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.”

 

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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.