Gospel of John, 4:1-38
John 4:1-38 · Mike Doyle · Mar 9, 2008
Gospel of John (2008), No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492605511398

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, lesson 9, which is chapter 4, verses 1, however far we get. So, just to kind of let you, maybe to bring us up to speed, the Lord Jesus is on the move again, and primarily because the Jews in Judea where he's ministering to have rejected him, and so It's interesting how he does move after he's in a situation where he's been rejected.

And in order to make his trip less far, or not as far, he's going to cut through some area, which a lot of times the Jew didn't do. They would circumvent it by going around it. They were going from up in Galilee down to Judea or vice versa, they would cross the Jordan River, walk up and then cross back over. But he didn't, he went through Samaria and he did it so we could have chapter 4 Gospel of John. So let's talk a bit about the Samarians. Who are these guys? They're camped out kind of in the middle of Israel. What were the criteria of a Samaritan? A mixed breed Jew. A mixed breed. They were partly Jew and partly Gentile.

But they did follow the law of Moses. And the problem that they had is that they weren't allowed by the Jews to worship in Jerusalem. So they set up this worship deal in Gerizim. where they did their own thing and that was because they called themselves by the name of Jacob and maybe the best way to say it was they pretended to be Jews.

So with that in mind as we go forward and I'll kind of give you an insight into this woman that the Lord Jesus is about to meet and why there is kind of an interaction between the two of them. And the other thing I found interesting is, who is the Lord Jesus sent to? What's his ministry? Yeah, he's sent to the house of Israel, the house of Jacob. But who's the first person that he one-on-one gives the gospel message, or gives the message about him being the Messiah to somebody who isn't a Jew. So it's kind of interesting to watch that and as we go through I think I know the reason why.

Question number two, was it unusual for a Jew to ask a Samaritan for a drink of water? That's either yes or no. Come on. Yeah, it was unusual. The Jews wouldn't talk to Samaritans. They hardly ever talk to anybody other than themselves. The other thing is that this is a big surprise.

There's two things going on here. It's the middle of the day, and a Jew usually wouldn't be sitting by a well in Samaria in the middle of the day. It wouldn't happen. that's weird about this, is that usually the women went to the well and drew the water in the morning when it was cool, not in the middle of the day.

So, the other thing that points out when the Lord Jesus asks her for help, what does it demonstrate about him? He shouldn't need help from anybody. He has human needs and he set aside all this prerogative. So here he is, he is tired and he is hungry and he is sitting by a well and he asks a woman who is a Samaritan for a drink of water. Now, in America, it's not a big deal. In Israel, it's a huge deal. So, why does she come alone in the middle of the day? I mean, you know, usually the women would gather together and go up to the well in the morning, a bunch of them, get the water, She's an outcast. We're going to find out in a little while.

She was an outcast because of her lifestyle. She lived what the Jews considered, and probably anybody would, a shameful life. Yet, we're going to find out that she's a pretty ardent woman. She's focused about certain things, although she's isolated. So, she lived in sin. We're going to find out she was very weary of life. She was probably pretty miserable in her existence. So, a phrase I found about someone that's engaged in sin, the will, engaged in evil, feeds on sinful desires and wastes itself without fruit. That's a good description of this woman, I think.

So, here she is at the well, and here's the Lord Jesus, and he says, would you give me a drink? And what was her response? What did she say to him? Verse 7, she says, give me a drink. Verse 9, the woman of Samaria said unto him, how is it that you being a Jew ask a drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. How did she know he was a Jew? How did she know?

What do you think? Clothes he was wearing? Clothes he was wearing? I think so. I think that's the answer. I think that the Jews wore identifying marks on their clothes, blue stripes on their sleeves and stuff like that. So I think that's the only way we'd know, but she knew he was a Jew. It wasn't a language barrier, because they're communicating. Maybe it was like if somebody was in Colorado from the south, we started using all y'all and that kind of stuff, we'd know they weren't from around here. So we wouldn't know whether they were Jewish or not. But she knew, and she knew the protocol. She knew that it would be unusual for a Jew to ask a Samaritan for anything.

Now, I want you to, as we go forward now, what do you think is the motivator of what the Lord Jesus is about to do? What's motivating his actions as we move forward in this? I've come to seek that those that are lost, that have come to seek us. Yeah, and so you would put that under the heading of grace. The Lord Jesus is going to act in grace And I want you to look for the grace as we go through these verses, because that's what causes him to act in the way he does, even though he has been sent to the house of Israel. He still, grace and truth came by the Lord Jesus, so he's going to function and act out of grace.

I think we'll see a lot of that. I think this also, I don't know, besides the grace, I think this is right after with Nicodemus and the whosoever. I think this is now expanding out beyond just the Jews now. Now this is the whosoever. All Gentiles. But you know what's interesting is that as we go forward in the Gospel, John, we're going to find that the Lord Jesus restricts a lot of things just to the Jews. But this one is to a Samaritan. I mean, this is not despised of the Jews. And like I said, you just had Nicodemus get the, it's open to everyone now. just said to Nicodemus and the whosoever and kind of left hook and right hook to Nicodemus, now he's now talking to a Samaritan woman? And the disciples are going to think.

But you know, as we're studying on Tuesday in Acts, you know, for the Apostle Peter, it took, you know, quite a bit of effort on God's side to convince Peter just to go to Cornelius' house and to invite the three Gentile guys that came to into Simon Tanner's house. And Peter said, actually I'm kind of surprised when he asked Cornelius, you know, how come you sent for me? And Cornelius tells him about the vision he had. And Peter says, gee, it seems like the Lord is going to send repentance and salvation to the Gentiles.

Well, that's maybe four or five years after this, and Peter's gone through Pentecost, and it's like, duh. Yet the Lord here is already demonstrating His grace towards someone who is not a Jew. And I find it interesting that when John writes this Gospel around 90 AD, kind of looking back, that he puts this in here.

So the Lord opens his heart to her and is going to talk to her about eternal life and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so he says to her in verse 10, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that said to you, give me to drink, You would have asked of him and he would have given you living water.

Do you think she understands what he's talking about? She has no idea. Question six, why doesn't she understand what he's saying about this living water? A clue to the answer to this question was one of the questions we talked about last week, but let's see. Why doesn't she understand what he's talking about?

She doesn't have the Holy Spirit. Doesn't have the Holy Spirit. If you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14, you don't have to go there, I'll read it to you. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, and neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

So, remember last week we talked about the fact that John the Baptist said, well, you know, I talk about earthly things, and the Lord Jesus is from heaven, and so he talks about the things that he knows, which are heavenly spiritual things. So he talks to this woman about, I mean we look at this, we know what he's talking about, but trust me she didn't have a clue what he means by living water. But the language here is suited and we'll see as we go forward, it's designed to do some things to maybe open up her understanding a little bit and maybe direct her attention to heavenly things. We'll talk in a minute how he accomplishes that. But you have to understand that this is a woman who is a worldly woman, living in darkness, she's totally self-centered, selfish, she's preoccupied with her own misery, and she can't understand things.

So, what is this living water that the Lord Jesus is talking about? What is it? Whosoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life. What's the cinnamon for this water? Life. That's what it is. It's life. And so the Lord Jesus has come to give life and to give it more abundantly and the kind of life we're talking about has no boundaries and no barriers.

So she listens to this and in verse 15, what's her response? The woman said unto him, Sir, give me this water. Why? Why does she want it? So she doesn't have to come to the well anymore, right? So how does she perceive what he said? He's speaking heavenly, she's speaking earthly. She reacts earthly. See that?

I would have reacted the same way. I would have said, gee, this is a great deal, you know? Once I drink of this water you're talking about, I don't have to come back here. It's not too bad a deal, you know? Then I thirst not, and neither come here to draw water." She thinks, wow, this is a good deal. So if I said, I'm going to give you an ATM card, you don't have to go to the bank anymore. Oh, and the money is free too.

So she picks it up, limitedly, from her earthly viewpoint. Now watch what happens here. In the next verse, Jesus said, Now, he's going to set her up. You wouldn't think God would set somebody up, but he's going to do it right here. He said to her, go and call your husband and come here. You want this water? Let's go get your husband and come here. And she says, answered and said, I have no husband. She just said, you're right, you don't. You've said well, for you have had five husbands, and he whom thou hast is not thy husband, that says thou truly. That says thou truly.

I'm reading King James. So, what has the Lord done here? Understand something. You've got the God of the universe standing in front of a sinful woman who has no spiritual understanding. But he's going to crack through that barrier, and how's he going to do it? Sinful nature. Sinful nature. What? What's that?

Telling things that, just meeting her, he doesn't know he has five. Going to tell her things, but what aspect or the makeup of this woman is he going to use? It's really interesting, because he does the same thing today. He goes to a non-believer And he begins to communicate to them what?

At her level of comprehension. At her level of comprehension, but as a non-believer she cannot understand spiritual things. So there's got to be an avenue, there's got to be a road in which the Spirit of God can get to somebody. It makes us sin. It's sin, but what else does man have that would trigger it off? We have conscience.

That's what he's after. Look what he's doing. He's saying to her, well, you've got five husbands. And the guy you're living with now, he's not even number six, but he's the guy you're hanging around with. Does she have guilt about that? Sure she does.

When the Spirit of God goes after a person today, where does he go after them? In their conscience. He convicts them of sin. And where does the conviction take place? In your conscience. It's that little mechanism that's in you that excuses your behavior or approves your behavior. Well, she can't dance around this. And when the Spirit of God came after me, he convicted me of sin. My dancing days were over. Because I was convicted. My conscience convicted me.

Well, it's interesting that the Lord puts into every human being this thing called conscience and he uses it to get a person ready for the grace that they're going to receive. Isn't that the way he works? Conscience is a very interesting thing. So, if he's going to act in grace, he's going to do it through the conscience. And so he starts to lay out her life in front of her. She doesn't understand the grace yet, but what he's doing is acting in grace. So, as the Lord deals with her conscience, a word spoken by him who searches the heart searches her conscience. She's in the presence of a man who tells her all that she ever did. I'm not sure that's a comfortable place. As a non-believer, would you like to be sitting in a room with a man who could tell you everything you ever did? I don't think so. I wouldn't.

But her conscience is awakened by him who is the Word. And it's interesting, her conscience is laid open before whose eyes? Now understand, there's only the two of them there. It's the Lord Jesus and this woman. And so her conscience is laid open before God. Her reaction to that is she perceives he's a prophet. Why does she perceive that? Why does she say, oh, I perceive that you're a prophet. And I perceive that, why? Because you know all this information about me. How would you know it?

What was a prophet's job? What was their office? What did they do? Alright, let's say Courtney is a prophet. And he is a prophet to Holly Hills Bible Church. What is he going to do? Point to God. No. He is going to come from God with information from God about us. Okay? So, this woman sits there and says, Wow! You know all this stuff about my wife.

You must be a prophet. Now, it's interesting, she's religious enough to recognize the office of prophet, isn't she? She understands that she's not living up to her own religious standard, and that there's a man in front of her that she calls a prophet, and she knows she hasn't been living properly, and she knows enough to recognize when the word of God shows up. She feels that his words were the word of God. So you must be a prophet. See that? Because that's what a prophet did. He brought the word of God to the people.

Mike, is this also similar to the Jewish needing a sign? Kind of a miraculous sign for knowledge, for telling? You know, it's interesting because this is really kind of an internal thing. It's not an external sign, but her conscience is sure awakened. I wonder, not as much conscience as, here's somebody out of the blue, in the middle of the day, tells me things that nobody else knows about or should know. I mean, a man on the street suddenly tells me all these things about me. It seems more of a sign more than conscience. It's like, wow, signish than conscious. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. You know what's interesting about this? How much was her intellect involved in all of this? Not much. Crystal?

The fact remains she's in the presence of God. He may have put everything aside. She's in the presence of God and what is God doing to her? As a non-believer though, here she is, and he's gone at her conscience, and he's laid her life out in front of her. Not intellectually, he's dealing with her from a conscious standpoint. So I would conclude from that, that intelligence and divine things are from your conscience, not your intellect. What do you think about that statement?

It doesn't say that you're absolutely right, I have five husbands. That's why I say it's more, to me, she doesn't say she changed until later where she goes into town and tells everybody. But here, she doesn't say, well, I'm wrong, I have five husbands.

She's just saying, you're a prophet, you know these things. And what's cool about that is my next question. Does she feel like Jesus despises her as others do? Does she have that sense? I mean, here she is at the well by herself, because the women in town have shunned her because she's had, you know, five husbands. She's hanging out with a guy now who isn't her husband. Even though the Lord Jesus has opened up her conscience, there's no sense that he despises her. Isn't that cool?

Didn't he do that to you? When he opened up your conscience about your sin? You know about your sin, but you don't feel despised by God. Yeah, the other day, I go back and, you know, the 316 and the others, the whosoever and grace, it's unmerited. He didn't say you had to change. He didn't say, I mean, that's why I'm saying the conscious part. It was just saying who he was. It wasn't, you know, you're a bad person, deal with your conscience, do everything. all the baggage and conscience. No, it's not. It's who he is. That's right. He'd already spoken to her about life, right? He'd said to her and spoken to her about the gift of God, right? He'd already told her about that. He said, well, if you knew the gift of God.

So there's no condemnation on his part towards her because he's acting towards her in grace. He's not trying to condemn her. So, what you're seeing here is the operation of grace before the cross. Viewing what's going to happen on the cross, the Lord Jesus goes to this woman, or has this woman's conscience opened up, there's no question that she's sinful, but there's no condemnation on his part, and he's drawing her.

See that? So he's acting purely in grace. There's no, no, you better clean up your act. There's none of that. Right? He just lays it out. Five husbands. And he didn't snicker. So, she is not condemned by him. And he's the God of the universe standing in front of her. Her defilement didn't defile him.

Do you see that? One of the reasons in Jewish culture was why you didn't want to be around sinners is because they were defiled and boy, you didn't want them defiling you. Because if they did, then you had to go through this long process to get cleaned up again. So in verse 20, she says, our fathers worshipped in this mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem is a place where men ought to worship.

What does it tell us about this woman? What does it tell us about her? One, she's a religious woman. She knows the gig, doesn't she? She knows what's going on. She probably had good upbringing about the religion that she lived in. She was probably always trying to...

I mean, I have to tell you, growing up as a Catholic, I really identified with this woman. The education you get as a Catholic, especially if your parents make you go to Catholic schools, when I'm 35 and a guy sits down with me and starts telling me that Jesus is the Son of God, that's no news to me. I've known that since I was this big. And I knew he died on the cross for my sins. With my religious upbringing, I can remember sitting in a park over here with Donna before we were married and before we were believers and I convinced her Catholicism was the way to go.

Boy, was I stupid. This is a very religious woman. She knows Judaism and she knows what the Samaritans do and she knows the difference. But when you get to verse 21, and Jesus said, Woman, believe me, the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship you know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

Oh, is that a true statement? Why is it a true statement? Why is it a true statement? Because they hadn't rejected him yet. Well, salvation is of the Jews, right? That's a true statement. Why is it? Because Christ came from the Jews. Sure, Christ is a Jew. And the system of salvation was Jewish. So, it is a true statement.

Now, in verse 24, not 23, but the hour comes, and now it is, that true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. I have to tell you, these are very, very interesting verses. This is something entirely new. As the Lord Jesus said to this woman and now announces, we got a whole new program going and the program doesn't reside in Jerusalem and it doesn't reside on this mountain of Gerizim. There's a whole new thing coming and this new thing is that God the Father desires to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

Does that mean the Jews weren't doing that? That's exactly what it means. What were they doing? One, they weren't spiritually alive. And two, what system were they under? Was it a system of truth? It was a system of law. So it was a system of condemnation.

So the $24 question for today is, what does it mean? to worship God in spirit and in truth. Boy, did it get quiet. Truth is simple. One of the reasons around this church that we spend so much time and so much focus on the Word of God is because we're after the truth. Right? We are really after the truth. But you know what we discover as we go on in the pursuit of the truth, what do you find out about the truth? Grace. It's a person. It's not a concept or an abstract idea, it's a person.

So how about this spirit thing then? That means if you don't have drums you're not spiritual? Worshiping God in spirit, what is that? Because it seems to me to be really important because God is God the Son is saying that the Father seeks those who would worship Him in spirit. What does that mean? He's given us new eyes to see. Say that again? He's given us new eyes to see, new nature. New nature? Through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the teacher. Okay. More? Have you not ever asked yourself this question? Crystal?

Does it have anything to do with the essence of what God wants to happen? Even in the desert, He wasn't after a bunch of laws and regulations, and when the Jews asked for that, what He really desired was a knowledgeable, intimate relationship, like a working, you know, that tight relationship? Does it have to do anything So the Jews in this book, they've gotten so far off that the name of God or the title of God was in it, but not the essence and the person of God had nothing to do with it. The very essence of God, what's his very makeup?

He's spiritual. He's a spiritual being, right? So he's after his creatures to worship him on his level. Spiritually, okay? Now, there never had been a human being that could do that until the Lord Jesus shows up. And he can, because he's a spiritual being from heaven. So when you and I, after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, believe on his person and work, what happens to us? We get baptized into the resurrected, glorified Christ. We are not, like we're studying on Thursday night in Colossians, we are no longer natural men. We are spiritual men.

Where's our home? Everybody in this room, where's your home? Don't tell me Colorado. Where's your home? It's in heaven. Now in order to be in heaven, what do you gotta be? Gotta be one of these spiritual guys, right? So here we are, the father says, you know, I'm desirous of having these people who are spirits worship me.

Which takes away soulishness. Do you understand what I mean by that? There's a difference between soulish feel goodness and spirituality. A huge difference. It isn't. Spirituality isn't a high soulish euphoric state. Spirituality is based in truth. So when you want to worship God, what's the one thing you think you could do that would please Him the most? Please Him the most, not you the most. Him. What's the one thing you can do that really pleases Him, without which you can't please Him? What is it? Be thankful. Nope. Believe him. That's what he's after. Believe him.

Right? So he comes, his son comes, and goes through this death, burial, and resurrection, pays the penalty for sins and all of that, and then he sends a guy like Paul to write Paul's epistles. Right? What does he want us to do with Paul's epistles? Read them? Okay. Then what? Believe them. And you know what's in there? Spiritual truth. Not earthly truth. Not soulish truth. Spiritual truth.

When he says, I've raised you up and placed you in my Son, do you have to rationally figure that out? When he says, I crucified you with Christ, you're buried and resurrected. You're now seated in the heavens. Do you have to sit down and get your mind around that thing before you believe it? No, he wants you just to believe him. I think worshipping God in spirit and truth is believing Him. Believing Him when He says you're a new creature. I think it's as simple as that.

The problem that we have in our society today and in a lot of churches is that we have substituted high emotional experience for spirituality. Now, I'm not discounting the fact that you have wonderful emotional experiences, but they better be based on the Word of God. They better be.

And whether you feel that it's good or not is not the ultimate criteria as to whether it's truth. The Word of God is what is truth, and the Word of God are spiritual words, understood by spiritual men only. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, He can't know them. I don't care how much he feels about them, he can't know them. See that? I think the word and faith are really what spiritual worship is all about. Can he believe them? If he doesn't know them, can he believe them? No, he can't. If you don't know them, you can't believe them. You just can't.

Could contemporary churches benefit from understanding of this verse? In verse 26, the woman said to him in response to this, I know that the Messiah comes, who is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Now here is grace in action. The Lord Jesus says to her, I that speak unto you am he."

Isn't that some statement? And think about this woman, where she is now. He's saying to her, she's got a spiritual understanding that the Messiah is coming, right? And she's waiting for him, even though she hasn't got the best of life, lives in her experience. She's a sinful woman, but she knows that when this Messiah comes, that he's going to fix everything, or put it another way, he's going to tell us all things. And the Lord's gracious answer, this is grace in action, I that speak to you am he. What kind of a moral effect does it have on this woman? Number one, does she believe it? Does she believe that he is the Messiah? She sure does. So what kind of an effect does it have on her?

She wants to go tell others. Go and tell others. Now we've seen kind of this before when the Lord Jesus was calling the disciples. and they would come and see him, and the one disciple said, come and see. Remember we talked about that? That our job is to come and see, pointing to Christ. As small as her intelligence might be, and unable as she was to understand what Jesus had told her, his love meets her where she can receive the blessing and life, and he said, I am he.

It totally changes this woman. Totally changes her. The work of grace has been done. A poor Samaritan woman has received the Messiah of Israel. She's so excited that she even forgets her water pot. She forgets the circumstances that she's in and she forgets the toil that she's involved in. She's so engrossed now with this new object of her life, she must tell everyone.

Isn't that cool? You wonder sometimes, so many churches and so many organizations feed off of evangelism. You know why? Because they see when a soul is truly saved, how much focus that soul has and they can't help but tell everyone what's happened to it.

I was that way when I was saved. All of my former buddies, I got thrown out of their houses one at a time. But I couldn't stop talking. I had friends say to me, if you become one of those Jesus people, I'll never talk to you again. I thought, well, okay. Really. I couldn't stop talking. For months on end. So I understand what's going on with her. Her whole focus has gone off of her situation and on to him.

And isn't that what God's about? Isn't that what he wants? He wants every human being to come to his son and not intellectually, but be taken up with him. So that they are so focused on him that that's all they think about. So as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, that's what we do. We point people to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay. Didn't see a question. Say that again. Didn't see a question in the 29. This is not the Christ, is it? Is not this the Christ? In other words, when she's talking to people, she's saying, based on what I'm telling you, is not this person the Christ? In other words, verse 27, upon this came his disciples, well, we'll talk about his disciples in a minute, his disciples marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no man said, What do you want or who do you seek or why are you talking to her? The woman then left her water pot and went away into the city and said to the man, come and see a man who told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Her criteria for the Christ is a man who tells you everything you ever did.

What would we call that today? We would call that the conviction of the Holy Spirit, wouldn't we? Wouldn't we? Isn't the first step in salvation is for the Spirit of God to reveal to you your lack of standing before God without condemning you? Do you see that?

The Spirit of God comes and shows you, without you feeling rejected by Him, exactly what your standing is, along with the grace being there at the same time. But you don't get presented with a Savior until you figure out you need one. Well, if you don't know you're standing before God in your sinful condition, you don't need a Savior. So God, in His grace and His love, presents to a non-believer their lack of standing and their sinful standing in themselves without condemning them. Because grace is coming at them. That's exactly what Christ did here. George.

One of the things that's important to notice here is that the story doesn't end with any kind of change on her part or anything like that. It's a huge deal that the Spirit convicts her of her sin, but it's completely irrelevant to the salvific process, what happens afterwards. You know, the Lord Jesus doesn't try to extract some sort of life-changing commitment or anything like that.

That's right. some life-changing commitment or anything like that. So, in light of that, what's the responsibility put on us in terms of talking to a non-believer about salvation? Where should the focus be? On the grace of God and the salvation and the glory of God that has come to you. Not on, now that you're a Christian, or if you're going to be one, here's the rules on how you're supposed to live.

Not that. What changed this woman? If it wasn't commitment, what changed her? Her conscience. But what changed her towards Christ? It was grace that did it. It's the grace of God that motivates this woman. It's not any commitment or a couple of new laws in her back pocket. It's grace that did it. I'm telling you grace is the greatest motivator there is. If God shows you your sinful condition and by grace he saves you, how do you respond to something like that? Oh, I'll get around to being good next week? I don't think so. I don't think so. You get taken up with the grace. Now, in verse 31-34, we're not going to make it.

In the meantime, his disciples sought him, saying, Master, eat. And he said unto them, I have food to eat that you know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him anything to eat? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. What's the food? What really is the food here?

The will of God? To do the will of God. Isn't that something? That the Lord Jesus Christ nourishment came from doing his Father's will. Boy, that's way beyond anything you and I could ever hope to do. Wrong. As we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, do you think it's possible that you and I would be so taken up with doing the Father's will that food wouldn't matter to us? I think absolutely, because if it's true of the Son of God, it's certainly going to be true of you. We have his life. And the love of God, how do I say this, the intimacy between the Father and the Son is of such a character that as we enter into that, our focus is so on the Lord Jesus Christ and his grace that we respond in kind.

We're always looking for rules. The Lord Jesus didn't look for a rule. He and the Father loved each other. His whole desire and his whole focus was to do the Lord's will. Now, do the Father's will. So, the food really is the fact that he brought grace and he loved to dispense it because it demonstrated the real character of his Father.

See that? And he knew that even though he had given the law, and the Jews had not done so good living under it, that the thing that would change man was the power of grace, and that the power of grace is the one thing that will motivate activity. It's the one thing that will do it, nothing else will. You okay with that? All right. 35 through 38.

Say not ye, there are yet four months and then comes the harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. And he that reaps receives the wages and gathers fruit unto the life eternal, that both he that sows and they that reap may rejoice together. And here is that saying true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that on which you bestowed no labor. Other men labored and you are entered into their labor.

So my question to you is who are the players here? Who are the sowers and who are the reapers? Well, he says they are the reapers. They are the reapers. Who sowed? Who were the people that did the sowing? Now you're going to have to come back next week to find the answers. No, the prophets did the sowing.

We'll pick up there on question 17. Is that right? 17 next week. We almost made it. Let's close. To Father Howard, thank you for your grace. and how we thank you for your mercy towards us, Father, and that we would ask that we might be filled to the fullness of the knowledge of your Son and live in the grace that is ours already. We thank you, Father. We pray in your Son's name.