Sowing and Reaping
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: Has anyone ever seen a field of rapeseed in bloom?
Talk about Germany...
Talk about the harvest? Bringing in the crop...
Review the woman at the well. And here is the rest of the story.
Passage: John 4:31-38
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.”
33 So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
35 “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.
36 “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.
37 “For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’
38 “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
Transitional sentence: With this short discourse Jesus is trying to get the disciples to stop seeing things as they are physically and start seeing them as they are spiritually and it begins with food.
Because everyone gets hungry and thirsty. Of course hunger isn’t always just about the physical.
a. Even Jesus hungers and thirsts sometimes. But what does does He hungry and thirst for? Is it always food and water?
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners;
He hungers and thirsts for spiritual things. Such as:
*Bring good news to the afflicted… (an afflicted person is someone that is suffering, in distress, or grievously affected by a disease, pain or calamity)
*bind up the brokenhearted… (The brokenhearted are those people experiencing intense emotional stress, deep sorrow, or grief, typically caused by the loss of a loved one or the end of a romantic relationship.)
*proclaim liberty to captives… (a person confined and held without the ability to escape) this is the idea of being caged
*freedom to prisoners… (a person deprived of their liberty and held under involuntary restraint) this is the idea of being bound by ropes
*Proclaim the favorable year of our Lord…
*Proclaim the day of vengeance of our God…
What should we hunger and thirst for? Shouldn’t we hunger and thirst for what He wants...
b. We should also hunger and thirst for righteousness.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
This hunger and thirst is not for the physical...
But what is Righteousness? Well it is adherence to what is required according to a standard; for example, a moral standard.
In other words - we should want to do what is right...
So if we hunger and thirst for righteousness than,
c. His work will be our work…
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
What is God’s work for Jesus? Well besides the things listed in Isaiah 61:1, Jesus came to finish at least three tasks:
Reveal the Father -
He did this by telling parables: Name a few of them… Prodigal son, lost sheep, lost coin, name some others...
ii. Miracles…
iii. Interactions with people…
Accomplish Salvation - Redemption (Redeem Humanity)…
Reconcile humanity to God - We are estranged from God without Jesus - our sin separates us from the Father…
At this point Jesus changes direction. He goes from talking about His food to helping the disciples see His food.
2. He does it by talking about what they don’t see. Beginning with the timing of the harvest...
a. Verse 35 says:
35 “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.
4 months is 120 days / 120 days is the average amount of time wheat takes from sowing the seeds to reaping the grain…
But He isn’t talking about the physical fields. He’s talking about something else, something spiritual…
Look back a couple verses to verse 30 says:
30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.
There are lots of people coming out of the town of Sychar to see Him. They are the harvest. It’s time to get to work.
b. The harvest is ready and whoever is reaping is getting paid for it.
36 “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.
Wages of reaping the harvest fields is Souls - human souls.
Fruit for life eternal - People who will have eternal life in Christ Jesus...
Disciples are supposed to produce fruit in their lives. This is one way to do it - reap the harvest.
What do we do in this country every November? We rejoice and celebrate. We have thanksgiving right? That’s celebrating...
c. Well those who sow and reap the harvest can rejoice together - How (baptism - add some photos, testimonies, celebrations)
What if no one ever reaps the harvest? Hay field becomes a forest…
So the fields have to be harvested…
c. But then in verse 37 Jesus throws a caveat into the mix.
37 “For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’
a. One Sows… (plants seeds in the ground by scattering them)
Another Reaps… (to harvest a crop, by cutting and gathering)
In this particular example the Samaritan woman is sowing the seeds - Get ready to reap the harvest…
But what about us? To carry a farming metaphor even farther…
So what does it take? What compels people to reap the harvest?
b. Matthew 9:35-38
35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.
37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
38 “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”
Harvest is plentiful...
But we need to have compassion - which is the sympathetic consciousness of another’s distress combined with a strong desire to alleviate it. Simply put we need to care enough about people to tell them about Jesus.
Workers are few… (There aren’t very many people actually leading people to Jesus)
There are a lot of people who need saving but there doesn’t seem to be much saving going on. Do we have no compassion?
So pray…
c. Jesus ends this discourse with a simple statement.
38 “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
Others have labored - The Prophets & John the Baptist, others who have heard Jesus speak and have spread the message. The disciples are entering into their labor to reap the harvest.
Story about Vietnam. C&MA workers there before Vietnam War. After the war the nation was shut off. Now that it is open they have found churches flourishing there even though no one has been there for years. The work was carried on by those who lived there and braved the persecution of the country.
Exit: Jesus told His disciples to look at the harvest. He wasn’t talking about the nice stand of wheat available just off of the path. He was talking about the people. The people were ready for a change. They were ready to accept God.
His words then are just as relevant to us now. Look at the harvest, have compassion, sow some seeds and reap a harvest for eternal life…
I know it’s hard, but that’s no reason to give up. “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, they are white for harvest.”
Take some time this week to sow some seeds for Jesus, but don’t forget there has to be some reaping. Go beyond sowing some seeds, actually reap the harvest. Lead that someone to Him that there might be a harvest for eternal life.
Pray:
