The Harvest | Ps. Keith Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Hey church, Keith here.

I want to thank you so much for creating the space and being with us today.

If you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to join me in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter number nine.

While you're turning there, I want to give you a little bit of context as to how we got there and where we're going from here.

Over the past several weeks, we've been in our amazing series called Flourishing.

And if you missed any of it, I truly want to encourage you to go back and check it out.

Because here's why.

We got to get the seeds.

We got to plant.

We got to put it in place.

We got to water.

We got to position it near light.

There's a lot of things we got to do in order to see the flourishing take place and making sure that we have deep roots.

So over the past couple of weeks, we've been identifying and zeroing in on some different areas so that we can really begin to recognize the part that we play with ensuring that we flourish.

Last week, Pastor Lindsay preached an incredible message about seasons and sports specifically about the importance of the winter season.

None of us really like the idea of winter.

You know, winter's coming.

But but the things that are happening in nature when winter comes is actually to prepare it for that season when it's time to flourish, and the same can be said of us.

If you missed it, I want to encourage you to go back and check it out.

But sitting here looking at the gospel of Matthew, chapter number nine, I want to continue this conversation by looking at a different perspective.

The Bible says this.

It says that Jesus continued going around in all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness.

When the he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few.

Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.

Today I want to talk to us for a couple of minutes about what I consider to be an important part, that moment when we begin to see the results.

That moment when all the work that we've been seeing and all the work we've been doing begins to produce results, and what is our response to it?

I'm talking about the harvest, that moment where we begin to see everything beginning to get traction.

We're getting results, and as scripture says, we can begin to eat the good of the land.

But what is required of us when the harvest comes in?

I want you to write this down.

We're going to be talking about the harvest.

Let's pray and let's lean in and see what it is that God wants to speak to us today.

Lord, we thank you so much for an opportunity to come into your presence to gather and to honor you.

So, Lord, we just pray over the next few moments, these brief moments, that you give us open eyes to see you, open ears to hear you, open hearts to receive what you have for us.

Holy Spirit, you're welcome.

Speak to us, transform us, do what only you can do.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Now, I realize that I'm talking to our online family, and many of us are out serving in the community right now, but as we're engaging this, maybe at different points, I do want to ask a rhetorical question.

You don't need to respond, but I want us to respond in our minds and just think about it for a second.

How many of us enjoy shopping?

Okay, we're gonna pause there, and of course, some people are gonna be like, oh, I love shopping, and and others, kind of like myself, it depends on the context of the shopping, depending on what we're doing, that will determine whether or not I enjoy shopping.

So let me zero in a little bit more specifically.

I I love shopping in the grocery store when I'm by myself because I have a strategy.

There's a plan to it.

I make sure that I hit the aisles and I don't have to go back to those aisles.

I'm looking at you, Megan Pittman.

Some of us have strategies when we go out and we go shopping.

But but let's dig a little bit deeper.

How many of us love to go house shopping?

Now, now here's why I say that.

Because I love to go out and look at new homes.

Megan and I, we love it.

It's it's like one of our past times when we're driving through a neighborhood and we are appreciating the environment.

We'll often pull out our realtor app and just get a sense of, man, I wonder how much homes are here.

I wonder what the vibe is here.

And we're not necessarily looking, but we love to be inspired.

And even those moments when there's a new neighborhood that's on the horizon, we love to actually go in and look at the model home and we begin to envision this idea of us possibly living in an environment or in a home similar to this.

It kind of helps to keep the vision fresh and maybe, just maybe it could be something that God has for us.

And if that's the case, then we begin to do the work so that we can move in.

This is something that we're all familiar with.

Reason why I bring this up because I still remember that moment when Megan and I was moving from Washington, D.C.

to come here to Orlando, and we were so excited to begin that journey of looking at different homes to try to find the house that we were going to occupy.

As we visited different homes, we're imagining and envisioning what it would look like for our family to begin to grow and live there.

We're envisioning where our granddaughters would be posted up.

We're envisioning where my son would be, where my daughter would be, envisioning having people over, like this moment of being excited about it.

And when we found that home, we were dot well or we were dialed in.

This is the house.

This is going to be the house that we're going to grow, this is the house we're going to flourish in.

This is going to be the home that we are going to set up and live our lives in.

It was an amazing moment.

But then after we had this excitement, we made the decision, we had to fly back up to Washington, D.C., and the work truly began.

This is when we had to go back and begin to look and see what items from our home that we were living in in D.C.

wasn't going to make the trip.

That's right, we had to prune some things.

Come on, somebody.

We had to, we had to begin to imagine what are we going to organize, what are we going to bring with us?

What are the things we're going to sell?

What are the things we're going to let go?

That even though we were excited about where we were going and we had this home that we were looking forward to occupying, we knew that it was going to take a lot of work in order for us to get there.

We were excited that we got the home, but we also knew we had work to do.

Oddly enough, I think that's how it is with anything in our lives, that we can be excited about all the work that we put into something.

But in most cases, when we actually get it, that doesn't mean that we put our guard down.

That doesn't mean that we stop working.

In fact, all the hard work leads up to another season of work.

It leads up to another season of effort.

It leads up to more energy that needs to be expended.

We have so many people that are in our church that are that are in a single season.

And I always tell our singles, man, enjoy your season.

Enjoy your singleness.

Because once you get married, presumably you'll never be single again.

So enjoy this season that you have.

But watch this.

Once you do get married, you still have work to do.

We are in the process of preparing for the birth of our third grandchild.

And we're so excited watching Keith Jr.

and Katrina and the family get excited about this new arrival coming, Trey.

KP3 is coming into the family, and we're excited about it.

But you know what?

All that preparation, all that expectation, even when he arrives, it's still going to require us to all do work.

There's still going to have to be continuous pampers that are needed to be purchased, all the things that go alongside of it.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is, even after we do the work and get what we are looking for, there's still work to be done.

This is exactly what we're talking about in the context of the harvest.

That after all of the work, that after all the planting, after all the watering, after all the sunlight, doing all the effort in order for it to produce a crop, that now that it has arrived, there's still work that needs to be done.

Jesus is with his disciples, and as he's going about doing ministry, and at this point, he's built up some momentum.

People know his name, they see the impact that he's having.

And so now the crowds are beginning to come, and as they're pressing in, he's recognizing what's happening, and he begins to use this as an opportunity to teach a profound agricultural lesson about what it really means when you have a harvest.

Jesus is talking with his disciples and he makes this observation.

Scripture says that he sees them and he's moved with compassion because he sees that they are distressed.

He sees that they are deflated, and he feels compelled to do something about it.

I want you to hear me for a moment that as Jesus is out performing miracles and doing the work of the ministry, that he sees the crowd, and what he observes from them is that they feel defeated.

They feel deflated.

They feel like they have nothing else to give.

But the beautiful thing is that Jesus sees them.

I want to pause here for a moment.

And I don't know who I'm encouraging right now because maybe those are adjectives that describe how you feel right now.

Maybe you feel a little bit distressed.

Maybe you feel a little bit defeated.

Maybe you feel a little bit deflated and you are wondering if you have anything left to give.

But I want to encourage you right now that Jesus sees you.

I want you to sit on that for a moment.

That no matter what you're walking through, no matter what you're sitting in, no matter what your challenges are right now, that Jesus sees you.

And not only does he see you, but he's compelled to act.

That's what compassion means.

That means moved at your core.

Jesus sees what is going on and he's moved at his core.

He feels compelled to act on it.

He's not content with just watching suffering and leaving it as it is.

I believe that that's a challenge for every single one of us that if we're truly going to be followers of God, that we should not be able to see brokenness and people who were suffering and feel indifferent about it.

We honestly don't even have their permission to.

Jesus was moved with compassion whenever he's seen that people were hurting and suffering.

And what Scripture tells us is as he sees them, he begins to narrate why he's filled with so much distress.

He feels that way because he says that they are like sheep without a shepherd.

Now, if we don't understand the nuances of that, we may not understand the significance of this statement that Jesus just made.

But when he says that they are sheep without a shepherd, what he understands is that they are completely vulnerable.

They have no covering.

To put it simply, when we look at sheep and we understand the nature of sheep, here's what we can see.

Sheep are directionless, they are defenseless, and these aren't my words, these are in scripture.

They are defined as being dumb.

Okay, so so think about this.

I often think about this video that I've seen where there was a sheep that was kind of caught between a crack, and you see this shepherd working hard to get the sheep out of it, and as soon as the sheep gets out of it, he runs and he jumps right back into it.

And a lot of my pastor friends like, oh, that sounds like pastor, and like you try to help people get out of something and they jump right back into it.

But oddly enough, that sounds a little bit like me at times as well.

Where I can get myself into situations, and by the grace of God, I get out of those situations, and yet I find myself right back in those situations again.

That's that's the nature of sheep.

And what Jesus is saying is that even with a shepherd, sheep have the potential of finding themselves in the same spot over and over again.

So when a sheep doesn't have shepherd, when they don't have a shepherd, that's dangerous.

Because now they don't have any direction, which means they can just wander off of a clip.

They don't have any defense, which means that they're vulnerable to attacks from their enemy, that they don't even have any correction because another assignment of the shepherd was to correct them when they strayed too far.

In other words, they don't have any boundaries.

That Jesus was moved with compassion because he was concerned that people were living their lives without boundaries.

He was concerned that people were living their lives without any defense from the enemy, that people were living their lives without having any sense of stability or strength or direction for their lives.

That was the thing that compelled Jesus the most.

It sounds like people who are lost and wandering.

Jesus sees this and he's moved with compassion.

So he then turns to his disciples and says, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Let's pray to the Lord of the harvest.

I want you to hear this really clear that in the kingdom of God, the harvest is always people.

That you and I, when we have our varying things that we look at, we look at the harvest a lot differently than the way that Jesus does.

But in the kingdom of God, the harvest is people.

And this is the first time that we're beginning to recognize God's true heart and his compassion and burden for people.

In the agricultural context, here's what the harvest was.

It was that time of year, typically around three times a year in the in the Israelite context, where they would anticipate when the crops would come.

And when the crops would come, they would go out, they would recognize it, and here's what they would do: they would take the first portion of those crops and they would give it to God.

Because they truly believed that any time that a crop comes through, that that is evidence of God's blessing on their lives.

And so they would take that crop and then go and present it to God in faith with an expectation that more crops were to follow.

I want to take a quick moment, if you'll allow me, just to talk about the importance of what first fruits really means.

I know if you're a part of a church, maybe you've heard about this idea of tithes, maybe you heard about this idea of offerings, that what we give is sacred.

But this is all connected to the agricultural context.

That whenever the crop would come in, that people by faith recognized that God was faithful in providing what they needed, and they would honor him by presenting the first that he gave them back to him.

It was his way of ens their way of ensuring that they prioritize God and put him first.

But then in addition to that, God also instructed them to make sure of all the crops that you have that you leave some for the sojourners and that you leave them some for those who are underprivileged.

It's almost as if God had built in a system inside of the kingdom that ensured that we honored him, that we took care of people, but we also had more than enough for ourselves.

I often wonder to myself, if we could just follow God's plan, it could eradicate so much suffering and pain in the world that we can honor God, we can love his people, and we can have more than enough for ourselves.

But somehow we've lost that.

That's why when we talk about the importance of putting God first, even in our resources, it's not just for us, it's not just for God, but it's for others as well.

It's the way that God has set the whole thing up.

So now you have people that are taking their resources, they're trusting God with the first portion of it, and then they're saving some for others, and then they're being found to be faithful.

And what the Bible says is that they are blessed as a result of them putting God first.

This is what we talk about every single week, with making sure that we understand the value of prioritizing God with that first portion and putting him first.

That's the harvest.

So for me and you, what that means is every time we get paid, that's our harvest, and it's a reflection of our hard work.

We're able to then take those resources, honor God with a portion of it, save some to be generous to other people, and then God blesses what remains.

And what we see in God's ecosystem is that 90% with God's blessing goes further than 100% without.

So now we back out and we begin to understand the significance of this harvest, and then Jesus begins to use this language that harvest is people.

We got work to do.

He said, pray for the Lord of the harvest to send more people because we have work to do.

You know, I think as we look out into society, as we look out into our community, that we can see so many people that fit that description that Jesus had compassion for.

People who are distressed, people who do feel downtrodden, people who do feel isolated, rejected, alone.

And those are the very people that Jesus views as the harvest.

And in that moment, we have a responsibility, we have a response.

We should care about the things in the people that Jesus cares about.

And it's an opportunity for us to posture ourselves in the same way that Christ did by saying, if God loves them, then so will I.

We got work to do.

Right now, our community is out, our church is out right now in a community serving those that may fit into that description because we recognize that there is work to do.

I still vividly remember the moment when Megan and I, in fact, our whole family, made the decision to begin to serve in our local church.

And it was really progressive.

It started with me serving as an usher, and then I evolved into doing some outreach, and that evolved into me getting involved in youth ministry, that evolved into me getting into men's ministry, and then eventually marriage ministry, and that's just me.

That's not inclusive of the things that God did with Megan and Daniera and Keith Jr.

and even Caleb.

We we've seen God do some amazing things, but what I found in all of this is that I prioritized God as I made time as I served, I began to recognize that I was being strengthened through it.

I I recognized that I was being activated in my calling as a result of me laying down my life, so to speak, and beginning to serve others.

What I've grown to understand is what that proverb says is that God refreshes those who refresh others.

And I began to experience that refreshing, and I believe the same can be said of us.

That as we begin to position ourselves to make a difference in the community, that we understand that there's work to do.

That every time we look out into our community and we see that people are dealing with depression, there's work to do.

There's a harvest for us to get involved in.

That every time we look out and recognize that the data is telling us that more and more students and young adults are falling away from the faith, that we can look at that as an opportunity for us to say, man, there's a harvest right there, there's work for us to do.

Our local church provides opportunities for us to be people that are serving in our community, that are serving in our church, because here's what I know: God will send us what we can care for.

And so every time I see that there are people that are looking for a church home, I'm often asking myself, are we doing our part to make sure that we're in a position to receive what God sends?

We got work to do.

Maybe as you're sitting home right now, you're waiting for that moment where God is inviting you to get involved.

This is that moment.

We got work to do.

There's a harvest that God is sending our way, and your involvement, your participation goes a long way.

You know, the data supports as it relates to church world, it tells us that about 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

And I want you to think about that for a moment.

That 20% of the people carry the weight of the 80%.

And here's what that means: that 20% of the people are the ones who give, that 20% of the people are the ones who serve.

And that is actually what allows the church to continue to thrive and exist.

But I often ask myself, what would it look like if 100% of people were involved?

What would it look like if 100% of the people gave?

What would it look like if 100% of the people served?

Prior to me getting involved into full-time ministry, I used to work in the school system.

And there's a phrase that's in the school system called the achievement gap.

And what the achievement gap is, it's the difference in success with the varying schools depending on a myriad of challenges and things along those lines.

And time wouldn't permit me to get into the systemic issues and the success rates and the challenges that exist in varying communities.

But what I will tell you is that the data shows that wherever there is a school that has a high percentage of engagement from parents, teachers, and the community, that those schools tend to have a more narrow achievement gap.

In other words, the kids there seem to thrive even more.

Why?

Because everyone is involved.

Everyone is engaged.

I often think when we see a community, when we see a church, that people are suffering, that people are struggling, that people are distressed, what would it look like if we could get our percentage up, so to speak, of us all playing our part, getting involved, serving, giving, doing our part, being that 100%, that's when we begin to see revival.

That's when we begin to see life transformation takes place.

That is the work that God is inviting us to be a part of.

What if I were to tell you that you are an answer to prayers?

Because every week we pray, Lord, send us laborers because the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

What if you, yes, you are an answer to that prayer, and all you have to do is play your part by getting involved and literally being the hands and feet of Jesus?

That could be serving in an outreach, that could be going on a mission strip, that could be serving in our kids' team, that could be serving in our youth team, that could be serving with guest services, taking the gifts, taking your time and positioning yourself to make a difference in your community.

When I begin to sense and see our community do that, that's when I believe we're going to begin to experience revival at a level that we've never seen before.

That is our challenge, that is our encouragement.

And maybe you're listening to me right now, and maybe this link was sent to you, and maybe you're part of that harvest.

Maybe you're the one that's away from God, but you know that it's time for you to return home.

I want to let you know that this is your moment.

Scripture refers to that this is the moment of salvation, that Jesus died on the cross just for you to bring you in, and now you're able to be a part of a family, a community that wants to come alongside to serve you, and we celebrate that with you.

If that's you, I want to lead you in a simple prayer, welcoming you, inviting you, and leading you into this life-giving community that I believe is going to transform everything in your life.

If you're ready to make that commitment, you're ready to make that surrender, I want you to pray this prayer with me.

Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins.

I believe that you died on the cross and that you rose from the dead, and I believe that I am saved.

Fill me with your spirit and order my steps.

We believe that if you prayed that from your heart, that you are now you are now a part of the community of faith.

And maybe there's some nuances that you don't understand, but this is where the journey begins, where we come alongside to help you and to equip you.

As for the rest of us, maybe we're beginning to process and pray.

Where is it that I'm supposed to get involved?

What am I supposed to put my hands to?

What work does God have for me in this season of harvest?

As we look out into community, I truly believe.

That we're just getting started.

We've been laboring, we've been planning, we've been toiling, but the harvest is coming.

And I prophetically also believe in the same work that we're doing in our community, in our family, is the same thing that we're going to see in our lives.

Maybe a harvest is about to come to your life, but maybe it's activated by your obedience in the place that God has planted you.

I want to bring you back to our foundational scripture for this series.

Those who are planted in the house of the Lord will flourish in the courts of the God Almighty.

If you're planted in the right place, then you will flourish in the right place.

God bless you.

I love you, and I can't wait to worship with you next week.

Thanks again for listening.

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