So Jesus sends His disciples out to the mission field. Luke 10:2 tells us that ‘He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’
You know people this gospel truth remains, nothing has changed. The harvest is plentiful still but the workers are few.
I believe fundamentally that the Church needs to grasp this truth & start to reorder itself so that we actually get out there into the field instead of wondering why the harvest doesn’t walk through our doors into worship.
You see I think that many inside Church have the wrong view of the work of the kingdom. We think that it is the Minister who is the primary worker & the rest of the folks are the supporters & encouragers. That is all wrong.
Everyone who has been born again or claims to be a disciple of Christ is called to this – being out at work in the harvest field.
This is the absolute priority calling for us as Church. Paul challenges the Corinthians to recognise that this gospel we know so well needs to be shared. He says to the church at Corinth & by the power of the Spirit to us that we have a first duty which is ‘to be faithful to the one we work for’.
Yet so much of our time is spent pursuing our own priorities, instead of being the answer to the prayer that the Lord called us to make – namely that the Lord of the harvest send workers. We enjoy ruling our own lives & on occasion the lives of others too, but this is not God’s way.
The Message renders Psalm 131:1 is this way - ‘GOD, I’m not trying to rule the roost; I don’t want to be king of the mountain. I haven’t meddled where I have no business or fantasized grandiose plans.’
I wonder could we honestly say that about us.
No because there is a tendency in most human beings to try to get our own way. We do quite like to rule the roost & stand as king over our own castle & plans, & even over others. We do in Church as in the world meddle in things that really don’t concern us & develop our own plans & build our own empires.
It is time folks for God to call us back to His own priority. We are called to mission. We are called to the mission of sharing faith, of being in the world – its time we got out there & did it.
The problems is we have to actually be prepared to go where the equivalent of the tax collectors & sinners of Jesus’ generation were. We have to start working & socialising in the secular world or else how will they ever hear the message & have chance to meet Jesus?
My wife works in a very secular environment – something I know that has caused a few ripples of I have no idea what for some people, maybe even you, but that is exactly the place we need to see Christian’s working. For too long we have hidden ourselves away far from the places where the harvest fields are.
It is time that we got out into the pubs & clubs, the football clubs, the market places, the spaces where people meet up. Jesus, Paul & the early Church did exactly this & they weren’t afraid of doing it, why are we?
Paul I am sure faced the gossip of the religious types who with their own wisdom thought he should be in safer more morally & politically correct places. But he did the right thing.
It is time we risked being in the field & got out of our comfort zones.
Salt is only of use when it is flavouring & preserving. A light isn’t hidden under a bushel for then it would illuminate nothing. Yeast in a packet safely stored with other packets of yeast in a cupboard will never ever raise anything.
Do you get the picture? It is time to get into the field & get our hands dirty for our God.
This is our calling. I pray we might have the courage to embrace it. The fields are after all white unto harvest, but oh the workers are so few.
We can be part of the answer – I wonder will we?
