Truth For Life

Narrator: Every Christian is commissioned to seek the lost and tell them about Jesus. Too often, though, we get preoccupied by our physical needs and our day-to-day routines, and we miss gospel opportunities that are right in front of us.

Today on Truth For Life Weekend, we'll hear a wake-up call from Jesus himself. Alistair Begg is teaching from John chapter 4, beginning with verse 27.

Alistair Begg: We're looking for a second time this morning at what proves to be a life-changing encounter between this no-named woman from Samaria and Jesus of Nazareth. It's the intimate awareness of her details shown by Jesus that has caused this woman to be profoundly impacted by Jesus' words.

After his statement there in verse 18, her perspective on him shifts dramatically. If your Bible is open, you will see that in verse 9, in the opening gambit, she says, "How can you ask me for a drink? You're a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman."

That was his identity, a Jew. Now in verse 19, she says, "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet." He's going to advance beyond this. She's going to ask the question. I think perhaps this is actually the Messiah, the Christ. And the chapter, the section of the chapter, is going to end with a declaration, "Surely this man is the Savior of the world."

She is able to say that since she understands him to be a prophet, she thinks he can perhaps deal with a question that has been in her mind. We're not going to tackle that question just now. Jesus simply explains to her that if she thinks in geographical or territorial terms, when it comes to worshipping God, she's thinking along the wrong lines.

In fact, the time is coming and has now come, he says, "When people will worship God in spirit and in truth." To which the lady says in verse 25, "I know that Messiah, that is called Christ, is coming, and when he comes, he will explain everything to us."

And then imagine, imagine being there to process the response of Jesus. "I am Christ. I am the Messiah speaking to you now," Jesus said. "I am the Messiah speaking to you now."

And as she sits, presumably processing that information, verse 27 tells us that the disciples make their return. This is not the return of the Jedi. This is the return of the disciples.

They had gone off, as we discovered in verse 8, to pick up food for lunch. It was an important assignment. They took it seriously. They had made the journey and they had now returned. If we were editing a film, we would be cutting between these various scenes as the narrative progresses, and I'll do that with you, hopefully in a way that helps to settle it in our minds.

All we really need to notice in verse 27 is that these disciples, upon their return, were surprised, but at the same time, silent. We now cut, and the scene cuts to the picture of the water jar left behind. And we see the back of the woman as she proceeds into town.

She left her water pot, went back into the town, and said to the people, "Come out and see the man who told me everything I've ever done. Who told me everything I have ever done." Who do you think you are? Told you everything you've ever done? Yes, told me everything I've ever done. Me, little messed up me, little go to the well by yourself me. Little no-named woman from Samaria me.

Little friendless me. Can this be the Messiah, do you think? Now look at verse 30. It's dramatic, isn't it? They came out of the town and started to come to Jesus. On the strength of this, on the strength of this particular lady issuing this particular invitation. It's wonderful, really, isn't it?

It should be an encouragement to all of us who think we're no good at issuing invitations, certainly when it comes to explaining to people what has happened to us in terms of our Christian experience. Not all of us, of course, have a story to tell, but some who are here this morning, like this woman, have been picked up and set on the right way, and as a result of that we have something to say.

But we're often very diffident, and it may well be because we think, really, why would anyone want to listen to me? I don't think I should speak because if I say, why don't you come to the patio? Or why don't you come and attend this Bible study with me? Or why don't we have coffee and let me tell you about this? The chances are no one will pay any attention to me at all. But listen, when God is at work, you'll be amazed at what happens.

I'm sure this lady must have been amazed. "Why don't you come out and see the man who told me everything I ever did?" And people said, "Yeah, that's okay, we'll do that."

Meanwhile, verse 31. Meanwhile, back at the well. The disciples are urging Jesus to eat. You catch that, don't you? "Rabbi, eat something." And then this little dialogue that follows borders on the humorous, doesn't it?

Jesus said to them, verse 32, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." And the disciples began to look at one another and said, "Did somebody bring him food when we were away?" In other words, they respond literally. They respond physically.

Now, look at the disclosure, verse 34. The disciples' complete misunderstanding opens up the way for Jesus to teach them this vitally important lesson. "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."

Now, this is a theme which runs throughout the gospels, certainly throughout the Gospel of John. You go back to verse 34 of chapter 4, "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." Now keep that word "finish" in mind because it is the, it is the same root that you will find if you read all the way to chapter 19, and you find Jesus upon the cross.

And from the cross, remember, one of the things he says, "It is finished." Not a cry of despair, but a declaration of the fact that he has completed what he set out to do, namely, to die in the place of sinners so that those who deserve God's judgment and his wrath may not experience that judgment and wrath because by grace, through faith, they have come to believe in the sacrifice of Jesus who in this moment is explaining to these disciples that food and meat and drink for him was simply to do what his father had sent him to do.

And that becomes the occasion of him saying, "And I'd like you to wake up and see the harvest." "Your eyes are dull." "You need to open your eyes." Isn't that the phrase there in verse 35? "I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields." This is a wake-up call, not just to these fellows on that day, but it is a wake-up call to all who are the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because it is a reminder to us that very easily, like these fellows, we can become preoccupied with what is mundane and miss the overarching mission to which we're called. We can actually get preoccupied with the doing of church and the way everything works and fits together, and who's where and why and when.

And forget the fact that Jesus is saying to us, "I want you to wake up and see the harvest. I want you to open your eyes." Not simply when you're in here in order that you might read the Bible, but when you're out of here in order that you might see the people.

And what he's saying here is that the seed that is sown, the seed sown in this woman's life, is already bearing fruit in the harvest of the advancing Samaritans. Now, this parable of one sowing and another reaping is capable of all kinds of interpretations. Some have said that Jesus is referencing John the Baptist and his preparatory work, and now his disciples are entering into the benefits of reaping what John himself had sown.

There are all kinds of legitimate ways, I think, in which we might make application of this, but it's hard not to see ultimately John chapter 12 and verse 24 in Jesus' statement. And for this, you're going to have to turn to it, otherwise it will make no sense at all. John chapter 12 and verse 23.

People had come and wanted to see Jesus. Verse 23. On hearing this, Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

Now Jesus is predicting his death, isn't he? It is only as the seed of the life of the Lord Jesus is sown in death, the death of the cross, that the fruit of eternal life may be reaped by anyone. And in an ultimate sense, it is Jesus who has done the hard work. It is Jesus who has finished the work so that we might enter into the benefits of that for which we did not sow.

For we have reaped from his work eternal life. And when that takes hold of our lives, then we will understand that he intends for those who have been so changed to be the agents for change and for reaping in the lives of others.

That's why last time we tried to anchor chapter 4 in chapter 3, and I invite you just to turn back one page to chapter 3 to verse 16 all over again. We said it was the most famous verse probably in John, maybe in the Bible. Look at it again, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

Now, there's a sense in which you, when you go into chapter 4, it's true in chapter 3, but it seems more graphic in chapter 4. Chapter 4, if you like, begins to give us an immediate portrait of what that means in action. What does it mean that God has loved the world? Well, it means that the message of the good news is not restricted to the Jew. It breaks the boundaries of that and bleeds over into the Samaritan world. And indeed, the harvest amongst these Samaritans is the indication, the first indication in John's gospel, of the fact of the inclusive nature of the gospel, of the universal nature of the gospel's appeal, that it is for all men and all women everywhere.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. And that there is eternal life, as we saw in verse 15 of chapter 3, for all who believe. Now, let's just underline this. God is a seeking and a saving God. That gives the lie to the notion that in actual fact, men are seeking for God, and God somehow is hiding from them. No, that's not true.

Men and women today may be seeking for peace. They may be seeking for fulfillment. They may be seeking for all kinds of things, but they are not seeking God. But God is seeking them. He is the God who comes to Adam and Eve in the Garden and says, "Where are you?" If we were to believe the way it is told to us by anthropologists and sociologists, it is the absolute reverse of that, isn't it? That God is away hiding somewhere, and Adam and Eve are going around the garden going, "Where are you? Where are you? I'm looking for you." No. Adam and Eve are hiding.

Look at John chapter 3, what does it say? This is the verdict, 19, "Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." So you have these two things set side by side, men and women hiding in the darkness, and the light of the world coming to penetrate that darkness.

Here, the darkness is represented in the actual experience of this no-named woman at the well. And into the darkness of her life comes the light of Jesus, which first of all is a painful light in that it shows up her dark spots. But it is a purifying light, in so far as it shows her condition in order that it might radically change her condition.

That's why we said last time that the work of the gospel is not simply to expose our search for satisfaction, but is to expose our need of a savior. And God's great purpose for a world that is rebellious and lost is a purpose of grace and salvation. He seeks out all kinds of people: religious fellows with a background and an intelligence, as in chapter 3, and disenfranchised women as in chapter 4.

Jesus does not sit at this well as an example to this woman of how she could live her life if she could only sort herself out. He does not stand before her as an example that she may begin to approximate to. What a sorry, hopeless charge that would be. The message of the gospel is that Jesus comes to live within a person so that the pattern that he has established is a pattern that is fulfilled in the power that he provides as we live in the presence that he grants.

Saves people from evil and from helplessness. Saving people from the chains that tie us to our past. Providing what is necessary to live as he demands. What's the point? Well, there may be a number of points, but this is the one I want to make.

Since God is a seeking and saving God, those who are God's children should be about the business of seeking too. That's why he turns to these fellows and he says, "Wake up and see the harvest, open your eyes."

I know the standard thing is four months, he says, but I'm telling you it's now. It's hard for me not to apply this, however illegitimately. And say some of us are waiting to get serious about this business until we get through this next phase, you know. While when I complete my studies, when I sell my company, when I marry my fiancée, when my children are gone, when I graduate, all of these things that we think somehow or another are legitimate excuses, allowing us to side-step the implications of simply doing whatever we do every day to the end that unbelieving people might become the committed followers of Jesus Christ.

It's not necessarily that our circumstances are about to be radically altered, perhaps it is simply that the way in which we engage in what we do is radically changed because of our perspective. Oh, look at all these lonely people. Where do they all come from? Look at all these lonely people. Where do they all belong?

That, he says, "That's what I'm on about. That's what I'm on about." If we're going to take such a commission seriously, then it will mean that we emulate Jesus in this respect. Jesus does not come with a pre-packaged formula to Nicodemus or to the woman at the well or indeed to anyone. He gets everybody ultimately to the same place, but he is masterful in the way he reaches his destination.

He doesn't use pre-packaged language, and he doesn't have some kind of standard shtick that he always uses as his introduction. He starts with this lady where she is. Where's this lady? This lady has got a thing about relationships, and this lady's probably got a thing about sex. This lady is a contemporary lady. She's been looking for love in all the wrong places.

She's had five husbands, we don't know the details, she has a live-in lover. Jesus treats her with courtesy, with respect, with dignity, but he does not side-step the issue. "Go call your husband and come back." "I don't have a husband." "Good. Now we're going to talk about what we really need to talk about."

If you and I are going to take seriously the commission, then we're going to have to be prepared to talk to people about the areas that are represented in their lives. Relationships, sex, whatever it might be. And to tread the narrow path between the idolization of sex and the denigration of sex, neither of which is biblical. But to recognize that there isn't a magazine in the checkout that doesn't sell something on the basis of human sexuality.

To recognize that there's hardly a day passes whereby all of the imagery that is confronting us advertising is directly related to all of these things, and we live in that world. How are you going to handle this kind of woman?

"Well, I can't believe that you've had five husbands. I mean, that's absolutely disgraceful. I can't goodness gracious. One is bad enough. I hate to think what five would be like." And I would think after you've had five, what have you got another guy in the house for? Goodness gracious.

What are we to do with the fellow who by his choices has taken himself completely outside the bonds of God's pattern and plan? He says he's very pleased, but he isn't. Are we brave enough to exhibit love rather than hostility or to retreat in fear?

You see, we can learn from Jesus' love. There is no love like the love of Jesus. There's no love like Jesus' love. Father, your love is a faithful love, expressed in Jesus. And we can learn from Jesus' language, can't we? No tribal language, no pious language, no technical language, not a bunch of jargon laid on the lady. Nothing that is disdainful, nothing that is embattled. None of that at all.

I don't know, but I would imagine this lady was on a quest for freedom. Looking for freedom, looking for authenticity, actually maybe trying to find what it meant, find out what it meant for her to be her. And in that respect, she's a very contemporary woman.

And these are our friends, and these are our neighbors, and to them we go with the good news that only in Christ is there true freedom to be found without being enslaved. And only ultimately in Jesus is the kind of acceptance and community that will allow you to be who you really are under God while living in the discovery of his plan for your purity.

And that was the woman's discovery, and with that we end. I, I ended by putting down my Bible, and I just sat for a moment or two, and I said to myself, I wonder, I wonder if this woman ever made it to Jerusalem on the day that the sun turned dark. I wonder if this woman ever snuggled in with the rest of the brave women around the cross. It's pure conjecture on my part.

But if she did, and she looked up to the cross with the women there, she would have been present to hear the end of the story, if you like. She would have heard Jesus say, "Tetelestai, it is finished." And she might have said to herself, "When I told him all the sins I'd ever done, and he said, 'I've got you covered,' maybe this is what he meant."

"Can it possibly be?" she would have said, "that this Jesus is hanging there in shame so that I might stand here in glory?" Because that's the gospel. He takes what he doesn't deserve, our sins, so that he might grant what we don't deserve, salvation, forgiveness, freedom, hope.

And it all starts with, "Could I have a drink of water, please?" And advances profoundly with his statement, "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did."

Narrator: You're listening to Truth For Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. If you enjoyed today's message and you'd like to hear more of Alistair's teaching about Jesus, or how to share the gospel, visit our website truthforlife.org. You will find thousands of sermons that you can watch or listen to for free. You can search by series, by topic, by scripture passage. Or if you don't know where to begin, just scroll down to "Where Do I Start?" and you'll find helpful suggestions.

While you're on our website, check out the book we're currently featuring by Sinclair Ferguson. It's called "Union with Christ, the Blessings of Being in Him." In this book, Sinclair explores the phrase "in Christ." What does it mean to enjoy union with Jesus? By looking at key passages in the New Testament, Sinclair helps us understand how this new identity should reshape every aspect of our lives as believers. The book "Union with Christ" is packed with scripture, loaded with rich insights, practical application. To find out more about the book, visit our website truthforlife.org.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for taking time out of your weekend to study the Bible with us. When something bad happens, do you assume it's always punishment for sin? Next week, we'll learn how God sometimes uses these predicaments to display his work and glory. I hope you can join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.