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When you deal with people, it doesn’t take very long to realize something. People are different. And because people are different, they can see the same thing in different ways. Police know this. As a matter of fact, they expect it. One of the ways that police know whether people are lying or not is if their stories match too well. When they begin to question the suspects in a case, they expect their stories to differ significantly. If they all come in with the same story, it means that they spent time together rehearsing their stories to make sure they matched. By the way, that’s one of the ways we know that the four Gospels are true. People often ask why there are four gospels in the Bible. And then they follow that question by asking why the accounts of Jesus’ life in the four gospels are different. First of all, the reason that they focus on different things is because the Holy Spirit inspired it to be that way. But secondly, they are that way because of the different perspectives of the human authors. John was a fisherman who had a tremendous love for people. He had a completely different background and perspective than Matthew or Luke. Luke was a doctor with an eye for detail and historical accuracy. Matthew was a tax collector with an eye for all things Jewish, especially the messianic rule of the Son of David. All four Gospels are 100% accurate. There is no confusion or error in them, even when details of certain events like the resurrection are told differently by each of them. The events are simply told from different perspectives. In that way, different perspectives are a good thing. You see things from your perspective and I see things from my perspective. When we get together and discuss those different perspectives, it can give us a better picture of what’s really going on. But sometimes, our differing perspectives aren’t so good. They aren’t so good because, unlike the authors of the four Gospels, we aren’t protected from error by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Each of us makes mistakes. We each have our prejudices. We each have our biases. We each have things that we bring to the table that can get in the way of doing what we’re supposed to do as the Body of Christ. So how do we overcome that? We have to look at things differently. Not necessarily from my perspective. Not necessarily from your perspective. But we have to look at things from Jesus’ perspective. How does He see the problem? How does He look at things? And we can only know that from examining and studying and preaching and teaching His Word. In our passage this morning, we see a very dramatic difference of perspective. It is a perfect example of two people seeing the exact same thing, but seeing it completely differently. Remember where we are. Jesus had brought His disciples into the Samaritan town of Sychar. He brought them there because He had a personal appointment with the woman at the well. The appointment was meant to be a one-on-one encounter, so verse 4 tells us that when they got into town, the disciples went off to buy some food. That makes sense, right? They had been travelling by foot for a long way. They probably hadn’t eaten along the way. It was probably late in the day so they were hungry. It only makes sense to go get some food. By the way, this speaks very well of the disciples. They were probably initially shocked that Jesus would want to go through Samaria. But they trusted Him enough that, once they got there, they weren’t shy about getting food from the Samaritans. This seems to me to be one of the first times when those historical prejudices were beginning to melt with the disciples. Certainly not all the way—but it was a start. So, they were off in town getting food. Jesus was evangelizing the woman at the well. He was telling her the good news of who He is. He was bringing her to new life in Him. He showed her her sin and then He showed her her Savior. And as soon as Jesus revealed to her that He is Christ… that He is the Messiah she was looking for… guess who showed up? The disciples were back from their shopping trip and showed up right at that moment. Now, here’s what I find interesting. Look back at verse 27. The disciples had just heard Jesus reveal the fact that He is the Christ. He is the Messiah that the Jews and Samaritans had been waiting for. What an amazing announcement! But what were the disciples amazed at? What were they marveling about? They were marveling about the fact that Jesus was talking to a woman! What a difference of perspective! But at least they had enough presence of mind to keep their amazement to themselves. And then in verses 28-30, it’s almost anticlimactic in the way that they perceive what’s going on. Oh yeah—this woman gets up, leaves her water pot and tells all the men in town about Jesus. But hey—let’s get on to more important matters. What’s for supper? That’s exactly where we are when we get to verse 31. A woman had just gotten saved. But not just a woman. A tremendously sinful woman. A tremendously sinful Samaritan woman. Jesus had just saved someone that they thought He shouldn’t even be talking to. OK, no big deal—let’s eat. Now, don’t get me wrong here. It’s not my intention to paint the disciples as being heartless. It’s my intention to paint the disciples the way that Scripture paints them. Which is the same way that Scripture paints us. The point is that they had a completely different perspective than Jesus did. They were focused on completely different things. Jesus was focused on the eternal. He had an eternal perspective. The disciples were focused on their immediate needs and wants. They had a temporal perspective. What is your perspective this morning? Do you know how you can tell? Listen to your own prayers sometime. What do you ask for? For most of us, the vast majority of our petitions to the Lord are for temporal things. Things that only affect this lifetime. Health, prosperity, healing, comfort, relationships. Those requests aren’t bad. We should pray for those things. But they’re not the only thing we should pray for. As a matter of fact, they probably shouldn’t be the things we pray most for. Because those things tell us about where our perspective is. Is our perspective focused on the things around us that are only going to last a little while? Or is our perspective focused on the things that are going to last forever. When you read this passage, it can sound strange. It can sound like Jesus and the disciples are having two different conversations together. That’s because they are. Jesus is confronting the disciples’ perspective. It’s as if He’s placing His hands on their cheeks like you do with a child. He’s taking their little faces and moving their gaze from their temporal focus to an eternal focus. In verse 35, Jesus told them, “Lift up your eyes.” That’s what He’s doing here. The disciples were just like we are. They couldn’t see the eternal needs around them because they were too focused on what’s for supper. Jesus changed their perspective. And He can change your perspective this morning. All you have to do is lift up your eyes. Jesus wants you to lift up your eyes and see six things this morning. First, He wants you to see the standard.
Lift up your eyes and see the standard. Jesus starts verse 35 with what some people see as a saying of the day. He says, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest?” In other words, you know that a harvest is coming. As sure as seeds are planted and crops are tended, a harvest will follow. From the very beginning, God built cycles into creation. The first chapter of Genesis tells us that God place the Sun and Moon and stars in the sky in order to govern the cycles of day and night. After the flood significantly changed the global climate, God instituted seasons. In Genesis 8:22, God told Noah, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” The fact is, God built an agricultural cycle into our world. It is a standard. But Jesus wasn’t interested in making the disciples farmers. So He used that agricultural standard to point to another standard. He used it to point to an evangelistic standard. We know that when seeds are planted and crops are tended, a harvest is coming. Jesus is telling us that the same thing happens with evangelism. When spiritual seeds are sown by preaching and teaching and telling and living the Gospel, some of those seeds will sprout and begin to take root. Then when those seeds begin to take root in people’s lives, and those lives are nurtured and cared for and taught by word and example, they will begin to grow. And before you know it, those young tender plants that have grown in faithful Gospel relationships will be ready for harvest. Those people will become saved and begin to bear fruit on their own. Jesus says that just as seeds planted in the ground will bring an agricultural harvest, evangelism will bring a spiritual harvest. The one is obvious to us. Can we lift up our eyes to see the other? Jesus wants you to lift up your eyes and see a standard. He also wants you to see the fields.
Lift up your eyes and see the fields. It is interesting that in verse 35, Jesus tells them to look on the fields. You can picture them standing around the well and looking off in the distance. I don’t know about you, but when I look out over open land, I describe it as a field—not fields. Jesus is talking in the plural. And He’s doing that for a reason. When the disciples looked out, they probably saw a field full of green grain blowing in the breeze. But Jesus was lifting their eyes beyond that field. He wanted them to see the many fields full of people that needed to hear the Gospel. And they are all different kinds of fields. We have family fields. We have friend and co-worker fields. We have neighbor fields. Those fields might be tough to grow in, but they’re usually pretty easy to plant and plow. But then there are more difficult fields. We’ve got these fields around us. We’ve got fields over in downtown Bluefield. We’ve got fields that are full of drugs and crime and poverty and filth. The point is that Jesus wants us to see the fields. Not just the field that’s closest or easiest. We should be seeing the fields in our home, on our street, in our town, in our county, in our state, in our nation and throughout the world. Those are our fields. Widen your perspective. Lift up your eyes to see them. Jesus wants you to lift up your eyes and see the fields. He also wants you to see the sower.
Lift up your eyes and see the sower. As Jesus is talking to the disciples, who is the one that sowed the seed? Jesus did originally when He talked to the woman. But then what happened? Look back up in verses 28-30. The woman left her water pot and headed back to town. The first thing she did when Jesus saved her was to go tell other people about Jesus. Jesus sowed the Gospel seed into her life and got to see the harvest. Now she was off spreading Gospel seed into the lives of the men of Sychar. She had now become the sower. When Jesus saves us, each of us become sowers. There is no other option. Jesus doesn’t say, “I want everyone to be a sower unless you’re shy.” Everyone that Jesus saves is to be a sower of Gospel seed. Just as there are all kinds of fields, Jesus saves all kinds of sowers. He saves you and gives you a field to sow. Well, what is it that you’re supposed to be sowing? The same thing the woman did. Back up in verse 29, she said, “Come see Jesus.” It’s as simple as that. Come see Jesus with me in His Word. Come see Jesus in my testimony. Come see Jesus in my life. Come see Jesus in my church. Come see Jesus in the way I deal with bad circumstances. Come see Jesus in the way I deal with prosperity. Come see Jesus. Who is the sower? If Jesus has saved you, you are. Not just the preacher. Not just the deacons. We don’t hire people to be sowers for us. If Jesus has saved you, you are the sower. Live your life planting seeds in your fields. Widen your perspective. Jesus wants you to lift up your eyes and see the sower. He also wants you to see the reaper.
Lift up your eyes and see the reaper. We’ve got a problem in church life. We all want to be reapers, but not many people want to be sowers. The fact is, it’s the opposite. We’re all called to be sowers, but most of the time we don’t get to reap what we sow. The phrase that we use a lot of the times can be misleading. We talk about how we led somebody to the Lord. Well, there are many times that we are there when somebody makes a profession of faith. But that Gospel seed was planted long ago. It might have been planted by several people. That’s great for the one who is there for the profession of faith. But don’t get the big head about it. To use the picture Jesus paints in verse 36, you might get to see the payday. Enjoy the payday. You’re receiving the wages. You’re reaping the harvest that somebody else sowed. The disciples were getting ready to see many Samaritan souls saved. They were going to enjoy the payday even though the woman was the one who sowed the Gospel seeds. God calls for you to be faithful in sowing seeds. You might get to see a bountiful harvest. But you might not. Either way, you need to lift up your eyes. As you are faithfully planting and hear of a harvest going on somewhere else—rejoice. Verse 36 says that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. The saying is true, one sows and one reaps. When you are faithfully sowing Gospel seeds, look up. Widen your perspective. See the reaper. See the harvest. Rejoice. Jesus wants you to look up and see the reaper. But do you know what Jesus wants you to see most of all? Yes, Jesus wants you to look up from the daily grind. He wanted the disciples to look up from their sandwiches just like He wants us to look up from our day-to-day busyness. He wants us to look up to see the standard of a spiritual harvest cycle. He wants us to look up to see the fields of lost people all around us. He wants us to look up and see ourselves as the sower. He wants us to not get discouraged in our evangelism and look up and see the reaper and rejoice with him when we see people saved. But more than all of those, Jesus wants you to lift your eyes and see the sender.
Lift up your eyes and see the sender. What did Jesus say at the beginning of verse 38? He said, “I sent you.” Why do we do evangelism? Why do we tell people about Jesus? Why do we live out the Gospel before a watching world? Why do we endure inconvenience with a smile? Why do we return rudeness with kindness? Why do we eagerly give up our rights for the sake of others? Because if Jesus has saved you, He has sent you. Jesus didn’t save you to make all your money problems go away. Jesus didn’t save you to make all your health problems go away. Jesus didn’t save you to take away all the difficulties of life. As a matter of fact, when He saves you, some things get more difficult. Jesus saves you to send you. He sends you to difficult places. He sends you to inconvenient situations. He sends you to uncomfortable circumstances. He sends you to people who don’t want to have anything to do with you. But He sends you. As you are going, make disciples. Everywhere you go make disciples. And as you make disciples, baptize them. And as you baptize them, teach them. That’s what Matthew 28:19-20 says. Whoa Jim, that’s difficult. I can’t do that. You’re exactly right. Neither could the disciples. They couldn’t because they were worried about supper. But when they allowed Jesus to take their eyes off themselves and lift them up, they were able to do what He called them to do. They were able to work their field. They were able to sow Gospel seed everywhere they went. They were able to reap when they could and rejoice when others reaped what they had sown. Why? Because they did it in the power of the sender. Jesus started the Great Commission by saying, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” He finished it by saying, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Jesus is your source. He is your sender. He is your Savior.
If you have not trusted Jesus as your Savior this morning, it’s not because the Gospel seed hasn’t been planted. If you are not saved this morning, it’s not because you’re not ready for harvest. You are ready for harvest. You are either ready for the kind of harvest that bears rich fruit for our Lord… or you’re ready for the kind of harvest that is spoken of by the prophets. That kind of harvest is one of judgment. Scripture speaks of judgment as a time when the sharp sickle of God’s wrath cuts down those who have refused to have His Son as their Lord. Those who are cut down are cast forever into the fire of God’s judgment. So, if you are here and have not called on Jesus as your Lord and King, it’s not because you’re not ready for harvest. You are white unto harvest. You just have to decide what kind of harvest it will be. Lift up your eyes and look on the fields—for they are white already to harvest.
