Another Man's Treasure | Wade Branch

Well, good morning. It's great to see everybody

who's here today. I am excited to lead our study

again because I have the best thing to talk about there is

this. God's Word is good, man.

It is a beautiful section of scriptures we have to cover this

morning. And thank you for being here.

If you're a visitor, thank you for joining us for worship.

If you're from the community, we welcome you.

And what a great day to be together, to worship.

We're going to be taking all of our texts in John chapter 4.

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We're not even going to do any reference scriptures.

I don't think this morning, I don't think I had any reference

scriptures. So if you want to stay in one

place, have your Bible open, we're going to be right there in

John chapter 4. And this morning I'm just kind

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of continuing A spontaneous series that originated from, we

started in Nicodemus in John chapter 3, talking about the man

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and his God meeting together. Then I went back and talked

about John chapter 1 and we learned some lessons of

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evangelism from John chapter 1. And I'm just kind of keeping the

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flow. I'm just moving on through

because I found too much good stuff in John chapter 4 to pass

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it up as an opportunity to study.

So if we remember back, we're trying to get the flow of how

this book is written. John is a, his writings are very

deifying. They focus on the divinity of

Jesus. And the other gospels have

different, you know, focuses or different angles, points of view

this letter or this, this epistle is very much for the

point of view of God's deity and Jesus's deity.

And so we noticed that how it applied to God coming down the

word became flesh, which is Jesus himself.

God enters, he provides, he spreads his word

evangelistically through people. John chapter 2 talks about a

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wedding feast, how Jesus comes in and he's actually supporting

the celebration. He's he's doing his miracle, his

miraculous work in celebration. And then he moves right into

cleansing the temple. Jesus cleansed the temple.

He, he supported the celebration, but cleansed the

temple. The place you might think he'd

be happy with, He actually came in and ripped into him.

He drove him out. You remember Brooks Cristwell is

not here too long ago. He covered that.

And so I wasn't going to dive back in.

Brooks covered when Jesus cleansed the temple.

Then we're working our way into John chapter 3.

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You have Jesus speaking with Nicodemus, and now we have Jesus

not just speaking with a Pharisee, Nicodemus, but

speaking with a woman and a very specific type of woman.

That's where we land in this grand view of this deity coming

down and spreading amongst men. So let's start here.

Here's our outline. We're going to cover another

man's treasure. We're going to cover spirit and

truth. We sing about that this morning.

It's been mentioned in our prayers a lot lately.

Where does that come from? It comes from this chapter.

Section 3 is going to be a work that sustains Section 4.

The model works. So section one, another man's

treasure. Starting in verse 3, it says,

Speaking of Jesus, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee.

So here's Jesus's journey. He's travelling from Ephraim all

the way up to Galilee where he's headed, and here is the path

that he takes. It says verse 4, but he needed

to go through Samaria. You can notice there's there's a

pretty direct path if you're going to go straight from here

all the way through. We know there's terrain.

They had to navigate lots of mountains.

Jesus chose the direct path through, but most people did it

because most people travelling here were also Jews.

That's where Jerusalem was. This is the Pharisees.

This is the religious leaders. This is their cream of the crop

and what most people do coming from from from Jerusalem and

Judea is they take a path and they go all the way around

Samaria or they go around the coastline.

If you take the coastal path from Judea all the way up to

Galilee, it's about 120 mile journey on foot or however they

travelled. Likely Jesus and his apostles,

his disciples were on foot. So Jesus takes this direct path

where other people would have gone 120 miles this way, or some

others would take the Jordan River Valley and go over here to

the to the east and take 100 mile journey.

The journey Jesus took was actually the straightest shot, a

70 mile journey, 70 to 80 miles. So there were Jews who would

have gone an extra 30 to 50 miles in the other direction to

avoid going through Samaria. You're like, what's going on?

What's wrong with Samaria? Is it stink?

Kind of kind of to them it's stink.

It said Jesus needed to go through Samaria.

We just established he didn't need to.

There's other ways around. He could have gone another way,

but Jesus needed to not for a physical reason.

He needed to go through there for a spiritual reason.

He had a path. He had an appointment to make

and he had an appointment with this woman.

Verse 5. So he came to a city of Samaria,

which is called Cycar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave

to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there.

Jesus therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by

the well. It was about the 6th hour.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

I'm going to come back to this. So don't don't forget about

Jacob's well and what we've read so far.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

Jesus said to her, give me a drink, for his disciples had

gone away into the city to buy food.

Then the woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you being

a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman, for Jews have

no dealings with Samaritans. OK, this is where we're going to

get the context and we're going to go back and read what we just

read through. So what is going on with this

situation? Number one, there are at least

three barriers here that Jesus is absolutely plowing right

through. Here's the first barrier.

There is the cultural rift. This is the biggest one that she

is calling out when she says Jews have no dealings with

Samaritans. What is the barrier?

During the Jewish history, there was a period, several times,

there were several periods where the Jews were taken into

captivity. Because God said if you will but

do my will, you will flourish, you will grow, you will be

provided for. Nations will fear you.

Everyone will get out of your way and the world will be yours,

so to speak. But they would sin, he says.

If you sin, then I will bring on all the destruction and the

plagues that you've seen. I will crush you.

I will make you a laughing stock.

God tells them this, So what happens?

They don't listen. And So what happens?

They go into captivity multiple times.

They lose their freedom. They lose their homeland.

To who? To the Assyrians.

There are several empires. They were just kind of like

getting whooped by every empire that came through and the most,

the last one, the most recent one was the Roman Empire.

It just kept happening. The Assyrians, though, captured

them and they were sent into exile out of their nation.

They were sent out when they wanted to, well, when they

wanted to come back. So they, when they're, they

turned back to God, God restored them and they're starting to

rebuild their nation. The Jews wanted to rebuild their

temple and they say we want to erect the structure and we're

ready to, to honour God again. Well, there's a problem here

because the Samaritans were a group inside of of the Jewish

nation that wanted to help. They wanted to help build this

temple too. But you know what happened when

they were in exile, instead of staying separate and apart from

the nations, the Assyrians that captured them, the Samaritans

just kind of said, well, we'll just intermarry with them.

We're just going to, we're going to adapt some of their cultures

and we're just going to kind of assimilate.

We're going to become like this, this worldly nation.

And the Jews were like, what are you guys doing?

We're in captivity here. Why are you intermarrying?

And remember, during this time, the Jews were supposed to be

separate and apart. Today we are a melting pot.

There is no neither Jew nor Greek.

We are all one in Christ Jesus. But that's not how it was back

then. They were by law supposed to be

separate from the nations around them.

So the people, the Jews were right in a sense when they said

you, you shouldn't be intermarrying with these people

and just accepting that this heathen culture.

And so the Jews had a disdain for what the Samaritans did.

So guess what? Hey guys, let's rebuild the

temple. Let's all get back together and

and build this thing back again. The Jews say no, you guys, you

guys stay away. You were separate from us.

Now you made your decision. You sided with the enemy, you

sided with sin itself. And the Jews opposed them

because of their unfaithfulness. They perceived.

Well, guess what? Then the then the Samaritan

said, well, forget you guys, then we're going to stop you

from building the temple. And they actively opposed read

the book of Ezra. They actively fought against the

rest of the Jews rebuilding the temple.

So you have this head to head. You're you're judging us.

You're going to be hard on us. We're going to come right back

on you and we're going to fight you too.

And so the Jews and Samaritans have this age-old conflict that

has established a long time before.

And that's the biggest factor in which this woman is saying, why

are you even talking to me? You have nothing to do with us.

Now let's go back. Why is he here?

Jesus could have chosen any path and he could have chosen any

location to meet this woman at. What did he choose?

He chose Jacob's well. Why did he choose this place?

Jacob's Well in the Bible is a place where a theme of where

special relationships are built. You think about where Moses met

his wife Zipporah. They met at a well.

You think about Isaac meeting his wife Rebecca.

It was at a well. That's where the interaction,

the the key interaction happened.

His servant met at the well. These new relationships are

started at the well and there's a new relationship about to be

built with this woman at Jacob's Well.

Jacob's well was a place of common ground.

So where these Jews and Samaritans both had common

history was at this place. They both revered this place as

a special heritage point. Jacob's well, the one he dug

himself. Jesus goes out of his way to

find a place of common ground in a foreign, a foreign people's

land, a place where relationships historically

begin. And why the well?

I also think it's because he's going to build the perfect

illustration for a sermon. Jesus was brilliant with this.

He set up a sermon about living water by walking to a well.

And I think fourthly, and maybe just as significant as the

others, Jesus is teaching that worship was no longer going to

be about a physical place. They had their temple, they had

their well, this place that was revered and it's no longer going

to be a physical place of significance.

Jesus is going to teach her that it's in spirit and in truth.

It's going to be a spiritual person that is the location and

the object of their worship. This location is not an

accident. The Bible says that God, if you

tried to write down all the things that Jesus did, the world

cannot contain this, the scrolls, right?

So he chose these things to show us because it's all significant.

OK, so we're at Jacob's well and Jesus therefore being wearied

from his journey, sat thus by the well.

It's likely that Jesus had just travelled about 30 or 40 miles

up to this point and going through this mountainous region,

he was wiped out. And as kind of the two main

points we're going to make about this lesson, this is one of

them. Your work and your weariness.

Jesus was no stranger to that. Jesus comes into the scenario

already dog tired, and when is it?

He sits by the well about the 6th hour.

So that should tell you how Jesus is feeling.

It's the middle of the day, it's hot, He's been hiking, he's been

climbing, but what else does it tell us?

It tells us something about this woman.

Would you go in the middle of the desert in the middle of a

hot day to get water in the middle of the day?

You want to do that. For those of you who have the

schedule flexibility, you do your grocery shopping in the

morning, you get your walk in in the morning or in the evening.

So why is this woman coming in the middle of the day?

Seems to be that she's trying to avoid people.

She's trying to avoid the rest of the crowd that's going out

there to get water themselves in the morning.

Why is this woman trying to avoid other people?

We're going to find out. Jesus said to her, give me a

drink for his disciples. I got away into the city to buy

food. It's so convenient that he

didn't have a somewhat thing to put his water in, right, Jesus,

he did that on purpose. He didn't have anything to get

water with. So he had to ask her.

He had to engage this woman. He had to set up a strategic

interaction with this woman to make some ground with her.

And what happens the woman says, how is that you being a Jew, ask

a drink for me, a Samaritan woman.

So the only it wasn't just the barrier of the Samaritan rift.

She's a woman. Women don't talk to the rabbi's

in this culture. It was even more separate.

You think the men versus women thing is, is something today.

It was bigger, big, big back then.

A rabbi would not have talked to a woman in public like this.

So you have the woman to man barrier, you have the Samaritan

to Jew barrier, you have the immoral and pure barrier, and

you have the private past to open truth barrier.

Jesus has plowed right through all this to talk to this woman

and she is confused. She's like, what are you doing?

Why is this Jesus showing us that there is no category you

can put yourself in when he can't get to you?

There's nothing he's going to, he's going to shy away from.

There's no hard thing that she's going to shy away from.

He comes to all and He came to this woman despite all the

things that were between her and him.

Verse 10 Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of

God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would

have asked him and he would have given you living water.

And so here's where the the devil speak comes out.

You're starting to see probably the the metaphor starting to pop

in here. He's talking to her about water,

but he's talking out of both sides of his mouth.

It's no longer just about water anymore.

And it's it's unclear whether she really understands that or

not. Sometimes these people just as

talking to her confused sometimes maybe they're getting

the hint, but he says he's basically saying I'm the gift of

God and I'm coming to you with with something more with living

water. Verse 11, the woman said to him,

Sir, you have nothing to draw with You didn't you didn't bring

a you didn't bring a bucket here.

You didn't bring a jar and the well is deep.

Where then do you get that living water?

I believe the metaphors continue here.

He is seeking to draw into this woman's heart, but there's a lot

deep there. This well is deep.

There's a lot of problems here. There's a lot of stuff.

And I don't even know if she realizes what she's saying, but

Jesus knows the well is deep. Where then do you get that

living water? Are you greater than our father

Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it his self as well

as his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered and said to her,

Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever

drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.

What's the spiritual parallel He's drawing out here?

She He is coming to her in her daily routine.

He's coming to her in the monotony.

He's coming to her on any old Tuesday.

She's not coming in seeking truth, asking questions.

You know, he meets her on the way praying like sometimes

happens. This is not one of those

situations. Jesus meets this woman in the in

the normal, in the mundane and she is going back to the same

place she's always gone to for sustenance.

And we're going to find out in a minute.

It wasn't just water she kept going back to, she kept going

back to man about to find out this this woman has a history

and she keeps going back to the same old place.

How about us? How about our vices, our

addictions, whether it's emotional or spiritual

entertainment, whether it's substance, whatever it might be,

our habits, habits, habits that might work into our life and

take over and control us. What do we keep going back to

for sustenance to keep us going? That's really just not working.

We just keep trying to add more and more things to our

collection of stuff we do to fill that hole.

It's all the metaphors. She's going back to water again,

But Jesus says I will give water that will make you never thirst

again. We see what he's saying, right?

We see he's saying that only Jesus will satisfy.

He has the living water. He has the only thing that's

going to fill. But the water that I shall give

him will become in him a fountain of water springing up

into everlasting life. What he's saying is if if you

have the living water of this kind, it's going to come out of

you too. What happens with the fountain?

You push water in, you get water pressure in.

You get water pressure out. If fountains everywhere, it

waters other things besides just the channel that took the water

in. He's making kind of a

foreshadowing here, too. What's about to happen with this

woman? I would ask you if you really

have living water in you, it should be coming out.

And if it's not coming out of you, if it's not coming out of

me, I better be asking some really tough questions.

Is there really living water in me, or is it a dried up pool?

Is it an empty well that used to be tapped into the right source

but is no longer tapped in there anymore?

Or maybe never was? Maybe the the dig started and

you got just above the water table and never struck water.

Maybe you dug but never tapped into that source of living

water. Jesus says if you tap into this

living water, what will naturally happen is it will

become as fountain of living water springing up into

everlasting life. We're going to see more.

He's going to expand upon what he's saying in just a minute.

Verse 15, the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, then I

may not thirst nor come here to draw.

So she's still stuck on the physical.

She's like, yeah, I love to not keep walking out here all the

time. Can you give me some this this

special invention you have where I don't have to keep trekking

out here in the middle of a hot day.

Now you go watch out. Whenever you ask Jesus to give

you something, you better watch out because he's about to cut a

little bit. As Tanner said this morning,

he's about to cut a little bit and she better be ready.

But he's going to expose without condemning.

He's going to heal and not humiliate.

He's exposing for the purpose of healing and not humiliation.

You cannot heal what you hide. And so Jesus presses in.

Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here.

So it's kind of like he he's, he's doing what would typically

be said like, hey, you know, bring another man with you

because it's always appropriate to, you know, man and woman

interaction because sometimes be inappropriate.

So you just want to bring, you know, bring someone else with

you so we can talk and make sure this is all appropriate.

Totally normal thing to say, but brilliant for him because he

knows what's going on with her. The woman answered and said, I

have no husband. OK, She thinks that's the end of

it, right? Jesus said to her, you have well

said you have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and

the one whom you now have is not your husband.

In that you spoke truly. So yeah, you were telling the

truth. But Jesus sees past her attempt

to put up a wall as you're going to see this woman's going to

deflect and she's going to put up walls quite a few times.

And Jesus says, yeah, you're right, but that's not the whole

story. This is why she's shamed.

This is likely why she's coming in the middle of the day in the

hot burning sun to draw water, because she's ashamed that

people know her. People know her past.

Now, we don't know what exactly is the cause, but no matter what

the cause is, it's shameful. It is shameful.

It is. It is embarrassing to have been

through this many men. Now.

Maybe it's because these men were were dirtbags.

It is true that the Old Testament had had started with a

permission to divorce because of the hardness of their hearts.

We learned that from the Scriptures that Moses, Jesus

said permitted them to divorce because of their own hardness.

And that's not God's will. Divorce period is not God's

will. But you know what these Jews

started doing? They made a list of what they

said was a reason you could divorce.

The list is ridiculous. It is the most minute things

that were obviously, this is a list written by men who want to

get out of their marriages. It's ridiculous.

It's things as simple as like, basically the equivalent of they

like the dinner she cooked. The list of ways these men could

have divorced her was extensive and ridiculous.

It may have been these men who are just jerks, but there's

always the other side. We don't know.

She could have had her own, you know, her own part in that.

It doesn't matter what the cause was.

It's embarrassing. It's shameful.

She doesn't want people to see that.

She doesn't want to let people in.

Other people might not even know.

And so they just doubt her. They just look at her with a

side eye. Jesus talks to her, though he

doesn't walk away. He has a conversation with her

Section 2 spirit. And in truth, the woman said to

him, Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.

So we talk about deflections. She it goes from her life and

she immediately kind of starts a different conversation.

She wants to kind of move the conversation away from her life

and she brings up a religious disagreement.

Is this really a question she has or is she trying to deflect?

You know, a lot of times what people do when they feel

convicted by the word of God, they want to talk about how much

church is bad and hypocritical and how much it's just a bunch

of cheaters. And they just want to bring up

all the disagreements. They want to bring up the

conflicts. And I think that's what this

woman is doing. She's bringing up religious

conflict in an attempt to kind of excuse her own responsibility

in the situation. And she says, our fathers

worshipped on this mountain. So where you're standing, this

is where we say we should worship.

And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one

ought to worship. You're like, how does this even

happen? Well, back in the old Law, they

were supposed to worship in the holy city of Jerusalem.

They were unified in one place. They're all supposed to come

back there. But what happened is the kings

got, the Kingdom got divided, and they started saying, oh,

just come over here and worship instead.

And we set up worship places over here and here.

And so it's easier for you. They had divided up where they

were supposed to be worshipping. And so it was confusing at this

point. This lady's like, what do you

say? What's right?

You Jews say it's supposed to be Jerusalem.

But notice she didn't really ask the question.

I think that's a deflection. Jesus says to her, woman,

believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this

mountain nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know.

So what he's saying is he's, here's the transition point

we've talked about. He's taking it from a place of

physical importance. Jacob's well, or even the

mountain that they worshipped on, or even Jerusalem.

He says it's not going to be about that anymore.

It's not going to be about this, this physical place of

significance. It's going to be about who

you're worshipping. It's going to be about the

spiritual side of their worship. And here's their whole problem.

You worship what you do not know.

And I think this is kind of a clue as to where Jesus said that

the Jews are maybe a little bit right about the Samaritans.

By drifting from God, they no longer knew God and they're

calling them out for the, I'm not even going to get into the

location problem first. He's like, you've got more than

a location problem. You don't even know who you're

worshipping. That's the first problem.

And that's the problem that transcends generations, that

transcends covenants when you don't know the God you're

worshipping. And when we say no, we mean

relationally, we mean obedience wise because that's what the

book of John says. First John says, how do you know

that you love him, that you know him, that you keep his

commandments? It's he's like, these people

don't even know me. You worship what you do not

know. We know what we worship for

salvation is of the Jews. Verse 23 But the hour is coming

and now is when true worshippers will worship the Father in

spirit and truth. There it is.

He doesn't one side her argument.

He doesn't say it doesn't matter where you worship, it just

matters that you know God. He didn't say that.

He says spirit and truth. You got to have both.

You can't miss either piece of this puzzle.

And He's building toward a Kingdom where the ethic of the

new Kingdom is going to be rebuilt on this foundation.

They should have known this in the Old Testament.

They should have known that it was important to obey God and

have a heart for God. But he's rebuilding that

foundation, stripping away the physical.

There's no more temple. We could worship on the grass

outside here in a park out there.

It doesn't matter where we're at.

We could be in in my house. We unfit my house.

My house isn't big enough, but for the Father is seeking such

to worship him. How cool is that Then throughout

generations, people have always sought to do grand things,

especially for God. You know, the the the ascetics

would go into the mountains and fast for for for days upon days,

weeks upon weeks, they would do great things.

And God says, I'm just seeking people who will worship me in

spirit and in truth. Makes you feel like what you're

doing is pretty important. It's not something big, it's not

something complicated. It's just worship in spirit and

truth. We don't have to do something

enormous to be what God is looking for us to be.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in

spirit. The woman said to him, I know

that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will tell us all things.

Do we see like a fourth wall come up as soon as he hits some

some tender spot here? She's like, whatever, he'll come

tell us later, the Messiah is coming.

She's deflecting at every turn, her life, her worship, her

current situation. And little does she know her

last deflection tool doesn't work because this is actually

the Messiah. Jesus said to her, I who speak

to you am he? What did her face look like?

Can you imagine? And we don't know what her face

looked like because I said at this point his disciples came.

You see, like a, you know, in the movie, sometimes they'll

have a scene cut in where the big thing happens and people

walk in and all of a sudden you're left at that tension of

what just happened. The disciples roll in and they

marvelled. They're just talking to a woman.

Yet no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with

her? The woman then left her water

pot, went her way into the city and said to the men, So she she

drops the reason she was even there.

She didn't care about this water anymore.

There was something more important happening.

She said to the men, Come see a man who told me all the things

that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?

She still has questions. In fact, the thing that she

tells them is a question. She doesn't have all the

answers, but she's telling people she's becoming the

fountain already. Just tell people what Jesus did

for you. Don't overcomplicate it.

Don't doubt yourself the living water's in you.

Just tell them what happened. And if you're not excited about

Jesus to where living water's coming out, dive deeper to where

you get excited. And if that doesn't work, you

probably need to be more involved because you get excited

about what you're committed to, what you're involved with, what

you're putting your time and energy into where your treasure

is there your heart will be also.

Your heart follows what you put stuff into.

And this woman is becoming the fountain and what she tell them,

not something good she's confessing.

Actually, she's putting herself in vulnerability, saying he told

me all the things I ever did. Could this be the I think it got

cut off the Christ. So section 3A work that

sustains. Then they went out of the city

and came to him. These people heard this woman

talk and they they come and see. In the meantime, his disciples

urged him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food

to eat of which you do not know. Likely he just walked 15 to 20

miles in the mountains. They're like, you got to eat

something, man. I have food to eat of which you

do not know. Everything he's saying is

intentional. He's giving us the model for how

we should as his apostles, little a those who reach the

World, how we should be functioning.

How does it work? You get tired, but you know

what, there's food to eat. There's spiritual sustenance

that you don't even know about. He tells them, So if Jesus is

talking to the people who are literally eating with him and

talking to him and learning from his teachings, and even they had

no idea about this spiritual food, I'd say there's a pretty

high percentage of us in this room who might not have enough

spiritual nourishment. Even his closest friends did not

understand this. But let's look deeper.

Let's find it. Let's find the spiritual

sustenance and find it in him instead of all the the wells.

We keep going back to verse 33. Therefore, his disciples said to

one another, has anyone brought him anything to eat?

Right over their heads, Right over their heads.

He's taking it from immediate needs of food or water at a

well, and He's making an eternal analogy out of it.

Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent

me and to finish his work. When we engage in God's work,

helping, serving, sharing the truth, we begin to experience a

kind of life that outweighs the exhaustion.

That's what Jesus is saying from what drains to what sustains.

We can be exhausted because we're not sharing your thought

about that. Sometimes we don't start working

because we're too tired. But maybe we're too tired

because we're not working because Jesus says the stuff

he's doing is what sustains him. It's all backwards.

Jesus whole kingdom's upside down.

The way up is down. We already know that we will

still have jobs that tire us, responsibilities that stretch us

in days where we feel depleted. But alongside that, you and I

are invited into a different kind of work.

A work that aligns with God's will, a work that impacts others

eternally, and a work that feeds your soul even when your body

and mind are spent. From what drains to what

sustained. The goal is not to escape during

work, but to anchor your life in a sustaining work.

Because that's what Jesus did. If you need to be more

sustained, I'd be very surprised if a lot of people didn't feel

like that. I I me too.

If you need to be more sustained, check your alignment

1st. In every single area of our

life, check it. If there's one thing you're

doing that doesn't have a way to align with God's will, maybe

it's not alignment. Does that mean you can't have

fun? No, God give us all good things

to enjoy. Don't like many people have this

wrong perception of God? Like he just wants us to be

miserable and don't ever have any fun.

That's not God's will. Maybe in my fun I can glorify

God. Maybe in my recreation I can

glorify him. So every area, maybe your

family's making you tired, maybe your job, maybe your commute,

maybe maybe in your commute you can you can be kind toward

people who are on the road. It's every little thing could

have a way that aligns with God's will.

It all goes back to alignment. But it's not just for the

masters benefit. It's for your and my benefit

because we're not sustained when we don't align.

We are not sustained when we don't align.

We break down, we get brittle, we get tired, we get bitter when

we are not, when we are not aligned with him, it's going to

happen to us. It's not just for his benefit,

the master's work. It's for our benefit.

Now, remember, this is a quality check for alignment.

We're not saying you need to do a bunch of more stuff.

It may be the case, but right now let's check for the quality

of what we're doing. Is the work you're already doing

aligned to God? That's the first and most

important question. Is the work that I'm already

doing aligning with God somehow? We're not into quantity of work

yet. Doing the same job versus more

jobs. We're talking about the same

job. Number 2, if you need to be more

devoted, don't be afraid. He will sustain.

Maybe you do need to pick up your quantity.

Jesus challenges his disciples at every turn.

He does. He really does and and he

provides grace for the process, but he challenges quantity.

Maybe some of you don't need more quantity.

Maybe some of you are maxed out. It's true, it happens.

But if you do need to pick up your quantity, because we all

know, I think in our heart of hearts, we all know, don't be

afraid. He will sustain you in that

number three, if you're working, just be aware He is sustaining

you in whatever capacity is. You might not think I'm getting

enough, but He is sustaining you.

In the Old Testament, when they finish their wilderness

wanderings, they come out of that wilderness and they were

just probably dog tired after those 40 years of wandering

around. And God tells them, did you not

recognise the soles of your shoes did not wear out, your

feet did not swell? Those 40 years?

Yeah, there were areas where they were absolutely beat.

But he, they needed to realize that there was a lot of areas

where God had kept them completely sustained that they

might not have even thought about.

God is sustaining you. Praise him in that and, and

think and meditate on that so that you are more aware and in

tune with what He's doing for us.

And #4 what if you just can't see what he's doing?

What if you can't see it? What if you can't see the

benefit of what he's doing for you?

This is a life of faith. That's kind of point.

Have faith even when you can't see the fruit.

Verse 35, Do you not say there are still four months and then

comes the harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up

your eyes and look to the fields for they're already white for

harvest. He he's talking about how they

understand the crops in this in the valley.

We know when almond season's coming.

We can tell you the timelines. We can tell you how long.

We know when it's ready. He's saying you guys can do that

with your crops, but you don't see the spiritual crop that's

right in front of you blossoming and blooming and ready for for

picking. It's right in front of you.

What's he's saying? Maybe in our day's terms, you're

planning for next quarter, but the deal is ready to close

today. You're still in prep mode, but

the launch window is already open.

You're waiting for perfect conditions, but you already have

what you need. You're waiting for a sign, but

this is it. Maybe we just need to get up and

go. That's what he's telling them.

Get to work now. What's their work, though?

Do they have to start from scratch and do this huge,

massive project of tilling this fuel?

No, because he says next, he who reaps receives wages and gathers

fruit for eternal life, and he reaps, receives wages and

gathers fruit, that both he who sows and he who reaps may

rejoice together and keep going first.

For in this thing is true, 1 sows and another reaps.

I sent you to reap that for which you have not laboured.

Others have laboured and you have entered into their labours.

What's he saying? You're coming through.

It's already right. Pick the fruit.

Don't overestimate what's in front of you to do.

You know, when people don't start a project, they're

overwhelmed and why people don't finish projects because they

never start. So what's he saying?

Pick up the fruit. I've got a lot of students who

in the summers in their breaks work in the fields, picking,

doing the great packing. They didn't till the field.

They didn't do all the work that led up to that.

They just come through and they pick the fruit or they pack the

fruit. He's saying we're just doing our

little part, reaping for what other people have already put in

the hard work for, and it's for eternal life.

It's not just a an immediate benefit, it's eternal benefit

that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

The shared labour equals shared joy.

How cool is that, that the person who tows the field, who

works hard, the person who goes out and picks it, they all get

to share at the table. I just picture an eternal

scenario where where you're high fiving the apostles because what

they did so many years ago, you got to kind of connect and link

up with them on. And we were working together the

whole time, even whether we knew it or not.

But we are working together. Maybe it's just generations

before someone from the 1700s. Who God was using somehow to

bring about the present fruit. God's God's working through it,

all right. And so we one day will be able

to look back with all these people who've worked before us

and celebrate and share in that joy.

Maybe that means in this congregation, to the elders who

are here, the work you put in, the faithfulness you have

embodied all these years. We get to share in the in the

growth, any positive growth that's happened here, we share

together. It's not whoever one person

might have been the lead contact.

It's the mutual work together. And maybe it's just two people

working side by side because the Bible says some, some have

water, planted water and others have reaped.

Some people are better planters and waters and some people are

better reapers. Maybe it's people working side

by side, but we all get to share in the joy of our labour.

We're almost finished here. This remind us you're not

carrying everything alone. God is already at work before

you arrive. Others have laboured and others

will continue after you. It's not the end of the line.

This kind of work sustains because it connects you to

something bigger than yourself. It removes the pressure of doing

everything and allows you to participate and not control.

That's the that's the good stuff.

Finally, just wrapping up right here with the section of model

that works. Let's just remember nothing

anybody has done in the situation is super impressive.

I would even argue Jesus as human effort on this whole

scenario is pretty basic. He's talked to a woman, he had

supernatural knowledge, which is amazing, but he didn't do

something extreme effort wise. He's showing us a human model of

how simple it can be. Verse 39 and many of the

Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of

the woman who testified. He told me all that I ever did.

One of Jesus first high producing outreach tolls was a

woman. He went straight to a Pharisee,

Nicodemus, top dog, important guy.

Then he immediately went to a woman.

This isn't an accident. He's showing you your part in

the Kingdom is huge. Do you feel like I can't teach

or convert anybody because I'm not allowed to give a sermon at

church and that's not my job? Wrong, absolutely wrong.

Jesus went to a woman and she produced big time.

It wasn't the same place, the same role.

It's true. But apart from the worship she

was teaching and talking to people, I don't see any less

fruit coming for her. We all have different talents,

so I'm not saying everybody needs to bring in a whole

truckload of people. It's not what we all may be

blessed with the opportunity to do.

But keep in mind verse 40. So when the Samaritans had come

to him, they urged him to stay with them.

We might be surprised who would welcome us in if we would first

step over into their scenario to first make the effort and go out

of our way. We may be surprised.

They urged him to stay. They didn't like Jews either,

but they urged him to stay. And he stayed there two days,

and many more believed because of his own word.

Then they said to the woman, Now we believe not because of what

you have said, for we ourselves have heard him, and we know that

we are indeed that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour

of the world. It took its own seed from the

right source. Sometimes we could be worried.

Well, if I plan it this way, this person's not working out.

They're not really, you know, growing into Christ in the

foundation they need to have. I'm afraid it's too much about

me. You know what?

You plant new water. A good hearted person will seek

to find foundation in Christ themselves.

It's not all our job to take over their part because these

people, they learn from her. But then they took it further

and they went into Jesus themselves.

Here is our outline today. This woman was just another

man's treasure, one man to the next, but she didn't know that

she was really the treasure of another.

She was the treasure of the King himself, another man.

And we learned that actually the work that sustains when most

people see their work as a weariness and a drag.

Jesus saw his work as his treasure.

He saw it as work that could sustain.

Maybe if we leave here with a prayer on hearts today that we

can take to God going from this place, God, maybe it's prepare

us to seek these encounters with graceful hearts and holy

strategy. Jesus was good at that.

He had omniscience, which we don't have, but we can ask for

guidance and we can solicit that too.

I don't see why God wouldn't answer that.

Prayer for guidance seems like pretty well aligned to his will.

Maybe a second prayer is help help us to welcome draining work

for you and we trust you will provide sustaining for your

purpose. If you've heard the word today

and you are not tapped into the living water.