Look Around, It’s Time To Go (John 4:27-42)
We need to be people that understand what time it is! Jesus did and so did the woman at the well. But Jesus’s disciples needed to be shown. She became an example for us and Jesus’s disciples learned from her example.
Remember, she was an immoral woman with a bad reputation. Last week we saw that she had had 5 husbands and was living with a man out of wedlock, and she didn’t really want Jesus to know about any of this. But, because He is God, He knew it already. Jesus confronted her with her sin, and showed her that there is salvation in Him. And we will see today that she left to go tell others about Him.
For a few years now I have sat behind this pulpit and stated that there would come a time when people are searching for a community of believers to be a part of. To me it seemed obvious, people are so separated from one another right now that eventually they would look around and say, “Hey, I want to be a part of something.” And it was my hope that church would be that thing.
And I have to say, I think that time is here. We seem to be on the brink of it. Every few days it seems that I hear someone around here looking to get back into church. There are other times that I hear stories about how people are trying to figure things out. It wasn’t that long ago that everyone was lamenting the rise of the nones, we lamented that 40% of Gen Z was atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular.
On Halloween, Amanda thought it would be a good idea to just leave a table outside of our hose for people to pick up gospel tracts and information for our church out on the sidewalk while children came to the door to get candy. And people were very interested and picked up the material. I don’t think that would have happened a few years ago. The times they are a changing.
And here we are. What are we going to do about it. How are we going to respond in this situation?
Go and testify to the Savior of the World.
Go With Fervor (John 4:27-30)
The disciples came back from buying groceries and they saw Jesus speaking with a woman. This came as a shock to them because not only was this woman a Samaritan, but she was a woman. And Rabbis didn’t speak to women. Much is written in sources from this time that help us to understand the disciples’ shock. It was not typical Rabbi behavior.
The disciples didn’t say anything. And the text makes that plain. Therefore, it does not seem to be the reason that she left. But she did leave with urgency.
There is something peculiar about her leaving though. She seems to have completely lost herself. She was overcome with emotion and went to tell others about Jesus (John 4:28-29). Why do I say this? She forgot her water jar.
The woman came to the well to draw water. This was the whole reason for her coming here. And she excitedly left to go do something else altogether. She left to go tell others about Jesus. She left to go tell others that Jesus knew about all of her sin and shame. She left to tell others about Him. And the people began to come to Jesus (John 4:30).
Notice what she did when she left. Notice what happened with this woman.
She didn’t even take her water jar with her. The very thing she came to do, she forgot completely. She was taken up with a new task. She was taken up with a new endeavor. She forgot everything else and took to the streets to go and tell others about Jesus.
This woman is a picture of the fervor that is found in the newly converted, newly forgiven, soul. She is a picture of a person who still remembers her many sins and still remembers how glorious her salvation is.
Do you remember what it was like when you first realized your awful sin and rebellion against God?
Do you remember the terror that struck your soul as you understood that God knows your every thought, has seen your every action, has seen all of your wickedness, and all of your rebellion?
Do you remember that sinking feeling as you understood that the one being in the entire universe that knows most about you saw you not as a beautiful and unique snowflake but as a sinner that deserved justice?
You know deep down inside that you can justify your sin. You know that when you decide to be lazy, you can justify that sin to yourself. You know that when you yell at your spouse, you can justify that sin to yourself by saying that they somehow deserved it or you had a hard day. You know deep down that you can look at pornography and justify it to yourself, “I had a hard day.” “I’ll just look this one time.”
But you also know that, deep down, God who knows all about you and sees everything does not buy the garbage you’re selling.
Do you remember when that realization first sank deep into your soul? And do you remember you flung yourself upon Christ for salvation?
God the Son was clothed in humanity and walked among us. He came to us, lived for us, and died for us. He suffered on the cross and paid the wrath of God for us. And He rose from the grave for our justification.
Do you remember the response afterward as you told family and friends about the decision you made and life in Christ?
That’s what this woman was doing. She saw the salvation that was hers in Jesus Christ and went to tell others.
She was a notorious sinner in her town and she went to tell others about Jesus. The whole world looked different to her now. And she just had to tell others about Jesus.
“A converted person no longer cares for what he once cared for. A new tenant is in the house: a new pilot is at the helm. The whole world looks different. All things have become new…for the time present the salvation she had found completely filled her mind…under the first impressions of new spiritual life, she went away and ‘left her waterpot’ behind.” JC Ryle
Find Satisfaction in Going and Go (John 4:31-34)
When the woman left, the disciples began asking Jesus whether he had eaten. Remember, they left Jesus alone to get food. When they left, Jesus was hungry, thirsty, and tired. Now that they were back he seemed energized and was refusing to eat.
They began to assume that someone had brought him food to eat. But Jesus had not been fed. Jesus was fully satisfied in the work He was doing. He was fully satisfied in doing His Father’s will. His food was to “do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34).
What is His Father’s will? Jesus will explain this a few chapters from now.
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40 ESV)
Jesus’s food, His great satisfaction is in fulfilling the Father’s will to see people have eternal life.
Picture the moment well in your mind. At this moment, people are being told about who Jesus by the woman. And they are beginning to come to Him and investigate matters. Maybe some of these people are even visible as Jesus is saying these words. And to Jesus, this is more important than thinking about food in this moment.
The fact of the matter here is that we do what we want to do. And we should long to see people come to faith in Christ. Pastors will rattle off all the statistics about evangelism and people going to church.
In the past, pastors would tell congregants to look around. Because statistically around 80% of the people that are in church today were invited by a friend or relative. It’s usually 10% or under if a person is invited by a pastor. I have said these things. While they are true, according to the Billy Graham Association. I don’t think that’s going to motivate you to invite your friends and neighbors to church.
I don’t believe that we need to be assured that our efforts will be successful. I think we need to want to see people come to faith in Christ. We need to desire it. We need to look out upon the lost people in our town and hurt for their condition. We need to look out upon them and see that they are lost and in need of the Savior.
We choose to do things because we want to do them.
Here Jesus desires to spread the good news to the people more than he desires to eat. Food is secondary to fulfilling the Father’s will and declaring this message to the lost people that were coming in all around Him.
Where are your priorities? Where are my priorities?
If you do not desire to tell other people about Jesus or invite them to church, I believe that your desires are disordered. We should desire this. This is about priorities and desires. This is about understanding what is important.
Desire to go.
How do we gain the desire to get up and go? How do we say with Jesus, that our food is to do the will of our Father?
First, we look around and see the immense value of the people around us.
Second, we see that they are lost in sin and rebellion and headed for Hell.
Third, we want to honor God with every fiber of our being.
Remember the book of Jonah. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh. But Jonah didn’t want to go. And the reason Jonah didn’t want to go is because he did not want God to have mercy on Nineveh. He knew that if the people listened and repented that God would be merciful and he did not want that. We see this when the people of Nineveh repented. Jonah pouted and cried out to the Lord.
“And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah 4:2 ESV)
Jonah didn’t want to go because he didn’t want to see the people of Nineveh repent and find God’s mercy.
Why are we not going with fervor?
Why are we not going out and sharing the gospel with people?
Jesus was different. He so strongly wanted to do His Father’s will which was to save sinners that He desired it more than food itself.
Do you desire it enough to be uncomfortable for a few moments while you talk with your friend or neighbor?
Pray that the Lord would give ordered desires. Pray that the Lord would give you a longing to see people come to faith in Christ. Pray that the Lord would stir your heart to see the lost people groping around in the darkness.
Understand What Time It Is And Go
This was an agrarian society. And as such, they understood the seasons and took some life lessons from the seasons. They would discuss the fact that you had to wait for the crops to come in. In fact, they understood their work year to be broken up in to 2-month cycles of readying the ground, planting the seed, waiting for the seeds to come up, waiting and caring for the plants to grow, harvesting the crops, and then waiting for the time to start this whole process over.
But Jesus here says, “don’t think like that” (John 4:35). Don’t be thinking that you have time to sit and wait for the harvest time to come. It’s here.
I would also like to propose that Jesus was beginning to see Samaritans come to Him. He could look and point at the incoming people and say, “don’t think like that”. It’s time. The harvest is here. The fields are white with harvest. The tops of the grain are ready, it’s harvest time. Stop sitting around and get to work. Other people have been at work, and it has been difficult. It’s harvest time (John 4:38).
Jesus is calling them to see that the time long looked forward to is now here. Both the plowman and the reaper are rejoicing together because the harvest is so abundant. Usually the plowman sows in hope and the reaper rejoices at the harvest, but things are about to wind up in such a way that both will be rejoicing. They will rejoice together.
“”Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.” (Amos 9:13 ESV)
The woman was out telling people about Jesus and the people were coming quickly (John 4:39). Now the disciples were to labor.
The people came because of her testimony. And now they believed because of Jesus. And they believed that Jesus was the Savior of the world! (John 4:42)
There are times when you put your head down and plow. There are also times when you do it filled with joy because the harvest is coming in. The disciples were seeing the harvest come in.
How often are we filled with excuses? How often do we have better things to do or talk about?
I have told the story of Terry Boswell on a number of occasions. He is the man who shared the gospel with me after a church service one day. And he had shared the gospel with people all over Harrison, which is something he did until the day he died.
He was my Junior High art teacher, a class that I did not take very seriously at all. I often had to write sentences for Mr. Boswell who would grin as he gave them to me. He was a tremendous artist. He was the head artist for the Dogpatch theme park until he became a teacher. And he had done that for quite a while because he was also my mother’s art teacher.
By the time I knew him, he had Parkinsons. He shuffled when he walked, but he still spoke clearly and drew well when he put his hand down on the paper. But before then, when he first found out he had Parkinsons, he stood before his church and said that God’s power is perfected in weakness and that he was going to glorify the Lord for the rest of his life. And for years, even when he could barely talk, he was sharing the good news of the gospel to lost people.
It’s a powerful testimony that I got to witness personally on a number of occasions.
He had a desire to see the lost saved and he saw what time it was. It was time to go. It was time for the harvest. It was time to be sharing the message of God’s grace with a lost and dying world.
Have you looked around lately?
We are living in a time of intense searching. The secular project has completely failed. Our society has attempted to reject God and it is going up in flames. And now, a whole lot of people are looking for answers.
It’s time. It is that time. It is time to be leading people to see the love and grace of God that is found in Jesus Christ.
It is time to reveal to show them true fellowship and community, because they’re not finding it in other places.
It’s time for us to look around and see that the fields are white with harvest and proclaim the name of Christ far and wide.