Discipleship of Farming – The Farmers (Part I)

Sermon Title: Discipleship of Farming – We, the Farmers, of God

Good News Statement: God Made Us Farmers

Preached: Sunday, October 08^th, 2023, at Dogwood Prairie and Seed Chapel UMC

Pastor Daniel G. Skelton, M.Div.

 

Scripture (NRSV): 2 Corinthians 9:6– Today’s Scripture reading comes from Paul’s epistle to the people of Corinth. In this chapter we are reminded that God has made us to be like farmers: to go, sow, experience woe, and to know that we are farmers for the Word of God. In Second Corinthians Chapter Nine verse Six, we are summoned to pay attention to what we sow because what we sow and how we sow today will determine our harvest tomorrow.

The Collection for Christians at Jerusalem

9 Now it is not necessary for me to write you about the ministry to the saints, ² for I know your eagerness, which is the subject of my boasting about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year, and your zeal has stirred up most of them. ³ But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you may not prove to have been empty in this case, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be; ⁴ otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be put to shame—to say nothing of you—in this undertaking. ⁵ So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for this bountiful gift that you have promised, so that it may be ready as a bountiful gift and not as an extortion.

⁶ The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. ⁷ Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸ And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. ⁹ As it is written,

“He scatters abroad; he gives to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”

¹⁰ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us, ¹² for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. ¹³ Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your partnership with them and with all others, ¹⁴ while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

This is the Word of God for the People of God; And all God’s people said, “Thanks be to God.”

 

Introduction:

Have you looked up the definition for the term “farmer”? A simple search will provide you with something like this, a farmer is “a person who owns or manages a farm.” Another definition reads, a farmer is “a person who cultivates land or crops or raises animals.” Digging a little deeper, a farmer is “a person involved in the cultivation and management of crops and/or livestock for the purpose of producing food, fiber, or other agricultural products.” In the early 1300s, the term farmer was associated with “one who collects taxes.” Later on, the Old English word churl was replaced by the word farmer. Churl referenced a “peasant, one of the lowest class of freemen, man without rank, man of the common people, a country man.”

According to Google, if you do the following things you are considered a farmer: planting, fertilizing, watering, and harvesting crops, not one who collects taxes and not a peasant. You and I both know that to be a farmer takes more than planting, fertilizing, watering, and harvesting; and a farmer is more than a person who cultivates and manages crops and/or livestock. Truth be told, a farmer is more than someone of the lowest class or rank or even common people. A farmer is composed of hard-work, determination, courage, faith, and hope. A farmer understands failure and success, bad days and good days, setbacks and productivity, and worry and patience. A farmer is someone who has been called to be a caretaker of God’s creation: created from the ground of the Garden of Eden. A farmer is living proof of how Christians are supposed to carry out the good news of Christ.

The Christian is like a farmer in several ways, but today we are looking specifically at the Christian as a sower of seeds, and a reaper of harvests. In fact, our text points out very clearly that the Lord looks on us as spiritual farmers with the responsibility to plant the seeds of the Gospel in the hearts of God’s creation, and then we are to watch for the Lord to provide the harvest in due season.

Let’s look at our Christian life as God’s Farmers. To do this, I want to point out four words which can help us understand what planting God’s seed is all about. These four words are “Go, Woe, Sow, and Know.”

Body:

Our passage for today is taken from the middle of Second Corinthians chapter nine, a letter written by the Apostle Paul for the people of Corinth, a village of two harbors and where Paul resided for eighteen months while establishing the church (Acts 18:11). Second Corinthians chapter 9 continues an appeal begun earlier in the letter. In this specific chapter, Paul urges the Corinthians to participate in the gift to the Jerusalem Christians. Paul is concerned their earlier enthusiasm might have waned. Everyone should give what he or she previously decided to give and do so willingly and cheerfully. (We are to give with a cheerful heart [2 Corinthians 9:7]).God makes those who give generously abound so that they will be able to give even more.

Unfortunately, the people of Corinth have lost sight of what it means to give which is why Paul uses a metaphor that the people can relate to. Although Corinth is a village of two harbors—meaning that it has access to the benefits of the sea—it is also an agricultural village, living off the land. Paul writes, “The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). Paul is calling the people of Corinth to notice that if they don’t do the work, then their bounty—the harvest—won’t be bountiful. Paul needs the people to be like farmers—willing to go, experience moments of woe, sow, and know that their trust belongs in the Lord, and from their works their harvest will be bountiful.

First, the farmer and the word “go.” Dr. A.T. Pierson wrote, “A light that does not shine, a spring that does not flow, a germ that does not grow, is no more an anomaly than that of a life in Christ which does not witness for Christ.” Believers are to let the light of Christ shine through them in this world. A true disciple is a witness to the grace and goodness of God to a world in dire need of the new birth.

The Scriptures state that we can go. Matthew 4:19 says, “I will make you fishers of men.” If we are being shaped by Jesus, we will be witnesses. If we cease to be shaped by the Lord we will cease to share His Gospel message. Frankly, you can’t catch fish if you don’t GO fishing. You can’t have a harvest if you are willing to do the planting. Jesus leads us to where the fish are—where the seed, the salvation of Christ, needs to be scattered. Farmers do the work of Christ on earth as they go out into the fields planting the seed of tomorrow. From their seed, they are creating the opportunity to go fishing, providing people with resources and nourishment grown from the soil of God’s creation.

The Son shows that we are to go. Jesus left heaven to bring the Gospel to us. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. Then He told us to “follow Him.” To follow in the footsteps of Jesus is to get out of our comfort zone and to go where people need salvation. Jesus is the epitome of what it means to go into the world to share the gospel message. The more we are like Him, the more we will share the Good News of God’s saving grace in Christ. As Jesus told the first disciples, “Come follow me, and I will make you fisher of people” (Matthew 4:19), we are to go follow Christ, planting the seed, cultivating the seed, and harvesting the seed. As the farmer does this, the farmer is taking risks, doing hard-manual-labor, and putting their faith in the resources of nature to create a harvest. The farmer is following the example of Christ and going out and doing the work of creating a bountiful harvest.

The Spirit strengthens us that we may go. Jesus said that the Spirit empowers His people to be witnesses for Him. Now this is an important issue when it comes to witnessing to people who need Jesus. The power to accomplish the work of bringing people to faith in Jesus is not concentrated in our human abilities. God’s Holy Spirit indwells His redeemed people and his Spirit has the power necessary to bring people to believing faith. Interestingly, however, God does not release His Spirit to do salvation work without a faithful witness. We are sent to share His message of love and grace, and when we go willingly and faithfully the Holy Spirit will work to bring people to salvation. I have seen Him do that many times in my life and ministry. The farmer goes out into the fields praying that their hard work will come to fruition. With each step, with each sprout, the farmer gains more strength, more confidence, more hopefulness knowing that what they have been called to do, where they have been directed to go, will make a difference tomorrow.

The Farmer, like us Christians, has been called to go, doing the planting and harvesting for those who are standing next to the fields witnessing their hard-work. The farmer goes, and the Christian goes with the farmer.

Second, the farmer and the word “woe.” The word “woe” is often translated as “great sorrow or distress.” A farmer’s work is not easy, for they earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. The Christian witness who spreads the seed of the Gospel will find it necessary to resist seeking comfort and ease. The only motivation which will cause us to overcome the hindrances to witnessing is to get the same passion within us which resides in the heart of God. That means we have to be near His heart. Just think of it: Jesus wept over a man—a friend named Lazarus who had died; He wept over a nation—he wept over the city of Jerusalem; and He wept over the world—in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to the cross. We are called to experience a season of woe before we reap a bountiful harvest (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

A young preacher was concerned that his ministry lacked power. He decided to go to Dundee, Scotland to the church once served by a great former preacher named Robert McCheyne. The young minister saw an elderly sexton cleaning the church and asked if he had known McCheyne. The sexton answered in the affirmative. The minister asked if the caretaker knew the secret of McCheyne’s power with God. The sexton took the young preacher to the pastor’s former office that had belonged to McCheyne. The sexton told the young minister to sit down in the chair behind the desk. He then told him to put his elbows on the desk and to place his hands over his face. Then he said, “Weep – let the tears run through your fingers, for that is the way McCheyne did it.”

The farmer in Biblical days often worked with tears. The work was hard and the crop was often small, yet onward he went in the field. That is what we must do. Think of the ancient farmer and what he faced in harvesting a crop, and think of this in regard to our reaping souls in our day. The farmer had to face three terrible possibilities in regard to his harvest.

One, the ancient farmer faced the danger of thieves coming into his field to steal the crop he had worked so hard to produce. There are spiritual enemies who are working daily to undo our witness and to hinder our work of seeking to bring people to Jesus. Secondly, the farmer knew that planting the seed was an all or nothing proposition. If the seed  failed, there was no seed to plant next year. Do you realize that we are always one generation from having no witnesses for Christ in our city, our state, our nation or our world. No wonder we are to go forth bearing our seed—our witness—with tears. With no passion we are likely to leave behind no message of Jesus for those coming behind us. Thirdly, tears can be shed when one is working endlessly in the hard soil and not getting results. Thorns and rocks can tire the farmer and cause him to quit his work. But the farmer knows that life depends on the crop, so even with tears in his eyes he goes on preparing, planting, weeding, watering and harvesting.

Like the farmer, the witness for Christ will shed some tears. The work is hard. We will put forth a great amount of effort to only yield a small harvest sometimes. We will work day and night, night and day, praying that the seed will grow but then rain doesn’t come, animals eat the seed, and the soil hasn’t been cultivated properly. We will get frustrated. We will get angry. Things won’t be in our favor. We will shed some tears. But we must go forth with our tears to share God’s love and grace with the world, regardless of the hard ground in the hearts and souls of people. Like the farmer, we must be willing to do the work knowing that the outcome may not always be what we prayed for but knowing that the outcome is what we need to experience in order to grow deeper in our faith. Even in the bad times, the farmer doesn’t give up: the woe doesn’t depict their failure, rather it depicts their willingness to keep moving forward. Paul wrote to the people of Galatians, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

Third, the farmer and the word “sow.” The farmer must carry seed into the field. The Christian must take the seed into the world. What is the seed? Jesus told us the answer to that question. Jesus said in Luke 8:11, “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” Jesus clearly told us that the seed we are to take with us to share with those who need salvation is the Word of God. We must share scripture with people. The Word of God is powerful, it is sharper than any two-edged sword. We must being willing to share our faith with people. We must being willing to bring a friend, a neighbor, a family member to church so that they can experience the word of God. We must be willing to realize that the church extends beyond these four walls. We must be willing to take to heart how important church is in our life. The church doesn’t grow by carrying the seed: it grows by sowing and planting the seed.

Imagine what life would be like if the farmer cultivated the land—prepared the soil—and then never planted the seed—never did anything but carry the seed in their pockets. Imagine what your life would be like if Jesus only cultivated the ground but never planted the seed of unconditional love, forgiveness, salvation, and grace in your life. There is power in the seed because there is life in the seed.

The farmer sows the seeds. The Christian sows the seeds. The Church sows the seeds. But are you? God needs us to be the farmer that sows and plants the seed and not only carries the seed in our pockets. God needs us to do what Jesus taught in Matthew 13:3-9, we are taught to sow the seed on the road, on the rocky ground, in the weeds, and on the good ground. Every place and everyone needs to experience the seed, the Word of God; so don’t be afraid to sow, scatter, and plant the seed. Don’t keep the seed in your pocket and save it for a rainy day: scatter it today and get out there and do some work.

Fourth, the farmer and the word “know.” God promised results. The farmer knows that good seed in good soil will produce a good crop; a bountiful harvest as Paul noted in our scripture passage. Of course, the farmer is dependent upon the Lord to send the rain in due season. You and I are dependent upon the Lord to water the seed of the Gospel that we plant. But please know that God has promised to do just that, if only His people will go out into the field, our daily world, bearing the precious seed of His Word.

The work of spreading the Gospel may seem difficult now, but when we take the seed of the Gospel and spread it through our witness, through our mission, and through our faith, we are told that there will be a time of rejoicing. Part of that joy is in the here and now. But part of that rejoicing will come at the end time when we see the full extent of the work done by spreading the seed of the Gospel. The word for rejoicing in this passage is not some flimsy word which speaks of light-heartedness. The word means to shout! The same word, for example, is used in Psalm 118:15, which reads, “Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous: ‘The LORD’s right hand has done mighty things!’”

Furthermore, Jesus pointed out clearly that there is joy in heaven over ONE who comes home to the Lord. In Luke 15 Jesus told a parable with at least three stories in it. There was a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son. Whether one out of a hundred, one out of ten, or one out of two, there was rejoicing when the one that was lost was found.

The farmer, like the Christian, doesn’t wait to shout for joy when the harvest is completed. Rather the farmer shouts for joy knowing that they are able to do the harvest in the first place. Sure, there is much rejoicing when the fields have been cleared, the grain is harvested, and the tractors are put away until the spring; but there is joy to be had when given the opportunity to do the work. The farmer knows that there is joy in a single crop, especially if it has been a bad farming season. Like the farmer, we must have joy in the simplest of things, “rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16), “rejoice in the Lord always.” (Philippians 4:4), and “always be full of joy in the Lord” (Philippians 4:4). The farmer knows that the future is inevitable; but they also know that joy is the best medicine when things aren’t going to plan. “A cheerful heart is a good medicine…” (Proverbs 17:22).

Conclusion:

To bring this message to a close, I remind you that we are to be like the farmers. We are called to “go”—out in the field, God’s mission work. We are called to allow our moments of “woe”—tearfulness and weariness—to be springboards to keep moving forward when the seed doesn’t take or when life gets busy or even when we face and encounter struggles. We are called to sow the seed, the Word of God, to plant the seed and not just carry it in our pockets. And lastly we are called to know that there is joy to be had in a single crop and in a bountiful crop. To quote Paul again, “The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). As a Christian farmer of the Word of God, what does your harvest look like: are you simply going through the motions and sparingly spreading the seed or are you spreading the seed with meaningful faith praying for a bountiful harvest? What kind of Christian farmer are you?

I leave you with the following story written by Nightingale: “The story goes that a preacher was driving down a country road when he came upon the most beautiful farm he’d ever seen in his lifetime…. He could only compare it to a beautiful painting. It was by no means a new farm, but the house and buildings were well constructed and in perfect repair and paint. A garden around the house was filled with flowers and shrubs. A fine row of trees lined each side of the white gravel drive. The fields were beautifully tilled, and a fine herd of fat dairy cattle grazed knee-deep in the pasture…”

“It was then he noticed the farmer, on a tractor, hard at work, approaching the place where the preacher stood beside his car. When the farmer got closer, the preacher hailed him. The farmer stopped the tractor, idled down the engine, and then shouted a friendly “hello!” The preacher said to him, “My good man, God has certainly blessed you with a magnificent farm.” And then, there was a pause as the farmer took off his cape and shifted in the tractor seat to take a look at his pride and joy. He then looked at the preacher and he said, “Yes, He has, and we’re grateful. But you should have seen this place when He had it all to Himself.”

Well, the preacher looked at the strong, friendly features of the farmer for a moment, smiled, and with a wave of his hand climbed back in his car and continued on his way. And he thought, that man has given me my sermon for next Sunday.”

Every farmer along this road and in this country has been blessed with the same land, pretty much, and the same opportunity. Each has worked his farm according to his nature. Every farm, every home of every family in the country is the living reflection of the people who dwell in it. He understood that the land we’re given was not the acres we buy for our farm or the lot on which we build or buy a home, but rather the life we give it, what we do with what we have. Our lives are our plots of ground, and that’s the land we sow and from which we are then obliged to reap the resulting harvest. And the way we’ve sown will be reflected in every department of our lives.”

“Well, the farmer that the preacher had just talked to would reap an abundant harvest, not just when the time came for gathering his crops, but every time he looked around the place, every time he returned from town to that white gravel drive and trees that lined it and the fine home and gardens that stood at the end of it. He was grateful for what he had. But he knew that it was not what is given us that makes the difference, but rather what we do with it, what we make of what we have. Yes, sir, the preacher thought as he smiled and drove his car along the road to town. He had his sermon for next Sunday, and it would be a good one.”

Each one of us is a farmer. Our lives are the plots of ground that have been given to us free and clear. If we’re wise, we too, will reap the abundant harvest, for the planting is left strictly to us. We are Christian Farmers summoned to go, to encounter moments of woe, sow the Word of God, and know that we are to rejoice in a single crop harvest or in a bountiful harvest. How are you being a Christian Farmer, farmer for Christ?

Let it be so…

 

Closing Prayer:

Let Us Pray: Dear God of the Land, help us to go and spread the seed, grant us the strength to turn our struggles into motivations to keep moving forward, encourage us to sow and plant the seed and not to just carry it in our pockets, and provide us the wisdom to know that there is joy to be had in the hard work of farming. May we become your farmers on earth. Amen.

           

Benediction:

You may not be a farmer of the land, but you are certainly a farmer of and for Christ. Christ is calling you to go, sow, woe, and know the seed, the Word, of God so that the fields will produce a bountiful harvest for generations to come. May you be blessed as a farmer of Christ today and every day. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, go out into the world knowing that God needs you to do some work. And all of God’s people said, Amen. Amen. Amen.