EPIPHANY V
WORLD MISSION SUNDAY
February 5, 2023
FR. PHIL EBERHART
TO THE ENDS OF
THE EARTH
You may have
already noticed something different about this Sunday: This is GO Sunday! As you listened to the scriptures this
morning, these are phrases that we heard:
Listen to me, O
coastlands,
and give attention, you
peoples from afar.
I will make
you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may
reach to the end of the earth.”
“Kings shall see and
arise;
princes, and they shall
prostrate themselves;
2 Let your way be known upon earth,
* your saving health among all nations.
4 O let the nations
rejoice and be glad,
* for you shall judge the peoples righteously, and
govern the nations upon earth.
7 God shall bless
us,
* and all the ends of the world shall fear him.
4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to
depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he
said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be
baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has
come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is
plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers into his harvest.”
TO THE ENDS OF
THE EARTH
Anyone here aware
of a theme? I think I’ve said it before…
the word GO appears in Scripture over 1500 times! Our mission is out there, not in here! Our particular mission is to Greenwood
Village, to Denver, In Colorado, USA and to the ends of the earth!
The vision of God
and the mission of God [MISSIO DEI] has always been with the whole world
in view. Israel and The Church are His
instruments of salvation - God’s People
have always been “blessed to be a blessing!”
From Day ONE!
I come from the
land (not Israel) – the land that produces a harvest! Wheat country! I grew up firmly in the wheat belt that
stretches from East Texas all the way up to central Montana! And each year harvesters travel the zig zag
of I-35, I-70 and finally I-25 as they follow the sun, harvesting the wheat of
America. And we too are commissioned to
travel the highways and byways of this land, following the SON and harvesting
the SOULS of America! Is that too direct
a comparison?
Let’s look back
at the Scriptures we’ve just heard again.
Jesus called himself “the Lord of the Harvest.” Can we please keep that statement as our
baseline! Jesus Christ is the chief
harvester! It is HIS HARVEST. That is NUMBER ONE. HIS HARVEST!!
Number 2: HIS HARVEST IS ABUNDANT. There is no lack of potential in this harvest
– it is abundant! When I was a kid, my
dad’s main concern was for the yield and there was a comparison of yields among
the farmers! Sometimes friendly competition
is a good thing. Farmers across the
country compete in two areas: How
straight their rows are; and how big the yield is from the field! The yield is what pays the bills!
Farming is the
biggest GAMBLE in the world! It makes
Las Vegas pale by comparison. You take ALL
your time and ALL your money and you plant it in the ground and tend it for 51 weeks,
and in 1 week you “put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe.” Don’t wait a day longer! Because forces of nature may bring hail, and
everything is lost! No one in Las Vegas
ever gambles everything! Farmers do it
every day!
NUMBER
THREE: Pray Ye Therefore!
Do you remember
our famous quote from Oswald Chambers: “Prayer
isn’t preparation for the battle; it IS
the battle.” Friends, we are to beg the
Lord of the Harvest, to send forth laborers into His Harvest!”
Those are words
we need to pay attention to:
Deomai: the word is used 22 times and it is almost always
translated “to beseech” or “to beg of
God.” I would say it is to strongly, to
urgently “cry out” to God for His answer.
and Ekballo:
Have you ever had
a piece of sand or dirt or a splinter … in your eye? How strong is the urge for you to get it out
of there? Transfer that urge to the
mission of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
That’s
EKBALLO: to cast out, drive out, to send out (over 80 times in NT)
to command
or cause one to depart in haste
to
cause a thing to move straight on to its intended goal
to lead one forth or away
somewhere with a force which he cannot resist
So here is the sense
of the command from Jesus: (from the Passion Translation)
37He turned to his disciples and said, “The harvest is huge and ripe! But there are
not enough harvesters to bring it all in. 38
As you go,
plead with the Owner of the Harvest to thrust out 9:38 The Greek word ekballo is
used many times in the Gospels for driving out or casting out demons. The Lord
of the Harvest must cast the laborers out into the harvest fields. many more reapers to harvest his grain!”
I love the way
The Passion says it… AS YOU GO!
The Passion of
God is for us to be GOING. Today we are
focused on the going that takes us to “the ends of the earth.” But for most of us, actually, “as you go”
means the every day interactions we have with the people around us.
Willingness / Availability
/ and Obedience As You Go!
Part of the
reason we offer an invitation to come to relationship with Jesus Christ every
Sunday is to get it into our hearts, through our ears, every week. What do you say when you are talking to
someone about Jesus?
Take your
bulletin home and cut out the part about the Invitation that we use. Read that!
Friends, the problem
isn’t with the harvest!! The problem is
with the laborers! The harvest is
on-going, from the time Jesus spoke these words! And it is still abundant, standing in the fields
ripe for the picking!
As most of you
know, I am someone who is involved in the World Missions Movement in the
Anglican Church and with other Christians and movements from around the
world. We are supporters of Love for the
Least, Fr. Jerry & Stacey Kramer, missionaries in the Middle East. We pray for pastors in Israel and for
translators in Russia every week. We
pray for friends working in other Muslim majority countries, who we can’t
name.
The Lord of the
Harvest is sending people every day, and we are a part of that process, of
sending and of being sent!
I hope that you
will take on the mission of God and the CO-Mission of Christ to GO, to SEND, to
Make Disciples of all the world.
If you want
information about prayer for the unreached in the world click on this link: www.go31.org
After we stand to
confess our faith in the Nicene Creed we will open the prayer flier with your
bulletin and join together in prayer for the nations. I included this as a separate piece so you
can put it in your Bible and use it day by day.
Let’s stand.
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