“Come See a Man” (Part 3 of 4)

Have you ever been distracted and as a result missed a divine appointment? That's what happened to Jesus' followers in the story we read in John chapter 4 as they focused so much on their lunch that they failed to see a woman in need. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg urges all of us to wake up to the spiritual condition of others around us.

He's titled his message, Come See a Man. I invite you to turn to the Bible to John chapter 4, and the greater part of John chapter 4 involves the dialogue between Jesus and this woman that he meets at the well. And we're going to pick up the account at verse 27. John chapter 4 and verse 27. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman, but no one asked, What do you want?

or Why are you talking with her? Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, Could someone have brought him food? My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not save four months more and then the harvest?

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, One sows and another reaps, is true.

I sent you to reap what you have not worked for, others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them.

And he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. Amen. Before we look at the Bible, we pause and ask for God to help us. Father, what we know not, teach us. What we have not, give us. What we are not, make us.

For your Son's sake. Amen. I don't think there's any doubt that the turning point in this conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well is in verse 16. Because it is there that it is recorded for us that Jesus asked her to go and call her husband and come back. And of course, she's honest enough to say that she doesn't have a husband, and then Jesus fills in the background for her and explains to her that he knows that she's had five husbands, and she now has a man in her company who is not her husband at all. It's the intimate awareness of her details shown by Jesus that has caused this woman to be profoundly impacted by Jesus' words. After his statement there in verse 18, her perspective on him shifts dramatically. If your Bible is open, you will see that in verse 9, in the opening gambit, she says, How can you ask me for a drink? You're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman.

That was his identity—a Jew. Now, in verse 19, she says, Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. It's going to advance beyond this. She's going to ask the question—I think perhaps this is actually the Messiah, the Christ. And the section of the chapter is going to end with a declaration, Surely this man is the Savior of the world. Now, in this conversation, as we noted before, and it is worth reiterating this fact, Jesus treats this woman with courtesy, with respect, and with dignity. Although it was not customary for the Jewish people to treat women with this kind of respect—indeed, Jewish law had a number of things to say that certainly did not advance the cause of women—Jesus is here breaking the bounds of the sort of par politest, factor of gender, and at the same time of race, because he is displaying for us the universality of the gospel message. She is able to say that since she understands him to be a prophet, she thinks he can perhaps deal with a question that has been in her mind.

We're not going to tackle that question just now. Jesus simply explains to her that if she thinks in geographical or territorial terms, when it comes to worshipping God, she's thinking along the wrong lines. In fact, the time is coming and has now come, he says, when people will worship God in spirit and in truth. To which the lady says in verse 25, I know that Messiah—that is called Christ—is coming, and when he comes he will explain everything to us.

And then imagine being there to process the response of Jesus. I am Christ. I am the Messiah, speaking to you now, Jesus said. I am the Messiah, speaking to you now. And as she sits, presumably processing that information, verse 27 tells us that the disciples make their return.

This is not the return of the Jedi. This is the return of the disciples. They had gone off, as we discovered in verse 8, to pick up food for lunch. It was an important assignment. They took it seriously. They had made the journey, and they had now returned.

If we were editing a film, we would be cutting between these various scenes as the narrative progresses, and I'll do that with you, hopefully in a way that helps to settle it in our minds. All we really need to notice in verse 27 is that these disciples, upon their return, were surprised but at the same time silent. They, for whatever reason, chose not to enter into a dialogue with Jesus. They chose not to ask him, What do you want? or Why are you talking with this woman? That in itself is quite remarkable, given what we know of the disciples—some of the questions they asked, questions that Philip asked, and certainly the kind of things that Peter was prone to blurt out, both for good or for ill. But on this occasion, they remained silent.

Perhaps it is simply that they themselves are very interested in lunch and that anything that they ask would only delay the time for them to get into the food, and so perhaps on a very pragmatic basis they decide not to get involved in conversation. We now cut, and the scene cuts, to the picture of the water jar left behind, and we see the back of the woman as she proceeds into town. Incidentally, a lot of ink has been spilt over why the water jar was left there, and I commend that to you if you're interested in those kinds of things.

I need to remind you that the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things, and those who get elaborate explanations out of the leaving of the water jar I admire but do not desire to emulate. It may well be that she left it behind so that Jesus could finally get the drink of water that he hasn't had to this point. It may be that in her haste she just ran off and forgot it. It may be that because she had planned on coming back, they could use it, and she would be back later on. We really don't know, and yet people spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out all about the water pot.

So, leaving the water pot aside, notice the main emphasis of the verse. She left her water pot, went back into the town, and said to the people, Come out and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Who do you think you are? Told you everything you've ever done?

Yes, told me everything I've ever done. Me. Little messed-up me. Little go-to-the-well-by-yourself me. Little no-name woman from Samaria me.

Little friendless me. Can this be the Messiah, do you think? Now, look at verse 30. It's dramatic, isn't it?

They came out of the town and started to come to Jesus. On the strength of this? On the strength of this particular lady issuing this particular invitation?

It's wonderful, really, isn't it? Should be an encouragement to all of us who think we're no good at issuing invitations. Certainly, when it comes to explaining to people what has happened to us in terms of our Christian experience. Not all of us, of course, have a story to tell.

But some who are here this morning, like this woman, have been picked up and set on the right way, and as a result of that we have something to say. But we're often very diffident, and it may well be because we think, Really, why would anyone want to listen to me? I don't think I should speak. Because if I say, Why don't you come to the patio? Or, Why don't you come and attend this Bible study with me? Or, Why don't we have coffee and let me tell you about this?

The chances are no one will pay any attention to me at all. But listen, when God is at work, you'll be amazed at what happens. I'm sure this lady must have been amazed.

Why don't you come out and see the man who told me everything I ever did? And people said, Yeah, that's okay, we'll do that. So we have two camera angles now.

We have a camera angle shooting them as they come, and then we have another camera angle shooting them as they leave. We cut between them. And as we have that scene in our minds, then we cut right back to the disciples. Meanwhile, verse 31.

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

Jesus said to them, verse 32, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. I wonder if he said it with a twinkle in his eye. I don't know. But he seems to love these things, doesn't he? There's a tenderness in this. There's a wistfulness in this.

There's a touch in this. There's a communication factor in this that Jesus is masterful in. Rabbi, come on, let's have the lunch.

Hey, I actually have food to eat that you don't know anything about. And the disciples began to look at one another and said, Did somebody bring him food when we were away? In other words, they respond literally.

They respond physically. And once again, the drama is about to unfold on the strength of misunderstanding. It bears repetition, doesn't it? Jesus has been employing this methodology. Back in chapter 2, he says to the people, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again. The response of the people is, It took forty-six years to build the temple, and you're going to raise it in three days. The point is, I'm not talking about the temple.

I'm talking about my body. Oh, we didn't know that. I know you didn't know that.

That's why I said that, so I could tell you that. Chapter 3. You must be born again, Nicodemus. How can a man be born again when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb? I'm not talking about that, Nicodemus.

I'm talking about being spiritually born, of being born from above, a heavenly birth, to the woman at the well in the earlier part of the chapter. If you knew who it was who was asking you for a drink of water, you would ask him for a drink of water, and he would give you water, and you'd never be thirsty again. She said, Well, then give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty again, and I won't have to keep coming to the well. Jesus says, That's not what I'm talking about. And once again, Rabbi, will you eat your lunch now? I have food to eat that you know not of. Does somebody bring him food?

Now look at the disclosure. Verse 34. The disciples' complete misunderstanding opens up the way for Jesus to teach them this vitally important lesson. My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Now, this is a theme which runs throughout the Gospels, certainly throughout the Gospel of John. You go into chapter 6 and to verse 38. For I have come down from heaven, says Jesus, not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. You go back to verse 34 of chapter 4. My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Now, keep that word finish in mind, because it is the same root that you will find if you read all the way to chapter 19, and you find Jesus upon the cross. And from the cross, remember one of the things he says.

It is finished. Not a cry of despair, but a declaration of the fact that he has completed what he set out to do—namely, to die in the place of sinners so that those who deserve God's judgment and his wrath may not experience that judgment and wrath, because by grace, through faith, they have come to believe in the sacrifice of Jesus, who in this moment is explaining to these disciples that food and meat and drink for him was simply to do what his Father had sent him to do. And that becomes the occasion of him saying, And I'd like you to wake up and see the harvest. Wake up and see the harvest. Your eyes are dull. You need to open your eyes. Isn't that the phrase there in verse 35?

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. This is a wake-up call not just to these fellows on that day, but it is a wake-up call to all who are the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because it is a reminder to us that very easily, like these fellows, we can become preoccupied with what is mundane and miss the overarching mission to which we're called.

We can actually get preoccupied with the doing of church and the way everything works and fits together and who's where and why and when, and forget the fact that Jesus is saying to us, I want you to wake up and see the harvest. I want you to open your eyes, not simply when you're in here in order that you might read the Bible, but when you're out of here in order that you might see the people. And what he's saying here is that the seed that is sown, the seed sown in this woman's life, is already bearing fruit in the harvest of the advancing Samaritans. Now, this parable of one sowing and another reaping is capable of all kinds of interpretation. Some have said that Jesus is referencing John the Baptist and his preparatory work, and now his disciples are entering into the benefits of reaping what John himself had sown. There are all kinds of legitimate ways, I think, in which we might make application of this, but it's hard not to see ultimately John chapter 12 and verse 24 in Jesus' statement.

And for this, you're going to have to turn to it, otherwise it will make no sense at all. John chapter 12 and verse 23. The people had come and wanted to see Jesus. Verse 23, on hearing this, Jesus replied, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

I tell you the truth. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Now, Jesus is predicting his death, isn't he? It is only as the seed of the life of the Lord Jesus is sown in death—the death of the cross—that the fruit of eternal life may be reaped by anyone. And in an ultimate sense, it is Jesus who has finished the work, so that we might enter into the benefits of that for which we did not sow. For we have reaped from his work eternal life. And when that takes hold of our lives, then we will understand that he intends for those who have been so changed to be the agents for change and for reaping in the lives of others. That's why last time we tried to anchor chapter 4 and chapter 3—and I invite you just to turn back one page to chapter 3, to verse 16 all over again. We said it was the most famous verse, probably, in John, maybe in the Bible.

Look at it again. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Now, there's a sense in which, when you go into chapter 4—it's true in chapter 3, but it seems more graphic in chapter 4—chapter 4, if you like, begins to give us an immediate portrait of what that means in action. What does it mean that God has loved the world? Well, it means that the message of the good news is not restricted to the Jew. It breaks the boundaries of that and bleeds over into the Samaritan world. And indeed, the harvest amongst these Samaritans is the indication—the first indication in John's Gospel—of the fact of the inclusive nature of the Gospel, of the universal nature of the Gospel's appeal, that it is for all men and all women everywhere. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, and that there is eternal life, as we saw in verse 15 of chapter 3, for all who believe.

Now, let's just underline this. God is a seeking and a saving God. That gives the lie to the notion that in actual fact men are seeking for God, and God somehow is hiding from them.

No, that's not true. Men and women today may be seeking for peace, they may be seeking for fulfillment, they may be seeking for all kinds of things, but they are not seeking God. But God is seeking them. He is the God who comes to Adam and Eve in the garden and says, Where are you?

If we were to believe the way it is told to us by anthropologists and sociologists, it is the absolute reverse of that, isn't it? That God is away hiding somewhere, and Adam and Eve are going around the garden going, Where are you? Where are you? I'm looking for you.

No! Adam and Eve are hiding. Look at John chapter 3. What does it say? This is the verdict.

19. Light has come into the world, but men love darkness instead of light, because their deeds were evil. So you have these two things set side by side—men and women hiding in the darkness, and the light of the world coming to penetrate that darkness. Here the darkness is represented in the actual experience of this no-named woman at the well, and into the darkness of her life comes the light of Jesus, which, first of all, is a painful light in that it shows up her dark spots.

But it is a purifying light insofar as it shows her condition in order that it might radically change her condition. Jesus Christ is the light that penetrates our darkness. That's a great reminder about the power of the Gospel from Alistair Begg. Today's message is titled, Come See a Man and You're Listening to Truth for Life. As Alistair mentioned, God is a seeking and a saving God.

He's a God who loves us and who offers every one of us the free gift of eternal life. That's the message of the Gospel, and it's a message that author Roger Carswell loves to share with others. In fact, Roger has written a book called Facing a Task Unfinished, and this book reminds us that our call from God is to share the good news of the Gospel with others.

This is not a how-to book. Instead, it is a book written to help stir in each of us a fresh desire to tell people we know about how they can experience new life in Christ. As you read Facing a Task Unfinished, you'll find yourself more motivated to pray for the salvation of others and for the needs of the world around us in the course of a year. You can even keep a record of your prayers in the space that's provided at the end of each entry. Find inspiration to share your faith with others in the weekly devotional Facing a Task Unfinished.

Request your copy today, along with our thanks. When you make a one-time donation, simply tap the image in the mobile app or visit truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can give us a call at 888-588-7884. If you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at PO Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life, you know that we routinely invite you to open your Bible. That's because the mission at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible and to clearly explain the text exactly as God has given it to us.

As we come to understand God's Word, our trust in Him and in His promises grows. As a way to encourage you to read scripture on your own throughout the year, we want to recommend you consider using a Bible reading plan. We have a Bible reading calendar that's available. You can download the reading schedule for free at truthforlife.org, or you can purchase a printed version for $1. Go to truthforlife.org slash store.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to listen again tomorrow for the conclusion of our message as Alistair explains where true freedom is found. It's part of our current series titled A Light in the Darkness. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.