Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
John, the gospel of John, chapter four, beginning at verse 31. And this is the Christ speaking
to his disciples after he had revealed himself to a Samaritan
woman. And they began to ask him some
questions and he began to answer them. And in verse 34, He says
this, and we'll go back and look at the context, but he says this,
Jesus saith unto them, this is John 4.34, he saith unto them,
my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish
his work. And so the title of the message
is the finished work of Christ. The finished work of Christ.
In this passage, as I said, Christ had already revealed himself
to a Samaritan woman. We call her the woman at the
well. She was an adulterous woman, an infamous sinner. publicly
known throughout her area. And she came to Jacob's well
to draw water at an odd time because she didn't want to be
ridiculed by the people who came at the regular time that one
would draw water. Usually they draw water in the
beginning of the morning for the day. And she came later on.
Well, he revealed himself as the water of life. Christ is
the water of life. He's the sustenance of life.
And I love that passage in Matthew chapter five, I believe it's
verse six, where the Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, he
said, blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled. And that's hunger, that's a spiritual
hunger and a spiritual thirst. whereby the Holy Spirit reveals
to a person that he or she is a sinner who has absolutely no
hope of salvation in anything they do or decide, anything within
themselves. It's all by the grace of God,
based upon the righteousness of Christ. If you really hunger
and thirst after righteousness, it's because the Holy Spirit
has revealed to you what righteousness is. And what is righteousness? Well, it's the perfection of
the law in its precept and in its penalty, and that can only
be found in Christ. It's never to be found among
men, even the best of men and women. That's why the Bible says
in Romans 3 in verse 10, there's none righteous, no, not one. None good, no not one. You see,
the righteousness and the goodness that we must have in order to
be accepted with God cannot be found on earth among sinful men
and women. No matter who you are, no matter
what you try to do. And if the Holy Spirit reveals
that to you, he'll give you a hunger and a thirst after righteousness
and that hunger can only be satisfied in the bread of life, who is
Christ. And that thirst can only be satisfied
in the water of life, who is Christ. So Christ reveals himself
here, or has revealed himself here to this woman at the well,
this Samaritan woman. Well, in the meantime, while
he was speaking to this woman, he'd sent his disciples into
the town to buy bread, to buy supplies. And it says, and they
came back to him, and it says in verse 31, now this is John
4, 31. It says, in the mean while his disciples prayed, while his
disciples prayed him saying, master eat. Talking about physical
food. But what Christ often did in
situations like this, he turned it into a spiritual lesson and
he says, in verse 32 it says, but he said unto them, I have
meat to eat that you know not of. And it says, therefore said
his disciples one to another, hath any man brought him ought
to eat? Has he already eaten? Now their
mind is on physical food, physical bread, physical meat. And so
they asked, has any man brought him something to eat already? We went in to get stuff to eat.
Has he already eaten? And verse 34 says, Jesus saith
unto them, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and
to finish his work. And what Christ is saying, this
is the spiritual issue of what it takes to fill up the hunger
and quench the thirst of the sinners for whom he came to die
and to be buried in a rose again. And in himself, it fulfilled
him within himself to do what God the Father sent him to do.
That's the real issue of salvation. It's the real issue of righteousness
and of blessedness. So he says, my meat is to do
the will of him that sent me. Now, I'm not gonna go into a
lot of explanation here on the Trinity. I've often told you
that the Trinity is an awesome, awesome truth of the Bible. that
we don't believe in three gods. The Trinity does not preach three
gods. That's what a lot of people who
deny the Trinity accuse believers of. They say, well, you believe
in three gods. But we don't. The Bible does
not teach that there are three gods. The Bible teaches that
there's one God who subsists in three persons, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. And each one of the persons of
the Godhead are co-equal in nature, in attributes, as God. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. But it's not three gods. Now,
it is a mind-boggling truth, admittedly. And we really cannot
explain it. It's something that the Lord,
it's one of those truths that causes you to stand back and
say, oh, the depth of the riches of God's nature and His grace,
His mercy, His ways are past finding out. Who can understand
it? And so we believe it because
it's true. And the main thing about this,
the Trinity, as it applies to the relationship of people to
God, is that it took a work of the Father, the Son, and the
Spirit to save sinners from our sins. And one of the classic
passages of Scripture that teaches that is in the book of Ephesians,
chapter one, where it tells us the work of the Father in salvation,
God the Father representing the sovereignty of the Godhead, He
chose a people before the foundation of the world. That's sovereign
electing grace. God chose the people whom He
would save. And I know people don't like
to hear that, but that's the way the Bible reveals it. And
then you see the work of the Son. God the Son, that's Jesus
Christ, God the Son incarnate. And God the Son is the Savior
of His people in that He came to earth, united Himself as the
Son of God with a perfect, sinless humanity, and walked the earth
under the law, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law. He's the Redeemer. He's the one
who provided the ground of the salvation of those whom the Father
chose. Chose in Him. And that's when
Christ says here, to do the work, the will of Him that sent me
and to finish His work. That's the work He's talking
about. The work of redemption. The work of putting away the
sins of God's people by the sacrifice of Himself. So He redeemed us
with His blood. That's His death. And in that
redemption, He provided a perfect righteousness, a perfect righteousness
that enables God to be both a just God and a Savior. And that's
where the gospel comes into this. See, the Father chose His people
in Christ, sent His Son into the world to do the work of establishing
righteousness for His people. And then the Holy Spirit, the
third person of the Trinity, is sent out from the Father and
the Son to give, to apply. the benefits and blessings of
spiritual life to those whom the Father chose, those whom
the Son redeemed, who are made righteous in Him, and to give
them life in the new birth, born again from above by the Spirit,
under the preaching of the gospel. And in that He brings them, He
gives them the gift of faith in Christ, He gives them the
gift of repentance, He gives them the gift of perseverance,
keeping them. That's why we cannot be, if we're
once saved, we're always saved because God saved us. Now all
three persons of the Godhead are involved in that salvation. One God who subsists in three
distinct persons. And let me caution you about
this issue of illustrations. You know, there are people who
say, well, let me illustrate the Trinity to you. And they'll
say things like, well, like water. You take water. Water can exist
in the form of ice, which is a solid, a liquid, which is water,
or steam, which is a vapor. But that's not a good illustration
for the Trinity, because that would be like saying that there's
one God in three forms. And that's not what the Trinity
is. It's not one God in three forms. It's one God in three
persons. So I won't go into the other
illustrations that people use, but here's the point. There is
no earthly illustration that adequately explains the Trinity. So when Christ said here in verse
34, he says, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me
He's talking about his relationship to the Father as the servant
of the Father, even though he's equal with the Father in every
attribute of deity now. He's the great I Am. He told
Philip, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He's equal. But for the purposes of the salvation
of his people, he submitted himself to the Father. And he became
the servant of the covenant. You know, the gospel and salvation
is a revelation of the everlasting covenant of grace. When the Father
and the Son and the Spirit covenanted together to save a people from
their sins in a way that honors God. And so he said, to do the
will of my father and to finish his work. And so he says this,
let me read the rest of this passage, then I'll go back and
show you something about the finished work of Christ from
the Old Testament. But he says in verse 35, say
not ye, there are yet four months and then cometh harvest. Behold,
I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields for
they are white already to harvest. What he's telling his disciples
there is there's no need to wait now. The Jewish people had been
waiting for the Messiah to come and they had the wrong view of
the Messiah. as to what he would be doing
and all of that. They didn't expect him to come
like Isaiah prophesied, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief
and all of that, that had no form nor comeliness. They expected
a Messiah like a great warrior, come down from heaven riding
a white horse, wielding a sword and conquer their enemies. and
pat them on the back and rule the world through them from Jerusalem. But that's not what the Messiah
was coming to do. That's the wrong view of the
Messiah. That's a false Messiah. Now, when Christ comes again
in his return to earth, the second coming of Christ, he'll come
as a victorious conqueror not wielding a sword and not riding
a white horse, but he'll just come with his people, those who
have gone to be with him already, and he will gather up his church
unto himself, his people, and then he will bring all of those
who are lost, who died in their sins, to judgment. So that's
true. But the first coming of Christ,
the first advent, He was coming as a babe born in a manger in
Bethlehem. He was coming as a person who
would not be respected and regarded by others. But as Isaiah said,
a man of sorrow is acquainted with grief. So you don't have
to wait, he's telling the disciples here. He says, the fields are
all ready. to harvest. And it says in verse
36, Christ said, and he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth
fruit unto eternal life, that both he that soweth and he that
reapeth may rejoice together. Now when he says you receive
wages, he's not talking about us earning salvation. He's talking
about himself as the one, Christ is the only one who earned salvation. We don't earn it. See, that's
what grace is all about. Salvation by grace means this,
that whatever salvation is, in all of its blessings and all
of its benefits, we don't earn it and we don't deserve it. If
there's any part of it that we earn or deserve, then it's not
of grace. And some people talk about preachers
mixing works and grace. You can't do that. Paul wrote
about that in Romans 11. He said, if it be of grace, it's
all of grace. If it be of works, it's all of
works. Salvation is by grace. It's by
grace through faith, and that's not of yourselves. It's the gift
of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. But he's saying,
look at verse 37 of John 4. He says, and herein is that saying
true? One soweth and another reapeth.
I sent you to reap that whereon you bestow no labor. Other men
labored and you are entered into their labors. Now, I believe
what he's talking about there is the Old Testament prophets.
The saints in the Old Testament who preached the gospel, they
labored and the disciples were gonna reap the benefits of that. Again, not earning salvation,
what he's talking about is Christ bringing his people into the
kingdom. And we are laborers together,
Paul wrote that. preachers and witnesses of Christ. We are laborers together, but
we're not laboring, working to earn salvation. We're laboring
and working because salvation has already been fully earned
by Christ. If we weren't working to earn
our salvation, nobody would be saved. Why? Because there's none
righteous, no not one. There's none that doeth good.
The Bible even says this now. Now listen to this. That by nature
there's none that seeketh after God. Do you realize that what
I'm preaching to you today and what other gospel preachers preach
is a message, a truth, a salvation that nobody by nature wants. Now that may shock you to hear
that, but that's what the Bible teaches. That's the depravity
of man. And I always try to make sure
that you understand. When I say by nature, I'm talking
about as we are naturally born into this world. How are we naturally
born into this world? We fell in Adam, fell into sin
and death, We're born spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. Paul spoke to those in Ephesus
who were saved. He says, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. And we have no knowledge,
we have no desire to submit to God's way of salvation. We want
our own way. That's why the Bible says there
is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the way thereof is
the way of death. Salvation by the works or the
wills of men and women is a way of death. Salvation conditioned
on sinners is a way of death. And this is why Christ had to
come to do the will of the Father and to finish His work, because
He alone is the righteousness of His people, and He alone gives
life to dead sinners, to His people, and in that life, He
gives us a desire to submit to Him. He makes us willing in the
day of His power. Before that, we're not willing.
Christ said in John 6, 44, no man can come to Me except the
Father which has sent Me draw him, and I'll raise him up again
at the last day. It is said in John chapter one
that those who received Him, who believed in Him, that they
were born, but not by physical birth, not by works, and not
by their will. They weren't born again because
they made the right decision. They're born of God, and having
been born of God, then they make the right decision, which is
to believe in Christ and to rest in Him. Well, let's look back
at a couple of Old Testament passages. Isaiah 46. Now, he
said there, others had labored and you're reaping the benefits.
And again, I believe he's talking about the Old Testament prophets
and the saints leading up to the coming of Christ, John the
Baptist, one of them we read about in John one through three. And what does he say here? Look at Isaiah 46 verse nine. Listen to what it says here.
God, through the prophet Isaiah, Reminding the people, he says,
remember the former things of old. For I am God, there is none
else. I am God, there's none like me. That's the holiness of God. There's
no one like God. There's no one to even compare
to God. All other so-called gods are idols. He says in verse 10,
now listen to how God describes himself. And he says, declaring
the end from the beginning. Do you understand the import
of that statement? God identifies himself and distinguishes
himself as a God who declares the end from the beginning. And
you know what that is? It's a word that most people
who claim to be Christian today probably deny and don't like. That's predestination. You see,
He's the one who declares the end from the beginning. God is,
everything is come about by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God, who works all things after the counsel of His own
will. Now, you and I, we cannot declare the end from the beginning.
Now, I can declare the beginning from the end. In other words,
I put it to you this way. I know how this day started,
but I don't know how it's gonna end up. I can't even tell you
what the next moment is going to happen. You know, people,
we call what we, the insurance companies and what we call accidents. You see, we don't know they're
coming. And so we don't know the end
from the beginning. We just know how it starts. But
God knows the end from the beginning because he's determined it. And
I know that's a mind boggling truth. And it brings a lot of
questions in people's minds. Well, then how can God do this?
Or how can he let this happen? Why did he do that? My friend,
all we can do as creatures But even more, as sinful creatures,
is just bow to the sovereign work and will of God. And say
this, as the Bible tells us, God does all things well. He's God. I always like to refer
to a movie that I was watching where there was a guy who claimed
to be a preacher. And throughout his life, you
know, he tried to preach truth, but he became very, very frustrated. And at the end of it, he said,
he told somebody, he said, you know, all the theology and the
doctrine, he said, I'm not sure about, he said, in all of my
life, and this is probably when he was around 80 years old, he
said, there's only two things that I know. And a young man
asked him, well, what are those two things? He said, I know there
is a God and I know I'm not him. Well, there is a God and I'm
not him, but I know more than that. And the reason I know more
than that is because of the revelation that God speaks of himself in
this word. And he says in verse 10 of Isaiah
46, he's the God who declares the end from the beginning. Look
at verse 10 now. And from ancient times, the things that are not
yet done say, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. I'll do everything I want to
do. That's what God says. And that's the product of his
counsel, his mind, his will, his wisdom thought out in God,
the reality of God's mind. He says in verse 11, calling
a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executed my counsel
from a far country. Now here, he's speaking of the
deliverance of Judah, the Southern kingdom from Babylon later on
through a heathen king named Cyrus, but I won't go into all
that. But he says, yea, I have spoken
it. I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also
do it. The will of the God. Now remember
what Christ said in John four, verse 34. He said, my meat is
to do the will of my father that sent me. Well, listen to this. Look at verse 12 of Isaiah 46.
He said, hearken unto me, you stout hearted that are far from
righteousness. Now, do you know who that describes?
That describes all of us by nature. Stout-hearted means proud, unbending. And anybody who seeks salvation
by their works or their will, or who believes salvation is
conditioned on themselves, that's stout-heartedness. That's the
opposite of humility. And we're far from righteousness.
The more we try, the farther we get away from it. And he says
in verse 13, I bring near my righteousness and it shall not
be far off and my salvation shall not tarry and I will place salvation
in Zion for Israel, my glory. Now, do you know who that's talking
about? That's talking about Christ. Coming to do the will of his
father who sent him and to finish his work. Christ, in the glory
of His person, and in the power of His finished Word, is the
very glory of God. He's the righteousness of God.
That's what Romans 1, 16 and 17, where Paul wrote, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto
salvation. To the Jew first, the Greek also,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. God
brings near His righteousness, not ours, His. That's Christ. That's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the very righteousness of God. And when Christ said, I'm gonna
do His will and do His work, that's what He's talking about.
And we'll go into more scriptures on that next time. But this is the finished work
of Christ. And we'll pick up there next
week. I hope you'll join us. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, Write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
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today and may the Lord be with you.