Spring Mission Festival

SERMON

Text: John 4: 28 -42

The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" Then they went out of the city and came to Him. In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But He said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." Therefore the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. "Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! "And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. "For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ "I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors." And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word. Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."

In Christ Jesus, who now works through us to spread the light of His Word, dear fellow believers in Him, dear fellow redeemed.

Spring and fall are at opposite ends of the growing season. In the spring you plant; in the fall you harvest. Now is not the time to go out and pick the ripe tomatoes in the garden. Now is not the time for farmers to get ready for the harvest.

The cycle of nature, however, does not apply to things spiritual. From God’s perspective every day is harvest time. There's a whole world out there that Jesus wants to gather into His barn. And now is the time to reap. Based on the conversation of our Lord and the example of the Samaritan woman, we can definitely say: it's harvest time in the kingdom of God! Jesus wants you and me to realize…1) Our work in the harvest of souls, 2) The great urgency of the work we do, and 3) The work He does to make this harvest successful.

In the parables of the NT, Jesus would borrow the language of agriculture, comparing the Word of God to a seed planted, growing up in the field, bearing fruit. In this conversation with the disciples, He changes the picture somewhat. He speaks of harvesting rather than planting. "Look at the fields, He says, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life. " It's the countless souls of people out there that Jesus wants to bring into the safety of life everlasting. And He sends you and me to do the work of reaping. We join the harvest team; we become the witnesses of His Gospel, the messengers of His grace.

The command of our Lord is very clear. You have it in the Great Commission: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. " We know the command applies to more than just the pastors and missionaries. The Bible also says, "You

(the believers) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. "

The command to share the Gospel – please don’t think of it as a troublesome duty, as a burden hanging over your head. It's so much better than that. Sharing the Gospel with anybody is a joyful privilege, not a complicated process. It's an opportunity to speak from the heart, a chance to give away the greatest possible gift. It’s something our faith will gladly do. Your faith will not keep silent when given the chance to share. We can learn from the example of the Samaritan woman. Jesus never told her directly to go and spread the news. She did that as the good impulse of her God-given faith. Notice the excitement. She ran off in such a hurry that she left behind the waterpot, the very thing that brought her to the well in the first place. She came to the men of her village and she said, "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ? "

A Lutheran pastor once told me his approach toward the end of adult instruction class. After taking the people through the fundamental truths of Law and Gospel, he would tell them quite plainly, "If this means something to you, go and tell it to somebody else. " Our faith will perk up to that kind of invitation. We know what the Gospel means to us. It means everything. It means that God loves us unconditionally, even though we sin against Him every day. It means that God has forgiven all our sins because of Christ and His sacrifice on the cross. It means that heaven is so sure, made certain by the God who gives eternal life as a free gift, paid for by His Son, no strings attached. How can we keep this wonderful news to yourself … especially when our faith wants to give it away?

The Samaritan woman knew exactly where to go with her new discovery. She came to the people that she knew. That's always the place to start -- your own circle of family, friends, and neighbors. Go to the "field" of souls nearby, the people who are close to you. You know them, and they know you. That familiar relationship will eliminate the barrier of talking to strangers. That familiar relationship can be a channel for the Gospel to transfer from one person to another. You can do the work of witnessing in the atmosphere of trust, respect, genuine concern, and mutual friendship.

That is not to say that we ignore the stranger and the millions of people whose names we don't know, whose faces we never see. It's a lesson Jesus wanted to impress on His disciples, when He told them, "Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. " Imagine the disciples doing that – looking up to see the Samaritan villagers coming up the road, walking in their direction. In a way Jesus was telling them, "These people whom your fellow Jews despise because of a long-standing animosity between their group and yours – these people have souls that need the Word of God. I want them in My kingdom too. And I want you, Jewish believers, to talk to them, Samaritan unbelievers, about Me, the Savior of all people. "

Let’s apply the lesson to our own situation. Through the benefit of instant information, we learn about all kinds of people, very different from us, in some cases living far away from us, yet having the same basic need for Christ. We may not be the ones who seek them out and bring them the Gospel face-to-face. But we can surely join the effort. In our own church body we can send and support the missionary through the offerings that we give and the prayers that we speak, fulfilling what Jesus said in Matthew 9: "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. "

We think of mission work as circles getting bigger. We start with the small circle: our own family, friends, and neighbors. We expand the circle to include other neighborhoods in our community, other communities in our state, other states in our nation, and other nations in this world. No one circle -- or shall we say, no one "field" of harvest -- is more important than the other. Christ would have us reach them all.

The Samaritan woman shows you how simple this can be within your own circle, at your own level. Here she was, rather new in the faith, not knowing very much doctrine. Still she was able to pass the Word at her own level of understanding. She didn't try to teach the men in her village as one with authoritative knowledge. She didn't try to debate them on points of theology. She simply repeated what she knew to be true, how Jesus demonstrated Himself as the all-knowing Messiah. She testified of her experience and invited these men to "come and see" for themselves.

You can follow the same pattern. Tell your friend what Christ has done for you on the cross. Tell this person why you know for a fact that your sins and his sins are truly forgiven. Keep it simple, personal, and direct as you speak from the heart. Then follow up with the invitation to "come and see. " Here you have a few options at your disposal. You can invite the friend or neighbor to a church service. You could give them something to read -- a pamphlet or brochure from your church. You could put them in touch with the pastor, if necessary, offering to sit with the individual as he or she begins adult instruction. These are just a few ways that we connect people with Christ, who really is the one who makes the connection, because He speaks through our witnessing. He speaks through the preaching of the Gospel, the reading of Holy Scripture, and the teaching of Christian doctrine.

During the fall harvest, I have seen the farmer at work well after dark. If you drive down the country highway, you can see the lights on the tractor in the field. The farmer knows that harvest time is so crucial. He can't afford to lose any crops because he took too long to gather in the produce. Jesus has the same approach in the kingdom of God. It's harvest time -- not just once a year, but every season, every week, every day. He has sent us into His field, not only with instructions on what to do, but also with a great sense of urgency in this work of harvesting the souls that belong to Him.

Put yourself in the position of the unbeliever for a moment. What if you did not know the Gospel like you do? What if you were in the state of ignorance, not knowing the sacrifice Jesus made, not knowing the one and only way into heaven? What an awful place to be, since you do know the final outcome of unbelief, the final consequence of hell! That’s how it is for many people. They're truly ripe for salvation, but they’re not going to harvest themselves.

Sometimes Christians get the mistaken idea that as long as they keep the church going, with services every week, pastor in the pulpit and so forth, then other people have the opportunity to drop in and get the Gospel for themselves. That may sound logical on the surface, but it overlooks a very important point. The unbeliever has no capacity whatsoever to move even a little bit in our direction. Because of spiritual death in his heart, he's stuck where he is. The only way that he's going to hear the Gospel is if the people who know reach out in his direction and bring the Gospel to him. The time to reach out is now, before death comes, before Judgment Day is here. If the Lord gives us an opportunity to speak His truth, the other person cannot afford for us to let the opportunity slip away.

Yes, my fellow reapers, it really is "harvest time" in the kingdom of God. Day after day, we can look for those who do not know the Savior and remember how urgent the situation is. Their need to hear what we know is so crucial and our time to talk is limited. Thankfully, we don't have to do more than what we are sent to do. Jesus also wants you to realize the work He does to make the harvest truly successful.

You see, mission work does not really depend on you. It's not your job to convince or convert. The Lord will take care of that, just as He did in our text. It wasn’t the Samaritan woman who convinced the villagers. Jesus handled that responsibility with good results, as we hear the villagers telling the woman, "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. "

The same pattern continues in our day. We get to testify in our Lord's behalf, but it's still the Lord who does the convincing and the converting through the power of His Word. His message will penetrate the heart and grow the faith. Your voice will be His tool. Certainly Jesus wants you to speak up. But we should do so with confidence in the right place, in the power of the Word, remembering what God said through Isaiah: "As the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, . . . so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. " (Is. 55: 10-11)

At the end of the harvest, when all the work is done, many cultures and communities celebrate with some type of harvest festival. From Judgment Day onward, the Lord is going to celebrate the greatest harvest festival ever, and we get to join Him. The harvest of souls will not fail. God Himself will see to the results. He will help us with our task of witnessing, teaching and proclaiming His truth. He will be the power of conversion and faith preservation, while making us both part of the harvest team and part of the harvest itself. Let that be your joy, your privilege, your confidence while it still is "harvest time" in the kingdom of God. Amen.

—Professor Steven Sipper, guest speaker