17th September 2023 Infill Service - Yasmin Chaffer - Preparing for Harvest time

Good morning. So, following on our theme this month, ready for Harvest.

The title of this morning's message is preparing for harvest time. So Matthew

nine thirty seven to thirty eight, and I'm reading from the NIV, so

that's Matthew nine thirty seven to thirty eight. Says. Then Jesus said to

his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask

the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest

field. The context was that Jesus was on the road, going to all

the towns and villages, teaching and preaching and healing every sickness and every disease.

He felt compassion for the crowds that gathered to see and hear him,

because they were weary and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd. Then Jesus

said, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. His harvest

is souls. Heaven is real, and Hell is real, and he doesn't

want anyone to go to hell. Jesus really is the son of God who

died a horrific death, nailed to a cross, to take the punishment for

our sins, the sins of all mankind. Upon himself, which was death,

an eternal separation from God. He went to Hell and then rose again

hallelujah, and is now seated at God's right hand in heaven. Jesus did

it so that our relationship with God, with our heavenly Dad, could be

restored to that loving, real relationship that he had always intended, starting here

and now and continuing for eternity in heaven. All we need to do is

accept what Jesus did for us and ask him to be a Lord of our

lives. So if there's anyone watching or listening online who hasn't done so already,

now is a great time. The Lord wants us to be ready,

in season and out of season, whether it's convenient or not, to share

the truth of his word to those around us, so that they too can

know Jesus now and spend eternity with him. How can we be sure that

we're ready? The first area I'm going to look at is obedience. Your

obedience to the Lord. Our obedience to the Lord in the small daily things

can make a difference for eternity. What you may think of as preparation for

the future may also serve as a goal in itself. It's called process.

Some might call it the journey. I was recently listening to a sermon and

the preacher was telling the story of when his brother had been on a mission

trip to somewhere in Africa. He got an upset stomach and something was clearly

not working in the accommodation where he was staying, and the toilet was overflowing.

He was really embarrassed because he couldn't clean up after himself. He wasn't

well enough. And every day a man came in to clean, and all

the time he was cleaning, he was singing and praising the Lord from his

heart. That's both humbling and challenging. What's my attitude when I'm doing jobs

that I don't love? James three thirteen. Again, I'm reading from the

NIV. James three thirteen says, who is wise and understanding among you?

Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility

comes from wisdom. Do you approach your work, your day to day life,

as an expression of your worship to the Lord. I've not gone off

track here. This is preparation for harvest time, as well as important in

its own right. It's about relationship as well as developing the habit of dependency

upon the Lord in all things, which is essential for harvest time. As

we get better at doing life as an expression of our worship to the Lord,

it'll help us to lose the distinction between the spiritual and the secular parts

of our lives, which biblically doesn't exist. For example, when it came

to paying the annual temple tax of half a shekel towards the upkeep of the

temple in Matthew seventeen, Jesus told Peter to go fishing. He told Peter

to open the mouth of the first fish that came up, because you'd find

a shekel there to pay for both his and Peter's temple tax. Wouldn't it

be lovely if we could always pay our taxes in such a way. I

think round here a lot of us would look for a fish in the fish

and chip shop. But anyway, whilst the tax went was towards the temple

upkeep, paying for it wasn't inherently a spiritual act. Yeah, Jesus took

care of it. As I said, As we get better at doing life

as an expression of our worship to the Lord, it'll help us to lose

the distinction between the spiritual and secular parts of our lives, which we create

sometimes but actually it is not Biblical harvest time can be sweaty, dirty,

tiring work. Creating the habit of serving God cheerfully whatever we're doing will not

only enable us to enjoy life more and put us in a position to others,

but also put us in a position to play our part in God's harvest.

There's a good example in the Bible of someone else who as someone who

made a difference in how they did mundane, probably at times unpleasant tasks.

Their name is also unknown to us, like that of the guy I just

mentioned, but known to God, and it's Naeman's wife's maid. I won't

go into this in detail, but the stories in the Second Book of Kings,

chapter five, the maid was only a young girl, and she'd been

abducted by the Syrians from her home in Israel and taken to serve the army

commander's wife as a slave. No doubt, Naman, the Syrian army commander

had some sort of skin disease which is translated as leprosy, but may not

be what we specifically know as leprosy. Nowadays, and this young girl cared

he to say to her mistress in two Kings five, verse three, if

only my master would see the prophet who is in some area, he would

cure him of his leprosy. I think her attitude's amazing. She'd been abducted

by this guy. There must have been something about this girl, her attitude,

her character for the lady to act on what she said and tell her

husband, who told the king, and Naman ended up seeing Elijah, the

prophet, who told him what to do to be healed. As a result

of all this, Nayman was not only healed, but ended up serving the

one true living God that's in two Kings five, verse seventeen. I'm suggesting

to you that this young Israelites girl's attitude and character in daily things was such

that she made a suggestion her mistress listened, despite her low position in the

household. That meant that when this girl sold a seed, it was received,

and the harvest was not only Nayman's healing, but his salvation. We

may not recognize our part in a harvest for what it is. We may

not see the harvest, but that doesn't take away the value of our contribution.

Only God sees the whole picture. Because this girl's example is in the

Bible, it's easy to see how our obedience to the Lord in the small

things can make a difference for eternity. The Bible. God's word is eternal,

as it says in several places in the Bible, including Psalm one hundred

and nineteen, verse eighty nine, and this girl has her place in it.

I was recently challenged by reading Brother Andrew's book The Calling. Brother Andrew

was a Dutch Christian, in whose autobiography God's Smuggler, he tells of God's

miraculous protection and provision as he smuggled thousands of Bibles to persecuted Christians in communist

countries. In his book The Calling, Brother Andrews sets out ten steps to

hearing God's voice and responding to his call. This is something he says,

The real calling of God is not to a certain place or career, but

to everyday obedience, and that call is extended to every Christian, not just

to us select few. Then, as we follow his call, he opens

doors to where he wants us to go, and closes doors to where he

doesn't want us to go. That way faithful in us to God's calling is

within our reach every day. I think Rebecca is a really clear example of

this, Abraham's great niece, and we hear about her in Genesis twenty four.

All she did was go to get water from the well, like she

no doubt did as part of her unexciting daily routine. A stranger was there

who asked her for a little water. She politely offered him water, and

then went the extra mile and drew water for his camels too little suspecting,

I imagine that this would lead to her marriage to Isaac and to her part

in God's plan. Brother Andrew makes another good point when he says, many

of us have the idea that God must have a special calling on our lives,

a particular end for us to accomplish, and we must find out what

it is for us. If we have no such calling from God, then

we've not been selected by Him for special service, and we can live out

our lives one monotonous and unimportant day after another. But we need to understand

that that is not God's idea. We must never make our dreams for success

or accomplishment. God's purpose for us. His purpose for us is the process.

It's today that he wants us to focus on. Oswald Chambers was an

early twentieth century evangelist and teacher, and he said God's training is for now,

not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in

the future. We focus so much on what we perceive as the goal.

But if we realize the significance of the obedience in itself, then each moment

is precious. But do we approach our daily lives as an expression of our

worship to the Lord. How do we do this? It starts with an

attitude of the heart. We think think of every day as an opportunity to

practice obeying the Lord out of love for him. I might add as a

response to his love for us. But if we think of every day as

an opportunity to practice obeying the Lord by learning to live surrendered to what he

says in the Bible, whilst it may prepare us for what we consider to

be bigger things, we can be making a difference where we are now.

If He calls us to what we would consider to be bigger things, we

will have the habit of obedience which will help us to fulfill that specific call.

If we focus on obeying him on a daily basis. Wherever we are,

he will lead us where He wants us to go and to the people

he wants us to reach. His harvest. As we know, mission fields

are not only far away. As Brother Andrew says, we should be conscious

every morning we can and will bring Christ's presence into the relationships of our daily

lives. Romans thirteen Versus eleven to fourteen in message puts it this way,

that's Romans thirteen, eleven to fourteen. But make sure that you don't get

so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day to day obligations that

you lose track of the time and doze off oblivious to God. The night

is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to

what God is doing. We can't afford to waste a minute. Mustn't squander

these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around, and dissipation,

in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Dress yourselves in Christ and be

up and about. Have you ever been involved in harvesting a crop might be

berries or vegetables in your back garden, or allotment I once did some agricultural

work in Israel, where I spent some weeks one summer on a kibbutz.

A kibbutz is a community traditionally based on agriculture where people live and work voluntarily.

I spent most of the time in the laundry, but the last few

days we're working in the avocado fields, and I absolutely loved it. It

wasn't harvest time, but we started work at four in the morning. Simon

will probably be shocked, but I actually did get myself up on time every

single day, and all the work we did was towards the end goal of

getting the best possible crop. All the preparation was with the harvest in mind.

As Christine Kane says in her book Unstoppable, this earth is not our

home. Never lose sight of the truth that we are pilgrims on a journey

to our eternal home, and we are to invest our brief time on this

earth in something far bigger than ourselves, something that matters for all eternity.

Knowing this helps us to hold more loosely to the comforts of this earth and

to reach ever forward to grasp the things of God. Willing to say over

and over. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done, like

Jesus did in the Garden of Gathsemine before the crucifixion. Alongside this, it's

also important to look after ourselves. The two aren't mutually exclusive, or Jesus

wouldn't have said what he did in Matthew twenty two, which I'm coming too

shortly. It's something I know I've spoken about before, but although we may

know about it, I wonder how good we are at doing it. It's

one thing to know something, it's quite another to apply it. Hence why

I'm briefly mentioning this again so we can do another self check on how we're

doing. Jesus said in Matthew twenty two, verses thirty seven to thirty nine.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your

soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment,

and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All

of it's important, of course, but I'm just going to focus on that

last bit today. Being aware of your own needs and attending to them is

not necessarily self centered. It can be, of course, but it doesn't

have to be. We need balance. Excuse me, There's only one savior

and it's not you or me. A recent daytime Bible study was based on

doctor Henry Cloud's teaching which touched on boundaries. He's a clinical psychologist and he's

written a book called Boundaries, which one councilor told me is a classic on

the subject. This is a huge topic which I'm not going to deep dive

into today, but is clearly relevant when we consider what it means to do

as Jesus said and love ourselves and others in a healthy, balanced way.

I had a brief chat with two professional therapists recently on separate occasions. One

said something about the importance of boundaries in relationships and recognizing what is ours to

do and what is not. The other talked about the importance of doing something

to replenish ourselves when we're giving out to people to recharge our batteries, so

to speak. How we do that will look different for different people. We're

individuals. The important thing is that we do it. In one Bible study

session, doctor Cloud touched on immersiveness and connectiveness as a means of refueling our

souls, of replenishing ourselves. Immersiveness is spending time doing something that really absorbs

us in a really positive way. We don't notice the time passing. We

were recently blessed to go to the Abba Museum in Stockholm. I immersed myself

in it, Simon did not Connectiveness is about our support network. It's worth

considering what ours look like and what needs what changes, if any, we

need to make. It may be beyond our power to make them, but

not beyond God's. What I mean is it may be a point for prayer

rather than something that we can fix ourselves by adjusting how we spend our time.

God man a sabbath, a day off work that's dedicated to him every

week for a reason that may seem unreasonable given the commitments and demands on time

that some people have. But God gave us this instruction, the fourth commandment

out of ten, for a reason. He loves us, and he knows

what we need because he made us. We may need to ask him for

wisdom on how to obey it. Though with respect to refueling our souls and

replenishing ourselves, as well as our preparation for harvest time, we cannot underestimate

the importance of time spent in prayer. Jesus constantly gave of himself during his

ministry. When people touched him, power went out of him. That's why

he got tired. He was God, never stopped being God, but lived

on earth as a man. So he got tired. So he took time

each day early in the morning to get away from people and be alone with

God so he could be renewed and refreshed. If Jesus needed it, we

certainly did. As it says in Mark one thirty five, very early in

the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the

house and went off to a solitude place where he prayed. Oswald Chambers in

Christian Discipline says the real reason for prayer is intimacy with our Father. We

pray as an integral part of our relationship with God, which then guides our

steps consciously or not. Brother Andrew is honest and says, with all his

speaking and writing and traveling, he didn't always give himself enough time alone with

God. And in his word, I think that's something we can probably all

relate to. We get drained if we don't have what's often called a quiet

time, that quality time that we set aside ideally daily to spend with the

Lord, just to be with him in worship, reading the Word in prayer.

However, the Holy Spirit leads us how long we spend doing this depends

on what season of life we're in, what's practical, and obviously that can

vary from day to day. What matters is that we do it. My

second main point in preparing for harvest time is to consider God's dreams for us.

Let's reflect upon Joseph's story in Genesis, starting at chapter thirty seven,

which i'll summarize. The family dynamics are not great. Joseph tells on his

older stepbrothers to his dad, Jacob, and Joseph is his dad's favorite.

This Jacob makes it obvious by giving him this special robe, and his brothers

hated him for it and were mean to him. Joseph then had a dream

about reigning over his brothers and told them, which was hardly wise. They

hated him even more for it. This hardly seems the most suspicious start to

Joseph fulfilling God's dreams. To put it that way, his plans and purposes.

God's dream or plan was not all about Joseph, despite the role he

was going to play in it. It was part of a bigger picture.

Joseph endured his brother's bullying and then betraying betrayal as he was sold, sold

into slavery and taken abroad to serve as a domestic slavery in Egypt. There,

he was falsely accused by his master's wife and thrown into jail. As

Joseph remained faithful to the Lord regardless of circumstances, there's a challenge all the

time. His character was being built to sustain him in the role he was

to take as Prime Minister of Egypt. It would have been his undoing to

become a leader with such power and influence. Otherwise, if you consider the

arrogance he displayed towards his brothers and lack of wisdom and loose tongue. Sharing

his dreams of greatness and yet in God's great plan to save Egypt during a

famine, was also woven in Joseph's personal development and restoration. For them as

a family, we matter, people matter to God. What was Joseph's training

for his job as prime minister. He was a shepherd before he was sold,

so little by way of obvious transferable skills training was in character building through

the hard times, and learning dependency on God in all situations. And God

gave him favor and prospered him so that all that he did succeeded. As

Joseph said to his brothers in Genesis fifty, verse twenty, you intended to

harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now

being done, the saving of many lives. This is something that brother Andrew

echoes when he says, God uses all the events and experiences of our lives

to prepare us for the kind of service to which he's calling us. Whether

our past was happy or sad, godly or sordid, God is building on

that experience to make us into effective servants for him. When I was growing

up, I never would have dreamed that my experiences would be preparing me for

the work that I have now. This is him still talking. As the

Second World War progressed and as our electricity and food were cut off, I

learned to live on next to nothing. At one point, the only food

my parents had to give us was a handful of tulip bulbs, which we

cut into small slices to make them last for several days. Looking back,

I see how God used every one of these events to prepare me for His

service. The dire conditions we lived in we lived under. Joining the war

helped me to identify with the hardships many Christian families face in repressive countries.

And there are many more ways God prepared me. It's important that we do

not despise our own life's experiences. We can look at them and know that

God will use them all for his service. So to close, as we

think about the important of our obedience in our day to day lives, in

being ready for harvest to fulfill God's plans and purposes purposes using all our experiences

in life, we can also anchor ourselves in Romans eight twenty eight. And

I'm reading from the New American Standard Bible. That's Roman's eight twenty eight.

And we know that God callses all things to work together for good to those

who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Thank you,