White Unto Harvest
Jesus, God in the Flesh | A Study through the Gospel of John • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewWhile the disciples remained focused on the physical, Jesus was attempting to get them to focus on the spiritual, because there was no time to waist.
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Introduction |
What do you spend most of your time focusing on? Be honest! What do people spend most of their time focusing on?
Do people spend most of their time focusing on earthly needs or spiritual needs?
Focus Passage | John 4:31-38
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat something.” 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. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I tell you, raise your eyes and observe the fields, that they are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice together. 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 come into their labor.”
Outline |
Two Focuses that Have Conflicting Views (vv. 31-34)
As we approach our text, we are reminded that the disciples had been gone for some time gather food. We began our study on this divine appointment between Jesus and the Samaritan woman with the following, For His disciples had gone away to the city buy food (v. 8). We finished up our text last week with the disciples arriving back to where they left Jesus, with the Samaritan woman, and find recorded, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What are You seeking?” or, “Why are You speaking with her?” (v. 27). This might have lead us, as the readers, to think the disciples knew what Jesus was doing, but we can see from our text that we study in the here and now, that is not anywhere near the truth. Truth be told...
The disciples were more focused on the physical than the spiritual
The disciples come back with food. They are worried about their leader, their friend, and how he’s been weary, thirsty, and hungry. They care about his physical needs and they want those needs taken care of. They interject themselves into the conversation and state, “Rabbi, eat something.” They genuinely cared. They weren’t worried about tradition or societal faux pas. They were worried about their teacher and confidant. As we look at our text, their caring was not wrong. Their not caring about tradition and societal faux pas was not wrong in essence. None of this would be considered wrong on the surface. However, there was something that was wrong. That wrong was that their focus was on the physical more than the spiritual.
People spend much of their life worried and focused on the things of this world and it causes them great stress. As Jesus speaks of in Matthew 6, God knows that we need all this and will provide. Our focus should not be on wealth, possessions, or anything really that this world affords to us. All this will fade away, but he that follows the Word of God will last.
15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God continues to live forever.
The original disciples, like us, have to be reminded that this flesh and blood is temporal. Our focus should be on the eternal more so than the temporal.
Jesus reminded the disciples that He was on a divine time-line and had a divine purpose
Jesus responded to His disciples, I have food to eat that you do not know about. The disciples once again confused, think to themselves, No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?
While the disciples did not understand Jesus’ time-line or purpose He did. We had already been shown that Jesus was on a divine time-line by reading, And He had to pass through Samaria (Jn 4:4). Now we are introduced once again to Jesus’ divine purpose, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work. We are to be taking care of physical needs, but we must also remember that our ultimate purpose in life is feed others spiritually. We are to be always alert and focused on God’s divine time-line and divine purpose for our lives. Jesus understood this need to feed off the Word from the very beginning of His ministry. As He was being tempted by the enemy after not eating for forty days and nights in the wilderness, we find that Jesus states to the tempter:
4 But He answered and said, “It is written: ‘man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ ”
Which was a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3
3 And He humbled you and let you go hungry, and fed you with the manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, in order to make you understand that man shall not live on bread alone, but man shall live on everything that comes out of the mouth of the Lord.
Jesus’ focus was on the spiritual not the physical
Jesus was about the will of the Father. He knew that He needed to focus on the spiritual. The physical is temporal, but the spiritual is eternal.
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
This should be the focus of each of us today. We should be focused on the eternal. We should be about fishing. We should be about being fishers of men. As Jesus told Peter when he called him to Himself.
19 And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of people.”
John, from the beginning of his gospel, has been about revealing the purpose of Jesus, that which drove Jesus’ earthly ministry and should drive our lives and ministry today.
11 He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.
May we stop having a primarily physical focus and allow our focus to be a primarily spiritually focused view. We must realize that...
Time is Running Out (v. 35)
How easy is it for you to get distracted and lose track of time? How easy is for your to get lost in an app, a game on your phone, or even a hobby? How many of us have ended up being late and running out of time, because we lost track of time? We got distracted by another need and forgot the most important need (i.e. we simply got busy and accomplished nothing)?
The disciples were no different than we are today. They got busy trying to buy food, provide a drink, help their rabbi, that they forgot why he had called them to Himself. We do the same. We get distracted being busy and life that we forget our call our purpose.
Jesus had to remind the disciples of their call - ‘…raise your eyes and observe the fields...’
Jesus had to remind the disciples that time was running out - ‘…Do you not say, ‘There are still months, and then comes the harvest...’
Jesus had to remind the disciples that there was still work to be done - ‘…that they are white for harvest...’
No Room for Competition within the Economy of God (vv. 36-38)
We are all working in another man’s field
We are stepping in and continuing a work that was started by others - ‘…I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored...’
20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone,
We all have have equally important tasks to perform
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. 7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 8 Now the one who plants and the one who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
We are all on one team with a single focus and purpose (vv. 36-37)
10 Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Conclusion |
What do you spend most of your time focusing on? Be honest! What do people spend most of their time focusing on?
Do people spend most of their time focusing on earthly needs or spiritual needs?
I would close with a challenge for us to be about our Father’s business. We should be more focused with spiritual needs of our friends family than we are physical needs. That does not mean we neglect their physical needs. It is hard to win one to Christ while their stomach is growling, but we ought to take every opportunity that we can to share the gospel and lead others to Christ for time is running out. What if they don’t accept Christ when you share? Does that mean that you were not successful? No. You have been faithful. You planted seeds, others will water, but God supplies the growth. We are all called to do our part whether that is sowing or reaping, we are to go.