Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

A Life that Witnesses to the Transformative Power of Faith!

(Part 1 of 2 of Series Conclusion)

Hebrews 12:1-3 (NASB)

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

If you started reading your Bible in Hebrews 12, you would automatically ask yourself, “Who are the people in this ‘so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us’?” The answer to this question is found in Hebrews 11, so let’s review the inaugural class of the great cloud of witnesses, and see what we have learned from each of them over the last 6 months of sermons:

If you minimize the Bible to a moralistic rule book filled with one-dimensional people, then you miss God’s extravagant love and scandalous grace. If you miss love and grace, then you miss Jesus, who is the only way to know the Father (John 14:6). Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that you can make a good human effort at living according to the Ten Commandments, doing and saying all the right things by your own strength. Jesus did not die on the Cross so that you can go around living a good moralistic life and be filled with pride and self-righteousness. Jesus died on the Cross so that you could be free from sin to love others as God first loved you; not to earn anything, but from of a transformed heart, striving to be like Him and like those who have come before us to show us the way of faith – the great cloud of witnesses. Jesus gives us our right standing by grace – a relationship with God that comes with the responsibilities of righteousness! As Paul taught in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” This is our calling; we have been made new by His love to join with Jesus in His ministry of love to reconcile all people to Him (2 Corinthians 5:17-20).

In your story, as in every story, grace matters! Do you remember when God chose you?

Today, God is calling to you, choosing you, extending His love to you. Trust Him today and experience the joy of why Christ endured the cross and despised the shame. For the joy set before you, live strong in God’s grace and reap a harvest of praise to the glory of God. Never forget, that what we do in this life is a witness to what Christ did to give us the life we live, once for all!

What does your transforming story of faith look like? Jesus is interceding for you at the right hand of the Father, so do not grow weary and do not lose heart!

YOU CAN LISTEN TO THIS MESSAGE BY CLICKING HERE.

In part 2 of the conclusion, schedule for November 19, we will learn how we can be inducted into the next class of the great cloud of witnesses. Live strong in God’s grace today by applying the faithful strategy of the hardworking farmer!

Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

A Faith that Calls People Home!

Hebrews 11:32-40 (NASB)

God is in the business of transforming stories through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to grow strong in God’s grace as active participants in the world He created. God has entrusted His creation to His people to work as His Harvest workers – “All the world’s a field, and all the disciples of Jesus Christ merely farmers!” Therefore, let’s be faithful farmers by following the four-step strategy of a hard-working farmer: 1) cultivate people with faith; 2) sow the good seed of God’s grace (the gospel) into their hearts and minds; 3) care for them as their stories are transformed into fruit-bearing plants; and 4) reap a harvest of praise as the church of Jesus Christ. This strategy must be empowered by the Holy Spirit because apart from God we cannot bear any good fruit (John 15:5). Therefore, harvest workers of God’s kingdom are called to grow strong in God’s grace. Let’s take the first step by learning from the transforming stories of the Hall of Faith, found in Hebrews 11.

STEP #1 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CULTIVATE THE SOIL WITH FAITH

Today’s story is about the prophets of God, who are named explicitly as an office, and then many of their number are alluded to in Hebrews 11:32-40:

And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions [the prophet Daniel in Daniel 6], quenched the power of fire [the prophet Daniel’s entourage of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in Daniel 3], escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong [Hezekiah recovered from sickness by the Word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 38], became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection [the prophet Elijah with the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17 and the prophet Elisha with the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4]; and others were tortured [the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 20], not accepting their release [the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 40], so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned [Stephen in Acts 7], they were sawn in two [the tradition of the prophet Isaiah’s death by King Manasseh], they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword [the prophet Uriah in Jeremiah 26]; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins [Elijah, Zechariah, and John the Baptist], being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. [emphasis added]

The prophets are found throughout the Bible, as I briefly illustrated in the above passage. An excellent definition of a prophet is “a person inspired to proclaim or reveal divine will or purpose.”^[1] I prefer this definition because it is inclusive to both forthtelling and foretelling. Today, a prophet is often, and wrongly, limited to the activity of divinely forecasting the future (foretelling), but there is so much more to it – prophecy is a calling forth of God’s will in a specific time and place, with a divine purpose in mind. When done properly, preaching is a prophetic work of the Spirit, in the forthtelling way, regardless of whether there is foretelling. That is important to realize as we learn from the prophets a faith that calls people home. We cannot foretell who God has chosen, and who will be saved, but we are called to forthtell to all, for Jesus died “once for all,” as Hebrews 7:25-27 proclaims:

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

It is our calling to make known the great love of God, made accessible through Jesus Christ (John 3:16). Let’s take the next action step so that we may learn how to have a faith that calls people to faith in Jesus Christ, calling them home to a right relationship with God through the forgiveness of their sins.

STEP #2 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: SOW THE GOOD SEED OF GOD’S GRACE

The prophetic ministry is important to the church of Jesus Christ today, as Ephesians 4:11 includes them in the list of gifts to the church that Jesus gave as He ascended to the right hand of the Father, “He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” All five spiritually-gifted persons has the same purpose – to build the body of Christ in love through the equipping of the saints. Therefore, we cannot see “prophets” as a ministry of the past; they are a current reality, a function of the eldership of the church today – we must hear the message of the prophets, which has been unchanging through the millennia: “Come Home – Return to Me!” A powerful example of this is from Joel 2:12-13:

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil.

Other examples of the prophets declaring this message are the following:

This is the same message of the last prophet of the Old Covenant, John the Baptist, who forthtold in Matthew 3:1-3:

Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, “The voice of the one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’”

As we transition to the next action step, be clear that John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ fulfilled the message of the prophets, as foretold by Malachi in Malachi 3:1-7:

“Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. … For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

STEP #3 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: CARE FOR THE MATURING PLANT

Did you hear the God’s emphasis in Malachi 3? From the days of their forefathers, from the beginning of their rebellion, God has been calling His people to return to Him – to come Home! We hear this longing in Jesus’ words in Luke 13:34, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!” Therefore, Jesus intentionally added His voice to the tradition of the prophets, in Matthew 4:12-17:

Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a light dawned.” From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

This is the gospel message by which we are saved, as we see clearly portrayed in Jesus’ prophetic ministry to the rebellious and far away, in Matthew 11:20-30:

Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.” At that time Jesus said, … Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

The message is to come Home to a right relationship with God through Jesus. Home is a place of rest, safety, peace, joy, and comfort – all the promises of God are ours in Christ! Without the call of the prophet, there could be no way for the wayward to return home, which means there would be no way for any of us to have salvation in the first place; nevertheless, mature into fruit-bearing trees who reap a harvest of praise. Let’s turn to the last action step.

STEP #4 OF THE FARMER’S STRATEGY: REAP A HARVEST OF PRAISE

In the parable of the lost son in Luke 15:11-32, Jesus emphasized the heart of God through the prophetic message – Come Home! Through it, He called all prodigals (wayward children of Israel and gentiles) to return to a right relationship with the Father, and He reminded the church that this is our prophetic task to call the nations home. Siblings, brethren, we cannot allow ourselves to become older sibling – the religious elite, and self-righteous saints, who become an obstacle to the throne of grace through tradition and regulation. We are called to be like Jesus, who came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). We are called to be “ambassadors of Christ,” entrusted with the “ministry of reconciliation,” as Paul prophesied in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20:

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTE: