Grow Strong in God’s Grace: Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

The Faith that Pleases God

Hebrews 11:4-6 (NAS95)

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 and entrusted us to work in 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 cultivating people with faith, sowing the good seed of God’s grace (the gospel) into their hearts and minds, caring for them as their stories are transformed into fruit-bearing plants, and reaping a harvest of praise as the church of Jesus Christ. This is the strategy of a faithful farmer for God’s harvest, powered by the Holy Spirit!

Harvest workers of God’s kingdom are called to grow strong in God’s grace by walking through these four steps of this strategy. Let’s take the first step by walking through the Hall of Faith, learning from the transforming stories of the Hall of Faith, Hebrews 11.

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

Faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1-2, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men [and women] of old gained approval.” Today’s passage from Hebrews 11:4-6 builds upon this definition, while illustrating it with the first two transforming stories from which we are going to learn how to grow strong in God’s grace:

By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Just like you and me, today, the “men [and women] of old” were real people – Abel and Enoch were real men, with real faith, in real history, and even their stories began with faith. But just like with them, we can’t remain at the starting point of our story, we must take the next step of faith. Faith is what made these men’s great; they are not great in and of themselves! The Bible never exalts men and women; rather, the Bible glorifies the God who uplifts men and women through the gift of faith to be used for His divine purposes. Today, you are invited to have faith like Abel and Enoch, so that you, too, can take the next steps in your faith life “to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is rewarder of those who seek Him.”

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

Faith gives substance to that which is not yet visible – the kingdom of Heaven on Earth! God’s grace at work in our lives sows the assurance that God can and will do that which God promises to do! Let’s see how that worked with Abel. Hebrews 11:4 teaches, “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” I love this testimony: “Through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” Wow! Abel’s transforming story continues to proclaim the importance of offering God right sacrifices, as seen in Genesis 4:1-8:

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.” Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

Both his life and testimony were cut short, literally, by his older brother Cain. Abel did nothing to deserve death. Cain became jealous because Abel’s offering was accepted by God, and his was not. From the beginning of the human saga, we see the curse of sin deeply rooted in the human condition, but we also find the seed of faith to choose a different path – God’s grace illuminates the way of faith that is counted to us as righteousness. Abel set apart the first fruits of his life for God and God accepted his sacrifice. We are called to be living sacrifices, as Paul urges us in Romans 12:1, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Abel’s story calls you to live differently – to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). While it appears that Abel was rewarded for his faith by being murdered, there is more to the story, much more! The story of those with faith lives on and continues to tell the better story of God, well beyond what appears to be the end of our stories here on earth. Just as Hebrews 12:1 communicates of these people from the Hall of Faith, “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.” The same will be true for our lives, as we grow strong in God’s grace.

You are invited to be like Abel, a living sacrifice to God’s glory that allows your story to speak even when you feel like your story is being cut short by injury, injustice, heartache, hardship, disease, or death. When we sow with the good seed of God’s grace, then our stories tell a better story! Never forget that God loves to create something from nothing – trust Him to do so with your life. Faith gives substance to that which is not yet visible – the kingdom of Heaven on Earth. We will now turn to the third action step of a farmer’s strategy and learn from the transforming story of Enoch.

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

God has planted a good seed of faith into your life so that you will mature and bear fruit, testifying to what you are (a disciple) and to whom you belong – to be a witness of God’s grace bestowed upon you by Jesus Christ. When you first believe and put your trust in Jesus your life is forever changed because you are made new – born again as a new kind of plant because the good seed has been planted into your heart and mind. Paul expressed this in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 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.

We are to mature into ambassadors for Christ! Our maturing faith causes us to become witnesses of God’s grace. Hebrews 11:5 teaches us the transforming story of Enoch, “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.” The Enoch being referred to here is the one found in the generations leading up to Noah in Genesis 5:19-24 (as opposed to Cain’s son in Genesis 4:17):

Then Jared lived eight hundred years after he became the father of Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years, and he died. Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

We learn more about Enoch from our New Testament passage than we do from the Genesis account. Genesis 5:24 stated with finality, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” That’s it! There are many traditions built round Enoch and multiple books written in his name, but no authoritative knowledge about him beyond this. We find only one historical parallel to Enoch’s story: the prophet Elijah in 2 Kings 2:11,“As they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.” He went to be with the Lord without dying just like Enoch. While we don’t see Enoch again, Elijah had the honor of being chosen to stand next to Jesus in the Transfiguration, alongside of Moses (Matthew 17:1-9). That places Enoch in a very prestigious position of notoriety – Enoch is a witness to a life that pleases God, the life of faith.

Followers of Jesus Christ are given the promise to be like Enoch when Jesus raptures His church, to bring those who please Him home to Heaven without having to taste of death. This promise is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

You are invited to be like Enoch, a wholehearted person to God’s promises whose trust in God allows you to be a hope-bearer in a world that so desperately needs the grace of God. Choose faith, hope, and love – the currencies of Heaven – even when confronted with the evil in this world, including the ever-intimidating reality of death and dying. Never forget, that as an ambassador of Christ you are not a doomsdayer, but a hope-bearer!

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

The life of growing strong in God’s grace leads to a harvest of praise! Praise God for Jesus Christ who has defeated death and given us the promise of the resurrection and life. Jesus said in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The author of Hebrews concluded about Abel and Enoch’s transforming stories, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” What next steps of faith will allow you to be like Enoch – a wholehearted person to God’s promises? What next steps in faith will allow you to be like Abel – a living sacrifice to God’s glory?

You can watch this video by clicking HERE.

The Transforming Power of Faith

Hebrews 1:1-3 (NAS95)

We have learned the strategy of a hard-working farmer. If the faithful farmer hopes to harvest a large crop yield, he must diligently work the following four steps:

If you can believe Genesis 1:1, everything else in the Bible is easy because it all points back to one word – Faith! This is exactly what the author of Hebrews is communicating to us: If you can believe there is a God that can speak all things into existence from nothing, then everything else that God does falls within His scope of power to do. In fact, nothing falls outside of God’s scope because “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” When God creates all things form no things, then nothing is outside of the boundaries of what God can do!

If God created all life, then why couldn’t God be able to impregnate the Virgin Mary with the good seed of the incarnate Word, or why couldn’t God raise Jesus from the dead after three days? In the same way that those are perfectly logical to assume of an all-powerful God, so is transforming our stories through the grace of God – God heals the sick! God gives sight to the blind! God casts out demons! God sets the captives free! God forgive sins! God reconciles broken marriages! God restores rebellious children to their parents! God bears good fruit in the lives of ordinary people!

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 and entrusted us to work as His Harvest workers! William Shakespeare famously wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,”[1] but I say to you, “All the world’s a field, and all the men and women merely farmers”! We are called to cultivate people with faith, sow the good seed of God’s grace (the gospel) into their hearts and minds, care for them as the seed of faith takes root in their lives, and reap a harvest of praise through the church of Jesus Christ. As a harvest worker of God’s kingdom, every time you walk through this farmer’s strategy you will grow stronger in God’s grace, and help others do the same.

CULTIVATE THE SOIL WITH FAITH

What is faith? Hebrews 11:1-2 defines faith for us and its importance to our lives, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.” Why is this important to us as New Covenant believers? Ephesians 2:8-10 clearly explains:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Who cultivated your soil with faith, hope, and love? Whose soil are you cultivating?

SOW THE GOOD SEED OF GOD’S GRACE

When did you first “experience” faith?

Faith is a resolute conviction, a wholehearted trust, that God can and will do that which God promised – “It is done” in Jesus’ name!

God loves to make something out of nothing! He enjoys this so much that God anticipates, looks forward to, doing it in and through us! When we tell the stories of our something, that which we have done by our best efforts, the only one who gets glory for that is us, but when we tell the stories of how God took our nothing and made it into something, then that brings glory to God and amplifies the quality of the good seed of faith! That proclaims the Gospel! We see this in Ephesians 2:4-7

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Faith gives substance to that which is not yet visible – the kingdom of Heaven on Earth! God’s grace at work in our lives proclaims (SOWS!) the assurance that God can and will do that which God promises to do!

When does the Gospel start working its transforming power? When you first believed and put your trust in Jesus Christ; that is the efficacy (power) of the good seed of faith! Paul expressed this in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” The new has come, a new life of faith has been formed, now we move to the second step of the farmer’s strategy.

CARE FOR THE MATURING PLANT

Where are you experiencing transformation through the renewal of your mind? Paul taught in Romans 12:1-3 that once we have become new in Christ, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we must respond:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

God has planted a good seed of faith into your life, now you are to grow strong in God’s grace. The gospel changes things: it transforms the landscape of hearts, minds, souls, lifestyles, and relationships… It transforms your story to point to the best story ever told – the gospel!

Next week, we will start learning from the stories of the great people of faith who are named starting in the very next verse of Hebrews 11 – “By faith Abel…” (4). We will learn that our names can be mentioned alongside their names. We must begin to realize that each of our stories has the power to glorify God, proclaim the name of Jesus Christ, and manifest the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our midst! That is what Paul called us to in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, in response to becoming a new creation through the good seed of faith:

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.

This is God’s grace at work in each of our lives! As an ambassador of Christ, you no longer represent yourself. Through your reconciliation with God, your life now bears the good fruit of the Spirit for people to taste and see that the Lord is good! That takes us to the last step to realize that every transforming story is intended to bring God glory. We exist to reap a harvest of praise!

REAP A HARVEST OF PRAISE

You can watch this message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTE:

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

Reap a Harvest: The Fourth Step of the Farmer’s Strategy!

Matthew 9:37-38; John 4:34-38; 1 Corinthians 9:7-11; Galatians 6:7-9 (NAS95)

We are learning that the strategy of a hard-working farmer has four steps, each of which the faithful farmer must diligently work, if the farmer hopes to harvest a large crop yield:

The fourth step of the faithful farmer’s strategy is the heart’s desire of all hardworking farmers – the reaping of the harvest! As farmer’s cultivate the soil, they do so in preparation of sowing good seed. They sow good seed into the ground so that it will grow into the intended plant they have planted. Their expectation is the same as that of Jesus’ claim from Matthew 7:16, “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?” Farmers cultivate the soil and plant good seeds in expectation of having good crop yields of that which they planted.

To bring about the harvest, the farmers care for the maturing plant as it buds out of the ground. A farmer that uses the wrong kind of fertilizers, or provides too much or too little water, or doesn’t protect their crops from animals or insects, will find an otherwise healthy crop not producing as the farmer expected. Never forget that farming doesn’t feed just the farmer’s family, it feeds the whole world! We all would be concerned by a farmer that would feed the world with a crop he wouldn’t first feed to his own family. As 2 Timothy 2:6, our theme verse for this sermon series demonstrates, “The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.” Paul communicated to the church in Corinth a similar message, in 1 Corinthians 9:7-11:

Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?

There was a man who went out to change the world. After years of travel and great effort, he came to the realization that if he wanted to change the world, then he needed to start with his own nation. Upon seeking the welfare of his nation, he came to realize that if he wanted to change his nation he had to return to his own state. After great effort, he understood that if he wanted to change his state he had to start in his own community. Then after many years, he had the clarity that if he was to change the community he needed to start with his family. Finally, in his advanced years, with great wisdom and life experience, he had the epiphany that if you are going to change anything, then you first must be transformed yourself. The problem he saw with the world, with the nation, with his community, with his family, was his own and he could not bring thriving to the community until he was first transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ Himself.

This story captures our church’s mission and vision statements: We exist to transform stories through the gospel of Jesus Christ (mission). As the Spirit does this work in us through the good seed of God’s Word, we will see our communities thriving to the glory of God (vision). In other words, when you are blessed, you will become a blessing to others and that will bring flourishing (thriving) to our communities then to the region, nation, and nations. It is the Spirit of God who catches the good seed that is multiplied through the harvest of fruit bearing in your life which spreads it to the ends of the world as you go wherever and whenever God calls. This is the mission of God, and this is how we participate in the harvest work of God – it is the work of the Spirit to first transform us through the renewal of the mind so that others will come to life through the passing on of the good seed, from field to field, worker to worker.

What is it I hope to reap from this sermon series as I pray in the Spirit over each of these messages and over you who will receive the good seed of God’s Word? C. H. Spurgeon preached in 1871, “Preaching is sowing, prayer is watering, but praise is the harvest.”[1] It is my desire to see First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana witness a large crop yield of praise to the glory of God! That we will be an epicenter of revival throughout our region, into our nation, and to the nations. Until all worship, let us continue to be faithful to the Lord of the Harvest and respond to His call upon our lives to be hard-working farmers!

Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 9:37-38, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Again, in John 4:34-38, Jesus said to them:

My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. Do you not say, “There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest”? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.     

Like last week, I want to pull from a farmer’s experience to help us understand how we are to respond to the call of Jesus from these two passages because there is a very important concept here that is the whole point of this sermon series, which is called, “Grow Strong in God’s Grace.” Penny shared with me, “farmers need to maintain their equipment, faithfully. Otherwise, their work is doubled, their harvest reduced.” If you are going to answer Jesus’ call, then you must “maintain” the spiritual equipment of a hardworking farmer who seeks to produce a larger crop yield. As I have already taught you in a previous sermon, this is done by abiding in the vine (John 15:1-8) and taking on the easy yoke of Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30). Growing strong in God’s grace is all about absolute submission to Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit can flow into our lives. I’ve already taught you this in one of the earlier messages of this new sermon series, but like it has been pointed out to me after last week’s sermon, I need to remind you of this every week, so that no one thinks they can do this by their own power.

Harvest workers must “go” in God’s grace through prayer and by the power of the Holy Spirit. As we learn from Jesus about the harvest from Acts 1:7-8, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Missionary Elizabeth Elliot said, “Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.”[2] As you go into the harvest fields, go with faith in God and trust His Holy Spirit to do the work in and through you. Never forget how Jesus called His disciples in Mark 1:17, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Jesus promised that if they followed Him, the Spirit would transform them into Harvest workers. It is the same thing He promised using vineyard imagery in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” This is the language of growing strong in God’s grace! We are to go as Paul went – by the power of God’s Spirit! Just as Paul exhorted us and testified to in Ephesians 6:18-20:

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Furthermore, Paul testified to this truth in 1 Corinthians 15:1-10:

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

There are so many more passages to support this harvest reality; Reaping a harvest is dependent on God’s grace – the work of the Spirit. Here’s one more, Paul said in Galatians 6:7-9:

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

Jim G. told me a story after service that illustrates this point. He used to work in a farm store and one day a man came in with a problem. He had accidently used a ground sterilizer instead of a ground fertilizer. [cue the audible groan] The biggest problem was that he had good intentions when he did so, because he not only sprayed his own property, but he sprayed his neighbor property, too. [cue an even louder audible groan] He was trying to be a good neighbor, following the words of Jesus to love your neighbor as yourself. I believe this a metaphor for our fleshly efforts, when we use worldly wisdom, to try to reap a harvest. As you’ve heard me say before if this is how you are going to love yourself then please don’t love me – I would hate for someone to hurt me when they thought they were loving me well. Can you imagine how that neighbor reacted to his neighbor’s love? I the same way that the world has reacted to an infighting, backbiting, fleshly church. They see us, then hear that we are followers of Jesus and say things like, “If this is the Jesus you represent, then no thank you!” To finish the story, Jim told me that to make things right with his neighbor the man had to remove 3 inches of earth from under the sod line because the ground sterilizer he thought was ground fertilizer got into the roots. Church, let’s not do damage to the soil and make the work of harvesting harder for future workers.

Unfortunately, this is a modern-day parable of the work the church of Jesus Christ needs to do in America today. Our witness to Christ, so often done in the flesh and motivated by a spirit of religion, motivated by ambition and ego, and not through prayer empowered by the Holy Spirit for the glory of God, has done more damage than good. Now we must do what the well-meaning man in the above story had to do. We must patiently, lovingly, and prayerfully cultivate the soil, removing the poison from the ground caused by worship wars and denominational wars so that the good seed can bear fruit in its time. We must not grow weary in doing good!

We need to learn from the example of the first great missionary of the church, the Apostle Paul, how we are to do the harvest work. In 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 Paul explained:

What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.

Amen! It is like the modern-day parable I shared last week. We are to share our award-winning corn with our neighbors because the wind (the Spirit) will take the good seed from our harvest field and pollinate our neighbor’s field. We are in this together as the body of Christ – we are many members working together as one body to the glory of God. May the Spirt of God empower us to the glory of God!

You can listen to the message by clicking below:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] C. H. Spurgeon, “The Joy of the Lord, the Strength of His People,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 17 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1871), 717.

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

Care for the Maturing Plant: The Third Step of the Farmer’s Strategy!

Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43; Luke 13:6-9 (NAS95)

We are learning that the strategy of a hard-working farmer has four steps, each of which the faithful farmer must diligently work, if the farmer hopes to harvest a large crop yield:

Care for the maturing plant and give the maturing plant every possible chance to bear the good fruit of the Harvest. I will close with another one of Jesus’ parables, from Luke 13:6-9:

And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’ ”

You can listen to this message by clicking below:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Naren Kini, “My Neighbor’s Corn” https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2395 (Accessed March 17, 2023).

[2] C. H. Spurgeon, “The Joy of the Lord, the Strength of His People,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 17 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1871), 717.

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

Sow the Good Seed: The Second Step of the Farmer’s Strategy!

Matthew 13:3-9 & Mark 4:26-32 (NAS95)

We are learning that the strategy of a hard-working farmer has four steps, each of which the faithful farmer must diligently work, if the farmer hopes to harvest a large crop yield:

From this first parable of Jesus, we learn about the good seed, which was passed down to us and we are to pass it on to others who will join us in the work of sowing it. Paul taught this to his protégé in 2 Timothy 2:2, “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.” Just like God first sowed the seed of life into us and invited us to join Him in His garden (creation). We read this in Genesis 2:7-8, “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.”

God said to His image bearers at the beginning, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:26-28). As image bearers of God, we were to continue to fulfill His desires for His creation, which is that all things would live under His rightful rule (in His kingdom). This is the work of the harvest, as Jesus commanded in Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” This is the Great Commission for which Jesus taught us to pray in Luke 10:2, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” The work of the harvest is to sow the good seed, passing it from person to person, generation to generation, and nation to nation. As Jesus emphasized in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Let’s enter a time of prayer, asking God to open our eyes to this plentiful harvest. The harvest is in our homes and neighborhoods, in our schools and places of work, throughout our communities, and to the places around the world which we go. Are you willing and available to be a laborer in God’s harvest, wherever and whenever He may call you to go? Let’s pray for each of us to be open, available, and willing to be used by God, wherever and whenever He may call.

[Time of Prayer]

In the next parable, the Parable of the Seed, found in Mark 4:26-29, Jesus taught about the importance of God’s grace in the work of sowing the good seed:

And [Jesus] was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows – how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Just like with life itself, there is a mystery in the power of the seed because it is God-breathed. The seed comes from the Sower (God), who provided the good seed to us so that we can sow in His name, with His same Spirit that brought life out from the dust. There is a guarantee on this seed, as we’ve already learned from Isaiah 55:11, “it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” These words are spoken by the Sower of faith. Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us about the One who makes such an extravagant promise, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”

Our job as hard-working farmers is to sow the good seed, which has been provided to us, not second guess the seed or what the Sower says it is capable of or what it will produce. As Jesus taught in the above parable, we can rest easy at night knowing that we have been faithful farmers who “cast seed upon the soil.” The rest is up to God and the power of His good seed.

What is required of you, the faithful farmer? Just that, it requires faith! The kind of faith that reminds you to sow seed everywhere you go because it’s good seed. Regardless of whether it is hard ground, shallow rocky soil, land filled with thorns and thistles, or fields that have proven themselves to be good soil, you sow the seed!

You are called to sow, but you can’t make it grow! You aren’t in control! You can’t control the results of your hard work, only in whether you are willing to work hard and follow the strategy of the faithful farmer, entrusted to you generation after generation, and preserved through the Bible handed down to you. It’s a life learning how to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7) – the farmer goes to bed, sleeps peacefully because he trusts the strategy passed down to him. As Jesus taught in His parable, the farmer wakes up to see that “the seed sprouts and grows – how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.”

The second step of the farmer’s strategy is the high call of living by faith. In 1881, C. H. Spurgeon preached about the life of sowing the seed:

The precious seed of the word of God is small as a grain of mustard-seed, and may be carried by the feeblest hand where it shall multiply a hundred-fold. We need never quarrel with God because we cannot do everything if he only permits us to do this one thing; for sowing the good seed is a work which will need all our wit, our strength, our love, our care. Holy seed sowing may well be adopted as our highest pursuit, and be no inferior object for the noblest life that can be led.^[1]

What Spurgeon calls “the noblest life that can be led” is the life of a hard-working farmer, a life of growing strong in God’s grace. By God’s grace, we sow in faith, even if our faith is no bigger than that of a mustard seed. In the next parable of Jesus, the Parable of the Mustard Seed, found in Mark 4:30-32, Jesus emphasized the power of faith:

How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.” (cf. Matthew 13:31-32)

Do you feel that you are lacking in faith to be a hard-working farmer for God’s harvest? Jesus’ words convince me that a mustard seed of faith is sufficient to the task! Sowing the good seed is an activity of faith, and the faith you have, even that of a mustard seed, is sufficient for the task that Jesus has called you to participate in. How do I know this? Because the measure of faith you have is not your own, you didn’t muster up, it was given to you by God’s grace, and God’s grace is sufficient to all that God calls you to be and do. Paul taught this in Romans 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

Have you received the good seed of Jesus Christ? You first must receive what you are called to sow into the lives of others. I invite you now to receive Jesus Christ by inviting Him to be your Lord and Savior. Submit to the Lord of the Harvest and be filled with the imperishable seed of God’s Word, who plants eternity into your heart through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

[altar call and pray for salvation]

You can listen to this message by clicking below:

You can watch this message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] C. H. Spurgeon, “What the Farm Labourers Can Do and What They Cannot Do,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 27 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1881), 330.

[2] C. H. Spurgeon, “The Joy of the Lord, the Strength of His People,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 17 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1871), 717.

Grow Strong in God’s Grace: Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

Cultivate the Soil: The First Step of the Farmer’s Strategy!

Matthew 13:3-9; 18-23 (NAS95)

Friendship is a lot like gardening! It requires you to cultivate the soil – to work the ground.

 

In friendship, just like with gardening and growing plants and flowers, you have to know the person well enough to know the state of their “soil,” and what each person uniquely needs to grow and be healthy, because every person in your life is different.

 

Mark 4 includes the foundational parable of the four soils, and it concludes with Jesus’ promise of what His Word and Spirit will produce in people when their hearts have been cultivated. Mark 4:20 promises, “And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

 

In this parable, Jesus described four types of soil into which the Word of God is sown. These soils represent four conditions of people’s lives: When the ground is cracked, due to being dry and hard (15), God’s love is like a spring shower to soften it. When the topsoil is shallow, due to rocks (16-17), God’s compassion is like rich mulch that brings greater depth. When there are thorns and thistles (18-19), God’s grace uproots sin to heal the land.

 

God is working in every condition, but not every person reacts the same way to God’s Truth. That makes friendship hard! But, just like with gardening, it’s worth it!

 

Seize the moment and cultivate the ground of the people in your life. We have been invited to work the garden of God’s creation as Image Bearers. Pray and ask God to help you in your friendships.

“Preaching is sowing, prayer is watering, but praise is the harvest.”

– C. H. Spurgeon

 

You can listen to this message by clicking below:

You can watch the message by clicking HERE.

Grow Strong in God’s Grace: Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!

Farming as an Everyday Illustration for the Spiritual Life!

John 15:1-8 & Matthew 11:28-30 (NAS95)

I have spent the last two Sundays cultivating the soil for this year’s sermon series, “Grow Strong in God’s Grace: Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!” In the first week, we looked at what it means that we want to “Grow Strong in God’s Grace” from 2 Timothy 2:1-6. I connected this year’s series to the previous two years of teaching, which were also grounded in the teachings of Paul about how we are to live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ by learning from the athlete in 2021, the soldier in 2022, and now the farmer in 2023.

Last week, we went deeper into the theme verse of 2 Timothy 2:6 to learn why Paul used the imagery of a hard-working farmer for the Christian life, and I started preparing you to see the richness of soil and efficacy of seed that God has given from His Word utilizes farming as an everyday illustration for the spiritual life. Today, I start a 5-Sunday emphasis on the teachings of Jesus so that we may learn exactly why and how Jesus used this imagery. From His teachings, we are going to learn over the next month the four steps every hard-working farmer must follow:

We are going to see from Jesus’ teaching how these four steps are essential in the life of every disciple of Jesus Christ to learn how to be a faithful farmer for God’s harvest. It is important that you know that Paul was building upon the teachings of Jesus and using everyday cultural-relevant imagery to call forth faithful living to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul was following in the footsteps of His master, and we are to do the same!

Let’s dive in and see what we can learn from two of my favorite farming illustration given to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The first is from the Gospel of John 15:1-8, where Jesus taught using imagery from a vineyard, which was an agricultural image that already had deep religious meaning to the Jewish people to whom Jesus was speaking:

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

The most pressing need for the Christian’s ministry in and through the local church is that each follower of Jesus daily answers Jesus’ personal call to be His disciple, chosen and called by the Father, and operating in the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit. Above all other expectations, responsibilities, or demands placed upon you, this is your first calling. It is my desire, through this sermon series to call members of the body of Christ out of the perpetual spin cycle of the tyranny of the urgent and into the long obedience of the most important – the Harvest! Os Guinness reflected, “Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.”[1] The Christian life and ministry flows out of the abundance of personal intimacy with Jesus Christ, from the Source of all lasting fruit. As Jesus said in John 15:8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” An abiding relationship with Jesus that brings glory to God through your life and ministry is the essence of prioritizing the strengthening of your spiritual vitality above any measurable effectiveness in meeting the expectations of others.

Disciples of Jesus Christ must prioritize the harvest, but like I taught last week based on 2 Timothy 2:6, if you are going to work hard as a farmer, then you must make sure that the fruit you are reaping is something you first would bring home to your own family before you export it to other people’s families, communities, or nations. In today’s technological world, there are many people who are seeking to influence others and create platforms for themselves without going through the deep work of spiritual formation. Ultimately, let us never forget that you can teach people what you know, but you will only replicate what you are! There is much evidence of this as we experience leaders’ charisma outpacing their character, leading to scandals that are diminishing the name of Jesus, giving the church a black eye, and hindering the harvest work. If we have learned anything from Mars Hill, and the surrounding discussions in the contemporary church about toxic leadership, it is that the ends do not justify the means. God cares as much about the process as the fruit; in fact, the Bible teaches that God cares more about the process! Jesus overcommunicated this in his calling of the disciples in Matthew 16:24-26:

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

The fruit that proves you are abiding in the vine of Jesus Christ is the fruit of the Spirit – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22-24). This is the maturity of a disciple who is putting on display (manifesting, proving) the fruit that Jesus Christ commands us to export to the nations for God’s glory. Jesus is the embodiment of the Father and the perfect example of God’s truth and grace, holiness and love, judgment and mercy (John 1:14; Colossians 1:15; 2:9). Jesus intimately knows God and invites people into this depth of relationship that God offers us – for a person to be in Him and for Him to be in the person, which is the abiding imagery of John 15:4-7:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Jesus commands us to learn from Him and, in doing so, live our lives as He lived his life on Earth – submitted to His Father’s will and connected to His source of power. That is the exact point of the second farmer’s illustration I want to share with you, and many of you know this is my favorite of all the images Jesus gave us for the Christian life. It is from the Gospel of Matthew 11:28-30, where Jesus taught using imagery that would be seen six days a week on many family farms in every Jewish community – the yoked oxen working out in the field, which, like the vineyard, was an agricultural image that already had deep religious meaning to the Jewish people to whom Jesus was speaking, “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.” I was blessed to be able to watch a farmer yoke together two oxen at the Indiana State Fair last summer. What a treat! Listen to the power of Jesus’ illustration from a farmer’s perspective:

Typically a young, untrained ox is yoked with an older, trained ox. The younger learns from the older. If a trained ox can pull 5,000 pounds and an untrained ox can pull 2,000 pounds, together they can pull 10,000 pounds – much more than the sum of the two. Over time, the untrained ox becomes trained and the two begin to walk in-step with each other. Then they can pull 15,000 pounds.[2]

Jesus captured this picture for His Jewish audience with His graceful invitation to come to Him by taking His yoke upon themselves. Until a Christian submits to the direction and pace of Jesus’ life, and is willing to do nothing apart from Him, there is no good work that can be done through his or her ministry. Outside of the yoke of Jesus Christ or outside of the branch’s abiding connection to the vine, who is Jesus Christ, the Christian becomes a stumbling block to the harvest work of the church. As Andrew Murray wrote in Absolute Surrender,

Oh, become nothing in deep reality, and, as a worker, study only one thing – to become poorer and lower and more helpless, that Christ may work all in you. Workers, here is your first lesson: learn to be nothing, learn to be helpless. The man who has got something is not absolutely dependent; but the man who has got nothing is absolutely dependent. Absolute dependence upon God is the secret of all power in work. The branch has nothing but what it gets from the vine, and you and I can have nothing but what we get from Jesus.[3]

Similarly, the yoke emphasizes that Jesus is bearing the burden of the work in and through a person’s life. In both conceptual metaphors, Jesus emphasized that it is not the disciple who is producing the results; rather, it is the Holy Spirit who is the One bearing the fruit. Once again, I turn to Andrew Murray, who nuanced the responsibility of the Holy Spirit’s role in the abiding relationship found in the vine and branch imagery. Listen closely to this amazing truth that he published in 1898:

A law can compel work: only love can spontaneously bring forth fruit. … It is only when good works come as the fruit of the indwelling Spirit that they are acceptable to God. Under the compulsion of law and conscience, or the influence of inclination and zeal, men may be most diligent in good works, and yet find that they have but little spiritual result. There can be no reason but this—their works are man’s effort, instead of bearing the fruit of the Spirit, the restful, natural outcome of the Spirit’s operation within us.[4]

In conclusion, in the easy yoke of Jesus Christ, there is great joy to be found in laboring with Christ, rather than working for Christ alone and by your own strength. The laborer is no longer straining for acceptance from God, or other people. As Dr. Bill Thrasher of Moody Bible Institute, explained during one of my doctoral classes, “The place of rest is under His yoke. Working is drudgery, working for the Lord is dreary, but working with the Lord is delight.”[5] Jesus invites His followers to take upon themselves His yoke and learn from Him how to be faithful to their calling first by answering His call to Christian discipleship and making Him and His heart their preeminent priority for their own lives. In doing so, you will not only be found faithful at the end, but joyful in your work along the way. As Jesus promised in John 15:11, at the conclusion of sharing this farming illustration of the branch and the vine, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”

You can listen to this message by clicking below:

You can watch this message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 4.

[2] Janet Pope, “A Yoke? What’s that all about?” (November 20, 2013). Accessed February 24, 2023. http://www.janetpope.org/a-yoke-whats-that-all-about/.

[3] Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender (Chicago, IL: Moody Press. First published 1895, scanned and corrected by Claude King, September 1999), 76.

[4] Andrew Murray, The True Vine: Meditations for a Month on John 15:1-16 (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1898), 27. Accessed February 20, 2023. https://ccel.org/ccel/m/murray/true_vine/cache/true_vine.pdf.

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

The Focus of a Hardworking Farmer!

2 Timothy 2:6 & James 5:7-8 & 1 Corinthians 9:7-9 (NAS95)

What is the focus of a hardworking farmer? That’s right, you guessed it – the harvest! Everything a farmer does points ultimately to this one thing – the reaping of a large crop yield! Farmers research land characteristics and soil compositions so that they cultivate what has been entrusted to them properly, as good stewards. Farmers will research seed types and its characteristics in hopes of sowing the exactly right seed for what they envision reaping from their fields. Farmers will read the Farmer’s Almanac, listen and learn from other farmers, and look for any assistance in how to protect their young plants from foreseen and unforeseen threats to their well-being, as well as help nurture those young plants to maturity at the right time. Why? Because that’s what being a farmer is all about and that is how they feed their families and provide for their communities and make the world a better place. Farmers produce large crops of whatever it is they are planting! This is what hard-working farmers do and they do it for a reason. The same is true for disciples of Jesus Christ who Paul equates to being a “hard-working farmer”! C. H. Spurgeon, an English Baptist minister called, “The Prince of Preachers,” preached in 1871, “Preaching is sowing, prayer is watering, but praise is the harvest.”[1] He taught that his Acts 6:4 ministry was all about producing a harvest of praise to God! It is my desire, through my Acts 6:4 ministry, that First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana will bring God a large crop yield of praise! That we will be an epicenter of revival throughout our region and into our nation and the nations…

Let us now turn to God’s Word. Please open your Bible to today’s scripture lesson for a message called, “The Focus of a Hardworking Farmer” is 2 Timothy 2:6, “The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.” Let us pray.

Allow me to share some thoughts about what Paul is communicating to us in this passage:

Paul used the analogy of the farmer to show that the one who works hard has the first claim on the fruits of the work. The phrase “to receive a share of the crops” is not an appeal for a diligent worker to receive an adequate salary. It promises a spiritual reward from God for a job devotedly done. The time of this reward may be either in this life or at the last judgment. The reward may consist of honor and recognition from the church or a divine approval and blessing by God. Paul frequently used the verb for “hardworking” to describe the work of ministry (Rom 16:6, 12; 1 Cor 15:10; Gal 4:11). He was underscoring the fact that the farmer who works hard will be the first to enjoy the fruits, and the diligent Christian servant can expect the same. … This passage emphasizes the anticipation of a final reward from the Lord for earnest, steady work in Christ’s service.[2]

Ed Bell explained to me that he and Debbie always test their strawberries, to ensure the berries are of the best possible quality before they bring any to the church or put any out for sale. It would make no sense to give unto the Lord the “first fruits” (Exodus 23:19; 34:22; Leviticus 2:14; Numbers 18:12; Deuteronomy 18:4) only to give what is not their very best, and it would make no sense to sell what you’re not proud to put your name on by having enjoyed some with your own family first.This was clearly stated in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 31:5, “Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the planters [“farmers” in the NIV] will plant and will enjoy them.” And that can only be done by being the first to receive their share of the crops as our passage is saying in 2 Timothy 2:6.

There are some important connections here that we need to understand about our spiritual walk with God and our calling to Christian ministry as members of the body of Christ. First, like hard-working farmers, we are to enjoy what we receive from the Lord. In other words, let us never forget that there must be a harvest of good fruit within our own lives before we are concerned with the harvest that comes from our witnesses (the fruit outside from our own lives). And this makes total sense when you realize that you will reproduce in like kind to what you are, as Jesus taught in in Matthew 12:33, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.”

So, what kind of fruit are we desiring within our own lives? There are two sources of fruit that can arise from within – the weeds of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Paul made this clear in Galatians 5:19-25:

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

It only makes sense that if a farmer is not producing something that is worth partaking in at home first, then they shouldn’t give or sell it to others. (I understand that in our world today there are commercial farmers that this may not apply to, but let’s keep our eyes on the prize with the subsistence farming model that has been the dominant image of farming for millennia.) Yes, it is the job of a farmer to produce from the land a harvest, but, as followers of Jesus, let us make sure that we are producing is the work of the Spirit and not the work of the flesh. I am going to say this very clearly and directly, the American church has become so addicted with buildings and numbers that we have become less discerning about the fruit quality of spiritual formation, and more concerned about the harvest size. In fact, we have changed the rubric of church effectiveness from the fruitfulness of Christian discipleship to the unholy trinity of buildings, bucks (in plate), and bottoms (in seat). We must repent or we will be a powerless people who look no different than the world with no light to shine in these dark days. Let us first work hard at ensuring we have the fruit of the Spirit to enjoy at home and with one another before we try to export it to other homes, communities, cultures, and nations.

If we are only driven by numbers of converts, and not the quality of converts, then we will unwittingly become part of the problem that Jesus came to address in the first place. Just asJesus warned about in His days with the religious workers in Matthew 23:15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” This rebuke is unfortunatelynot limited to ancient Judaism of the first century because we have modern missionaries who have gone out in the name of Jesus Christ, according to the Great Commission, who havereplicated according to like kind of what they are and not who Jesus is. They have not produced disciples or emphasized the work of the Kingdom of God. The same is true in churches today, as Paul commanded his protégé to work hard in the ministry in 2 Timothy 4:1-8:

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

We must be like hard-working farmers and be sure we are producing something that is worth first having ourselves! Did you hear how Paul ended his exhortation to Timothy? With an incentive – a reward that God has established for all His hard-working farmers! This is where the eternal rewards of the harvest can anchor our souls in the hard work of discipleship and spiritual formation. We can break away from temporary benefits and keep our eyes on the eternal rewards of persevering through the hardships and uncertainties of farming. Paul, when defending his liberties as an apostle, emphasized in 1 Corinthians 9:7-9:

Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. [emphasis added]

Did you hear the key word from this passage, which every farmer must have to remain hard working, diligent to the tasks of a farmer? It is HOPE! Hope is the key ingredient when doing the following four steps that every hard-working farmer must follow:

We will learn more about these four steps of a hard-working farmer over the next five weeks of sermons. For now, allow me to emphasize to you that without hope, no farmer can diligently follow these four steps of farming season after season, year after year, generation after generation. Now, let’s cash in on some of our previous training we have done on the biblical concept of hope. What is hope really? Hope is the certainty that your faith in God is not misplaced or misguided. God will keep His promises on time, every time! Believers can take that to the bank, just as farmers literally take their hope in a large crop yield to the bank season after season when they buy more land, invest in better drainage and irrigation, and buy more seeds. Just ask a farmer’s banker! Hope is not for the weak of faith because hope requires patience – the fruit of the spirit defined as waitingon God well. A great example of this teaching is from Isaiah 40:31, “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” The Hebrew words translated “wait for” is also translated “hope in” – to hope in the Lord is wait upon the Lord! There is no distinction in God’s eyes, only in ours.

We see this made clear to us in the farmer imagery of the New Testament in James 5:7-8, when James exhorts all believers, “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

Christian discipleship and the long slow obedience of spiritual formation requires hard work and diligence over time, simultaneously waiting for and hoping in God to keep His promises on time, every time. Just like a farmer follows the four steps of farming, knowing that it is ultimately God who has given us the ground, the seed, the weather conditions, and the mystery of the harvest that, like life itself, should only be explained with reverence and awe of the God who has given us life and has invited us to work alongside of Him as partners in stewarding His creation. As Paul emphasized of the hard work he engaged in as an apostle of Jesus Christ in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

Let us join with Paul and Timothy in learning how to grow strong in God’s grace, remembering that God wants to first produce a harvest of spiritual fruit within us so that as we go to make disciples of all nations, we may produce disciples in like-kind to the Holy Spirit who is within us. May we see a great harvest of praise to God as we join with hard-working farmers who do so well in the natural what we are called to do in the spiritual. Let us focus on the harvest fields of the Kingdom of God, as Jesus invited in Matthew 9:36-38:

Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

You can listen to this message by clicking below:

You can watch this message by clicking HERE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] C. H. Spurgeon, “The Joy of the Lord, the Strength of His People,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 17 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1871), 717.

[2] Thomas D. Lea and Hayne P. Griffin, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, vol. 34, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 204–205.