Why do Christians celebrate Harvest?
The simple answer is, it is an opportunity for us to thank God for everything He has blessed us with.
In Old Testament times there were three major festivals where the Jewish people took the opportunity to thank God for blessing them.
The first festival was the Feast of Passover. It was usually held in April each year – at the beginning of the harvest.
It was at this festival that God’s people recalled how God had been their Saviour by miraculously leading them out of slavery in Egypt.
It is no coincidence that it was at the time of celebration of the Feast of Passover that Jesus was crucified in AD 29.
Through His death, Jesus provided the only way of salvation for all who would trust in Him as their personal Saviour and Lord.
It’s only because of Jesus sacrifice that we have been set free from the punishment we deserved.
In His death, Jesus suffered in our place, He paid the price for our sins past, present and future.
Because of Jesus perfect sacrifice the punishment for our sins has passed over us to Him and we become forgiven sons and daughters of God. -----
The second festival was the Feast of Weeks or Harvest, where the Jews gave thanks to God for their crop. This festival occurred at the end of the barley harvest.
It was also known as Pentecost because it was timed to be 50 days after Passover.
Chapter 2 of the book of records that it was at Pentecost when the power of the Holy Spirit was released on the disciples.
And they were then able to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.
And as the result of one sermon 3000 people became Christians.
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The third festival was the Feast of Tabernacles, which occurred after the grape and grain harvest was over.
It was at that festival that the Jews would camp out for a week in tents - recalling the temporary dwellings they had after the exodus from Egypt.
All three of these festivals reminded the people of God’s blessings on them - Physical blessings and spiritual blessings.
And the festivals reminded the people that God is a faithful God who would continue to bless the people year, after year, after year. ------
I have never been a farmer, or much of a gardener but I understand that to harvest a good crop it requires a lot of preparation, care and patience.
Preparation in that the ground must be prepared and the seed properly sown.
Care in that, the seed must be watered and nurtured by the light.
Patience because crops do not grow overnight.
Maybe today you are not waiting for wheat to grow in your field, but I would guess that you are hoping for a harvest of some kind.
Different people have different ideas about harvests
Let me ask you a question:What is your Harvest?
What is the harvest you are waiting for?
What is the Harvest that you want to celebrate?
Is your harvest about finances?
To have a certain amount of money.
Is your Harvest a dream of a bigger home?
For some a harvest would be simply a roof over their head and sufficient food on the table.
Would your harvest be a new Sports car?
Or a dream holiday
What about the church, what does harvest mean and look like for us as the church?
Simply put, Harvest represents the harvest of souls for the Kingdom of God.
This morning I want us to consider three specific principles about harvest, three things we need to know and understand.
1. Harvest Is A Consequence
2. Harvest Is A Process
3. Harvest Is A Season
The first principle we need to understand is HARVEST IS A CONSEQUENCE - We will always reap what we sow Galatians 6:7-10 says
7 Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. 8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith. Galatians 6:7-10 (New Living Translation)
The harvest is the consequence of what you sow. When you sow wheat seeds your with reap a wheat harvest.
Sow to satisfy sinful desires and you will harvest the consequences of decay and death.
Sow to please God and the consequences will be eternal life and daily blessings.
In 2 Corinthians 9:6-7 The Apostle Paul wrote Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
The result of understanding your harvest is a consequence is that we need to know the quality and quantity of the seed we sow for the harvest we are looking for.
Let’s consider a very practical area of life.
Proverbs 18:24 in the Message is translated like this “Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family”
To have friends in this life you need to be friendly yourself.
If you want to have a harvest of friends you need to sow seeds of friendship.
Over the years I have met a number of people who say they have no friends.
When I ask about their life, they are often people who don’t seek or start conversation,
and if they do it’s often negative in nature.
They don’t invite people to their home, they stay separate in a crowd.
Maybe not all seeds of friendship will germinate
but if no seeds are ever sown then there can never be anything to harvest.
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The most common seeds we sow every day are the ‘words’ we speak.
Every word spoken is like a seed.
Do you ever ask yourself, what kind of word seeds am I sowing?
Are my words a blessing to others?
Does my speech bring glory to God?
How often do I speak to others about the love of God?
How often do I share the truth of Jesus and the free gift of salvation offered to all?
How often do I speak when I should be silent? and How often am I silent when I should speak?
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In Genesis 8:22 it says “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest ….Shall not cease.”
God has established the principle of seedtime and harvest into the fabric of His creation.
Harvest is not just a farming principle, it a law of life and if we ignore it or disobey it then we can not expect to reap the benefits of it.
Don’t be misled. We can’t ignore God and get away with it.
Friends what is the harvest you that are looking for.
You need to plant the quality and quantity of seed that is in line with the harvest you are expecting.
There are so many possible harvest blessings,
work and career opportunities,
healing and wholeness,
new relationships,
joy, peace, love,
so many possible harvest blessings that God has available for you to reap but first seeds must be sown to begin to generate those possibilities.
SO 1st principle HARVEST IS A CONSEQUENCE - We will always reap what we sow
2nd principle HARVEST IS A PROCESS - So don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up….
Yours harvest will happen but it will take time.
We live in an instant society, instant coffee, microwave meals, non-iron shirts.
People have forgotten that some things must take time.
Unfortunately because people don’t understand this, if it comes to a time when they need to reap there is nothing available so they quickly sow some seed hoping that by some ‘miracle’ it will grow overnight.
Now God does still performs miracles,
but the key thing for us to understand is that the Lord wants us to learn how to live in blessing daily, not in need of a daily miracle to get us through.
The words of Jesus recorded in Mark 4:26-29 are, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come.”
Blessings come through understanding our harvest.
Harvest is not a single event it is a process.
Our life and spiritual growth happens through a process not one single event.
Your life is not defined by one event but a process - opportunities, choices, problems, and victories.
“All things work together …..”
What we so often see as the event is in actuality one of two things -
- the beginning of the process or
- the end of the process
Understanding that your harvest is a consequence means you need to determine your seed.
Understanding that your harvest is a process means you need to make preparation.
Note these words in Mark 4 said Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake -
Once the farmer had sown the seed he went on with his other activities’
In between sowing and reaping farmers have other things to do.
To think that in between they have nothing to do is wrong.
Many people go to church on a Sunday - and think that they don’t need to do anything else about God or for God until the following Sunday. Wrong.
In between they do nothing. That’s wrong.
While the seed is going through the process of transformation so must we.
“The seed you sow is not the same gain you reap.”
People don’t reap the full potential of their harvest because they don’t understand that harvest is a process.
The barn capacity for seed is smaller than the barn capacity for grain.
Because your harvest is a process you must do all you can to increase the capacity of your life to reap your harvest.
Your mindset and the thoughts of your hearts are the dimensions of your barn.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues (dimensions) of life.
Some people and churches are always talking about sowing but little about reaping, because they have not grown, developed, expanding, extending the barn of their mind to receive the concept that they can reap.
Isaiah 54:2-3 “Enlarge your house; build an addition; spread out your home! For you will soon be bursting at the seams.
When it comes time to reap - it is too late to do the building and extensions.
When you understand that your harvest is a process you will use your time wisely to read, study, and learn from God’s Word, to enlarge your capacity to receive the harvest.
SO 1st principle HARVEST IS A CONSEQUENCE - We will always reap what we sow
2nd principle HARVEST IS A PROCESS - So don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up….
3rd principle. HARVEST IS A SEASON - a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time or due season.
In Greek there are two words used to describe time:
‘chronos’ time and ‘kairos’ time.
Chronos is the word from which we get the word chronological – normal, general time.
Kairos means - a fixed and definite time, opportune or seasonable time, the right time, a limited period of time.
Sometimes because of weather conditions the reaping season is moved forward.
Farmers are able to read the signs and understand the timing and season.
Understanding our harvest is a season means we know how to discern the ‘appropriate time’.
There is an account in the Old Testament in 1 Chronicles 12:32 about a group of people in David’s army who “had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do …..”
It is very important if you are going to reap your harvest to know God’s timing.
One day Jesus said to the Pharisees they could read the signs in the sky and know what kind of day it was going to be but they lacked the sensitivity to know the times they were living in.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem as He entered because their lack of understanding of the season caused them to miss their ‘day of visitation’. (Luke 19:44)
We need to be wise and know the season of harvest.
Like wise we need to make the most of our opportunities.
Eccl 3 tells us that there is season for everything -
1 For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
2 A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
3 A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4 A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
7 A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
8 A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.
9 What do people really get for all their hard work? 10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. 11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
A time to sow and a time to reap. It then goes on to say, that everything is ‘beautiful in its own time’. (v11)
LET’s draw the sermon to a close
Let me ask you again the questions I asked earlier:
What is your Harvest?
What is the harvest you are waiting for?
What is the Harvest that you want to celebrate?
God wants to bless you.
He has put in the place the principle of harvest – sowing and reaping – by which He delivers those blessing to you.
You need to understand your harvest.
We need to understand that it is:-
a product of our sowing - therefore we need to sow seed and the right seed for the harvest we require.
a process of growth - therefore we need to prepare, enlarge our capacity to receive the harvest.
a period in time - therefore we need to be sensitive to the seasons and wise with our time and not miss our opportunity.
Amen.
