Alright, John chapter 4. Now the disciples, you remember,
had gone into town to get some lunch for the Lord. And they came back and He's sitting
there, standing there at the well, speaking to this Samaritan
woman. And they didn't say anything.
They didn't really know what was going on. And all of a sudden,
she runs off, leaves her water pot, runs into town. And the
Lord is standing there and He's looking out over the horizon.
You can just picture Him looking out towards where she went, towards
that town. She went to tell others about
Christ. He revealed Himself to her. She
went to tell people she knew and her loved ones. She went
to tell them what Christ had done for her, how she had met
the Redeemer. And He's just standing there
looking out over that horizon and looking where she went. He
knows what's going on. He's working what's going on.
He's God in the flesh, and by the Spirit, He's working what's
taking place. And He's standing there, and
it says, verse 31, and in the meanwhile, His disciples prayed
Him, saying, Master, eat. You see, they brought the lunch
back, and He's just standing there not eating. And they said,
Master, eat. But He said to them, I have meat to eat that you know
not of. Therefore said the disciples
one to another, as any man brought him ought to eat. And Jesus said
to them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me and
to finish His work." Our Lord is saying here that His spiritual
bread, His purpose, His mission, His charge, or the reason that
He was in this earth was to do the will of Him that sent me,
and to finish His work." And He worded it that way on purpose.
He said, to do the will of Him that sent me, because Christ
is sending us. He sends those He calls to preach
His Word, to preach His Gospel. And He's teaching us here something
about the charge that He's given to His witnesses as He sends
us forth. And so He worded it this way,
to do the will of Him that sent me. He's going to teach us some
things here about this charge of preaching the gospel and being
witnesses of Him. This is for each of us, we're
all witnesses of Christ and that's what He's teaching us here. First
He says, He speaks about the urgency of it. and the expectation
we should always have. He said in verse 35, Say not
ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest.
Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the
fields, for they are white, all ready to harvest. And then He
declares the wages of our labor. There's some reward for our labor. And He declares what those wages
are. And He's speaking here of chosen
sinners that are brought to faith in Him. That's the wages, that's
the reward of our labor, to see sinners brought to glorify Christ
by His grace. He said, verse 36, He that reapeth
receiveth wages. The wages are those lost sinners
called to Christ. He says, and they gather fruit
unto life eternal. That fruit is a sinner who was
spiritually dead, who's gathered to eternal life, made to behold
the Redeemer and have eternal life. And then he declares here
that there's no competition in his field. There's no competition
with his witnesses. He says, verse 36 at the end,
and he says, Both he that soweth and he that reapeth rejoice together. And herein is that saying true.
One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that were
on you bestowed no labor. Other men labored and you're
entered into their labors. So our Lord's teaching us here
that the purpose for which He's called His people to faith in
Him and left us in this earth is to spread His gospel, preach
His gospel, and through that He's going to
call out His people. And that's the fruit, that's
the wages of this labor is to see sinners brought to glorify
the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved from their sin. Now first,
our spiritual bread, our purpose and our meat, that which we're
to be taken up with, is the same as our Lord's was in this regard. He said in verse 34, my meat
is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work. And you notice there he says,
to do the will of Him that sent me. Everything that our Savior
was doing, God the Father sent Him to do it. He's doing the
will of the Father. God is just and He will not clear
the guilty and He's full of wrath and He's full of vengeance upon
the wicked. And that's how we thought of
God and that's the only way we thought of God when we're dead
in our sin. But it's the will of God to reveal
to those that He's given to Christ that He's a merciful Father.
He's a merciful God and He's our Father, our Heavenly Father.
That's His will and that's what Christ has come to declare. He
came to this Samaritan woman declaring the truth to her, declaring
Himself to her, because it was the Father's will to make her
know that God the Father had a chosen people that He chose
by mercy, by His grace, and He sent His Son, and we see Him
here sending Christ to this woman to let her know she's one of
them. She's one of those chosen children. And that's how we know. We don't know who the elect are
until He sends the Gospel and gives faith and brings us to
believe Him. And Paul said, Beloved brethren, knowing your
election of God, our gospel didn't come to you in word only. It
came to you in power, in the Holy Ghost, in most assurance.
And He brings you to believe Him. That's the evidence that
He's chosen you from before the foundation of the world. And
this was the Father's will, that Christ would come and reveal
this to His people. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings when He chose us in Christ. But it's the Father's
will that He's going to make His children know these blessings
and have these blessings and come into the realization of
these blessings. And so He sent Christ and His
meat, His reward, His rejoicing was to come here to this elect
Samaritan woman and to her, these elect Samaritan friends of her,
chosen of God, to bestow these blessings on them and teach them
They are chosen children of God. That was His meat. That was His
purpose. More than anything He needed
physically, that was what He was about. That was His meat.
And it was the Father's will to reveal to His people that
Christ Himself is the righteousness of God. And when you hear that,
He is the very righteousness of God. He is as righteous as
God. But He's the righteousness that
God the Father provided for His people. And the only way we're
going to enter into that is when He comes to us in spirit preaching
this gospel in our heart to make us know He went to Calvary and
bore the curse we deserved. He makes you know He bore it
for those particular sinners the Father gave to Him and He
lets you know, He makes you to understand, you're one of them.
You're one of them. And that through faith in Him,
faith that He gives, you have forgiveness, free forgiveness
of all your sin. And that's the Father's will.
He's not just a just God and a wrathful God. He's a merciful
God. He's a just God and a Savior. He makes you know He satisfied
His justice in His Son toward His people. that He might be
able to show mercy to us and draw us to Himself in mercy. And so that was Christ's will.
He finished that work. He redeemed all His people. And
here, even before He's gone to the cross, He's going to this
Samaritan to teach her who He is, that He's the Christ and
that she has free forgiveness through
Him. That was His meat. We read over there in Ephesians
1, and this is, you know, I'm just going through Ephesians
1 because there's where it talks a lot about the will of God.
This is the will of the Father. Everything Paul said there, the
will of the Father. And Christ said, I was sent to
do the will of Him that sent me. And finish that work. And the Father predestinated
Each one He chose, He predestinated us to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to bring us to Himself to know, to make us know
by the Spirit of adoption that we're children of God. So here
Christ comes. This is why He must need to go
through Samaria. This woman was one that the Father
had predestinated to receive the adoption of children and
Christ came to give her that adoption and make her know she's
a child of God. That was his purpose. That was
what he was in this earth for. And it's the Father's will to
make us know the mystery of his will. That in the end, he's going
to gather together all of his elect Jew and Gentile, not just
elect Jews, but Jew and Gentile, and gather us in Christ and bring
us to Him because it's the Father's will, it's His good pleasure
to give each one of His people an inheritance with Him. That's
His will. And here this woman is, she's
a half Jew and a half Gentile, and so are all these other Samaritans.
And He's come to declare to her, teach her by just revealing Himself
to her that it was the Father's will to save and elect number
of Jews, elect number of Gentiles, and that He might give us an
inheritance with Christ. And so that was His meat, was
to do the will of Him that sent Him to reveal this good news
to His people. And everything that He was sent
to do, this was the overall thing in all of this. Paul said over
there in Ephesians, it was the Father's will that we should
be to the praise of the glory of Him who first trusted Christ. We should praise His glory and
give Him all the praise and the glory and that we would be held
up as examples and trophies of His glory and what He accomplished
by His glory because He first trusted Christ. And He's going
to bring each one that He trusted to Christ, He's going to bring
us to trust Christ. And so that was Christ's His
Father's will was to teach us that He's the one the Father
trusted with all our salvation, everything. And so He came to
reveal this. And Christ's meat was to do His
will and He sent the Gospel to us and He gave us the Spirit
and faith to believe Him because that was God the Father's will.
And this is how, this is the only way in every In every hour,
this is the only way we're brought to draw near to our Father and
be reconciled to Him and call upon Him as a Father. Paul said in Romans 8.15, you've
not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, you've received
the spirit of adoption. He doesn't call us to bondage
to fear. He gave us the spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father, because the Spirit bears witness
with our spirit. He bears witness with that spirit
He's put in you, that we're children of God and joint heirs with Christ. If children, then heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ. This was the Father's will. And
so Christ is sent to work all the works, to be the Gospel,
and to declare the Gospel. to declare it. And He said to
us in another place, it's not the will of your Father which
is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. So
that's the meat of Him. Now brethren, it's the Father's
will for Christ to send you and me who He's called to preach
His gospel. This is the Father's will because
it pleased God. It was God's will to save through
the foolishness of preaching. And so He was pleased to use
earthen vessels that have no power and no ability in us at
all. He pleased to use earthen vessels
so that all the glory and all the praise goes to Him. And so
our Lord Jesus is sitting here and He's teaching His disciples,
I came to do the will of Him that sent me. And He's teaching
us through this that He sends us for. to do the will of Him
that sent us. To depend upon Him, to look to
Him, to trust Him, to find everything we need in Him. He said, without
me, you can do nothing. And we need everything from Him.
He said, my meat is to do the will of Him that sent me. Look
over at John 20 and look at verse 21. Here's why He's telling us
this and what He's teaching us. John 20, verse 21. At the end, he says, John 20, 21, he says, as my father
has sent me, even so sent I you. Remember I said in John 17, them
you gave me, I've kept them, and I'm praying for those that
shall believe through their word, because he sent them. So He's
called us and He's teaching us our meat in this life is not
the temporal bread. We have to have the temporal
bread and we have to take care of temporal things but our purpose
and our meat and our mission is to do the will of Him that
sent us and that will is to declare this glorious good news. And
so He teaches us next here as we look at this, He teaches us
the urgency of declaring this good news and the expectation
that we should have in declaring it. He says in verse 35, Say
not ye there yet four months, and then come at the harvest.
Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the
fields, for they are white already to harvest. You know, men, you
sow seed in a field and it's about four months, you have to
wait, and then you start having having harvest or seed coming,
you know, fruit coming. The Lord says that's not how
it is in His vineyard. And it could be, too, that there
was like four months before, till the Passover, right here.
And they're thinking, we're going to wait until everybody gets
to Jerusalem and that way we can preach the gospel to them
and we'll see the harvest then. The Lord said, My kingdom is
not like that. It's not like the field, natural
field. As soon as he revealed himself
to this Samaritan woman and gave her faith to believe him, he
said, I am. And she beheld him by faith when
he said that to her. He had said, woman, believe me.
And she turned around and took off. She left that carnal water
pot and she took off and she went straight to town and started
telling others about him right then. And he worked faith in
them. And they believed. And right now, as he's sitting
there looking over that horizon, here's this crowd gathering that's
coming to him. They believe him. Because he
preached this word to this woman. He had to go to Samaria. I must
need to go to Samaria. This is my meat to do the will
of Him that sent me. And now, he sent her. And she's
gone and declared the word. And here these folks are coming.
And I can just see him looking out over that horizon. And saying
this to His disciples, don't say four months and then comes
the harvest. Behold, lift up your eyes and
look on the field. They're white already to harvest.
The harvest is, we're about to harvest them right here. They're
coming. The Lord's teaching us here, brethren, to redeem the
time. He's teaching us to redeem the time. The time is short.
The time is short. Today is the day of grace. You think about all the people
you come in contact with all around you. These are people
that they might die today and don't know the Lord. We're debtors. The Lord's given us the gospel
and taught us this good news and sent us on this mission to
declare the truth to folks. And we're debtors to declare
this good news. And today's the day. This is
the day of grace. This is the day of grace. Each
and every day is a day to sow. It's a day to declare to sinners
the person and work of Christ. And we're to sow expecting a
harvest. This is why I think we're hesitant
sometimes when we have an opportunity to speak. Why we're hesitant
is is you've been, you've received rejection so much and you've
heard men reject the gospel so much that it sort of stops you
from saying anything. But if you speak it, the Lord
just might, He just might bring a harvest. He just might do it. We may reap today where others
sowed yesterday. He says here, verse 37, ìHerein
is that saying true, ìOne soweth and another reapeth. I sent you
to reap that whereon you bestowed no labor. Other men labored and
you entered into their labors.î Today we are reaping what others
sowed in the past. And we sow today and others tomorrow
will reap what we sow today. That's what he's talking about.
The reason the church exists right now, you think about this,
the only reason the church is still in this earth right now
and exists is because of the labors of those who preach the
truth before us. The reason we exist is because
of the labor of those who sow this gospel before us. And the
Lord blessed it to us. And we're the harvest that other
men sowed. and in time others will reap
the harvest from our sowing today. And then when you think about
individuals and you speak to individuals, it may be the Lord
has sown the seed already in them and sent them your way and
you're going to reap the harvest by preaching the truth to them.
But it's the promise to us, brethren, that His Word shall not return
void. That's the promise. He said, it shall never return
unto me void. It shall accomplish the thing
whereunto I sent it. Every raindrop that comes, every
snowflake that falls, it accomplishes exactly what He sends it to accomplish.
And He said, so is My Word that goes forth. It never returns
void. It shall accomplish the thing
whereunto I sent it. And He's promising us here there
will be a plentiful harvest in this gospel age. And every single
elect child of God shall be called. He purchased them, He bought
them, they're going to be called to faith in Him. And every single
one that He's going to use you to declare this gospel to, He's
going to cross your path with them, and you're going to declare
the truth to them, and they're going to be the harvest by His
grace. He said this, and it's talking
about fruitful. He's going to make it fruitful.
Over in Leviticus 26.5, He said, Obey Me. He tells us to believe
on Christ, and He sent us forth into all the world to preach
the gospel, and He said, Lo, I'm with you always. I'm with
you always. There's one way. I'm with you
always. He's with us. And he said he's
going to make it prosperous. He said, your threshing shall
reach unto the vintage. When you harvest time, you're
going to be harvesting all the way to the vintage of the grapes.
And then you're going to, the vintage is going to reach all
the way to sowing time. That's a harvest, brethren. That's
just all year long. He said, you're going to be reaping.
You'll eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely.
He said in Psalm 126.6, He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing
precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing
his sheaves with him. It's the picture of harvest happening
as soon as the sowing has happened. Here's the picture here. You
go to the field weeping with your seed, and you sow, and you
come again carrying the sheaves, the harvest. That's the picture. That's what he's saying he's
going to work. He said in Amos 9.13, he said, Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, talking about this Gospel 8, that the
plowman shall overtake the reaper. You sow when you're plowing.
He said the plowman is going to overtake the reaper when you're
reaping the harvest. And the treader of grapes, him
that soweth the seed. And the mountains will drop sweet
wine and all the hills shall melt. He's saying it's not going
to be in vain. He's saying it's going to be
fruitful and this is the day for that. You see how he's teaching
us the urgency is now. Preach the word now, today. Preach
it then. He's saying preach it right now.
Whenever He puts before you, whatever He brings you in contact
with, preach it now. And He said, and here's your
expectation. There's going to be a plentiful harvest. A plentiful
harvest. And why is that? It's because
Christ is the preeminent sower and He's the preeminent reaper.
He's the husbandman. The Lord Jesus used somebody
to labor to sow seed to us. Aren't you glad they did? Aren't
you glad they didn't hold it back? Aren't you glad they didn't
not give you the gospel? And He blessed it and gave you
faith and gave you repentance and brought you to Him. He brought
in the harvest and He gave the increase, giving you life and
faith in Him. And now, by Christ, we're laboring. We're laboring to sow the gospel.
and send it forth in any way we can and every means that he
makes available to us, but especially from the pulpit and as we come
in contact with folks that we have our daily dealings with.
But he's using us to do it and he's able to draw his people
to the gospel without you even knowing he's doing it. Hadn't you seen that happen?
People just show up that you didn't know was going to show
up. And I think of you, Greg. I was thinking about this. I
heard Don preach 10 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, something like
that. And all this roundabout way he
had to go through. And then the Lord started showing
him something in the Word. And he called Brother Don and
he said, here's where you need to go. And he showed up one day.
The Lord is able to draw His people. And we reap the harvest
of the seed that Brother Don sowed 20 years ago. See what
he's saying? And He blesses the seed sown,
He gives the increase, blessing the word in the heart of His
child. He adds to the church daily such as should be said.
And He preserves His vineyard. Corinthians 3. Verse 5, Paul said, Who then
is Paul and who is Apollos? But ministers by whom you believe.
Just servants, just ministering to you. Even as the Lord gave
to every man. I have planted, Apollos watered,
but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one. We're about
to see that here in just a minute. They're one. Every man shall
receive his own reward according to his own labor, for we're laborers
together with God. You're God's husbandry, you're
God's building. God's husbandry, that's what
we're talking about here. He said in Isaiah 60 verse 21,
thy people also shall be all righteous. They shall inherit
the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my
hands, that I may be glorified. The Spirit was upon our Lord
Jesus, He anointed Him to come forth and preach the Gospel,
preach deliverance to the captives, and to make this word effectual.
And He said that they may be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. That's why
He chose to say it this way. That's why He's telling us this
is going to be a plentiful harvest. And He's not only going to plant,
send His vessels to sow, and bless the Word, and give the
increase, and add to the church, and bring in His harvest, He's
going to keep His vineyard too. He said in Isaiah 27 too, In
that day sing ye unto her. When you read in that day, usually,
and you read it in the Old Testament, He's talking about this day we
live in, this Gospel age. In that day sing ye unto her
a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it. I, the
Lord, keep it. I'll water it every moment. Lest
any hurt it, I'll keep it night and day. We have that promise. We have that assurance. And so
lastly, he tells us here now, back in our text at John 4, he
tells us we have a reward for our labor. We have a reward. He says in verse 36, he that
reapeth receiveth wages. and gather fruit unto eternal
life, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice
together." Now, you think about vain religion, that's big business. And the labor, they're laboring
for numbers, and because of more numbers means more money. But that's not how God's people,
that's not why we're laboring, and that's not what God's preachers
are in the ministry for, to get money. Our treasure is Christ. Our treasure is Christ and His
glory. That's our treasure. Christ and
His glory. Saving His lost sheep. Seeing
Christ glorified in the salvation of His people. That's our treasure. Our Lord said, where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also. And you can apply that
to the ministry. You can apply that to what you
hear preached. Where a man's heart is, that's where his treasure
is going to be. And he said, so take no thought
for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink,
nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is the life not
more than meat and the body, Raymond? That's one of the things
he teaches us in this text. They bring in physical food and
he said, I have meat to eat you know not of. It's more than just
heaping up treasures in this life and there's things that
you have to do without to take the burden off of the off of
the brethren, so that the gospel can go forth. And whatever we
have to give up, it's no sacrifice, because you think about what
the reward is here. He says, seek ye first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness. And all the rest, He'll take
care of that. But He said, seek first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness. Now, what's the reward? It's
a privilege just to be called to be His witnesses. That's a
privilege. to be able to speak a word in
His name, or to be used to preach, or to be used to sit and hear
His gospel preached and go out and speak it to others. That's
a privilege. That's a reward in itself. That's enough of a
reward, enough of a wage. What's He mean here, the wage?
The wage is those He calls Himself. Those that He calls sinners called
to faith in Christ to bring glory and honor to Him. What more of
a reward could you want than to see sinners brought to Him?
We don't want to just see numbers and see people's name on a church
roll. We don't just want to go out
and try to build a church that's impressive to the world, like
they always talk about planting churches. I want to hear the
gospel go forth and I want to see Christ quicken sinners and
call them to life and bring them to Him. That's the reward. That's
the reward. And He promises His people that
reward. Here it is, the joy we have is
gathering fruit unto eternal life. You take a lost spiritually
dead sinner, hanging over hell and just about to, at any time,
if he was to die, he is going to hell and he is going to be
under the wrath of God for eternity. And the Lord sends the gospel
to him and gives him life, eternal life, bringing him to rest in
the righteousness of Christ. What more reward could you want?
The Lord has done that for some of you with multiple children
in your families and multiple of your brethren. What more?
the greatest reward we could have for preaching the gospel.
Paul said, remember he didn't receive any money from Corinth,
and he said, what's my reward? What's my wage? He told Timothy,
I endure all things for the elect's sake that they may also obtain
the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. That's
it, that they might be brought to Christ. And look at this last
thing, there's no competition between laborers, There is no
competition between congregations. He says, both he that soweth
and he that reapeth rejoice together. There is rejoicing in this earth,
in his church. There is rejoicing in heaven
when he brings a sinner to repentance. And there is rejoicing between
laborers. There is rejoicing between the
laborer and the reaper. Whoever sowed the seed, it may
be somebody else that the Lord used to sow and brought them
to faith in Christ. we rejoice. I thought about the
Lord used you here to sow the seed and the Lord taught brother
Eric, brother Kevin and sent them to other congregations.
That wasn't a decrease for us at all. That was an increase.
The Lord sent them and then already through their sowing, the Lord
has, He's given the increase and called others to faith in
Christ. To brought them and given them
eternal life through their word. Isn't that a great reward to
you? Isn't that worth all the sowing is to see that happen? Do we rejoice in that? I rejoice
in that. That thrills me. The seed shall
be prosperous, the vine shall give her fruit, the ground shall
give her increase, the heavens shall give their due, and I will
cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things,
as the Lord's promised. Why? For we're laborers together
with God, you're God's husbandry. I pray you'll bless that. Father,
we thank you for this privilege that you've given us. Lord, don't let us take for granted what you've done. We ask you to protect your vineyard. We ask you, Lord, to hedge us
about, ask you to keep us constantly renewed by this blessed
seed of your word. And Lord, use us as you see fit,
as your earthen vessels to preach, to sow this seed. And we ask
you to bless it, ask you to bless it now in the hearts of your
people that are here and those that hear this message in other
places. And Lord, truly make us willing to give up whatever we have to
give up, to take the burden off of our brethren
and make it as easy as we can to have the gospel and to hear
it and delight in it and send it forth into this world. Make
this truly to be our meat. We thank you, Father, for this
great privilege and this great honor. We thank you for the great
reward you've given in calling out your people. We thank you
for that, Lord. We rejoice and we rejoice with
those that minister in other places. What a great blessing
and honor. Lord, forgive us of our sin.
Forgive us for becoming lukewarm and letting our hands hang down
and getting distracted. Lord, keep us looking only to
the Redeemer. We beg of you to do that. In
His precious name, Amen.