Lift Up Your Eyes and Look on the Fields
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
This morning we are going to try a little experiment called “WHAT DO YOU SEE?” When I give the signal the guys are going to put a picture on the screen and when I count to three I want everyone to say outloud what you see first. We will start with an easy one and then get more complex:
Here’s the first one…On the count of 3 say out loud what you see...
Ok how many of you said a “dot” or a “black dot”
Here’s the second one…On the count of 3 say out loud what you saw first…a rabbit or a duck
Ok how many of you said rabbit?
How many of you said duck?
Here’s the third one…On the count of 3 say out loud what you saw first…
How many of you say someone riding a horse first?
How many of you saw an old man with a beard first?
Here’s the last one…On the count of 3 say out loud what you saw first...
How many of you saw a mountain scene first?
How many of you saw bears and eagles first?
We will come back to my little experiment later, but right now I want to talk about the NEW YEAR.
2025 is right around the corner and I wanted Meadowbrook to have a THEME for the New Year that would help us to stay focused upon an important truth that Jesus taught His disciples in John 4. The theme I chose for 2025 is “Look on the Fields.”
With that said, I thought it would be good to use this last Sunday of the 2024 to introduce this theme and help us to grasp the truths Jesus was seeking to teach his disciples in this passage.
Scripture Introduction
Scripture Introduction
John 4 contains what is often referred to as the story of the “Woman at the Well.” To set the stage for this message it’s important for us to go back and see a couple of things at the beginning of this chapter.
Notice first of all John 4:3-4
He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria.
Scripture says that Jesus NEEDED to go through Samaria. He didn’t need to go through Samaria because this was the only way to get where He was going…He didn’t need to go through Samaria to sight see…He needed to go through Samaria because He had a DIVINE APPOINTMENT that would not only change the life and eternity of this one Samaritan woman, but would change the life and eternity of potentially thousands of Samaritans and others.
In the earlier part of this chapter Jesus has a discussion with a Samaritan woman who had come to draw water during the heat of the day, possibly to avoid the crowds that typically arrived in the morning and evening. The disciples had left Jesus at Jacob’s well to go into town to find something to eat and when they return they find Jesus speaking with this woman in public and were in complete shock. Let’s pick up our reading in...
And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”
The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” Then they went out of the city and came to Him.
In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
Notice again what Jesus says in John 4:35
Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!
Lift Up YOUR Eyes (v. 35)
Lift Up YOUR Eyes (v. 35)
The disciples eyes were DIVERTED from the eternal significance at hand.
The disciples were focused on CULTURAL issues rather than spiritual ones.
The disciples were focused on Jesus’ PHYSICAL HUNGER rather than His hunger to fulfill God’s will.
Jesus wanted them to REFOCUS on that which was really important…more important than cultural norms, more important than physical food…it was the ETERNAL SOULS of men, women, boys, and girls…and so He said to the disciples “LIFT UP YOUR EYES!”
Some believe that Jesus was pointing the disciples’ eyes in the direction of the vast number of Samaritans that were now headed their way as a result of the woman’s testimony to them when she dropped her water pot and went back into town to tell her friends, family, neighbors, and possibly former lovers about the Messiah she had just met.
He wanted them to lift their eyes from the temporary to the eternal, from food to souls, from cultural norms, to spiritual needs!
We are a lot like the disciples. Our eyes are often DIVERTED from what’s really important.
Adrian Rogers tells the story of a sales manager that was trying to help his employees to LIFT UP THEIR EYES and see the potential. So what he did is he took a piece of white poster board that had one black spot on it. When he asked his sales force what they saw they all responded “a black dot.”
He said to his employees, “Isn’t it strange that all of you saw the black dot; none of you saw the white all around it.”
Isn’t that the same with us.
We see the black dot of self concern
We see the black dot of our careers
We see the black dot of our bank accounts
We see the black dot of our houses
We see the black dot of our hobbies
We see the black dot of our self-centered lives
SO OFTEN WE FAIL TO SEE THE HARVEST THAT IS ALL AROUND US BECAUSE ALL WE CAN FOCUS ON IS OURSELVES!
JESUS SAYS “LIFT UP YOUR EYES!”
If we are not careful we will focus on the BLACK DOT of our church, our buildings, our grounds, our traditions, our culture, our style, our preferences, our, our, our…and we will LOSE FOCUS OFF OF THE HARVEST THAT IS ALL AROUND US, OUTSIDE OF THESE DOORS....WE MUST LIFT UP OUR EYES!
Secondly, we must
Lift Up Our Eyes and See the Unlikely Fields (v. 27, 39-40)
Lift Up Our Eyes and See the Unlikely Fields (v. 27, 39-40)
It was very unlikely for a man in this culture to speak to a woman while out in public, and even more unlikely for a Jewish man to speak to a Samaritan woman in the way that Jesus spoke to her. Even she was surprised.
Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
When the disciples arrive back to the location they were also surprised:
And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”
This isn’t the only time Jesus surprised people by talking to and sharing the Gospel with those the prevailing culture deemed as “unlikely”
When the children crowded Jesus the disciples wanted to send them away, but Jesus urged the children to come to Him.
Jesus told the woman caught in adultery that He didn’t condemned her, but instructed her to go and sin no more in John 8
He went home with Zacchaeus who was a despised tax collector in Luke 19
In Mark 5 Jesus healed a demon possessed man
He called another another tax collector, by the name of Matthew, to follow Him.
In Luke 17 He welcomed and cleansed 10 lepers
As He is dying of crucifixion, He cries out to the Father and says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
I think MOST of us in this room would agree that EVERYONE needs the Gospel. However, I wonder how many of us take the time to SHARE the Gospel, or simply invite someone to church to HEAR the Gospel.
If we do share, or do invite, do we discriminate in who we share the Gospel with or invite?
We might be tempted to say, “They won’t listen anyway” or “They are too weird” or “They are this or they are that.” The truth of the matter is if EVERYONE needs the Gospel and Jesus died for EVERYONE then who are we to pick and choose who we invite to come to know Jesus or invite to church to hear about Jesus.
As Matt Carter said:
Don’t judge who will respond to the gospel. Share it with everyone. The gospel doesn’t discriminate. Neither should we. But it’s easy for us to judge ahead of time how we think someone will respond to the good news about Jesus Christ.
In an article by Douglas Jacoby he relates what he learned by interviewing 100 former atheists who later became Christians and found out the best way for believers to engage skeptics. Here’s his advice:
Don’t assume…ask questions and listen
Be present in their lives and live our your Christianity before them
Be present in their time of need and demonstrate Christ-like love
Patiently persevere, rather than pushy
Pray for them
Finally notice what Jesus says in John 4:35-38
Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
Lift Up Your Eyes and See the Ripe Fields (v. 35-38)
Lift Up Your Eyes and See the Ripe Fields (v. 35-38)
A well educated, experienced farmer has a pretty good idea of when his crop should be ready. However, as believers we never know how long the seed of the Gospel will take to germinate.
On rare occasions the seed seems to germinate immediately, while on other occasions it may literally take years, decades, or even a lifetime.
Many believe that as Jesus was speaking to the disciples he was watching the entire village of the Samaritan woman heading his way. After all she had gone back home to tell everyone she could about the Christ who had spoken to her at Jacob’s well.
It’s as if Jesus is speaking to His disciples, and as He does He points to the crowd that is approaching them and says, “They are ready to be harvested.” Notice what happens next:
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word.
Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
We aren’t sure of who planted the seeds in the hearts of these individuals before Jesus’ arrival. Regardless, the time for harvest was NOW and Jesus was ready to share more.
We too must be ready and prepared to share the Gospel…sometimes we plant the seed of the Gospel, sometimes we water a seed that someone else has planted, but ultimately it is God who gives the increase!
Unfortunately we live in a DISTRACTING WORLD that continually hinders us from sharing the GOOD NEWS with those who need to hear the Gospel with their ears and SEE the Gospel lived our with their eyes. All around us people are dying and leaving this temporary world to be ushered into an eternity devoid of Christ, peace, or hope.
It reminds me of a story I heard about from Goldsboro, NC:
The Raleigh News & Observer reported a story a few years ago about a man who died at a hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Apparently he choked on his medication and fell and hit his head on the floor. A nurse helped him start breathing and sat him in a chair in the waiting room. He sat in that chair for the next twenty-two hours before having a heart attack and dying. During those twenty-two hours he was virtually ignored by the staff; in fact, after the choking incident, no one checked his vital signs for over an hour. They were too busy playing cards in the break room next door (Biesecker, “Tape Shows”). The men and women responsible for keeping him alive were distracted by something as worthless as a game of cards. What distracts us from our mission? What distracts us from sharing the message of eternal life with those all around us who are spiritually dying?
As we close I want you to think about some ways you can take this challenge home with you:
Ask God to reveal the DISTRACTIONS in your own life that hinder you from seeing the HARVEST. “What black dots are keeping you from seeing the opportunities? Once you determine what these are create a plan to stay on mission.
Identify the Unlikely. Ask God to help you identify one person this week you might consider “unlikely” to respond to the Gospel. Seek to have a genuine interaction with them and seek to show them the love of Christ. Ask for opportunities to invite them to church and ask open ended questions that will lead to a Gospel opportunity.
Pray for Eyes to See. Ask God to help you see others through His eyes. As He reveals the harvest choose at least one lost person to pray for EVERY DAY.
Keep planting and watering seeds.
Live the Gospel.
Today as we close think about something else we can do...
Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
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