Fields are ready for harvest

Sermon Style Sheet

Write that down in your formation Journal

Illustration

Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

Call to Worship

Psalm 8:1 CSB

1 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty.

––––––––––––

Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number: 2:03-2:50 11:06 (minus about 10 mins) -12:03 1:18 - 2:02

John 4:27–42 CSB

27 Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They left the town and made their way to him. 31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” 33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” 34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.” 39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what he said. 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

Opening Illustration:

Andres Castro - its awkward going to a government office where there is a painting of people killing americans and the americans deserved it. William Walker

But here’s the deal, The gospel is greater than our awkwardness

time

Getting into the Sermon

time

Background.

at the well

John 4:27–30 CSB

27 Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They left the town and made their way to him.

background

John 4:31–34 CSB

31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” 33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” 34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them.

God’s kingdom was food for him, that means he was energized by the work of the gospel.

Sharing his faith was something that gave him power and energy.

It’s interesting to reflect on this - why does Jesus describe evangelism as being life giving. Being like food?

Why was Jesus energized? He was energized because he loves people and he hates the hold that the enemy has on the world.

Think about it, when God created humanity, there was no sin and there also wasn’t any suffering. All suffering is a result of the enemy.

Every time someone gets a diagnosis of cancer, every time someone is hit by a car, every time a family is broken by divorce, every time trust is broken by lies, ever time someone dies alone, every time someone dies. All of that was because of sin.

And the enemy came in and declared himself king - but he’s a false king, he’s a pretender. His a dictator.

So Jesus was talking with a the woman who had been married 5 times and was now living with a man she wasn’t married to. She was from a small town and in those days people really looked down on this. That she had been married 5 times, even if all of her husbands had just died, she was likely seen as bad luck. But she might have been rejected by five husbands. Maybe she cheated on each of them. We don’t know, but her situation was certainly one of deep pain. Now she is living with a man. He probably wasn’t treating her right because she would have had low status. That’s what she is a low status woman, conisdered dirty by her community.

she lived under the weight of that shame, the enemy was ruling through that shame and guilt. Causing her pain and misery.

But Jesus is sensing the change. He is seeing that she goes away to tell people. He knows that the holy spirit was working in her soul to make her spiritually alive. She is starting to realize that God loves her. She is starting to understand the dignity that comes from Christ. She is starting to break free from the enemy’s grip! Jesus is seeing in real time, the fall of the enemy in the life of this woman. He knows she is going to tell everyone else and that there is going to be a fall of the enemy in the village.

The devil is on the run. Darkness is being pushed back. Light is coming into this community and that energizes Jesus. He’s excited. This is exactly why he came!

He came because we were all stuck in sin. But he didn’t come begrudgingly. He didn’t come out of duty, because he had too.

When I was in Pensacola, the church I was at had a lot of older people. A lot of retirees. These were godly men and women who had lived life, they had seen things and came out trusting the Lord. It was great being around them. In fact, let me encourage you to be praying that as a church, Mercy Hill would grow in the number of older men and women. We want their wealth of experience and faith. So let’s pray for that.

But anyway, several of them I spoke to were Vietnam veterans, men who had been drafted. If you don’t know what that is, every American man when he turns 18 gets a letter in the mail from the government, with his draft number on it. You can drafted. So during Vietnam, they would have lotteries, the worst kind of lottery you can imagine, because if you win it you have to go to war.

Sometimes we can imagine that Jesus was drafted into saving us. That he did so unwillingly, that it was a chore.

But that’s not the case. He did it out of love. He did it energized by the love. So every time he got to push back the darkness, he relishes every soul saved. It’s exciting to Him!

He is sitting there and watching her go, knowing that he has delivered a blow to the enemy and the enemy isn’t going to recover! Not in that woman’s heart!

Every day the enemy get’s pushed back is a good day - He’s having fun!

But here is the thing- Evangelism was energizing for Jesus but its awkward for us.

We have to have classes on it. We feel guilty about it. Once the pastor starts talking about it, people look down, fidgit.

Why the disconnect?

I think the reason why it is awkward for us is that we don’t think we are good at it.

I mean, there are other reasons, we are afraid we are going to get rejected, that someone will ask a question we don’t know the answer too. All sorts of things. But at it’s core, is that we don’t think we are good at it and we feel bad about that.

If I told you that out of every 10 people you shared your faith with, one would get saved, you would be excited. You wouldn’t mind the rejections because you would rejoice so much at the person getting saved!

Something that was meant to energize us has terrified us.

We love it when people get saved! So we feel crushed when we think we’ve failed. We start to get nervous and anxious. We start to feel overwhelmed.

I grew up believing that you were responsible for every soul you came in contact with - responsible for every soul. That’s heavy. I’ve said this before, but now you can’t just order pizza.

So it’s awkward for us because we feel bad about it. But, I think Jesus gives us a really helpful way to view it and hopefully to see the truth about success and failure.

John 4:35–38 CSB

35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”

The reason why we share our faith is that you don’t know where people are in the process. Some people are getting prepared. Some people are already prepared.

1-5 unchurched people.

Success is moving the needle of someone’s soul.

You can help move people along on the scale. Most people are 3’s. Not super interested but not hostile.

only 2% of christians

Small incremental wins are still wins.

If someone asks a question you don’t know the answer to - that’s great.

Are those failures - no those are big wins- You do that and you are dealing a blow against the enemy

Inviting people to church is the easiest way to have a spiritual conversation.

You are making a difference in someone’s soul and are actually pushing back against the enemy’s rule in their life.

You never know. Be a part of the process.

Because look at this, this is something that’s easy to miss.

John 4:39–42 CSB

39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what he said. 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

Here’s the deal - notice who they samaritans mentioned - they mention Jesus and they mention Jesus. They first beleived because of the woman and then they believed because of Jesus himself.

Whose missing? The disciples. Look, the disciples went in and bought bread. They aren’t really a part of it. be a part of it.

Imagine someone comes to you and they are like I just got saved thank you so much for being a part of my story

vs.

they come to evanglize you. I know you are a nice guy but I really think you should know jesus.

You aren’t part of the story. Be a part of it!

Why?

Because Jesus is the savior of the world

The gospel

ABC’s

maybe you feel somewhat the woman - ashamed, guilty, dirty, hopeless, unloved.

Do you remember the story of the Andres Castro - you know, it’s actually one of my favorite stories and I would use it when I preached in Nicaragua and it would make them uncomfortable because i’m an american.

But his story is the same as our story. Think about it. He lived in a country that was supposed to be free but was ruled by a self proclaimed tyrant.

That’s what we are doing. We have a tyrant king. Your neighbors are under his control. We want to the church to be the place where we stand firm and we engage in the fight.

Let’s be praying and let’s be inviting.

If they say yes, walk in with them

If they say maybe, ask if you can follow up

If they say no, that’s great! Great info. Maybe your role is to move them from a 5 to a 4 right now.

Take out a connect card and fill it out with the name of someone you want to invite and I’ll be praying with you for them. If you want the whole prayer team to know about it, put it on there-

Jesus is the savior of the world. He has come to save people. Working for him should be the food that gives us energy not something we dread.

So let’s work for that joy togther.

If we commit ourselves to being energized by the things that energize Jesus there’s no telling what we can accomplish together.

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.