Sermon: The Work of Sharing Jesus - John 4

Scriptures: John 4:27-38

Introduction

There are some two thousand unique people groups in the world which not only have not heard the gospel but which have yet to be engaged. Add that to the billions of people who in spite of belonging to people groups which have been reached, have still not heard the gospel and the task making sure everyone has at least one chance to hear the gospel seems overwhelming.

Now, when we talk about missions we ARE speaking about winning people to Christ but we are speaking about winning them in a specific context. Allow me to explain.

We have identified a difference between missions and evangelism as follows: We have a slight difference in the definition of evangelism and that of missions. Evangelism is when we are reaching people who can, will and should come to our church and Missions is when we are reaching people who cannot, will not and should not come to our church. Thus when we are out visiting those who have been attending our services and we are able to lead one of them to Christ, that's evangelism. They can, will and should come to our church. On the other hand, when we are in Kenya, Korea or Cambodia and lead someone to Christ, that's missions, as they cannot, will not and should not come to our church.

But in both cases we are leading people into faith in Jesus, it's just that in one case we disciple them in our fellowship and in another they are discipled within the context of another fellowship.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was the first New Testament missionary. He left His home, became one of us and dwelt among us, a foreign culture, so that He might share with us the message of His Father's love. But even while He was here, He demonstrated a desire to reach outside His own cultural boundaries. As our text this morning will demonstrate, Jesus was the first cross-cultural missionary.

Open your bibles with me this morning to the gospel of John, chapter four. We will be specifically looking at verses 27-38.

If we were to begin in verse one we would find the Pharisees becoming increasingly antagonistic towards Jesus and His ministry. Verse four tells us that Jesus had to go through Samaria.

Samaria, as you may remember, was wedged between Judea in the south and Galilee in the north. It was the place where the northern kingdom of Israel had once been. But in 722 B.C. the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom, intermingling their people with the Jews, creating the Samaritans. In the time of Christ there was great animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews looked down upon the Samaritans as religious apostates who had mixed the worship of the One true God with that of idols. Thus, when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, the hero of the story was someone the Jews looked down upon as being morally and physically inferior.

But we find Jesus on His way from Judea to Galilee and scripture tells us He had to go through Samaria.

About midday Jesus stops at the city of Sychar, by Jacob's well, and Jesus stays at the well while the disciples go into town to find something to eat. It is here that Jesus meets the Samarian woman, whom we know as the woman at the well.

Jesus breaks several cultural barriers in talking to this woman. He talks to a woman in public, something no self-respecting Jewish man would do, and He talks to a Samaritan, something no Jew wanted to do.

During the course of the discussion Jesus tells this woman all about her life, and reveals to her that He is, in fact, the long awaited Messiah. He offers her living water, or salvation and as the disciples return the woman returns to the village to tell all she could find about meeting Jesus.

Now the disciples are amazed: First of all that their teacher would lower Himself to speak to a woman in public and furthermore that He if He did choose to speak to a woman, she would be a Samaritan.

It is here were we pick up our text. Look at verses 31-38. Our text reveals four things to us about introducing others to faith in Christ.

I. It is sustaining and fulfilling work - vv. 32-34

I'm convinced that until after the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the disciples spent most of their time scratching their heads wondering about Jesus. I mean, He just didn't do things the way they thought the Messiah was going to do them. But they are still concerned about Him and so they urged Him to eat some of the food they bought in the village. Again He responds in a way that takes them all by surprise. His response is that He has food to eat that they don't know about. Now, being the spiritual dolts that they were, they disciples begin to ask each other, "No one brought Him anything to eat did they?"

But then Jesus explains, giving us insight into the sustaining and fulfilling nature of soul winning.

No doubt Jesus was referring to Deuteronomy 8:3 which says, "Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord."

Jesus was telling His disciples and He is telling you and me this morning that physical food may sustain us for a while, it may satiate our physical hunger, it may satisfy a temporal desire, but doing the will of our Father in Heaven is much more satisfying, much more fulfilling and much more meaningful.

Jesus was living on a plane the disciples had not yet discovered, a plane many Christians have not yet discovered. Jesus was living in a spiritual realm where the greatest satisfaction He could experience was to do the work that the Father sent Him to do, to do the will of the Father.

One of the reasons so many Christians are plateaued in their spiritual life is that they've never discovered the sustaining and fulfilling nature of being used by God. They have never discovered the secret of being used by God to accomplish His work.

God created us to be relational, to be in fellowship with Him and in fellowship with one another. It is sin which separates man from God and man from his fellow man. God's plan is that as we are in fellowship with Him, we will relate to others, thereby bringing them into relationship with Him. There is a basic need within the human soul, to be in relationship. It is interesting how we seek to fill that need in ways other than God intended. We watch television shows, so we can be interested but not involved, we gossip, so we can know the details about the problems of others, but never have to give of ourselves to help them solve those problems. All of this is counterfeit. God created us to be His agents, His ambassadors, to be His representatives to others so that we can get personally involved in helping people overcome their biggest problem, sin. But that costs us something.

The disciples would not have spoken to the woman, they would not have bothered to get involved. But Jesus intentionally stayed behind so that He could engage her in conversation and confront her with the truth. It wasn't a pretty picture Jesus painted of her life, but it was the truth. But not only did He confront her with the truth of her life, He confronted her with the truth that He is the Life. He stayed behind to share with her the good news, the gospel.

Folks, we were created to participate in eternity. God created us to be His messengers, His vessels, temples in which His Spirit lives. If we spend the substance of our days pursing lesser things, things which can only satisfy our physical nature and never satisfy the longings of our eternal nature in Christ, we may grow physically strong externally but dry up and die spiritually, or internally.

Jesus was explaining to the disciples that being in fellowship with the Father and accomplishing His work means doing things which satisfy more deeply than food. For those who will follow Jesus, that which satisfies the deepest longings of our souls, that which will bring us fulfillment and a sense of completion is to be used of God, and specifically to be used by God to bring others into the kingdom.

If you've never led another person to Christ, if you've never had the joy of sharing your faith with another and telling them how they can know Jesus, friend, you've missed one of the most significant things you were ever created to do.

Jesus wants you and me to have the same kind of spiritual food He had. He wants us to be nourished even as He was. And we get that by doing the will of the Father and to accomplish His work, which as Jesus explains here, is leading others to faith in Him.

But not only does Jesus reveal that winning others is sustaining and fulfilling, He also tells us that it is an urgent work.

II. It is an urgent work - v. 35

Immediately Jesus looks up and across the field, no doubt, He sees the people coming en mass from the village. The scripture tells us in verse 30 that after the woman went back into the village and told them about Jesus that the village was coming out to see Him.

As Jesus sees them, He turns the attention of His disciples, not to the grain in the fields, but to the field of souls which was making its way toward Him. He wanted them to look to the field He came to work, to the souls of men, women boys and girls.

The disciples were waiting for Jesus to establish a military kingdom, and once again Jesus is reminding them that He came to win souls. He came to seek and to save the lost, to be a ransom for many.

As Jesus directs their attention to the field of souls He stresses the urgency of sharing the gospel and says, "Do not say, four months till the harvest, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white unto harvest."

Folks, one of the reasons we don't see more people saved, one of the reasons we don't baptize more, one of the reasons we don't see the kingdom of God literally explode all around us is that we are not looking on the field as one which is white unto harvest.

In recent days Christians have spent too much time thinking about why people won't come to faith in Christ instead of going out and winning others to Him.

John Phillips, the great British commentator says, "If the fields were ripe then, what must they be now as we stand at the other end of the long dispensation of grace? The sun burns across the sky. Millions, still untold, lift up their anguished voices to the heavens. The church has dillied and dallied with the great commission, careless, for the most part, of the tragedy of a soul dying in nature's darkness. The terrible indictment of Psalm 142:4 which says, "No man cared for my soul," will be raised by a million million voices at the last day. How will we ever explain our lethargy and neglect when the charge is referred to us by the billions of our own generation who will say to God, "I never knew you had a Son"? Are we any less culpable than those first disciples who saw in the woman of Samaria not a mission field, but one whom they could afford to despise?"

As the song says, "Millions grope in darkness, waiting for Thy word, set my soul afire Lord, set my soul afire."

Oh that God would cause us to lift up our eyes from the enchantments of this world, to take our eyes off of the lesser things which vie for our affections and ensnare us, and cause us to see the mission field around us, white unto harvest as it is. Oh that we would sense the urgency, in our Lord's voice. That we who claim to be His followers would indeed follow Him, doing what He did, caring for those He cared for, and seeking to do His will.

Lift up your eyes, the fields are white unto harvest. Look around you at those who need to be saved, at those who have never heard, at those who are waiting for hope, for life and for freedom from the bondage of false religions. The world is filled with people just waiting for someone to tell them that God loves them, has a plan for their lives and will give them eternal life.

But it is not a work one can do alone. Even as Jesus called on His disciples to see the readiness of the harvest and to join Him in the work, He is calling upon us to join Him and to join one another in sharing the good news of the gospel.

III. It is a shared work - vv. 36-38

So often we are tempted to believe that soul winning is something we must do individually, when in reality it is a joint effort, a shared work among those who are followers of Christ.

Growing up in the last half of the last century, a familiar sight to many were the countless evangelistic crusades of Billy Graham. Thousands of people would pack out large stadiums in great cities around the world and Bill Graham would preach the gospel. There was always great music and a large choir, but the one thing most of us will never forget was the way Billy Graham gave the invitation. As he invited people to come and make a public decision for Christ, thousands of people would pour out of the stadium seats and crowd around the platform on the stadium field.

To the unaware observer, it would appear as if Billy Graham were solely responsible for leading thousands of people to Christ. But those who understand what Jesus is teaching us here in John chapter 4, realize that many of the people who made professions of faith at Billy Graham crusades, did so as a result of a family member who prayed for them for years, or as a result of a godly neighbor who was faithful to love them and share the gospel with them. While Billy Graham may have reaped the harvest, others sowed the seeds. It was their join efforts which saw people come to Christ.

We have become so accustomed to thinking that the one who reaps the harvest is the one who really "wins" the person to Christ, but Jesus makes it clear that whether you are sowing or you are reaping, you are still a partaker in the work and will be a recipient of the reward.

There are some folks who are just gifted at reaping the harvest. They can witness to a tree and it'll get saved. And we have a tendency to think that they are the only ones with the gift of evangelism. But nothing could be farther from the truth. There are many people who may never have been able to see the fruit of the seeds they've planted, but had they not planted the seeds of the gospel, the harvester would not have had anything to do.

But when we go about the business of sowing, invariably we will come across those who are ready for harvesting, those in whose heart someone else has planted the seed, those whom God will use us to reap, even though we did not sow the seed in their lives. Thus, the principle of sowing where we will not reap and reaping where we did not sow is understood.

On that great day when the books are opened, and all our earthly deeds are revealed, there will be no distinction between the sower and the harvester, both together will share in the rewards because both were responsible for the harvest of souls, they were both involved in each activity.

But not only does Jesus tell us that soul wining is fulfilling and not only are we told that it is urgent and a shared work, but He assures us that it is a Joyous work. Winning souls to Jesus Christ is the most Joyous work in which any Christian can be involved.

IV. It is a joyous work - v. 36

Look at verse 36, "So that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together."

Jesus is telling His disciples and is telling us that joy comes to those who are involved in soul winning.

In the New Testament there are also a variety of words used to express this idea of joy, but the root meaning of the word "rejoice" here coveys this idea of being glad, to welcome or rejoice.

There are many things which bring joy into our lives. Just this week I was at the hospital with a young couple from our church who just had their first baby. As I stood there looking at that precious little girl, the look coming from her parents was pure joy.

In the beginning of time, when God created man and woman, it was His intention for them to know the joy of fellowship with Him. Sin, as we know, ruined that perfect joy, and it is not till we come into fellowship with God through salvation that we can once again know that joy. The Christian life is to one Characterized by joy

Go through the scripture and study the word "Joy," and you find some fascinating things.

In the Old Testament there are several words the writers used to describe joy. They have a range of meaning. Listen to some of the things this word means in Hebrew: mirth, gladness, singing, rejoicing, leaping, to shine or to break forth into shouting. What a descriptive word

We are all familiar with certain passages like Psalm 30:5 which says, "weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning." Or Nehemiah 8:10 which says, "For the joy of the Lord is your strength."

In John 15:7-11, Jesus says

The key to having that Joy is abiding in Him, doing what He did, being about His work, allowing Him to live through us, to accomplish His work through us. If Jesus found great joy and fulfillment in seeing others repent and put their faith in Him, should that not also bring us joy.

Conclusion

Nothing should thrill a Christian more than seeing a lost person come to Christ unless it is actually being used of God to help that person into the kingdom.

Have you ever known that Joy? Have you ever known the joy of leading someone else from the darkness of sin into relationship with the Light of the world? If not why not? Perhaps, like the disciples, you are focused on temporal things, things which cannot satisfy and this morning Jesus is telling you that there is food which is not of this world. Or maybe you're here this morning and your eyes are not opened to the ripeness of the harvest around you and Jesus is asking you to lift up your eyes and see that the field of souls is white unto harvest.