The Lord of the Harvest

Evangelism is a scary topic, but I hope today is a relief for you.

Before we begin today, we’re going to hear a parable or analogy from Jesus about Evangelism, and you will need some background information.

We life in the post industrial- revolution. You might think because I’m a millennial and many of you are in older generations that we’re entirely different people, but that isn’t true. No one here was born before factories, steam engines and tractors. If we had to live without mass manufacturing, indoor plumbing etc we’d all be pretty upset.. To have a hot bath you’d take water from a well, put it in a copper tub and light a fire underneath? What? Want to visit your friend in georgia? Okay see you in three months if I don’t get lost.

What a life we live now. What advances we have.

We’re post industrial people, so we don’t often think about the harvest any more. Sure, we have harvest festivals, but those are mostly places we take nice pictures at in front of pumpkins and hay bales. That’s not what a harvest festival is!

What’s the festival for? When we finished gathering corn or wheat from the farm. Why would the whole town have a festival for this? Because this was practically everyone’s seasonal job. Picture this, you have a field of wheat with grain that is white for harvest, but you don’t have a tractor. You go into town and hire- everyone that has a pulse. Butchers, blacksmiths, postmen, all become harvesters for a few days a year. This event is big because the town gets together, helps the farms in the area, and then we have a party!

So all that to say- Jesus tells this parable to people who are well acquainted with the rhythm of farming life. That is plant, and pray....

You plant a seed, maybe water it, but then you.... wait.. You have no way of knowing how this will go until harvest. Practically farming then was planting and praying.

To state the obvious, you’re meant to understand this from Jesus: Evangelism is like this. The town goes out into the field planting, letting God do His work, and then gathering the fruit He produces. Yes, there are professional planters, but there are also kids scattering seed randomly. Guess what- it still works.

Matthew 9 describes God as Lord of the Harvest. How does Jesus, the Lord of the Harvest evangelize, and what can we learn from Him today?

Today Jesus is going to show us two things.

Put Souls Over Stuff

Plant What You Have

John 4:25–30 ESV

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Pray

John 4:25-45 .

1. Put Souls Over Stuff

[25] The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” [26] Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” [27] Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” [28] So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, [29] “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” [30] They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Last week we left off here- I know that Messiah is coming, and Jesus says “I am He.” This huge revelation is interrupted by the disciples who had gone into town to buy food. Mind you- the two locations are important here. There is the town, and the well. Remember last week the split- the disciples went to town, and Jesus stayed at the well.

The disciples have just been in town among Samaritans. what do they come back with? Food. That’s good and practical.

Jesus had been at the well, what did He do with His time? He found another disciple. We don’t know if He got the water He asked for, but He did get to offer eternal water to this woman.

Since the last ten years of my life have been in ministry, this story reminds me a lot of ministry. At a previous church we had Wednesday night services and would have to lock the building for the night. I had a key and could lock it, but we had volunteers who would get upset because they wanted to stay and lock up. Some Wednesday nights we would talk with our kids families and the adult small groups that met. Sometimes we would pray with them. Sometimes there were big emotions after a service and they need counsel. But, often our volunteers would yell down the hallway “I have to lock up!”. I get it. The church building closes at this time, but which is more important? A soul that needs to hear the Gospel, or the building being locked? See, the imbalance in ministry life comes when the stuff we have or normal practices we have become more important than the souls around us.

If you’re ever in an emergency situation, what message do you need to share with rescuers? S.O.S. Save Our Souls. Souls are all that matter in a disaster. Yes, billions of dollars of real-estate burned in fires last week, but what really mattered? The souls.

I’m talking about ministry here, but think about your family, friends and coworkers. How often have you put stuff over souls?

[31] Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” [32] But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

It is so easy to put stuff over souls. The disciples have this one-track mind here. They just ate. They had food and brought it to Jesus.

[33] So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” [34] Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

What keeps Jesus going is doing the work of God. Does Jesus eat, though? Yes! Jesus really was made incarnate flesh. He eats often and even asks for fish after His physical resurrection. Jesus eats, and yes, disciples, He will eat soon. But, there is something more important going on. The woman they just stared awkwardly at is about to bring the whole town over to the well. Jesus’ food, what keeps Him going, is about to arrive.

I don’t know if you remember your wedding day, but having done a few weddings, something I always tell couples is “don’t forget to eat”. Why? Well, because on my wedding day, I didn’t. between greeting guests, and 100 other things, Bree and I didn’t get to taste our wedding cake. We froze it and tried it a year later on our anniversary but it was awful.

So I always tell couples, take time to eat. Why? Because it’s so easy to do on the happiest day of your life. You’re so busy doing things and hugging people you don’t stop to eat your own cake.

What’s the difference between the disciple’s and Jesus today? The disciples didn’t need to be reminded to eat.

Jesus tells His disciples the same. Jesus’ whole mission on earth is “to do the will of Him who sent me.” His appetite is for something entirely different. His joy is for something entirely different than some bread right now. That is- Jesus is concerned with souls. Jesus is saying- “how can you eat in the middle of this?”

Do you want souls to be saved in this church? In your neighborhood? In your house?

How do you preach the Gospel that saves souls? You have to have an appetite.

“Evangelism is an appetite, not a goal.”

We all have goals, and maybe we do half of them. I have this reoccurring goal to wake up an hour before my family, ride a few miles on my bike, go home get ready and wake my kids up with breakfast on the table. But, that’s only a goal. Maybe someday I’ll do it. But an appetite? There’s no problem fulfilling your appetite. If there is a box of captain crunch in my house, I don’t need to write that on the calendar. I am going to have a bowl of the best cereal on the planet. Appetite requires no goal setting, no planning, you just do it because it’s what you want.

Jesus explained to His disciples, His appetite is entirely different from theirs. Maybe it’s entirely different from yours. Guess what? Welcome to Christianity, the religion where Jesus does it all.

John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

The disciples weren’t learning how to become a rabbi themselves. They weren’t being trained to be the next Jesus. They were being trained to rely on Jesus! At no point will you have to become Jesus. You’ll be like Him, but you’ll never be Him. You’ll never be in charge of souls, you’ll never need to be the guy with the answers.

It’s as if you’re hired at a new job, you get a few months of training, and then your trainer works with you every day.

2. Plant What You Have

[35] Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.

30 is operative! Look, they (Sychar’s townpeople) were coming out of town toward the well. Then- v35, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest.

Jesus is talking about a wheat harvest here- the heads of wheat turning white when ready. Usually in His area, the gap between sowing (planting) and reaping (harvesting) was a four month period. Yet- look up He says- the Harvest is already here!

[36] Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

“Gathering fruit for eternal life” That is, gathering the fruit of the grain.

Jesus says that it’s usually a four month gap between sowing and reaping. Pre-industrial farmers wouldn’t keep a staff on hand. They would hire workers for the planting (sowing) and a few months later they would hire workers for the harvesting (reaping). The sower would plant seeds and rejoice once the seed was in the ground. And a reaper would rejoice once that grain grew into a fruiting plant.

But Jesus says “Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit”. It is like a planter who is sowing seeds in a line. Yet, right behind him is the man who is collecting the grain. The sower and reaper rejoice together.

That four month gap meant that sowers and reapers were often different people, and that they would never get to rejoice together. Yet, this parable is a kingdom parable, and in the Kingdom of Heaven, the sower and reaper rejoice together.

Jesus is literally the one who receives this now. But, they are as well- notice that already Jesus’ disciple’s have been baptizing other disciples.

Often in the Kingdom, we find that the the same person can be the sower and the reaper!

Story of Young Man coming to my office. I prayed with him, gave him a bible and a book. He was unsure about Jesus so I didn’t push anything. The next morning, he’s at the gym and met a total stranger- Pastor Marple, one of our previous Pastors. He and this young man talked, mentioned me, and then there in the gym the young man prayed for Jesus to be his Lord!

The next hour, the day Pastor Marple called me and was over the moon how God had done this.

[37] For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ [38] I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Jesus’ message for us is that evangelism is sometimes sowing, sometimes watering, sometimes planting. But He tells his disciples they are reaping what they didn’t labor. We just learned at the beginning of chapter 4 that Jesus’ disciples were baptizing people.

Doesn’t that sound strange to you? If you pay attention, we started at John 1 this is their first few months with Jesus. They don’t know anything. They’re asking questions like, how many times do I have to forgive a person, or, which one of us will sit next to you in heaven? They’re brand new to this, and they’re reaping a harvest they absolutely did not sow.

Jesus says, others have labored. The prophets, the priests, the patriarchs and thousands of others have all foretold about the Messiah, and now they’re just reaping what they did not plant.

“Evangelism is gathering what we did not plant”

The fields are white for harvest Jesus, says, so why aren’t our churches full?

Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 9:35-38

Matthew 9:35–38 ESV

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

The problem isn’t that there isn’t enough souls that need Jesus, it’s that there aren’t enough workers in the field.

[39] Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”

The disciples- clueless, yet they reap! The Samaritan woman just learned Jesus’ name, yet she sows!

[40] So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. [41] And many more believed because of his word. [42] They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

The Samaritan woman’s evangelism worked because she shared what she knew. Apollos in Acts was street preaching after hearing only about the resurrection. Your job isn’t to have all the answers- it is to take people to Jesus.

Take people to Jesus, and watch Him do the rest.