The Gospel of John - Outline Part 9 - The Focus of the Christ

TITLE

John 4:27-42 – The Focus of the Christ

EXPLANATION

Immediately following the events of the previous section, we now find the disciples returning with food.  Although the men were astonished that Jesus was speaking with a woman, because culturally women were of low importance, they had already learned by this point not to engage in too much questioning of Jesus’s methods and decisions.  So, they kept quiet about that issue and instead urged Him to eat.  At this point I have to speculate that it must have been somewhat maddening to be a disciple of Jesus.  He was constantly turning mundane situations of life into object lessons and sermons that were often cryptic in nature.

That is just what happened here.  Instead of responding normally to the disciples’ recommendation of eating, Jesus launched into an illustration that captured the essence of His dedication to accomplishing the Father’s will.  Jesus said He already had food to eat that the disciples did not know about.  He was not speaking of physical food, but rather spiritual.  Jesus was making the point that just as bread or meat was essential to physical life, so the successful pursuit of God’s will was essential to Jesus’s spirit.  This is fascinating because it is very much a counterpart to what He had already taught the Samaritan woman.  In her case He used water as an illustration.  Here it is food.

Not content to leave it at that, Jesus went on to chide the disciples for their human tendency to hold some of their effort back.  He criticized them, with yet another illustration, this time of a harvest of crops, for putting off till tomorrow the work that can be done for God today.  Jesus taught that the spiritual harvest of souls to be added to the kingdom of God is ready now, immediately, not tomorrow or four months from now.

Jesus and His disciples stayed in Sychar, the Samaritan town, for several more days.  While they were there, Jesus applied His point about the harvest being ready by showing the disciples how there were many who lived in Sychar who were ready for salvation.

APPLICATION

Urgency.  Immediacy.  These are not comfortable words for an apathetic Christian culture that is fixated upon creature comforts and felt needs.  Our corporate worship services are typically designed as entertainment vehicles.  Even for solid Bible believing churches, who are not interested in appealing to cultural tastes or trends, the model is usually that of a few performing for the many.  In such an environment, it is sometimes difficult to get people to move out of their pew or chair and get into ministry.  Jesus’s teaching here in Sychar is completely opposed to that idea.  Jesus, by the model of His very life, shows us a pattern of behavior that is completely, zealously, focused on the accomplishment of the will of God.  Jesus expects us to follow His lead now, just as He did His disciples then.