Radical Urgency
Text: John 4:27 – 42
(Read Text)
I want to read you something that one of our brothers in India wrote while he was imprisoned for sharing the Gospel. He had been beaten and thrown in prison for preaching the Gospel and someone had written to him asking him if it was still worth it being a Christian. Listen to what he wrote in reply.
“In this world; nothing gives me happiness except for my service to Christ. While I live, I must serve Him. After death, I shall have heaven for ever, but only for a short time am I a servant here, so I must not waste the opportunity. Yes it is worth it.”
What is most urgent in our lives? In our lives, what is the most important thing that needs to be done while we are on this earth? Look at verse 4 from this same chapter (Read John 4:4). The NIV reads that Jesus “had” to pass through Samaria, but I like the NKJV translation here. It says He “needed” to go through Samaria. Most of you probably have maps in the back of your Bibles but in-case you don’t I’ve added one to the power point. And you notice that Samaria is right in between Judea and Galilee. Now that doesn’t mean that you “HAD” to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. In-fact most devout Jews would circumvent the area of Samaria. They would go up through Perea in order to bypass Samaria. The reason for that was because the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. They were seen as 2nd class humans, or worse. So it wasn’t like Jesus needed to go through Samaria because that was the only route; no… He needed to go through Samaria because of this encounter we read about in our text. And again; here we have Jesus breaking down cultural stereotypes and disregarding the prejudices of men. And you know what? That’s part of the Good News. Think about it… what if Jesus had been as prejudice as the typical Jewish person of His time? Gentiles were just as bad if not worse than the Samaritans. If Jesus had these racial prejudices, we wouldn’t be saved would we? In one of his books; C.S. Lewis talks about the surprises of heaven. He says that we’ll be surprised at some of the people that will be there. We’ll be surprised at some of the people who aren’t there. And probably the biggest surprise is that we are there.
Verse 6 says that Jesus was wearied from His journey. He was tired of traveling. This shows us His humanity… and so the disciples go into town to buy some food. Now I don’t know about you, but here’s what I think. Jesus was tired, and that shows us His humanity, but He is also fully God, and thus He had to know that this woman would be coming to the well. So it’s my personal opinion that he sent His disciples on into town to fetch some food, not so much because He was physically hungry, but so that they wouldn’t interfere with the ministry that was about to take place with this Samaritan woman. Have you ever experienced that? You’re trying to speak to someone about something important and someone else who isn’t really part of the conversation, and really doesn’t have a good grasp of what’s going on, tries to chime in and they end up making things worse? I think maybe… just maybe this is what Jesus avoided by sending the disciples in for food. But then they come back – Verse 27 – and they see what’s happening. Now let’s put ourselves in their shoes for a moment. Here’s Jesus talking with a Samaritan… and not only a Samaritan, but also a woman.
The Pharisees had a prayer that they would pray weekly and it went like this: “Thank God that I am not a Samaritan, a Gentile, or a Woman.” And that was the mindset that many of these religious Jewish men had. And so when they see this; it’s bordering on scandalous. Not only that. If you were a Rabi, you didn’t speak to a woman – especially alone without their husband present. But what we’re seeing here is that Jesus’ desire to reach the lost trumps all cultural tradition. How many of ya’ll know that tradition can get in the way of ministry? Well anyway… the disciples had come back and verse 27 says they “marveled” at what they saw. I can see them walking up… it’s probably Peter in the lead and then; he sees what’s happening (put hands out to stop the rest / look around) “He’s talking to a woman?!?” Then verse 28 says that the woman left her water pot and went into town.
Now how simple is this? She meets Christ, leaves her water pot and begins a public ministry. How many of us can relate to that? When I first met Christ and was saved I told everyone I knew. You couldn’t keep me from telling people about Jesus. Why is that? Well it’s because Christ is in us, and when Christ is in us, His urgency for the lost becomes your urgency for the lost. This urgency doesn’t come from WHAT we know; it comes from WHO we know. And so this woman goes into town and she says, “Come on! You’ve got to meet this guy!” And her urgency is obvious, and she brings a whole crowd of people with her back to meet Jesus. Meanwhile; back at the well the disciples try to get Jesus to eat, but Jesus says, “I have food that you don’t know about.” And He explains this in verse 34 where He says, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me…” So Jesus is saying here that He feeds on doing the will of God. This is what sustains Him and satisfies Him, and strengthens Him and nourishes Him. Now here’s the question: If His life is in us, won’t we find satisfaction in doing the same thing?
Now while all of this was going on, the Samaritan woman was in town and telling everyone what had happened. She basically says, “I’ve found what we’ve been looking for all our lives.” And here’s some practical truth that we can take from this passage. This woman probably didn’t have the best reputation. She had been married on multiple occasions, she was living with a man who wasn’t her husband, but her bad reputation didn’t stop her. And so she gets a crowd to follow her back out to meet Jesus. And I imagine that as this crowd of people was approaching, Jesus was in the process of saying what we read in verse 35 to His disciples. AS the crowd approached He probably said, “Don’t say that you can kick back and take it easy because you have 4 months until the harvest. Take a look around you boys. The harvest is already here.”
We do the same thing. Maybe not in this context, but in a context that fits our culture and our lives. We say, “Oh I’ll do more for the Lord after my kids are grown.” Or, “I’ll wait until I retire and get my 401 K, then I’ll do more for the Lord.” You know, it’s always something. Til I learn more of the Bible, or til I have this thing straightened out in my life, or whatever. The harvest is ready now!
Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision the people perish.” You know what vision is? Vision is seeing what everyone else sees, but thinking what no one else is thinking and doing what no one else is doing.
So Jesus is telling His disciples, “Look the harvest is here. You’ve got to see with the eyes of the Gospel.”
Look at verse 36 (Read).
There are wages to be earned here. In other words, Jesus had just said to them. “If you want to see the harvest? Then take a look around. You want to see the wages? Well… you’re about to.” He tells them that sometimes you reap what you haven’t worked for… other times you work and work and work, and someone else reaps the harvest that you’ve sown. It doesn’t matter! The glory isn’t supposed to be ours anyway. I mean, its human nature to want to reap – to see the wages of the harvest, but sometimes we need to be the sowers. Regardless; whether we’re sowing or reaping, it should all be done with radical urgency!
So… how urgent is our sowing or reaping?
You know, we frequent the farm but we rarely ask God to put us to work while we’re there. Where is the urgency? Do we not realize what’s at stake? Why don’t we share the gospel of Jesus Christ? We tell ourselves that it’s the wrong time or the wrong place… you know what that is? You know what I would tell my girls that is? BALONY! Because its not that we don’t have urgency to share other things. We’re urgent to let others know how our kids are doing, in school or college, or in their career. We’re urgent to buy the newest gadget or tool, or clothing accessory – or whatever. We’re urgent about a lot of things.
The problem is this mentality we’ve all fallen victim to.
We think we are entitled to what we want. When MJ and I were in college, most of the kids who were going to college with us felt it was their right and that they deserved to be in college. And not only that but that they deserved a degree. We have confused rights with privileges in this country. We do not have a right to be happy, we have the right to pursue happiness. And let me tell you this. The government cannot give you any rights unless it first takes them from someone else. We have this entitlement mentality. We want the reaping without the sowing, we want the rewards without the work. And what happens is that the entitlement mentality leads to a spectator mentality. The Church has become like the NFL. On any given Sunday tens of thousands gather together and watch as a few are struggling on the field. We sometimes cheer their efforts, as long as things go the way we want them to, but if not we criticize their efforts and say how we could do better. All while we sit in the comfort of the stands or in our homes.
Look at our text. Who does the work of ministry here? The woman, right! She’s the one who goes into town and invites people to Jesus. So you see; it’s not necessarily about what we want to do, or even what we’re comfortable doing, it’s about what we’ve been commanded to do.
Let me give you an example: A few weeks ago, when the girls were finishing up school, we were on our way to Woodward for their awards assembly. About 5 miles outside of Woodward there was an old couple whose vehicle had broken down and they were on the side of the road. I drove past them, got into town, dropped MJ and the girls off at their school and then said, “I’ll be back in a minute.” I turned around and went back out to see if I could help those people. Now let me tell you – I was in a hurry, I wanted to see the assembly because I knew that my girls were going to win awards. I didn’t necessarily want to go back and help these people on the side of the road… but I NEEDED to. I had to in a sense. I pulled up behind them, got out and the man (he was in his mid to late 70’s) said, “Young man, out of all the hundreds of cars that have passed us, you’re the first person to stop and offer to help.” He told me that his heart wasn’t in the best condition and that his Dr’s told him to avoid physical activity.
They had a flat; so I put the spare on in record time talked with them about Jesus, let him use my phone so that he could call his son, and I made it back in plenty of time to see the awards ceremony. So what if I wouldn’t have stopped? Maybe nothing. Maybe someone else would’ve stopped and helped him. Or maybe he would’ve tried to change the tire himself and had a heart attack. Only God knows for sure.
Four months and then the harvest? Not for the some 30,000 children who will die in the world this week due to starvation. They don’t have four months.
How often do we blow right past the kid who bags our groceries? Or the waitress who serves us a meal at our favorite restaurant? Or the person with a flat on the side of the road? FOUR MONTHS? I don’t think so.
So what is more urgent to us? To have more stuff? To watch more TV? To get the promotion at work? To be the starting pitcher or 1st baseman? Or is it more urgent for us to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone and everyone we can?
I think we all know the answer.
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to help us get this out of our heads and into our hearts and hands.
