All right, why don't you take out your Bibles and turn to John
chapter 4. If you did not bring a Bible
with you, we have some under the seats in front of you.
It's page 889 if you're using that black hardcover Bible, John
chapter 4. So let me start with a story
this morning. In 2014, my wife and I were at a
leadership conference and we were participating at a time of
corporate prayer. So there were probably about 150
or so pastors and our wives all praying together in a in a room.
And during prayer, I had a thought fly into my mind that
felt like it was from God. I felt like he said that I was
supposed to hand off the church, that I was currently pastoring
Clear River Church in Lafayette, IN, and that my wife and I were
supposed to plant another church.
Now that was news to me because I had not been thinking in that
direction when I was thinking about my life and my future.
We were very situated in Indiana, but it felt very clear.
So I did what I normally do. If I feel like God is speaking
something to me, I write it down in my journal.
That way I can test it, I can pray over it, I can share it
with other people. And so I sat down, I wrote this
out in my journal. I stood back up to get back into
prayer with everybody in the room.
And as soon as I stood up, someone from across the room
said, I feel like the Lord is saying that one of our pastors
here is supposed to hand off his church and plant another church.
And so it's one of those things I was like, oh boy, here we go.
I think this is you, Lord. We took about a year after that
to pray and seek counsel from other people who we trusted.
And over the course of that year, the picture began to
crystallize and my wife had some clarity that we were supposed to
move to Florida to plant a church and particularly in a
university city. So in June of 2015, we planned a
little visit. We flew into Tampa.
We were going to visit Tampa, Gainesville, and Tallahassee and
just praying. God lead us.
Where do you want us? While we were before we had
come, I had been done a little bit of research on churches in
the various cities and I bumped into Greenhouse Church, which
many of you know, Greenhouse Church, large prominent church
in town. They actually owned this campus
that we currently that we currently meet in.
And back in 2015, they were still meeting here.
And so I looked them up. I reached out to some of their
pastors. I said, hey, we're thinking
about church planting in Gainesville.
Can we meet up? So they were the pastors, Mike
and Robbie were very gracious to spend some time with me and
Sarah and talk with us. And it was actually right there,
right where that stroller is. My wife and myself, Pastor Mike
Pats and Pastor Robbie Johnson, we're all standing there.
And I asked Mike and Robbie, I said, hey, Vita Springs is
similar in a lot of ways to Greenhouse Church.
Do you think there's room for another church like Greenhouse
here in Gainesville? And I will never forget this,
Mike. Pat started waving his hand over
an imaginary field of wheat. And he said, the fields are
white for harvest. The fields are white for
harvest. And that, for me, in that
moment, felt like a clear call from God that this is where I
want you to move. This is where I want you to
plant. So we went back to Indiana and
one year later 52 people moved from Indiana and Illinois here
to Gainesville, FL to plant what is now Vita Springs Church.
And this is a cool little thing, kind of like a little wink from
God. I had that conversation with
Mike and Robbie on June 3rd, OK of 2015.
On June 3rd of 2018, we had our very first service here in this
room. And so that just felt like
another confirmation. God is behind this.
We're doing the right thing and He's leading us.
But I will never forget that word.
The fields are white for harvest. 10 years later, Mike
was right. Those 52 people have turned into
around 300 people at Vita Springs Church over the past
nine years. We've baptized 106 people.
We've had many people who have grown in their love for God and
their love for other people who have matured in their faith.
Many have experienced the truth and the love and the power and
the goodness of God and are now extending God's truth and love
and power to other people. And so today I want to look,
we're actually as we're preaching through John, we're
coming up to where Mike got that phrase from in John chapter 4.
So this is a really fun text for me.
This has very deep meaning for me personally.
Let me recap where we've been in John four, and then we'll dive
into verse 31 through verse 42. Gordon preached the last couple
weeks on the first parts of John 4.
We're reading about an encounter that Jesus has with a Samaritan
woman at a water well outside a village in Samaria called Sicar.
Jesus had travelled to this area intentionally.
This was a really kind of a forbidden area if you were a Jew
because the Samaritans were half breeds.
They were Jews who intermarried with the Assyrians who were not
followers of the God of the Bible.
And so he goes to this area so that he can meet her.
He has this encounter with her at the well.
He tells her about the living water that He offers and only He
offers that will ultimately satisfy her deepest thirst,
which is her soul thirst. He reveals to her that He is the
Christ, the long-awaited Messiah King.
She is deeply impacted by this conversation that she has with
Jesus and she goes back into the village to tell the other people
about him. If you look at verse 29, she
says come see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Can this be the Christ, right? She is just blown away.
Jesus has read her mail. Jesus has offered her this
amazing offer of life in him. And verse 30 says they went out
of the town and were coming to him.
So these people, because of this woman's testimony, now we're
coming out to the well to come meet Jesus.
Meanwhile, Jesus's disciples had been in town and they're getting
some food for him. They come back and they catch
the tail end of this conversation.
Now John the the apostle John who wrote the Gospel of John, is
recording a conversation that Jesus had with his disciples in
the wake of this encounter with the woman at the well.
And in this he teaches them what fuels him and also what their
job is. And by way of extension, we
learn what our job is, what our purpose is.
So that's where we're going today.
Let me give us a brief moment of quiet before we read the Bible.
And I want you to take just a few moments to clear your head
and declutter your heart. We come in to church with lots
of noise. And so let's take a moment
before we hear from God to just quiet the noise.
Some of you have come in with troubles, with sorrows, with
anxieties, and I want to encourage you to just lay all of
that down before Jesus's feet and expect him to speak to you
now and to minister to you. So I'm going to give us a moment
of silence and then I'll read the text for us.
John chapter 4 starting in verse 31 says Meanwhile 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 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. 1 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. Many Samaritans from the town
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 2 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, for we have heard for ourselves and we
know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.
Let's pray, Jesus, we thank you that you are the Savior of the
world, that you came to bring us water that quenches our soul
thirst, that you came to offer us food that really nourishes us
not just physically but spiritually for eternity.
And we pray that you would teach us and that you would grow us up
as disciples of Jesus. Today, as we look to your words,
have your way among us. Jesus, we love you, we rely on
you, and we pray all these things in your name.
Amen. OK, so just like Jesus did in
the earlier part of the story with water, where he uses a
common physical substance of life to make a spiritual point,
he does the exact same thing now with his disciples.
He uses this conversation about food to illustrate a spiritual
point for his disciples. So verse 31 says, meanwhile the
disciples were urging him to eat, saying Rabbi, eat.
So they had hiked at this point for around 30 miles from
Jerusalem to Cycar. So this is a a long hike.
It's a hot day. Jesus is weary, Jesus is hungry.
They stop at a well to get some water and the disciples go into
town to get some Chick-fil-A for Jesus and and if you ask me, he
has it with he has a spicy chicken sandwich with extra
Pickles and Buffalo sauce because that's the right way to
order your Chick-fil-A. So he needs nourishment.
His disciples go to get him some food and they come back with
food verse 32 but he said to them, I have food to eat that
you do not know about. 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?
So Jesus does what Jesus does, right?
This is very Jesus. He gets all spiritual, right?
He gets all mysterious, like he's this sage now and he's
trying to teach them something uses this using this idea of
food. And the disciples are just like
the disciples. They're kind of dense
spiritually. And so they're just confused.
What are you talking about? You have food, we've walked for
30 miles and not a Publix insight.
Did you smuggle some granola bars?
Like where did you get this food from?
They're just not on the same page as him trying to
understand. And so Jesus clarifies verse 34.
He said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me
and to accomplish his work. So Jesus is saying to them, he
says what satisfies me ultimately, what nourishes me
ultimately is not physical food, but it is to do the will and the
work of my Father in heaven. That's what fuels me.
That's what satisfies me, obedience to my heavenly Father
doing his will. That is fuel for me.
So there's an important, important principle here for us
as followers of Jesus, like Jesus, for us to be spiritually
satisfied and healthy, we have to be doing the will of God.
We have to be seeking his will and doing his will.
We're supposed to be accomplishing the work of the
Father. It's fuel for our souls and we
need the right fuel, right? For the thing to run right, you
need the right fuel. If any of you ever gone to gas
station and you have an unleaded vehicle, but you grab the green
nozzle, which is diesel, and put diesel fuel in your unleaded
vehicle, anybody ever do that before anybody willing to admit
it? I know some of you have.
I've almost done that before, right?
It's a little tricky, but you don't put diesel in an unleaded
car. It doesn't run on that.
If you put diesel fuel in your unleaded engine, it's going to
gunk up all your stuff. And I don't know anything about
cars. That's why I just call it stuff.
All the stuff inside it's, it's going to make a mess.
You need the right fuel so that the vehicle can run properly.
Or those of you who have children, you know, when you go
to maybe you go to grandma and grandpa's house for the weekend
and there's no food rules anymore.
And all of a sudden your kids are just acting bonkers off the
wall. And you're like, what in the
world happened to you? What did you eat for breakfast?
And usually the answer is something like Skittles,
Twizzlers, Lucky Charms, but only the marshmallows, right?
It's like, no wonder you're off the wall because you don't have
the right fuel in you. You're not running properly.
See, the world says the world has all kinds of ideas for us to
how to be satisfied, right? If you achieve this level of
education and prestige, then you will be satisfied, right?
If you attain this level of income, if you live in this kind
of neighborhood, if your lot is this big, if you drive a certain
kind of car, if you dress in a certain kind of way, right?
If you are dating or married to this kind of person or that kind
of person, that is going to be what brings you satisfaction.
If you're successful, if you have good ABS, if people respect
you, if you have lots of sexual encounters, that's what's going
to satisfy you. That's what the world tells us.
But that's not the right fuel. That's not what we're made to
drive on. And so just like parents have to
teach their kids to eat healthy food, that's going to fuel you,
right? Jesus is teaching his disciples
and he's he's teaching us how to be healthy.
What fuels you properly spiritually?
So what is the will of God? OK, What is the will of God?
What is the work of God? If Jesus says that's my food,
right, then we want to know what is the will of God and the work
of God. So usually when we think about
the will of God, we think individually and specifically.
OK? What I mean by that is I'm
trying to figure out the will of God.
OK, God, what do you want me to major in?
Right? College students, what do you
want me to major in? I want to know your will for my
life. It's very individuals, very
specific. Maybe you graduate.
What job do you want me to take? Lord, I have these three offers.
What's your will? Who should I marry?
How many kids should I have? Where should I live?
When do you want me to retire? Right.
They're usually decisions about our life when we're thinking
about the will of God. But Jesus answers this question
not individually. And specifically when he's
talking about the will of God, he's talking.
He answers this corporately, and he answers this broadly.
OK, so 30,000 foot view, bigger picture.
And he uses a farming illustration to answer this
question. What is the will of God and what
is the work of the Father? So let me read verses 35 through
38, summarize it, and then I'll come back and kind of work
through it. So he says, do you not say there
are yet four months? Then comes the harvest.
So that's a common saying among the farmers of the region.
There's four months and 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 Reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true.
1 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. So what he's saying here is the
will of God and the work of God that nourishes the souls of
God's people is the work of sowing and reaping.
OK. It's the work of sowing or
scattering seeds and reaping, which is what?
Bringing in the harvest, right? That's what satisfies.
So what does that mean when we're talking about Christian
things and spiritual things? Well, sowing is sharing the
gospel, right? We're sharing the truth of
Jesus, the the gospel message with other people.
This message that Jesus alone saves, right?
That's sowing. Jesus offers you eternal life.
This is what he just did with the woman at the well.
He said you want to be satisfied on the way, right?
He was sowing truth, gospel truth into her life.
Reaping, harvesting would be helping people put their trust
in Jesus as Savior and Lord, right?
If you want to be crude about it, you might say sealing the
deal, right, Getting them to trust in Jesus, not that you can
personally get them to do that, but it's helping them in that
process where they would come in as his harvest.
This is why Jesus came. This is why Jesus came.
Listen to what he says in Luke 1910.
It says for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
So this is Jesus's primary mission, right?
There's all these lost people in the world, people who don't know
God. They don't understand that God
is mighty, that God is holy, that God reigns and rules over
all, a sovereign king, and that we are sinful.
We are broken. We are like, we're like lost
sheep wandering around, doomed for destruction.
Jesus came into the world as the Good Shepherd to share this
message that he is the Savior, He is the Messiah.
He came to gather in the lost sheep of Israel and of the whole
world. He came to seek and save the
lost. And I will add to that.
This is what Jesus loves to do. This is what He loves to do.
In Ezekiel 1832, God says is I have no pleasure in the death of
anyone, so turn and live. It's like, you know, you want to
know what gives my heart joy and pleasure?
When people recognize their sinful condition and they repent
of their sin, they turn away from that and they turn to Jesus
for forgiveness and eternal life.
That's what God loves. That's what Jesus loves to do.
Now, let me go on a little theological kind of jog here and
I think this will make sense. You'll understand why I'm
talking about this. So we believe in predestination,
OK, which means God preordains whom he will save.
The term commonly used for that is election.
And, and those are dirty words in some Christian circles, OK?
And so I recognize this. That's why I want to talk about
this briefly because I just, I just told you Jesus loves to
save. He loves, He came to save
people. So just because we believe in
election and predestination, that does not mean that God is
stingy with his salvation. Let me read a couple passages
for you that get at this and these are in consecutive
chapters in the Bible. This is Ephesians chapter 1 and
then chapter 2 and these will be up on the screen for you.
So Paul writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and blameless before Him in love.
He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus
Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of
His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the beloved.
Some of the clearest verses in all of Scripture about
predestination and election. But then look where Paul goes in
chapter 2. Remember I said he God loves to
save. It is God's joy to save, says.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with
which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated
us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that
in the coming ages He might show the we get this immeasurable
riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
He loves to save. The fact that he would save any
is amazing. It's amazing.
The fact that he would come for any of us sinners is just
boggles the mind that a holy God would come for wretched people
like us, to rescue us, to die for us.
But it's not just that he comes for a few.
He loves to save. He will save a great multitude.
That no one can number is what John says to us in the Book of
Revelation. Imagine on that day we're all
worshiping together in heaven, and you're looking out on all of
the Christians, all the people who put their trust in Jesus.
And it is just a sea of people, a multitude that no one can
number. And every single one of them is
a story of God's mercy and grace, His saving power.
God's election is not at odds with His love to save sinners.
It is a display of His love towards sinners.
Now His electing saving purposes are carried out in this world by
willing servants. If that is how God ordained it
to be, that we would work hard to sow and to reap and to sow
and to reap, to scatter seeds of the gospel and then to help
people come into his Kingdom, that's the work that he has for
us. So let's look back at these
verses again. He says, do you not say verse
35, there are yet four months and then comes the harvest.
So again, this is a common quote among farmers.
We planted seeds and now there's no crop, right?
It's not time yet. So you just sit around and wait
for four, for four months, right?
That's what farmers do. They just do nothing for four
months, right? And if you who were raised on a
farm, you're like, absolutely not.
There's like lots of work to do. But that's the idea, right?
Like it's not time yet. It's not time for harvest yet.
And we do this all the time. If you've been in that spot
where you feel like God is nudging you to share the gospel
with someone and then you can like that, make 15 excuses why
it's not time. Why four months and then the
harvest, right? Well, they're too old, they're
too young, they're too rich, they're too poor, they're too
smart, they're not smart enough, right?
They're too successful, they're too cool.
They're not going to believe it, right?
It's like your mind and the enemy behind that can just
paralyze you with this. It's just not time yet.
But look at what Jesus says. He says, this is what you say.
You say it's not time yet. And then he says, but look, I
tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white
for harvest. He says, you say it's not time,
but I say it's time, it's time. Look around you.
And I imagine the Samaritan woman who has gone down to the
village and has told all the people about Jesus.
And now she has turned around, she's coming back.
And behind her is a whole pile of people from SYCAR coming
toward him. And Jesus says, lift your eyes
up. Look, you see the harvest.
They're believing they're coming.
They want to know me. The fields are white.
It's time to bring in the harvest.
He's talking about wheat, right? When wheat is ripe, the seeds
turn this white color, right? He might say the bananas are
yellow, right? The apples are red, the oranges
are orange, right? It's time, it's time to bring
them in. And he goes on in verses 36 and
37, he says already the one who reaps, so the Reaper is the
harvester is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life
so that the sower and Reaper may rejoice together.
For here the saying holds true. 1 sows and another reaps.
So it seems like what Jesus is saying here is John the Baptist
was the sower, right? He came before Jesus saying
repent, right? The Messiah is coming.
Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
He's like here he is he's he's been sowing.
Jesus is the Reaper and he's like, look, I'm already getting
paid right it the people are coming in, harvest is coming in.
The Jews and Samaritans are believing and then look at what
he does in verse 38. And this is where it hits US
home. He says, I sent you to reap that
for which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have
entered into their labor. Jesus is including his disciples
in his work of sowing and reaping.
He's saying this isn't just for me to do, this is for us to do.
This isn't just what nourishes my soul.
This isn't just what fuels me. This is what fuels us.
This is what fuels my church, my disciples, right?
The others have labored. He's talking about the prophets,
right? The ones who've come before,
calling God's people to repentance.
The others, for centuries, they're doing this.
They're calling Israel to repent, predicting the coming of
the Messiah, and he says you have entered into their labor.
They were sewing, and now you come and you're carrying the
torch in doing God's will and accomplishing his work.
So let me try to just drive this home for us in a few different
ways as we think about our lives in 2025.
What does this mean for us? Well, first the fields were
white for harvest and you have to understand they are still
white for harvest. It is so tempting for us to
think, oh, this was back then. Oh, this is because Jesus walked
on planet Earth. It's not like that anymore.
We live in dark days. It's too hard.
You know what? In every generation they say the
same thing. All cultures crazy and politics
are crazy and people are not open to this stuff.
Every generation makes excuses for why.
Four months and then the harvest.
But Jesus is telling us, no, it's now, it's here, it's now
Jesus is still at work in this world.
He's doing his father's work among us in Gainesville in 2025.
You know, sometimes his work is more visible.
And we call that revival, by the way, when the work of God and
sowing and reaping is more visible.
And sometimes it's less visible. But understand, he's always at
work. Some statistics for you.
Right now, globally speaking, Christianity is growing at a
faster rate than world population growth.
OK, so that's a good thing. That means we're not just
replacing ourselves, but we're actually gaining some ground.
OK. In 2024, global Christianity
grew by around 1%. While popular, the population
grew by about .9%. OK.
And when you stretch that out over like 678 billion people,
whatever we have, that's a lot of people.
That little difference is a lot of people.
It's moving fastest in Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa,
Latin America, and Vita Springs Church because there are babies
popping out everywhere around here.
Every time I come to church, I hear about another person who's
pregnant. So we are doing our part in
populating the world with Christians.
Right now. There are somewhere around, it's
hard to estimate, but 2.3 to 2.4 billion Christians in the world.
By 2050, there will be 3 billion Christians in the world.
A lot of that growth is actually going to happen in Nigeria.
It is Christianity is exploding in Nigeria.
And you might say, what about the United States of America?
I mean, surely in the United States of America, Christianity
is in decline. Well, Barna Group did a study
actually this year in 2025, and they found that 66% of US adults
say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is
still important in their life today.
That is up from 54% just three years ago.
So from 54% to 66% in three years is substantial.
You know who's fueling that trend and growth?
Well, yes, Jesus Christ. But I was thinking more
statistically, millennials and Gen.
Z, and in particular young men, it has never been like that
before. There is a hunger in the next
generation to know who Jesus is. There is a hunger in the young
men of the next generation to know who Jesus is.
That is very encouraging for me. It ought to be very encouraging
for you as well that Jesus is on the move.
The fields are white. You know, This is why we're in a
university city, because we wanted to come to a town where
18 to 25, there's a lot of 18 to 25 year olds who are making
decisions that will impact the rest of their life.
Who do I marry? What am I going to believe and
what am I going to do with my life, right?
We want to meet young adults right in that matrix and present
Jesus and the gospel to them so that he becomes the center of
their universe. Not money, not success, not
publications, not respect, but Jesus becomes the center of
their life and they go on for the rest of their days and they
live with him at the center that they would then give their life
to sowing and reaping. We have a wonderful opportunity
just three miles down the road with 75,000 college students
between UF and Santa Fe. The fields are white and so we
need more laborers. We need more laborers.
We need more sowers. We need more reapers.
Listen to Matthew Chapter 9 verses 36 to 38.
This will be up on the screen for you.
He said when he Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion for
them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without
a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples,
the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into His harvest. He's saying there's so much work
to do and we don't have enough people to do all the work that
needs to be done. So pray to your Father that He
would raise up more laborers who will help in this work of sowing
and reaping. We need people who are willing
to prioritize the Father's work over their own personal worldly
ambitions. Bigger bank account, nicer car,
more square footage, bigger boat, bigger vacations, better
vacations. We need people who are willing
to give their time, their prayer, their energy, their
money for this work of sowing and reaping.
We need more people. We need to be praying that God
would raise up more people who are willing to go whenever,
wherever, to whomever when God calls.
We need people who are willing to be brave, full of compassion
and love, who are willing to take a risk to share Jesus with
people who they know and love. Remember talking to one of our
college students. He was telling me, he said, I
came home, I live with a guy who's not a follower of Jesus.
I came home one day and he was sitting in his room and I just
knew, like, I felt like God was saying, you got to go tell him
about Jesus right now. As I said, what did you do?
He said, I walked in his room. I sat down in his bed and said,
hey, can you tell me about that? Can I tell you about Jesus?
And he said, the guy gave me kind of a sideways look, like he
wanted to say no, but he didn't have the nerve to say no.
And so I told him about Jesus. I said, how did he react?
He said I don't think he liked it very much.
I said, well, good job, good job doing it right.
Just courage, bravery, willingness to share the
message. We need more people who see
clearly how devastating it is that apart from faith in Jesus,
people will suffer apart from God in hell for eternity.
We need eyes to see that That is spiritual reality.
That is bedrock biblical reality.
But we are so good at just blinding ourselves and numbing
ourselves to that reality. Had a conversation with one of
our leaders a couple weeks ago and he was sitting on my couch
weeping because he's so distraught about the reality of
hell and that there are a lot of people who are going to end up
there. And I was, I was moved.
I thought, I'm glad I'm it's hard to carry that burden, but
I'm glad that you see it clearly.
Jim Elliott, who was a missionary to the Warani tribe
in Ecuador, he was actually killed by a member of the Warani
tribe. He's famous for this saying.
He said, he said, listen up. He said he is no fool who gives
what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep.
All the worldly stuff, you can't take that with you to gain what
he cannot lose. Eternal life.
You know, we had 106 people baptized here over the past nine
years because 52 people were willing to leave comfort, leave
family, leave friends in Indiana and move 900 miles South to
plant Vita Springs Church. Now, they're not heroes.
Don't make them heroes. They're willing laborers, OK?
We all are simply called to be willing laborers.
Whatever he would call, whatever he would ask.
I have some friends who used to be a part of the Springs Church.
They're moving to Morocco this summer, which has less than 1%
Christian influence in Morocco, and they're moving there like
not going for a month or a couple months or even a couple
years. They're like, we are like
selling everything, like we're going all in and we're just
there until God does something else.
By the way, if you want to support them, let me know
because they're raising support right now.
They're not heroes. They're just willing laborers.
Jesus says pray that God would raise up more laborers for the
harvest. Why?
Because the fields are white. Because God's at work in the
world, participating in the Father's work of sowing and
reaping nourishes our souls. You get a thrill out of it.
Have you ever, have you ever been a part of helping lead
someone to faith in Jesus? It is exhilarating when God uses
you, whether it's in a big way or a small way to help that
person come to faith. You might say, but I don't
preach, right? I'm not a preacher.
I don't want to be a preacher. That's fine.
You don't have to be a preacher to help lead people to faith in
Jesus. Different people play different
parts in that process over different times.
The body, we are the body of Christ, many different parts,
and we all work together to do God's work.
Some days you're the mouth and you're sharing Jesus with
another person. Some days you're the hands and
you're just serving people with the love of Christ.
Some days you're the heart and you're the one that's behind the
scenes praying for those people. Some days you're the arms and
you're just embracing and comforting.
Some days you're the feet and you're going.
We're all a part of the body. We have our roles that we play.
You might be just one link in the chain that Jesus uses to
draw someone to himself, and you don't even realize you're a link
in that chain. I remember a girl named, her
name was Heather Phillips. She was in several of my classes
when I was in high school. She was a Christian.
I knew it because she wore a cross and she always had a Bible
on the top of all of her stack of books that she would carry
around. She was the kindest, sweetest,
most respectful woman in our class in the high school.
She never opened her mouth and told me distinctly about Jesus,
but you know what? God used her to help me become a
follower of Jesus. I think about her witness, her
godliness, the kind of radiance in her, and I knew that she
loved Jesus. That had an effect on me.
I respected her even though I didn't believe what she
believed. That was a link in the chain
that God used to draw me to faith.
You have no idea what link you are in the chain that is drawing
that person to salvation. So are you participating?
Are you participating? Are you aware that you're
supposed to be participating? Christianity is a team sport.
That's the way that it's supposed to be.
Not the pastors do all the work and the members just, yeah, good
job. I'm so happy to be a part of
this team. No, there's no bench warmers.
We all play. And as we do it, our soul is
nourished. Let's finish up these verses.
We see the results of sowing and reaping.
Verse 39 Let me get a drink here.
Verse 39, it says many Samaritans for that from that
town believed in him because of the woman's testimony and here
is her testimony. He told me all that I ever did
right. He knew me.
He knew that I had had five ex husbands.
He knew that I was being sexually immoral with the man
that I'm living with, and he still offered himself to me, and
he forgave me and he saved me. He knows me and he set me free.
That's her testimony. Verse 40.
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, for we have heard for ourselves and we
know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.
So wonderful story. This woman at the well, she
starts as the harvest. She very quickly becomes the
sower and the Reaper. You see that Jesus saves her.
Jesus opens her eyes and now she goes and she cannot keep her
mouth shut. And now she's sewing and then
God's using her to bring in more her testimony, her story of who
Jesus is to her and what he has done for her has drawn this city
to Jesus. They now, because of her story,
encounter him. And that must happen for
everyone to be saved. You must encounter Jesus for
yourself. You can't get saved through
somebody else by proxy. You've ultimately got to come to
Jesus yourself. And that's exactly what they do
is that they hear His words for themselves and now they're
convinced and they believe that he is the Messiah.
Jesus establishes by going into Samaritan territory that he's
not only the Savior of the Jews, but He is the Savior just like
they say of the world. He's come for all who would
believe. Couple closing thoughts and then
we're going to worship together. I love, I love the practicality
of this story because we see the woman just can't keep her mouth
shut and there's like fruit right away, right?
Her story, her personal story is a tool that God uses to draw
people into himself. Personal testimonies are
powerful tools that God uses to draw people to Jesus.
Because, you know, everybody wants what's good, right?
You want what's good. I want what's good restaurant.
I don't want to go to a junkie restaurant.
I want to go to a good restaurant.
If I'm buying something on Amazon, it's like I want what's
good. This is why somebody invented
reviews. I'm looking at the five stars.
I'm like, OK, that looks good. I want, I want what's good.
It's true for spiritual truth too.
You realize that you got what's good.
You've got Jesus, you've got the gospel, you've got what's good.
You've met him, you know him, he's forgiven you, you've been
set free by him, you've been given eternal life.
You've got what's good. Your personal story, you can
think of it kind of like an online review, right?
Where you are just simply telling the merits of the one
who rescued you. So I want to encourage all of
you again, be very, very practical now.
I want to encourage all of you to get good at sharing your
personal testimony of salvation, who Jesus is, and how He saved
you. OK?
Just figure out how to tell that story.
And I always encourage people to have different versions of their
story. Have a 30 minute version so that
when you're sitting at dinner with someone and it comes up,
spiritual things come up or you bring them up over the course of
dinner, you can share with them who Jesus is and how He saved
you and what that is meant for your life.
Have a three minute version so that when you're waiting in line
at Chipotle and the person behind you, you get into a
conversation with them. You can share it with them in
line at Chipotle. Have a 32nd version so that when
you're in the elevator going up to the 12th floor with someone,
you can share it with them. And I would encourage you 2 to
have a three second version. I was actually recently
listening to a a sermon from an old pastor of mine and he was
telling a story about his son who is a grade school teacher in
Iowa. And you know, he he's a
Christian. He's open about it at the
school. And when the kids ask him why
he's a Christian, he says to them, life is just better with
Jesus. That that's a three second
testimony right there. Life is just better with Jesus,
right? It piques their interest.
Learn to share your personal story.
Well, we're actually going to have some handouts in the back.
There's going to be a little table in the back as you go out
the door. It's a very helpful article with
some practical principles to help you think through how to
share your personal testimony well with other people.
OK, there's 100 copies, first come, first serve.
Grab them on your way out. And then finally, as I close
understand, Jesus is calling us into his work of sowing and
reaping. He's calling you individually.
He's calling us corporately. The question is, will you
participate? Will you participate?
Will you give yourself to that call?
Will you give your life? Will you give your energy to
that? And my prayer for us is that we
would answer that with a resounding yes, just like in the
story in Isaiah chapter 6, the Angel takes the coal and touches
his lips. God says, who's going to go?
Who's going to go? And Isaiah, here I am.
Send me. I'm willing.
I'm willing to be a laborer. I pray that individually, as a
man or woman who has experienced the grace of God, that you would
be full of love and full of courage to tell others what he's
done for you. And I pray that as a church, we
would always be willing to do whatever God would ask, to go
wherever, whenever, to whomever, that we would be quick to obey,
to invite others to come and meet the Savior of the world.