coercion where they should use persuasion. At various times, the church has tried to force the advance of Christianity by using legal means to suppress unbelief, heresy, and false religion. By contrast, our Savior always gives us the example of being persuasive in helping people to see the truth.

Through this parable, Jesus tells us that this is not the time to pull up the weeds. It is dangerous to pull up the weeds because one must go tramping through the fields to do so, and some of the wheat can get stepped on in the process. When this happens, Christians unintentionally end up doing the evil one’s work: instead of helping the wheat to grow, they trample the wheat. Instead, Jesus’ advice is to let the weeds grow side by side with the wheat, and it will one day become clear that the wheat is different from the weeds. The day will come when the harvest is ready. When the harvest is gathered, then the separation of the weeds from the wheat can take place.

Thus, the growth of the kingdom, according to Jesus, happens in a mixed, messy, distressed world. And Jesus, in effect, says to us: “Don’t worry too much about it. I know what I’m doing. The good news is that the wheat will grow.”

A Call to Faithfulness in the Mess

In Matthew 13:35, Matthew quotes from the Old Testament to explain why Jesus spoke in parables. He quotes Psalm 78:2 specifically, saying:

I will open my mouth in parables;
I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.

Psalm 78 is one of the longer psalms in the Psalter, and it is about the history of Israel. Matthew’s quotation from the beginning of this psalm essentially communicates that the history of Israel is, in its own way, a parable. It is a story that illustrates something. Parables can consist of fictional stories, such as the story of the wheat and the weeds, or they can draw from a real historical story, as we find in Psalm 78 with the history of Israel. The point is that we derive a lesson from these stories that helps us understand truth.

Psalm 78 shows a repeated pattern in the life of God’s people. First, God gives blessing to His people. But then they become forgetful, negligent, and disobedient. As a result, God sends judgment on His people. When they repent, He sends His blessing, and the pattern begins again: His people become forgetful, leading to judgment, and so on. This pattern seems to take place not just in the history of Israel but also in the history of the church. When the church enjoys a time of great blessing, success, and growth, it often becomes negligent, disobedient, and presumptuous. As a result, the Lord sends some kind of judgment on His people that leads them back to repentance.

The appeal to Psalm 78 in this context of the parable of the weeds powerfully reminds the church that though the growth of the kingdom appears to be a mess, we are not to contribute to the mess because “the good seed is the sons of the kingdom” (Matt. 13:38). The good seed represents the people whom God is saving. The people of the good seed will embrace the righteousness of the kingdom. They will seek to know and live according to the will of God. That is Jesus’ point. He is calling us to live within this mess and yet be found faithful. Even more, He gives us a reason not to be discouraged.

The Way the Kingdom Grows

It is interesting that while Jesus explains the meaning of the parable of the wheat and the weeds in great detail, He doesn’t explain the parable of the mustard seed or the parable of the leaven. I think that this is the case because their meaning is rather obvious. In them, He makes two points.

First, in the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus makes the point that even though the weeds and the wheat grow up together, even though the kingdom grows in a mixed world, we must remember that the kingdom grows. It starts as a tiny seed and eventually grows into a tree in which birds can plant their nests. Yes, weeds are growing, but don’t miss the fact that the kingdom is growing too. This kingdom started off small, in an obscure, unimportant place from the world’s perspective. Galilee wasn’t even the center of Israel, yet now the kingdom has grown so large that its branches stretch all over the world. The kingdom is growing from small to large.

Second, in the parable of the leaven, we see that the kingdom grows out. When making bread, only a little leaven must be added to the lump. It starts as a partial presence but becomes pervasive. The point here is not so much that it grows big but that it grows out; it permeates whatever surrounds it. That is not to say that everything becomes the kingdom, but rather that the kingdom grows everywhere. This is part of the excitement of the time in which we live. We have technological abilities to reach places that we would’ve thought completely unreachable previously. The leaven of the kingdom is reaching places that surprise us. And while we may be amazed, Jesus anticipated it.

In both parables, Jesus is saying: “In the midst of the mess, don’t fail to see the success. I’m accomplishing My purpose.” What is the great purpose of Jesus? Not one of His elect will be lost. He will gather all the sons and daughters of the kingdom into His Father’s house. That is an encouragement to us.

The Kingdom Will Shine Forth

When Jesus explains the parable of the weeds, He seals His teaching with a promise: though we live in a day of mixed growth as the kingdom slowly grows from small to large and slowly becomes pervasive, the day is coming when that growth will be complete. The day is coming when there will be a harvest. The day is coming when this process of growth will reach its end, and the kingdom will shine forth in its perfection. While the kingdom grows, we mustn’t lose heart. Instead, we must focus on that promise.

There will be a judgment at the end. That’s why the task to which Christ has called us is so serious. Jesus speaks more about hell than anyone else in the Scriptures. He’s serious about what is coming. He wants people to know that life is not to be taken lightly, that there will be a judgment, and that those who do not stand in the judgment will experience weeping and gnashing of teeth. It’s a terrible picture. But the encouragement is that in the day of harvest, the children of God will shine forth. As Jesus says, “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43).

This promise should encourage us when we see the mess, when we have trouble seeing the success, when we see a world that seems so resistant and indifferent. The day is coming when the kingdom will shine forth and the sons and daughters of the kingdom will be moved from obscurity to glory. What was once small becomes large, what was once mixed becomes pure, what was once partial becomes pervasive, and most importantly, what was once evil becomes righteous and will shine in the glory of the Father’s kingdom.

Jesus points us to the Father in this process of the kingdom’s growth. No matter how messy it appears, let us never forget that it is our loving heavenly Father who is in charge. He is concerned about our well-being and will accomplish His purposes for our ultimate good.

Christ is growing His kingdom. He’s using strategies that may surprise us, but He will accomplish His purpose so that we will shine forth as righteous in our Father’s kingdom.