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

The Faith that Toots God’s Horn!

Hebrews 11:30 (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 Joshua, found in Hebrews 11:30, “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.” This ancient story of Jericho is found in Joshua 6. Here are highlights from verses 1-5, 16, 19, 27:

Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in. The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead.” … At the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city.” … So the people shouted, and priests blew the trumpets; and when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight ahead, and they took the city. … So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land.

What is it about this story that put Joshua in the hall of faith? To answer that question, we need to look at the next action step.

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

Joshua’s life was formed during Moses’ formidable years. In other words, Joshua’s transforming story started because he experienced the fruit of Moses’ formidable faith, and the good seed was put into his heart and mind because of Moses’ faithfulness to God. We see here the importance of multiplying yourself, as 2 Timothy 2:2 teaches, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Then, after Moses died, we watch Joshua called forth to succeed the man of God in Joshua 1:1-9:

Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

People presume that God commanded Joshua to “be strong and courageous” because of the long military campaign ahead, starting with Jericho, and while that is true, the only real danger Joshua faced was the people’s rebellion against God and their not following the Law as given to them by Moses in the Pentateuch. Joshua’s primary duty and greatest challenge was leading the people spiritually. Without obedience to God, there could be no military victory, nor rest in the land, as God made clear in Joshua 1:13-18:

“Remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God gives you rest and will give you this land.’ Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but you shall cross before your brothers in battle array, all your valiant warriors, and shall help them, until the Lord gives your brothers rest, as He gives you, and they also possess the land which the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to your own land, and possess that which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.” They answered Joshua, saying, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you; only may the Lord your God be with you as He was with Moses. Anyone who rebels against your command and does not obey your words in all that you command him, shall be put to death; only be strong and courageous.”

The reality we are going to learn today is that God’s people don’t need a hero, they need a spiritual leader. That truth will be borne out time and time again in the history of Israel, especially once the people get judges then kings. God is the only hero the people of God will ever need, but we have this sinful, incessant desire to make heroes out of people who then afflict us. To learn this, Joshua had to mature as a man of God in his leadership calling.

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

Whereas heroes toot their own horns, and we happily grant them celebrity notoriety so that we can worship them like the idol worshippers we are, spiritual leaders toot God’s horn and point the people to their fundamental need to worship the only One worthy of our worship – God!

In today’s story about the famous battle of Jericho, Joshua exemplified the call of a true spiritual leader, who proved that his highest calling was to be strong and courageous, meditating upon God’s Word so that he would obey and be successful. Joshua received the battle plan from the “captain of the host of the Lord” in Joshua 5:13-15:

Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” The captain of the Lord’s host said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

Joshua, like the Centurion and how he submitted to Jesus in Matthew 8:5-13, executed the plan given to Him with great faith, even though it was an unusual plan. As a former military officer, sI want you to realize what a big moment this was for Joshua – God’s plan would have been unlike anything Joshua had ever seen or heard. God directed him in Joshua 6:3-5 to lead the army to walk around the city wall of Jericho for seven days, once per day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day. Upon completion of which the priests were to blow seven trumpets and the people were to shout out with a great shout. Then the wall of the city would fall flat.

I can only imagine how Joshua, an experienced military leader, could think of all the reasons this plan would not work. If this was Joshua’s burning bush moment, wouldn’t he second guess and argue against every point of God’s plan, just like Moses had done in Exodus 3:10-4:13? But he doesn’t – he had learned through his experiences as Moses’ second-in-command and as his time as a spy of the Land of Canaan to trust God to do the impossible! Joshua 6:6-7 describes how Joshua executed the Word of God without question:

So Joshua the son of Nun called the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord.” Then he said to the people, “Go forward, and march around the city, and let the armed men go on before the ark of the Lord.”

The battle for Jericho was a decisive victory that brought great glory to God. All because Joshua believed God and acted with absolute trust in God’s Word. This is the only way a leader will mature; not by seeking to be a hero for the people, but by pointing the people to the only hero they will ever need – God! Oh, how far the nation of Israel would fall, and how far we fall today when we refuse to trust God by obeying His Word in our own lives. That bring us to the last action point.

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

Joshua’ life reaped a harvest of praise – he successfully tooted God’s horn! But God’s people did not walk in the way of Joshua, he had no successor, and after the elders of Joshua, the people entered into tumultuous years of the Judges. There is a warning with a call to action built into Joshua’s life, and we only need to look at the Battle of Ai, found in Joshua 7 to realize what it is.

Joshua 7 is a sad story that starts with the startling defeat of the army of Israel at Ai. There was no military reason for their defeat, especially after the amazing victory at Jericho. The defeat was a spiritual one. In response to this unexpected defeat, Joshua’s charge from God was to lead the people in repentance so that he would once again lead them in God’s victory. Joshua led the people back to God in verse 13:

Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, “Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the Lord, the God of Israel, has said, ‘There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst.’”

As we learn from reading Joshua 7, the defeat was caused by the sin of Achan, who coveted after the spoils of war and greedily hid in his tent that which God forbade (16-26). What Achan thought would go unnoticed and had justified in his mind and heart to help his family survive, led to great devastation to the community of God, causing a major defeat in the Battle of Ai. That is the startling revelation that each of must ponder about Joshua’s life and his call to leadership of God’s people. The victory comes as each of us learn to submit to God’s Word, just as Joshua was commanded in Joshua 1:8. The calling of Joshua, and every spiritual leader to this day, is to toot God’s horn, emphasizing the importance of meditating upon God’s Word, day and night, teaching God’s people to listen and obey so that they may enter God’s rest. This is as emphasized in the New Testament, in Hebrews 4:8-12:

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

We must not follow the example of disobedience. Instead, we must surrender ourselves holy and wholeheartedly to God’s commands as given to us through the Word of God. Consecrate yourself to God and dedicate your heart and mind to Him. At the end of his life, Joshua called the people to decide who they will serve; I join my voice to Joshua 24:14-15:

“Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Brothers and sisters, you don’t need me or any person to be a hero to save the day for you! Jesus Christ has already done that for you – we have a Savior! Today, and every day until He returns, you need to respond to the invitation of Jesus Christ from Matthew 11:28-30, “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.” This is what we learn from Joshua’s life – a life of absolute surrender to God! A life that abides in the vine bears good fruit – a harvest of praise to God!

You can watch the video of this message by clicking HERE.

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

The Faith that Humbles You!

Hebrews 11:23-29 (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 Moses, found in Hebrews 11:23-29:

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned.

This is the Word of God; let us pray: God, we invite you to cultivate the soil of our hearts with faith to receive the good seed of Your Word! May Your grace work in us and through us so that our stories point to Your story and reap a harvest of praise to the glory of God.

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

The first forty years of Moses’ life are that of legends – Moses’ foundational years! This part of Moses’ story, highlighted in Hebrews 11:23-27, is told in Exodus 2:1-15:

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him. The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile, with her maidens walking alongside the Nile; and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it to her. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the boy was crying. And she had pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go ahead.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.” Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, “Why are you striking your companion?” But he said, “Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

The seed of faith was put into Moses, but in his first forty years, a time of privilege and prestige for Moses, he did not know how to wield the power of his position to do good – to protect his people, the Israelites (the Hebrews), so in his haste to do so, he killed an Egyptian man and fled from the wrath of his adoptive father, a man who had ordered his death once before in Exodus 1:15-22.

God’s grace was given to the people of Israel in the man of Moses, but Moses’ foundational years did not prepare him properly to be a man God could use for His purposes. He fled Egypt, according to our passage in Hebrew 11:23-27, because God had to take him to a place where He could care for Moses and bring him to maturity. It was in the next forty years of his life that the faith of Moses was formed so that he was a man God could use for His glory.

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

The second forty years of Moses’ life were the most important – Moses’ formative years! This part of his story is not mentioned in Hebrews 11, it is found between Hebrews 11:27 & 28. This period begins in Exodus 2:16-22, where Moses is taken in by Jethro the priest of Midian, who takes him in to his household; Moses marries Zipporah, one of his daughters, starts his family (they have two sons), and he serves Jethro as a shepherd. In exile, Moses goes from being an exalted prince of Egypt to a humbled shepherd, an occupation despised by the Egyptians. This forty-year period is summarized in Exodus 3:1, “Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro,” but by the end of these formative years something is about to happen, as indicated in the verses in Exodus 2:23-25:

Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.

Moses was put into exile at the age of 40, having escaped the wrath of his adopted father, the king of Egypt, until the day of his Pharaoh’s death, around the time Moses would have been 80. There is an appointed time for everything, and we must remember a very important lesson as the people of faith: God is always doing more than we can see or imagine! God is doing a larger work in the nations and through His people. You are a part of that, but you are not the center of it – God is the main character of our story; it’s His story that is being told through our stories! We must be formed into the kind of people He can use.

God’s people were in Egypt for 400 years, but it was in these 40 years of Moses’ exile that God set the conditions for the Exodus. It was during his years as Jethro’s shepherd that Moses became a humbled man, broken and contrite, the kind of person God could use. You see, Jethro the priest of Midian, turned his countenance toward Moses, which means he took him in as a his own, protected him, and gave him a new family. A family of security, hard work, and commitment to the community. At just the right time, when both the conditions were set and Moses was formed into a man God could use and trust, God called Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-4:18) to enter the third phase of his life – the formidable years!  

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

The final forty years of Moses’ life tell the most famous story ever told – Moses’ formidable years! This part of Moses’ story was highlighted in Hebrews 11:28-29, and it began after his burning bush experience with God and didn’t conclude until his death forty years later, after accomplishing all that God had set for him to do – to rescue and deliver His chosen people from slavery, defeating the most powerful military in the world and leading them to the Promised Land.

Interestingly, all three periods of Moses’ life, each of which were forty years long, ended with a reference to Moses’ relationship with the father-figure who defined each of these three distinct seasons of his life:

We remember Moses because of his epic birth story, the kind of backstory that we give our heroes. We remember Moses because of his supernatural call narrative, the kind of experience we give those who are called to do formidable tasks for God. We remember Moses because of the Exodus, his victory over the Egyptian military machine, and all of his awesome deeds as a leader of a newly formed nation that was constantly grumbling and rebelling against him and their God.

We don’t remember Moses for being a faithful shepherd, husband, and father, but I believe the forty years he was defined by these relationships and responsibilities that he was shaped into the man of God who did everything else we do talk about. The forty years that didn’t make it into Hebrews 11 are the years that forged the character of Moses from being a pampered prince to being a formidable prophet! Often, the most important parts of our stories are found in the in-between times (the liminal space), for Moses that was the forty years as a shepherd serving his father-in-law. Forty years is a long stretch of time in a person’s life, especially when it comes in what is supposed to be your most productive years of life, but this is where Moses was forged into a humble man that God could use, knowing that Moses would not take the credit for it or hijack it for his own purposes. Moses wasn’t ready to reap a harvest of praise with his life until God nurtured him through his forty years of exile. This was an essential experience for Moses; otherwise, how would Moses have known why God caused His people to wander in the desert for their own forty years of formation to enter the formidable season of conquest under Joshua’s leadership.

Oftentimes, God forges our character through the circumstances of our lives, just as we learned from the story of Joseph. We must be transformed by the renewing of our minds, forged in the crucible of life circumstances before we are able to reap a harvest of praise to God! As Jesus said in John 12:24-26:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

I conclude with this thought about Moses and Jesus: both are described as humble! Numbers 12:3 is a parenthetic statement about Moses, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” Moses had a faith that humbled him, so that he would be the formidable man of God who stood against the most powerful man in the world and led his people to freedom after four hundred years under Egyptian rule. Jesus described Himself in Matthew 11:29 as “gentle and humble in heart.” Jesus was the second Moses, who stood against all the forces of evil, defeated sin and death, and leads His people to freedom!

You can watch the video by clicking HERE.