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Matthew, chapter 13. Today, Matthew 13, we want to ask an important question. A hard question, but an important question. Something can be hard and important at the same time. And this question is a hard and important one. And the question is, if God is good, why does he allow awful things to happen? If an all powerful, all loving, all knowing God, who's supposedly good is, is in control of the universe, why do terrible things take place? I was at a communion service once, and during the moment of prayer, a young lady asked me a question. She said, pastor Levi, I was raped as a teenager. Did God allow that to happen? Title of this message is, this is why there's evil in the world. This is why there's evil in the world. As we continue our series that we started last week, this is the kingdom. We're trying to get our heads around, what we are citizens of, what we're a part of. The Bible says if we've come to faith in Jesus, we are no longer citizens of this world. Our allegiance, our citizenship comes from our relationship with God, that we've been born again into birth and death. Are citizenship altering events? Agreed. I got a death certificate when my daughter died in the mail. Showed up in between bills and advertisements. They just mail those suckers out. They sent out the certificate to let us know this is verifiable. She's not a citizen of this country anymore. And it's the same with a live birth. You get a certificate of live birth. You're now a citizen because of this birth. And when we come to know Jesus, the reason we baptize is to show our identification with the death and the burial. Hold, hold, hold. And the resurrection. Some of you, we got to hold you down a little longer, you know what I'm saying? Like 1, 1000, you know what I'm saying? Like, they're not done yet, you know, it's like coming out of the grave, there's an identification with the resurrection of Jesus Christ that signifies. Do you realize what it signifies when we baptize you? You're dead. You died to sin. You died with Christ. And that death severed your citizenship to this world. Praise God that you're no longer a child of the devil. Can we celebrate that for a second? You're no longer so when your old man, when the old fleshly nature comes calling, you can be like, hey, Levi can't come to the phone right now because the old Levi is dead, right? He died, he died. He doesn't have to live in any longer in the sin. I know you're still going to call. But I don't have to do what you say anymore because I died with Christ, and I've been raised to walk in newness of life. I'm now a citizenship of a coming kingdom. But do you hear it? A coming kingdom. Do you realize how you're kind of in limbo? Then what are you a citizen of? Kingdom? Where's it at? It's coming. When is it going to get here? That's a great question, right? There's a tension to it, because this world we get. That's why it's so easy to fall back into our old ways, because it's everywhere. It's 14 impressions at a time. That's what they say it finally takes for you to buy a product or do a thing or know. 14 impressions. It's an attention economy. The world's trying to get your attention, to squeeze you into its mold, to get you to care what it cares about. And. And it has all of the screens, it has all the service, it has all the smells. It has all the things that can allure us and pull us and tug at us. It's hard to live with an invisible kingdom that's not here yet. We're like, I promise it's there, though. And so our citizenship is as a part of God's household, his kingdom, which the Lord's Prayer says that we're to celebrate. Yours is the kingdom. It's yours. It's a really good kingdom. Yours is awesome. It's kingdom. And. But then he told us to pray, may your kingdom come. It's not here yet. It's not here yet. It's coming. It's not here yet. So I'm a part of something that's already and not yet. It's been inaugurated, but not consummated. It's been engaged, but not yet hitched. Right. It's that kind of limbo. Right. So there's that engagement is. Okay, okay, okay. That's Christian life. And if you want to know, that's why it's challenging. That's why it's complex. That's why there's some confusion to it. That's where we're at. So in the meantime, the best thing we can do is to give our imagination all the tools it needs for us to live like heaven really is real. And all those impressions at a time cause your imagination of this world to be unnecessary because you can just see it right there. But what we have to do is let his word be color in our imagination so that we see and feel and are actually inspired to live for what is more real than this world. Because the things of this world are passing away. They are all exciting and bright and smell good, but it's all perishable. The flower of the field is beautiful, but then the wind blows on it, the season changes, it's gone. That's the things of this world. But God's word stands firm forever. So we have to use God's word to inform our imagination, to be reminded of and to care about and to think about and almost fantasize about God's kingdom so that we live more for it now while we're here. So in this series, in this season, between now and Christmas, what we're trying to do is using the red letters of Jesus, the red words of Jesus, the. To understand what his kingdom is. And he tells us again and again and again, using the phrase that appears dozens and dozens of times in the Gospel. The kingdom of heaven is like. Now he has to use the word like because there's nothing that can properly be a frame of reference for us. Exactly. Cause we haven't seen it yet. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard. Nor has it entered into the heart of a man what God's prepared for those who love him. Imagine a baby in utero, and you're trying to tell them about life on the outside. There are skateboards and churros and bumper cars, and they're like, that sounds scary. You know what I'm saying? They're going to. They've never seen it. They can't comprehend. They can't fathom it. Neither can you. We cannot fathom what it's going to be like to be in God's kingdom. But Jesus, using simile and metaphor, an allegory, can help us to get a sense of what it's like. This, he says, is what the kingdom of God is like. Matthew, chapter 13. He continues, if you weren't with us last week, he told this story about people who got hired at 6am and people who got hired at 5pm when quitting time was 6. They worked. Some of them worked all day and got paid the exact same as some who worked only an hour. He said, that's where the kingdom of heaven is like. And you're like, oh, it's not fair. And he goes, trust me, you don't want what's fair. You want grace, which is what I want to give you. Amen. That was a good one. All right. So then he continues on, and he's going to tell us why there's evil in the world. Why does God wait to come back when he could come back right now and deal with all the bad and root it all out and deal with it? Okay, he's going to tell us that. Because if you. If you've not thought that, you're not thinking another parable he put forth to them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? He said to them, an enemy has come and done this. The servant said to him, do you want us then to go and gather them up? But he said, nah, Lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And at the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, first gather together the tares, bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. And then the disciples came to him because they had questions, just like you have questions. Hearing that, they were like, okay, great, awesome, I'm going to need you to explain. And I for one am so grateful for their honesty. Because just what Jesus was hoping for. He told the parables to tease out faith. And some went their way and were like, oh, that's a stupid story. Or, okay, well that's great, but what am I supposed to do about that? But what he wanted them to do was to dig deeper. What he wanted them to do was to. To use faith and to ask and to press in. And that's exactly what he got he in. In between, he uses some Old Testament prophecies that talk about how there was a hardness of heart of the nation of Israel, how even hearing him, even getting what they wanted, they rejected it. And so they were fulfilling prophecy by not. Not understanding what he was talking about. He came to his own, his own received him not, right? And then look at verse 36, here's some good news. Jesus. Jesus sent the multitude away and he went into the house. Which house is this? The house of Peter. Why did Jesus go in Peter's house? We're told specifically Peter invited him. So he would often go there. Cause he was like, hey man, wanna come to my house? Right? And then all sorts of awesome stuff would happen in that house, right? One day, Peter's mother in law got sick and Jesus happened to be there, so I was able to heal him. Here's the point of the story. Great things happen when you invite Jesus into your house. Have you invited Jesus into your house? Have you invited Jesus into your life at work? Have you invited Jesus into your marriage? His first miracle was done in a wedding. Why he invited Jesus into the wedding. I love baby. Dedication. It invites Jesus into how you approach raising your child. There's a great power in just the invitation. God, it's been said, waits to be wanted and to be welcomed. Could it be so simple? Could it be that we have not because we ask? Not that we're walking around with human wisdom when he's got divine wisdom, he's just waiting for us to go, hey, God, I'm dumb. You're not. Please help. Right, that's the prayer. That's the prayer. I need your help. I need your help. That's me praying every day, leading this church for going on 19 years. Lord, I need your help. Would you give us wisdom? God, I don't have what it takes. We don't know what we're doing. God, if you're not coming, we're not going. Right? We need God. So they invite Jesus into the house. I love this. Look at this. It's verse 36. They said, explain to us the parable of the Tares of the field. They're like, that one was weird. We need an explanation. He was happy to give it. He answered and said to them, he who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. That's Jesus's favorite nickname for himself. Right? He could have used Son of God. That was true too. But Son of Man shows his relationship to us that he wants to come near. I'm one of you. He's been through what you. You, you're going through. And you don't have to do it alone. You. You can call on Jesus. The Son of Man. The field is the world. Someone say the field is the world. What's the field? Field's the world. Okay. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom. This is God's children. If we're in Christ, this is us. But the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. And the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. He's saying, this is how the world ends. Okay? The Son of Man, we'll send out his angels. They will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend all those who practice lawlessness. All those basically who do whatever they want to do, not what God has said to do, right? To say, who are you to tell me how to live? Right? And he will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And the righteous will shine forth as the Son in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And God, I pray we would have ears to hear you speaking through your word to change our lives. We need you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. I was thinking about the time when I was in high school that I impersonated a police officer and could have gotten in big trouble for it. Let me explain. It was a time of stupidity and toilet paper, all right? That was the big news on Friday nights was often toilet paper, right? So you had these girls, you had the guys, they would TP each other's homes, which is against the law. Let's just point that out. That's an act of vandalism and trespassing. All right? So we found out there was this group of girls that were going to have a slumber party, and they were. While they were at their slumber party, they were going to toilet paper a bunch of the houses of guys who were on the soccer team, okay? So it was like. And we found out about it because they were stupid and didn't keep it quiet. Everybody in the school knew this was always like, oh, it was going to be a great night. And so someone was like, you know what would be funny is we can kind of figure out which houses they're going to go to and. And we can be waiting at one of them and scare them, right? And that was how it started, right? It's probably how it should have stopped. But then it was like. But you know what would be even funnier than that is if they thought they were getting in trouble and someone offered the use of a strobe light that was red and blue. I can't remember who. Someone else had a white Chevy Blazer. And someone else said, I've got this crazy bright flashlight, you know, and we could put it on the left side above the side view. And. And then someone's like, well, I got this walkie talkie with a speaker. And, you know, all the pieces were assembled of our stupidity. And we, you know, kind of waited at one of the houses, and sure enough, they showed up, you know, and we let them you know, throw their toilet paper over the tree and over the house. And they thought they were so funny. And that's when we just lit them up with these lights, you know, stop right there. We see you. They were freeze. You know, they were like deer in headlights. One of them started crying. You know, like, one of them was like, I've never been in trouble before. Like, they were like, confessing all the things they've ever done wrong. You know, the time they shoplifted in, you know, fourth grade. And then we were like, oh, my gosh, we are in charge right now. This is wonderful. It was like, lie down on the ground. Start doing snow angels. They were just complying to everything, you know. Then we were just busted up laughing and all came out, and they were, you know, so mad, and we were laughing ourselves silly driving home. And then somebody said, but isn't it illegal what we just did? You know, and it was like. It was like dawned on all of us, like, oh. And so, you know, I did some research, and turns out it's a misdemeanor offense to impersonate a police officer. If you do it a second time, it's actually a felony. All right? So I swore off from that day forward, that was my life of crime. You know, that's the whole story. But I think back, just how merciful God was that, that we didn't get? That's grace we didn't get. And I actually don't think I ever told my parents that story. So if you could keep that just between us, that would be wonderful. There weren't pranks like toilet papering your neighbor's house in Jesus's day, but in an agricultural society, there were acts of vengeance to get, you know, even if there was a vendetta with the farmer next door, that apparently was so commonly done that it had to be outlawed in the Roman Empire, right? And maybe, maybe disputes over borders or, you know, grazing rights. You know, you could. You could think Hatfield, McCoy stuff just breaks out because people are people. But one of the things that Jesus references, that tells us something important about his kingdom and more specifically, good and evil, side by side in the space between now and when he comes back at the end of the world. And how we're to understand that, how we're to reconcile that, how we're to deal with that difficulty and understand how to process that, comes from the illustration involving a man who had sowed good seed in his field and was expecting wheat to be grown that could then participate in the answer to the prayer we Pray in the Lord's Prayer between now and your kingdom coming, we're going to need some bread, right? If you're not. If you're not coming back right away, we're going to need to eat something. We're going to need some tortillas, right? So. So when we pray that prayer, we're praying that someone would be a farmer, right? Do you realize that you are participating in an answer to someone else's prayer? No matter what part of the supply line you're a part of, for the logistics and shipping? And you're praying someone opens up a grocery store and someone drives a long haul truck driver. You know, all of the. All of the details involved. Someone would actually plant the wheat into the field that could grow. Someone comes in with the combine. Someone, you know, has a mill and can grind it. All of that is. Is. Is in there. When we're praying, give us this day, God, our daily bread. And so this farmer goes out and on his land, he has good wheat sown. The seeds are there, but when things start popping up, which is not right away, it takes some time. There's always a space between sowing and reaping. His team was disturbed to find out something had been perverted that was causing not wheat, but weeds to show up, not exclusively, but commingled in the crop because. And he went, drats. Farmer Fred's at it again, you know, like, he immediately knew, you know, he's like, ah, this feud, you know, with the farmer across the. He had over sown my field. He had set at nighttime, you know, his team out to sow his seed. It's called Darnell. Darnell. Bearded Darnel, apparently, is what he's referencing here. And it's basically imitation wheat. Also, I did a little digging this week into Darnell. If your name is Darnell, I apologize, but. But it has a nickname. I hesitate to say it on stage as a reverend. Never call myself reverend. And you're not allowed to either. I was listening to one theologian. He said that the colloquial name on the street, it rhymes with pastor. Okay? But it's an illegitimate son not born in wedlock. Okay? So it's not weed. It's Pastor Wheat. That's what they call it. It's Pastor Wheat, all right. And this Darnel, or Bearded Darnel specifically, is a kind of rye grass. And it's the only species of the grass family that has poisonous seeds. And if you were to ingest any of this grass, it would lead to nausea, violent vomiting, could lead to convulsions diarrhea. If you eat enough of it, it actually could kill you. Okay, but here's the crazy thing. Bearded Darnel, when it first comes out of the seed form, it looks exactly like wheat. Wheat, almost indistinguishable. You can't tell the difference. So you'll notice in the parable, Jesus actually says that he didn't notice it until it had sprouted and produced the crop. Then the tares were revealed. See, until the head of the grain started to show up on the good ones, there was no way to know, because at the first, they looked the same in color. Like, literally, you'd be like a botanist and not even know the difference. Until it came time for the wheat to produce their heads, and the Darnells couldn't do that. And that's when the team came to their master, and they said to him, to the landowner, what the heck? Didn't you plant good seeds? Like, what'd you give us to plant? Why is this happening right there? And I love that. It's, like, his problem. He's like, you're the ones who did the sewing for me, right? But there's problem. Problem in your. In your field, problem in your world. And. And Jesus says, this is the kingdom. The kingdom of God's a light. A lot like that. And you're like, what. What. What do you mean? Well, what I mean is he's telling us about the origin of evil. Really important. First heading to jot down, to be aware of what's the origin of evil. And what Jesus says is the origin is that it did not come from God. He said, I didn't do that. And they came to go, why is there evil in your world? Why is there. Why is Darnell. Why is there this poisonous thing masquerading as we in your field, just like we come to God. God, I thought you were good. Why is there evil in your good world? It's this problem we have when we see pain, when there's suffering, we say, God, where did it come from? He goes, I didn't do that. I made a good world. Read how many times the word good is used in Genesis 1 and 2. God makes something, it's good. Makes something, it's good. Good world, good relationships, good birds. The whole thing's good. The land, the gold of the land was good. People say money's the root of all evil. No, no, no. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Before there was sin, there was gold. Before there was sin, that gold was good, It Was blessed by God. There was goodness all to this world. What invited the evil in? The answer is the devil. Jesus says, while they slept, the thief showed up. While they slept, the thief show up. Showed up. And he's the one who sowed the seeds that could bring about this evil. And then when he explained it, he said that that thief is the devil. John 10:10 tells us about the devil. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. He says, I, on the other hand, am a good God. I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly. We need to remember God whenever we see evil. God did not cause it. That evil did not come from God's hand. I told that young lady on that day, God did not want you to be raped. God did not cause you to be raped. That was not God's idea. God created a world where that. Where there was goodness. Okay? So when we experience tragedy, when we experience loss, we have to remember this did not come from God. God created a good world. Where did the sin come from? From the sin came from us being willing to choose lawlessness in response to the devil who tempts us that he might steal from us and destroy us and murder us ultimately. And that's why he tells lies and warps our thinking and says, this won't happen. You don't have to worry about that. It's not such a big deal. He's sowing the seeds to bring forth not wheat but weeds that will lead to further death and only further make you sick. Because whenever we choose to sin, Listen to me. We always choose to suffer. But there's a space between sowing and reaping. And that space between. When it comes to sin can be a lot of fun. Some preachers, the way they talk about sin, they make it sound like it's no fun. I'm like, you just haven't done it right. If you haven't enjoyed it, there's. The Bible says there's pleasure in sin, but for a season. If sin wasn't fun, no one would do it. There's a reason. It's like the bait that attracts the fish. They're not thinking about the hook. They're thinking. They're not thinking about the frying pan or the filleting knife. But you should. When the devil entices you with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, or like I like to call them, the ego, the dinero, the libido, right? When he tries to entice you with sin to come away from God's good plan for this world. What happens is we invite suffering into our life when we disobey God. But the consequences is someone else always gets hurt. You never sin alone. There's always an aftermath. There's always collateral damage. So in the case of a sexual assault, that's somebody dishonoring and disobeying God and choosing to do what they want. And as a result, someone else is getting hurt. So why did that happen? Because God gave us the space to choose. God gave us the space to make our own decision. He didn't make us automatons. He didn't make us robots in the garden. People say, why was that tree there? Couldn't. If I could just go back and delete that tree. Adam and Eve used to be running around naked, having a good time, you know, getting frisky and walking with God and naming stuff. You know what I'm saying? No, no, no, no. They never could have loved him. It wouldn't have been pure. They might as well have had a string on the back that God could have pulled and they would have said, I love you, God. They had to have the choice to be able to give them the middle finger they had, just like you do. Okay, now, we don't like it when other people's sin hurts us. But we need to remember our sin has done the hurting too. Our sin has hurt other people. This good world has been spoiled and broken. And because while we were sleeping, the enemy came in and we chose to listen to him. And all of us, like sheep, have gone astray. No one of us have done all good. No one of us have done all righteous. All have fallen short of the glory of God and chosen to sin. And all sin is lawlessness. That's where evil came from. They, the servants wanted to bring it to the owner. You, you did this. He goes, no, no, no, I. I made a good world. And we need to know that about our good God. The origin of evil did not come from him. And interestingly enough, whenever we argue and it's worthy, it's worthy of discussion about the merits of God's goodness when there's evil in the world and if he has power, when he should use it right. And a lot of us have a lot of thoughts about that. But it's interesting to think that when we're entering into that arena of thought or dialogue, we are actually making a profound argument for the existence of God, which is so fascinating considering many would say the reason they can't believe in God is the pain. But C.S. lewis himself, at one point an ardent atheist. Why? Well, he admits it's because he wanted to have fun sinning. And he realized if there was a God, he'd have to listen to him. And so he found it much more convenient to just say there is no God. Then he could do whatever. He was being very honest with that. But then he experienced pain and loss and difficulty. And he hated the difficulty and hated the pain and hated the loss. And that made him angry that the world wasn't just. And then here's what he said next. This is crazy. A big part of, of his conversion to believing in God. And this is a guy who's a professor at Oxford. Okay, was this. He said, my argument against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? A man feels wet when he falls into water because man is not a water animal. A fish would not feel wet. My argument against God collapsed, for the argument depended on saying the world was unjust. He wanted to continue to do what he wanted to do, but also be angry. But when the world wasn't what he, deep down inside, knew it should be and was capable of being. That's because on the inside, we know what water is. We're not fish. We have a humankind memory of life before sin spoiled the world. So it's hardwired. It's baked into us. Eternity set into the human heart to know how God made things to be. If there's no God, do you realize the strong eats the weak? We should go. Awesome, right? Someone takes and steals and if there's no God, we should be like, well, that's just how it is. Sucks to be you. Too bad I didn't think of that first. Deep down, our craving of how things should be indicates it's baked into us what the straight line is, and we're reacting against the crookedness of it. So to walk away because life's not fair, to walk away from God because it's not how it should be is actually you fighting against evidence. That's his way of saying, I did make this good world and I have a plan to do something about it. So that's the origin of evil.