It's Ripe out there
Notes
Transcript
The Harvest
The Harvest
Late in December 1996, a large family gathered for a joyous Christmas. There were so many gathered that night, five of the children slept in the converted garage, kept warm during the night by an electric heater placed near the door.During the early hours of the morning, the heater suddenly burst into flames, blocking the doorway. In seconds the room became a blazing inferno. The frantic 911 call revealed the unspeakable terror as one of the children could be heard screaming, “I’m on fire!” The distraught father rushed into the flames to try to save his beloved children, receiving burns to 50% of his body. Tragically, all five children burned to death. They died because steel bars on the windows thwarted their escape. There was only one door, and it was blocked by the flames.Imagine you’re back in time, just minutes before the heater burst into flames. You peer through the darkness at the peaceful sight of five sleeping youngsters, knowing that at any moment the room will erupt into an inferno and burn the flesh of horrified children. Can you in good conscience walk away? No! You must awaken them and warn them to run from that death trap!The world sleeps peacefully in the darkness of ignorance. There is only one Door by which they may escape death. The steel bars of sin prevent their salvation, and at the same time call for the flames of Eternal Justice. What a fearful thing Judgment Day will be! The fires of the wrath of Almighty God will burn for eternity. The Church has been entrusted with the task of awakening them before it’s too late. We cannot turn our backs and walk away in complacency. Think of how the father ran into the flames. His love knew no bounds. Our devotion to the sober task God has given us will be in direct proportion to our love for the lost. There are only a few who run headlong into the flames to warn them to flee (Luke 10:2). Please be one of them. We really have no choice. The apostle Paul said, “Woe is to me, if I preach not the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16).The “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, said, “We need to be ashamed at the bare suspicion of unconcern.” A Christian cannot be apathetic about the salvation of the world. The love of God in him will motivate him to seek and save that which is lost.
Why do you exist? Why are you here? Is it to serve yourself? make you happy?
Fill your account with as much as you can while others struggle? What is Church here for? Why do we gather? Is it to sing? Listen? Friendship, Fun?
The truth is Christians should love one another, The Bible tells us this in 1 John 4:16
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
There are more, so if God is our Father, the Holy Spirit is in us & Jesus is our brother & our example of how to live we should live in community & should serve one another. But the Church exists in large, part if not primarily to introduce people who don’t know Jesus to Jesus.
I know we live in strange times, changing times & Christians have questions.
Are people ready for me to tell them about Jesus? 2 Timothy 4:2
preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
Preach the word In & out of season means, favourable & unfavourable circumstances, that means always be full of the Spirit, let Jesus shine through you.
but yet you would tell them about a good restaurant or shop that you know is good. Can i invite them to church? YES.
Will they think i’m strange if i ask them? They probably already think your strange so just ask, there not going to think your any stranger. Maybe they think your strange because you haven’t asked.
OK so today Luke 10:1-16
Firstly: The harvest is plentiful, 7.8 billion people in this world. 67,497,907 people in the UK. 69,366 people live in the borough of Boston & people need & want something better, a better way to live & we the church have the answer, Jesus & yet we do not shout it out from the rooftops, in fact we whisper His name, sometimes embarassed to even do that unless it’s to other Christians. Let me back into church where i can be safe.
We are include in this when Jesus says pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers. That’s us, we are part of the workforce. Church it’s time to step up & be who you have been created to be. Take your focus of yourself & place it on Jesus. What has He called you too. not talking about the soup van or pantry, youth, the welcome team. It’s about being a harvester, telling people about Jesus whether that is in word or deed & lets not be wierd about it though, just be natural, God is the supernatural one, He calls us to be natural in the way we tell people, you don’t have to be all oohs & aahs. God says this, shaking your hands. You play your part in just telling your story, don’t go to deep, it’s not your job to prove Christ with your words, our job is to point to Him, just tell them what Jesus has done in you, for you & through you.
jesus here is asking us to pray earnestly for people to become labourers.
jesus sends out the 72 disciples ahead of Him, they are to go like Spiritual commando’s on a mission- urgently, with simple equipment & a powerful message. Time is short- like the opportunity to harvest when the crop is right & the weather is fine. This is when all hands are needed for the work. The time is now, the time is right for the gospel to be preached.
We are in urgent times & all of us need to step up to the plate.
Maybe you have tried it before & it didn’t go well. people reacted badly to you, listen & understand, Jeaus sent out His disciples in two’s. “But i’m not always with someone when the chance to tell someone about Jesus arises”.
Then have a prayer partner or partners, accountability partners or group, drop a quick text, get them praying, don’t wait for a response you might not get one, they might be praying for you.
prepare yourself be ready 1 Peter 3:15
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
Scripture isn’t only here for us to read & say thanks Go, we are to digest, to let it wash over us & through us so that it touches every part of our lives to make us more like Jesus so that people see Jesus in us & want what we have got so that this world is changed, people move from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light.
Some will say but when is the right time? 2 timothy 4:1-5
It’s the wrong question to ask because that question makes this about our convenience, our failings, about us when it’s all about His Kingdom & unless we be harvesters people are going to Hell.
This is the time, this is the season, it’s always the season, the harvest is ripe.
Let me end with a story
It is important to realize that we should share our faith with others whenever we can. The Bible says that there are only two times we should do this: “in season, and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2). The apostle Paul pleaded for prayer for his own personal witness. He said, “[Pray] for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak” (Ephesians 6:19, 20).Remember that you have the sobering responsibility of speaking to other peoples’ loved ones. Perhaps another Christian has prayed earnestly that God would use a faithful witness to speak to his beloved mom or dad, and you are the answer to that prayer. You are the true and faithful witness God wants to use.
Keep the fate of the ungodly before your eyes. Too many of us settle down on a padded pew and become introverted. Our world becomes a monastery without walls. Our friends are confined solely to those within the Church, when Jesus was the “friend of sinners.” So take the time to deliberately befriend the lost for the sake of their salvation. Remember that each and every person who dies in his sins has an appointment with the Judge of the Universe. Hell opens wide its terrible jaws. There is no more sobering task than to be entrusted with the gospel of salvation—working with God for the eternal well-being of dying humanity.