"The Firstfruits of a Global Harvest" (Acts 2:1-13)

Transcript:

This morning we read the story of the great outpouring of the Spirit from heaven. The baptism of the Spirit, the day of Pentecost. And whenever we think about the Holy Spirit, I think many times we struggle to know what exactly to make of the Holy Spirit, what exactly to do with the Holy Spirit. You know, we regularly rejoice in our thinking, in our reading, in the singing that we do, in what the Father has done for us in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we probably understand that the Holy Spirit is important, but when we try to dig into the details, how is he important?

Why is he important? What role does he play in the life of the church? Well, that's where there is a lot of disagreement among churches, and that's where there's a lot of confusion, even within a single church, even within our church. Who is the Holy Spirit and what does he do? Sometimes I think we end up imagining the Holy Spirit as something of the third wheel of the Trinity.

Now, others, I'm sure, not you, but others have felt like a third wheel on occasion in different group settings. Maybe there are two people, maybe a dating, married, engaged couple, something like that. Or maybe there's just two friends who are kind of on equal footing, and the third person comes along with them. And someone can feel like a third wheel. Someone can feel like I don't really quite belong here.

They are certainly confident in what they are doing. They're going about their business. And I'm glad they've brought me along on this time, but I don't totally know where I fit into this picture. And sometimes we think about the Holy Spirit there. We understand the Father, we understand the Son.

But we struggle to understand that the Holy Spirit is not the third wheel of the Trinity. He is the third Person of the Trinity. And as the third Person of the Trinity, we confess that he is equal with the Father and the Son. He's on equal footing. He's not on a lesser footing.

He is absolutely equal because he shares in the fullness of God with the Father and with the Son. The key to understanding the Trinity, I think, is to understand that we worship one God who exists as three persons. And as we think about the distinctions between the three persons, we realize they are not different. Each are the same substance of God, but they do different things. We can distinguish them by their works.

Now we could talk, and this would be another sermon for another day to talk about the interactions of the persons in the inner trinitarian relationship in the Godhead as the Father relates to the Son and as they relate to the Holy Spirit as they have from all eternity past into all eternity forever. Again, that's a different sermon for a different day. Today we are thinking about the one God's mission, which he accomplishes through three persons, because we can distinguish the works of the Father from the works of the Son, from the works of the Holy Spirit. But a key principle to understanding the distinctions between those works is that even though we can differentiate what the Father has sent the Son to do, and we can differentiate what the Son accomplished our Lord Jesus Christ through His life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and we can distinguish that from what the Holy Spirit is doing, these works of each of the persons of the Trinity are indivisible. We can't separate them.

The Father is not doing his own thing. The Son insisted that he did not come to do his own works or his own will, but the works of His Father who sent him. And here now we see that what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished. And again we read about the ascension of Jesus two weeks ago when we looked at the beginning of the Book of Acts, what he is now enthroned in heaven. He with His Father is pouring out the Holy Spirit to apply what he has accomplished to his church, not only in Jerusalem on this first day, but to spread the application of what Christ has accomplished to the far ends of the earth.

And indeed, we're blessed by that here on the far ends of the earth in Lansing, Illinois, this morning. And so this morning we are considering the work of the Holy Spirit, particularly in the mission of the Church, in the mission of bearing witness to Jesus Christ and applying his death and resurrection to all of those who would believe in Him. And so our theme this morning is this, that the nations are ripe for the Holy Spirit's harvest. The nations are ripe for the Holy Spirit's harvest. And so we're going to look at this passage in two parts this morning.

First, the event baptized with the Holy Spirit. That'll be our first point. Baptized with the Holy Spirit. And that's dealing with the event of what happens here in verses one through four, and then to the mission to the implications of that event. Bearing witness to the end of the earth in verses 5 through 13.

Bearing witness to the ends of the earth. So we'll start in verse one through four in the first section with baptized with the Holy Spirit. And again, the event of what's happening here of Pentecost, because indeed this is the day of Pentecost. We read that in the very first part of the first verse when the day of Pentecost arrived. The Pentecost, very importantly, was a public feast, one of the three times of year when all Jewish males had to present themselves before the Lord in Jerusalem.

And so part of the reason in God's design why this should happen on Pentecost is that God wanted a great feast where everyone was present, where there could be many witnesses to what God was doing in their midst on the day of Pentecost. Partially, then this is on Pentecost, so that there might be many witnesses. But that's sort of a general reason. There is a specific reason for this feast, that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit should happen at this feast of Pentecost. And Luke reflects that for us in the word arrived when the day of Pentecost arrived.

Now, the word for arrived is only used three times in the New Testament, all of them by Luke. It appears twice in the Gospel of Luke and only one time here in the Book of Acts. The first time in the Gospel of Luke in Luke, chapter 8, verse 23. It gives a really vivid picture of what this word means. It's the idea of filling up.

This is in the story when Jesus is falling asleep in the back of the boat while all around him a great storm is raging. And so the boat is filling up with water. That's the picture here. The Word is filling, the water is filling up the boat, until Jesus awakes to still the storm by the power of his Word. So something is being filled up here.

And the next use in the Gospel of Luke really helps us to zero into the nature of filling up what is being filled up here. And In Luke chapter 9, verse 51, we read something was filling up about Jesus's life. We read when the days drew near, or literally when the days filled up for him to be taken up. He set his face to go to Jerusalem. This is the point at which Jesus, having ministered in Galilee, he sets his face like flint toward Jerusalem and begins to make his way to the capital city, not to be hailed as king, at least not for very long, but to be hated and rejected and crucified there for the sake of his people.

Those days had filled up, and now was the time for that to happen. Well, this is what's happening with Passover, or, excuse me, with Pentecost. Pentecost. The days had filled up, and now the. The fullness of what God had appointed Pentecost to be 1500 years ago in the giving of the law of Moses, all of that was here coming to fruition.

Now, if you want to understand the feasts of Israel. One of the snapshot places to see all of the feasts in one place is in Leviticus chapter 23. I'm sure many of you were there in your devotional reading just this morning, so you probably saw this. But if. If you didn't, let me catch you up in Leviticus chapter 23.

The very first part of this restates sort of the moral and theological principle that all of the ceremonial feasts hang on. It's the Sabbath. There's a restatement of the law of the Sabbath which we just read a moment ago in the fourth commandment, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, because God set aside one day in seven as holy. God is the Creator, not only of space, but of time. And.

And so the way he orders time is important. It's something for us to observe. That's the enduring ongoing principle that we are to observe even today. This is the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's day. But then it goes on to the ceremonial feasts which were given to God or God's Old Testament people.

And the first feast after the restatement of the passover, or after the statement of the sabbath in Leviticus 23 is the Passover. Well, Christ fulfilled the Passover. We're told this in no uncertain terms in First Corinthians 5, verse 7, where Paul says that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. The final and great and ultimate Passover Lamb was sacrificed not at the slaughtering of the lambs during the time when Jesus was crucified, but in the crucifixion of Jesus himself. He is the final Passover lamb.

Well, the next feast that we come to, if we continue to read our way down through Leviticus chapter 23, is the feast of First Fruits. Now, the passover was on a very particular day during the month, and it could fall on different days of the month. But the Feast of First Fruits, which was an offering that they were to bring of the first fruits of the barley harvest, this was to happen immediately following the Passover, on the day after the Sabbath. So in the Old Covenant, the Sabbath was observed on the seventh day of the week, Saturday. So the day after the Sabbath was Sunday.

So Jesus Christ fulfilled Passover. But then on the actual day of the feast of First Fruits, on Sunday morning, on the day after the Sabbath, following the Passover, Jesus Christ arose to fulfill the feast of First Fruits. And again, Paul tells us this in no uncertain terms in First Corinthians 15, verse 20, when he writes, but in Fact, Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. The idea of the feast, the first fruits, was that it was celebrating what God had begun to do in those days. In the beginning of the first part of the barley harvest, there would then be more of the harvest to bring in to meet all of the needs of God's people.

Well, Jesus Christ was raised as the first fruits from the dead with the idea that more will be raised up at the bringing in of of the rest of the harvest. And so a few verses later, Paul writes in First Corinthians 15:23, but each in his own order, Christ the first fruits. Then at his coming, those who belong to Christ will also be raised with him from the dead. So Christ fulfilled the Passover by His death on the cross. He fulfilled the Feast of First Fruits by his resurrection from the dead.

And all of these are happening on the days of these appointed public feasts. But then we come to the Feast of Pentecost. And again, as we're reading through Leviticus 23, this is the very next feast that is being written there. The Feast of Pentecost is also called the Feast of Weeks because it took place a week of weeks, seven weeks after the Feast of First Fruits. And so it was to be the day after the Sabbath, seven Sundays after the Feast of First Fruits.

And this is what is being filled up here, the days of all that God had foreshadowed of what he was going to do among his people year after year, as they celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, God was now filling up. God was. Now all the time had arrived, and God was doing what he had long planned to accomplish in the midst of his people. Now, to understand the significance of the Feast of Pentecost, it's important to understand, as we read in Numbers 28, Verse 26, that Pentecost was called the Day of the First Fruits, not the Feast of First Fruits, that happened seven weeks earlier, but the day of the First Fruits. You see, there were two harvests in Israel in early spring.

There was the barley harvest that began at the Feast of First Fruits, but then seven weeks later was the beginning of the wheat harvest. And you can read that this, the Feast of Pentecost is associated with the wheat harvest in Exodus 34, verse 22. And by the way, there's a lot more information about this in the sermon notes if you care to dive more deeply into this. But again, this is the Day of First Fruits because there's a firstfruits idea in view Here, namely, not of the resurrection of the dead, but of the harvest of the nations, as all of the nations under heaven are here. There's going to be a representative group of them who are going to, by the end of this chapter, put their faith in Christ and convert to Christ and being brought as the Holy Spirit's harvest into the early fledgling church.

These 3,000 people that we read about in Acts 2, verse 41 at the end of this chapter, they are the first fruits. And the Holy Spirit is still bringing in his harvest, even among those of us who are here today. So this outpouring of the Holy Spirit to bring in a great harvest of those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ, and this is the beginning of what we see here in the day of Pentecost. This is the filling up of what we see. And so let's walk through all of the things that happen here in this filling up of what happened at Pentecost.

First, in verse two, we read that there was a great wind. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Now, you may know that the word for wind is the same word for Spirit. So to read about the Spirit is to read the very same word as to read about this wind.

And Jesus makes a play on words in this. In the Gospel of John, when he says, the wind or the Spirit blows where he wishes. Well, here we are reading about this great wind. This is not just some great thing that the apostles arose for themselves and by their own strength and wisdom did for themselves. The Holy Spirit has come.

Then in verse three, we read not only wind as a manifestation of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but fire and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. This is in fulfillment to what John the Baptist had said. John said that he came to baptize with water, but then he said, he who is mightier than I is coming the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. And he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire in Luke 3, verse 16. Now this is so important because when we read about the giving of the Spirit here, we need to understand that this giving is not disconnected from all.

The Father sent Jesus Christ into this world to accomplish. The Holy Spirit is not some rogue agent out doing his own thing. Whatever he wishes to do. When the Holy Spirit blows where he wishes, that's not independently of the Father and the Son. These are the three persons of the Godhead.

Operating in unity, you cannot divide the external works of each of the persons of the Trinity. And so what the Father sent the Son into the world to accomplish, and what Jesus Christ did accomplish through his earthly life, death, resurrection, and now ascension to heaven, the Father and the Son are now pouring the Holy Spirit into. Into the world, into His Church, in order to apply what Jesus Christ has accomplished. And this is what we are seeing. Jesus Christ came to baptize his people with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and that's what we are seeing here today.

Therefore, it will be through the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus Christ, King Jesus, ascended and reigning at the right hand of the Father. It will be through His Holy Spirit that Christ will continue to do what he began to do and to teach. Remember, that's how this book started. In chapter one, verse one in the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and to teach. Well, how is he going to do that if he's seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven?

He will do so through the work of His Holy Spirit in and through his church. But we need to look over also. Just peek ahead to Acts, chapter 2, verse 38. And we need to see there that after Peter preaches his great Pentecost Day sermon and the early church, or they had not yet become the church, but they're convicted and they're asking, what shall we do? If we have indeed crucified the man whom God has made, both Lord and Christ, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the promise of the gospel. And when I say that I am not demeaning Jesus Christ as the promise of the gospel, or our access to the Father as the promise of the gospel, or the forgiveness of sins we have as the promise of the gospel. The Holy Spirit, however, is the promise of the gospel, because it is by the gift of the Holy Spirit that we have Jesus Christ. It is by the gift of the Holy Spirit that Christ blots us with his blood to cleanse us from our transgressions, to cleanse us in our hearts from our iniquities, and to give us his righteousness.

It is by the Holy Spirit that we have Jesus Christ himself. And through Jesus Christ we have access to the Father. And so the Holy Spirit, whoever has the Holy Spirit has Christ, and whoever has Christ The Son of God has the Father. And here we are seeing the Holy Spirit given without measure to his church. And so in verse four we read and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now we are going to say more about this speaking in other tongues in the next section, but for now let's simply say that this is a manifestation of the arrival of the Holy Spirit. We wind, fire and the speaking in these other tongues. Okay, so there's a lot there in the first four verses. I promise the next verses won't go that long, but there's a lot here to unpack and to think about. So let's just give a quick recap.

Just as the cross of Jesus Christ fills up what God had foreshadowed in the Passover feast, and therefore through that once for all sacrifice of the final Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, through that Christ abolished the celebration of the Old Testament feast, so then also at the resurrection, as Christ filled up the feast of first Fruits by the once for all resurrection of Jesus Christ and therefore abolished the celebration of that feast. So now the baptism of the Holy Spirit fulfills all that God had given Pentecost to do. Everything that God had meant for Pentecost to foreshadow, we are seeing fulfilled on this day. Through the once for all giving of the Spirit, through the once for all baptism of the Spirit, the cross cannot be repeated. The resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot be repeated.

The baptism of the Spirit cannot be repeated. Instead, in the New Testament we find we are invited into the once for all cross of Christ. We are invited into the once for all baptism of the Holy Spirit. We are called not to be baptized. Now in the Holy Spirit, we are called to be filled with the Holy Spirit, just as we are called to be crucified with Christ in our lives.

So what then has changed? Well, in the Old Testament, believers had the Holy Spirit in some sense. Indeed, just as today we need the Holy Spirit to give us hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear the goodness of the Gospel of Jesus. And because of our sin, we will not believe until the Holy Spirit does his work of regeneration in our hearts. The same thing was true of believers in the Old Testament.

Apart from the work of the Spirit, they would not believe in the Lord. Their hearts were not circumcised even if their bodies had been. So the Holy Spirit was active and we see his arrival and his work throughout the throughout the Old Testament. And moreover, we see him operating not in the whole nation, but among particular individuals, especially those whom God had appointed as covenant mediators in the anointed offices of prophets and priests and kings. The anointing of oil was associated with those anointed offices.

We see the Holy Spirit, Spirit acting there to empower and equip them for their work. But the Holy Spirit did not always come upon those who had lasting salvation, lasting regeneration of heart. Sometimes he equipped those who were not saved, as the rest of the story tells us. And sometimes he came upon people to equip them for a task only later to depart from them. You think?

Particularly the example of Saul. When Saul was anointed with oil, the Holy Spirit rushed upon him and he prophesied and he began to lead God's people. But because of his hardness of heart and sin, the Holy Spirit departed from him. So that David, when he fell into his own sin, pleaded with the Lord in Psalm 51, let not your Spirit depart from me. He didn't want to fall into the same fate that fall had.

Well, in the New Testament, what changes is that the Holy Spirit is given to all, not just to some. And the Holy Spirit is given redemptively. When you receive the Holy Spirit, you receive Christ and you receive the Father. And the Holy Spirit is given in a way that cannot be taken away. If you have by the Holy Spirit, come to faith in Christ, you cannot ultimately fall away.

It's the great promise of the perseverance of the saints that's given to us in the Scriptures. But there has been a change. Then some things remain partially the same, but we see a greater fullness of what the Spirit is doing in his church. And in the rest of this passage, we are seeing particularly the change that's going to happen in the mission of the church. This is where the mission of God comes into view.

Because the Holy Spirit is now going to fill and empower believers to bear witness to Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. So let's not go to the second section, and we're going to be briefer on this, I promise. Again, this is the mission. These are the implications where we see the mission of bearing witness to Jesus Christ to the end of the earth in verses 5 through 13. Now, in verse 5, we read that there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.

What we are seeing here is not literally every nation under heaven. We see a list of them. And again, this does not list out every nation under heaven. We don't see Greece even mentioned here. But what we see is A representative list.

That is what we are seeing here is sort of a representation, a seed, again, the first fruits of all the nations under heaven. Just as the first fruits is not the complete harvest, but it is a representative of what the complete harvest will then bring in. So all of these nations under heaven that are here present on this day, who are seeing this miracle happen and who would later convert from these nations to faith in Christ, we are seeing a representation of all the ends of the earth. And what's important here is that in verse six, we read that they were bewildered because each of them was hearing them speak in his own language. The speaking of other tongues was not a heavenly ecstatic language.

What we see here very clearly is the speaking of other tongues was speaking in languages that all of these people knew and understood. The apostles did not grow up speaking these languages. These were miraculously given to them so that they could preach the Gospel to this representative group of nations there. But we read after this list of all of these peoples represented in verse 11, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. That is, this was a jump start to the proclamation of Jesus to the ends of the earth that happens here in Jerusalem as all of these nations are gathered here.

But ultimately, this mission is going to flip. Ultimately, the Church will be sent out from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth to go into those nations and learn those languages, to be able to preach to every creature under heaven the mighty works of God that the Father has sent the Son Jesus Christ to accomplish on our behalf. And so, as we see this, we are seeing a direct fulfillment of what Jesus said would happen back in chapter one, verse eight, when he said to wait in Jerusalem. He says, for 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 and throughout the book of Acts.

And again, we need to pay careful attention because this is the vision that God gives us for what the Church is to be doing still to this day. What we are seeing is proclamation of Jesus. Witness born to Jesus, that everywhere they go, they are bringing. And so they are going to proclaim his perfect obedience. One of my favorite places in Acts 3, verse 14, where they call him the holy and righteous One.

We are going to see them bear witness to the redemptive work of Jesus. In chapter 10, verse 39, in a sermon, they bear witness to the cross, saying they put him to death by hanging him on a tree. Then they bear witness to the resurrection. But God raised him on the third day and made him to appear not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. In chapter 10, verses 40 through 41, and then in verses 42 through 43, they bear witness to Christ's future return.

And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Well, in verses 12 and 13, the crowd is in confusion. So Peter will preach, and we will see him preach in the next passage, Lord willing. And as he preaches, 3,000 will come as the first fruits of the Holy Spirit's harvest among the nations by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation.

So as we consider the great work that God has done, here again we have four Gospels and the rest of the New Testament meditating on what Christ has accomplished in his work, in his death, in his resurrection. And we have this one passage telling us about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. And so a lot is crammed into this tight little space. What then should we take from this? Well, the application that I want to bring is this.

Don't stand idle labor in Christ's vineyard for the Holy Spirit's global harvest. Don't stand idle, but labor in Christ's vineyard for the Holy Spirit's harvest. Jesus, throughout his lifetime, constantly compared the kingdom of God and the global mission of his church to a harvest. This happens in many parables, but sometimes in his explicit teaching. So in Luke 10:2, he says, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. What he suggests there is that all of us have a role to play, whether we go or whether we are praying for those who are going. All of us are in this work together and elsewhere. In the Gospel of John, chapter 4, verses 35 through 38, Jesus promises that all of us who are engaged in whatever role we are given will all bear the fruit. Share in the fruits of the rewards of this work together, he says, do you not say there are yet four months?

Then comes the harvest. Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life. So that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true.

One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. Well, we stand between the first fruits of the day of Pentecost, that first gathering in of the souls, and the final first fruits, the first fruits of the feast of first Fruits, when the rest of the harvest of souls being raised from the dead will come at Jesus Christ's final coming. And we are called then to enter into this work.

And in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, we read about Jesus represented as a master, going in and hiring laborers for his vineyard. And as he goes back into the marketplace at different times of day, he finds people just sitting there, just standing idle. And he confronts them and says, why do you stand idle here all day? And when he finds no one said I should do anything, he says, well, get out there. You get into my labor, even if it's for just one, one hour.

Well, indeed, this is still what we are doing. All of us are called in whatever way we are called to do it, to enter into this labor. There's a tremendous imagery in the temple in the Old Testament, which. The temple, by the way, is also called a field, a vineyard. It's filled with vine imagery because it's representing these same ideas in the Old Testament.

The Holy Spirit indwelts his temple, but it was only in one fixed location in Jerusalem. That's why all the men of Israel had to gather in Jerusalem three times a year, because that's where the temple was. But now in the New Testament, we read that the church is the temple of the Lord. The church is the place where the Holy Spirit dwells. And all of us, we're gathered here this morning along with other believers gathered at family camp and in all the other churches around the world who are gathered on this Lord's Day bearing witness to Jesus Christ throughout all the ends of the earth.

And what we are doing here is bringing that mission, bringing that witness everywhere we go, here in Lansing and everywhere else throughout the world. And so, first of all, we are called to pray for our missionaries. We did that earlier this morning in the pastoral prayer. And that's something that I think this church does a really good job of communicating. When you get the prayer request for the missionaries, take that, use that.

Put that into your prayer prayer list for the month and pray for those missionaries. Lift them up. They need it. For those who are sent both Here, locally and throughout the world. But our denomination, the PCA's mission to the World, our missions organization also has what it calls the 1% challenge.

And this is really provocative. They said what would happen if every PCA church committed to send an additional 1% of their members to missions? What if sitting in this room or at family camp, there were three or four people who were called right now, but maybe you haven't realized it yet, to go to the foreign mission field to bear witness to Christ to the ends of the earth. We should be praying about whom God is going to raise up in our midst. We live in a crucial moment of history and indeed that's not just for those who are sent out there.

Remember that we are on the far end of the earth. Aside from Jerusalem, we are the missionaries to Lansing and the surrounding areas. And there's a challenge. Do you know your role in this work? Do you know where you fit in this labor?

Are you standing idle or are you regularly knowing what you were doing as you were sent into the kingdom to work for Jesus for the Holy Spirit's harvest? We have a new ability in this age to reach people. But of course, we face new challenges and new enemies. Our Lord Jesus, just as much as he was on this original day of Pentecost all the way to today, all the way until he comes again. He is still on his throne in heaven.

He is continuing what he began to do and to teach through his church and by his Holy Spirit and by that Holy Spirit sent from heaven. King Jesus indwells his people, all of his people and empowers them. Mission on Pentecost. King Jesus brought in the first fruits of his harvest, but now he continues his work through us. Don't stand idle labor in Christ's vineyard for the Holy Spirit's global harvest.

Let's pray.