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

 

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

Grow Strong in God’s Grace:

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

Grow Strong in God’s Grace! (Introduction)

2 Timothy 2:1-6 (NAS95)

Please open your Bible to 2 Timothy 2:1-6 and let us begin our new sermon series with the reading of God’s Word and prayer:

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 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. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.

Even as we start a new sermon series for 2023, this is not a new passage of Scripture for us to dive into. In fact, just over a year ago, throughout the month of January 2022, I spent four weeks walking you through 2 Timothy 2:1-4, verse by verse. That was in preparation for our previous sermon series, “Train to Live on Mission Today: The Battle Drills of a Christian Soldier’s Life.” I encourage you to go back and either listen to or read those sermons on our church’s webpage. In that sermon series I emphasized the soldier imagery of the Bible to learn how to apply every Word of God to our everyday lives, to train to live on mission, as according to the battle drills of the book of Proverbs, from the Bible, our Field Manual. The year prior, in 2021, I emphasized the athletic imagery of the Bible, including 2 Timothy 2:5, to learn how to live like a champion, according to the promises of God just like an athlete learns how to live according to the Coach’s playbook as a member of a championship team. That work was together into a book called, Live Like a Champion Today: The 40 Promises in 40 Days Challenge! This year, we are going to emphasize 2 Timothy 2:6, which is why that specific verse is on the cover art of this year’s sermon series – in 2023 we are going to learn how we are to work hard for the harvest like a farmer. If a soldier’s life taught us dedication, and an athlete’s life modeled for us discipline, then a farmer’s life demonstrates to us diligence. As Pastor Ray Stedman wrote:

Paul uses a number of word pictures to describe what it means to be strong in the Lord. First, we are to be strong as a soldier is strong – that is, we are to be utterly dedicated to the task. Second, we are to be strong as an athlete is strong – that is, we are to be disciplined and we are to abide by the rules of the Christian life so that we can compete to the utmost. Third, we are to be strong as a farmer is strong – and that means we are to be diligent in our work, not slowing down or slacking off, because we know that only if we work hard planting and cultivating will we be able to harvest. Dedication, discipline, and diligence – these are the key to strength as described by Paul in this visual job description of the Christian.[1]

I love how Paul gave us three metaphors for the Christian life by grabbing from culture these three occupations – the athlete, the soldier, and the farmer. As most of you know, I’ve been the first two, but I’ve never been the third, though I have now lived amongst farmers here in New Castle, Indiana for 13 years. During this sermon series, it will be my hope to learn from the farmers in my midst, so if you are a farmer or the son or daughter of a farmer, then please share with me your real-life insights that can only be gained by practically working the ground through the seasons of the year, year after year, generation after generation. Only a farmer can truly understand what Paul is emphasizing to us at a personal level, but we can all glean truth from it and apply it to our lives. Personally, I struggle to keep a cactus alive in my office and I struggled to keep the weeds out of my small garden at home. So, what I am doing with this year’s sermon series – I’m shooting for a hattrick – a third series of sermons on the Christian life, according to Paul’s occupational metaphors of the Christian life found in 2 Timothy 2:1-6. I want to teach accurately how we are to live the Christian life in the same relevant way Paul did. And as a rural Indiana community with a rich history in farming, I believe this will be helpful for us to learn.

Today’s message serves as an overview of this new sermon series on the life of a hard-working farmer, and in doing so, I am going to tie together what we have already learned over the last two years, based upon this passage, with what we will be doing throughout this new sermon series called, “Grow Strong in God’s Grace: Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!” Let’s start with three overviews of the soldier, athlete, farmer imagery found in 2 Timothy 2:1-6:

With those overviews in mind, I want to remind you that God’s will for your life is that you would be transformed into His image, restoring you to be the image bearer you were designed to be from the beginning (Genesis 1:27), as Paul explained in Romans 8:28-30:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

In other words, God is going to bring you to maturity in His time, just as Paul promised in Philippians 1:6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” If you’ve ever purchased seeds, the packet has a “days to maturity” number on it. I looked up what that was all about and read this:

The “days to maturity” number describes the average number of days from planting until it’s time to harvest. For seeds sown directly in the ground, that means from seeding to maturity. For those started inside, the days start from the time of transplanting outside. The length is not set in stone because the time it takes plants to mature is influenced by ambient and soil temperature, time of year, soil fertility, available moisture and sun exposure.[5]

You may have good seed, but God commands us to diligently apply ourselves to work hard as yokefellows to His will, not as passive spectators, but as active participants in bringing about the fruit of that good seed, as explained in Philippians 2:12-13:

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Remember, God’s good pleasure is for you to mature in Christ, which according to John 15:16 is for you to harvest eternal fruit – “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain.” This is why God put His good seed into you! Again, in John 15:8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Prove means that you will manifest according to what the seed type He put into you; it’s a spiritual law just as much as it’s a natural law that farmers have taken to the bank and produced from the land year after year, just like Jesus taught 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.”

But just like with farmers, it’s not enough to simply to have good seed; there’s more to it than that, and we are going to be learning all about that this year. According to these passages, we grow according to the spiritual laws of God’s grace, just like farmer works his fields according to the natural laws of God’s creation! A farmer at once must be hard working, diligent to the tasks that give him every chance for a larger crop yield at harvest, while simultaneously trusting that only God can grow anything truly. In the same way, each of us must learn the hard work that we must be diligent in to be brought to maturity as Christians. We must participate in the work of God’s grace (i.e., “Grow Strong in God’s Grace”) if we are going to experience Christlikeness in our own lives, as well as participate in the hard work of seeing a large crop yield in God’s harvest fields (2 Peter 1:2-11).

A farmer doesn’t sit back and do nothing because of the mysteries of the conditions of the soil, the weather including available moisture and sun exposure, the seed itself and under what conditions (inside or outside) that it is planted, and the work of the harvesting that must be done to reap what has been sown, but rather a farmer learns his part while yielding to God that there can be no harvest outside the mystery of God’s grace! The farmer must become a yokefellow with God in the hard work of farming because farming is not for the weak of body or faint of spirit; it takes hard work, diligent effort, and perseverance of faith to be one of God’s farmers!

Paul knew this, which is why he invited Timothy to be like the “the hard-working farmer.” I am going to close today’s sermon with a quote from Pastor Ray Stedman that I will expand upon in next week’s message with when we dive deeper into the farmer imagery of God’s Word:

The emphasis there is upon the word, hard-working. …Yet, the attitude of many Christians today is, “I’ve become a Christian in order to get God to bless me, and work for me. If he doesn’t do it the way I want, I’m ready to quit. I don’t want anything to do with Christianity when it gets difficult.” That’s the very thing the apostle is warning against in this passage. Being a Christian takes long hours of labor. … Like a farmer, we might have to rise up early and work hard, we do so in expectation of a harvest. … Some of you may be saying, “If it is like that, count me out! Why should I give up many of life’s pleasures for that kind of a grueling experience?” … Yes, it will be hard. It will mean saying “No.” It will mean working hard at times; but it has some tremendous, positive blessings that go along with it.[6]

Are you willing to accept the calling upon your life to be a faithful farmer for God’s Harvest? Come back next week to learn more how you can grow strong in God’s grace!

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ray C. Stedman, Adventuring through the Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to the Entire Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1997), 672.

[2] Gary W. Demarest and Lloyd J. Ogilvie, 1, 2 Thessalonians / 1, 2 Timothy / Titus, vol. 32, The Preacher’s Commentary Series (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1984), 261.

[3] A. Duane Litfin, “2 Timothy,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 753.

[4] Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 494–495.

[5] OSU Extension Service, “What does ‘harvest date’ mean on my seed packets?” https://extension.oregonstate.edu/ask-expert/featured/what-does-harvest-date-mean-my-seed-packets (Accessed February 9, 2022).

[6] Ray C. Stedman, “Soldiers, Athletes, and Farmers” https://www.raystedman.org/new-testament/timothy/soldiers-athletes-and-farmers (Accessed February 9, 2022).