The sermon, titled 'The Most Satisfying Food,' delivered by Scott Brown, focuses on John 4:27-42. It explores the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, emphasizing how Jesus finds his greatest satisfaction in doing the will of God. The woman, despite her troubled past, becomes a powerful witness to her city, leading many to believe in Jesus. The sermon underscores the theme that true fulfillment is found in pursuing God's will rather than self-interest. It challenges listeners to consider their own role in the story, urging them to be like Jesus, seeking and saving the lost. Jesus' conversation with the woman and the subsequent belief of the Samaritans highlight the unexpected and counter-cultural nature of Jesus' ministry. The sermon concludes by urging believers to embrace the Great Commission, making disciples and spreading the gospel, as this is the true work that Jesus has set for his followers.

Good morning, we've been studying John chapter 4. Today Scott will be preaching in the book of John chapter 4 verses 27 to 42. John 4, 27 to 42. John 4, 27-42 And at this point his disciples came and they marveled that he talked with a woman. Yet no one said, What do you seek, or why are you talking with her?

The woman Then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, Come, see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Then they went out of the city and came to him. In the meantime, his disciples urged him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know.

Therefore, the disciples said to one another, Has anyone brought him anything to eat? And Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. Do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

For in this the saying is true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored, others have labored, and you have entered into their labors." And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans had come to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his own word. Then they said to the woman, Now we believe not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard him.

And we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. Our Father, we thank you for this truth we read in this scripture here, that the fields are white with harvest, and that these people believed because of Jesus' Word. May we be a people like that. Oh Lord, Scott's going to come up here and teach us. He's going to preach the word.

Oh, Lord, give him strength and help. Give us help. Open our ears and our eyes and our hearts for this true word. Amen. Amen.

We always want to ask, when we preach the Word of God, who are you in this story? And there are four parties in this story. Of course, there's the Lord Jesus Christ, whose greatest joy, His greatest happiness, His greatest satisfaction in food is to do the will of His Father. Then you have the disciples who are really learning that. They still are trying to understand that.

And then You have the woman who's had five husbands and the one she's living with now is not her husband and she is very much like we are. We've had many leaders, many mentors, many heroes in this world. We've gone on many fads and jags in our life. We've picked up all kinds of ideas, we're just like her in many ways. And then you have the people in this city, Sychar, which I read this last week, Sychar had a nickname which meant drunken, and So it was a place like that.

But the Lord Jesus Christ here, He's seeking and saving the lost. He's weary. He's thirsty. He's sitting beside a well. And He's a man, and He's looking into the eyes of a woman who's had her life broken by the things that she's loved.

And the Lord Jesus Christ is there before her. He really is a fulfillment of Proverbs 11.30. You know what that is? He who wins souls is wise. And in this narrative of the woman at the well, that verse is fulfilled, it's pictured for us graphically.

The wisest man who ever lived sent by his father spent his greatest labors and love to seek and save the lost. His wisdom was unmatched and his wisdom was focused particularly on the seeking and saving those who have been broken by this world, the people who'd gone from one fad to another, one love to another that never really worked out, and He provides them what she needs. And, you know, who are you in the story? Are you the woman? Are you Jesus?

Are you the disciples? Are you the people of Sychar? The people of Sychar who said, stay with us, please stay with us. Is that you? Are you saying, oh Lord, you know, I want to seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

In this passage there really is kind of, to me, a dizzying array of things to focus on, and we'll walk through this passage, but what perhaps is one of the most central matters of this passage is that Jesus Christ always feeds on and is satisfied by the most satisfying thing, and that is doing the will of God. And he's always leading his people to do the same. That there really is only one satisfying thing, and that is to do the will of God, because he says his food is to do the will of God. And this is the most satisfying thing. You know, we feel intuitively that our satisfaction comes from satisfying ourselves.

This is the most deceiving thought we can ever have. Because the Lord Jesus says that His food, His satisfaction, the thing he longs the most, the thing he wants the most. You know, we desire food, don't we? We want good food. Is there anybody that doesn't want good food?

You know, actually, when I was single, I had a little bit different view of food. I sort of had the fuel view of food. I really didn't care. You know, I was single, I would come home, I would have graham crackers and whatever was there. And my wife was mortified at my life and what I ate, you know, because I believed food was fuel.

There's no artistic value at all, you know. This is the stupidity of a single man. I've changed, but for Jesus, his food, the thing that he loved the most, the tastiest thing, the most satisfying thing, it wasn't physical food. It wasn't the most well-presented, best-tasting food in the world. It wasn't that at all.

It didn't even come close. His food was to his satisfaction. The thing he loved the most was the will of God. So, I have many hopes today for my own life and for all of us together. You know, one of those hopes is that today, our love for the will of God would grow more.

Becoming like Jesus would mean that your love for the will of God is like His. He loved the will of His Father. And so, let's dive into this text. As you can see, I'm just trying to follow the contour of the text. First of all, the disciples marvel.

I love this part in verse 27. And then secondly, the woman is eager. It's amazing what she does. And then thirdly, Jesus begins instructing his disciples because they talk to him. And then finally, the Samaritans are believing.

This is what we see in this passage of Scripture. And in the midst of it, there's one great theme, and that is That the most satisfying thing in the world is to do the will of God That's a question we need to resolve I believe that my whole life My whole life I think has been a struggle to try To conform to the will of God, which is the most satisfying thing as I continue, you know, to be satisfied with the silliest of things. And God desires to wean us all from the unsatisfying things of this world. So let's look at verse 27. The disciples marvel, and at this point, verse 27, his disciples came and they marveled that he talked with a woman and yet no one said, what do you seek?

Or, Why are you talking to her? You know, nobody said that. They marveled that Jesus would make Himself unclean by talking with this unclean woman. And They marveled because Jesus was a marvel. He did the most unexpected things.

He's not like you and I. If He were here today, He would be doing things that would astonish you. Things that you don't do, He does. And He did unexpected things, beautiful things, startling things. And so here the disciples were beholding the merciful Savior, the patient Savior, the compassionate, and the absolutely countercultural Jesus.

And they marveled. It was striking. It was so unusual for a Jew to be speaking to a Samaritan, for a man speaking to a woman, and particularly a rabbi, a teacher, to be talking to a woman who'd been divorced five times and now was with a man that wasn't even her husband. And if a man did such a thing, it would be scandalous, but Jesus is a marvel. His purity is unmatched, and in his purity he does what he ought to do.

Often it's our impurity, our self-serving, our pride, our love for ourselves, our fear of man. That's why we don't do what we ought to do, but Jesus had none of that in him. And it was a marvel. Would you like to know someone like that? Everything he did was out of the perfections of his love for God.

They marveled. They marveled. And then the woman was eager, verses 28 through 30. Then the woman left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men...now by the way, that word men can mean men and women. It isn't just that...she didn't just show up and talk to the males.

It's a word that is broader in its scope. She said to the men, come and see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ? And they went out of the city and came to him. It's a remarkable thing that happened in her life.

And there are several things I want us to notice here. First of all, you know, her eager departure, she left her water pot. Now, why did she leave her water pot? Why did she just leave her water pot? I mean, this was probably a large container, and She was so eager that she left it.

Was it from eagerness? Was it she wanted to leave water for Jesus and the disciples who would come back? Or was it symbolic? You know, was she leaving her, oh, the old water pots of the old covenant, the old purifications and ceremonial laws and feasts and festivals? Was she leaving that?

Well, the text doesn't say. Is it figured? It could be. It could be any one of those things. But here's what we know absolutely for sure.

She wanted to tell the people in that city. I think that's an unassailable conclusion for why she left that water pot. You know, one of the early church fathers called her the apostle to the Samaritans. How about that? And she went to the city, which was about a half a mile away.

It wasn't very far away. But you first of all notice her eager departure. Then she gives her testimony. And I want to break this down into four parts of her testimony, because her testimony is helpful to us as well. And the first part of her testimony was her invitation.

She said, come, come see a man, come. There was an invitation. She wanted others to know. By the way, these are the, are her last words recorded in Scripture. Come, see a man.

That's it. We have no other record of what she said after this. What a great legacy. You know, people talk about their last words at death, that these are marvelous last words. You know, this is the missionary spirit, and she makes an appeal to the people in her life.

That's what the missionary spirit is. The ones that God gives you, you make an appeal to and you say, come, come. And, you know, she was concerned, She was concerned about the religious debate, but now she's concerned about something else. Eternal state. The eternal state of those who are with her in this life.

And so she goes to them and she says to them, come. She goes to those who are in her community. You know, all of us live in a community. What's our message? The message of this woman was come.

Very much like the message of Jesus who said, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And very, very much like the Lord Jesus at the end of the age in Revelation 21, where you read, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, all you who are weary, come. All you who hear, come. Let him who thirsts, come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely." The Lord Jesus offered her the waters of life and now she turns around and is a dispenser of the news of that water. And so she, the first part of her testimony is her invitation.

The second part of her testimony is the specificity of her invitation, where she says, see a man. She's very focused in her invitation. See a man. Who is this man? Well, we've already learned that he's full of grace and truth.

We've already learned that he's God's eternal Son. And See a man. This was the focus of her invitation. This should also be the focus of our invitation. Not come and see a lifestyle, not come and see a theology, although it would contain theology.

Not come and see a lifestyle or a way, but come and see a man. Come and see Jesus, the most life-giving being ever put in the world. And then the third part of her testimony was really a testimony to the power and the glory of this man. Come see a man who told me all things I ever did. This is His omniscient power.

He sees all, He knows all. Come see the man who looks right into your heart and tells you who you are. Come see the one that you can't hide from. Don't hide. Run to Him.

Quit running away. You cannot hide from him. You know, we're increasingly living in a world where you can't hide. That should be a parable for all of us. You know, I have a phone right here, you know, hung in one of the pockets of my body.

And guess what? It's easy for a lot of people to find me right now. I can't hide. But nobody can hide from God. Come see a man who told me everything that I'd ever done.

Now, did he tell her everything? No, this is hyperbole. This is exuberant language. But she knows that he knows everything about her. Nothing is hidden from his sight.

Come see that man. She is bearing witness to the power and the glory of that man. She's really captivated by the beautiful wisdom of Jesus Christ. And then the fourth part of her testimony is her consideration of the man and her proposition, which is really in the form of a question. She says, could this be the Christ?

Could this be the Savior of the world? Now, this is a very important statement. You know, is her question a reflection that she doubts? Is she saying, is this the Christ? Is she actually asking that question?

It could be. It could be, you know, as when the Lord saves us, we still have many questions, we still carry doubts with us. We may have them our whole life long at different times. But is it that it could be that, but we're not told if it's that. It could be that sometimes it's just better to ask a question than to make a proposition.

And Sometimes it's better to say, look at Him, see for yourself, look at Him, hear Him, Check him out. What do you think of him? Do you think this could be the Christ? We've already seen many reasons why we ought to believe that Jesus is the Christ. In John 20, John says, these things are written that you may believe and that in believing you might have life in his name.

So all these things are written so that you would believe. You know, what do you need to know before you would believe? Like, would it be enough to know that He created everything? Would it be enough to know that He rules the wind and the waves? Would it be enough for you to believe if it was actually true that He turns water into wine, that he causes people to be born again?

Would you believe in him for that? Would you believe in him if he really was the bread from heaven? Would you believe in him if he really was the water of life and the resurrection and the door? Would you? What would it take for you to believe in Him?

And so this woman is, I think, kind of doing that. She's saying, you know, here He is. What do you think? What do you think of him? It's a wonderful question.

So this is her testimony. There are these four parts to her testimony just in that one verse. But we know what the results of her testimony were, and that is the people from the city followed her out of the city and all the way to Jacob's well. It says in verse 30, they they went out of the city and came to him. So it's she she brought them to Jesus.

She walked with them back to Jesus. She had embraced, drank of the living water, and then she brought the people of the city to consider drinking of that living water as well. Now here's one of the most wonderful things about this story. This woman was so broken in her life, and God makes her a source of water for a city. Isn't that amazing?

He takes her from a person that is not a productive, helpful member of that society And he makes her the most productive member of that society in a moment. Isn't that amazing? That's a miracle of God. And that should tell us something about everyone. No one is ever too far gone.

You know, there was a young girl in our community, was one of our neighbors who just died last week. And she looked too far gone. And the first man she was with shot himself. The second man became her husband and he died of a drug overdose. And then last week she died of a drug overdose.

She was our neighbor, you know. And was she too far gone? No. She wasn't too far gone. No one could ever be too far gone for the Lord.

But this woman who was so far gone was not too far gone for God to rescue her. And she became a dispenser of the news of the living water. What a blessing it is. Don't underestimate the power of the conversion of a single soul. This one single soul was the means for reaching this entire city.

Now, is there anybody in your life like my former neighbor who you think is just too far gone, is too hard, don't think that way. Don't think that way. You know, I was at that funeral, Deborah and I, and there were several people in that room who didn't think anybody in that room was too far gone. Let that be true of us. Then Jesus is instructing, the woman was eager.

But then Jesus began to instruct the disciples in verses 31 through 38. In the meantime, His disciples urged Him saying, Rabbi, eat. I mean, they are so, they urged Him. I mean, they're really concerned. They're super concerned about the food.

You might say they're a little bit too concerned about the food in Jesus' mind. Sometimes you can get too concerned about your food, and that's what the disciples did. But So they urged him, Rabbi, eat. Of course they were concerned about him, you know, obviously. You know, he was weary and tired and we don't know the inflection point of exactly what they meant except for they were concerned that he ate, but he said to them, verse 32, I have food to eat of which you do not know." So here Jesus is saying that he has a desire for something that's greater than food.

He understands hunger and the need for food. Have you ever just sort of felt desperate for food? Well, the disciples seem to think that he might be, but he wasn't. Now, this sort of demonstrates their dullness as they speak to one another. And then the disciples said to one another, has anybody brought him anything to eat?

Maybe he already ate. Maybe the woman brought him something to eat. And that wasn't the case. But then Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. Do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest?

Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true, One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap for that which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor." You know, he's speaking of You know, he's speaking of a life of rejoicing here, a life of rejoicing that is connected with loving the right food the most.

And in some ways these verses read like a mission statement. My food is to do the will of him who sent me. That is a little bit like a mission statement that we might capture. But Jesus was on a mission of mercy. Now, when I was reading one of the commentators, A.W.

Pinkin, he said that you need to interpret this by asking three questions, and I thought these were wise questions to help us understand the meaning of Jesus here. First of all, what does it mean that the will of God is like food to Jesus? And just in short, it's His driving desire and energy and joy. Secondly, what is the Father's work? And the Father's work is to seek and save the lost, to do the Father's will, to complete His will.

And then thirdly, How is Christ finishing his Father's work? And I think that we can give a couple of answers, primarily that he's finishing his Father's work through his death and resurrection and through his ongoing work, through his disciples, whom he will send to do this very same thing that he did. So I think those three questions help us to sort of logically grasp what is being said here. Now, what Jesus is saying is that He has a nourishment that comes from heaven. Now it's easy to need food, it's easy to want food, it's easy to love food, but what Jesus loved the most, what he wanted the most, was to do the will of his Father.

This is what he loved the most. You know, my food is to do the will. You can put different words in there. My love, the thing I love to do the most, my satisfaction, the thing that satisfies me the most is doing the will of my Father. So This brings us really to what is the driving force in Jesus' life.

And He has nourishment that comes from heaven. He's strengthened, enlightened from heaven. He's delighted from heaven. And the will of his Father is his greatest delight. I think that's what he's saying.

That the most nourishing and satisfying and refreshing thing is to do the will of God. We often think that the thing that we can do the most to bless ourselves is to do something for ourselves. But that isn't how we've been made. If you seek your own pleasure without God, which by the way is the entire theme of Ecclesiastes, which we begin next Sunday morning. Mike is going to preach the first session on Ecclesiastes.

The whole message of Ecclesiastes is that You can try to satisfy yourself by this world. Guess what? It doesn't work. It never will. It comes from heaven.

That's it. It doesn't come from another person. It doesn't come from what you have. It doesn't come from who you are, your reputation. It doesn't come from anywhere.

It comes from God. And so Jesus is just stating this, what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes in a different way, Jesus found delight in doing the will of his Father. In this case, It was dealing with a broken-hearted woman that probably everybody else thought was too far gone. And probably, you know, the real holy people wouldn't even talk to her because it was too dangerous. You know, It was dangerous to talk to that woman.

What would people say? What would people say if I talked to a woman like that? What would you think? You might avoid a woman like that. But Jesus, he never served himself.

He never did anything out of the fear of man. He never did anything just out for outward appearances. He did everything for the will of God, regardless of outward appearances. We're so consumed with our outward appearances that we are constrained and pinched and truncated in our lives. We're just all locked up in ourselves, you know.

We care so much about ourselves. But Jesus wasn't like that at all. He never served himself, but he was the happiest man who ever lived. Just showing us that the path to happiness never was and never will be and never can be the path of self-indulgence. It comes from doing the will of God, loving the will of God.

Now you won't do the will of God unless you love the will of God. And so he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me. This was his desire. You know, Jesus also said in Matthew 6, 25, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Okay, so if life is more than food and it's more than clothing, what is it?

Well, it's to do the will of God. That's what life has been designed for. And so the Lord Jesus, He always delighted to do the will of God. And we'll learn way more about this in the Gospel of John. Over and over again, we see how he delights to do his Father's will.

Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, the most painful moment where the weight of sin is beginning to press upon him, he says, not my will, but thine be done. Because he delighted to do the will of his Father, and he believed that the greatest delight was in doing the will of the Father. You know, this is why David said in Psalm and delight yourself in the Lord. And why in Psalm 16 David said, in your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Because the most delightful thing in the world is being in the presence of Jesus in any moment to do the will of Jesus himself. This is why Paul said That godliness with contentment is great gain, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled, says Jesus. And that's why Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 5, 10, he who loves silver will never be satisfied with silver. But he who loves the will of Jesus will always be satisfied and will always know how to live through every moment in this life. If all you cared about was the will of God, you'd have a lot less stress in the moments that you're living in right now.

Solomon also said, Blessed is the man who listens to me, for whoever finds me finds life. Well, that's what Jesus is saying. That's where life is. Your life really is the result of the thing that you love. And if you love the will of God, then you'll be satisfied.

And that's so Jesus says, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. Now that brings us to sort of a definition because Jesus tells his disciples what the will of God was all about, and it was to do God's work, do the Father's work. Jesus was sent to do the Father's will, the Father's work, and to finish His work. And so they would need, we would need as a church to be filled up with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and insight. That's what Paul prays for the Colossian Church.

And that's a prayer we need for our own church, that we would be filled up with the knowledge of its will. And then in being filled up with the knowledge of his will, we would love that will. You know, This is why Jesus taught his disciples to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So Jesus is speaking of just the necessity of doing his father's will. And now he says that he wants to finish the work.

In John 20, verse four, we read, he says, "'I have finished the work which you have given to me, "'and I have declared to them your name, "'and will declare it, that the love which you loved me may be in them and I in them." So the will of his father that Jesus was fulfilling had to do with coming to seek and save the lost, to present himself as a sacrifice for sinners, and then to send disciples throughout the world to go and proclaim the same message. That's how his work is being finished now. It's being finished through the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Now open your Bibles to Matthew 28 because this is really very much like the Great Commission. You know, what is the work that Jesus came to finish that His Father gave Him to do?

Well, it's actually finished in part. It is finished in a judicial way on the cross, but it is also completed by the church as they fill up the sufferings that are in Christ and as they fulfill the Great Commission. And so in the Great Commission you have this...these words of Jesus to His disciples, and you know, everything that God has the church to do is summed up in the Great Commission, and this is the Father's will that we fulfill the Great Commission, that we go, you know, into all the earth to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey all that He has commanded and to baptize." So there, you know, in this phrase, the main verb is to make disciples, but then there are these participles that surround it, go, baptize, teach. But the making of the disciples is the heart of the matter and it's done by these other means. And this is the Father, the Father's will is to make disciples of all the nations.

And you know, this is the proclamation that Christianity is a missionary religion and that God is a missionary God. And if you get involved with Jesus Christ, then the whole course of your life is shifted. You're not your own. Your own vision statement doesn't mean anything. You might as well just throw it in the trash can.

God has given you His mission statement and that is to fulfill the work that Jesus began. And this kind of delivers you from your own personal journey to find yourself. It caused you to lose yourself for that mission. It transforms your heart. It changes the direction of your life.

It remaneuvers the intentions of your will. He sends you on a mission, and it's really a life-altering schedule, disrupting mission to make disciples. If you follow Jesus, your schedule will never be the same you won't live like everybody else because you have a different mission and And he commands you to teach And so, you know the great commission though as we all know is often what somebody said, the great omission. And you know, that God would raise up in us a fresh regiment of those who are finishing the work of Jesus by making disciples and seeking and saving the lost and not thinking that there's anybody in this world that's too far gone. You know this is very personal to me and my family.

You know one of the greatest blessings for me to consider is this command and why it's such a critical priority. In the 19th century, missionaries went from England and they boarded a ship and they came and they came to an island in the Caribbean and they found members of my wife's family a long time ago. And In this remote Caribbean island, it's a really small island off the coast of Venezuela. And there, Deborah's ancestors were there. And they came and they preached the gospel on the island of Barbados.

By the way, it was the same place that John Newton's father had a slave plantation. And we went, on our 30th wedding anniversary, Deborah and I went back there. And we went to all the places, you know, the place where they were saved, The places that they went to the market, it was all still there. You know, the hillside where they lived and the ocean they overlooked. We wanted to see where the gospel came.

In five generations, the gospel really has that impact on her family. It really has. In five generations, I think there have been two divorces in that family. Forces in that family. But when someone gets it in their heart to go and do something very disruptive and go to a foreign place where they might die matters.

It really matters. But it matters just as much to go across the street. It matters just as much to live in a town and do the exact same thing. It's not greater to go across an ocean, but it is great to cross the street or an ocean. And so in the Great Commission, you find there are several things.

There is a supreme authority in verse 18. All authority is given to Jesus in heaven and in earth. In other words, There is a supreme, unimpeded, unquenchable, unstoppable, omnipotent authority of Jesus that you go with. Secondly, there's an amazing journey. You go.

It's diverse. It's changing, and it might be dangerous. And then thirdly, it's a transforming calling where you make disciples. And then there's a sign of it, and that's baptism. You baptize.

There's a physical, symbolic, instructive sign. Baptism where you picture the death and resurrection of the old man and then there's a transforming influence your lives are being transformed because you're teaching them to obey Jesus Christ there's a life-altering mind transforming healing force that happens in your life when you are taught by Jesus. And then there's an abiding presence. He's always with you. Behold, I'm with you always even to the end of the age." And there's this happy ending, the end of the age.

He's ruling at the very end. It's a more remarkable calling. This is the work that God has called His church to do. And that's why Jesus said, look at the fields, for they're already white to harvest. And that's why I said in Matthew 9, the harvest is truly plentiful, but the labors are few.

Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest. This is the indispensable center of the will of God for Christians and for this church, for your family and for your own life personally. And this justification By faith alone is the single most important part of the communication of the gospel. And everything else flows from it. And what gets in the way of our spreading the gospel is always doing our own will, fulfilling our own dreams, and focusing on our own agendas.

That's the most harmful thing to the spread of the gospel. I'm very convicted about this. You know, our problem is that we delay. You know, there's a story out of the archives of Hudson Taylor in China. There's a man in China by the name of Mr.

Ni. He spoke the Ningpo dialect, and one day, Mr. Ni, he was a Buddhist trader, and he was walking down the street, and he passed by a meeting place and he heard somebody speaking in his own dialect, and so he stepped into here and the man was preaching out of the Gospel of John in his own dialect, in the Ningpo dialect. So it was very stunning to him, and he was a man who was concerned about the transmigration of his soul. He was concerned about evil and sin and what to do about that.

But this man was preaching, and he was preaching, even though he was a Westerner, He was preaching in Chinese dress, and Mr. Ne could understand every single word he was saying, and he was telling the story of the brazen serpent in the wilderness. And he was hearing, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." And he heard, you know, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. So he's hearing this in his own dialect and the Lord moved on his heart and saved his soul. And he went to that preacher and he said something to him it was remarkable what he said he said I've long sought the truth but Without finding it, I've traveled far and near, but I've never searched it out.

In Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, I have found no rest. But I do find rest in what we have heard tonight. Henceforth I am a believer in Jesus." You know, that man was a lot like the woman at the well. Immediately God moved her heart. And He became a student of the Bible and he grew, but one day, one day it's recorded that he was talking to a missionary from England, and Mr.

Knee asked that missionary, he said, How long have you had the glad tidings in your country? And the missionary said, some hundreds of years. And Mr. Knee replied, My father sought the truth and died without finding it. Why did you not come sooner?

Why did you not come sooner? Like, is there anybody? Maybe they're an old neighbor, and you might wish you had come sooner. That story, apparently it fueled Hudson Taylor's zeal and resolve in the years to come. But the central matter of evangelism is when you speak to someone and you say, come see a man who told me everything I had ever done.

You know, when we consider the focus of our local church here, we need to just recognize what we're really all about. And what are we all about? You know, people often think that the focus of a church is for equipping or fellowship or teaching or social justice or building relationships. But here in this section of John, we learn in no uncertain terms what is the most important in the mind of Jesus, and that is to do the will of God, which is to seek and save those who are lost, and make disciples of all the nations. Jesus is consumed with his Father's will.

And then he says, look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. And what does that mean? It means that the disciples couldn't see the readiness that was really there, and so they didn't take advantage of it. But Jesus saw it. Now, some people say, you know, the Samaritans wore white robes and they're flowing, you know, to the well, and Jesus is saying, look, the fields are white to harvest.

That's possible, but the text doesn't tell us that. I think that we should not judge by appearances, And we should not have our lives so wrapped up in our own concerns that we miss the harvest and the readiness, the ripeness of that harvest. And so we find ourselves consumed with all kinds of other things than the harvest. And then he speaks of the rewards of those who are doing the will of the Father. Verse 36, he who reaps receives wages.

In other words, there's a reward and gathers fruit for eternal life that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this 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 labors." I don't want us to miss the word labored. The word that he uses there has to do with taxing, fatiguing labor.

Now that's exactly what Jesus was experiencing, right? He was fatigued, he was tired. The text says that he actually looked tired. The meaning of the word there is that he actually looked tired and he was thirsty. But in his tiredness, He kept his eyes on the will of his father.

Nobody ever said that doing the will of God would make you untired. You will be tired. We shouldn't have wrong expectations. We are people. We're people who get tired like we are human beings.

And Jesus was made flesh, God sent his Son to be made flesh, so that we can see what it's like for a man who gets tired to do the will of God. You should expect that you're going to get tired. You know, we live in America where we sort of think if you get tired or things don't go right then something's wrong. It's not, that's not true. That's true.

That's Americanism. That's the flesh. That's humanism. Because hard things are often the best things. Anybody ever had a baby?

He says, one sows and another reaps, and the laborer receives his wages. Now there's this division of labor, there's sowing and reaping, and there are two complementary roles that God has appointed. There are two different kind of crews in the kingdom in a sense. I think that's one thing he's saying. They are interdependent.

They need one another. They rejoice together. They must complement one another. One sows and one reaps, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. You know, this is why Paul said to the Corinthians, he said, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

And then the Samaritans, The Samaritans are believing here in verses 39 to 42. And many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans had come to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his own word.

Then they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard him, and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world." They wanted to be with him. They wanted him to stay. That's really the heart of Christianity. You want him. You want him to stay.

You don't ever want to let him go. And they came to that place. Interesting, you know, Jesus didn't do any miracles in Samaria which are recorded in the Bible, I believe. You might want to test that out, but I don't believe he did any miracles in Samaria. Except this one.

It was a big one. It was a miracle of the heart. And God is very kind to use the weak of this world to shame the wisdom of the wise, how he takes a broken and immoral woman to change a whole city. God does that, you know, he takes David, a shepherd boy, who kills a giant, he takes Daniel, a slave boy, and Babylon, who ends up wiser than all the wise men. He takes Mary, a poor girl, not a queen, to be the mother of Jesus.

And he takes a broken woman to save a whole city. It's amazing, isn't it? It's the power of God. And who and whoever said that God never did a miracle in Samaria. Now I want to give, finally, marks of Jesus, the sole winner.

Marks of Jesus, the sole winner. And... I believe there are five of them that I'd like to bring here. And first is, he is not distant. He's not distant.

He's open, he pursues, he's not cold, he's not standoffish, He's not put off by religious divisions. He's not subdued by disagreements. He's not impeded by what you might call racial differences because the Samaritans, as some of the commentators, they call them mongrels. It's a terrible thing to say about anyone made in the image of God, of whom we are all one blood. But he wasn't put off by any of that.

There were no divisions among humanity. For Jesus, there are only two races, sheep and goats. That's it. But he's not distant and he's also very personal. That's the second thing we learn from him.

He's very personal. The Lord deals with us as individuals. Nicodemus came by night, the woman by day. Some might need the cover of night to discuss things. You know, Spurgeon said that it's not always wise to throw your fly straight at the fish's mouth.

Try him a little on one side and then a little on the other and maybe presently you'll get a bite. So the Savior does not begin saying to her, you're a sinful woman. Oh dear, none but an amateur in such a business would begin like that, " unquote, says Spurgeon. And then Spurgeon says, if I could win more souls by being a Dutchman or a Zulu, I would gladly have any kind of nationality that I might get to the hearts of men. In other words, Jesus is very personal.

He builds a true and personal real conversation with a person and he works with them through the conversation. The third is that Jesus is gentle. Do you notice that in this? He doesn't force her. He doesn't bludgeon her.

He doesn't drive her. It's like that song, He drew me and I followed on. He drew me. He draws, not drives. The Bible says that He drew us with cords of love, that it was His kindness that led us to repentance.

You know, this is why, you know, the Holy Spirit is figured in a dove. It's a symbol of gentleness. And there are times when the best method is the gentle and indirect method. I think we see him doing that, although Jesus is also truthful. That's the fourth mark.

He's very truthful, so truthful that, You know, she covers up the truth. He exposes her sin. She doesn't want her sin exposed. So he tells her, he tells her very clearly what's really going on in her life. He knows.

And he really knows. He's not quite like you and I who don't really know What's going on in people's lives, but he does? So he is truthful he does deal with sin Let's not say ever that we should set aside dealing with sin. Sin is our greatest problem and our greatest threat, and Jesus does that. And then fourthly, Jesus is patient in the face of objections.

You know, there are many objections. There are many obstacles in conversations like that, in soul winning, and Jesus faced them and He persevered through them. And I encountered somebody who said that there were ten objections or ten barriers that Jesus, you know, absorbed. First of all, suspicion in verse 9, you know, kind of where she said, what's your agenda? You know, what are you doing?

Second, prejudice. She says the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans or at least that may be a quotation maybe a side statement and maybe her thirdly ignorance if you knew the gift of God, self-sufficiency, if you had asked him, he would have given you living water. She was self-sufficient. She used sarcastic humor. Sir, you have nothing to draw with.

Are you greater than our father Jacob? Have you ever had anybody just sort of chastise you and belittle you? He he overcame that lies verse 17. Go call your husband. I have no husband that wasn't exactly true Flattery I perceive you're a prophet pride of her prep pedigree our fathers worshiped on this mountain.

Diversion and agreement. Oh, I know that the Messiah comes. He's coming, He'll tell us all things. So Jesus walks through all these objections and he's patient in the face of the objections. And as a result, she finally cries out and she declares the glory of God.

You know, When a new baby brings new sounds into a town, the first thing you want to hear from a baby is a cry, don't you? Right? Now, in our church, we've just had a couple babies born. There are three more that are on the way and it's almost I almost feel like we're standing at the observation deck at RDU and you know the storks are getting ready to land you know one wave after another they're coming they're coming And this is happening because God has done a supernatural work, and He's going to bring a baby into the world. And that's what He did with this woman, and It brought many babies.

I mean, they were stacked up all over town to come into the kingdom of heaven. Okay, finally, three questions. First, Are we converted? Are we ready for a harvest? Are we dead or alive to Him?

Do we hate our sin and are fleeing from it? You know, the Bible says that all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, but the free gift of God is his son Jesus. And to read a text like this, we have to ask, are we born again? Have we become converted? You know, with your whole heart, can you give thanks for the righteousness that's in Jesus Christ that he became sin for you.

Is that where you are? Are you converted or Are you still conversing with Jesus at the well? And you're still not sure? Second, what is our food? What's the thing we love the most?

What's the thing that we want the taste of the most? What's the source of our energy? Jesus said, I delight to do your will. Do we delight to do His will? Do we want to do nothing but His will?

Do we want to spend our time, our days, only doing His will? Or do we want our own will? Are we still trying to satisfy ourselves on the things that don't satisfy? Jesus said to His Father, I delight to do Your will. Thirdly, do you long for his appearing?

Do you long for his appearing? Like the Samaritans, they said, would you just stay? We just want to stay. Would you please stay? We want to be with you forever.

I think that was their heart. You know, I've been reading sections of a book about heaven called The Saints' Everlasting Rest by Richard Baxter. I've been reading it, I think, particularly just to think through walking through this time with Jenny and Dwayne, you know, considering these great matters of eternity. And so I've been reading it, and I read a section this last week that really struck me. There's a day that's coming when you will do the will of God for all eternity.

Your Savior has bridged the gap. He does the will of God for you. But until that day when you finally come into His glory, you will do the will of God. You'll only long for the will of God. You'll only long for the will of God.

You'll only want the will of God. It'll be your greatest hunger and desire and delight, completely unmixed. And of course, because of that, you know, tears are going to get wiped from your eyes forever. But in heaven, all of your desires will be caught up in obedience to him. Baxter says, the glory of God will lighten you.

The Lamb of God is the light and there will be no more curse but the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it and his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face." that's what will happen. We'll see him face to face and we'll be satisfied, completely satisfied by him. Now, why does the Lord have us with this narrative before us here? And I'm sure there are different reasons for different people. But perhaps one of the most important things is to remind us how satisfying, how fulfilling it is to do the will of God, to want only to do the will of God and not to be impeded by anything.

Not your own desires, not your own passions, not your own reputations, not your own acquisitions, not anything, not your own pleasures, but just to desire the will of God, what a sweet thing that is. And boy does it pay. It pays, as Jesus said here. And Later in John, at the very end, John, Jesus will say to his disciples, Peace to you as the Father has sent me, I also send you. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.

Would you pray with me? Lord, we marvel. We marvel at your Son, an obedient, happy son who did your will, O Lord, that we would become like him in every way seeking and saving.