Yesterday, we started the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus told her about the “living water” of salvation, and then revealed her sin to her, and her need for salvation. Now Jesus is giving her the truth:
John 4:21-39
21 Jesus said to her,
"Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when
neither in this mountain nor in
22 "You worship
what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23 "But an hour
is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
24 "God is
spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
I love the principle in verse 23 that the Father seeks worshippers!
25 The woman said to
Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that
One comes, He will declare all things to us."
Now she’s procrastinating! She has realized her sin, but she is saying, “when He shows up He will straighten everything out.”
26 Jesus said to her,
"I who speak to you am He." (the Greek here actually says, I AM who speaks to you.)
27 At this point His
disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman,
yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or,
"Why do You speak with her?"
What is wrong with these “holy” disciples? They have simply interrupted Jesus! We’ll get back to them in a little bit.
28 So the woman left
her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the
men,
29 "Come, see a
man who told me all the things that I have done; is this is not the
Christ?"
The word for left is APHIEMI, and it means to let go of. She actually dropped it, and immediately ran into the city to tell others. It’s the natural response of a saved person to tell others about what Jesus Christ did for them!
Look what happens when she tells everyone in the city:
30 They went out of
the city, and were coming to Him.
Now back to those disciples.
31 Meanwhile the
disciples were urging Him, saying, "Rabbi, eat."
32 But He said to
them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."
33 So the disciples
were saying to one another, "No one brought Him anything to eat, did
he?"
34 Jesus said to
them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me
and to accomplish His work.
Look at the disciples – still focused on the things of this
world. Can’t you just picture them
asking each other over and over again, “did you feed him? Did you feed him?”
Jesus explains to them that NOTHING is more important than
fulfilling God’s will for your life, not even eating when you are hungry!
Matthew 6:33
33 "But seek
first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to
you.
If you are focused on what God wants you to do, the details will be taken care of:
Matthew 6:32b
32 … for your
heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
So Jesus tries to teach them a lesson.
35 "Do you not say, "There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.
Why are they white for the harvest? Because the people of Sychar have come out (as a result of the woman telling them about Jesus), and they are wearing what they always wore in ancient times – white robes!
36 "Already he
who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that
he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. (The woman did the sowing, the Lord Jesus
Christ does the reaping!)
37 "For in this
case the saying is true, "One sows and another
reaps.'
38 "I sent you
to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have
entered into their labor."
39 From that city
many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who
testified, "He told me all the things that I have done."
The Lord had sent the disciples into the city to evangelize,
but they had failed miserably because they were focused instead on worldly
things – FOOD!
You will never be able to seize the opportunities to represent Jesus Christ to people if you are focused on the details of life.