“Before the Harvest”
Psalm 67

† In Jesus Name †

May the grace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be evident in your life in the Harvest field!

• You are that answer to Prayer

For the next 11 weeks we are going to be talking about God working through us, turning us into an answer to prayer—a prayer Jesus taught us to pray. It comes from Matthew 9:38, There, we find written:

³⁶  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷  He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. ³⁸  So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”
Matthew 9:36-38 (NLT2)

And so we pray, and then we find that we are the answer to pray – each one of is not just sent into the harvest fields once in a while, God has called us to live in the midst of the field that He has planted.

As we look at this, there are a number of lessons to learn experientially, before we get to the reading of Revelation 7, and the final eternal celebration of the Harvest:

We will hear that description on Reformation day,

“⁹  After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰  And they were shouting with a mighty shout, (have everyone read this part) “Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!”   Revelation 7:9-10 (NLT2)

I can’t wait to hear you say that in heaven!

Today’s reading from Psalm 67 talks about it… we see the promise of the harvest, ⁶  Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God, our God, will richly bless us. ⁷  Yes, God will bless us, and people all over the world will fear him.

So what happens before that…

• Before the harvest

Is prayer – a prayer that God’s blessings be known, not just to us, or to the Israeli people, but to everyone. Hear it again!

²  May your ways be known throughout the earth, your saving power among people everywhere. ³  May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the nations praise you. ⁴  Let the whole world sing for joy, because you govern the nations with justice and guide the people of the whole world.

⁵  May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the nations praise you.

I still wish Bible translators knew of the existence of exclamation points!

People throughout the whole earth, people everywhere, need to know what God is doing! How He is using all His power to save people everywhere! We need to know, everyone needs to know God is there, to the point where their reaction is simply to praise Him.

Which means to know what it means to be saved.

We need to explore that – because to just say, “hey, you were just saved.”—especially without a exclamation point…. Doesn’t inspire a lot of praise and adoration.

Our salvation – yeah that does. Or it should!

• Justice and Guidance

So to understand salvation – we have to look deeper into the passage, to where it talks about God governing the nations with both justice and guidance.

The first is justice – everyone thinks they want justice in this world, until you really think about what it means. I had two instances where I had to think about what justice truly is this week. One situation has played out in the news, the other was regarding something I witnessed.

The first case, I urged patience in, the details of the court case was only given by one side. And the other side is only beginning to be heard. Rumors abound, which doesn’t help anyone, it just divides people. The second case, I thought I wanted what I thought would be justice… and then, when it didn’t go quickly or easily, I became uneasy, and when the dust settled – my thought was the accused got way too light of a sentence for the suffering he caused.

And then I looked at my sermon notes again…

If anyone of us got the sentence that justice demands for our sins, the sins we commit in our thoughts through our words and what we do, not one of us should be here. Not one of us should be allowed to receive communion, in fact, Bob and I should be struck dead as we approach the altar…

So God’s justice cannot be what we call justice. It must be something more…

It has to be God’s justice, or to use the other word that is translated as–His righteousness. God governs us, which is about judging us and our lives.

And in His righteousness, He sees us as righteous.

His level of righteous…for in Christ’s death and resurrection, Jesus was credited with our sinfulness, as He credited us with His complete righteousness. So, God is completely just, His judgment is unquestionable.

After judging us as righteous, God does something even more phenomenal. He invests in our lives. He guides us and takes responsibility for our lives.

This is why we praise Him! He makes us His own, caring for us, cleansing us, walking with us through life, simply because He loves us.

These are His ways that need to be made know throughout the earth, the effective way He will save everyone who depends on Him..

• The Harvest that is now – and not yet

As we spread that message, as those seeds are planted, they grow until the harvest at the end of time. We heard it from the Psalmist earlier, but let’s hear it again,

⁵  May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the nations praise you. ⁶  Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God, our God, will richly bless us

Or as Jesus said it

¹³  But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ¹⁴  And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.  Matthew 24:13-14 (NLT2)

So its simple – we work in the fields we live in, sharing the work of God, knowing His presence, and then, the harvest happens, and we are all brought before the throne of God. Until that day, God governs us and guides us, His people as we dwell in His peace…doing His will, sharing His love with the world.  AMEN!!