4/21/2002

<sup>Father we do stand in awe of you this day. Father it is a privilege to set and sing these songs but it is more of a privilege to stand and sing that we stand in awe of you. We thank you Father that you are worthy of every bit of praise that we can sing, every bit of praise that we can say, every testimony that we can give is worthy of you. Father and that is not enough, because if all the trees of the world, all the mountains clap there hands it still would not be enough because you are so awesome and wonderful. We thank you for that beautiful fact in Jesus Name, Amen.

Turn to the Book of Matthew 13. We are studying the parables of Christ. There are a number of them of course, quite a few of them. We started in Matthew 13 last week and found the one
about the sower and the four different soils. Today we are going to see another sowing, in fact two other sowers sowing in Matthew 13:24.

‘He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprang up and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. And the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ By the way tares is a plant that in the growing process looks very similar to wheat, when the heads begin to appear they are actually dark and black rather than the light colored wheat. So it becomes very evident at the time of harvest but during the time of growing they weren’t so evident. But on closer examination you would see the difference. “And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ And the slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ “But he said, ‘No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

Now the explanation he starts in verse 36, ‘Then he left the multitudes, and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” And he answered and said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. “Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, He who has ears, let him hear.”

So Jesus is telling a parable here that has a number of parts and pieces to it. But there are some fairly obvious truths here. One of them is that in the world there are different kinds of people. The seed of the gospel goes forth, some respond to it genuinely, others apparently. And so the field in a sense becomes the church, the people who have made a commitment, at least a visible commitment to be in the kingdom of God. But he says, within that field there are those who are genuinely so and those who are only apparently so, like the tares look like wheat but weren’t. So within the same body, within the same local church body, within the same universal body of Christ there will be people who are genuinely followers of Christ and there are those who are apparently only followers of Christ. That is an obvious truth.

A second obvious truth is this. That not everybody who goes to church goes to heaven. Your attendance at church does not give you a ticket to heaven. Because we are in attendance at a church whether it be this church or the one down the road or the one across the country or across the world, attendance in church does not give you eternal life. Only Jesus Christ does that through our faith in him. And so you may see a lot of people who are apparently wonderful people who are apparently church goers and are but when you look at their life the Lord may find something different than what we see on the outside because the tares, look like the wheat at the beginning but then at the harvest time it becomes very evident they need to be separated out and destroyed.

So he says, ‘The ones who are the tares, in verse 41, are those who are stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness.’ There are those who apparently are believers who but in realty in their heart are not. But on the outside you would think they were the same thing. And so that is another obvious truth just because you go to church doesn’t mean you get to go to heaven.

Another obvious truth is that hell is real. Hell is real. Jesus says I will gather them out of the kingdom and there will be weeping and gnashing to teeth in that place and it will be a place of eternal fire. And so he treats hell just as real as he does heaven. And so there are many in the world who would like to say a loving God would never develop a hell. He would never create a hell for people because he loves us to much. Obviously the other side of that is, God loves us so much that he must create hell. A judge who would not condemn a murderer to some sort of a sentence would be an unloving judge because he would leave that person out to do more damage to society. So because of God’s love, he creates hell. Not because of his love he doesn’t create one. 

On the other hand because of his great love for those who trust Christ he has created heaven, for those of us who enjoy a relationship with Christ. And so the obvious truths are that there are different kinds of people even in the same body of Christ, in the same great body of Christ, in the universal church there are different kinds of people. All apparently, by the way when you get dressed up and smell good and shave and everything else you all look pretty good. You all look like really good Christians. The question is how do you behave out there somewhere? How do we behave out there? We know that one of the greatest stumbling blocks of people coming to Christ is Christians. Or at least apparent Christians. People who are in church and behave like it in church but then when they get outside people wonder where in the world their spirituality went because they use language, they get into habits they start living in sin that is not pleasing to God so they wonder what happened here. How come this person goes to church then they live like everybody else. Well because there are stumbling blocks, there are those who commit lawlessness, there are people who are apparently Christian who are not truly because of their behavior. Because of their true faith. 
In Jesus day it was the same thing. If you look at the crowd’s that followed Jesus you will find people who were his enemies, who followed him around to oppose him. They did not accept him as the Messiah, they opposed everything they could, they tried to put him to death a number of times and in fact eventually he was put to death because of his enemies. We find there are skeptics in the crowds. No matter where you went in the scriptures you find people saying, will what about this, what about this and raising questions that they thought would catch Jesus in a tight spot and of course he usually turned the tables on them and either returned the question upon them or gave them the answer they didn’t really want to hear. But there are skeptics who were opposing his teachings. There were explorers, people who came along to listen, just kind of hear what was going on. Saying is this really the Messiah, is this the person that we are expecting to come from the Old Testament? They are explorers, they were just on lookers, people who just came along and saw miracles taking place, some handing out bread and fish, and so they stopped in for some free food, I guess. But many of those went away when there was trouble, when there was opposition. In fact at one point remember Jesus ask the disciples do you also want to go away? They said, ‘No where else would be get the words of life. You are the one who gives us words of life.’ There were many who followed for a time and left. When they began to see how much commitment there was required to them, they began to leave. And the church is the same thing. You would also find in Jesus’ crowd those who were looking for answers, the explorers. You would find the ones who were convinced. Yes, he is the Messiah, we are convinced of that. But you also find those who were convinced of that but never followed him beyond just an acknowledgment of his statements of being the Messiah. But then there were those who followed him from town to town. Many were convinced and followers. And then you find those who were so committed that they were ready to give their lives for him. You find the twelve apostles all but two, Judas actually took his own life and John, we understand, died of old age. But all the rest of the disciples gave their lives truly for him. So they were the convinced and committed to Christ. And in the church you will find the same thing. You will find people who sit in any pew, any place, in any church and are sitting there going I don’t believe that, I don’t believe that either. And they never say a word, but may walk away saying, I am right, they are wrong. But I go to church because my wife makes me or my husband makes me or because it looks good or for whatever reason. You will find people who are truly explorers. You find people who say I am curious about this stuff. I am learning, I am wanting to hear more, I am wondering if this is maybe the answer I have been looking for. You also find skeptics, kind of friendly skeptics who will question everything for the purpose of finding the answers, find of the explorer skeptic who says, I am really interested, I want to know for sure that this is true and if it is then I will follow. 

There are some of those who are for want of a better term, backsliding. Those who had believed, had been committed and now by lifestyle because of habits, because of habitual sin, possibly because of temptation they have fallen to, because of laziness, because of hard heartedness, because of disappointment, they have kind of let go. And of course in every church we have some of each. Like Jesus’ parable. In the church, in the world, there are going to be those who belong to the Son of God, some are going to belong to the evil one. In the same body, in the same church, the same worldwide church and the same local church. The goal, of course, is that every person, the assumption is that every person has a true desire to find Christ, if you haven’t, and those who have, have a true desire to follow Christ. And are doing the things that Christ says. And are getting rid of the bad, putting in the good kind of thing. We will also find those who are disobedient within the body, you will find those who are obedient. You will find those who are tired, you will find those who have been working hard at it for a long time and are discouraged because they can’t seem to win over sin. You will find those who are triumphant, you will find brand new believers who are so excited about there faith they can hardly contain themselves. You will find those who are looking, you will find those who have found, you will find those who are just kind of floating. You will find those you are kind of going backwards. So in every church you are going to have all of that. Hopefully we are going to have more of those who are excited about their faith and going forward as they should but that is not always the case. 
Notice what he says to do about it. The servants came along and said, ‘ Shall we go rip up the ones who are not the true wheat?’ He said, ‘No let them exist side by side for a time. When the harvest comes we will separate them out and will destroy the rebellious, the unrighteous, the lawless, those who are stumbling blocks to the rest. So we will destroy them at that time. Until then however let them grow together.’

Why does he do that? Why do you think God does that? I think partly because God is a God who does not desire any to parish but all to come to repentance. That is what he tells us. And so therefore he gives us time. He is waiting for some who are the explorers, he is waiting for them to make decisions to follow Christ. He is giving time for those who are disobedient to become obedient. He is giving time for those who are seeking for answers to find their answers. He is giving time for those who are lethargic to wake up and get on the move. He is waiting for the couch potatoes to get off the couch. He is waiting for us who are genuine and vibrant and going forward to share our faith with those who don’t know yet. To give answers. The Bible says, ‘God is not willing that any should parish but all should come to repentance. It says his patience is not slowness as some count slowness but he is giving time for repentance. So God leaves the tares, the ones who are not believers, among true believers so that they will, I am not sure how you change a tare into a grain of wheat but since every parable falls short in some way when you get to far out extending it. That is ok because we are human beings and we can become one from the other. And so he is giving time for that to take place. So God is patient for that reason.

I believe sometimes that there are tests that God allows us to have. There are people in are midst that do things that are wrong, sometimes to test our faith, to test our doctrine even. In fact Paul says there are divisions among some of the churches, he is writing to the Corinthian church, he says yes and divisions sometimes are necessary to prove who is right in terms of doctrine. Because if everyone believes the same, everybody assumes everybody believes the same, then wrong doctrine is counted as right doctrine. When wrong doctrine is spouted, right doctrine needs to counter it. The Book of Proverbs says, ‘If a fool is not countered, my term, then he believes you think like he does.’ And so therefore you should answer a foul according to his folly otherwise it becomes wise in his own eyes. And so there are times when foolish doctrine is stated, like in a Sunday School Class maybe or in a small group, maybe. Or in conversation’s somebody says well here is what I am sure God would do in this situation. I am sure that God thinks it is ok, I am sure this is what the Bible says. If they are wrong we need to be able to say, ‘No, that is not what the Bible says.’ No, there has to be a division between false and true doctrine. And if we just allow a person to accept false doctrine as if it were true, we do them no favor, we do the church no favor. And so we do grow up together, there are many people in every church and across the country, across the world, who are true believers and those who are apparently true believers. Well, those who are not believers yet can become believers, that is ok. There are those who are definitely questioning, and looking, and seeking, and there are some reasons maybe they have that they need to get some answers to before they can make a true commitment to Christ. And that is ok, God gives time for that.

On the other hand there are those who are truly stumbling blocks. Peter warns us about false prophets, those who are among us he says like wolves in sheep’s clothing. And there are people who are truly fascists, people who are truly in there dividing congregations and hurting people because of their behavior, because of their attitude, because of how they deal with people. And so we have to be very careful that we do maintain a purity in the sense of the church. So we do have to maintain that, we can’t be vigilantes like the servants might have wanted to do and say will let us go out and we’ll rip up all the tares. Our purpose is not to become little vigilante gardeners running around as soon as somebody sins, well you are obviously not a Christian get out of here. We would have a pretty empty church, wouldn’t we? Because how many of us have not sinned? Ok, all of us have and fall short of the glory of God. So therefore it is not talking about people who are Christians who sometimes mess up, he is talking about those who claim Christianity and continue in sin.

In 1 John, John says, ‘Those who love God will not continue in sin.’ They will not continue to sin so therefore if a person can continues in sin, it is evidence that they really don’t love God. And so therefore we have to be careful that we are not allowing and approving a person’s sin, although apparently Christian. 

There are some things that we can do by the way. In fact we have got the screen here I am going to show you seven steps, not steps actually. Have you heard of the three R’s? What are the three R’s? Reading, writing, arithmetic. Ok, readin, writin, and arithmetic, ok? How many were really good at all three? There are some that are and some of them I tolerate and some of them I was ok at. But we are going to talk about life with tares. The tares are the people in the church, not just our church, but the whole church. If you look at the church universal you will find that there are actually whole denominations that are actually stumbling blocks, I think. Who are teaching false doctrine. Have to be very careful there because there are what some of us call liberal theologians who poo, poo everything the Bible teaches and say that No the Bible doesn’t teach that the Bible is just mythological. In fact the miracles of Jesus, they didn’t really happen. In fact my brother attended a church when he was helping at Camp Living Waters, he attended church over in that part of the state and in that Sunday School Class the teacher said, ‘Now we are going to read about some of the miracles of Christ here, but you and I know that he didn’t do them.’ You and I know he didn’t really do them, these are myths that people wrote into the scripture later on because they thought he was such a nice guy, a wonderful teacher, so therefore they put in these things so we would think he could do miracles. But we know he couldn’t do them.’ That guy is a tare. Eventually he will be torn up and burned because he is in a responsible position to teach people the doctrines of Christ. Jesus says if a person should cause anyone to stumble better have a milestone hung around there neck and tossed into the sea because they are going to burn in hell. Not my words by the way. Those are Jesus’ words. And so if we have the responsibility of teaching sound doctrine, if we have the responsibility of living for Christ and we continue living in sin, we do great damage to the scripture and we do great damage to those who would be believers. We do great damage to those who are seeking because we are giving really bad answers by our life. And so within the church, general within the church, particular the danger is that we sometimes become the tare even if we are a believer, because sometimes we fall into sin when we should not be falling into. 

1. The first thing we have to do is retain. Turn to 1Timothy, then you’ll find 2 Timothy and Titus, these are three little books and we are going to look in each one of them for a moment or two. And these are called the pastoral epistles because Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus who were both pastors of churches to tell them how to deal with the church. Each one had been assigned to be responsible for churches and so Paul was giving them instructions as young pastors, that is why they are called the pastoral epistles. 

2 Timothy Chapter 1:13, ‘Within the body of Christ we need to retain sound doctrine.’ He says we are to ‘retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.’ There is sound doctrine, there is unsound doctrine, there is true doctrine, there is false doctrine. Our responsibility as a believer’s in Jesus Christ in the soundness of the word of God is to retain sound doctrine. That means right is right and wrong is wrong. Not according to our standards but according to the standards of scripture. We define God not because we have an idea about him but because he revels himself to us. I listened to a program the other day it was real interesting. Some of you watch, Fox News and they have Hanady and Comes in the evenings at 9 PM, but also Shawn Hanady has a three hour radio program in the afternoon on a Flint station. And his call screener, it was interesting the other day, she had a malady the other day, one of the callers said that they had some kind of a disease so she said they should pray about it. They should pray about it and so Shawn knew her beliefs and said, 
‘Now what should he pray to?’ She said, ‘Well he probably should pray to the trees or the grass.’ Didn’t make any difference either the trees or the grass cause in this situation they would have the power to bring healing. Ohhh. Ok you can see her determination of the nature of God. Because she said God is the earth so therefore you pray to the portion of God that is effected at the moment. So therefore you pray, in fact, what Shawn Hanady was kidding her because she is a vegetarian and she actually eats a little bit of pork and he was kidding her because it was in the salad she ate and she was trying to defend herself. Cause she had to pray to the pig for forgiveness for eating it’s flesh. Ok, a pig is a pig, he is not God. And he has no power to forgive and the grass can not heal you and neither can the tree. I am sure there are some rivers that might be helpful buy you don’t pray to them. You just use them. So we need to retain a standard of sound words.
So we retain sound doctrine, our doctrine is not ours, it is the doctrine that has been entrusted to us by Christ. We don’t have the right to determine doctrine. We have the right to discover doctrine that God has given to us. The Bible says, ‘It is inspired by God, is written by men, and is profitable for teaching, for direction, for reproof, for training and righteousness. So the man of God will be equipped for every good work. And so we don’t write doctrine, we preach the doctrine that God has given us. So we retain that standard of sound doctrine.

Second of all, we remind each other of the truth. Turn to 2 Timothy 2:14 it says, ‘Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless, and leads to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth. But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and thus they upset the faith of some. Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows who are His,” and “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness.”

So he says remind them, not only just hold to a standard of sound doctrine but remind each other. Remind ourselves that this is what we believe. We have a Confession of Faith as United Brethren in Christ. A seven statement doctrine with confession of faith. It is in the hymnal, it is in the little UB Booklet and things. And so it is a document that we hold strongly to the nature of God, the nature of the scriptures, the nature of Christ, the nature of salvation, the nature of the Christian life, the nature of the Bible. And so we hold strongly to these doctrines and we also remind each other that our doctrine is the word of God. It is not our own interpretation. It is explained to us by the word of God and we hold to it. So we retain the standard of sound words, we also remind them.

Next we also reprove bad behavior and bad doctrine. Reprove means to say, ‘No that is wrong.’ Ok, means No that’s wrong. It has the idea of correcting too. Because you don’t just say No, you do the other thing which corrects. If a child does just the wrong thing, it is just kind of a dead end just to punish them you also need to give them instruction to the other side. So 2 Timothy Chapter 2:24-26 says this, “And the Lord’s bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.’

That is why I say tares could become wheat. This says those who have been held by false beliefs in Satan and false beliefs can come to the truth and be released from him. When they begin to reject the lie, and accept and acknowledge the truth. And so our job is to retain the standard of sound words to remind people of that, and also to bring people from believing a lie to believing the truth. Gently reproving and correcting and saying, No, No, the Bible says this. Let’s believe this because this is what God says. And so for ourselves we have to do that too sometimes. Sometimes we believe what we believe until we read the scriptures and find out God says otherwise. That is why James says, ‘We have to come humbly to the word of truth.’ That means we have to submit ourselves to the teachings of the word of God. Not make it bend to our desires and wishes, but say ok God you said it, so I am going to conform to it. Be transformed by the renewing of our mind, not be conformed to this world so we have to be able to follow the scriptures. 

Number four. Sometimes it means reproving bad behavior. Sometimes it means restoring to obedience. Galatians 6:1 recognizes, ‘If anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted.’ So there are times when we need to restore a person who is gotten into sin and bring them back to proper behavior. Proper behavior. Matthew 18, Jesus tells us if a person sins go to them in private, if they repent, good you have won your brother. It ends there. If not, take another one or two with you, so a little more pressure and say this is what you are doing, this is what the scripture says, they are not the same here. So you need to conform your behavior to the scriptures. If a person in unrepentant it says finally take them to church. If they still won’t listen Jesus says treat them as a outsider, as a tax gatherer, as a gentile. They are no longer part of the body. A person who lives outside of Christ needs to be treated as if they are outside of Christ. Even if they are a believer.

Move one more. Rebuke. Turn to 1 Timothy 5:20-21, it says, ‘Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also may be fearful of sinning.’ Well that would be something wouldn’t it? If we named names. By the way, I heard a funeral director I worked with a number of years ago that said one of the funerals he attended, was actually at his funeral home, the Pastor walked up and down the aisle pointing to people and naming them by name and naming their sins. If I tried that you’d be having my funeral probably. But Paul says that Timothy says sometimes a person continues in sin, there making so visible by their sin that they are outside of Gods will and so sometimes we have to acknowledge that and say, ‘That person is outside of God’s will, they are sinning and rebuke them even in the presence of all. We don’t do that often by the way. In fact I don’t remember ever doing it. But hopefully the restoration works, that is why we restore a person first and say here is what you are doing, here is what the scripture says. Let’s conform our life to the scriptures and then it doesn’t have to go any further because this would be a pretty drastic action to take. But it is definitely considered and instructed by Paul. 

Next one, reject destructive sinners. Turn to Titus 3:8 says, ‘This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God may be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men. But shun foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law; for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.’

It is interesting there is confirmed in the scriptures a three step process. When a person is in sin, a friend goes to them. You realize that your life is not conformed to the scriptures. If it continues without repentance then a second step is taken. With one or two along. Say do you realize what you are doing is un-Biblical, you need to conform your words, your life, to the scriptures. And if there is continued unrepentance the third step and through the third step then there is consequence. That is why he says, ‘Reject a factious man after the first and second warnings’. The third time you reject them because they are causing problems within the body. Because of doctrinal problems, because of sin, because of whatever it might be they are causing disruption and God hates disunity. There are three things that God hates, no four, one of them is spreading strife among the brother. God hates when people spread strife among the brother. That is why Jesus said, ‘Those who are the tares, are those who practice lawlessness and those who are stumbling blocks. We can become stumbling blocks by our continued sin, we can become stumbling blocks because of our false doctrine. Either one needs to be corrected. Sin needs to be corrected and conformed to the obedience of Christ and false doctrine needs to be reproved and brought back to proper understanding. And if there is continuous practice of either lawlessness or of stumbling blocks that means that person needs set outside of the body not given respect, not given honor. A person could still attend but they still would not be given a place of teaching, a place of honor of any kind. Because they have proven themselves to be outside by their practice, the body of Christ. In 1 John it says, ‘There are some who are of us but left.’ Says the reason they left is because they were not really of us. There are those who are apparent believers, when it becomes clear that they are really not believers, they tend to leave because they are finding out they are like a fish out of water. And that is just a common thing when we find out we are in an environment we really don’t enjoy and we are not appreciated and we don’t appreciate those people, we tend to move on to someplace else. 

It is kind of like the guy who was on the island, that you may have heard about this guy, he was on a desert island all by himself, a little island, and they finally rescued him and they said we see three structures here what are the? Will this is my house over here. Ohh, what’s that? That is my church over there where I attend. So what is that structure over there? He said, that is the church I used to attend. Well when we find out that we don’t fit in one place we tend to move on someplace else. Could be good reasons, could be. But if a person moves out of the body of Christ all together, it is because they have discovered, or it has become clear, that are really not out of the body of Christ. So sometimes tares take care of themselves, they just tend to leave at least in human sense.

Number seven, realize the problem will continue. Ok, how long will it continue? Until God sets down and has his angels separate the tares from the wheat. It will always be so. I will always be people who believe part of the doctrine, part of it they disbelieve. There are some who are obedient part way and some disobedient in other places. There are some of us who sin because we fall to temptation, sometimes we win over it and sometimes we don’t and so there is always going to be the problem, with stumbling blocks within the church, there is always going to be those who are lawless. We have some remedies that we are instructed to use. But on the other hand there are always going to be a variety of people within the body. That is ok because some are on the way to believe, on the way to obedience, on the way to sound doctrine. Others aren’t and don’t plan on to be. They are the tares that eventually will be torn up and thrown into the fire. We don’t want that to happen to us. I don’t want that to happen to any of us. Because I want everyone of us to believe the standard of sound words to remind each other of strong words and live in accordance with those words of God. Because God knows and we know by this parable that the church will never be a pure as he or we would like it. Every farmer plants the field in the hopes it will only grow the thing they planted. Most farmers will if you look across the wheat fields you will see some things that are not wheat. If you look in corn you will see sometimes the thistles and things are taller than the corn. Because other things grow up just as well or better than the real thing. 

But our goal is sound doctrine. It is obedience to Christ, is a true understanding of God and a true intent to serve him completely with our lives. To be truly convinced and truly committed. Now we are not going to run around and start tearing up everything that we don’t like. Everything we are going to name as a tare and it up and say you are out of here. Cause like Jesus said that would disrupt a whole lot of people’s lives because it just would.. But we are to maintain sound doctrine, obedience to that doctrine, and we are to maintain the church that is pure as we can maintain it through proper behavior. Through reproof, through rebuke, through even the restoration process. Through things that will help us to maintain a walk worthy of Christ. So tares will always exist, the desire we want to have is if we are a tare now we become good wheat tomorrow. And if we are not very good wheat today we become better wheat tomorrow. Because John says in John 15, ‘That our Father is glorified when we bear much fruit.’ That is his desire and design for us. 

Let’s pray: 

Father we thank you that you have in mind for to be truly reproductive Christians. People who by our life have people ask us about our faith. As Peter says, ‘We should live in such a way that we always have an answer to them.’ Because they are wondering why have this hope within us. Why do we have this smile on our face? Why do we have this kind of attitude? So that we can proclaim the wonderful excellencies of Jesus Christ. Father we thank you that you have given us that ability. You said in 2 Peter 1 that you give us along with our faith, moral excellence, and knowledge, and perseverance and self control and all these things we can have because you have make them available to us through your Holy Spirit, through the power of God in us. So Father I pray that we would use that to become such Christians that people on the outside of the faith would say, ‘Hey I want to be like you.’ Father help us not to be the person who apparently is a Christian and lives like everybody else in the world. Following their flesh or following the temptations of their heart. Following the doctrine that they set up themselves as to who God is and what he likes in their life. Father help us to conform ourselves to you, to your image, to your doctrine, to become just like Jesus Christ. That is our goal and your design for us. We ask it in Jesus Name. Amen</sup>

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