Sermon: The Work of Sharing Jesus -

John 4
by Calvin Wittman

Scriptures: John 4:27-38

Introduction
There are some two thousand unique people groups in the world which not only have
not heard the gospel but which have yet to be engaged. Add that to the billions of
people who in spite of belonging to people groups which have been reached, have still
not heard the gospel and the task making sure everyone has at least one chance to hear
the gospel seems overwhelming.

Now, when we talk about missions we ARE speaking about winning people to Christ
but we are speaking about winning them in a specific context. Allow me to explain.

We have identified a difference between missions and evangelism as follows: We have

a slight difference in the definition of evangelism and that of missions. Evangelism is
when we are reaching people who can, will and should come to our church and
Missions is when we are reaching people who cannot, will not and should not come to
our church. Thus when we are out visiting those who have been attending our services
and we are able to lead one of them to Christ, that's evangelism. They can, will and
should come to our church. On the other hand, when we are in Kenya, Korea or
Cambodia and lead someone to Christ, that's missions, as they cannot, will not and
should not come to our church.

But in both cases we are leading people into faith in Jesus, it's just that in one case we
disciple them in our fellowship and in another they are discipled within the context of
another fellowship.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was the first New Testament missionary. He left His
home, became one of us and dwelt among us, a foreign culture, so that He might share
with us the message of His Father's love. But even while He was here, He demonstrated
a desire to reach outside His own cultural boundaries. As our text this morning will
demonstrate, Jesus was the first cross-cultural missionary.

Open your bibles with me this morning to the gospel of John, chapter four. We will be
specifically looking at verses 27-38.

If we were to begin in verse one we would find the Pharisees becoming increasingly
antagonistic towards Jesus and His ministry. Verse four tells us that Jesus had to go
through Samaria.
Samaria, as you may remember, was wedged between Judea in the south and Galilee in
the north. It was the place where the northern kingdom of Israel had once been. But in
722 B.C. the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom, intermingling their people
with the Jews, creating the Samaritans. In the time of Christ there was great animosity
between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews looked down upon the Samaritans as
religious apostates who had mixed the worship of the One true God with that of idols.
Thus, when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, the hero of the story was
someone the Jews looked down upon as being morally and physically inferior.

But we find Jesus on His way from Judea to Galilee and scripture tells us He had to go
through Samaria.

About midday Jesus stops at the city of Sychar, by Jacob's well, and Jesus stays at the
well while the disciples go into town to find something to eat. It is here that Jesus meets
the Samarian woman, whom we know as the woman at the well.

Jesus breaks several cultural barriers in talking to this woman. He talks to a woman in
public, something no self-respecting Jewish man would do, and He talks to a Samaritan,
something no Jew wanted to do.

During the course of the discussion Jesus tells this woman all about her life, and reveals
to her that He is, in fact, the long awaited Messiah. He offers her living water, or
salvation and as the disciples return the woman returns to the village to tell all she could
find about meeting Jesus.

Now the disciples are amazed: First of all that their teacher would lower Himself to
speak to a woman in public and furthermore that He if He did choose to speak to a
woman, she would be a Samaritan.

It is here were we pick up our text. Look at verses 31-38. Our text reveals four things to
us about introducing others to faith in Christ.

I. It is sustaining and fulfilling work - vv. 32-34

I'm convinced that until after the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at
Pentecost, the disciples spent most of their time scratching their heads wondering about
Jesus. I mean, He just didn't do things the way they thought the Messiah was going to
do them. But they are still concerned about Him and so they urged Him to eat some of
the food they bought in the village. Again He responds in a way that takes them all by
surprise. His response is that He has food to eat that they don't know about. Now, being
the spiritual dolts that they were, they disciples begin to ask each other, "No one
brought Him anything to eat did they?"
But then Jesus explains, giving us insight into the sustaining and fulfilling nature of soul
winning.

No doubt Jesus was referring to Deuteronomy 8:3 which says, "Man does not live by
bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord."

Jesus was telling His disciples and He is telling you and me this morning that physical
food may sustain us for a while, it may satiate our physical hunger, it may satisfy a
temporal desire, but doing the will of our Father in Heaven is much more satisfying,
much more fulfilling and much more meaningful.

Jesus was living on a plane the disciples had not yet discovered, a plane many
Christians have not yet discovered. Jesus was living in a spiritual realm where the
greatest satisfaction He could experience was to do the work that the Father sent Him to
do, to do the will of the Father.

One of the reasons so many Christians are plateaued in their spiritual life is that they've
never discovered the sustaining and fulfilling nature of being used by God. They have
never discovered the secret of being used by God to accomplish His work.

God created us to be relational, to be in fellowship with Him and in fellowship with one
another. It is sin which separates man from God and man from his fellow man. God's
plan is that as we are in fellowship with Him, we will relate to others, thereby bringing
them into relationship with Him. There is a basic need within the human soul, to be in
relationship. It is interesting how we seek to fill that need in ways other than God
intended. We watch television shows, so we can be interested but not involved, we
gossip, so we can know the details about the problems of others, but never have to give
of ourselves to help them solve those problems. All of this is counterfeit. God created us
to be His agents, His ambassadors, to be His representatives to others so that we can get
personally involved in helping people overcome their biggest problem, sin. But that
costs us something.

The disciples would not have spoken to the woman, they would not have bothered to get
involved. But Jesus intentionally stayed behind so that He could engage her in
conversation and confront her with the truth. It wasn't a pretty picture Jesus painted of
her life, but it was the truth. But not only did He confront her with the truth of her life,
He confronted her with the truth that He is the Life. He stayed behind to share with her
the good news, the gospel.

Folks, we were created to participate in eternity. God created us to be His messengers,

His vessels, temples in which His Spirit lives. If we spend the substance of our days
pursing lesser things, things which can only satisfy our physical nature and never satisfy
the longings of our eternal nature in Christ, we may grow physically strong externally
but dry up and die spiritually, or internally.

Jesus was explaining to the disciples that being in fellowship with the Father and
accomplishing His work means doing things which satisfy more deeply than food. For
those who will follow Jesus, that which satisfies the deepest longings of our souls, that
which will bring us fulfillment and a sense of completion is to be used of God, and
specifically to be used by God to bring others into the kingdom.

If you've never led another person to Christ, if you've never had the joy of sharing your
faith with another and telling them how they can know Jesus, friend, you've missed one
of the most significant things you were ever created to do.

Jesus wants you and me to have the same kind of spiritual food He had. He wants us to
be nourished even as He was. And we get that by doing the will of the Father and to
accomplish His work, which as Jesus explains here, is leading others to faith in Him.

But not only does Jesus reveal that winning others is sustaining and fulfilling, He also
tells us that it is an urgent work.

II. It is an urgent work - v. 35

Immediately Jesus looks up and across the field, no doubt, He sees the people coming
en mass from the village. The scripture tells us in verse 30 that after the woman went
back into the village and told them about Jesus that the village was coming out to see
Him.

As Jesus sees them, He turns the attention of His disciples, not to the grain in the fields,
but to the field of souls which was making its way toward Him. He wanted them to look
to the field He came to work, to the souls of men, women boys and girls.

The disciples were waiting for Jesus to establish a military kingdom, and once again
Jesus is reminding them that He came to win souls. He came to seek and to save the
lost, to be a ransom for many.

As Jesus directs their attention to the field of souls He stresses the urgency of sharing
the gospel and says, "Do not say, four months till the harvest, lift up your eyes and look
on the fields, that they are white unto harvest."

Folks, one of the reasons we don't see more people saved, one of the reasons we don't
baptize more, one of the reasons we don't see the kingdom of God literally explode all
around us is that we are not looking on the field as one which is white unto harvest.
In recent days Christians have spent too much time thinking about why people won't
come to faith in Christ instead of going out and winning others to Him.

John Phillips, the great British commentator says, "If the fields were ripe then, what
must they be now as we stand at the other end of the long dispensation of grace? The
sun burns across the sky. Millions, still untold, lift up their anguished voices to the
heavens. The church has dillied and dallied with the great commission, careless, for the
most part, of the tragedy of a soul dying in nature's darkness. The terrible indictment of
Psalm 142:4 which says, "No man cared for my soul," will be raised by a million
million voices at the last day. How will we ever explain our lethargy and neglect when
the charge is referred to us by the billions of our own generation who will say to God, "I
never knew you had a Son"? Are we any less culpable than those first disciples who saw
in the woman of Samaria not a mission field, but one whom they could afford to
despise?"

As the song says, "Millions grope in darkness, waiting for Thy word, set my soul afire
Lord, set my soul afire."

Oh that God would cause us to lift up our eyes from the enchantments of this world, to
take our eyes off of the lesser things which vie for our affections and ensnare us, and
cause us to see the mission field around us, white unto harvest as it is. Oh that we would
sense the urgency, in our Lord's voice. That we who claim to be His followers would
indeed follow Him, doing what He did, caring for those He cared for, and seeking to do
His will.

Lift up your eyes, the fields are white unto harvest. Look around you at those who need
to be saved, at those who have never heard, at those who are waiting for hope, for life
and for freedom from the bondage of false religions. The world is filled with people just
waiting for someone to tell them that God loves them, has a plan for their lives and will
give them eternal life.

But it is not a work one can do alone. Even as Jesus called on His disciples to see the
readiness of the harvest and to join Him in the work, He is calling upon us to join Him
and to join one another in sharing the good news of the gospel.

III. It is a shared work - vv. 36-38

So often we are tempted to believe that soul winning is something we must do
individually, when in reality it is a joint effort, a shared work among those who are
followers of Christ.

Growing up in the last half of the last century, a familiar sight to many were the
countless evangelistic crusades of Billy Graham. Thousands of people would pack out
large stadiums in great cities around the world and Bill Graham would preach the
gospel. There was always great music and a large choir, but the one thing most of us
will never forget was the way Billy Graham gave the invitation. As he invited people to
come and make a public decision for Christ, thousands of people would pour out of the
stadium seats and crowd around the platform on the stadium field.

To the unaware observer, it would appear as if Billy Graham were solely responsible for
leading thousands of people to Christ. But those who understand what Jesus is teaching
us here in John chapter 4, realize that many of the people who made professions of faith
at Billy Graham crusades, did so as a result of a family member who prayed for them
for years, or as a result of a godly neighbor who was faithful to love them and share the
gospel with them. While Billy Graham may have reaped the harvest, others sowed the
seeds. It was their join efforts which saw people come to Christ.

We have become so accustomed to thinking that the one who reaps the harvest is the
one who really "wins" the person to Christ, but Jesus makes it clear that whether you are
sowing or you are reaping, you are still a partaker in the work and will be a recipient of
the reward.

There are some folks who are just gifted at reaping the harvest. They can witness to a
tree and it'll get saved. And we have a tendency to think that they are the only ones with
the gift of evangelism. But nothing could be farther from the truth. There are many
people who may never have been able to see the fruit of the seeds they've planted, but
had they not planted the seeds of the gospel, the harvester would not have had anything
to do.

But when we go about the business of sowing, invariably we will come across those
who are ready for harvesting, those in whose heart someone else has planted the seed,
those whom God will use us to reap, even though we did not sow the seed in their lives.
Thus, the principle of sowing where we will not reap and reaping where we did not sow
is understood.

On that great day when the books are opened, and all our earthly deeds are revealed,
there will be no distinction between the sower and the harvester, both together will
share in the rewards because both were responsible for the harvest of souls, they were
both involved in each activity.

But not only does Jesus tell us that soul wining is fulfilling and not only are we told that
it is urgent and a shared work, but He assures us that it is a Joyous work. Winning souls
to Jesus Christ is the most Joyous work in which any Christian can be involved.

IV. It is a joyous work - v. 36

Look at verse 36, "So that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together."
Jesus is telling His disciples and is telling us that joy comes to those who are involved
in soul winning.

In the New Testament there are also a variety of words used to express this idea of joy,
but the root meaning of the word "rejoice" here coveys this idea of being glad, to
welcome or rejoice.

There are many things which bring joy into our lives. Just this week I was at the
hospital with a young couple from our church who just had their first baby. As I stood
there looking at that precious little girl, the look coming from her parents was pure joy.

In the beginning of time, when God created man and woman, it was His intention for
them to know the joy of fellowship with Him. Sin, as we know, ruined that perfect joy,
and it is not till we come into fellowship with God through salvation that we can once
again know that joy. The Christian life is to one Characterized by joy

Go through the scripture and study the word "Joy," and you find some fascinating
things.

In the Old Testament there are several words the writers used to describe joy. They have
a range of meaning. Listen to some of the things this word means in Hebrew: mirth,
gladness, singing, rejoicing, leaping, to shine or to break forth into shouting. What a
descriptive word

We are all familiar with certain passages like Psalm 30:5 which says, "weeping may
endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning." Or Nehemiah 8:10 which says,
"For the joy of the Lord is your strength."

In John 15:7-11, Jesus says

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be
done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to
be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My
love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My
Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that
My joy may be in you, and that your Joy may be made full."

The key to having that Joy is abiding in Him, doing what He did, being about His work,
allowing Him to live through us, to accomplish His work through us. If Jesus found
great joy and fulfillment in seeing others repent and put their faith in Him, should that
not also bring us joy.
Conclusion
Nothing should thrill a Christian more than seeing a lost person come to Christ unless it
is actually being used of God to help that person into the kingdom.

Have you ever known that Joy? Have you ever known the joy of leading someone else
from the darkness of sin into relationship with the Light of the world? If not why not?
Perhaps, like the disciples, you are focused on temporal things, things which cannot
satisfy and this morning Jesus is telling you that there is food which is not of this world.
Or maybe you're here this morning and your eyes are not opened to the ripeness of the
harvest around you and Jesus is asking you to lift up your eyes and see that the field of
souls is white unto harvest.