We’re still at the well with Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The woman has gone to town and witnessed to the people there about seeing the Messiah. The people responded to her witness and came to see for themselves. So this morning, we discuss the subject of labor for God.
The believer is supposed to labor for God. Sounds like work! The believer’s life is to be focused on the will and work of God. A Christian’s purpose for being on earth is to serve God, to obey and work for Him. Let’s begin in verses 31-35.
What we are seeing is the difference between the physical and the spiritual. Jesus had sent the disciples to town to get food while He stayed at the well. That’s where we originally entered the story. The disciples returned from town with the food.
Now, as the disciples sat eating, they noticed Jesus made no effort to eat. He had been famished and exhausted originally. They were concerned, so they suggested that He eat. There are two concerns we need to address.
1. The concern of the disciples was for physical nourishment. Their minds were not on the woman that Jesus had just witnessed to. They were not focused on her spiritual needs. That tells us that the disciples really had no spiritual depth yet. They weren’t focused on Christ and His mission of salvation. They weren’t concentrating upon a world lost in sin and shame. So they weren’t looking for any possible opportunity to reach and help people for God.
They hadn’t yet learned the great warfare being waged between the physical and spiritual concerns of life. Their minds were only on the physical, on food, on not missing a meal, on satisfying a temporary a craving of the body.
And that brings up a vital point for SEBC that needs to be made. I’ll start with the potluck dinners on the last Wednesday night of each month. There are so many of you that use that night as an end of the month break from church. “Oh, I can’t eat any of that food. (is an excuse) I don’t come to church just to eat. (is another excuse) There’s nothing spiritual about Potluck so I won’t go.” What is your excuse? And I am just going to make a point as your pastor.
Every function of this church should be focused on outreach—On building relationships—On getting to know each other better. We should be coming to potluck, not because it’s basically a free meal, but because God might use that event to provide the opportunity to witness to someone.
But what do I see happening at every potluck. If you even decide to grace us with your presence, you come in, you sit in your regular place, and few, if any, even get up to greet a newcomer. Am I right? Where is the witness in that? What if I did the same thing? Would you want me as your pastor if I said I don’t like potlucks so I just won’t come. Or if I came in, sat down in a particular chair as if it had my name engraved on it, and then just stared at anyone new that came in. Would you want me as your pastor if I acted like I really didn’t care if you were there or not, just don’t get in front of me in the food line? Why should it be any different with you?
Can God bless a function if we only come to eat and go home? Brotherhood. You wonder why attendance has dropped. Does this same thing apply to any of your groups that meet? It’s definitely something to think about.
And please don’t go away from here today saying that all I did was gripe at you. I am simply stating what I see happening. Isn’t it my job to help steer the church in the right direction? That’s all I’m saying.
Well, the disciples had the same mindset as many of us do at potluck. They were only focused on the physical food.
2. The second concern we need to note is the concern of Christ was for spiritual food and nourishment, to do the will and the work of God. There are three points in these verses that need to be noted.
a. The will that must concern man is God’s will, and the work that must concern man is God’s work, the will and work of:
• Leading people to the Living Water.
• Helping people quench their inner thirst.
• Bringing people to God.
• Seeking and saving the lost, even Samaritans, those who are looked upon with prejudice, thought to be of a lower caste, treated as the most despicable outcasts.
b. The second point is that God sent Christ. The words “sent me” in verse 34 are significant. Christ was not sent to do the will of men, but of God. His work was not the work of men, but of God.
And there’s a lesson in this for us. Believers are sent by God. Remember, He chose us, we didn’t choose Him. We are to be single-minded. We are not to allow our goals and energy to become entangled with the business and affairs of the world. We are on earth primarily to do the will and work of God, even in our secular labor in the world. “Let your light shine before men. . . and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
c. Christ had to finish the will and work of God. God expected it to be completed. God expected obedience, faithfulness, and perseverance until His will and work was done. Note: Christ did complete God’s mission. He now challenged His followers: “Labor for God—finish your task—complete your purpose for being on earth.”
Another warning in these first few verses is we need to note the responsibility and duty of believers. We, as believers, are not to get so tangled up and distracted by worldly affairs. Why? Because it takes our focus off what God has us here for. We are going to be held accountable. God expects us to be faithful.
READ v. 35 again. The harvest is ripe, the task is urgent. The heart of Jesus was on the harvest of souls. Men focus their hearts on the world’s harvest, the planting of seed and the reaping of grain, the investment of energy and money, and the receiving of wages and gain. But the heart of Jesus was, and still is, upon people, upon the planting of the gospel seed and the reaping of souls for God.
Jesus’ challenge was “Open your eyes, and look at the fields.” The challenge was to quit looking down upon the earth and upon the affairs of the world, but instead open your eyes and observe the fields of people streaming across the world.
The scene here was probably quite dramatic. The Samaritans in their long flowing white robes were probably streaming across the fields by the hundreds, if not the thousands. Jesus’ heart and arms reached out in a burst of compassion. He cried, “Look, open your eyes and look at the fields of lost souls streaming toward you. Let the things of earth grow strangely dim.”
Now let’s bring all this up to our day. God has put His Spirit into the world and supernaturally activated a thirst for God, a sense of sin, a deep loneliness and emptiness, a sense of purposelessness, and the knowledge that Jesus Christ has come to earth claiming to be the Savior of the world.
It’s absolutely necessary that we open our eyes to the harvest. If we don’t, this harvest of souls will remain in the fields; it will rot and be lost forever. But we have to open our eyes in order to look. We can’t see ahead or around us if we don’t open our eyes to look. The things of the earth have to grow strangely dim before we can look and see.
We have to look where we are so that our eyes will see the reality of what is around us. It’s the harvest of souls around us that we are to look upon and focus our attention on.
READ 36-38. We are to reap the harvest because there are rewards and great benefits. The laborer, Jesus says, will receive wages. God is going to pay the believer and pay him well. Did you note that Jesus said the wages are already there, ready to be paid?
Matthew 19:29 – Jesus said, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.”
Daniel 12:3 – “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”
How many will you be able to tell God you have led to righteousness? The laborer gathers fruit for eternal life. What he does is of great value. It’s the greatest work imaginable. His work is lasting; it endures forever. His work actually delivers people from perishing in the fires of hell, and it causes God to give them abundant and eternal life.
The laborer experiences overflowing joy because they have served God with other laborers. The laborer is given the privilege of having a specific part in God’s great work. That part may be sowing (planting seeds), it may be reaping, taking a lost person by the hand and leading them to eternal salvation. It doesn’t matter. It’s God’s work and it’s a privilege for anyone to have a part in it.
You might have noticed from what Jesus said that each person has a part. No man does it all. One sows, and another reaps. The task is too great for one person. All believers are needed.
If the sower fails to sow, the reaper cannot reap. Some soul is not fed enough to ripen for the picking. If the reaper doesn’t reap, the soul ripened by the sower passes its usefulness; it rots and falls to the ground and decays.
And here’s the best part of being the laborer. The laborer has the privilege of being chosen and sent by Christ, the Son of God Himself. He is given the privilege of serving with other great servants. What a challenge this is to pray for all of God’s servants and to get to the task of either sowing or reaping, whichever God has called you to do!
READ 39-42. If we labor for God, as Christ has spelled it out to us, we do well because results will follow. What follows in verses 39-42 gives us a picture of exactly what Christ had been saying about laboring for God.
It says, if we labor for God, many “believed in Christ.” Why? Because of the woman’s testimony. The seed had been sown in the woman’s heart by the prophets of old and through the first five books of Scripture (which was the Samaritan’s Bible).
Jesus reaped her soul. She in turn went and bore her testimony within the city. And it says, “Many from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony.”
But then something else happened. Other opportunities were given. The new believers begged Christ to stay with them. They wanted to learn more, and they had friends who needed to hear Him as well.
And then what happened? “Many more believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
I close with what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4:13.
“It is written: ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.’ With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak.”
If you are a Christian, Jesus asks for your help in fulfilling the Great Commission:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
