Work of Life

I was told in elementary school, as we were taught, there's some basic things one must have to live. Food, water, shelter, oxygen. You have to have these to live. We're going to learn this morning in our sermon, in our text, more importantly, that there's actually a greater need. There's something we need more important than even those physical elements to live. And that is the Word of God. We were designed first and foremost to be worshipers, and we need to be fed by God and to worship him. So this morning we're asking the question, what is our greatest need? And the text that tells us the word of God tells us. It's the Word of Almighty God. We're in John chapter 4. If you do not have a Bible, there's a pew Bible in front of you, Lord willing, or underneath the pew, or just reach around the back of the pew if you're so brave to be in the front pew. We appreciate that. We're in John chapter 4 and we've really had to cut up our story because it's a long one. So this is our third meditation, our third study when it comes to the woman of Samaria. I want to give a bit of a recap to catch up everybody who has not been with us. We're in John 4. Pew Bible is page 889 if you want to follow along. Let me first summarize what's happened thus far. Jesus was tired and he's in a foreign land. His disciples go into the city to buy food. He goes and sits by a well and he makes a request. Give me a drink. And what's so startling about this request is who he's asking. Here's a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for a drink. Jewish men did not speak to Samaritan women. Jews didn't speak to Samaritans. Men didn't speak to women. He asked her for a drink. She says, why are you asking me? The conversation goes on and there's confusion because Jesus then turns the question. If you knew who I was, you would ask me and I would give you living water. And then she says, well, where's your bucket? Jesus is offering something very spiritual, Jesus offering the word of God, and she's still thinking in the physical, where is the H2O? In order to make sure that he gets the point across as to what he is presenting her. He puts his finger on her sin. Go call your husband. He's illuminating and revealing that he's not coming to just give water. He's coming to overcome her sin. And the first thing she has to see is that she is a sinner in need of forgiveness and in need of a savior. So he gets to the point, he reveals her, she's been a loose woman, she has been seeking satisfaction in sexual relationships. And then finally he reveals that he's Messiah. He is the one who will take away her sin. He is the one who will wash her of her guilt. As we meditate upon the story, one of the most powerful points is she is very thirsty, but she doesn't realize until Jesus speaks to her what she's truly thirsty for or how thirsty she is. You see, something we saw in this passage is that we are created by God to be worshipers. We are created to delight in him and to be satisfied in him alone. And she was seeking satisfaction in every other way. Then we focus on the worship passage, who we worship as the father, how we worship as the son and in the spirit and in truth. This morning, we're going to continue to think about worship. And we're going to think about the same thing from a different angle as Jesus has a different conversation. The main point of our sermon of our study this morning is this. We are starving for true life and only God truly satisfies. We are starving for true life and only God truly satisfies. The focus of our passage, again, is worship. We have two scenes. So you'll see as we hear the word, as you look with me, as we read, there are two scenes. One, Jesus teaches the disciples about worship. And the other scene is the woman responds to Jesus' teaching about worship and actually worships him. There are two major scenes. Turn with me to John 4. I'll begin in verse 27. They have just ended the conversation where worship takes place. It's not in Jerusalem. It's not Mount Jerusalem. It's in spirit and in truth. The woman says, when the Christ comes, he'll teach us about these things. And Jesus has just declared, I am the Messiah. Verse 27, just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile, scene two. The disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life. So the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor." Back to the woman. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. And many more believe because of his word, they said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe. We have heard for ourselves that we know that this is indeed the savior of the world. Will you pray with me? Our great creator who has designed this world so beautifully and wonderfully, We thank you that we can look at the creation and we can see the power and wisdom with which you've designed this earth. And you've designed us as your image bearers. You've designed all the plants and the animals. We thank you, Lord, that we can see the power and wisdom of your creation. We thank you that you supply our every need. We thank you most of all that you designed us not just to live as physical beings enjoying this world. You designed us for yourself and we praise you that we can know you again in Christ, even though we have rejected you. Renew us, Almighty God. We thank you that in Christ we can be satisfied by the power of your spirits working in us. We can have the sustenance that we need to truly live. Help us as we look to your word to recognize our need for you and how you meet that great need. Make us worshippers, almighty God. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. So our story, we have two scenes, the disciples, they stumble back, they seem to always be stumbling themselves into trouble, and it doesn't say they're saying this to Jesus. They clearly do not say this to Jesus. They keep their thoughts to themselves. Most think that they don't actually approach Jesus and ask Him, why are you speaking to this woman? Because of respect for their master. But we see what they're saying. We see what they're thinking. They're not thinking well of the woman. The woman leaves after hearing that Jesus is the Messiah. She leaves her water jar, the vessel with which she gathers one of the most important elements of life. And she goes into town. See a man that told me everything I've ever done. She says that twice. It's a bit of an embellishment. The only thing Jesus says is that you have many husbands and the man you're living with now is a husband. I think what she's getting at is that the most important problem I've ever had, the sin that I've been living with, the shame, he's put his finger right on my life. He told me the most important thing about me. Can this be the Christ? It's an astonishing question. The way it's written is supposed to be, can this be the Christ? Is it too good to be true? He's finally come. So she's going to the town. We switch back to the scene. Meanwhile, our narrator gives us a very good idea of what's happening. The disciples say, Rabbi, eat. Now, some of you chuckled when it came to verse 33, because I hope you're seeing the woman's foolishness early on, not getting what water was meaning. The parallels here of what the disciples are doing. Jesus asked for water. They asked for food. They say here's some food. And there's a mixed message as to what is being spoken of. They don't get it, in other words. Jesus tells us in Verse 32, the most important verse in the passage, my food is to do the will of him who sent me to accomplish his work. He's here declaring we can work for more than our own gut and our own glory. There is a divine work, there's an inspired work that God is calling us into that we as humans can follow Christ in. that is not for our God or for our glory, but to serve the will of God. He then uses an illustration, and then we end up back with a woman. I want to first make some, I want to walk through and make some points with the story, and we're going to keep going back and forth into the scenes. The first thing I want to start with is this. We worship God by prioritizing our appetite for Him. We worship God by prioritizing our appetite for him. And here we're going to focus on that most important declaration. I have food to eat. It is the will of my father. Our passage has a food motif run through it. You're not supposed to talk about food in a sermon. It's so close to lunch, your stomachs are going to start grumbling. The good news is we have food afterwards so you can put aside that temptation. But our story uses the food and the water metaphor over and over again, showing the most important elements, what we think of the most important elements of life. There's something more important. Rabbi, eat, I have food you don't know about. The disciples asked, who brought them food? And Jesus starts cutting right into the heart of the message. Now, just as Nicodemus could not understand what it meant to be born again. Right, when Jesus says how to enter the kingdom of heaven, how to see the kingdom of God, be born again, Nicodemus thinks physical. Enter back into the womb? He tells the woman, I have water. She says, well, where's your bucket? He tells the disciples, I have food. Who brought you food? We see the foolishness of man and how Jesus continues to teach the spiritual truth. My food is to do the will of Father. Now, the passage we read as a call to worship, I believe is lying behind this very important teaching. Deuteronomy 8, 1 through 3. You can look back in your bulletin or you can flip to page 152. The whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do. That you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give you to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness so that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And He humbled you, and let you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Here, Moses' teaching in Deuteronomy was something that happened in Exodus. The point of the manna was to teach you that you live by the Word of God. You're to rely upon Him. Specifically, you're to trust what God says at all times, in all circumstances, no matter what. You're to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding, in other words. We see another important event that connects us to this bread theme, Matthew 4. That's on page 809. If you're looking in your your pew Bible, Matthew four, Jesus is preparing for his public ministry in Matthew. And this is the temptation. He he fast and he goes into the wilderness. And this is where he's going to face three temptations by Satan. And the context here is very important. Jesus is the new Adam. We sing of this in one of our songs. He's a second Adam, the first Adam. The first man made who was innocent, he failed. He was tempted and he failed. The new Adam, he's sinless and he succeeds. And here we see the bread theme being the first of the, being key to the first temptations that Satan gives to Jesus as he is confirming that he is the new Adam. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, He was hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But He answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Here Christ has the real human need. He has a real human hunger. And as Almighty God, He has the power to turn stones to bread. But he knows that he has a greater purpose, a greater calling than to just feed his earthly human appetite. And so he uses opportunity. He combats Satan by saying it's not fulfilling my physical appetite. It's doing the will of God. The temptation of Jesus presents him as a new Adam. As a new way of living, as a new man. You're to live by the word of God. Now, let's go back to this. Instruction. I believe the instruction, we shall live by bread alone, is behind what Jesus is saying here. What he's saying is that the Father's will for me is more important than any physical need that I have. The Father's will, God's word, His instruction, His direction, His will for me is the most important thing in life. Even more important than the most basic elements that keep us alive. Bread and water. He's teaching us here. He's modeling, as being the Savior, that what keeps us is God's Word. Now, the Father's will was to send Christ. Christ is actually giving us a picture of what He's coming to do. He's come to do the Father's will. What is that? He's coming to die for sinners. That is the Father's will for the Son. That is not the Father's will for any of us. This is what is unique to Christ. The Father sent the Son to accomplish His work. From the very beginning of our sinning, God had been organizing and creating a plan that He has executed perfectly to bring about salvation. And it is Christ who accomplishes that perfect plan. He has come to finish What the father has promised, because every promise is yes and amen in him. The son could satisfy his hunger. The son could satisfy his thirst. What does he have to gain by saying, I'm going to set aside these physical desires and needs for the purpose of doing what God has said? First, he has the sheer delight in delighting. He has a sheer delight in obeying the father. That is sustenance and satisfaction in and of itself. Of course, Jesus also gains much from dying for us. When Jesus dies for us, he gains brothers and sisters. When Jesus dies for us, we are adopted into the family because he gives us his right of being sons of God. The son, he earns a bride. By dying for us, He cleanses us and purges us and He takes us to be His lover, the one who is truly loved by God Almighty. And of course, we can look at other metaphors such as body. We must first see Jesus ultimately and first as the Savior. His purpose, His will was to save us from our sins. But I believe here we also see the beautiful picture of Jesus Christ as our model. He is our model. Jesus finds fulfilling the will of the Father as sustaining and satisfying. He's teaching us that we're more than physical beings. He's teaching us that our desires for the physical well-being have to be set aside first for our spiritual well-being. We are built and designed for something more than just physical pleasure. Our greatest need is to know God and his will. We were designed by God. We must know what he wills for us. We only will be truly happy when we're following what God has said. Our physical needs are real needs. We've all had to eat and drink in the last 40 days in order to be here and be alive. We all had to take in the physical substance. God has made us physically dependent upon physical things. But what Jesus is teaching us is what's really most important is our spiritual life. our life related to God. Now, here's the main problem. We have an appetite for things of this world. We have an appetite for the good physical things of this world. God created us to eat food and to drink water and to consume things that he created for our good. Jesus is denying himself the sinless desires that he has as a human being. So that he can teach us not only to separate ourselves from the sinless desires for a physical good, but I think also so we can resist and deny the sinful desires that we have. We must have and grow in ourselves and encourage and develop an appetite for God. His word must be the desire of our heart. That must be what we realize we must consume. Here's the problem. Our appetite for God is often our smallest appetite. Our appetite for God is often a secondary or tertiary appetite that we seek to fulfill after we fulfilled every other appetite we have. We first want to make sure our stomachs are full and then we want to make sure our friends are happy. And then whatever time we have left over, we give to God. See, there's an imbalance in appetite. There's an imbalance in desire because God should be our most important and we should prioritize God above all else. Our appetite for him should be greater than the other appetite. See, Jesus denies himself food. We have to deny ourselves all the sinful desires we have. We desire to worship and be satisfied by so many things. We have to grow in us. We have to encourage in our own lives an appetite for God. Now, here's the good news. By God's grace and by the Holy Spirit, we can have an appetite for God and that appetite can grow. This is important when it comes to sin, because we can discipline our desires. See, we are prone to worship and to be satisfied in things of this world. They entrap us, they entice us. We are prone to these things and our appetites grow for these things. See, we grow in our appetite and we fix in ourselves an appetite for drunkenness. for pornography, for gossip, for anger, for ruling others. These things are appetites and we can either choose to feed these appetites and make those appetites stronger or we can resist them and we can begin to grow in ourselves a greater appetite for God. Here's the real problem. Our appetite for sin and our appetite for God, they're opposed to one another. We cannot have two masters. You could say it another way that goes along with the physical metaphor better. You can't have two guts. You're going to choose which one you're going to satisfy. Is it the appetite that's longing for sin and the satisfaction of this world? You're going to long for God and hunger after His word, after His will, after His love, after the satisfaction that He alone can give us. Our appetite from God must be developed. Because we by nature are sinners and we are already, we come with an appetite already prone for sin. And so we must discipline our appetites. It's important to mention here a spiritual discipline which is important for this particular point. The spiritual discipline of fasting. Fasting is setting aside food. It's saying, I'm not going to eat physical food for the purpose of pursuing God. Now, when I was first a Christian, I read about fasting. I didn't know what it was. And so I just said one day I'm not going to eat. Well, the problem with that day is that I just kept thinking about not eating. And that's never good, because then I was thinking was, you know, I got to quit thinking the pink elephant. You know, it's an impossible practice. Now, fasting is setting aside one of your basic physical needs And for the purpose of saying the time and energy that I would typically set aside for pursuing that, I'm going to set it aside to pursue God. I'm going to stop and I'm going to seek to resist my hunger for food for the purpose of encouraging and developing a greater appetite for God. You see, it's more of a replacement rather than just a not. When you're going to get surgery, you say, OK, I'm not going to eat food just to not eat food. When you're pursuing it as a spiritual discipline, you're saying, I'm going to stop for the purpose of pursuing God. You're going to teach yourself to resist the physical desires for the purpose of pursuing the spiritual. And this is important because whenever we are faced with a temptation, That ensnares us and entraps us and is difficult to resist. It's learning to resist and deny yourself in these most basic ways, like fasting, to pursue God so that you love Him and trust Him more. And if you're going to begin fasting, and I encourage you to do so, or if you're going to continue fasting, if you've never fasted before, start this way. Fast one meal. Don't eat lunch one day. One day this week, decide not to eat one particular meal and set aside the 30 minutes or an hour that you would have committed to eating that particular time to praying and meditating upon God's Word. Set aside the time for one meal. Skip one meal first. I had a friend, he decided to do a seven day fast, his first fast ever. Not the smartest thing. Set aside one meal and then start setting aside an entire day. Set aside to do a daylight fast. I will not fast between sunrise and sundown. Now, that's easiest during December. So the season is coming ahead. But the goal here, you're setting aside what you think, what you are designed to need, to realize what you truly need even more. Fasting is a discipline that is often forgotten. The second thing I want us to see in this passage, and it's something we've already mentioned once before as we looked in the first sermon, we worship God by recognizing the sanctity of every human life. The disciples just don't get it. They come back from getting food and they immediately begin judging the woman. They even judge Jesus in their own hearts and their minds. Why is he speaking to this woman? What is he saying? See, there's a deep racism here. The Jews did not like the Samaritans. The Samaritans, they were half Israelites, half Assyrians. They had their own culture, their own land, their own worship. Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans, especially Jewish men and Samaritan women. It's beautiful that Jesus steps right over the social barriers for the purpose of offering new life, eternal life to this woman who is despised not only by Jews, but within her own culture. The disciples have a hard time appreciating God's call to go out to all peoples. In order for them to do the will of God, they must realize they must prioritize God's will over their will, and their will has a strong prejudice. That's what we read, Acts 1 through 11. Acts 1, 1 through 11, that's what he's saying across the lands, because God's will is for his gospel to go to every person of every tribe and every tongue. What kept the church early on from doing that was racism, a prejudice against certain people because of their nationality, their race, their custom, and sometimes their sin. Racism is a major dispute in the early church. We see this thing in the epistles of Paul. We see it throughout church history. Why? Why is it such an issue? Well, this we have to answer more personally, because we are all prejudice. We are all prejudice. It's a sin that we all have. Who are we prejudiced against? Sometimes it's people who are too different than we are. That's the most common prejudice. There's a fear or a superiority of that person that's too different from us. Sometimes we find them too gross in their sin. So we have a prejudice against people who we think are just too sinful, too gross. And then sometimes we're prejudiced against people who are too much like us. And that's where envy comes in. You see, the heart of prejudice is not judging someone else wrongly as much as it is judging ourselves wrongly. The heart of prejudice is thinking too much of ourselves and not enough of others. The way to overcome prejudice is not to think more of others. It's actually to recognize yourself properly in light of God and in light of others. You see, the church, we cannot have a prejudice over people, against people that are different from us because the gospel of Jesus Christ is for everybody. And the only thing that keeps us united and together is the head, Jesus Christ. The glory of God will be shed more, will shine more in a church when it has more diversity because our unity is not what we have socially in common, it's what we have in common of our faith in Jesus Christ. We look at those who are too much like us, this is envy and this is just not recognizing that God is good. He gives everyone according to his wisdom, not our wisdom and his wisdom is better than ours. We are prejudiced against those that have what we wish we had or have it better. And we do not trust God. The most dangerous one. Is the prejudice over those that we find too gross in sin. Because this is a great failure for us to recognize who we are in light of the holy and righteous and just God. This is a failure to see how gross we are because we have rebelled against God and God is offended by us. But he still chose to send his son to die for us. When we look at anybody and think they're too gross in their sin, they're too far in their sin, it's a failure to grasp the gospel that saves every kind of sinner, even the worst kind of sinner, even you and me. The truth is, everyone is made in the image of God. Everyone deserves the dignity and worth, or everyone deserves respect because they are made with dignity and worth. This is foundational to the message that Jesus Christ died for sinners. Jesus came to die for us, human beings, because we were made with dignity and honor. We were made by God to be His special creation. Not the first message of the church, but a foundational message, all the same, is that we are called to be a respecter of persons. We are called to defend those who are not being respected. We are called to argue for and defend the rights of the unborn child, the enslaved and the abused. This is not our primary message. We cannot solve the sex trafficking of all over the world. We cannot solve racism all over the world. We cannot solve the ongoing abortions all over the world. But what we can do within this church is to show that every body is made equal in the image of God and are worthy of respect. And the gospel can save any kind and every kind of sinner. We are to act to help those unborn. and those enslaved and those abused, always seeking to make sure the gospel is what is known as the true need of everyone in trouble. This moves us to our next point. We worship God by proclaiming him to all people. We respect every person and we must proclaim him to every person. Both stories actually have this one thing in common. Both stories share this. Let's go to the woman because she actually gets it first. So the woman left her water jar and went away to town and said to the people, come see a woman who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to him. The disciples, they get a prescription for what to do. The woman is described for what she does. She's worshiping because she's going and she's telling her neighbors, her friends about the gospel. Now, remember who this woman is. She's despised by the Jews because of her race and her nationality. She was despised by her own people because of her lifestyle. Remember, she was going up to get water in noon at the heat of the day alone. That was not normal. Her lifestyle, her loose living with numerous men made her a social outcast because of her sin. And this is the instrument by which God chose to make the gospel known to the Samaritans. Someone despised by the Jews, despised even within her own people because of her sin. That makes the gospel all the more glorious because she goes in and she says twice, He told me all I ever did. The city didn't need a a card or a memo to let you know what this woman's been doing. They know who she is. That's why she's going to the well by herself. It's important here. When she goes and proclaims the gospel, she begins with her own sin. See, the gospel is overcoming sin. The gospel is forgiving sin. The first thing he pointed out to help her first to see the point that her sin will be forgiven is that she's a sinner. And that's what she emphasizes in her testimony. That's the evidence that he's the Christ. He told me all I ever did. Can this be the Christ? If you're not a Christian this morning, this message is for you. Jesus Christ is the Messiah. John wrote everything he wrote so that you would believe that he is a son of God, that he came and he died in your place for your sins. Because God is and will judge you. The condemnation of God is on you if you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, because you sinned against God. And he's a just judge who judges sinners. The story is for you because it's about sinners recognizing their sin, recognizing that they need a Savior, and believing in Jesus Christ. Now see, this woman, she's convicted of her sin. I was just telling the Sunday School class before, I can't convict people of sin. No human being can actually convict another human being of sin. What I can tell you is the law, and I trust the Holy Spirit will convict you. See, together, everyone in this room, we're all liars. We all twist and corrupt God's truth. We twist the truth for our own purposes. We're all murderers because we have anger and hate in our hearts and actually exercise that towards others in words and deeds. We're all adulterers because we've all lusted. Most of all, and most importantly, we're all idolaters. We've all worshipped something or someone other than the one true God. That makes us culpable. And I pray that God will convict you that you are guilty before him. And the only way that that guilt can be removed is if you believe in Jesus, who was sent to die in the place of our sins as a as sin himself. He became sin for those of us who believe in him so that our guilt is counted towards him and his righteousness towards us. Believe that he died, he rose and he's coming back. If you're not a Christian this morning, please don't leave without talking to me or one of the other members of this church about the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian this morning, this story is about you. This woman, by believing in Christ, she receives a new identity. She's no longer marked by shame and outcast. She's marked as a child of God. By the grace of Christ, he has washed away her sins because of her faith. She is now free from judgment. We are free from judgment. It's a reminder. It's not a matter how good we are. As I just heard in the class, Christianity is the one religion where you have to repent of your righteousness. That's fantastic because we think we're so good. We actually have to repent of thinking we've got it all together. No, we believe in what Christ has done. We are saved by grace. Let's continue verse thirty nine. Many Samaritans from that town believe in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days and many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe we have heard for ourselves and we know that this indeed is a savior of the world because of her testimony, the Samaritans received the gospel. Notice there the confession together, we know that he is the savior of the world. If Christ hasn't come as a savior, then he's meaningless. He must come to save sinners. He must come to die on the cross for us. He must come to renew a relationship that we should have with God. Now notice, this is startling as we study this in light of John 3. Jesus talks to Nicodemus. Nicodemus doesn't get it. Born again, enters the mother's womb again. He doesn't get it and we never see if he gets it. Right? So we leave Nicodemus not getting it. He's a Jewish man. He's representing the Jews. He's the most educated of the Jews. He doesn't get it. Guess who gets it? The Samaritans. They confess that Jesus is the Savior of the world. The confession that Nicodemus should have made, they make. It's the power of the gospel. It's spreading out to all nations. Now, the woman is overwhelmed with conviction. This leads to her worshiping him by professing Christ. The disciples, they're a little slower. They have to be taught to proclaim him. Let's look back at 35. After Jesus said, I have bread that you do not know of, it's the will of my Father. Verse 35, Do you not say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life. So that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored. You have entered into that labor. So the disciples are called to see what God is doing. And they're called to enter into reaping where others have sowed. And so we know who the reapers are. They're called to do a work where they're entering into somebody else's labor that's already taken place. So in order to understand this, who are the sowers he's mentioning? Who are these folks that Jesus is referring to who have already gone and sowed? I believe he's probably referring to John the Baptist first and foremost, and then to every Old Testament prophet. The word of God has been coming into this world for years. They're the ones who have been selling the promises. Now the promise would have come and they are going to have to enter into the season of reaping the harvest. And they have to realize that the harvest is the entire world, every kind of person. But in order to do this, they must first see God's will and his plan. Notice here that one sows and another reaps. Now, this is a redemptive history important moment here because it's going from the old to the new. Paul actually uses this metaphor in a way that's helpful for us. One sows, another reaps. We are to be doing the work of God. We may not always see the fruit of that work. We are to be sowing seeds in all places in all times, trusting that God will bring about his fruit in his timing and others may actually receive the benefit of reaping that fruit. The goal here is to see that Jesus Christ is calling us to all go out into the world and proclaim him. I want to end our sermon with a I think it's a fairly radical point, something we don't think much about in Scripture, but I think it's actually a theme or a teaching point that is throughout Scripture. We worship God by laboring for eternal rewards. It's our last point. We worship God by laboring for eternal rewards. I'm going to introduce this concept and I look forward to having conversations and hearing conversations from among you about this. We worship God by laboring for eternal rewards. Listen to the language here. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life. The disciples are called to enter into a labor. What does this mean? Because we know from all the rest of Scripture, it's by faith that you were saved. It is not by your labor or your works. So what is he commanding them to enter into with labor? Let me be very clear. It is not your labor. It is not how much you serve. It is not how good you are that makes you a child of God or forgiven. It is faith in what Christ has done for you. It's very important. That's where we're starting. However, as a Christian, as a believer, we are then called to enter into labor. We are called to enter into a work that has eternal fruit and eternal wages for those who are saved. I believe there are rewards in heaven. I believe this passage is beginning to get into that particular topic. And this is very complicated for us because I look around and I'm assuming most of us are Protestants. I know most of you. I know you are a Protestant. It's by faith that we've been saved. Anything that that may begin to approach that we want to be hesitant about. And that's good and right. That is a doctrine that's a foundation of the church. It is by faith that we are saved. But we are called to labor, labor for the kingdom, trusting that our labor will cause rewards in heaven. that Christ will reward us when we enter into his presence. We put it this way. Everybody who believes in Jesus will be perfectly happy in heaven. Some will be happier than others. That's the crux of this. Everyone will be perfectly happy in heaven. Whatever your happy vacuum is, Christ is going to fill it. Some will be happier than others, and it's because we those who are happier, they have been preparing themselves to be happier with the work and the labor. Some are going to get to heaven because they believe in Christ. They're going to enter his presence because they believe in Christ and they're going to realize they wasted their time. They wasted opportunities. They're going to see that they left so much behind building an inheritance in this world and not building an inheritance in the world to come, where there is no rust, where there is no loss, where it is secured by the one who does not lie. But those who commit to the labor of God. Those who commit to living for him in every situation in life, they're building up treasures in heaven. That is a theme throughout Scripture that we too often ignore. Our life now matters after faith in Christ because it is changing the way we will experience life then. Again, everybody will be perfectly happy because Christ will perfectly satisfy us. But some, because of their labor, here and now, they will be happier. The Garden of Eden. I believe this metaphor may be helpful because it's a metaphor throughout scripture. We can picture heaven as a garden. We're all going to have a garden. We're all going to have a fruitful garden. But those who have labored and worship and serve the Lord more and more faithfully, they're going to have a larger garden. They're going to have a larger crop. They're going to have a larger way of worshipping God with their fruit throughout all eternity. As we think about labor, I want to ask one more question. What are the implications for our work? Because people have looked at this passage and they've said, I should quit my day job where I'm working for bread and I should just go and share the gospel with everybody. That is actually an implication, that is an application that I came across in studying this passage. Because of this passage, we should quit our jobs, we're working for bread, and we should just go work and do the work of the Lord. I think that's a wrong application of the passage. Some are called to be full-time evangelists. Everyone's called to a particular vocation. Our job is to recognize and hear from God what our unique calling could be. It could be being a teacher, it could be a principal, it could be an engineer, it could be a homeschool teacher, on and on. We have many people who have vocations that are theirs by God, and it's theirs because they are gifted for it and they are blessing society through it. We are called to see our vocation as a chief way in which we glorify God. We follow the Reformation. Roman Catholics, before the Reformation, they actually had a separation. Serving God meant you're serving in the church as a monk or a nun. They had a complete separation. Luther came and he said, no, every vocation is a calling by God, an opportunity to glorify God. That's why Luther can say this, this classic Luther quote, the mom who wipes the baby's bum glorifies God as much as the nun. Now, that's just kind of off color enough to be Luther and it gets to the point of Luther. The mom who wipes the baby's bum glorifies God as much as enough. The point here is that no matter what you're doing, you can do it for the glory of God. No matter what you do with your life, even when you're retired, when you're at home, when you're sick in bed, you can do it all for the glory of God. Our work matters because God says it matters. If we're doing it in such a way that we're seeking to please God and glorify God with that work. Our vocations, they're meant to bless our neighbor. That doesn't mean we're trying to build up a utopian society. No, we're doing it because we believe that there will be a kingdom. That there are promises there waiting for us. That we trust the One that we are laboring for. He will give us the just reward because He's the just God. Because we have worked and labored for Him. As we end this morning, what is your appetite for? Are you hungry for the Word of God more than you are hungry for the things of this earth? Are you delighting in God to please Him or your flesh? Know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, your word is rich and deep and it fills us. We thank you, Lord, for the richness of your word. May it guide and direct us. May it fill us. May it teach us. May it correct us. We thank you, Father, for sending your son so that we can trust him. and trust that our salvation is secure in his death and resurrection, and trust that our eternity is secure as he is at your right hand now. Help us, Lord, to know how to live a life that most glorifies you. Help us, Lord, to delight in you. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.