Come Meet the Savior of the World (John 4:27–42)
How did everybody survive this last week with snow one day and then sunshine the next? Only in the state of Washington does that happen. It was unbelievable. But anyway, let God do whatever he wants to do. I wish the snow would have stayed a little bit longer, but it was quite an experience.
I also, you know, my wife left me last night for a good reason. I've got now my seventh grandchild at 3.09 AM in the morning. But when I woke up at 5.30 in the morning and I looked over and she wasn't there. What are you doing? Where are you, honey? I'm thinking she was downstairs. We always have our family usually over on Sunday nights and she sometimes gets up early on Sunday morning and starts cooking, getting things ready in advance. So I thought, oh, she's down there. I shower, get ready, come downstairs and no one's there. I go outside, the car's gone. I'm going, what's going on here? And then I thought, oh yeah, maybe Megan's having her baby. So then I call her while I'm driving to the church and she doesn't answer. Then I text her, no response. And I'm thinking, what in the world's going on? And then I get to the church. She texts me and says, yes, Megan had her baby at 3.09. I left at 1 a.m. and you were sound asleep, you know, and I didn't want to wake you up. And I said, okay, fine. So is it a baby? Is it a boy or a girl? And she says she's not telling anybody until the grandkids are taken to the hospital this morning sometime. So I still don't know. Still don't know. So I'm going to find out right after the service. That doesn't mean this sermon is going to be any shorter, though.
So open your Bibles to John chapter 4. You might have a Bible in front of you if you don't have one, or you can look on your device. John chapter 4, we're in part 3 of the amazing interaction between Jesus Christ and the woman at the well. And there's a lot of things that make it amazing. Number one, Jewish men did not in the public speak to women, let alone a Samaritan woman, because there was hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. In fact, they would even walk through Samaria. They would find another way around it. Jesus had to go to Samaria. Remember, we learned that in verse four. And then he interacts with her at the well alone. And knowing that he can transition any response that anybody might have, he's telling her about this living water that only can satisfy your life. And she's amazed at all the things he knows about her and her life. She'd been married five times, and now the man she's with was not even her husband, and she's stunned. How could anybody know this? This is looking like somebody really special, right?
And then she tries to divert the attention away by talking about which mountain we should worship on. And you guys worship in Jerusalem. We worship on Mount Gerizim. And Jesus doesn't, just goes with the deflection. And he says, listen, let's talk about true worshipers. And we talked about that last week. True worshipers are those who worship in spirit and truth. And he says that we must do that as God's believers. And so sometimes we've got to reorient our thinking because we're always thinking that worship sometimes is just the music world, or worship is just our gathering on Sunday, or worship may be in our life groups, but worship is involving every realm of our life.
And then all of a sudden she's getting it. The lights are going on. And she understands that he's the Messiah. Yeah. And then what we see from verse 27 to verse 42 is we're going to see an unfolding of the story and how exciting it is to see how Jesus ministered to her and his disciples and to us today.
I heard a story years ago about a couple city slickers, couple guys going out, they wanted to drive out in the country and so they're going on their way out and all of a sudden they run into a detour sign. It takes them down this old dirt road and all of a sudden they see it's all muddy and they drive into the mud thinking it's not that deep and they get stuck and there's no one around. But out of the blue, they look in the rear view mirror and here comes a farmer with a tractor. And he pulls them out. And he says, listen, that'll cost you 50 bucks. They said, fine with us, man, we're out of here. And so they go and talk a little bit, and the farmer's saying, you know, listen, I pulled out 10 cars today. And they're like, wow, man, you're staying so busy. How in the world do you ever work on the harvest? Do you do it at night? And here's what he said. The farmer says, no, at nighttime is when I put out my detour signs and refill the water into these mud puddles.
Now you say, what does this story have to do at all with what we're going to be talking today about the woman at the well and the disciples? Well, it has it this way. Sometimes, if you notice, we're too busy doing other things that we don't get to the primary things like witnessing with our life and witnessing with our mouth when God gives us the opportunity to sow the seeds. You see, these guys had fallen victim to an unscrupulous farmer who But the great question that he posed was this, all this work must keep you busy. When do you have time to work on the harvests? And it's interesting in Scripture that the Lord uses a variety of analogies to describe the ministry of witnessing. Sometimes he describes it as lost people who are compared to sheep that need a shepherd. Sometimes he describes that lost people are compared to fish that need to be caught and And right here in our text, as we're going to read here in just a moment, he compares lost people to the harvest that needs to be gathered.
And we learn some principles. It's like what we're going to be doing today. It's almost like it's a harvest training course or a witnessing training course by Jesus Christ who gives us some principles and guidelines not only through him but through the woman who's now transformed. So we learn from the woman. We learn from Christ. What about your life today? I know we're all busy, aren't we? But when do we have time or make time for the harvest? I know we're busy at our jobs, we're busy at education or at school or recreation or our families, but when do we work on the harvest? When? I think that's a good question for us to ask and consider.
And in our text today, we're going to continue to observe the way that Jesus interacted with the woman at the well as well as his disciples who go through a moment of cluelessness. They're on a mission to go get lunch and they're coming back and they're, hey, we got some lunch. Jesus, you want to eat? No, my food is to do the will of whom sent me. And they're like, what? What are you talking about, you know? We got lunch here. We got Chick-fil-A. What are you talking about, you know?
Let's read the text, beginning in verse 27. It says, at this point his disciples came and they were amazed that he had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, what do you seek or why do you speak with her? So the woman left her water pot and went into the city and said to the men, notice that, to the men, come see a man who told me all the things that I have done. This is not the Christ, is it? They went out of the city and were coming to him. And meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. Now watch this. Verse 33. So the disciples were saying to one another, no one brought him anything to eat. I mean, they're just missing it. And then verse 34, Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case, the saying is true, one sows and another reaps. And I sent you to reap for that which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor.
Now watch verse 39. This is how we know she got saved. From that city, many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all the things that I have done. So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, now they're back at Jacob's well, they left Sychar, they were asking him, would you stay with us for two days? He stayed there two days and many more believed. You see that? Many more believed because of his word. And they were saying to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard of ourselves and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world. Wow. Wow. What a great story. What a great ending to the story.
What a reminder that chapter three, he speaks to the elite religious leaders like a Nicodemus who was clueless about being born from above. Oh, he had Judaism down, but he wasn't born from above. And later on, it looks like he became a follower later on. And then he interacts with maybe the lower caste of the world that day, which was a woman. And the way they looked at her in that day and age, she's a woman at the well. She'd been married five times. And now she's living the one who's a sixth man in her life. Her life's miserable. She's got a lot of shame. She goes to the Jacob's well by herself. And guess who shows up? The Savior of the world. And we get to see an incredible story about how Jesus ministers to the up and outers and how he ministers to the down and outers. And he's a gracious Savior. I mean, isn't it great to know that you are saved because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and that he rose three days later from the grave? Isn't that great?
The text, like I said earlier, is like this witness training course for And I believe today all of us, including myself as I was studying this week, will become better witnesses, gospel witnesses, and will learn maybe the ways an unlikely sinner like this woman at the well who got saved and who doesn't have a lot of knowledge can be used of God to make a difference just by planting seed in her own village in Sychar. And then the master witness, Jesus Christ, can go for two days in Sychar, and many more believed and figured out, hey, he's the Savior of the world.
So I want to point you to two training tips that I think you can draw from this text that I think helps us understand how we can be better witnesses. Number one is this, and this is from the woman we learned this. Here's what she says. She gets changed. She's so excited about it. She leaves her water pot behind, which is unbelievable because that's the whole reason why she came to the well is to get some water and to take it back. And it's a very important part of their life and their health and their sustainability. And she just leaves it behind and goes back into town and starts witnessing to everybody. And people believe. It says many believe because of her testimony.
You know what she said? Here's her way of witnessing. Come and see. Come and see. Come and see the Savior. You guys got to check this out. You guys got to come. It's kind of like she made flyers and passed them out to everybody. You guys got to come. He knew everything about me. And when Jesus tells us that he is the Messiah, that she's been looking for in verse 26, she just can't handle what she's just learned and what she committed herself to, that she's so excited about And here's what's crazy to me is that the men that she was trying to stay away from, that she always had relational problems with, and she violated all the cultural rules back in that day, she was willing to go back to the men that she probably felt shame and they were probably ignoring her and to say, you'll never believe who I met. You got to come and see him for yourself. And sometimes that's what God wants us to do. He wants us to say, listen, I want you to come and see. Come and hear. Come and read. It's an opportunity. So the sinners came. They all started walking out to Jacob's well to find out for themselves.
But I want you to see a contrast that took place in this section. Number one, you've got the disciples of Jesus Christ, and they're very earthly-minded. It's all about lunch. We've got to get some lunch. Jesus was thirsty. He sent us away to get some lunch. We're coming back to get lunch. We've got our lunch. We're making it back. Here it is, Rabbi. We've got the lunch. Let's eat. And Jesus just totally changes everything and says, well, I've got some food that is not what you're thinking. And they're like, what? Did somebody already come and feed him? I mean, they're just on an earthly realm. They're just thinking about the food. And they're amazed that he was interacting with a woman. Though they didn't say anything to him, they just thought it. And here's this new Samaritan woman who's focused on the heavenly side of things. And she's seeing how Jesus totally transformed her life and she has got to tell somebody and she knows everybody in the village of Sychar.
I guess the application for you and I is how easy is it for you and for me to let the earthly and the temporary things of life like a lunch or maybe a cultural conditioning of that day. Maybe I can't talk to those people anymore. Distract us away from the opportunities to address, listen to this, the greater and eternal things of life like a stranger's transformation. I think we learned that from Jesus. The disciples allowed this cultural conditioning and this personal blindness by focusing just on the food to divert them from the priority of Jesus' mission. And so Jesus helps them get reoriented to the real harvest field and the call of the disciples and the call of the church.
Obviously, culturally, we've already talked about they had a problem interacting publicly, men with women. As I was studying this week, some of the things I shared with you a couple of weeks ago about that whole cultural barrier that Jesus broke through, not just that she was a woman and not just that she was a Samaritan woman and not that she was just an immoral woman. No, there were some other things because they had these beliefs. They believed, some rabbis believed that Teaching your daughter the Torah was as inappropriate as selling her into prostitution. You talk about chauvinistic. And here's Jesus setting the example. This woman was notorious at her small village. Everybody knew who she did. Everybody knew who she married. Everybody knew how many marriages she went through. And what's interesting is the men listened to her. You know why I think something was different? I think that they could see noticeably something's different about this woman. She's got a joy. She's got an excitement. She seems to have something that's totally different than the woman that we always knew. And so when she said, come and see, it motivated them to do that. It would be easy for them to shun them and say, oh, yeah, it's just the woman, you know. We all know your reputation here. No, the Lord used her transformed life for these men to listen to that invitation.
Personally, it appears the disciples were struck speechless when they were not expressing why he was talking to a woman. I like what John Calvin noted in a helpful insight. He says, if the disciples marveled that Jesus spoke with such a sinner as this Samaritan woman, they should have looked at themselves and marveled. Aren't we alike the same sinners as anybody else? If the disciples were distracted by cultural conditioning and personal blindness, let's remember that the Samaritan woman was distracted as well, and she was distracted enough to leave the water pot behind and get straight back to Sychar and let everybody know what changed in her life. You've got to come check it out. She dropped everything.
So she rushes back into the village. She tells everybody who's willing to listen about the amazing encounter that she had with this stranger that now I think is Messiah. He uncovered my past. No longer is she walking in shame. And by the way, if you look at the scripture down here, she even exaggerated what Jesus had done. She said this, come and see a man who told me all the things that I have done. No, he only said, you've had five husbands and the woman, the man you're living with right now is not your husband. That's all he said. But to her, it's like he opened up her sin so she could come clean by the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ, recognizing that he was the Messiah.
One more thing that seems to have made her effective was she asked a question. Did you see the question that she asked in verse 29? Come see a man who told me all the things that I've done. Watch this. This is not the Christ, is it? I mean, she was believing it, but she was being respectful in that day and age. She wasn't coming in with some demanding presentation like, hey, this is the Christ. You've got to come. No, she recognized maybe the proper respect that she needed to have there, that humility. And she used the question.
You know what's interesting? When you follow the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you study all the different interactions that Jesus had, as far as I can tell, we only have recorded 51 days over three years of his life. And in those 51 days, what those gospel writers record are this, 81 different questions that he asked in his interaction with people. He used questions all the time. And questions are phenomenal. Questions are great because it helps you to understand the people you're talking to. It opens the door.
We had years ago, I think it was 2003 and 2004, I don't know if you were around, but some of you were around, maybe you remember this. We had an evangelist called Bill Fay come to our church. He was doing a training on how to be a better witness, and he had this book called Share Christ Without Fear. He brought us some books. He taught us over the weekend about how we can share the gospel using the Roman's road and how we would present it. But he said, I suggest that you start with six questions. Now listen to these questions. Question number one, do you have any kind of spiritual belief? Number two, to you, who is Jesus Christ? Number three, do you think there is a heaven and a hell? Number four, if you died, do you know where you are going? Number five, why would God let you into his heavens? And then, here's what he says, listening to a person's answer, then you ask number six, if what you believe is not true, wouldn't you want to know that? And he said this. He's never in all the thousands of encounters that he had, never had a firm no to that question. Because honesty demands, if it's true, I want to know it. It doesn't mean they're going to be open to the gospel. It just means that they've admitted intellectually that I would want to know the truth, and maybe they're hearing from the questions that you're asking, I want to share you the truth about eternal matters.
I've told you this many times from the pulpit over the years, but the one question that you can use that I always use all the time, all the time, I ask people all the time, do you have any kind of spiritual faith whatsoever? And I've yet to have no, everybody answers it. Everybody answers it. Because it's not assaulting. It's not confront of. It's just saying, hey, do you have any kind of spiritual faith? I was at Costco yesterday and there's a guy out front right after you pay for everything and he's standing out there and he's got a Costco hat. If you guys went to Costco and you saw this guy, he was walking around trying to pan off these hats. Free hat if you do auto pay. Free hat if you do auto pay. And he comes up to me, do you have auto pay? I said, yeah. So we started talking a little bit. We're chatting away, and he's a nice guy. And I'm thinking, how can he chat? He's not on a break or anything like that. He starts talking to me. And so I said, hey, can I ask you a question? He said, sure. I said, exactly what I said. What kind of background faith do you have? And he looks at me and pauses. And he says, well, I have a faith, and it's a spiritual faith. It's a little bit different faith. And I said, what do you mean by that? And so then, you know, he said a few things, and I said, well, what do you think of Jesus Christ? And he goes, oh, I believe in Jesus Christ. And I said, well, are you a part of any kind of fellowship or church anywhere? And he goes, honestly, I'm not. And then he went on to talk to me about his son who was maybe interested in going to church. And so I said, hey, we'd love to have you over at Christ Church. We've got services 845, 1045. I told him a little bit about that. And it didn't go any further because he had to get back to pawning off those Costco hats that nobody wanted, apparently, because I never saw him give away one, you know. A big Costco in your head, you know. But it's a way to open the door. It's a way to open the door to say like this woman, come and see. Come and see the Savior.
So this woman knew far less than Nicodemus did. She had a far worse background than he had in society and life. Yet she was far bolder and did far more good than Nicodemus did because she knew her life was changed. And what that makes me think about is me, you, our people seeing a noticeable change in our life because we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do we have a joy? Do we have a peace? Do we have an excitement about what the Lord's doing in our life? Can people see that noticeable change? Maybe notice a zeal or the things you're willing to talk about and not talk about? I think that's something worth asking ourselves. Do they see our lights displayed in such a way they may see our good works and glorify our Father who's in heaven?
So number one, the missionary woman comes along and she says, come and see the Savior. Secondly, the master witness, Jesus himself, says this, go and sow the seed. He takes that harvest metaphor and then he develops it not only with his disciples, but then he's using it, he's going to practice it when he goes for two days into Sychar and many more believed as a result of that. Yes.
So what I want to do is I want to take you through and show you seven different sowing principles that we can learn from what Jesus said. And number one is this, is cultivate in your life a sowing mindset. What kind of mindset do you have? Are you thinking about sowing? Are you looking for your opportunities to sow? Are you saying, hey, I'm going to work, I'm going to the gym, I'm going to school, I'm going out and about. And is it even on our mind that we have a mindset that maybe God wants to use me and providentially bring a divine appointment into my life and maybe I can just ask a question? You see, Jesus redirects the disciples from their physical concerns about lunch to the spiritual opportunities that were all around them because kingdom work begins with seeing people as fields ready for harvest. In other words, he's saying, fake the harvest, not hunger.
The disciples were eager for Jesus to have some lunch. He said, shocking, I have food to eat that you do not know about. And they're thinking earthly, and he's thinking heavenly. They're not getting it. Maybe they had passed this woman as they were going to buy their lunch and kept their distance from her and surely didn't speak to her, and now she's a changed woman and they didn't know anything about her. You see, she leaves... So they want to get on with their mission, which is what? Lunch. They got it. Here it is. Jesus, let's eat. Jesus clues them in on his mission. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. He's teaching. He's training his disciples. He's training us as the church.
What's our food? Oh, yeah, we all have to eat. Food's necessary. Food's good. Good. We love it, nothing wrong with it, but actually it's secondary to the primary of living the Christian life. And being a walking testimony and a verbal testimony. And she goes, listen, come and see. And then Jesus says, listen, we're in the harvest time. We need to sow the seed and do the will of our Father. You see, when the villagers left to meet Jesus, he tells his disciples in verse 35, Do you not say that there are four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. See, the disciples, like us, needed to develop a harvest mindset. I know over the years, I can say I've been clueless sometimes because I'm focused on the natural earthly realm and not paying attention to maybe the mission field that I'm in, that God wants to connect and use me as a witness and you as well. So the first thing we see here is God wants us to cultivate a sowing mindset.
The second thing is God wants us to cultivate a sowing motivation. Here's the motivation. Delight in doing the Father's will. See, Jesus' food was obedience. Gospel proclamation flows from a heart that's satisfied in doing God's will. God's will. 2 Peter 3, 9. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That ought to motivate us. The disciples focused on eating lunch, and Jesus focused on doing the Father's will. And by the way, we don't even know whether Jesus even got a drink of water from the well. We don't even know if he ate any of that lunch that the disciples brought. But we do know that he was training the disciples about priority sowing in our lives.
In fact, he said this when it was the last day before he went to the cross in John chapter 17 in the high priesthood prayer. He said these words, I glorified you on the earth having accomplished the work which you have given me to do. Wouldn't you love to be able to say that when you get to heaven? I've done the work, Lord. I've done the work. I've been faithful.
Think about this. What if you and I ate with the same priority that we witness? Many of us would immediately lose weight. Think about that. So it's got a double blessing, you know. What if we worked out our jobs with the same fervency with which we would work the field of souls? Sometimes the good, like lunch or other things in the natural realm, which are all part of life that we enjoy, the Bible says. But what if the good can become the enemy of the best? It can happen. Is it possible that some of us have gotten too busy with extracurricular activities that we don't have time or energy for the harvest? Have temporal pursuits, even good ones, sidetracked us? Have clubs and hobbies and commitments preoccupied our time and our energy? And if Satan cannot sidetrack you with evil, he will sidetrack you with good as long as it doesn't relieve to the best. Like the disciples, we can get focused on the temporal things and maybe become clueless to the spiritual and the eternal that's right around us. Do we put our annoyances and frustrations with others above God's ministry of the gospel? Do we allow our preferences to blind us to the ultimate need of others to see God's gospel of grace working in their lives? And again, we may never reap on a regular basis, but we can sow every single day.
Thirdly, not only sowing mindset and sowing motivation, but you need to cultivate a sowing maturity. A maturity. In other words, we discern the ripened fields around us. Jesus calls them to lift up their eyes and recognize the harvest is already here. Hey, check it out. In other words, grow up and see what's out there. You see, sometimes the harvest may be ready in situations that you never expected. Never expected. I think that's true. You know, sometimes the people that are on my prayer list are the ones I'm just like eagle-eyed, seeing if there's any opportunity, any changes, maybe to talk to them. And then sometimes I'm so focused on them, I miss the unlikely interactions that God's bringing my way.
Jesus then seems to quote a familiar saying that means something like, Rome wasn't built in a day. In other words, you don't sow seed and expect that someone's going to respond at that moment. Maybe God opens up a door and you share the gospel with someone and they don't respond. You're like, oh, okay, let's go on to this next person. And you're discouraged and you're saying, ah, they're goners. No, many will sow along the way. And someone's going to come along and reap. And Jesus is going to talk about here in just a moment. The Samaritan woman was an unlikely prospect for the good news, and guess what? She wasn't even looking for the Messiah. She wasn't even thinking about the Messiah. She wasn't thinking about spiritual things. She was thinking about, hey, I've got to fill the water pot and bring back the Sychar. But then Jesus Christ crossed all the barriers, gender, religious, and moral, to talk with this messed up woman, and it led to a transformation, not only of her life, but of the village. We never know how God may use our witness with someone who appears to be an unlikely prospect. So what does Jesus say? Lift up your eyes. Look around.
Have you ever thought about the mission field lately? We have 8 billion people in our world. That's a huge number. Missiologists tell us this, that 42% of the world's population, that's 3.4 billion people, have not yet heard the Gospels. Maybe God wants to tap you on the shoulder and send you around the world somewhere. In the United States, we have 350 million people. Listen to this. The missiologists tell us that even in the United States that everybody thinks is church, we have 60 to 100 million people who've never heard a clear presentation of the gospel. Did you hear that? 60 to 100 million people. In the state of Washington, there's not a metric for this, but we can glean from this statistic that we have in the state of Washington, 70% of our people in the state of Washington, that's 5.4 million out of 7.9 million are considered unchurched. And here's how they define unchurched for our state. You go to church just once a month. You're called the churched, right? Not the unchurched. Once a month, wow, that makes you a believer? That makes you someone committed?
How about your neighbor? Do you know anything about them? Have you asked? How about your classmate? Do you know? Have you asked? How about your teammate? Do you know anything about their life, their faith? Have you asked? Have you asked? Perhaps we have forgotten that it is as easy to go to hell from Auburn as it is to go to hell from Africa. Or it's as easy to go to hell from Bonny Lake as it is from Belarus. Or it's easy to go to hell from Fife as it is from France. And Jesus comes on and he says, look on the fields that they are white for harvest. Harvest. God has promised a harvest, period. And I think sometimes we maybe don't witness as much as we think we can or sow the seed as much as we think, well, nobody seems to respond to me. But remember, reaping doesn't come always instantly. In fact, check it out. Think about how you came to know Christ. And I'll bet you there were 4, 5, 6, 10, 15 people along the stream that somehow witnessed to you and sowed the seed and finally you got saved. Verse 36, at the beginning it says, Already he who reaps is receiving wages God has promised to harvest. It's exactly what the psalmist said in Psalm 126, verse 5. Those who sow in tears will reap with joyful shouting. Verse 6, He who goes to and fro weeping and carrying his bag of seed shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. So we cultivate a sowing maturity.
Fourthly, we cultivate a sowing merit. What do you mean merit? I thought we're saved by grace through faith. Yes, but there's also works that get rewarded, not only in this life, but in the life to come. So we delight in the eternal reward. Both the sower and the reaper, we rejoice because God's gospel gathers fruit for eternal life. I've always thought of this. I heard a pastor do this many, many years ago in the 1980s. He was up talking about down in Florida. He was talking about, can you imagine what it's going to be like when you get to heaven and you see Jesus and you talk to Moses and you talk to all these different guys you want to talk to and then all of a sudden someone comes up to you and says, hey, my name is George or whatever. You don't know this, but one day you gave me a track and you walked away and probably never and we never saw each other again. And I'm here in part because of that when I read it. Can you imagine what it would be like to meet people who come up and say, listen, you sowed in my life. Thank you. That would be pretty cool, I think. So we want to cultivate this sowing merit and this blessing because we're gathering fruit for eternal life.
A great blessing, sowing God's powerful gospel. Can I remind you what the Bible says in Romans 1.16? I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the what? Power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Sometimes we get nervous. Well, I don't know. I might say the wrong thing. It'll happen. It's the power of God. We used to have this training course years ago for about 15 years, and we would train people on Tuesday nights, and we'd go follow up on people that are new to Christ's church. Back in the day where you knocked on the door and they answered the door, right? And so we would go in, and so about the first six weeks, the trainer, like myself, would lead somebody else who would go with us, and they're learning in classroom training and then on the job. So we'd take them into a home, and it's the sixth week or the seventh week, you're up. I'm not going to say anything. You're in charge. You do everything. And they're nervous, you know. So I remember going out with this guy one time. It was unbelievable. We get to this house. He leads pretty well. He does, you know, residency and occupation and finds out the interest, does everything just right. He asks the two questions perfectly that helps us understand whether they believe or not or what they think about their belief. And then he goes into the gospel, and I'm just like going, this guy's got it backwards and upside down and inside out. What in the world did he learn? Oh, no, should I bail him out? No, I can't. I just got to let it go. And I was tortured inside. And then we always ask this question at the end, did that make sense to you? And I'm like, no, it didn't to me, you know? And this person said, yes. And I'm like, what? And then our next question is, would you like to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone as your savior? And that person said, yes. And I'm like, only God can do that, right? Even if you mess up the gospel, right? God can get that gospel truth into someone's life. Cultivate a sowing merit.
Fifthly, cultivate a sowing mission. In verse 37 to 38, we embrace the assigned task that God has given us. Listen, we're all sowers. Every single one of you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in this room is a sower. You will from time to time be a reaper if you keep on sowing. But he says some sow, others reap. But every single one of us participates in God's larger redemptive mission. And obviously, I think I'm stating the obvious, there's no reaping without sowing.
Well, number six is cultivate a sowing mutuality. Verse 37 and 38 talk about laboring, listen to this, together in God's field. So you've got the sowers and the reapers and we're all part of the same process together. Evangelism is never a solo endeavor. It is a shared labor where many contribute to the one harvest. We've got to keep in mind that we never labor alone. Listen to this. If you lead someone to Jesus Christ, it feels really cool that God would use you to do that. Just remember that God probably brought around two or three or four or five other people in different ways to sow that seed, and you just got the low-hanging fruit that day. If you share the gospel and a person is unresponsive, which is what sometimes puts people away about witnessing, well, it's not my gift. What happens? We shy away. We say, well, I guess I'm not a witness. I'm not an evangelist. It's not my gift. Listen, don't be discouraged because you're just a part of the process. Didn't Paul say, I planted, Apollos watered, and God caused the growth? He's saying, listen, we're all a part of the process. He wants to use each one of us.
And I know and I can trust that God would bring somebody else into their life. One of the missionaries named William Carey lived in the late 1700s, early 1800s. He's called the father of missions, modern-day missions. He labored in India for years with minimal visible fruit. Listen to this. In his first seven years of ministry in India, he had not one convert. I've got to be honest. When I read that story, I'm thinking, would I have stayed past a year? thinking, I guess this isn't a field for me. Nobody's responding. Seven years, not a convert. And then God opened the door, and through his missionary work, he's like the father of modern missions. Many, if not most, of us are seed sowers whose harvest comes through the later witness of others. By the way, look down at verse 38. Look at this, verse 38. What are the first three words that are in your Bible there? What is it? What does it say? I can't hear you. I sent you. Isn't that interesting? He's not just saying, I'm sending the disciples. He's saying, listen, I'm sending the church of Jesus Christ. It reminds us of the great commission to go therefore and make disciples of all nations. God wants to use us.
We go out of obedience. You know, growing up, my parents would often tell me to do something like parents do. Take out the garbage, mow the lawn, clean your room. What do you think my parents would say or what would you say as a parent if I as a kid said to you, and you're my mom and dad, that's not my spiritual gift? Do you think that would work? Nada, no. Or what about this? They tell you to do something, you say, you know what, I just don't feel like it today. Do you think you'd get away with that? Now think about that with God. He says, I want you to be my witness. Ah, it's not my spiritual gift and I don't really feel like it today. That doesn't play really well in the spiritual realm. It doesn't honor God with the powerful gospel and the powerful Holy Spirit that he's given us to be his witnesses.
Well, the seventh and finally, cultivate a sowing multiplication. Verse 39 to 42. Oh man, this summarizes the whole thing. And let's just read it again. Look at verse 39. From that city, many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all the things that I have done. So number one, God multiplied the testimony of this woman who was known in Sychar. And her testimony revolutionized that little village. But that's not all. Look at what verse 40 says. So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. That's very rare in the ministry of Jesus to stay two days. And then what happened? Here's the multiplication. Many more believed at his word. And they were saying to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world. The same John who recorded this about what these people were saying because they believed is the same John in 1 John 4.10 where he talks about Jesus is the Savior of the world. Two times in Scripture. He's called the Savior of the world. What a multiplication God can do. Our witness is dependent upon the convicting work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the lives of those that we're witnessing to and the gracious call of Jesus Christ into their life.
Let me close with three things to remind you about. Number one is this. Keep your focus on Jesus. Again, that's the most important thing. People need to know who he is. How are they going to know that? Unless we maybe put something in their hands, or maybe they get a Bible, or maybe we witness to them. Secondly, keep your heart burdened for the lost. How do you do that? Pray, Lord, give me a burden for these people. I got a prayer list like probably you do with all these names on it of people I'm praying for their salvation, some of them for many years. And just bring it before the Lord. If it's not me, Lord, bring somebody in their life they can share the good news with them. Keep their heart burdened so we can invite the sinners to come and see and to go and sow the seed. And thirdly, keep your expectations high. Now, usually you say, manage your expectations. Don't have high expectations because you'll be greatly disappointed. That's a general rule for life sometimes, but not with a harvest, not with what Jesus said. Jesus said there will be a harvest. There will be reaping. It might not be you or me every week of the year, but it may be us every now and then, but I can sow the seed every single day and be part of the process of the reaping.
Here's a good fact. If you understand the gospel, then her story, the woman's story, is your story and my story. Her story is the story of every woman's mother's child and every father's baby. All we like sheep have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to our own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all. Here's our book of sin right here. And he laid it on Jesus Christ and caused it to fall upon him. We've got that message. It doesn't matter if you got saved in the county jail or you got saved in the first grade of Vacation Bible School or Tidstone Camp. The Savior of the world can always deliver anyone no matter who they are or what they've done or how bad they've been.
And did you notice something about this woman? She doesn't really point to herself. Oh, yeah, she shares the testimony of what happened to her, but you know what she said? She goes, he told me about all things. How did he know these things? She wasn't focused on herself. She was focused on Jesus. She wasn't saying, tell me about me. No, she was saying, let me tell you about Jesus. Jesus. And the power of anyone's testimony is not its style. It's always its subject. And the subject is who? Jesus, the Savior of the world. That's why salvation is not about believing something. It's always about receiving someone. And that's the person of Christ. Do you need Christ in your life today? The invitation is open. Come and see. Come and believe. Come and repent. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. It's as simple as maybe a prayer or just saying to the Lord, Lord, I want to follow you. I want you to have mercy on my life. I'm a sinner. I know I need you. I want to put my faith in you. It's as simple as that, but it's as powerful as those words when it meets the heart and the transformation of Jesus Christ in our life.
Scripture References from the Sermon
Romans 6:8-11 - Read at the beginning regarding dying with Christ and being alive to God
John 4:4 - Jesus had to go to Samaria
John 4:27-42 - Main text of the sermon (the woman at the well)
John 17 - Jesus' high priestly prayer, specifically mentioned regarding accomplishing God's work
2 Peter 3:9 - God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance
Romans 1:16 - "I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God for salvation"
Psalm 126:5-6 - Those who sow in tears will reap with joyful shouting
1 John 4:10 - Jesus as the Savior of the world
Isaiah 53:6 - "All we like sheep have gone astray"
Alluded to or Paraphrased:
Matthew 28:19-20 - The Great Commission ("go therefore and make disciples of all nations")
1 Corinthians 3:6 - "I planted, Apollos watered, and God caused the growth"
1 Peter 5:7 - "Cast all of our anxieties upon you because you care for us"
Matthew 5:16 - Letting our light shine so others may see our good works and glorify God
Romans 10:13 - "Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved"
John 3 - Reference to Nicodemus and being "born from above"
Additional Context References:
John 4:26 - Jesus revealing himself as the Messiah to the woman
John 4:29 - The woman's testimony: "Come see a man who told me all the things that I have done"
John 4:34 - "My food is to do the will of him who sent me"
John 4:35 - "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields that they are white for harvest"