PRINCIPLES FOR HARVESTERS – John 4:34-38

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Now; let’s work our way through this passage from the end to the beginning. Look with me at verse 38; and notice first how . . .

1. THE WORK IS PREPARED (v. 38).

Jesus told His disciples, “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors” (v. 38).

When He speaks of the “labor” of others, the word that is used in the original text is one that speaks of hard, strenuous, wearisome work. In fact, it’s the same word that is used to describe Jesus’ condition when He arrived at the well at the beginning of the story—”being wearied from His journey” (v. 6). He is telling us that the work that He calls us to—the work of reaping the harvest of precious souls in His kingdom—would have been very difficult and laborious and wearisome for us to do, had it not been for the fact that others have already done the hard part of the work before us. But the hard part has indeed already been done; and it’s our job now to simply enter in to the work and reap the benefits of their labors.

Who were these ‘others’? I believe they would include the prophets of the Old Testament era. The apostle Peter once wrote;

Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into (1 Peter 1:10-12).

For all the centuries of the Old Testament era that preceded the coming of our Lord—and even up to the time of John the Baptist—the prophets, as it were, pulled out all the rocks and the stumps from the field of this world, plowed up the ground, and sowed the seed. That hard work had already been done. And what’s more, the Savior had come according to the prophetic promises—the Lord Jesus Himself—to reveal His identity in this world, to proclaim His kingdom, to die on the cross for our salvation, to raise from the dead, and to ascend to the Father. After He returned to the Father, He sent His Holy Spirit in His place into this world to convict lost people of their need for salvation. He has commissioned His apostles, who—in the power of that same Holy Spirit—bore an ongoing witness to Him, and whose written testimony has been preserved for us to this very day!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; all that is needed has already been done! Ours isn’t the hard work that comes before the harvest. Ours is the privileged task of the harvest itself! Jesus has sent us to reap that for which we have not labored! Others, by God’s providence, have done the hard work; and we have entered into the benefits of their labors!

We shouldn’t sit around procrastinating because the work seems hard! We should be grateful and confident in a work that has already been prepared!

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Next, look with me to verse 37; and see that . . .

2. THE TASKS ARE ASSIGNED (v. 37).

Jesus said, “For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’”

This appears to have been a popular saying of the day. I suspect that it was probably spoken with a tone of cynicism—as if to say, “Some people get all the breaks! One person does all the hard work, and somebody else reaps all the benefits! ‘One sows and another reaps’!” But Jesus here takes what was probably a popular gripe and turned it into an expression of truth. “For in this”—that is, when applied to the work of the harvest—”the saying is true . . .” One person really does do the sowing, and another person really does do the reaping—but both in concert with one another in the fulfillment of God’s great kingdom plan.

And that’s not a reason to complain. That’s something to rejoice in to be encouraged by. In our sovereign Lord’s work of the harvest, everyone has their proper role. In the Lord’s good plan, some are sowers. They are the ones who came before and did the hard work of preparing someone’s heart for a hearing of the gospel. Others are reapers. They are given the privilege of coming—at just the right time and in just the right manner—to lead someone to a faith in Jesus. Some do the preparatory work; and others get to reap the fruits of that work. But it’s all in the Lord’s field in the service of His great kingdom plan; so that all—having done their part—get to rejoice together in the harvest itself.

I think the apostle Paul illustrated this wonderfully in 1 Corinthians 3. He wrote to the Corinthian believers because they were trying to elevate one of God’s workers over another. Some were big fans of Paul’s ministry. Others were big fans of another minister named Apollos. They had a “my-servant-of-Christ-is-better-than-your-servant-of-Christ” complex. But Paul wrote;

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it (1 Corinthians 3:5-10a).

I remember hearing that Dr. Billy Graham used to refer to the crusades he held as “reaping events”. They were the events at which people made a visible decision for Christ. But he called them “reaping events” because he knew that a lot of “sowing” had gone before that remarkable moment of “reaping”. He knew that a lot of people who had brought an unsaved friend or relative to a crusade had been working to develop a relationship with that person, serving them, sharing with them in bits and pieces, inviting them to their church, and praying very fervently for them—all long before they heard the gospel call from Dr. Graham and accepted Jesus as their Savior.

Dear brothers and sisters; some of us are planters of the seeds; and others of us are reapers of the harvest. Sometimes, some of us seed-planters get to be the reapers of someone else’s seed-planting; and some of us reapers get to plant seeds for someone else’s reaping. But all of us have our tasks in God’s work. Let’s not fail do our part—so that we will rejoice in the harvest together.

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Moving next to verse 36, we see that . . .

3. THE LABOR IS MEANINGFUL (v. 36).

It’s a horrible thing to be involved in a work that feels unrewarding and that seems to accomplish nothing. It’s a terrible thing to feel like all your labor is fruitless and pointless. But the work of the harvest—whether it’s sowing or it’s reaping—is always meaningful. There is, in fact, no greater work that we can do! Jesus said, “And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together” (v. 36).

Look at what Jesus says. First, there are wages in this work. Those who faithfully serve in our Lord’s great work of the harvest are rewarded. Even if someone cannot go out and do the work in the field itself, our Lord faithfully remembers those who make it possible for others to do so. On one occasion, just before He sent some of His disciples out to preach on His behalf, He told them;

“He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward” (Matthew 10:40-42).

Any work that we can do that the Lord Jesus promises to so faithfully reward is very much worth doing!

Second, notice that there is a great purpose to this work—the ‘fruit’, or we might say the ‘product’, of eternal life! When you and I do our parts in advancing the kingdom of Jesus Christ, we are doing a work that will bring glory to our Lord and joy to a saved soul throughout eternity! The precious souls we win to Christ will live forever in the Father’s house, and share eternally in the inheritance of the redeemed! This was something that the apostle Paul felt a great privilege in getting to do. He wrote;

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek (Romans 1:16).

The fact that his labors were for such a high purpose, and resulted in such a glorious product, gave him great boldness in his work.

Finally, notice that there is a glorious outcome to it all—that those who sow and those who reap will, with the Lord Jesus, rejoice together! The prospect of that rejoicing was what drove the apostle Paul. He wrote to a group of believers that he had helped lead to the Lord and said;

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).

Dear brothers and sisters; there’s no greater work in the world that we could ever do than the Lord’s work of the harvest! No other work pays so highly, serves so glorious a purpose, and results in so much eternal joy!

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And as we move next to verse 35, we see that . . .

4. THE TIME IS AT HAND (v. 35).

When the disciples had looked at the fields of grain that stood nearby, they thought of how harvest-time was off in the future. Ordinarily, when harvest time has come and the grain is fully ripe, the fields look ‘white’ and ‘bright’. But when they looked upon the fields around them, they saw that they were still green. They assumed that the time when workers would go out into the harvest was still far off. And perhaps when it came to fields of grain, this was true. But this is not the case in our Lord’s great work of the harvest. He said, “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 at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!’” (v. 35).

When it comes to our Lord’s harvest, the problem isn’t that the time is far off. In fact, the time is here and the harvest is plentiful. The real problem is that there are too few workers in the harvest. Do you remember what our Lord said to His disciples on another occasion? He told them;

“The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).

The apostle Paul expressed the sense of the urgency for the work in this way:

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,

And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

We shouldn’t let ourselves think about entering into the work someday in the future. It’s already harvest time! Now is the time to get into action!

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So; according to our Lord, the work is prepared, the tasks are assigned, the labor is meaningful, and the time is at hand. And finally, as we look at verse 34, we find that we can eagerly throw our ‘all’ into this work; because . . .

5. THE FULFILLMENT IS GREAT (v. 34).

Even the Lord Jesus expressed it. He told the disciples, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (v. 34).

What was the will of the Father for our Lord? He tells us in John 6:37-40. He said,

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:37-40).

He was so captivated by the joy of doing what the Father sent Him to do, and of finishing the work that He gave Him, that it satisfied Him more than His daily food. The “food” of delighting in the Father’s will was so great that He could easily forget—or perhaps not care for—the temporal food of this world;

who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2)

And I believe that the same is true for you and me. Jesus delighted to do the will of the Father who sent Him, and to complete His work. And you and I have one who has sent us. Remember how, in verse 38, Jesus said, ” I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored . . .”? Our ‘food’ is to do the will of Him who sent us!

It’s harvest time, dear brothers and sisters! Let’s be about our work!