Grow Strong in God’s Grace – Wk 1
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:
- Paul now uses three dramatic metaphors, portraying the qualities required in those called to endure hardness. The soldier portrays a sense of dedication. The athlete models discipline. The farmer is the pattern of perseverance. Christian discipleship and ministry require all three. As the soldier must leave all other pursuits, so the disciple must place his or her self at complete disposal to the kingdom of God. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33). As the athlete must keep all feelings, instincts, and reactions under control in order to compete according to the rules, so the disciple must live life under orders and within boundaries. As the farmer must work long and hard, often under adverse conditions, so the disciple must persevere, perhaps for long times with little reward for the sake of being faithful to Jesus as Lord.[2]
- The final image is that of a farmer. The language puts an emphasis on the word hardworking, in contrast with idle, lazy workers. The diligence Paul has just described in each case has its reward (cf. vv. 11–12): A diligent soldier gains the approval of his commanding officer; a diligent athlete wins the victory; a diligent farmer wins the first … share of the crops. The three illustrations have in common the point that success is achieved through discipline (cf. 1:7), hard work, and single-mindedness.[3]
- Finally, the third example of the hardworking farmer is introduced in v. 6. This traditional example was applied to illustrate two main points. On the one hand, the farmer’s right to enjoy the produce of the field he worked was often the basis for the broader claim that one had a right to enjoy the fruit of whatever one had done (Deut 20:6; Prov 27:18; 1 Cor 9:7). On the other hand, the diligent farmer exemplified hard work; it was this kind of effort that promised to return a crop (Prov 20:4). In this application of the stock example, Paul allows both aspects to converge. The activity of “hard work” connects with the themes of single-mindedness (the soldier) and discipline (the athlete), so that once again the example does not endorse just any kind of activity but specifically diligent and focused activity. … Taken together, the illustrations function loosely but nevertheless forcefully to convey a consistent theme. Each links disciplined, diligent performance to the obtaining of a valuable goal. And as the pictures unfold, the concept of goal develops from the implicit to the explicit promise of reward. While the reality of the suffering Timothy is to face calls forth the repetition of examples to emphasize unswerving commitment, it is the goal (from pleasing the Lord to the promise of reward) that supplies the motivation.[4]
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).