Sermonette: Controlling the Weeds

#114s
Mike Ford (1955-2021)
Given 12-Feb-94; 15 minutes

Years ago, before Carol and I had children, we lived for a short time in Jackson, Mississippi, and it was there for the very first time that we encountered kudzu. I think all of us here know what kudzu is, but maybe for some of you that are not familiar with it, it is, I guess you would call it, a ground cover that was brought over from Japan earlier this century, either as cattle feed or erosion control, depending on who you talk to. But we had never seen it before.

Once it became entrenched here in the southeastern United States, as you know, it has literally taken over. And we were amazed by it. Everywhere we went in the southern part of Mississippi, we saw this kudzu, and sometimes on Sunday afternoon, we would take a drive and we would stop numerous times to take pictures and we did not know at the time what it was. We thought it was beautiful and we would stop and take pictures of kudzu covered ravines and kudzu covered barns, kudzu covered automobiles. I mean, you name it and kudzu covered it.

Kudzu, for those of you that do not know, is a very remarkable plant. It is spread, the seeds are, by birds all over, and they germinate wherever the weather conditions are right. Usually it takes a very warm summer. And once it has germinated, once the seed is germinated, this plant sends out 10 foot long runners. They will wrap themselves around anything in their path. They will just entangle and entwine themselves around anything that is there and go all over it. And it may well be the fastest growing plant around, because in the very high heat of summer when everything else is wilting, kudzu can grow up to 18 inches a day—and that is very fast. It is almost like you could see it grow. It is no wonder that in a very short time it can bury whole landscapes.

Well, what does kudzu have to do with us? What on earth do we have to do with kudzu? Well, simply this: it is a weed.

Let us turn to Matthew 13 and look at the Parable of the Sower and the Seeds. I think you will see where this is headed. I think we are probably very familiar with this parable. As you know, the sower in Matthew 13 throws his seeds on four types of ground. In verse 7, we read that some of the seeds fell among thorns and the thorns sprung up and choked them. Thorns are nothing more than weeds in the Bible. There are 17 different Hebrew and Greek words used to denote weeds. Those would be words such as thorns or thistles, briars, things of that type.

Now, what do weeds do? They choke, they entangle, they steal, they keep fruit from maturing. They do not necessarily stop growth entirely. Sometimes they just slow it down to the point that the fruit never ripens. And I think you can readily see the spiritual parallels. Now, back to Matthew 13, this time in verse 22. Here, Christ explains this parable and He says that,

Matthew 13:22 "Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful."

So Christ explains that this seed that fell among the thorns was a Christian that heard the Word, but then weeds sprang up. And what were those weeds? They were the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, and those weeds choked the word. And He says he became, he being the Christian, became unfruitful.

To help you understand this parable a little better, let me give you some characteristics of weeds. First of all, they are aggressive and then they steal, they rob the moisture and the nutrients from the plants that you desire, the plants that you want. And since, typically, a weed is very fast growing, it is faster-growing than the plants that you are trying to cultivate and so eventually they steal the sunlight by growing taller than your plants, towering over the top, and then they crowd out your tender young shoots and they steal their space. In agricultural situations, especially in the tropical regions, weeds can take up to 50% of the yield.

So why not just get rid of weeds? Why not just eradicate them? Well, did you know that a single plant of common ragweed can produce 3,000 seeds, and of course, from each of those seeds another plant and another 3,000 seeds. Some of you may not be familiar with this weed, but there is a weed called pigweed that will produce 120,000 seeds. Now, if the conditions are not right, those seeds can lay dormant for decades until the conditions are right. Those conditions being the right amount of moisture, light, heat. One study that I read showed that seeds from several different varieties of weeds were kept in sealed jars and every 10 years one of these jars would be opened and the seeds would germinate. The study has been going on for over 90 years and these seeds are still germinating!

Now, you add to this that there are 1,775 known species of weeds in the United States alone and what do you have? You have a problem that will not go away. Now, if you have ever farmed or even just had a garden, you know that 100% control of weeds is impossible. It cannot be done. What you strive for is you try to manage the problem, you try to control it, you constantly watch for the weeds and when you see them, you attack them.

In my family, we try to have a small garden every year. I am not going to say we are real successful at it, but we have one and in the summer after dinner we like to go out to the backyard where the garden is and see what is coming along, how the tomatoes and the peppers and so forth are doing. And despite our best efforts and all the books we have read about it, we still invariably will find weeds when we go out there and we will have to pull a few.

But what happens if we miss a few days, and that happens, or perish the thought, a week? Boy, look out! You go out to your garden and what was a controlled situation has blossomed into a real problem.

Well, it is the same way in our spiritual lives. The cares of the world are all around us. We cannot remove ourselves from them or totally eradicate them from our lives, but we can manage them. What happens if you miss a day of prayer, a day of Bible study? Spiritual weeds pop up. The seeds were there all along waiting for the right conditions. Weeds are entanglements.

Think back to the parable that we started with. In the parallel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, these weeds are defined as three things: they are defined as the cares of this world, which I mentioned earlier. And one commentator said that this could be explained—the cares of this world—as anxious, unrelaxing attention to the business of this life. I think that is a pretty good definition of the cares of this world.

Second, the deceitfulness of riches. Not riches themselves, not wealth itself, but it is the draw or the allure of riches. Abraham, Joseph, Solomon, Job; the Bible tells us of many men who are wealthy. So it is not that itself, but it takes tremendous diligence to handle the riches.

And then third was pleasures of this life. The enjoyments which worldly prosperity allow us to enjoy in themselves may be innocent, but do they draw off so much of your attention and so much of your time that little remains for spiritual things?

When the sower threw the seeds among the thorns, he was not throwing it on bad soil. If you remember in the parable, there were four types of soil. The first two were bad. The third type was the thorns. The soil was not bad, it was just as moist, just as fertile as the soil in the fourth example, the good soil.

Notice again in verse 7, if you are still there in Matthew 13, that the thorns sprung up. He did not throw the seeds in a briar patch, so to speak, the conditions were there all along for the thorns to spring up. And what happened was, they came up and no one cut them back, no one pulled them when they had sprung up. They were not cleared away and then growth was choked.

We read earlier in verse 22 where we saw that the thorns in this case was the Christian that heard the Word and then the word was choked. And in verse 23 He explains what happened to the seed that was thrown in the good soil. It was he who heard the Word and understood it. You see, in both examples, they heard the Word but only in the good soil did someone act on it.

Now, think about this. The seed thrown on the good soil could just as easily have been overcome by the weeds if action had become inaction. In other words, if spiritual laziness had set in, what would happen if, let us say, you had a garden and next to this garden was a small patch of kudzu? (If such a thing exists as a small patch of Kudzu.) Let us say you had that next to your garden and spraying it with herbicide was out of the question because you were afraid of the drift coming over onto your good plants. So what do you do? Well, every day, you would go out to look the situation over—you have to be out there every day—and if the kudzu needed cut back, then you would do that. Or if the kudzu could wait a day, it had not come on into your garden, but at least you checked it out. You go out every day to monitor it and you take whatever action you need to. The point is you stir yourself to be diligent every day.

But what happens if you try to manage that kudzu from your bed or from the chair in front of your television? You will go out in a few weeks to pick a red juicy tomato and you will find that not only do not you have any tomatoes, you will find that you do not even have a garden anymore! All you have is kudzu. Chances are that kudzu is coming up the back of that Lazy Boy recliner, if you have waited that long to go out and look.

What do we call someone who is spiritually inactive, someone who is asleep even? We call them a Laodicean. A Laodicean is nothing more than a Christian who has been choked by weeds.

Turn to Revelation 3 where Laodicean is defined. Revelation 3:14-18. Verse 14 tells us that this is to the Laodicean. Verse 15, Christ says He knows their works. In verse 16, He tells us that they are lukewarm. And in verse 17, He says that the Laodicean says, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing."

The Laodicean knows that the kudzu is out there but his attitude is lethargic. He says, "I'll take care of it later. I'll get to it tomorrow. My favorite show is on." Verse 17 says again, "I am rich and I need nothing." What did Christ say the weeds were? The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the pleasures of this life. Those are weeds. Every day you have to, so to speak, hoe your spiritual garden. You have to look for the weeds.

Now, prayer and Bible study we all understand about. But think of it in this way: the weeds are entanglements in your life that would prevent you from tending your garden, so to speak. For instance, is that television show or that movie or that novel or whatever, is it an entanglement? Has it gotten in between you and what you know you need to be doing> While I am sleeping late instead of getting up to pray, is kudzu creeping over my garden?

I have this mental image of the desk and study area of a Laodicean, and the reference books and the Bibles and everything on the desk, but it is all covered by kudzu, just grown over it because it was not beaten back. A good example of this I could use would be myself and what happens to me sometimes when I am praying. And if it does not happen to you, then you can just see one of my bad habits. But I will start out praying for other people, maybe their illnesses or helping them in their trials wherever they may be, and the next thing I know I am praying about myself and things that I want.

I do not know if it happens to anyone else or not, but it happens to me a lot. And lately I found an effective tool for that. I will think to myself as this is happening, that that is a weed. It is an entanglement. It is something that I need to control. And it has been fairly effective in getting me back on track in my prayers.

I think this could be extended to any part of your life. You need to ask yourself, am I asleep? Or if not asleep, am I coasting? Because if you are not out every day checking that garden, beating back the kudzu, then weeds could be—right now—choking the crop, crowding the plants, keeping the fruit from being produced.

MRF/aws/drm