The Harvest Is Ready

All right, we’re going to go into our time of prayer where we don’t need any AV support whatsoever. We already have the Lord of hosts, the God of all high heaven, listening to our prayers. So what we’ve been praying for over the month so far is we are praying for our kids’ ministry. God has been so kind to bless our church family with just an abundance of kids. And part of that, part of His kindness is, man, He’s inviting us to take care of these kids, not just to kind of throw them in a room with a bunch of Cheerios, but to disciple these kids and to bring them up so that they would love and serve God for their entire lives.

So part of our prayer for the kids’ ministry is not just thanking God for the kids, but it’s also asking God to lead us to take care of those kids with people stepping up to serve in the kids’ ministry. Kim, our kids’ director, she desperately needs another six to eight volunteers for the kids’ ministry and she’s going to be able to help them to help them. And she’s going to be able to help them to help them. And she’s going to be able to help them. And she’s going to help them.

And I open Your Word as well. Holy Spirit, I pray that You would get a hold of this. And this would not just be a somewhat interesting talk for the next 30 or 40 minutes. I pray that what this would actually be would be a life transforming moment for somebody. God, for the lost person in our church family who doesn’t know the hope of Jesus yet, would You save them? God, for the anxious and fearful person, would You give them peace and assurance? For the person who is fighting a losing battle with temptations, would You give them victory? Lord, for the person that’s coming in broken and battered by the world, would You heal them? Holy Spirit, would You do all of this simultaneously at the same time so that we would all walk out of here, all being transformed a little bit more from one degree of glory to the next in the image of the Son, Jesus Christ, our King of kings and our Lord of lords. Would You do it, Holy Spirit, please? I give these next few minutes to You. Have Your way. It’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen.

And then we’re going to find your seats and find your copy of the Bible. John chapter four. Michael, Lindsay and Miss Mary Lou made an incredible pivot just a few moments ago. We were going to rely on a song that was going to use a track to sing, but instead they went to Amazing Grace. And as I was standing with Miss Mary Lou and I’m praying with her, you may notice I tend to pray with my eyes open. That’s a personal fault that is pointed out to me often. And I’m praying. I’m standing there with Mary Lou. My eyes are open. I look at the hymnal, which is still open to Amazing Grace. And I see the name at the bottom of the hymnal, the gentleman that wrote Amazing Grace. Anybody know his name? John Newton. Okay. Yeah, there we go. Anybody know what John Newton used to do before God saved him? Say it again. Slave trader. He’s on the ocean one night, as I understand the story, Al. You correct me because you’ve got the answer so far. He’s on the ocean one night about to take slaves to go sell them. God captures His heart. God saves them. And He writes those words that we have come to memorize and hold so dear. Amazing Grace. How can it be?

Last week, we looked at a story where a similarly sinful and destitute and broken person known for her vile life met Jesus. And it changed everything about her. John chapter four. Today will be a part two of what we began last week. Last week, we began this sermon looking at the life of a Samaritan woman that Jesus meets at the well. And the main point of what Jesus was communicating to this woman who is known for her sin, known for her adultery, known for her sexually deviant wild lifestyle was this. Only living water gives real life. Jesus comes on the scene offering living water. He comes offering something that you and I all thirst for and we all want. Yet, we tend to look for that living water out in the world somewhere. It might be in our families. We try to raise the Perfect family, thinking that that will satisfy our souls. It might be in the awesome job. So we feverishly work away in college, and we get into the career, and we work too much, and we try to perform for our bosses so that we can get this perfect job. Maybe for us, what we think is going to provide life and satisfaction is the next house, the next car, the next store. So we just try to get more and more and more, thinking that if we have more, that will give us the life that we want. Whatever it may be for you, Jesus found this lady, and He tells her only living water will give you real life.

Let’s look at part two of the scene. If you’re a note-taker, I want to go ahead and give you the main point of Jesus’s words this morning. It’s this: God wants you to join His living water work. I’ll say it again: God wants you to join His living water work. Say it one more time: God wants you to join His living water work. That’s what God wants for you. Somebody came into church this morning saying, “What is God’s will for my life?” Paula, what’s God’s will for my life? Michael, here’s God’s will for your life: to join Him in His work. Solved. Now we’ll just look at how you discover that God wants you to join His living water work.

Verse 27, pick it up with me. Just then His disciples arrived, and they were amazed that Jesus was talking with the woman. Yet no one says, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” Verse 30, they—the everybody she went to go talk to—left the town and made their way to Him.

So let me set the stage. Should have done this a moment ago. Remember Jesus, He’s ministering outside of Jerusalem in the south of what we would call Israel. He wants to go up north to what He would have called Galilee. All right, so Jesus going from south to north travels through the region of Samaria because He has to speak with this lady who He knows He’s gonna meet at this well. There’s this well outside of the town of Sychar. It’s about a mile outside of town. This is the original well that one of the fathers of the nation of Israel named Jacob dug and gave to his family as an inheritance. This group of people, these Samaritans—we’ll get more to about them in a second—they live about a mile away from this well.

And this woman, who’s been married five times and is now living with another guy—she’s not married with—she comes to get water during the heat of the day instead of at the cool of the day with all the other ladies. We assume that this lady, this woman, has kind of been kicked out of the social circle because she has lived such a dirty, devious lifestyle. Whether she’s been kicked out through their public pressure or she just wanted—she doesn’t even want to deal with all the questions and the glares anymore. Regardless, Jesus makes a point to show up at this well at a time when He would sovereignly know she would show up because He wants to offer her living water.

He and this lady have been having this conversation about what it means to have real life. He confronts her on her sin. She turns it into a theological conversation about what is true and proper worship. And Jesus says none of that even matters because the Father is looking for people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. And then she says, “I know that whenever the Messiah comes, He’ll explain all this to me.” And then Jesus in verse 26 says this incredible line: “I, the one speaking to you, am He.” I’m the Messiah.

So verse 27, just then when Jesus is telling this woman that He’s the Messiah—the very first time in the Gospels when Jesus reveals the ultimate purpose for why He came, and He’s doing it to somebody that everybody else was avoiding. Take note of that. When Jesus is doing this, that’s when the disciples walk up. Yet none of them asks, “Why is He talking with her?” “What do you want?” The woman sees the disciples walking up, has just heard that Jesus is the Messiah, leaves her water jar. That’s the scene we just…

stepped into the disciples were right in the in verse 27 to have these questions. What do you want? Why are you talking with her? I say they were right. The disciples were normal. You see, what was normal at that time is that purebred Jews would have avoided the mixed race Samaritans at all costs. They would have hated each other, man. They say the Samaritans, they’re from the wrong side of the track, like five tracks over. They absolutely despised the Samaritans. They would do everything they could to go around a conversation with a Samaritan. But it gets more intense than that. I’m studying this past week, and something that I learned is that Jewish rabbis, it was customary. They would never even speak to women. They would never even speak to a woman in public. A Jewish rabbi, if he’s walking down the street, al good to see you, Seth, good to see you, Robbie, good to see you, Connor, good to see you, bypass all the ladies. In fact, Jewish rabbis were encouraged not even to speak to their wives in public. The whole thinking is for a male rabbi to speak to a female in public would be to waste time. He could have been doing ministry. What? So Jesus says, I’m gonna totally ignore and break that social custom. I’m gonna invest all of this time talking with this woman. So he looks at her and he’s talking with her, and man, last week you may have been kind of caught off guard because Jesus says, give me a drink of water, woman. What he’s doing is he’s acknowledging that he shouldn’t have been talking with her, yet he is anyways. He looks at all of her shame and all of their social codes. He says, I don’t care. You have value to me. I’m going to address you like a human, like a person, like the daughter of God who has made you. So the disciples are reflecting the prejudice of their day whenever they’re thinking through why is Jesus talking with her? Yet the woman reflects something so much more important. Look at that verse 28. She leaves her water jar. Isn’t that the whole reason she went to the well, Bryce? Isn’t the whole reason the woman walked the mile from home to this well was to draw water? Why would she leave the water jar, man? It’s because she recognized sharing news about the Messiah was more important than getting her water that she was going to use that day. Man, to put it in other terms, she had new priorities because of her new birth. God had introduced Himself to her. She’s embracing this message no matter how rudimentary and elementary it was, and God was creating something new in her, which changed her priorities, man. I just got an application question for you. Do your priorities reflect your birth in Jesus? Put it on a little simpler plane. Do you live like you’ve met God personally, or are you still living for all the stuff the world tells you is necessary? Are you living like Jesus has given you a new heart, or are you still chasing after all the old stuff that your non-believing friends and co-workers do, man? I think about for me when it was 15 when God introduced themselves to me personally. I’m sitting in my buddy’s car after youth group one night. You see, I had been baptized, Paula, as a nine-year-old. I thought I had done the ceremony, which means I’m good with God. I could live however I want to. So I’m really involved in church, but I’m living for girls and sports and school and whatever might give me satisfaction. And God uses a buddy of mine to share the gospel with me, and that’s what God uses to call me to new life in Him. You fast forward a couple years, I’m in college, and I find myself in some pretty risky social situations. And there’s this girl that was friends with the girl that I was interested in, and the friend of the friend sees me about to make a really bad decision, and she says, “You want to do this? Aren’t you a Christian?” Knife to my heart, Donna. I learned I wasn’t living like God had given me life. How about you? Have you left behind your water jars? Or are you still carrying those things that people tell you are so necessary, living for yourself? The woman leaves her water jars. She runs back home and she says, “Could this be the Messiah?” You see, the Samaritans ultimately believed the same core of the Old Testament the Jews did, that God was going to Send a rescuer for His people. They were waiting for that rescuer, the Messiah. This woman pairs her personal testimony with this eternal hope, and it was too good to resist. “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” In Sunday School this morning, we’re reading this passage as a primer for the worship service, and we realize that this woman is using the one evangelistic tool she has in her disposal. It’s the fact, Johnny, that all the other people knew exactly how bad she was.

It’s like John Newton arriving on that other shore he was destined for with all the slaves in the hold. And he’s saying, “Hey, hey, hey, I’m sorry, I can’t sell these slaves to you. I’ve just met Jesus on the way.” All those people who came to buy slaves from John Newton would have known exactly who he was. He’s the guy that promised us 30, 40, 50 slaves. He’s the guy that’s been regular and consistent with this thing. Why won’t he sell us these slaves? And John Newton’s like, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

This woman gets back home to Sychar. She says, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” She leads with her sin, and she simply invites people to meet Jesus.

Man, I want to offer you a trick and a tool and something to use with evangelism. Because evangelism is one of those big things that guys like me tell you to do, but people like you feel so afraid to do because you think you got to get it all right. If I don’t memorize the exact 30 statements, then I’m going to mess it up, and they’re going to be damned to hell for all eternity. Lead, lead, lead with how you don’t deserve Jesus, and invite people to meet Him anyways.

Here’s the thing. People already know that you’re messed up, right? People already know that you’re a control freak. People already know about your sin. People already know that you are dirty on the inside. Just agree with them and say, “You know what? God does too. And He still loves me. And I bet He loves you also. Do you want to meet Him?” Simple as that. That’s all the woman does. She just invites people to see what God is doing.

Let’s look at verses 31 through 38 because the disciples, they don’t see what God is doing. So the woman has left. She’s inviting all of her neighbors to come and meet Jesus. In the meantime, the disciples kept urging Him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But He says, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” The disciples look at one another. “Could someone have brought Him something to eat?” “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work,” Jesus explains. “Don’t you say there are still four more months and then comes the harvest? Listen to what I’m telling you. Open your eyes. Look at the fields because they are ready for harvest. The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper can rejoice together. For in this case, the saying is true: One sows, another reaps. I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for. Others have labored. You get to benefit from their labor.”

May you need to know God’s work is your mission in life. God’s work is your mission.

Jesus, man, He’s hungry. He’s thirsty. He’s worn out. He’s tired. And yet He still says that My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. It’s almost like back in the temptation of Jesus in Matthew chapter four, when Satan first approaches Jesus in His public ministry to tempt Him after Jesus’ baptism. Remember, the Holy Spirit sends Him into the wilderness for Jesus to be tempted. Satan comes to Him, says, “Hey, there’s a bunch of rocks around. Why don’t you command these rocks to become loaves of bread? Then you could eat this bread. You could break this 40-day fast.” And Jesus says, “Man doesn’t live on bread alone, but on every word of God.”

It’s almost like Jesus is having to remind the disciples that, “Hey, food’s important. It’s not ultimate. Water, important, not ultimate. Family, it’s important. It’s not ultimate. Work, important, not ultimate.” Jesus is saying that doing the Father’s will, that is what’s ultimate. You see, God has designed you to find deep satisfaction in working with Him. God has designed you to find deep satisfaction in working with Him.

Man, this past week, I’m doing a couple projects around the house. My kids, super eager to join me in helping accomplish these projects. I cannot say that they are helping me do the work faster or better or neater. It’s also me. I can’t say that they’re actually hindering the process either. But man, when they get to use the drill for a half of a second, when they get to turn the screwdriver, when they get to do the rake, and they look at me and they’re so proud, they’re so satisfied, because they got to join their daddy in what their daddy was doing. Man, that’s how you’ve been made, to join your heavenly Father in what He is doing.

God doesn’t need you. In fact, oftentimes, we just mess it up. We slow Him down. We make it a little dirtier. Yet God, our heavenly Father, looks at us and says, “Despite their inabilities, despite their weakness, despite their tendency to refuse My directions and go their own way, I want to involve them in what I’m doing. That is My mission, to involve them in what I am doing.”

Jesus looks at the disciples. He’s saying, “Hey, the Father is trying to involve you in what He is doing.” Look at the fields. They are ready for harvest. Picture it. In fact, like literally close your eyes. Picture this. Jesus and His disciples are sitting in this little valley of land. They’re sitting beside this well. He’s got 12 disciples there. Jesus, you picture Jesus sitting on the stones of the well. He’s talking with His 12 disciples. The town of Sychar is up on the hillside a mile away. Shacks, houses, some stone work. The woman has made it to town and she’s already been proclaiming, “Come and meet the Messiah. Come meet this man who told me everything I ever did.” Yet you’re arguing with Jesus about where He got His food from. And Jesus says, “Look, the fields are white with harvest.” And He points up at the town of Sychar. And you see these people coming out of town walking toward you. Darts, few, which become a dozen, which become a couple dozen, which become about a hundred. That hundred grows to about two or three hundred. And then all of a sudden, it’s an amount of people you can’t even count, all wearing their robes, walking toward you.

Jesus says, “Open your eyes.” And you can open your eyes too. The fields are ready for harvest. I sent you. I sent you to go reap. I mean, just put your thinking cap on. One woman shares the gospel one time and an entire village responds with desire to at least hear more. Man, that village was prime for God’s work. That is a field ready to be reaped from. Jesus sent them. I sent you to reap for what you didn’t labor for. You didn’t share the gospel with that lady. You’re not one of the Old Testament prophets who’s been calling to these people through the scriptures for hundreds of years. You’re not the Holy Spirit who’s been working in the souls of these people over time. No, you did not sow, you did not labor. I sent you to reap, but you were so fixated on food you couldn’t see it. You were so worried about good important stuff, you missed the ultimate stuff. There’s this whole village of Samaritans ready to believe in Me as Messiah.

Food’s a good thing. Family, good thing. Career, good thing. Health, good thing. In fact, whatever you think is important, it probably is, but it’s not ultimate. God didn’t make you to raise 2.5 kids in a perfect family. God didn’t make you to be uber successful in your industry. God didn’t make you to try to protect your physical health for as long as possible or to make it look like you’re as young as you possibly can for as long as possible. God didn’t make you for this. God made you to enjoy Him and to join Him in His work.

If that wasn’t the case, then why would Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20 say this, that Jesus comes near to His disciples and says, all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I’ve commanded you. And remember, I’m with you always to the ends of the age. Sure, Jeremy, making disciples, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But man, I’ve got to make some money. Guess what? Jesus speaks to that too. In Matthew chapter 6 verses 33 through 34, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. All these things will be provided for you. Your money to pay rent, that will be provided for you. Your food to feed your kids, that will be provided for you. Don’t worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Seek first God’s kingdom and He will take care of all those things for you. Put your eyes on what is ultimate and God will give you what is important.

And man, God is still, He’s still beckoning to us to join Him in His work. Jesus is still sending us to reap spiritual, eternal fruit. That co-worker going through a hard time. That classmate that’s bullied and lonely. That new neighbor from out of town. That friend who asks for a prayer request on Facebook. That new Christian struggling to put their feet and put one foot after another in this new life. Man, God is sending you for spiritual work. Do you see it?

Let’s look at the point of what God is doing. Verses 39 through 42. I’ve got to jump way ahead. Look at it with me. Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him. If you’re comfortable with it, I want you to circle the word believe. Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of what the woman said. When she testified, He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked Him to stay with them and He stayed two more days. Many more believed. You circled again because of what He said. And they told the woman, we no longer believe because of what you said since we’ve heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.

What’s the point? That people would believe. That word belief is used 55 times in the Gospel of John. This whole Gospel, the author tells us, is that we would believe. And the whole story of the Gospel of John is Jesus talking with people who do believe, then talking with people who don’t believe. Then He goes back to people that do believe, and then He goes back to people that don’t believe. That’s the whole Gospel of John. In one word, belief. That we would believe that Jesus is the rescuer is the point. Man, that’s the litmus test of all missions. That’s the litmus test of everything that we do as a church. Are people believing that Jesus is the Messiah or not?

So Jesus, at their invitation, stays for two more days with the Samaritans. Remember, good, self-respecting Jews don’t even talk with Samaritans. Jesus stays with them, eats their food, uses their bathroom, drinks their water, sleeps in their bed, sits with them in their living rooms, talks with them. Jesus stays with them for two days, explaining who He is, inviting people to believe that He really is the rescuer they’ve been waiting for.

And man, doesn’t Jesus do this with us? Jesus makes His home with us. He looks at us with our spiritual dirtiness. My moral failures. My selfish motives. My self-protective instincts. My appetite for lust. My need to be in control. My slavery to people’s opinions. My preoccupation with myself. And Jesus still loves me enough to come and dwell with me, to linger with me, to spend time with me, to embrace me. Man, Jesus does that for us. He is God with us. He came and He lived and He walked and He slept amongst us. So that God would not be calling with His bullhorn down from heaven, be better. Hey save yourselves. No He comes and He lives and He walks among them and He enters the fullness of what it’s like to be a person in this world so that He could show us that the High King of heaven knows what it’s like to live like a poor slave beggar here.

Man, God loves you so much and He just wants to live with you. He wants to spend time with you. He wants to cozy up with you. He just likes you. He just likes to be with you, King. Man, He’s just wild about you, Sheena. Man, God looks at us and He says, yeah, I get it. They smell funny. They do things I wouldn’t do. Sometimes they say stuff that kind of makes me feel uncomfortable. Oftentimes I kind of want to hit them in the back of the head. But you know what? I love them. Can’t stop, Donna. I can’t stop. I will never stop loving them.

So Jesus spends these days talking with these people that they knew He wasn’t supposed to be talking with. And what was the incredible message that He shared? I am the Messiah. I am the Savior of the world. You see, the Messiah is kind of this Jewish idea of a Jewish rescuer from the Jewish lineage to redeem a Jewish people for the universally sovereign yet locally loving God of the Jews. Yet Jesus helped explain that the Jewish born Messiah was sent by God, not just for the Jews, but to save everybody that the Father would draw to Himself.

You see, in the very beginning, God’s whole plan was to dwell with His people, no matter where they’re from, no matter what the color of their skin, no matter what language they spoke. Yet that plan was broken by our rebellion represented in Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve chose to go against God’s heart and against God’s ways and to substitute their own instead. Yet caught up in their sin, which we feel every day, caught up in that sin, God makes an incredible promise that I will come and dwell with you and I will make a kingdom who will be represented amongst all the nations of the earth. And in fact, one day around my throne, all nations, all tribes, every tongue and every language will be represented in the manifold mosaic of praise given to me by all peoples from all times.

Man, you know when we get to heaven, you will be praising Jesus in English, standing beside someone from Somalia, and over here you got an Egyptian, and on their side you got an Ecuadorian, and over here you got somebody from another people group that you’ve never even heard of before. Y’all are all speaking different languages, yet you can hear and understand one another, and you’re all singing about how stinking good God is. That’s heaven.

So despite our sin, despite the fact that we fight against God, God sent this promise that one day He would redeem mankind through Jesus Christ. So He sends Jesus to come at the right time to save us from ourselves and from our sin, to create a family of worshipers who would love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, who would serve and love others as themselves, and who would follow Him all of their days. That’s called the church.

You see, you and me, we do not occupy a membership role of a church based in Ravenel, South Carolina. You and me, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, part of a universal church that Christ Himself established, that encompasses the entire globe, and has a mission to bring more people in. Your truest membership is not on the membership role here at Sauldam Baptist Church. Your true membership is in the book of life, which Christ the Son protects. And every name written in that book, oh, it cannot be erased.

I’ll wrap up with three questions to apply this passage. Man, the first thing is, where do you see God working? The disciples were supposed to see God was already working in that Samaritan village. They missed it. Where do you see God working though, Al? Where do you see Him, Amber? The next question, how can you join? For some of us, it’s simply going to be inviting more people to meet Jesus. For others of us, it’s going to be through directly sharing the gospel and explaining our story. For some of us, it’s going to be serving in a kids’ ministry. How can you join in God’s work? The final question, have you personally embraced God’s work? I don’t stand up here assuming that everybody listening has given their lives to Jesus Christ in truth. In a room this big, I know that there is still somebody who is yet to actually taste and see that God is good. Someone who is yet to trust in God.

I just want to take a few moments for you. You just kind of sit there reflectively and ask God to speak to you. Where do you see God’s work? How can you join in God’s work? Have you ever personally embraced God’s work? Just take a moment, prayerfully consider those questions. God is working all around us. I mean, He wants to invite you into what He’s got going. I mean, it might be that person you can’t stand. That’s where He’s working. It might be that hardship that you’re looking at down the road and you’re just like, “God, I’m reading that.” And maybe He’s actually working inside of you. It may be that you’ve never actually given your life to Jesus and you are the fields that He’s been working in to save you. You’re like, “God, I’ve never actually embraced this before.” Man, my invitation for you, if you’ve never embraced the gospel, you use these next few moments as the rest of us are singing. Would you embrace this message that Jesus came and lived a perfect life for you? He died a sacrificial death for you to pay for your sin on the cross, but He didn’t just pay for your sin, man. He wants to take away your shame. He wants to expel all the darkness and the demonic influence from your life and your soul. I said, you could walk in joy and victory. And if you’ve never embraced that, would you just take a few moments, you just pray to God in your own words and just ask God to give that to you? For all of us, man, let’s join God in His work, right? Let’s join our Father.