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Sermons preached at Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, Indiana.
Thank you for downloading the weekly sermon from Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, Indiana. To find more great content, please check out our website at trinityreformed.org. Enjoy the sermon.
Jody Killingsworth:Would you bow with me in prayer? Our gracious heavenly father, what a privilege it is to be known by you and to know you, and to know you in your goodness, and to sing about your goodness this morning. It's such a comfort and a joy to us, father. You are altogether good. And that goodness is on display in this passage that we're studying today in a in a wonderful way.
Jody Killingsworth:And I pray, Lord, that as we peer into your word today, that you would open up the riches of your kindness and grace. And that each of us would be able, by faith, to lay hold of it for ourselves and to rest in it in our hearts and in our consciences and to believe and to be filled with the life that comes from you through faith. We need your goodness and your grace. And in order to receive it, Lord, we need to be shaken and provoked and woken up. And so I pray that we wouldn't resent that when you give it to us.
Jody Killingsworth:Be thankful even for those things about your word which are cutting and hard, the hard truths, the hard edges. May they be the things this morning that use in our lives and in many hearts today And Good morning.
Jody Killingsworth:Returning to
Jody Killingsworth:John 4 this morning. We began this last week. We looked at the first 15 verses and we saw a few things I want to remind us of. First of all, that it was a divine encounter. Ministry was going gangbusters for Jesus at this time in Judea.
Jody Killingsworth:Why on earth would he pull out when he's having such success? Well, he saw into the hearts of the Pharisees. He knew their jealousy and that they would be gunning for him ahead of schedule, ahead of his father's appointed hour. They had heard that he was having the success. And so Jesus, learning this, decided to pull out and go back to Galilee.
Jody Killingsworth:That was his cue, which makes his passing through Samaria here, which was the way home, not an accidental thing, but a divine encounter. Wherever Jesus went, even the not so nice places, the inconvenient parts of town where you normally lock your doors, Jesus went through there looking for opportunities given to him by God for ministry. Is that how you live your life? This is a way in which we can be like Jesus. We also saw that this was an embodied or a human encounter.
Jody Killingsworth:Jesus was fully God, but also fully man. He came to Jacob's well at about the 6th hour, which is high noon according to Jewish reckoning, which meant he'd been walking all morning. So he's tired, he's thirsty, he's hungry. Rest. His disciples go to get him some food, and he's thirsty, but he can't do anything about his thirst because even though there's a well there, it's way too deep and he has nothing to draw water with.
Jody Killingsworth:But God sends a woman from Samaria, asked her for a drink. Now, as he did this, he further expresses humanity in a beautiful way. He didn't let the fact that she was a dirty Samaritan rebel, that's how the Jews would have seen such a woman as this, or that she was a woman of low moral quality, he didn't let that put him off. When Jesus looked at her, he saw a fellow human being, fellow human being, fellow human being, with fellow human being with potential to do him good. And so he was willing to make himself vulnerable to her and put himself in her debt by asking her for help.
Jody Killingsworth:Is that what you see when you see people that are different than you? Would you let the obviously gay doctor at the bone clinic set your son or your daughter's arm and put her or him in a cast? Would you invite the PETA activist neighbor over for dinner and happily cooked them vegan food? That's happened. I know somebody in our in our church that's done that.
Jody Killingsworth:Would you do that? Jesus example here raises some difficult questions for us in our view of people and our approach and openness to people who are different. The last point we drew out last week was that this was a gracious encounter that happened here dream. She doesn't offer him water. He did not give up or get angry, but he turned it into an opportunity to do her good, eternal good, an opportunity to do her good, eternal good, an opportunity to help her soul.
Jody Killingsworth:She boxed at his question, why are you asking a Jew like me for a drink? A woman of some area. Don't you know that people like us aren't supposed to have anything to do with one another or even speak? Jesus What Jesus
Jody Killingsworth:does then is amazing. That would have been the conversation
Jody Killingsworth:for a lot of us, but Jesus presses on. He sets aside his needs and he uses this as an opportunity to offer her a drink of the water of life. He says, if you only knew who what the grace of God was, the gift of God, and you knew who was sitting here talking to you and asking you for a drink, you'd be asking him for better stuff than that. And she thinks he's absurd. Wait.
Jody Killingsworth:You were asking me for a drink. You have nothing to draw one water with and now you're offering me something. Jacob, our father, gave us this well. Do you think that you're better than him somehow? Do you think you can just wave your magic wand and produce things out of thin air?
Jody Killingsworth:The irony, of course, is that Jesus is in fact greater than Jacob, her father. Right across from her is the creator of the universe. And she's she's ignorant of who he is. And Jesus doesn't do what we would do. Well, let me explain something about my self.
Jody Killingsworth:Just lets the dis go. And he presses in to continue to explain to her patiently. He says, whoever drinks from the water of this well will thirst again, Understand? I'm not talking about this water. I'm talking about something else.
Jody Killingsworth:Even still she's incredulous. Persists in taking Jesus literally. She says, basically, well then, mister wizard man, since you think you can give me water, ever be thirsty again or have to come here and do this work. That'd be great. And that's where we left off last week with her still in a a posture of resistance to Jesus, of disbelief, of of kind of thinking this is a crazy man that she's talking to, and not in a position where she was ready to receive good things from him.
Jody Killingsworth:So what we want to see is what Jesus does next. The Samaritan woman has been wary to this point and neglectful of his needs, but Jesus is not going to neglect hers. He's working and continues to work to awaken in her thirst, spiritual thirst for the for the spiritual water from within him that he can give to her to meet her need. So far this hasn't worked, so he gets very personal. Just to make it really clear what exactly he's talking about, and the level that he's trying to address her.
Jody Killingsworth:He draws her out into the open with words of loving truth. Jesus makes sure This is our first point today. Jesus makes sure that this is going to be an encounter with the truth. In chapter 1 of his Institutes of the Christian religion, John Calvin makes this argument, that in order for you to start to have any kind of true knowledge of anything at all, you've got to have 2 things. An accurate knowledge of yourself, and an accurate knowledge of God.
Jody Killingsworth:You got to have both those things, they're distinguishable, but they're also inseparable. They go together, and they are the foundation stone of any true knowledge. Knowledge of self and knowledge of God. And that's exactly what Jesus gives to this woman in this next section. True knowledge of himself and of her.
Jody Killingsworth:Starting with knowledge of self. Why has the woman been unreceptive so far to what Jesus has been offering her? Because she sees no need of it in her life. JC Ryle, the British commentator says this, he says, never does a soul value gospel medicine until it feels its disease. Never does a soul value gospel medicine until it feels its disease.
Jody Killingsworth:Until a sinner sees himself as God sees him, he will continue careless, trifling, and unmoved. Is that you? Are you here today listening to the words of Jesus, the words of life, careless, trifling, unmoved? Well, if so, what you need is a good dose of what Jesus gives this woman, the law. He gives her a good dose of the law.
Jody Killingsworth:The law is his tool, God's tool to expose and diagnose our disease and make it really clear, painfully clear and obvious that we cannot please God, that we have displeased him, that we have angered him and violated his holy character. That's what his law is given to do. And we need the law. It's very painful. I know, young people.
Jody Killingsworth:I was a young man with a sense a growing sense of my sin. And every time I came to church as a young man, as my knowledge of my sin grew, it got less and less comfortable for me. It's they can be very difficult to be confronted regularly with the law of God in your life, from your parents, in your home, from your Sunday school teachers, in your youth group leaders, from the pastor on Sunday. I know. I've been there.
Jody Killingsworth:But we all need the ministry, the gracious ministry of the cutting law of God. Because Jesus ministry, as a healer and as a grace giver, is meant to address our deepest need, which the law is there to expose. He's not a superficial healer. He's not a charlatan. He's not a snake oil salesman.
Jody Killingsworth:He's not a therapist. He's a savior from sin. He brings the law to bear to wake her up and help her understand her need. Look at what he does. Verse 16, Go call your husband and come here.
Jody Killingsworth:That must have been a very painful word. She probably has no clue why Jesus is bringing this into this conversation right now, but he is touching on one of the most vulnerable, painful places in her life. And he knows it. She knows it. She replies, I have no husband.
Speaker 2:True, but not all of the truth. She gives a technically accurate, but kinda neutral and self protective answer. I have no husband. I think we can all relate to that. Which one of us enjoys speaking our sin, acknowledging it with our lips, with our words?
Speaker 2:Does anybody here enjoy that? No. Everything about us recoils from that. This is a very relatable response. Oh, I have no husband.
Speaker 2:True, but untrue. Until our sin is brought into the light and named, it can't be dealt with. Sin thrives in the shadows, in the darkness. That's where it obtains its power. So Jesus does something really amazing here.
Speaker 2:He lovingly presses the issue further and does what she herself has no faith to do. With supernatural discernment, a word of knowledge, Jesus brings the most embarrassing and painful parts of this woman's life out into the open where they can be dealt with. It's amazing. He says, you're right in saying, I have no husband. Verse 18, for you have had 5 husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.
Speaker 2:What you've said is true. We need to talk about this woman's sin for a second. What's with all the husbands? Did they all die making her 5 times a widow? That would have made her the talk of the town.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's weird if that's what happened, but it wouldn't have made her a sinner. Jesus is exposing her sin. What is it he bringing the husbands into it for? Did one of her or one or more of these former marriages end in divorce? I hate divorce, says God in Malachi 2.
Speaker 2:I hate divorce. Jesus says, God only permitted divorce because of our hardness of heart. There's legitimate grounds for divorce in scripture, but far more marriages end in divorce than God's word allows. And the ability to get remarried lawfully after a divorce is not a given. It depends on the circumstances.
Speaker 2:Is Jesus faulting her for the dissolution of these marriages? Is she to blame for them? Because not every not every time just because there's a divorce is somebody to blame. There's often an innocent party. Was she the guilty party?
Speaker 2:Was she some kind of serial adulterer? Was she just like a nag that nobody could possibly live with? We don't know. It's not told to us what's going on here. But one thing is absolutely clear.
Speaker 2:She, at this very moment, as Jesus is addressing her, is living in a sinful relationship with a man who she is not married to. She is having sex with him, and she's not married. Scripture calls that, fornication. The sin of fornication. It's condemned everywhere throughout the bible.
Speaker 2:God gave sexual intimacy to mankind as a tremendous gift. Oh, a tremendous gift. A gift which is so great that he put it within certain boundaries. It's it's great within those boundaries. It's sinful and shameful outside of them.
Speaker 2:The boundaries are marriage between a man and a woman for life, a lifelong covenant commitment. Those are the rules. She's breaking the rules. Violating God's gift in this way is a violation of the 7th commandment of the 10 commandments, you shall not commit adultery. Now it's been a long time since in our society people have believed that.
Speaker 2:In a long time since anybody took fornication seriously, as a sin. C s Lewis, in an essay that he wrote, back in the early sixties, I think, it's in God in the dark. I think it's called Christian apologetics. He makes the argument there that as a matter of strategy in evangelism, Christians should stop talking about fornication and assuming that people think it's a sin because they don't. You're trying to work with them at a place of commonality.
Speaker 2:I know you're ashamed about your fornication. And c s Lewis says, nobody is. That's 50 plus 60 years ago. How much worse is it today? You see it everywhere.
Speaker 2:It's just it's the norm. It's a given. Of course, you sleep around. Oh, my goodness. Marriage is for later, maybe, for some of us.
Speaker 2:Many of us have imbibed this mindset and think that fornication is either not a sin or not a bad sin. My goodness. It's very understandable. Everyone does it. It's very understandable.
Speaker 2:Everyone does it. Listen to scripture on this subject, 1st Corinthians 6:9 to 10. Do not be deceived. Fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God. Hebrews 13:4, marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled.
Speaker 2:For fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. So who's right? Culture or Jesus? Who's got a better sense of proportion about the seriousness of this sin? You or Jesus?
Speaker 2:Jesus is bringing serious sin to light. And this woman, because she lived in a culture much more godly than ours, would have felt the sting of shame, as this is spoken publicly aloud about her. Why was Jesus bringing it to light? So he could put her down, put her in her place. No.
Speaker 2:He's bringing it to light so that she can get thirsty for what he has to offer her. He's working hard to heal and to save her. And it's working. This gets her attention. Notice what happens.
Speaker 2:Verse 19. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Jesus has got her attention. He's revealed secret things about her that only somebody with divine knowledge could know. He's just a stranger.
Speaker 2:How could he know these things about me? It's remarkable. And seeing as she's got the ear of a prophet, she asked him a theological question. And it's a very important question, actually. It's not clear whether she means to distract from the sin, redirect.
Speaker 2:Hey, let's talk about theology. That's something that we do, people do. I've seen it in counseling a lot. Hey, pastor, who just asked me a very, difficult question, I got a question for you. It's not clear that whether she's doing that or whether she's sincerely asking of, like, okay.
Speaker 2:You got me. What are my best next steps would you say? Regardless, Jesus uses this as an on ramp to help her. Actually, to begin in an amazing way to reveal deep mysteries of the gospel, things that he has been keeping from people closer to him. He lets her in on incredible truth about himself, and about what is god god is doing through him.
Speaker 2:Here's her question, verse 20. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain here, next to the well. But you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Which one of us is right? That is actually a very important question.
Speaker 2:God takes worship seriously. It's important to know what he says about worship because if we worship according to our own imaginations, we are guilty of idolatry. We can only worship God truly according to his word. And so it really matters who's right in this. It's hard for us to understand that.
Speaker 2:Let me help us enter into this question in its context. I mentioned last week that the Samaritans were descended from the rebellious, apostate, northern tribes of Israel. That's where they descended from. Those tribes had long since split off from the line of David, rebelled against the the legitimate line of kings appointed by God, and set up their own shop up there in the North. Okay?
Speaker 2:That's their background. That meant that they no longer came down to Jerusalem to worship God. Long they've long many many generations since they had done that. Instead, they set up their own worship centers and their own religious practices in Samaria, on that mountain. And they justified doing that, and still following God's word, because that's important to them, that by by by pointing to the practice of the patriarchs.
Speaker 2:In fact, Jacob had worshipped God on this mountain, or near, very near here. So, you know, we're actually following scripture. And we just we disagree with you guys about which scriptures are true. That's how they justified it. The Jews, for their part, maintained, rightly, that because of the the leadership of King David and the inspiration under which he led, that he brought the ark to bear and to land and to rest in Mount Zion.
Speaker 2:And that was the legitimate place to worship God. So there was this long standing and intense dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews about where the true worship of God was to be conducted and take place. She wants to know who's right about it. So in answer to her question, Jesus doesn't hide from her the deepest gospel truths. He lets her in on mysteries that none but himself at this time understood.
Speaker 2:Verse 21, he says, woman, believe me. The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. Your question, ma'am, about worship, I've got really good news for you. It's basically irrelevant. Now, it's not always been irrelevant.
Speaker 2:That's where he goes next. He wants to be very clear about this. Up to this moment, it's been very pertinent, and you've been wrong. You worship, verse 22, what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Speaker 2:In other words, you Samaritans have had it wrong. You've not been following God. The Lord, through David and Solomon, made it clear that in Zion is where his name would dwell, where people should come and meet with him. And the moment that the Samaritans had unhitched their wagon from the line of David and the and the worship in Jerusalem, they had given themselves they'd been they'd cut themselves off from the covenant family and godly worship. They had once been a part of this beautiful tradition of God's people worshiping the Lord in a true way, but they had cut themselves off from it, and they were wrongs.
Speaker 2:This is one of the things that this teaches us is that sincerity in religion or in worship is not enough. God has made it clear how we can approach him, how we should worship him. Sincerity, a well meaning, you know, mindset or outlook or intent and purpose is not enough to please God. He's pleased when we come both with the right heart in the right way. And in this former context, that included the right place.
Speaker 2:But Jesus is saying, that's irrelevant now. This is amazing. It's irrelevant. Verse 23. The hour is coming, he says, and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him.
Speaker 2:God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. There is so much going on in those words. It's packed with theology. It takes a lot of time to unpack it all. This is probably just a short summary of act what Jesus actually said to her because it's so dense.
Speaker 2:But Jesus is telling her here that the door is being thrown wide open to a whole new reality of how to approach God. A freer, more glorious dispensation is dawning. A spiritual dispensation better reflecting the spiritual nature of God himself. A dispensation in which men and women no longer have to align with a particular nation, or make pilgrimage to a certain city, or bow down in a certain temple in a certain way to worship the true God of heaven in a true way. That's been the way it's been up until now.
Speaker 2:Jesus is affirming that. But it's changing. It's changing. It's in the process of being changed right now, says Jesus. The Lord's name was once set in Jerusalem, where for generations true worshipers gathered.
Speaker 2:You guys have had it wrong, but it's changing. God is seeking worshipers for this new reality, this new freer, more expansive, more spiritual worship. Unspiritual. That's a mistake some people make. He's not saying that.
Speaker 2:God has always required the inner heart to be engaged in worship, the inner man, the spirit of man. But in the past, lots of extra ceremonies were added to worship by God's command. And they serve their purpose for a time and involve certain priests wearing certain things, performing certain rituals in a certain place, in a certain way. And that was going away, is what Jesus is declaring to this woman. The time for that has been has is complete.
Speaker 2:And now is the time for all Spirit filled worshipers to worship the Father in a more free and spiritual way, a less ceremonial and prescriptive way. A way that can be done wherever the worshipers live, wherever they dwell, whatever nationality they are a part of. They don't have to abandon their people. They can stay among them. God's Spirit is going out to the world, and worship can happen wherever believing people are.
Speaker 2:And the most important thing here is implicit in this is an invitation to her to be a part of this new reality. Samaritans, for all intents and purposes, were gentiles from the perspective of the Jews. They would have thought of them that way. Dirty gentiles, because of their inbreeding with gentiles, and because of their rebellion from years past. And so Jesus is going to this woman and announcing the Catholicity, the coming Catholicity, the universality of the Church of God, and incredible changes in his covenant dealings with man, and as it pertains to worship, a form of worship, which is for all people who will worship the father in a spiritually, a spiritual and a true way, wherever they are.
Speaker 2:And ma'am, you can be a part of this. God is the father is in fact seeking people just like you, just like you, a dirty samaritan, a sinner, who has offended him. He is seeking people just like you to be a part of it. Come and join. Join up.
Speaker 2:Let's worship him. Isn't that amazing? He's deep stuff, incredible revelation, stuff that he hasn't even told others in the gospels at this point. He's he keeps it for her. And she's getting it in ways that few did.
Speaker 2:Something about this is sounding messianic to her. The Samaritans had a hope of a Messiah in their heritage, in their traditions, in their, they they hadn't completely cut themselves off from the truth. They they looked to some of the Hebrew scriptures as their scriptures. And in the early Torah, the law of Moses, there are there are prophecies about someone who would come, a messiah to come. One of those is in Deuteronomy 1815.
Speaker 2:You can look it up. Very likely, she's she's heard this concept in her culture from her teachers that there is a messiah that they're expecting. And based on that knowledge, she says in verse 25, I know that messiah is coming. Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things.
Speaker 2:We've heard this. And once again, Jesus opens up to her more directly, more frankly, with less riddles messiah. Jesus made sure that this was an encounter with truth. Open, honest, frank, plain truth about her, about him. We also see that this was a very satisfying encounter for Jesus Christ in a way that good spiritual conversations and good spiritual work it can can be.
Speaker 2:Have you ever experienced that in your life when you give yourself with faith to the Lord's work? It's very satisfying to do. It's not always the case that we see the immediate fruits of evangelism in our life. God's designed the world in such a way that there's a principle of sowing and reaping. We do this in our gardening.
Speaker 2:We we ever if you garden, every year you relearn the same lesson. You put the seed in the soil, and you trust that magic's happening under there, but you can't see anything happening. And then even when the little green starts to appear for many a long week months, You get nothing from it, just the hope and the promise of something to come. And in the spiritual life, it's not fundamentally different. This is a principle of the world that we sow, we wait, we hope, we water, we tend, and in due season we reap if we faint not.
Speaker 2:Pastors experience this. Parents experience this. But somehow, in this moment, God set aside the normal rules. And through a miracle of grace, there was a sowing and a reaping a hundredfold right on top of each other. And Jesus is observing it.
Speaker 2:He knows what's going on and he finds it very satisfying. The disciples come back from buying food in verse 27. They're amazed, probably uncomfortably shocked that he's talking to this woman so intimately. What's going on here? None of them are courageous enough to ask why?
Speaker 2:Probably because they're embarrassed by how unseemly a thing this is. But the woman for her part is not embarrassed. But the woman, for her part, is not embarrassed. Jesus set aside earlier his need for water to tell this woman about himself. And now we see her do the same, forgetting her her own needs.
Speaker 2:What she came to the well-to-do. She leaves her water pot and goes and tells the others about Jesus, absentmindedly leaving it for them to use. So she's emboldened and set free from her shame by the things that Jesus has said to her. Notice what she says to the townspeople. She says in verse 29, come see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Speaker 2:Could this be the Christ? What a testimony. Is that anything like your testimony? Come hear a man who told me everything I ever did, who laid me bare and exposed it all. I've I've just met a man who knows all my junk better than I do, who recounted aloud all my shameful practices and deeds, and without diminishing their horror, who didn't condemn me or throw stones, but who told me he was the savior of the world, my savior, and invited me to worship God with him.
Speaker 2:Come and meet him too. Could this be the messiah that we've heard about? Only somebody secure in the knowledge of God's love could make such a claim as this woman. Only with somebody who knows that her deepest shame is no bar and disqualifying thing in the way between her and the loving heart of the grace of God. He had come and sent Jesus into this world to save people like her.
Speaker 2:While this is going on, Jesus perplexed disciples. They can't figure out why Jesus isn't eating. Verse 31. Food's hot, Jesus. Don't let it get cold.
Speaker 2:I have food to eat that you do not know, he replies in verse 32. What? Has somebody come and given him food ahead of us? What happened? Jesus says, no.
Speaker 2:My food, there's 34, is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Jesus found something more satisfying than a steak dinner. It's really hard to get a man to ignore his belly. It takes something pretty special to get me to not care, utmost importance, about my need for food, particularly if that food is delicious. That means that this Jesus is seeing something in this more satisfying, more satisfying than a steak dinner.
Speaker 2:It was an opportunity for him to be doing his father's work and feeling his father's pleasure resting on him in that work, which is the best and the most satisfying thing that there is. Do you find it to be so? Obeying God, stepping out in faith, evangelizing, taking risks for God, Is that where you find your greatest satisfaction and joy, doing hard things for God? Well, it was for Jesus. And his example teaches us that it can be for us if we will step out in faith.
Speaker 2:There is nothing more satisfying than serving God and feeling his pleasure in doing it. Hearing in your conscience, well done. Well done. I'm not faithful in this way, but I remember here in the building one time walking out of my office and meeting a stranger and just in that moment being given faith to talk to him about Jesus in a way that I is not normal for me to do. I'm a very shy person.
Speaker 2:I'm a fearful person, but God gave me faith in that moment to do it. And it felt good. It felt good. It's better than a steak dinner. Good.
Speaker 2:Seriously. What pleasure are you robbing yourself of by not loving your neighbors, Jesus found great satisfaction and was willing he just even forgot about his food. In fact, the work I'm doing is my food. It's so good this work. So it's this work.
Speaker 2:So it's jesus. And then he goes on, and then lastly, to show that this is an incredibly fruitful encounter. You know, normally, as I was saying, when we garden our farm, we have to wait a long time before we see the fruit of our labors, but that was put on top of each other here. Verse 35, Jesus says, do you not say that there are yet 4 months when and then comes the harvest? Isn't that normal?
Speaker 2:That's what we all say. Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. White sown good spiritual seed and the harvest was immediate. Puts the seed into the soil, and life springs fully formed. It was not just immediate, but it was multiplying right before them.
Speaker 2:The woman has responded by giving away going away to tell the townspeople about Jesus, and Jesus is explaining these things about the harvest to his disciples while the townspeople are coming out to meet him at the well, which means that there is more good evangelistic work about to happen for him and his disciples. And Jesus is inviting them, as he talks, to join him in this good work with him, this satisfying work of caring for souls and serving the father. Look verse 36, already, says Jesus. Already. Look.
Speaker 2:The one who reaps is receiving wages. Look. The people are coming. And the gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. Verse 37.
Speaker 2:For here, the saying holds true. 1 sows sows and another reaps. Reap that for that for which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. This was an amazing and fruitful day in the Ministry of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:He knows what's happening. He's trying to help them understand what's going on and invite them into the joy of the harvest work. And the outcome was that the fields were so ripe on that day that many believed just on the basis of what this woman went into the city and told them. I met a man today who told me everything I ever did. Could he be the Christ?
Speaker 2:It says that many believed based on her testimony alone. And then they came out and they heard for 2 days, they invited Jesus and his disciples to stay with him. And they heard for 2 days more words of truth and life and received more love from Jesus Christ. And then they believed, not on the basis of the woman's testimony, but on what they heard themselves. They were convinced that he was the savior of the world.
Speaker 2:Are you convinced? There's no one who knows you better. Jesus knows you inside and out. Jesus knows you inside and out. He knows the, the good along with the bad.
Speaker 2:He knows your shame. He knows what nags and bothers you at night when you can't get to sleep and you're lying in your bed. He knows what's on your mind. He knows those things that you keep secret and are ashamed to say to others. He knows it.
Speaker 2:And knowing all that, is willing to be for you a savior. He's willing to offer you life giving water that will quench you forever, and opened up to you the gates of heaven. That's why he came. Will you come and drink from him today? If you've tasted from that drink, drawn from that well throughout your life, been a Christian for years, if you're personally convinced that he is the savior of the world, have been convinced since you were a child or what have you, will you join him in the pleasurable work of reaping the harvest, sowing and reaping?
Speaker 2:He invites you to this work. The fields are ripe, he says. In another place, he says, the harvest is plentiful, but then he complains that the workers are few. Why are the workers so few when Jesus, the Lord of the harvest, announces that the harvest is plentiful? Who's right?
Speaker 2:Jesus or you? When we look at the opportunities around us, we look at the hardness of heart. We assume somebody like this woman could not possibly become a Christian. And Jesus announces there's many people ripe for the picking. Talk to them.
Speaker 2:Love them. Tell them the truth. Tell them the truth about yourself. Use the example of this woman as your example. The thing I love about Jesus Christ is that he doesn't flatter me about who I am.
Speaker 2:He he knows it all. His word exposes it all. And yet, he's full of grace and compassion and forgiveness. And I have experienced the joy of in my life. Come and meet a man who can tell you those things too.
Speaker 2:We have the privilege of reaping a harvest in this town as a church. That's what God calls us to be about, to be laborers with him in this harvest work. If we give ourselves to this work together, in faith, take some risks, love people a little, we will see fruit because this is the work God loves and God promises to bless. I want to see fruit. You want to see fruit in your life?
Speaker 2:You want to see fruit in this church of evangelism? People coming amazingly to faith because of our witness and our love. Then look for opportunities this week to tell somebody about the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell them the truth. Put in your sickle, the sickle of truth into the field, Jesus does in bringing a harvest.
Speaker 2:There's no better work in this world than that. I wanna see us all willingly, joyfully join in it with our Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Jesus and his example, how he loved this woman so different from him, so unworthy of him.
Speaker 2:And I pray, Lord, that we would see ourselves in her as unworthy sinners, and see how great your love towards us has been. That while we were yet sinners, you died for us. And I pray that this knowledge would inspire in our hearts, not only the joy and peace of personal faith that brings about a good conscience and a good testimony in our hearts and a settled peace, but also the joy that springs into action. And that goes to work telling others about you. Help us to be like her, this Samaritan woman, in immediately going out and drawing others to the savior.
Speaker 2:Help us, we pray, in Jesus name. Amen.