{"id":4571,"date":"2026-07-19T13:19:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T20:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hopelcs.ca\/church\/?p=4571"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:22:24","slug":"theme-what-is-wheat-matthew-324-30-36-43-july-19th-2026-pastor-lucas-albrecht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hopelcs.ca\/church\/theme-what-is-wheat-matthew-324-30-36-43-july-19th-2026-pastor-lucas-albrecht\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTheme: What is wheat\u201d \/ Matthew 3:24-30; 36-43 \/ July 19th, 2026 \/ Pastor Lucas Albrecht"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sermon \u2013 July 19th, 2026
\n<\/strong>Hope Lutheran Church, Port Coquitlam BC
\n<\/strong>Text: Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43
\n<\/strong>Theme: What is wheat<\/strong><\/p>\n

_________<\/strong>__________________<\/h1>\n

Intr \u2013 <\/strong>\u00a0The parable of the wheat and the weeds is one of the few that Jesus not only tells us \u2014 which could give me plenty of room to write a sermon explaining it \u2014 but also explains himself. I could just say “amen” right now and move on with the service, right?<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d still take a few minutes to propose a reflection for today. Jesus talks about the weeds and the wheat. They’re similar \u2014 almost indistinguishable, in some cases. So what does it mean to be wheat? How do we tell it apart from just being a normal person in this world?<\/p>\n

You know, sometimes it is hard to make distinctions, to tell things apart. Look at these pictures and see if you can tell the difference:<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong>(picture 1) What’s a frog and what’s a toad?
\n(picture 2) What’s a tortoise, a jabuti, and a turtle?(picture 3) Who’s a Christian and who isn’t?
\n(picture 4) What’s wheat and what’s weed?<\/p>\n

Telling the difference can be hard \u2014 and when it comes to the spiritual life, it can get even harder.<\/p>\n

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is making a distinction: there’s wheat, and there are weeds, tares. They may look very alike in many contexts, but on the last day, it will become absolutely clear who’s who.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

But right off the bat, I don’t want to spend a lot of time examining the weeds \u2014 picking up the sickle and inviting everyone to go out cutting down whatever doesn’t measure up. Not just because it’s dangerous, but because Jesus himself tells us not to. Sorting out weeds from wheat is his job. Many times when the Church has tried to do this, it hasn’t ended well, and the examples are many. The explanation of the parable is clear: it’s only at the harvest that the weeds will be separated. And there might even be a lot of surprises in that separation.<\/p>\n

Jesus shows us that we can’t simply point at someone in sin and say, “This person is a weed.” Imagine how many people said that about Paul, the persecutor of Christians. Or about the criminal on the cross. Or how many say it today about their neighbor, just because that neighbor sins differently than we do. Follow that logic, and we might end up pulling out the wheat right along with it \u2014 and that’s definitely not something a church is called to do.<\/p>\n

So, I want to spend less time talking about hunting for weeds, and more time talking about how important it is for us, as Christians, children of the Father, to be \u2014 and to keep being \u2014 wheat. Which begs the question: what is<\/em> wheat?<\/p>\n

1 \u2013 Not Wheat <\/strong><\/p>\n

First, it’s worth thinking about the ways we can get wheat wrong \u2014 the ways we might confuse it with weeds just by looking at external things.<\/p>\n

Take virtue signaling, for example \u2014 the way people behave in order to be perceived as virtuous by the world. Here I’m thinking especially of a particular world where everyone is good: the virtual world.<\/p>\n

I wish I could live there! Because when you look at it, that’s the perfect world. \u00a0In the kingdom of social media, everyone loves everyone online. Everyone is kind, compassionate, and always on the “right side” of every issue. People take only good pictures \u2014 and they post them all. Everyone works hard, pays their bills, and somehow still has endless time for inspiring causes. Everyone rescues animals, cares deeply about the environment, and never forgets to post a photo when they do it. People avoid gossip, lift up family and friends, and are unfailingly supportive of every lifestyle and choice. Everyone is open-minded, endlessly patient, and always learning. Everyone travels to meaningful, beautiful places and turns every trip into a lesson in empathy. Everyone smiles at strangers, holds doors, and narrates their everyday goodness so the world can see just how good they are. It’s so nice to hear how every single person in the online world is always on the right side of history.<\/p>\n

This is, obviously, irony \u2014 pointing out how the virtual world has maximized the narcissism we all carry inside us, trying to sell “the best version of ourselves.”<\/p>\n

Now, am I trying to say that doing good to others isn’t desirable? Of course not. But thinking of Jesus’s parable, the reflection here is this: trying to look good in the eyes of the world is not what being wheat looks like<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The world’s standards for what counts as “good” change all the time, and they frequently don’t match what the Bible says about being good \u2014 about being wheat. Here’s where we can go wrong: we try to conform to this world’s expectations by doing what’s considered good not necessarily by God, but by the gods of this world. That’s where we lose sight of what wheat really is \u2014 and we may become tares. Weeds.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>2 \u2013 What Wheat Is<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were all weeds. Sinners, apart from God, without forgiveness and without hope. But God acted \u2014 and on the cross of his Son, Jesus, he called us to be wheat.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is wheat? The Bible gives us clear teaching about what being wheat looks like:<\/p>\n