Hunger for God's Will

Intro/Scripture

John 4:27–38 NIV

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Pray

What is God’s will for your life? Does God have a plan, step by step? One that we are somehow to strive to follow as closely as possible. And is God’s plans held hostage to our choices?

Letter from prospective buyer. Did God choose someone in specific to buy our home?

I have wrestled with this at different stages of my life. And honestly, we will not answer all these questions clearly today. G, thanks JW. But I think we will see something about the will of God that should bring a lot of freedom even if it is a kick in the pants.

Context

John 4 is a well known text but maybe not for the verses we just shared together. Remember, dont want to rip it out of context and here the literary context is important. John 4 has Jesus and the disciples traveling from Judea to Galilee…first verses said that he had to go to Samaria. Not a good relationship between the Samaritans and Israelites.

Divine Appointment, he did not have to go through Samaria.

They come up on a water well, a woman, in the heat of the day, is there drawing water when normally any sane woman would come early in the morning to get it. When they get there Jesus sends the disciples away to get some food and Jesus interacts with this woman.

You might know the story...

Jesus asks if she will get him some water. She is shocked by this....A Jewish man, asking a Samaritan women for a drink. Jesus responds with the declaration that he can give the living water, whatever that is. The stuff that will never leave you thirsty again....what are you talking about Jesus? Go, get your husband, oh you have 5. She has this incredible revelation…where she comes to know that Jesus is the messiah, the one that she had already learned about.

Boom, the disciples show up again…they grabbed Taco Bell in town and they were ready to grub…a little confused about the scene with the lady but really just hungry.

Woman takes off, leaves her bucket, runs to town to tell everyone about Jesus.

Disciples roll out the taco box…here you go Rabbi.

Jesus: I have food to eat that you know nothing about

Disciples....ummmm ok. Who gave him food?

check out rest of dialogue in 34 again:

John 4:34 NIV

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

What do you hunger for? In this series we are considering what it means to hunger for God. What do you work towards? Not just what you think. Because I imagine most of us would say, “yes I would like to do the will of God.” But that is not our telos. It is not what drives us. James K.A. Smith is helpful here:

The place we unconsciously strive toward is what ancient philosophers of habit called our telos--our goal, our end. But the telos we live toward is not something we primarily know or believe or think about; rather, our telos is what we want, what we long for, what we crave. It is less an ideal that we have ideas out and more a vision of "the good life" that we desire” ― James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

Jesus again turns back to Deuteronomy in this interaction like last week in Matthew’s gospel and the facedown with Satan in the desert. This section of the old testament is about when the Israelities were in the wilderness having been rescued from slavery and they are complaining about the menu. God is providing their portion, mana, miraculously put in place for them.

God is teaching them a place of dependence but also intimacy. God is setting the dinner table for his children each day to have dinner with them.

But he is also teaching them to not depend on the food. To trust the one who brings the food.

Jesus has this dependence and intimacy.

He is already finding nourishment, dependency, and intimacy not in eating food provided but in joining God in God’s work in the world.

His food is doing the will of God.

What is the will of God?

This is a phrase we love to use. We throw it around all the time and it has lost its meaning. We use it in desperate times, in terrible times, etc. We do not even know what it means when we use it. When there is a tragedy or cancer or something and we hear/say “must be God’s will.”

What in the world do you mean by that?

We also get very hung up about being “in the will of God.” Or knowing what God’s will is for your life.

Leslie Weatherhead

1. God’s Intentional Will – These are the desires of God’s heart for us, His ideal plan, flowing out of His goodness, such as that none should be lost [Mat. 18:14].

His intentional will is that you would find hope, joy, peace, love. That you would experience the fullness of humanity. Healing and wholeness. That justice would corporately flow like rivers. That all people would know his love and salvation. His intentional will is that your marriage and your relationships would be marked by his love. That the church would be an outpost of his love in the world.

2. God’s Permissive Will – This is what God will accept, given our choices, good or bad, in particular circumstances, so as to not limit the free will He has given us. He accepts that some will be lost [1 Cor. 1:18].

This is the harder one for us to wrap our minds around and when we flatten this out then we miss it. God’s will also makes room for our agency to act and make decisions. Was it God’s will/plan that Jesus would be crucified? I dont know if we can say that in the plainest sense. Let me give you an example from scripture...

Luke 7:30 NIV

But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)

What if God’s will was that people would follow Jesus. Even if God the Father knew this wouldnt happen, his character and love desired that they would.... so Luke says the Pharisees rejected God’s purpose for them.

Which leads to the next category.....

3. God’s Ultimate Will – This is how God achieves His ends, given man’s choices, be they good or bad. He works all things together for the good of those He called, who love Him [Rom. 8:28]. This means he can ultimately get His good in spite of man’s bad.

God’s sovereignty and his mission of salvation will not be thwarted. Crucifixion did not have the final word....it did not put a stop to what God had in mind.

It is not simply God’s will that Russia and Putin and evil would reign even momentarily. It is not simply God’s will for people to suffer and die. Except in the sense that he has given humanity agency to choose good or evil. To love or not. And that is loving of Him to do so....

But Revelation is a book of the bible that reminds us that Jesus will return, that the new Eden and the new city is in front of us. It is where Romans 8:28 comes into play:

Romans 8:28 NIV

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

So we hunger for God’s intentional will. We hunger for his character and love to take place. And we say with Jesus.... Your will, your ultimate will be done, even when I/we choose wrong. When the world does not recognize you. Your will be done.

This is what Jesus is doing in John 4. Hungering for the heart of God to be manifest in the world, for people to know God in the way He does.

So the disciples come back wondering who fed Jesus and how he is full already and he tells them to look at this other food....

John 4:35 NIV

Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

It is God’s will that we work the harvest

A couple of things to close us out....

Yesterday i was in a coffee shop finishing this very message. And a woman came up to the table next to me and interrupted to other young woman that were unprepared for what was about to come. She asked if she could sit down for just a second and interrupt their conversation. I felt the Lord tell me something so strongly about each of you that I wanted to come share, are you open to that? To one: God just reveled to me the impact you have on young people, people around you. To the other she said something along the lines (yeah i am creeping right now) “you are the peace that calms the storm.”

Then she left. Thanked them for being so gracious and letting her share. And she disappeared. When she walked out. The first thing they said was “did you even see her before?” Nope. And they spent the next few minutes discussing what just happened and actually affirming what the lady said about one another. The God conversation did not go very far. But who knows what happened later.

It is God’s intentional will that people learn of this love. It was the will of God that they go to Samaria. It was the will of God that they go to a place they normally avoid to a people they normally do not get along with. It was God’s will that Jesus would break through cultural norms and “the way it is supposed to be” to talk to a woman desperate for love. It was the will of God that they see the harvest right in front of them.

But the disciples were asleep. They did not see what was right in front of them. They were too busy. Too consumed with practical things. Too worried about personal needs. Too focused on their own itinerary.

Are you struggling with purpose? Are you struggling with what it means to do God’s will? Are you struggling to find Jesus at work in your life? This story is not just about Samaria. Some might be called to crazy places. But that is not what this story is about. Jesus tells them to wake up! Wake up to the harvest. See women at the well. See women at the coffee shop. See the people around you.

Two people:

Obsessed with being in the “will of God”

Stop obsessing over the next thing. The next place. The right job. The next decision. The next purpose. God has a plan for you but he is not anxious about your daily choices of job and places to live and ministries to be involved in.

To the person asleep with daily concern. Wake up. The Lord of the harvest is in the fields. Wake up. See what is in front of you.

May we wake up. May we hunger for the will of God.