In 'The Will and Work of the Sender,' Jason Dohm explores Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, as depicted in John 4:27-42. The sermon emphasizes Jesus' mission as sent by God the Father to fulfill His will, highlighting the necessity and satisfaction Jesus finds in this work. Dohm discusses the transformative impact of Jesus' revelation to the Samaritan woman and her subsequent testimony, which leads many in her city to believe in Jesus. The sermon underscores the urgency of evangelism, urging believers to seize opportunities to reap the spiritual harvest. True worship is defined as worshiping in spirit and truth, and the sermon notes the shared joy in the communal work of sowing and reaping souls for God's kingdom. The sermon concludes with a call for compassion towards the multitudes, reflecting Jesus' desire to seek and save the lost.

This incredible discourse that's been taking place at the well. There with a Samaritan woman, Jesus is finishing this discourse. And we turn to the text that we have this week in John chapter 4, starting in verse 27. So join me in The Sermon Text. 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?

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 wiped for harvest and he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life and 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.

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 of his own word than 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. The title of the sermon this morning is The Will and Work of the Sender. God the Father is the sender of Jesus Christ, God the Son. And God the Father has a will, he has things he wants.

And he accomplishes those things by sending his Son, giving him associated work to do, to give himself the things that he wants. So that's what this text is about. We're in the third week of this discourse. In the first week, Jesus met the woman at the well. He's traveling through Samaria, which is as the crows fly from Judea, where he was, to Galilee, where he's going.

He's tired. It's the middle of the day. He stops and his disciples go in to buy food. He meets this Samaritan woman at the well and he teaches her about living water. That was week one.

Then last week, Jesus, He changes direction in the discourse and He works hard to create a thirst within this woman. He's been talking to her about living water, but there's really little or no understanding or desire for this living water. So, he begins to create thirst in her for the living water by identifying her sin. He highlights her great need for this living water. He is awakening in her heart her need for what He and only He can offer.

And He teaches her about true worshipers and true worship. True worshipers worship in spirit and in truth. Our worship has to be marked by these two things or it's fraudulent. If we are not worshiping in spirit from the heart, if all this is external but our hearts aren't moved by this, then our worship is fraudulent. And if we're worshiping just according to the inventions of our own mind, not according to truth, then our worship is fraudulent.

It must be both heart worship and according to what God has prescribed in His word. Otherwise we're not true worshipers. And in the end he revealed himself to be Christ. She says, yes, essentially You've been saying interesting things. When the Messiah comes, He'll sort all this out.

And Jesus says, in essence, I am the Messiah. I am sorting all this out. I'm telling you what is. I'm teaching you truth. Now we see what results from all of this and it's marvelous.

This is a marvelous text. I've just been soaking it in this week and just couldn't wait to get in the pulpit this morning. As we go to the text, let's go to the text in prayer. Oh our God, we want our eyes to see this. We want to have Christ crucified, offered to sinners as living water that wells up in the heart to eternal life and to see that offer accepted and people taken out of slavery to sin and moved out of darkness into the marvelous kingdom of light.

Kingdom of your son, We want to see a harvest. Let our eyes see it, O God. Thank you for this text that invigorates us and awakens in us a longing for it. Oh, let us leave here today longing for a harvest in Jesus' name. Amen.

I'll be breaking the text into thirds, the first portion being verses 27 through 30. So follow along as I read this again. John chapter 4 verses 27 through 30. John chapter 4 verses 27-30. 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 man, 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 this section, we have the disciples return and The woman departs to testify.

So if you're taking notes on the handout and you're filling in blanks, it's return, testify. The disciples return, they've been away buying food, now they're back. And the woman departs to testify. That's why she leaves, is for the purpose of going into town and telling people about this man she's encountered at the well. Verse 27 begins, at this point his disciples came.

So We're midstream in a discussion. Don't be put off by the fact that we had a week in between sermons. There's been no time gap. Jesus is here at the well, and the woman is here at the well, and Jesus has just said, I am He. She said, when the Messiah comes, He'll sort all this out, and He says, I am He of whom you speak.

And at this point, right then in the discussion, the disciples are back. Then the disciples can't believe that Jesus is talking to this woman. The text says that they marveled to find their master, their rabbi, talking with this woman. But none of them is willing to openly second guess Jesus in his judgment in talking to this woman. Probably a good decision.

John gives us two questions that they would have asked if their hearts were opened up and they had said what was on their mind. John the Gospel writer says, had they asked him questions that were on their mind, these would have been the questions. And you can really boil this down to, Jesus, what could possibly make you engage with this woman here at the well? What do you seek? They would have asked him that.

If they had said what was on their mind, they would have said, What do you seek? What could you possibly need? What could you possibly be seeking, be after, that would cause you to engage with this woman here? Why are you talking with her? What could possibly draw you into a discussion with this woman?

Now, here's a little background. I found this fascinating. I found some quotation this week as I was reading and studying of rabbinical writers, meaning rabbis, their teachings put into writing. So the rabbis would sort of unfold the law. They would give their exposition of what the law was and what it meant and how it should be practiced in life.

And so in the rabbinical writings you find things like this. Here's one. He who instructs his daughter in the law plays the fool. Meaning the rabbis were teaching, writing this, Jewish man if you instruct your daughter in the law you are a fool to do that. Or how about this, do not multiply discourses with a woman.

So underlying that is, if you have to talk to a woman, don't talk to her much. Or this one, let no one talk with a woman in the street, no, not his own wife. So Jesus is trampling all over what the rabbis were teaching and writing about how you apply the Word of God to life in the relationships between men and women. These quotes just betray a very low view of women. Jesus would say, teach your daughters the word of God, every one of them.

Don't you dare let your daughters leave the house without a full orbed theological training. That would be Jesus, not the rabbis. Jesus would say, by all means talk to the woman at the well who needs living water. Jesus would say, yes, you can talk to your wife in the street and other women too about about profitable things and again in public this is not to to discount the the safeguards that should be in place. The rabbis had a low view of women.

Jesus didn't share that view, nor should we. The woman doesn't stay. The woman goes. She leaves her water pot and she goes into Sychar, the city that she's from, that this well provides water for. The idea here is that in her mind there's a window of opportunity.

This Strange but amazing man is at the well and nobody knows how long he's going to be at the well. When she came upon him she thought he was just a dusty traveler. He's a man passing through. And in her mind there's a window of opportunity and she doesn't know how long the window will stay open so she goes immediately to tell people come and see this man at the well that I've encountered and so she leaves her water pot. She came to the well to get water that mission is not accomplished she's still going to have to get water, and she wants to travel light.

That's my assumption. It's either that or, hey, sometimes we encounter something that's so exciting that we just drop whatever it is that we're doing. It's one or the other. It doesn't really matter which it is. It pretty much leads you back to the same place.

She leaves her water pot and goes immediately into the town and begins to speak to the people that she encounters. The text says that she speaks with the men. The ESV and the NIV render it instead of men, it renders it people. That's better. It is a masculine word, but when you look at the usages of this word, it is overwhelmingly used in a gender neutral way.

Like we would use man meaning mankind. We do the same in English. That is a masculine word but we use it in a gender neutral way. Overwhelmingly, if you go and look at how this Greek word is used in the New Testament, overwhelmingly it is not man as in men, it is used in a gender neutral way. She is talking to people, men and women, about this man that she encountered at the well.

She goes to Sychar to testify of Jesus and she says this in verse 29, Come see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Now is that strictly true? No of course it isn't. He didn't tell her everything that she ever did starting in her early years up to the present. But the point is this, Jesus in what He did say to her convinced her that He knew everything about her.

That There were no secrets with him. So she might be guilty of hyperbole, of going over the top with her language. He didn't really tell her everything that she ever did. But he could have and she knew it. That was the point.

And her challenge to the people that she is encountering in the city is this, come and see Jesus. Come to the well right now. Come see for yourselves. Friends, this is the essence of evangelism. There might be more to say about evangelism, but this is the essence of it.

I have encountered Jesus, come and see Him for yourself. This is just what we saw in the closing section of chapter 1. Someone encounters Jesus and then immediately they go and tell other people, come on and see this man. Andrew encounters Jesus at the end of chapter 1. Immediately he goes and tells his brother Simon, who will get renamed Peter a few verses later, he goes and tells Simon, we found the Messiah, come!

He comes and encounters Jesus and finds all that Andrew said to be true. And then immediately Philip encounters Jesus. Jesus finds Philip and says, follow me. And out of this encounter, Philip immediately goes and gets Nathaniel and says, Come and see this man. And now the woman at the well has encountered Jesus.

And she leaves her water pot there and goes to find people to tell them about Jesus. When we boil evangelism down to its irreducible fundamentals, what you have is a real encounter with Jesus ending up with with that person who's encountered him saying, come and see, come and see him, come experience him for yourself. Then she asked this question, could this be the Christ? Jesus already answered that question for her. He said, I am He.

He told her, I am the Christ. So does this reflect doubt or unbelief on her part? Maybe. Maybe it does. But consider what J.C.

Ryle says. Ryle says, a question often sets working a mind which would be utterly unmoved by an affirmation. In other words, sometimes when you just affirm something, you get no movement of mind. But a question actually has a different effect. So this is what Ryle is saying.

A question often sets working a mind which would be utterly unmoved by an affirmation. Had the woman said, this is the Christ, an affirmation, She might have excited prejudice and dislike. By asking, is this the Christ, she got the men to inquire and judge for themselves." The text doesn't say, but I suspect this is what is happening. These are not people who are looking to this woman who has a reputation in this town for spiritual instructions. Can we agree on that?

They're not viewing her as a spiritual teacher. It might cause offense if She said, I've found the Messiah. But when she asks they are confronted with, is that possible? Is this worth a trip to the well? And it works.

For many of them, they decide this is worth a trip to the well. They go to the well to see Jesus for themselves. Next section. Follow along as I read John 4.31. 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? 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, another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labors. In this section, Jesus instructs his disciples about the will and the work of his father.

So if you're taking notes on the handout and filling in blanks, it's will work. Jesus instructs his disciples about the will and the work of his father. The disciples want their rabbi to eat. They've gone into town to buy food. They came back with food.

They know that he hasn't had food. They want him to eat. But Jesus says something strange, something that they didn't expect in verse 32. I have food to eat of which you do not know. Like Nicodemus, when Jesus said you must be born again, he didn't understand and he started asking questions as if Jesus was talking about physical things when he was talking about spiritual things.

Like the woman who when Jesus talked about living water, doesn't understand, so she starts to ask him as if he was talking about physical things when he was really teaching spiritual truth. Now it's the disciples' term. But you can't blame them. They did go to buy food. And Jesus has said something that would have made complete sense in that context had he been talking about physical things.

I think Jesus wants his disciples to wrestle with what he is teaching them. He wants them to grapple with it. He knows if he simply makes a plain statement that they'll move on too fast and they'll forget too quickly. Don't you find that to be true? When things come to you in a really straight forward, plain fashion, you skim right over the top of it, you move right past it, and an hour later you barely remember it at all.

Jesus wants to force them to slow down and he wants to make this memorable. He lures them into this discussion where they talk past him. He's trying to teach spiritual truth and they're stuck on the physical context. That's appropriate. It's understandable.

But Jesus is luring them into something that's going to slow them down and make this more memorable. It's a good way to teach. Watching Jesus here is instructive to parents who are trying to get things to stick with children who move on too fast and then forget too quickly. While they are trying to figure out where Jesus got this physical food on the side, Jesus says this, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. There are three truths wrapped up in this one verse.

Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, the promised anointed Savior, was sent by another. He didn't send himself. The Father sent him. If we look back up to the discourse with the woman at the well in verses 21-23, he talks about the Father three times and the third time he says that the Father is seeking people. The Messiah was not self-sent.

The Messiah was Father-sent. And sent by His Father, he is given a precisely defined mission. It was not a nebulous, vague mission at all. It was a well-defined mission. The father had very specific things in mind when he sent the Son into the world.

Jesus Christ came into the world under orders. Yes, he is God, yes he is a co-equal member of the Trinity, and yet he has subjected himself to his Father's will and he comes to earth under orders. Listen to what he says in John 6, 38. John 6, 38 Jesus says, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. Does that mean Jesus has a separate will?

And He wanted to do something else, but He decided just to do His Father's will? No. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit have one will. And yet Jesus did not come to do something separate and on his own. He came to do the will of his Father.

He subjected himself to his Father's will. He was pleased to do his Father's will. He didn't have a separate will. Another group of things he would like to do. He wanted to do what his Father wanted him to do.

He came to earth not to do his own will, but the will of his Father who sent him. So that's the first truth. Jesus the Christ was sent by another. The second truth is this. The sender, the Father, is advancing His will by sending.

And there is associated work. The sender, God the Father, who is sending is advancing His will, what He wants. God the Father is advancing what He wants in the world by sending His Son and He has given Him work to do that is associated with that. Jesus' work is bringing about what God wants. The third truth, the doing, the accomplishing of this work is both necessary and satisfying to Jesus.

And satisfying to Jesus. God sent Jesus to advance his agenda, his will, what he desires in the world. He gave him work that was associated with that. He gave Jesus work to do that would bring about what he desires. And Jesus, as he is doing that work, it is necessary to him.

In other words, Jesus can't help but do it. And it is satisfying to Him. He rejoices in doing that. He is fulfilled by doing that work that His Father has given Him to do. If You say, doing this thing, whatever this thing is, doing this is my food.

You are expressing necessity. Food is not optional. Skip a meal. Skip three meals. And Then tell me how optional food is.

It is a necessity. Jesus is expressing compulsion. He is compelled to do His Father's will. It is necessary that he do his Father's will. And Jesus is telling his disciples in this sense he has been eating.

In the sense that he has been accomplishing the work that God gave him to do to advance his agenda in the world, in that sense, he has been eating. His mind isn't on physical food because it is fulfilling and satisfying for Jesus to do what God has sent him in the world to do. At the very end of his life, listen to what Jesus says in John 17 verse 4. This is actually during the great high priestly prayer of John 17. Jesus is praying to his father before his disciples.

This is almost certainly at the Last Supper. John 17 verse 4, Jesus is praying to his father, I have glorified you on earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. And then in John 19, probably the very last words that Jesus said while he was alive before he died on the cross, he said, it is finished. John 19 verse 30, It is finished and bowing his head he gave up his spirit.

This is going to be a theme. We are going to encounter this many more times. Jesus' desire and compulsion to do what his father had sent him to do, having a clearly defined mission, and being satisfied by doing what his father gave him to do. May God give us a heart like this. May God give us hearts like this who feel compelled to do the work that God has given us to do.

Not only necessity, but also just satisfaction and fulfillment in it. It was this way for Jesus. And as we become more Christ-like, more like Jesus, conformed into His image, we'll find ourselves being more like that. I have a compulsion to do the work that God has given me to do. And not only is it a necessity for me, it's so satisfying to do what God has given me to do.

I want to know more of that. Now, what is the will of the sender? The sender has a will, a desire for how things would be on earth, and so he sent his son into the world to do work to bring this about. What is the will of the sender and this associated work? Well, what has Jesus been doing that he has found so satisfying?

Offering living water to sinners. It might mean more things than that, but this is central and this is completely within the boundaries of the context. This is where the context here would take you, right to this. His will, His Father's will, the sender's will is that living water would be offered to sinners. And this is the work that Jesus has been doing.

This is totally in keeping with what Jesus says to the woman in verse 23, But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. The Father is seeking true worshipers to worship Him. The Father is sending so that living water would be offered to sinners. He is seeking true worshipers who offer true worship. Jesus in this text is being the arm of the Father in his seeking of those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Living water is being offered to sinners. It is God-seeking worshipers. Authentic worshipers. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. Where did Jesus say that?

That's Luke 19 verse 10. Luke 19 verse 10. Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, that lost tax collector has been gathered into the Kingdom of God by Jesus' preaching and then Jesus says, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. He sought out a true worshiper.

He made one. He was the arm of the Father to seek out Zacchaeus. He was the arm of the Father to seek out this woman at the well. It was not a chance encounter at all. It had to happen.

Because God was reaping souls into His Kingdom. Friends, this should be infinitely comforting to us. It is Jesus' food to glorify His Father by seeking and saving the lost. Just think about that for a minute. Please don't blow past that.

It is Jesus' food. It is a compulsion for Jesus. He needs it, and He's satisfied by it. What is it? What does Jesus need?

What satisfies Him? To bring honor to His Father by seeking and saving the lost. That's true today. Jesus, not walking the earth in bodily form, but Jesus through his spirit today is seeking and saving the lost. How many thousands of souls will be harvested today and brought into the kingdom?

Thousands of souls across the earth are being harvested today. Why? Because it is Jesus' compulsion and Jesus is satisfied and fulfilled by honoring his father by seeking and saving lost souls." This should make us happy that this is true. Finally, in this section, which are the last words of Jesus in this discourse, he brings forward two sayings, two Proverbs, not the book of Proverbs, but things that people would say to make a point in that time. Here's the first one.

Proverb number one. There are still four months and then comes the harvest. And Jesus says that's the saying. You've all heard the saying. There are still four months and then comes the harvest.

I'm saying something completely the opposite of that. You know this Proverbs. I'm saying in this case it's completely the opposite. Now what does the Proverb mean? There are still four months and then comes the harvest.

The proverb means be patient. Be patient. There's about approximately four months between the end of planting and when you start harvesting. So four months. And a farmer, you can be as impatient as you want.

Harvest is in four months. You can be agitated, you can whatever. Harvest comes when harvest comes. There's a lot of times in life where this Proverbs is perfect counsel. There are still four months and then comes the harvest.

Mom and Dad, when is Christmas? There are four months, and then the harvest. Is it now? Is it today? There are four months, and then the harvest.

Be patient. Your wiggling won't speed it up. How often is that good counsel? That's awesome counsel a lot. Your wiggling won't speed things up.

Your anxiety won't speed things up. Jesus is teaching that when it comes to reaping souls, patience is not a virtue. Urgency is a virtue when it comes to reaping souls. Jesus is teaching us that we should hope to reap today. We should hope to reap right now.

Today is the day of salvation. Not it is still four months and then comes the harvest. Today is the day of salvation. We should be pressing the urgent demands of the Gospels on our hearers, and hoping to reap today. Reaping doesn't always happen immediately.

In fact, sometimes reaping takes a lot longer than four months, right? But it can happen immediately. It doesn't always happen immediately, but It can happen immediately. The time between sowing and reaping can be nothing. It's at the pleasure of God.

But don't think there's a predetermined growth time as there is with physical planting and harvesting and you have to wait and no matter what you do, no matter what anyone thinks or hopes for, then the time just has to pass before the harvest. Jesus says that's not true in these spiritual things. Hope to reap today. Harvesting, reaping is an urgent matter, not a wait four months matter. Jesus says, look up, Cast your gaze out and look, the fields are ready to reap now.

Don't you dare wait four months here. The fields are ready. Harvest now. It's possible, I think it's probable, that as Jesus says this, lift your eyes, look at the fields, they're white under harvest, it just means they're ripe, they're ready for reaping, they're ready for harvesting, that as Jesus says this, people are coming from Sychar. That's probably true.

You can't say for sure from the text that it's true, but that's the sense that I get, that the people have heard the testimony of the woman. They think it's at least worth a trip to the well to encounter this man that she's encountered. And so they're coming and Jesus is saying, look at the fields they're ripe to harvest as the people are coming to see Jesus. And Jesus gives them an incentive, and not just them, He gives us an incentive. An eternal reward.

The reapers, they go out to work in hope of wages of an eternal reward. This is true in two ways. One, the souls who are reaped live forever. This is not a low stakes game. Every soul lives forever, either in heaven or in hell.

When a soul is brought into heaven, that reward is eternal. There is something eternal that has happened when a soul is harvested. Secondly, working for God stores up treasures in heaven. Working for God piles up treasure in heaven. There are rewards.

It does matter what we do in this life. We cannot earn salvation, but that doesn't mean It doesn't matter what we do in this life. You can't draw that conclusion from the fact that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone. Yes, we are saved by grace alone through faith alone. Then it doesn't matter what we do.

No wrong. God has given us work to do and when we do it, we are accumulating treasure, reward in heaven. So that was the first Proverbs. There are still four months and then comes the harvest. Jesus says with harvesting souls, not true.

That doesn't have to be true. The second Proverb. One sows and another reaps. He expected they all would have heard that proverb. One sows and another reaps.

The sower and the reaper are often different people. That's true in farming. It doesn't have to be that the people who did the planting are the people who do the harvesting. And it's true in spiritual things as well, in evangelism, and people coming into the kingdom. The sower and the reaper are often different people.

Let's use the woman that Jesus has been dealing with as an example. She knew about Jacob and Joseph. Why is that? Because of Moses. And because of people who taught her what Moses wrote.

Somebody taught her about what Moses wrote that taught her about Jacob and Joseph and this well from 1800 years ago. Who did that? There were people who were sewing more than one across time more than one Jesus says the end of all this is shared joy The end of all this is shared joy. And this is true even across the ages. There will be shared joy when souls come into the kingdom.

When souls are reaped, harvested, there will be shared joy. There are people that we've never met, that don't even exist, but they were sowing, and maybe we'll be part of the reaping, and we'll never know on earth that we were co-laboring, but we'll get to know and rejoice later. Together. Shared joy. In the salvation of souls, we enter into each other's labors.

One sows and another reaps. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Paul is talking just about this exact thing in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 4 through 9. By the way, people get really attached to those who have had the privilege of being in the process of their salvation. When you've been saved, you look back at people who sowed or maybe the one who reaped.

They're kind of the thing. You have a soft spot in your heart for those people, don't you? But that can be unhelpful too. And actually Paul is addressing how that can be unhelpful. Let's read together 1 Corinthians 3 verses 4 through 9.

1 Corinthians 3 starting at verse 4. For when one says, I am of Paul and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? I think at the heart of this is men who people have a real soft spot for and they've actually elevated them because they played a role in them being brought into the kingdom of God. They're thinking of them more highly than they ought. Christ has become diminished and men have started to loom too large in these people's minds and hearts.

For when one says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? Who then is Paul and who is Apollos? But ministers through whom you believed as the Lord gave to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.

Paul just called himself nothing in his labors here. I'm nothing, Apollo says nothing, God is everything. That's what's being said here. And now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, You are God's building.

We're just fellow workers. The one who sows and the one who reaps is just a fellow worker with God. What a privilege! Does God need you for these things? No, of course not.

It is a privilege and an honor and a joy to be brought into God and to co-labor alongside other brothers and sisters in Christ, but really to co-labor with God in the salvation of sinners. We should relish this as an opportunity for our own joy. It makes me think back to some of the things that Mala said when he was standing in this pulpit, About God giving us the joy. Alright, back to John. Last section.

Verses 39 through 42. 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.

A harvest, if you're taking notes and filling in blanks. It's a harvest. The things that Jesus has been teaching the disciples about happen here. Not just the woman, but there is a harvest, an abundant harvest of souls brought into the kingdom. Surprisingly, many of the Samaritans take her at her word.

I say surprisingly, because she was a woman with a background, this is not a person that these people would be looking to as a spiritual guide. But people here took her at her word and believed in Jesus because she related that he did this miraculous thing. So they came to Jesus and they urged him to stay with them and he does. They say, please stay with us and he stays with them for two days. Now contrast this with the Gyrgossines in Matthew chapter 8.

You remember this. Jesus crosses over the Sea of Galilee, there is a demon possessed man, he casts the demons out, he permits them to go into the herd of swine, they rush down into the water and drown themselves, and then when the people hear and they come out the text says they begged him to depart These are some of the saddest words in Scripture They encountered Jesus he had done something that's even more miraculous than what he did when he told this woman things about her life That he couldn't have known unless he had supernatural knowledge More miraculous than that is to me is liberating this man from his terrible demon possession. And yet, when the people come from the countryside to Jesus, and they encounter him, they beg him to depart. These people beg him to stay. They have a different disposition towards Jesus.

They want him to stay. Now, we have a huge gap. You have to be careful about this gap. You only get half a verse, which is small, even in the small section of text that we have, there's a teeny little section that says he stayed two days. That's it.

It just kind of moves right past it. Stop. What would you give for two days with Jesus and a small group? We don't know how many. It says many people.

But relatively speaking, not a huge multitude, you have two days, Jesus in the flesh to teach you. That should make your heart burn in you a little, just the thought of having the privilege to have two days of his attention like that. They asked for it and he grants it. What would Jesus do if Jesus had some new converts And he elected to stay with them for two days. What would those two days be like?

What would they be filled with? But my friends, it would be early to late. You wouldn't come late to those meetings. You wouldn't leave early from those meetings. If Jesus Christ, if you had two days with Him, you would squeeze every last drop of good out of it, wouldn't you?

I would. Jesus is the ultimate disciple maker, and he has two days with these brand new disciples. What did he do? He taught and taught and taught. I have no doubt.

They asked him questions and he gave perfectly true answers, perfectly wise answers for two days. He was eating his food for two days. He was bringing about the will of his father for two days. He was doing the work that his father had given him to do for two days among these people. What was the result?

Many more believed. Not surprising. Perfect sermons. Going a long ways towards that. There's more reaping.

And then, coming out of two days with Jesus, they make this astonishing confession, our last verse, verse 42, 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 come out of this two days with Jesus, not just having had the testimony of this woman, but then having so much more two days of intensive time with Jesus. And they come out of that saying, we know that we know that we know that we know that we know that this is the Christ. The Savior of Israel? No.

The Savior of the world. The Jews should have made this confession. This is a confession fitting for people who know the Scriptures. Not these half-breed, half-pagan Samaritans, But it's not the Jews. The Jews, hardly any of them will make this confession.

A confession so full-throated that Jesus is the Savior of the world, that He is the fulfillment of all the promises that God had made. It's Samaritans that do it. This is the shadow of the universal scope of the Gospel. Listen to 1 Corinthians 1. This is 1 Corinthians 1 verses 26 through 31.

Paul writes, For you see your calling, brethren, so this is Paul writing to just barely former pagan Corinthians. This is Paul writing to the barely former pagans. For you see your calling brethren that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord." Why aren't Jews making this confession? Because it pleased God to have mercy on these Samaritans. Period. Election is of grace. God has mercy upon whom he has mercy.

He passed over so many Jews who knew so much more. Who had so much more of a dignified reputation, and yet God passed over them and had compassion on these Samaritans. Applications 5. I could dwell on each one of them, but it's Christmas. And I'm giving you a present.

Applications. Number one, Does anyone marvel at who you take pains with? Ever? Does anyone marvel at who you take pains with? People were doing that to Jesus all the time.

The disciples come, why are you talking to this woman? Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes, Why are you doing that? People bring little children to Jesus. They can't add anything to His ministry. It's questionable how much they can really understand.

Stop bringing them to Jesus. Don't you dare keep them back. You bring them on. People marvel all the time at who Jesus took pains with. Anybody ever do that with you?

If the answer is no, no one ever marvels at who I take pains with, you should evaluate. You're probably spending too much of your time with people who can return the favor. Number two, to what extent do we shrink back because we have a wrong view of evangelism? To what extent do we shrink back because we have a wrong view of evangelism. Now tell me, how much did this woman know?

To say that she is a babe in Christ doesn't even begin. She knows just enough to say, come and see this man at the well. Come and see for yourselves. This man told me all that I ever did. Come and see him.

It's so easy for us to think because I don't know everything, I'm not saying anything. That is so contrary to this text. First of all, if you wait to know everything before you say anything, you'll never say anything. Maybe that's secretly what we're hoping. Because we're afraid.

If you're born again at all, you have what this woman has. Can you not say, I have encountered Jesus? Come and see. I will buy you a Bible. Number three.

Do the women of this church understand their privileges? Listen to J.C. Ryle. He was brilliant this week. I have been very restrained in my quoting of him.

Listen to J.C. Ryle. A woman may be the means under God of founding a church. I'll stop there for a second. Are you tracking with rile?

A woman may be the means under God of founding a church. Let women never suppose that men only can do good. Women also in their way can evangelize as really and truly as men. Every believing woman who has a tongue can speak to others about Christ. Amen.

I hope that these three weeks have shaken our sensibilities a little bit. If there's been anything in our hearts that said, I don't know, should Jesus be talking to this woman one on one? Well, out in the middle of everything with no expectation of privacy. In fact, no privacy. Not only was it not unlawful, it wasn't unwise.

It was lawful and wise what he did. And if there's anything in us that says, should she be speaking to the townspeople, even the men? We just have to recalibrate. If there's any dot of that in your heart, recalibrate. Adjust to God.

That's always good. He won't be adjusting to us. I praise God that of all the people on the face of the earth, we understand God's designed gender distinctions and roles better than 99.99% of people who are on the planet today. But it's easy to draw wrong conclusions from those truths that make us squeamish about the things that we see in this text. We need to adjust to God.

Number four. Are you being too patient in evangelism and missing potential opportunities to reap? Are you saying, there are still four months to harvest, there are still four months and then the harvest. You clinging to that proverb in a sense, in your evangelism. And there's not an urgent sense of today is the day of salvation and hoping to reap today.

I think that's a trap. We need to have an expectation that harvest happens when God makes it ripe. Which can be right after the sowing or it can be ten years from now. And we don't want to be too put off by either. We don't want to be too put off if God has, allows you to sow and then in his will he makes the way for immediate reaping.

We don't want to be put off for that and We don't want to be put off for that, and we don't want to be put off if the time to harvest is way longer than we hoped for or expected. God is sovereign. One man plants, another waters. God gives the increase, and He does it in His own time. But don't be too patient.

If the field is white, reap. Five. Do you, like Jesus, look on the multitudes with compassion? I want to end. You can turn there if you like.

Matthew 9. This Gospel text should inform us. Matthew 9, I'll be reading 35-38. Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, The harvest truly is plentiful, But the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. By the way, that's the end of chapter 9. At the beginning of chapter 10, he sends out his laborers into the harvest. He sends the twelve out immediately to start preaching and healing diseases, casting out demons.

He immediately does what he instructs them to pray for at the end of chapter 9. But the centerpiece of that is that when Jesus looked out on the multitudes, it was not with disdain, It was with compassion. They were weary and like sheep without a shepherd. It starts here. All this about sowing and reaping has to start here with Jesus' heart of compassion for the multitudes.

We should pray that Jesus would give his heart. As we look out on the multitudes, all the disdain that is naturally in our hearts for the multitudes would evaporate. And that Jesus' heart of compassion would be implanted in us. So God we pray that it would be true. I thank you for this text.

All the things that we learn every time we come to your word, such a precious gift. Thank you for your word. Pray that you would move us, God, In Jesus' name, amen.