August 18, 2024 • 56 mins
In “Think Like A Reaper,” Pastor Steven Furtick shows us how to think about the outcome while living in the fear, frustration, and fatigue of right now. You’ll be encouraged that God is with you in your hard place, and help is closer than you realize.
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Scripture References:
John 4, verses 27-39
Galatians 6, verses 8-9
Psalm 126, verse 5
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
it gives your perspective to see God is moving in
your life. Enjoy the message. Just put in the chat
right now.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
If you're joining us on our EVAAN, one thing that
you thank God for today, and while you're at it,
tell your neighbor here at Valentine one thing you thank
God for. University City, one thing you thank God for.
And if you need a little prompt tell them I
thank God for you. You are the greatest person I
sat next to in church.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Ah week, I thank God for you. Well. Elevation Nights
is coming soon. Everybody clap your hands and thank God.
I haven't been announcing this like I should.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I keep forgetting. It's weird because I get up here
so excited to preach. I don't even look at the announcements.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
But we will.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
It will be September twenty fourth, God willing through October
third in Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Boise, Idaho,
Salt Lake City, Utah and Denver, Colorado. Go to Elevation
Nights dot com for more information. We want to meet
with you. We want to praise God with you. I
(01:20):
want to preach to you. We want to celebrate the
awesome things God has done and believe with you for
all of the things that He is going to do.
Is going to be an amazing time. Speaking of an
amazing time, many of our E group leaders are expecting
you to come over to their house this week.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
This is E Group connect weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
They're getting ready all the We should actually have a
criteria for eGroups. If they have only healthy food, there
should be a disclaimer at that group.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I don't look at that as a benefit. I look
at that like a hazard. But I'm sure you can.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Find an E group that will really speak to your
stage of life.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I would love for you to do.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That that way, that when you finish here in the
sermon this week, you can take it like they said
earlier and really apply it to your life and have
help doing that. Tell your neighbor you need some help sometimes.
I don't mean to offend you, but you do sometimes
Sometimes sometimes the enemy comes to snatch the word of
(02:22):
God and you need somebody else to help you keep
it planted and to stay stable. So we've got people
to help you. Let's thank God for all our eager leaders.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
If you're leading the group, Hey, Holly, and I want
to thank you. Thank you for your partnership in the gospel.
I hope you will avail yourself to that.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And now it's time preach the word of God. Your
excitement level is amazing. I'm gonna come back out again.
I'm gonna sit the reset button.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Now it's time to preach the word of God.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I'm excited to be sharing with you today from John
chapter four, verse twenty seven through thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Please give your attention to this scripture is very powerful,
the Bible says.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Just then his disciples returned and we're 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
(03:39):
man who told me everything I ever did?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Could this be the Messiah? Look at your neighbors, say,
this could be the one.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
This could be the one. I'm not sure yet, but
I'm curious. This could be the one. I'm not completely
solid on it yet, but I'm suspicious this could.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Be the one.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And they verse came out of the town and made
their way toward him, towards Jesus. Now, meanwhile, his disciples
urged him, Rabbi, eat something, but he said to them.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I have food to eat that you know nothing about.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There's a fine line sometimes in the scripture. I can't
tell whether Jesus is training his disciples or trolling his disciples,
because that's kind.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Of you know, on the nose. Would you like to eat?
We brought some food.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He said, I have food to eat that you know
nothing about. But then listen what he says next. This
is a lesson all in itself. My food, said Jesus,
is to do the will of him who sent me
and to finish his work. My food is to do
the will of him who sent me, and to finish
his work. So the question becomes, what's your fuel? What
(04:58):
fuels you to do what God has called.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You to do?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Is your fuel comparison because that's bad fuel. Is your
fuel validation from others because that's bad fuel. Is your
fuel feelings because that's unreliable fuel.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Jesus said, my food my fuel.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
See, most of us eat food for fuel. Jesus was fueled,
and that was his food. But he was fueled by
an agenda that was set by his father.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Are you am I? My food is to do the
will of him who.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Sent me, and to finish his work. Now pay attention.
We're getting close to our main point for today.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Don't you have a saying? Is still four months until harvest?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields.
Look at the fields. They're full, they are ripe for harvest.
Even now. The one who reaps draws away and harvest
the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and
the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying one
(06:09):
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. And many of the Samaritans from that town
believed in him Jesus because of that woman's testimony. He
(06:31):
told me everything I ever did. You know, your testimony
is a tool. You got to put it back in
God's hand. Don't let the devil have your past. Your
testimony is a tool that God wants to use in
your future. That's where your ministry is going to come from,
from your misery.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
That's where your ability to help put other people back.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Together again is going to come from, from the broken
pieces that you feel inside of you.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So today I want to give you an important lesson
one of the things that God is teaching me. I
think this can be so powerful if you will think
with me. Think with me now now I want you
to feel the presence of God today. But today I
want you to think with me as well about this story,
about your life, about what God is saying. Think with me,
and I want you to think a very specific way,
and this is the title of the message. I want
(07:23):
you to think like a reaper. Think like a reaper.
In this season of your life. It is important that
you mature to the point that you think like a reaper,
(07:43):
not just an eater. Not just where's my next meal?
Not just is it convenient right now? But tell your
neighbor it's time to think like a reaper.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Not the grim reaper.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I want to clarify you might begin in Spook it's
not October.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But think like a reaper.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Father, I praise you for what you said to me,
Help me to say it so clear that it can't
be missed, and give us the courage to obey. Speak Lord,
we're listening in Jesus' name. Amen, you may be seated.
(08:28):
I like you to write this down somewhere. Feelings come,
Let's write that down.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I like to start somewhere that nobody can argue with.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Start my sermons saying.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
You know, Jesus is the only true way to God,
and he is the Son of God, and he died
for your sins and he rose again.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You know, you may or.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
May not believe that. And I believe that, but you
may not believe that. So let me buil a little bridge. Okay,
this is what John four is about, that Jesus is
the Messiah. But let me start with something that we
all can agree with. Feelings come. And one of the
things that happens in worship a lot of times when
we come to church is that we will come to
(09:11):
church not even wanting to come, and then when we
get in the atmosphere of God's presence, we are glad
we came, and we're so glad that we didn't obey
the way that we felt and let it keep us
from what we were supposed to receive. And I feel
this way every time that I do a physical workout,
you know, like a weightlifting thing or something like that.
(09:32):
I never work out because of how I want to
feel in that workout. I meet psychopaths who do CrossFit.
I'm not wired like that. They say they enjoy the
actual workout, and I am getting more to that point.
But actually what puts me in a workout is the
way I want to feel after the workout, and that
(09:53):
became a powerful journaling exercise for me. I call it
reverse journaling. It's where before instead after your day, you
usually go like, ah, well, you know, I did this
and I shouldn't have, and I ate this and I
shouldn't have and I went there and I shouldn't have
and I said that and I shouldn't have it. And
I do plenty of that, trust me. But if you
can reverse journal sometimes it's just a really good spiritual practice.
(10:15):
It's like asking the question, how do I want to
feel when this day is finished, and you ask it
in the morning, and then you kind of like try
to work toward that with your actions, because if you
just wake up and let the feelings just.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Come they'll come.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And sometimes the feelings come and they catch you before
you've even had your coffee. And this is a whole
room of people who have not had their coffee today.
I could tell they put niquill in the communion cups
out there in the lobby here today. But what I'm
trying to say is, feelings come. Watch this, but they
don't come first. Now, that might be one of the
(10:59):
most powerful things that I ever learned, and I'd like
to break it down with you a little while today.
Say Feelings come, but they don't come first. Say it again,
Feelings come. Write it in the chat. Feelings come, but
they don't come first. And so the feeling of being
tempted is never a sin. It is when the temptation
(11:23):
takes the throne in your life and leads you to
a place that you have no business being, that the
sin is committed. Feelings of sadness do not negate the
joy of the Lord. But it's when I allow the
feeling of sadness to become the primary soil in which
(11:43):
my life is grown that it becomes a problem. Feelings come,
but they don't come first. And what I mean by
that is, first of all, sometimes you have to do
the thing and the feeling follows.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Sometimes you have to.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Lift your hands and the burden is lifted as your
hands are. But if you wait for the burden to lift,
for your hands to follow, you may keep them in
your pockets. You may never feel the freedom that you
could have felt, because feelings come, but they don't come first.
All I'm trying to get you to see today is
(12:24):
that God is very aware of the hard places in
your life.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And the very clear.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Thing that I heard God saying to me today to
preach to you, was he will help you in the
hard place. Just encourage your neighbor. They need to hear it.
God will help you in the hard place. Say it
to your neighbor, even if you don't believe it's true
for you. God will help you in the hard place.
(12:54):
And see when you said that to her. You don't
know what her hard.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Place is, but you can be sure she has a
hard place.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
No, she doesn't. She has plenty of money, then she
has plenty of taxes. God will help you in the
hard place. You know well, they have kids. They're not
struggling with infertility. Fertility has its own set of problems.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
You never hear him.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I say that I'm struggling with fertility. But the truth
of the matter is whether you're struggling with something that
you can't have or something that you do have.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
The pressure is real for all of us.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And the assuring word of the Lord is that God
will help you in your hard place.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
God will help you in your hard place.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The text that we read, I'm not sure if the
section that I read got the point across that Jesus
and his disciples were traveling through a hard place. We
know that because verse thirty nine says many of the
Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the
woman's testimony, and two things in this text I want
(13:59):
to give you before we really get practical here, is
that Samaria was a place that was very hostile to
the Jews, and the woman had lived a very hard
life and had been through several men. In fact, she'd
been through five men, and she was currently in a
situation with number six. Into the complexity of this situation.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Cleaning it up and making it, King.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
James, there comes the presence of purity, the presence of purpose,
the presence of potential in the dirt of a place
that they didn't want to be. Samaria was a place
(14:49):
that was racially tense. Samaria was a place that was
religiously polytheistic. Not that they didn't each think they were right,
they just worshiped in different places in different ways. And
so everything is against the Disciples and Jesus in this text.
And I think that's worth its own sermon, really, I do,
(15:11):
because some of the things that God teaches us that
go the deepest happen in the places that we did
not choose to be.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You don't really.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Get to sign up for a class to learn the
things that Christ wants to teach you.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
And I'll prove it to you right from the text.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
The disciples were look at verse twenty seven, surprise to
see Jesus.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Talking to a woman.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Now that lets me know if they were surprised that
they did not get a syllabus. I got a son
going back to college this week. What's up, my boy.
Some of the stuff that gets taught is not on
the syllabus. And when we read discipleship, we think class
because that is our modern Western interpretation of learning. But
(16:01):
God's version of learning usually looks like this. I am
going to show you how strategic I was after you
survived the surprise. So then what happens is life catches
you off guard. Oh whoa, hey, no they didn't even
see that coming. Oh well no, I didn't even see
(16:22):
them coming. I definitely would have duped. I definitely wouldn't
have answered if I knew that's what they wanted to
talk to me about.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
You know, people who bait you.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
With the text like hey, and that's all it says.
I never responded that I'm gonna need more information that
is inconclusive data to give me. Surprise, he's talking to
a woman. Surprise, he's sitting down having a chat. Surprise.
(16:50):
She's somebody you don't like. She's a Samaritan.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Surprise. See, they thought we went.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Through Samaria because it was shorter geographically. The Bible says
that Jesus took them through Samaria.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Well, most Jews walked around Samaria so that they didn't
have to deal with those people.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And now Jesus is talking to one of those people,
and not even one of those people, a woman, which
was not very good pr strategy for a rabbi.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And yet I have learned in my life. Now you
can get this lesson. At age thirteen.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
You can get it at age thirty one, or you
can die not getting this lesson. But you'll find out
one day that God is often most strategic when you
are most surprised. And that means that God will allow
things to come into my life, even my day or
even my feelings.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
That I did not expect.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
And what I have to learn how to do in
those moments is what Galatians six ' nine says, Please
give me this verse.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Galician six ' nine says, let us not.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Become weary in doing good or at the proper time,
or one version says, in due season, in due season,
at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if
we do not give up. But if your feelings come first,
(18:26):
you give up while it's growing. If your feelings come first,
if you cannot separate the feeling, you will never experience
your due season d u E season.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But this the tricky thing.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
How do you do d O in a season what
is due d ue in another season when the feelings
don't come to support you and you say to me,
this has nothing to do with you, Jesus and the Samaritan.
It has everything to do with Jesus and the Samaritan.
It has everything to do with you and your kid.
(19:07):
It has everything to do with the fear that you
feel about your business. Because I think this passage speaks
to every one of our fears, every one of our frustration,
and it speaks to something else that we should talk about,
the fatigue that we feel.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
While we do.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
What we do and what is due doesn't come. What
do you do when what is due doesn't come? And
the Lord might have sent me to preach this message
for myself. And if that's the case, I invite you
to listen in because too many times in my life
(19:50):
I have thought only about what I am sewing in
this moment, and I lose consciousness of the harvest that
awaits me.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
If I don't give up. And so it looks like this,
do not be deceived. Actually good verse good to verse eight.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I think that'd be good to Galatians chapter six, verse eight,
where the Bible says Galician six eight, Please, whoever sows
to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That's another way of saying, just doing what you feel.
So to the flesh.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit will
reap eternal life. And that's how we're trying to think. Now,
we're trying to think about the lasting thing. We're trying
to think about the eternal thing. We're trying to think
about the long term thing. And we don't want to
be so into our feelings that we only sew into
(20:51):
what we feel like.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I'm coming. I'm coming. It's gonna take a minute, but
we're gonna get there. So it looks like this.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I may want to eat the ice cream at ten pm,
I don't want to feel the ice cream at three am,
I don't want to see the ice cream. But if
I am so into what I feel, then my feelings
(21:25):
come first, because rather than thinking like a reefer and thinking.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Well, if I eat the ice cream just tonight, that's fine,
But if I eat the ice cream every night, I
mean every night.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Then I go back for a fourth scoop because I
had a very stressful.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Day, and don't judge me about it.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I won't like what I see, but I will like
what I feel. And so I need you to start okay,
growing into a place in God. When when you go.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
To speak an unkind word, you can think this, if
I sew this unkind word, what will I reap in
this relationship later, because I'm gonna tell you the truth.
It's gonna feel good to say it right now. It's
gonna feel good to go off right now. As a
matter of fact, when the woman in the text was
talking with Jesus the part I didn't read you, she
(22:18):
was so in her feelings she went off on Jesus.
Jesus said, give me a drink. She said, you don't
have a bucket. And why are you talking to me anyway.
I'm a woman, you're a Rabbi, I'm a Samaritan, you're
a Jew.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
You don't have anything to do with me. No, I
have everything to do with you.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And what you do in this moment where you feel offended,
what you do in this moment where you feel weary,
will determine what you do in this moment will determine
whether your due season is going to be full of
thorns and thistles or fruit in favor. I am not saying,
(22:59):
by the way, that God's love is on the basis
of our behavior. I am saying that the consequences are
built into the system of humanity. So to think like
a reaper is to watch this fancy term I came
up with this week to become.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I almost forgot it. See that's what happens when you
try to show off with big words.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Conscious of the consequence, right, conscious of the consequence pattern recognition.
Every time I go down this road, every time, I
just like respond out of what I feel. Every time,
I just continue to rehearse this thing that happened.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Three weeks ago. Every time I just let myself go
there in my mind.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Every time I indulge in it, I hate where it
takes me.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And that's my conflict.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Conflict because some of the things in my life, I
love what they bring me, but I hate where they
take me.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And if you'll be honest with it.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
There are certain vices, certain things, certain actions, certain states,
certain relationships.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Oh, don't let me preach a relationship seminar. I'll preach
about the certain.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Things that make you feel a certain way, but they
take you a place.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And what do you do when you love how they
make you feel, but you hate where they make you go.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Jesus is going somewhere, He's going through some area, he's
working on something. And just remind your neighbor in case
they haven't felt God's presence lately, or in case they're
unclear about what God is doing in their life, just
tell them he's working on something. Right now, he's working
(24:47):
You need to be more convincing than that. Don't be
mumbling that at them.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Say Jesus is working on something. Come on, put it
in the chat. Jesus is working on something. Jesus is
working on something.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
That's why the disciples were surprised, isn't it? Because when
they left him, he was sitting on a well alone.
They went to get food, and Jesus started talking to
a woman. We call her the woman at the well.
She's much more than that, as I will show you
(25:20):
in a moment, and so are you, because where she
was is not indicative of who she was, and what
she had done was not indicative of who she could become.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And when they left Jesus he was sitting down.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
The Bible actually says he was resting because he was tired.
He was resting because he was tired, and then so
tired becomes the camouflage that he uses to fulfill the
purpose he came for. Because when they left to get food,
a woman came to get water. And when the woman
(25:57):
came to get water, oh, I love it. Jesus started
working on her. He started asking her questions, can I
get a drink? And she said, you don't have a bucket,
and I'm not a Jew and I'm not a man.
And he said, well, if you knew who was talking
to you, you'd ask and I'd give you the drink.
And she said, well, are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this? Well, and Jesus is thinking, actually,
(26:19):
I really am, well Jacob, I made him, But let's
don't get to that right now. And they started to argue,
we worship here, you worship there, You're like this, and
I'm like that, And all of a sudden, Jesus cuts
through all of that because because he.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Was thinking like a reaper.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Now, this is difficult for us, because as we go
through life, we only see seeds, and the seed looks.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Nothing like what it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So what the disciples would have seen if they had
been in this scene would have been the woman who
had had five different husbands, the woman who was not
worth Jesus's time, the woman who had made so many
mistakes or had been through so many relationships, whether her
fault or the other, that her broken heart would make
(27:15):
a horrible place for a new beginning.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
But Jesus thinks.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Like a reaper, and a reaper begins with the end
in mind. How many of you have had somebody in
your life at some point who saw something in you
you didn't see in yourself, and you're grateful that they
invested in you. How many people wish you could be
(27:49):
that person that the person who believed in you saw
I told a buddy the other day, sometimes I'm sad
because I'm grieving the me that I thought I would
be by now.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I am grieving the absence of the patience that I
thought I would have by now.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I am grieving the let it go that I thought
I would be able to access in stressful situations. And
this woman is not necessarily looking for an encounter with
the living God, but she gets one.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Because Jesus sees what she can be. There was a
man that I met. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
God brings different people along in our life in different seasons.
By the way, don't ever think that just because people
were seasonal in your life that it makes them insignificant.
One of the reasons is so hard for us to
resolve relationships when they end or when they change is
because we assumed that the one who sewed into our
(28:53):
life would be there when the reaping came.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's not always like that. I tell you an example.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
When I was sixteen, of course, I had been in church.
What they say, the old preacher say, I had a
drug problem. My mom drugged me to church every Sunday morning,
every Sunday night, every Wednesday night.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Y'all heard that one before.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But there was an older pastor and I've talked about
him many times in this pulpit, and I call him older,
but I guess the time I met him, he wasn't
that much older than I am now. So it's kind
of getting weird. But he is old now, but you know,
old is just where I haven't been yet. So he
saw something in me and he let me be the
(29:39):
FCA director of Fellowship of Christian Athletes and also his
youth pastor.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
His name is Mickey White, Pastor Mickey White.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Mickey White ran an autoparts store in Monks Corner, South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
He would disciple me on Tuesdays.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And when I say he would disciple me, I'm not
saying that he was like Jesus, but he helped me
through my hard places. And one of the things about
mentoring a sixteen or seventeen year old or whatever I
was at the time, is that he had explained to
me things that I should just know. And by hiring
somebody that was seventeen to be a youth pastor. I
(30:11):
remember we were doing one FCA banquet. This thought just
came back to me for the first time in years.
While I was preparing, I went around. He took me
around to all of his friends who were businessmen in
Monk's Corner. And I was wanting to raise money so
we could bring in really good speakers to preach the
gospel at our FCA events, and so I would go
(30:32):
around to his friends. The first guy I sat down with,
I said, I want to raise some money and this
is my vision. And he pulled out his check book
and started writing the check while I was talking because
he was going to do it.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
For Mickey anyway, he wasn't doing it for me. He's
doing it for Mickey.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And so he's writing a check and I keep talking
and I'm like, and we could do this, and we
can do that. And I felt a hand on my
leg kind of squeezed my thigh and it was Pastor Mickey,
and so I just let him write the check and
I thanked him. I said, hey, why you squeeze my leg?
He said, when you've made the sales, shut up. He
was writing a check. It could only get worse from there.
(31:07):
It can only stop writing, So stop talking, good little thing.
I always remember him saying that, well, we were having
our first one of those big nights that I had
raised the money for. And long story short, I know
you want every detail, but just out of consideration for
others who have lunch appointments, I didn't get the doors
(31:30):
unlocked in.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Time, and so that the event was a complete disaster.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Because I had another thing and I had asked somebody
else to unlock the doors.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
So at the end of the night, he pulls me aside.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
He doesn't grab my leg, but it looks like you're
about to grab my throat, and he.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Goes, what happened? What happened? You are the SCA president.
What happened?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And I mentioned the name of the person who was
supposed to unlock the door that didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
He didn't even let me finish my sentence when I said,
their name is cann Stop. You're the leader.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
The leader's job is to do it or get it done,
and you didn't do either.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Never forgot that up until that point in my life.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I had just thought like a teenager, and a teenager
doesn't even do it if it's a task. He was
trying to skip me all the way from teenager to leader,
try and tell me not only is it just do
the task, just check it off, but it is actually
making sure that the outcome happens.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Because he was trying to get me to think like
a reaper. A reaper. A leader thinks like a reaper.
See if you just go through life and you go, oh,
well I did that. I tried that, I said that
I did it. You're still only a sewer.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
But to grow up is to say, not only am
I responsible for the task, but I am going to
be responsible for the outcome. Now, the good news about
it is this, tell somebody think like a reaper. The
good news is this, everywhere God sends you, He's already
(33:20):
been there.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Everywhere.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Somebody needs to hear that because you're going into a
situation that's like a Samaria to you. You're going into
a situation that's a hard place for you, that's a
hazardous place for you, that might even be a hostile
environment for you.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
But notice when.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
The disciples got back, Jesus was already talking to the woman.
And in fact, by the time they got back to Jesus,
she was already on her way back to the town.
And she didn't even get the water that she came for.
She left her jar and went to town. Now, let's
contrast the two. You've got a woman who Jesus wasn't
(34:04):
even technically.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Supposed to be talking to.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
You've got a woman who has had a salacious past.
You have a woman who is only known and identified
by what she's been through.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And then you have the disciples, the ones.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
That Jesus is using, his leaders, who are going to
take the church and really move it forward and all
this wonderful stuff that they're going to do as leaders.
And the woman she goes back to town and starts
telling men about a man that she met. The disciples
come to the man that she just met and say, hey,
(34:39):
you want.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
To eat something, And this is what got me.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
While they were thinking about a meal, she was already
thinking about a harvest. It didn't take long for her
mentality to shift, and all of a sudden she saw
herself differently, and all of a sudden, I imagine in
(35:05):
that flash she thought, wait a minute, I'm talking to
the Messiah. I am talking to possibly the one who
can save me. And the first thing she thought about it,
the first thing she thought about it was I've got
to go back to town and get the men and
bring them to this man. The disciples come back, the
(35:27):
first thing they think is we got to eat. And
it makes me wonder who's the real disciple in this passage.
It makes me wonder did the ones who had been
with him so much take him for granted, but the
one that had just met him saw.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
The potential of what he could do.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Because it's amazing that they're just thinking about eating and
she's thinking about reaping. You say, the Bible doesn't say that,
it implies it. When she came back from the town
with the men, Jesus started preaching. He said, open your
eyes and look, the fields are already white onto harvest.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And then he goes into a saying.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Now this saying isn't something we say, but it's something
that they said. He said, that's the saying one sows
and another reaps. It's true, like Pastor Mickey said, it's
a leader's job to do it or get it done.
(36:33):
I never forgot that say it. Certain things that my
family used to say when I was growing up, they
terrified me once I understood what they meant. My dad
used to always see somebody that he thought was kind
of snobby and he would say, I wish I could
buy them for what they're worth and sell them for
what they think they're worth. And as a little boy,
I always heard him say that, and one day, when
(36:53):
I hit puberty, I realized what he was saying. I
was like, dang, that is crazy what he just said.
I wish I could buy them for what they're worth
and sell them for what they think they were. My
dad was such a menace, and I didn't even know
it at the time. And then some of this stuff
is just cuter little sayings that we get right, little
things that we say, little things that wor can weave
(37:14):
their way into our vocabulary, as Southerners have all kinds
of sayings, right.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
I met a guy one time.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
He was so Southern even I didn't know his sayings.
And that takes a lot, because I've heard a lot
of Southern sayings through the years, and I feel like
I'm a pretty good interpreter of my own language. But
I remember this guy named Brian that I met one
time from Louisiana, and when we were getting ready to
go somewhere, he used to say, if you're waiting on me,
you're backing up. And I said, say that again, and
(37:44):
so he would just say it's slower. But even after
he said it slower, I still didn't know what that meant.
You know what I'm saying, It takes one to know one.
It's just a saying, right right.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
This was a saying that they had.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Put it back up verse thirty seven because this really
got my attention. Jesus is talking to this woman. He's
working in her heart. She has had a hard life
and this is a hard place, and Jesus is trying
to show us disciples something.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I believe he's trying to show us. Thus, the saying
one sows and another reaps is true.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It was a saying they had and Jesus said, is
true that sometimes life isn't fair. Think about it, one
sows and another reaps, Like sometimes you do all the
work and they get all the credit. Sometimes you build
it and you don't even get to enjoy it. Sometimes
(38:49):
you put all the love into the relationship and then
they end up with somebody else. Sometimes you put all
the investment into making the thing good, and then you
feel like when it finally starts hitting, you get shut
out of it. One sows and another reaps. Be honest,
have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt
(39:12):
like you put more in than you got out? Have
you ever felt like you were the only one who
seemed to care about it because you're the only one
who did it, but everybody else enjoyed the benefits of
what you did. Now, I'm not saying I've ever felt
this way about y'all, But even as a preacher, you
(39:33):
see how easy it could be to have a resentment
about Oh my goodness, I worked so hard on this
message and I don't even know if they care. So
what I could think about that is watch this. Well,
I guess I'm the only one who loves God's word.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Because the enemy would love to say that to me.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Just like if you were a volunteer, there will be
eager for in this church that will sign up to
lead an e group, and the one will come and
it will be easy for them to think, well, I
was willing, I was trying. I gave it all I
had and it didn't work. There will be people in
this room today who will really give all of yourself
(40:19):
to something, only to find that the people who you
did it for don't even say thank you. Wonder if
God ever feels that way about us. By the way,
I'm just.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Asking don Jesus, you have a.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Sand one sows in another reaps, and at this point
the disciples are probably feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Like, Yeah, that's us. We're the sewers, We're the disciples, We're.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
The ones working hard, We're the ones out here in
Samaria following you, Jesus.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
But isn't the irony in the fact.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
That the woman was the one reaping and they were
just eating. Isn't the irony in the fact that the
ones who should have been reaping were only focused on
their next meal, and the one that Jesus shouldn't have
even been talking to was going back to the town
(41:10):
to share her testimony.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
And here's what I'm saying to you.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
You might be surprised who God uses, You might be
surprised how.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
He uses you.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You might be surprised what He uses in your life,
because the fact of the matter is, when God is
using you, you don't always feel it.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You don't.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
The feeling comes, but it doesn't come first. You have
to obey Jesus when you see no evidence that your
obedience is yielding anything. You have to instill in your
kids certain values that you can only hope you are
(41:50):
going to envision later in their life. But the disciples
are the sowers right now, Jesus said, And this blew
my mind, Holly, this blew my mind.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
He said. The saying is true. One sows and another reaps.
That's how it works, right. She's like, yeah, that's how
it works.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
One, so's another reap. Look at verse thirty eight. He
gives it a twist.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I sent you to read what you haven't worked for.
Wait a minute, No, no, no, Jesus, we're the sowers.
They're the reapers, Jesus says, not really.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
You always see yourself as a sewer, but you never
even realize how much you're already reaping.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Put it back up. I sent you to read. Come on,
what you have not worked for?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped
the benefits of their labor. Which makes me think that
maybe you've been reaping and you don't even realize it.
Maybe you've been reaping and you know. The enemy has
got you.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
So focused on how hard it is to sew, how
hard it is to show up, how hard it is
to dig in, how hard it is to be you.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Wave at me if it's hard to be you. Yeah,
it's hard to be you. How hard it is to
be you.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
But if the enemy can only get you to focus
on how hard it is, or here's another one, if
he can get you to focus on how hurt you are, y'all,
I am sick and tired of people only talking about
church hurt because it's a ridiculous distinction to.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Call it church hurt. It's human hurt.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
People hurt, people hurt people. If you quit going to church,
it wasn't because church hurt you. It's because you allowed
the hurt to become greater than the harvest.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
This is what I want to preach. This is what
I want to preach.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
I've been preaching so much many verses to get to
this one. Tell somebody said next to you.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Say, oh, you've been reaping. You just haven't realized it yet.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Tell them, Oh, God's been good to you. You just
haven't realized it yet. Now look at him and say, oh,
you have help, you just.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Haven't called for it yet.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Now take about thirteen seconds if you know Jesus is
my help.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
I'm not letting this go. You might sit on me all.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Day, but I'm not going down without a fight today
because God sent me on assignment to tell somebody that
you have been so focused on how hard it is,
so focused on how hurt you are, that you have
become blind to how much help you actually have. That's
(44:56):
why the Bible says, praise the Lord.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
On my soul and all all.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
That is within me, bless his holy name.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Praise the Lord o my soul.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And Chris referenced it when he was leading worship, and
I took it as a confirmation when he said it.
And forget not all his benefits. Let me give you
a list who forgives.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
All your sins.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You didn't earn that you reap that I said, you
didn't earn that you reap that I couldn't earn forgiveness.
The chasm was too wide, the gap was too great,
My sin was too bleek, my shame was too great.
But Jesus was Greater who heals all your diseases. Yeah,
(45:42):
I feel it now. I feel it now. Why is
the only time that we thank God for our health
when we need to be healed? Why am I not
thanking God for the stuff that feels good right now?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Look at that? Look what I do.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
That's a big deal, you say, pastor, did you have
a shoulder surgery that you came through and now you're
really grateful you No, I'm praising them for the surgery
that I didn't have to have.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
What I thought?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Somebody say, the harvest is here, the harvest. Come on this, son,
don't feel left off. You can get in on this too.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
The harvest, it's already here.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So the disciples are thinking about food and they mean well,
but they are missing the mission over a meal.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
I said, they're missing the mission over a meal.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Don't let what you didn't get keep you from praising
God for what you have and wherever He is sending you,
please believe he's already been there.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Because he's the sower. I'm the reaper.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
He gave his life so I could live mine. He
is the breath, I am the sales. He is the vine.
I am the branch. I'm trying to get you to
say out loud, I'm reaping this.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
This life that I have is a gift. This opportunity
that I have is a gift. This moment that I
have is a gift.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
This breath that I have.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Is a gift. Breed out his praise. And if you.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Were the devil. I'm not saying you are. I'm sure
you're an angel, But if you were the devil. If
you were, if you were, tell your neighbor if you were,
wouldn't you want to.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Keep you from reaping? Because you've already cried. You've already cried, You've.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Already shed tears over it, You've already been through the
pain of it.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Why would you?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Why would you cry over the seed and then not
reap the harvest when it came.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
It's I went twenty six.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
One of my favorite things that Thesauma said was that
they that sow.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
In tears will what.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Read with songs of joy? Are you so in your
tears that you cannot even reap what you cried for?
Speaker 1 (48:57):
And it's here the herv this is always here.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I was talking to my mom about some things she
went through in her past, and I was ministering this
message to her because she couldn't be here today. Now,
I can't do that for everybody, but I can do
it for my mom. When she's not in church, I'll
call her and give it to her personal. And she
said that when I told her, I know it's hard
because of some of the things she's been through in
her past, and I know it hurts, and it didn't
(49:22):
stop hurting. But God is with you in your hard place,
and you have more help than you have hurt. She said,
thank you for telling me that, because I get bitter
sometimes because I start thinking, well, where was my help
(49:43):
when I went through the abuse? Where was my help?
When my husband was dying of als? Where was my help?
But I realized that the answer is always John four
thirty six.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Open your eyes and look, the harvest is here. I
believe this thirty five. I messed that up. That's a
good moment too, and I really ruined it. Open your
eyes and look at the fields. Wait a minute, the fields. Jesus.
(50:19):
We're trying to get you to eat a meal. Eat Jesus.
Eat this Samaritan woman. We'll deal with her.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
No, no, no, I've already dealt with her. She's bringing
me a harvest. Now watch this. This is mind blowing.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
I love the Bible, y'all. Can I preach the Bible
to y'all for like the next fifty years? I mean,
I'm just want to stand on this thing.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Because the tears in the passage belonged to the woman
who had been through so much, and the.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Opportunity belongs to the disciples.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
And Jesus said, open your eyes, Verse, please, and look
to the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Yeah, Jesus,
but we're not ready for the harvest. Just because you're
not ready doesn't mean it's not ripe.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
And if you will open.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Your eyes, your eyes, that's the first tool you need,
is your eyes. The moment that they opened their eyes,
let's pretend to be the disciples. They open their eyes,
Jesus is talking about a harvest and coming their way
are the Samaritans that they hated. What do you do
(51:31):
when your harvest comes looking like something that you hate?
This will this will be the test in this season
of your life? Will you think like a reaper to
say that even the regret We all have regrets. This
woman had regrets. I'm sure she regretted every manda she
(51:54):
said yes to that had left her. But through the
power of faith, you can reach into a regard and
reap a lesson.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
So I'm harvesting this.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
It's hard for me right now, but I'm harvesting this
because those who sow with tears will reap with joy.
And I came to call somebody today who the devil
has been reminding you of every reason that you have
to feel bad about yourself, every reason that you have
to feel resentful about your life, every reason that you
(52:29):
have to give up and throw in the towel and
quit and duck and hide under the covers and not
call anybody back till next Thursday, and delete your hope
for the future.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
But God said to remind you you have a reason
to rejoice, because those who sow in tears you got it,
you got it, will read with joy.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
And you, my friend, are one thought away from joy.
And many in that town believed in Jesus because of.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
What that woman went through. I wonder what God wants
to do through what you went through. I'm gonna blow
your mind. I'm gonna blow your mind. God blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
If he had sent the disciples into the town, the
men wouldn't have come back with them.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
She had to have been with men in order to
bring men.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
I'm not telling you to go live a sinful life
so you can build a bigger testimony.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
But i am saying watch this. Nothing will be wasted.
Nothing will be wasted.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Nothing will be wasted, Nothing will be wasted, nothing will
be wasted.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
I'm reaping this. Nothing will be wasted. Tell your neighbor.
Nothing will be wasted.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Nothing, nothing, not a breakup, not a bad turn, not
a left turn, not a bad day, not a wrong
nothing that you'll been through. I'm thinking like a reefer
now I am seeing that God is transforming through my tears.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
And feelings don't come first, Faith does.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
So we're gonna do something that is going to absolutely
confuse the enemy in.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Just about twelve seconds.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
We are going to absolutely rejoice because we're reefers, and
reefers reap with joy, and we have been crying with
tears of anxiety, and crying with tears of regret, and
crying with tears of pain and unhealed trauma.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
But we are going to confuse the enemy in just.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
About three seconds because we're gonna start rejoicing.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Because we're reaper. Give me my joy back. Get me up.
I'm a wicked when I think of all you go.
Speaker 5 (55:23):
When I think of volume, when I think I'm reaping
where I didn't sew I never seen.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I'm standing in what I didn't deserve.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
I think I'm breathing breath that's borrows.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
I'm gonna need every reaper to get your hands something
like that. Hold on, let's receive, let's receive seed, and
then let's turn it the plain.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
Come on. When I think, thank thank you for joining
us special thanks to those of you who give generously
to this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry
is possible. You can click the link in the description
to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast
(56:13):
for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you
can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
it gives your perspective to see God is moving in
your life. Enjoy the message. Just put in the chat
right now.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
If you're joining us on our EVAAN, one thing that
you thank God for today, and while you're at it,
tell your neighbor here at Valentine one thing you thank
God for. University City, one thing you thank God for.
And if you need a little prompt tell them I
thank God for you. You are the greatest person I
sat next to in church.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Ah week, I thank God for you. Well. Elevation Nights
is coming soon. Everybody clap your hands and thank God.
I haven't been announcing this like I should.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I keep forgetting. It's weird because I get up here
so excited to preach. I don't even look at the announcements.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
But we will.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
It will be September twenty fourth, God willing through October
third in Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Boise, Idaho,
Salt Lake City, Utah and Denver, Colorado. Go to Elevation
Nights dot com for more information. We want to meet
with you. We want to praise God with you. I
(01:20):
want to preach to you. We want to celebrate the
awesome things God has done and believe with you for
all of the things that He is going to do.
Is going to be an amazing time. Speaking of an
amazing time, many of our E group leaders are expecting
you to come over to their house this week.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
This is E Group connect weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
They're getting ready all the We should actually have a
criteria for eGroups. If they have only healthy food, there
should be a disclaimer at that group.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I don't look at that as a benefit. I look
at that like a hazard. But I'm sure you can.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Find an E group that will really speak to your
stage of life.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I would love for you to do.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That that way, that when you finish here in the
sermon this week, you can take it like they said
earlier and really apply it to your life and have
help doing that. Tell your neighbor you need some help sometimes.
I don't mean to offend you, but you do sometimes
Sometimes sometimes the enemy comes to snatch the word of
(02:22):
God and you need somebody else to help you keep
it planted and to stay stable. So we've got people
to help you. Let's thank God for all our eager leaders.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
If you're leading the group, Hey, Holly, and I want
to thank you. Thank you for your partnership in the gospel.
I hope you will avail yourself to that.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And now it's time preach the word of God. Your
excitement level is amazing. I'm gonna come back out again.
I'm gonna sit the reset button.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Now it's time to preach the word of God.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I'm excited to be sharing with you today from John
chapter four, verse twenty seven through thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Please give your attention to this scripture is very powerful,
the Bible says.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Just then his disciples returned and we're 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
(03:39):
man who told me everything I ever did?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Could this be the Messiah? Look at your neighbors, say,
this could be the one.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
This could be the one. I'm not sure yet, but
I'm curious. This could be the one. I'm not completely
solid on it yet, but I'm suspicious this could.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Be the one.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And they verse came out of the town and made
their way toward him, towards Jesus. Now, meanwhile, his disciples
urged him, Rabbi, eat something, but he said to them.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I have food to eat that you know nothing about.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There's a fine line sometimes in the scripture. I can't
tell whether Jesus is training his disciples or trolling his disciples,
because that's kind.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Of you know, on the nose. Would you like to eat?
We brought some food.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He said, I have food to eat that you know
nothing about. But then listen what he says next. This
is a lesson all in itself. My food, said Jesus,
is to do the will of him who sent me
and to finish his work. My food is to do
the will of him who sent me, and to finish
his work. So the question becomes, what's your fuel? What
(04:58):
fuels you to do what God has called.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You to do?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Is your fuel comparison because that's bad fuel. Is your
fuel validation from others because that's bad fuel. Is your
fuel feelings because that's unreliable fuel.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Jesus said, my food my fuel.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
See, most of us eat food for fuel. Jesus was fueled,
and that was his food. But he was fueled by
an agenda that was set by his father.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Are you am I? My food is to do the
will of him who.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Sent me, and to finish his work. Now pay attention.
We're getting close to our main point for today.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Don't you have a saying? Is still four months until harvest?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields.
Look at the fields. They're full, they are ripe for harvest.
Even now. The one who reaps draws away and harvest
the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and
the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying one
(06:09):
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. And many of the Samaritans from that town
believed in him Jesus because of that woman's testimony. He
(06:31):
told me everything I ever did. You know, your testimony
is a tool. You got to put it back in
God's hand. Don't let the devil have your past. Your
testimony is a tool that God wants to use in
your future. That's where your ministry is going to come from,
from your misery.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
That's where your ability to help put other people back.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Together again is going to come from, from the broken
pieces that you feel inside of you.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So today I want to give you an important lesson
one of the things that God is teaching me. I
think this can be so powerful if you will think
with me. Think with me now now I want you
to feel the presence of God today. But today I
want you to think with me as well about this story,
about your life, about what God is saying. Think with me,
and I want you to think a very specific way,
and this is the title of the message. I want
(07:23):
you to think like a reaper. Think like a reaper.
In this season of your life. It is important that
you mature to the point that you think like a reaper,
(07:43):
not just an eater. Not just where's my next meal?
Not just is it convenient right now? But tell your
neighbor it's time to think like a reaper.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Not the grim reaper.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I want to clarify you might begin in Spook it's
not October.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But think like a reaper.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Father, I praise you for what you said to me,
Help me to say it so clear that it can't
be missed, and give us the courage to obey. Speak Lord,
we're listening in Jesus' name. Amen, you may be seated.
(08:28):
I like you to write this down somewhere. Feelings come,
Let's write that down.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I like to start somewhere that nobody can argue with.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Start my sermons saying.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
You know, Jesus is the only true way to God,
and he is the Son of God, and he died
for your sins and he rose again.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You know, you may or.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
May not believe that. And I believe that, but you
may not believe that. So let me buil a little bridge. Okay,
this is what John four is about, that Jesus is
the Messiah. But let me start with something that we
all can agree with. Feelings come. And one of the
things that happens in worship a lot of times when
we come to church is that we will come to
(09:11):
church not even wanting to come, and then when we
get in the atmosphere of God's presence, we are glad
we came, and we're so glad that we didn't obey
the way that we felt and let it keep us
from what we were supposed to receive. And I feel
this way every time that I do a physical workout,
you know, like a weightlifting thing or something like that.
(09:32):
I never work out because of how I want to
feel in that workout. I meet psychopaths who do CrossFit.
I'm not wired like that. They say they enjoy the
actual workout, and I am getting more to that point.
But actually what puts me in a workout is the
way I want to feel after the workout, and that
(09:53):
became a powerful journaling exercise for me. I call it
reverse journaling. It's where before instead after your day, you
usually go like, ah, well, you know, I did this
and I shouldn't have, and I ate this and I
shouldn't have and I went there and I shouldn't have
and I said that and I shouldn't have it. And
I do plenty of that, trust me. But if you
can reverse journal sometimes it's just a really good spiritual practice.
(10:15):
It's like asking the question, how do I want to
feel when this day is finished, and you ask it
in the morning, and then you kind of like try
to work toward that with your actions, because if you
just wake up and let the feelings just.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Come they'll come.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And sometimes the feelings come and they catch you before
you've even had your coffee. And this is a whole
room of people who have not had their coffee today.
I could tell they put niquill in the communion cups
out there in the lobby here today. But what I'm
trying to say is, feelings come. Watch this, but they
don't come first. Now, that might be one of the
(10:59):
most powerful things that I ever learned, and I'd like
to break it down with you a little while today.
Say Feelings come, but they don't come first. Say it again,
Feelings come. Write it in the chat. Feelings come, but
they don't come first. And so the feeling of being
tempted is never a sin. It is when the temptation
(11:23):
takes the throne in your life and leads you to
a place that you have no business being, that the
sin is committed. Feelings of sadness do not negate the
joy of the Lord. But it's when I allow the
feeling of sadness to become the primary soil in which
(11:43):
my life is grown that it becomes a problem. Feelings come,
but they don't come first. And what I mean by
that is, first of all, sometimes you have to do
the thing and the feeling follows.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Sometimes you have to.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Lift your hands and the burden is lifted as your
hands are. But if you wait for the burden to lift,
for your hands to follow, you may keep them in
your pockets. You may never feel the freedom that you
could have felt, because feelings come, but they don't come first.
All I'm trying to get you to see today is
(12:24):
that God is very aware of the hard places in
your life.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And the very clear.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Thing that I heard God saying to me today to
preach to you, was he will help you in the
hard place. Just encourage your neighbor. They need to hear it.
God will help you in the hard place. Say it
to your neighbor, even if you don't believe it's true
for you. God will help you in the hard place.
(12:54):
And see when you said that to her. You don't
know what her hard.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Place is, but you can be sure she has a
hard place.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
No, she doesn't. She has plenty of money, then she
has plenty of taxes. God will help you in the
hard place. You know well, they have kids. They're not
struggling with infertility. Fertility has its own set of problems.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
You never hear him.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I say that I'm struggling with fertility. But the truth
of the matter is whether you're struggling with something that
you can't have or something that you do have.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
The pressure is real for all of us.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And the assuring word of the Lord is that God
will help you in your hard place.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
God will help you in your hard place.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The text that we read, I'm not sure if the
section that I read got the point across that Jesus
and his disciples were traveling through a hard place. We
know that because verse thirty nine says many of the
Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the
woman's testimony, and two things in this text I want
(13:59):
to give you before we really get practical here, is
that Samaria was a place that was very hostile to
the Jews, and the woman had lived a very hard
life and had been through several men. In fact, she'd
been through five men, and she was currently in a
situation with number six. Into the complexity of this situation.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Cleaning it up and making it, King.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
James, there comes the presence of purity, the presence of purpose,
the presence of potential in the dirt of a place
that they didn't want to be. Samaria was a place
(14:49):
that was racially tense. Samaria was a place that was
religiously polytheistic. Not that they didn't each think they were right,
they just worshiped in different places in different ways. And
so everything is against the Disciples and Jesus in this text.
And I think that's worth its own sermon, really, I do,
(15:11):
because some of the things that God teaches us that
go the deepest happen in the places that we did
not choose to be.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You don't really.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Get to sign up for a class to learn the
things that Christ wants to teach you.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
And I'll prove it to you right from the text.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
The disciples were look at verse twenty seven, surprise to
see Jesus.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Talking to a woman.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Now that lets me know if they were surprised that
they did not get a syllabus. I got a son
going back to college this week. What's up, my boy.
Some of the stuff that gets taught is not on
the syllabus. And when we read discipleship, we think class
because that is our modern Western interpretation of learning. But
(16:01):
God's version of learning usually looks like this. I am
going to show you how strategic I was after you
survived the surprise. So then what happens is life catches
you off guard. Oh whoa, hey, no they didn't even
see that coming. Oh well no, I didn't even see
(16:22):
them coming. I definitely would have duped. I definitely wouldn't
have answered if I knew that's what they wanted to
talk to me about.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
You know, people who bait you.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
With the text like hey, and that's all it says.
I never responded that I'm gonna need more information that
is inconclusive data to give me. Surprise, he's talking to
a woman. Surprise, he's sitting down having a chat. Surprise.
(16:50):
She's somebody you don't like. She's a Samaritan.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Surprise. See, they thought we went.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Through Samaria because it was shorter geographically. The Bible says
that Jesus took them through Samaria.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Well, most Jews walked around Samaria so that they didn't
have to deal with those people.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And now Jesus is talking to one of those people,
and not even one of those people, a woman, which
was not very good pr strategy for a rabbi.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And yet I have learned in my life. Now you
can get this lesson. At age thirteen.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
You can get it at age thirty one, or you
can die not getting this lesson. But you'll find out
one day that God is often most strategic when you
are most surprised. And that means that God will allow
things to come into my life, even my day or
even my feelings.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
That I did not expect.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
And what I have to learn how to do in
those moments is what Galatians six ' nine says, Please
give me this verse.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Galician six ' nine says, let us not.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Become weary in doing good or at the proper time,
or one version says, in due season, in due season,
at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if
we do not give up. But if your feelings come first,
(18:26):
you give up while it's growing. If your feelings come first,
if you cannot separate the feeling, you will never experience
your due season d u E season.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But this the tricky thing.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
How do you do d O in a season what
is due d ue in another season when the feelings
don't come to support you and you say to me,
this has nothing to do with you, Jesus and the Samaritan.
It has everything to do with Jesus and the Samaritan.
It has everything to do with you and your kid.
(19:07):
It has everything to do with the fear that you
feel about your business. Because I think this passage speaks
to every one of our fears, every one of our frustration,
and it speaks to something else that we should talk about,
the fatigue that we feel.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
While we do.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
What we do and what is due doesn't come. What
do you do when what is due doesn't come? And
the Lord might have sent me to preach this message
for myself. And if that's the case, I invite you
to listen in because too many times in my life
(19:50):
I have thought only about what I am sewing in
this moment, and I lose consciousness of the harvest that
awaits me.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
If I don't give up. And so it looks like this,
do not be deceived. Actually good verse good to verse eight.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I think that'd be good to Galatians chapter six, verse eight,
where the Bible says Galician six eight, Please, whoever sows
to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That's another way of saying, just doing what you feel.
So to the flesh.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit will
reap eternal life. And that's how we're trying to think. Now,
we're trying to think about the lasting thing. We're trying
to think about the eternal thing. We're trying to think
about the long term thing. And we don't want to
be so into our feelings that we only sew into
(20:51):
what we feel like.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I'm coming. I'm coming. It's gonna take a minute, but
we're gonna get there. So it looks like this.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I may want to eat the ice cream at ten pm,
I don't want to feel the ice cream at three am,
I don't want to see the ice cream. But if
I am so into what I feel, then my feelings
(21:25):
come first, because rather than thinking like a reefer and thinking.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Well, if I eat the ice cream just tonight, that's fine,
But if I eat the ice cream every night, I
mean every night.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Then I go back for a fourth scoop because I
had a very stressful.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Day, and don't judge me about it.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I won't like what I see, but I will like
what I feel. And so I need you to start okay,
growing into a place in God. When when you go.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
To speak an unkind word, you can think this, if
I sew this unkind word, what will I reap in
this relationship later, because I'm gonna tell you the truth.
It's gonna feel good to say it right now. It's
gonna feel good to go off right now. As a
matter of fact, when the woman in the text was
talking with Jesus the part I didn't read you, she
(22:18):
was so in her feelings she went off on Jesus.
Jesus said, give me a drink. She said, you don't
have a bucket. And why are you talking to me anyway.
I'm a woman, you're a Rabbi, I'm a Samaritan, you're
a Jew.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
You don't have anything to do with me. No, I
have everything to do with you.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And what you do in this moment where you feel offended,
what you do in this moment where you feel weary,
will determine what you do in this moment will determine
whether your due season is going to be full of
thorns and thistles or fruit in favor. I am not saying,
(22:59):
by the way, that God's love is on the basis
of our behavior. I am saying that the consequences are
built into the system of humanity. So to think like
a reaper is to watch this fancy term I came
up with this week to become.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I almost forgot it. See that's what happens when you
try to show off with big words.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Conscious of the consequence, right, conscious of the consequence pattern recognition.
Every time I go down this road, every time, I
just like respond out of what I feel. Every time,
I just continue to rehearse this thing that happened.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Three weeks ago. Every time I just let myself go
there in my mind.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Every time I indulge in it, I hate where it
takes me.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And that's my conflict.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Conflict because some of the things in my life, I
love what they bring me, but I hate where they
take me.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And if you'll be honest with it.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
There are certain vices, certain things, certain actions, certain states,
certain relationships.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Oh, don't let me preach a relationship seminar. I'll preach
about the certain.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Things that make you feel a certain way, but they
take you a place.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And what do you do when you love how they
make you feel, but you hate where they make you go.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Jesus is going somewhere, He's going through some area, he's
working on something. And just remind your neighbor in case
they haven't felt God's presence lately, or in case they're
unclear about what God is doing in their life, just
tell them he's working on something. Right now, he's working
(24:47):
You need to be more convincing than that. Don't be
mumbling that at them.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Say Jesus is working on something. Come on, put it
in the chat. Jesus is working on something. Jesus is
working on something.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
That's why the disciples were surprised, isn't it? Because when
they left him, he was sitting on a well alone.
They went to get food, and Jesus started talking to
a woman. We call her the woman at the well.
She's much more than that, as I will show you
(25:20):
in a moment, and so are you, because where she
was is not indicative of who she was, and what
she had done was not indicative of who she could become.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And when they left Jesus he was sitting down.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
The Bible actually says he was resting because he was tired.
He was resting because he was tired, and then so
tired becomes the camouflage that he uses to fulfill the
purpose he came for. Because when they left to get food,
a woman came to get water. And when the woman
(25:57):
came to get water, oh, I love it. Jesus started
working on her. He started asking her questions, can I
get a drink? And she said, you don't have a bucket,
and I'm not a Jew and I'm not a man.
And he said, well, if you knew who was talking
to you, you'd ask and I'd give you the drink.
And she said, well, are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this? Well, and Jesus is thinking, actually,
(26:19):
I really am, well Jacob, I made him, But let's
don't get to that right now. And they started to argue,
we worship here, you worship there, You're like this, and
I'm like that, And all of a sudden, Jesus cuts
through all of that because because he.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Was thinking like a reaper.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Now, this is difficult for us, because as we go
through life, we only see seeds, and the seed looks.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Nothing like what it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So what the disciples would have seen if they had
been in this scene would have been the woman who
had had five different husbands, the woman who was not
worth Jesus's time, the woman who had made so many
mistakes or had been through so many relationships, whether her
fault or the other, that her broken heart would make
(27:15):
a horrible place for a new beginning.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
But Jesus thinks.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Like a reaper, and a reaper begins with the end
in mind. How many of you have had somebody in
your life at some point who saw something in you
you didn't see in yourself, and you're grateful that they
invested in you. How many people wish you could be
(27:49):
that person that the person who believed in you saw
I told a buddy the other day, sometimes I'm sad
because I'm grieving the me that I thought I would
be by now.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I am grieving the absence of the patience that I
thought I would have by now.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I am grieving the let it go that I thought
I would be able to access in stressful situations. And
this woman is not necessarily looking for an encounter with
the living God, but she gets one.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Because Jesus sees what she can be. There was a
man that I met. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
God brings different people along in our life in different seasons.
By the way, don't ever think that just because people
were seasonal in your life that it makes them insignificant.
One of the reasons is so hard for us to
resolve relationships when they end or when they change is
because we assumed that the one who sewed into our
(28:53):
life would be there when the reaping came.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's not always like that. I tell you an example.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
When I was sixteen, of course, I had been in church.
What they say, the old preacher say, I had a
drug problem. My mom drugged me to church every Sunday morning,
every Sunday night, every Wednesday night.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Y'all heard that one before.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But there was an older pastor and I've talked about
him many times in this pulpit, and I call him older,
but I guess the time I met him, he wasn't
that much older than I am now. So it's kind
of getting weird. But he is old now, but you know,
old is just where I haven't been yet. So he
saw something in me and he let me be the
(29:39):
FCA director of Fellowship of Christian Athletes and also his
youth pastor.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
His name is Mickey White, Pastor Mickey White.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Mickey White ran an autoparts store in Monks Corner, South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
He would disciple me on Tuesdays.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And when I say he would disciple me, I'm not
saying that he was like Jesus, but he helped me
through my hard places. And one of the things about
mentoring a sixteen or seventeen year old or whatever I
was at the time, is that he had explained to
me things that I should just know. And by hiring
somebody that was seventeen to be a youth pastor. I
(30:11):
remember we were doing one FCA banquet. This thought just
came back to me for the first time in years.
While I was preparing, I went around. He took me
around to all of his friends who were businessmen in
Monk's Corner. And I was wanting to raise money so
we could bring in really good speakers to preach the
gospel at our FCA events, and so I would go
(30:32):
around to his friends. The first guy I sat down with,
I said, I want to raise some money and this
is my vision. And he pulled out his check book
and started writing the check while I was talking because
he was going to do it.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
For Mickey anyway, he wasn't doing it for me. He's
doing it for Mickey.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And so he's writing a check and I keep talking
and I'm like, and we could do this, and we
can do that. And I felt a hand on my
leg kind of squeezed my thigh and it was Pastor Mickey,
and so I just let him write the check and
I thanked him. I said, hey, why you squeeze my leg?
He said, when you've made the sales, shut up. He
was writing a check. It could only get worse from there.
(31:07):
It can only stop writing, So stop talking, good little thing.
I always remember him saying that, well, we were having
our first one of those big nights that I had
raised the money for. And long story short, I know
you want every detail, but just out of consideration for
others who have lunch appointments, I didn't get the doors
(31:30):
unlocked in.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Time, and so that the event was a complete disaster.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Because I had another thing and I had asked somebody
else to unlock the doors.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
So at the end of the night, he pulls me aside.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
He doesn't grab my leg, but it looks like you're
about to grab my throat, and he.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Goes, what happened? What happened? You are the SCA president.
What happened?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And I mentioned the name of the person who was
supposed to unlock the door that didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
He didn't even let me finish my sentence when I said,
their name is cann Stop. You're the leader.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
The leader's job is to do it or get it done,
and you didn't do either.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Never forgot that up until that point in my life.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I had just thought like a teenager, and a teenager
doesn't even do it if it's a task. He was
trying to skip me all the way from teenager to leader,
try and tell me not only is it just do
the task, just check it off, but it is actually
making sure that the outcome happens.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Because he was trying to get me to think like
a reaper. A reaper. A leader thinks like a reaper.
See if you just go through life and you go, oh,
well I did that. I tried that, I said that
I did it. You're still only a sewer.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
But to grow up is to say, not only am
I responsible for the task, but I am going to
be responsible for the outcome. Now, the good news about
it is this, tell somebody think like a reaper. The
good news is this, everywhere God sends you, He's already
(33:20):
been there.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Everywhere.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Somebody needs to hear that because you're going into a
situation that's like a Samaria to you. You're going into
a situation that's a hard place for you, that's a
hazardous place for you, that might even be a hostile
environment for you.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
But notice when.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
The disciples got back, Jesus was already talking to the woman.
And in fact, by the time they got back to Jesus,
she was already on her way back to the town.
And she didn't even get the water that she came for.
She left her jar and went to town. Now, let's
contrast the two. You've got a woman who Jesus wasn't
(34:04):
even technically.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Supposed to be talking to.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
You've got a woman who has had a salacious past.
You have a woman who is only known and identified
by what she's been through.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And then you have the disciples, the ones.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
That Jesus is using, his leaders, who are going to
take the church and really move it forward and all
this wonderful stuff that they're going to do as leaders.
And the woman she goes back to town and starts
telling men about a man that she met. The disciples
come to the man that she just met and say, hey,
(34:39):
you want.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
To eat something, And this is what got me.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
While they were thinking about a meal, she was already
thinking about a harvest. It didn't take long for her
mentality to shift, and all of a sudden she saw
herself differently, and all of a sudden, I imagine in
(35:05):
that flash she thought, wait a minute, I'm talking to
the Messiah. I am talking to possibly the one who
can save me. And the first thing she thought about it,
the first thing she thought about it was I've got
to go back to town and get the men and
bring them to this man. The disciples come back, the
(35:27):
first thing they think is we got to eat. And
it makes me wonder who's the real disciple in this passage.
It makes me wonder did the ones who had been
with him so much take him for granted, but the
one that had just met him saw.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
The potential of what he could do.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Because it's amazing that they're just thinking about eating and
she's thinking about reaping. You say, the Bible doesn't say that,
it implies it. When she came back from the town
with the men, Jesus started preaching. He said, open your
eyes and look, the fields are already white onto harvest.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And then he goes into a saying.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Now this saying isn't something we say, but it's something
that they said. He said, that's the saying one sows
and another reaps. It's true, like Pastor Mickey said, it's
a leader's job to do it or get it done.
(36:33):
I never forgot that say it. Certain things that my
family used to say when I was growing up, they
terrified me once I understood what they meant. My dad
used to always see somebody that he thought was kind
of snobby and he would say, I wish I could
buy them for what they're worth and sell them for
what they think they're worth. And as a little boy,
I always heard him say that, and one day, when
(36:53):
I hit puberty, I realized what he was saying. I
was like, dang, that is crazy what he just said.
I wish I could buy them for what they're worth
and sell them for what they think they were. My
dad was such a menace, and I didn't even know
it at the time. And then some of this stuff
is just cuter little sayings that we get right, little
things that we say, little things that wor can weave
(37:14):
their way into our vocabulary, as Southerners have all kinds
of sayings, right.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
I met a guy one time.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
He was so Southern even I didn't know his sayings.
And that takes a lot, because I've heard a lot
of Southern sayings through the years, and I feel like
I'm a pretty good interpreter of my own language. But
I remember this guy named Brian that I met one
time from Louisiana, and when we were getting ready to
go somewhere, he used to say, if you're waiting on me,
you're backing up. And I said, say that again, and
(37:44):
so he would just say it's slower. But even after
he said it slower, I still didn't know what that meant.
You know what I'm saying, It takes one to know one.
It's just a saying, right right.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
This was a saying that they had.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Put it back up verse thirty seven because this really
got my attention. Jesus is talking to this woman. He's
working in her heart. She has had a hard life
and this is a hard place, and Jesus is trying
to show us disciples something.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I believe he's trying to show us. Thus, the saying
one sows and another reaps is true.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It was a saying they had and Jesus said, is
true that sometimes life isn't fair. Think about it, one
sows and another reaps, Like sometimes you do all the
work and they get all the credit. Sometimes you build
it and you don't even get to enjoy it. Sometimes
(38:49):
you put all the love into the relationship and then
they end up with somebody else. Sometimes you put all
the investment into making the thing good, and then you
feel like when it finally starts hitting, you get shut
out of it. One sows and another reaps. Be honest,
have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt
(39:12):
like you put more in than you got out? Have
you ever felt like you were the only one who
seemed to care about it because you're the only one
who did it, but everybody else enjoyed the benefits of
what you did. Now, I'm not saying I've ever felt
this way about y'all, But even as a preacher, you
(39:33):
see how easy it could be to have a resentment
about Oh my goodness, I worked so hard on this
message and I don't even know if they care. So
what I could think about that is watch this. Well,
I guess I'm the only one who loves God's word.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Because the enemy would love to say that to me.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Just like if you were a volunteer, there will be
eager for in this church that will sign up to
lead an e group, and the one will come and
it will be easy for them to think, well, I
was willing, I was trying. I gave it all I
had and it didn't work. There will be people in
this room today who will really give all of yourself
(40:19):
to something, only to find that the people who you
did it for don't even say thank you. Wonder if
God ever feels that way about us. By the way,
I'm just.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Asking don Jesus, you have a.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Sand one sows in another reaps, and at this point
the disciples are probably feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Like, Yeah, that's us. We're the sewers, We're the disciples, We're.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
The ones working hard, We're the ones out here in
Samaria following you, Jesus.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
But isn't the irony in the fact.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
That the woman was the one reaping and they were
just eating. Isn't the irony in the fact that the
ones who should have been reaping were only focused on
their next meal, and the one that Jesus shouldn't have
even been talking to was going back to the town
(41:10):
to share her testimony.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
And here's what I'm saying to you.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
You might be surprised who God uses, You might be
surprised how.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
He uses you.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You might be surprised what He uses in your life,
because the fact of the matter is, when God is
using you, you don't always feel it.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You don't.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
The feeling comes, but it doesn't come first. You have
to obey Jesus when you see no evidence that your
obedience is yielding anything. You have to instill in your
kids certain values that you can only hope you are
(41:50):
going to envision later in their life. But the disciples
are the sowers right now, Jesus said, And this blew
my mind, Holly, this blew my mind.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
He said. The saying is true. One sows and another reaps.
That's how it works, right. She's like, yeah, that's how
it works.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
One, so's another reap. Look at verse thirty eight. He
gives it a twist.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I sent you to read what you haven't worked for.
Wait a minute, No, no, no, Jesus, we're the sowers.
They're the reapers, Jesus says, not really.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
You always see yourself as a sewer, but you never
even realize how much you're already reaping.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Put it back up. I sent you to read. Come on,
what you have not worked for?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped
the benefits of their labor. Which makes me think that
maybe you've been reaping and you don't even realize it.
Maybe you've been reaping and you know. The enemy has
got you.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
So focused on how hard it is to sew, how
hard it is to show up, how hard it is
to dig in, how hard it is to be you.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Wave at me if it's hard to be you. Yeah,
it's hard to be you. How hard it is to
be you.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
But if the enemy can only get you to focus
on how hard it is, or here's another one, if
he can get you to focus on how hurt you are, y'all,
I am sick and tired of people only talking about
church hurt because it's a ridiculous distinction to.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Call it church hurt. It's human hurt.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
People hurt, people hurt people. If you quit going to church,
it wasn't because church hurt you. It's because you allowed
the hurt to become greater than the harvest.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
This is what I want to preach. This is what
I want to preach.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
I've been preaching so much many verses to get to
this one. Tell somebody said next to you.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Say, oh, you've been reaping. You just haven't realized it yet.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Tell them, Oh, God's been good to you. You just
haven't realized it yet. Now look at him and say, oh,
you have help, you just.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Haven't called for it yet.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Now take about thirteen seconds if you know Jesus is
my help.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
I'm not letting this go. You might sit on me all.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Day, but I'm not going down without a fight today
because God sent me on assignment to tell somebody that
you have been so focused on how hard it is,
so focused on how hurt you are, that you have
become blind to how much help you actually have. That's
(44:56):
why the Bible says, praise the Lord.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
On my soul and all all.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
That is within me, bless his holy name.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Praise the Lord o my soul.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And Chris referenced it when he was leading worship, and
I took it as a confirmation when he said it.
And forget not all his benefits. Let me give you
a list who forgives.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
All your sins.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You didn't earn that you reap that I said, you
didn't earn that you reap that I couldn't earn forgiveness.
The chasm was too wide, the gap was too great,
My sin was too bleek, my shame was too great.
But Jesus was Greater who heals all your diseases. Yeah,
(45:42):
I feel it now. I feel it now. Why is
the only time that we thank God for our health
when we need to be healed? Why am I not
thanking God for the stuff that feels good right now?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Look at that? Look what I do.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
That's a big deal, you say, pastor, did you have
a shoulder surgery that you came through and now you're
really grateful you No, I'm praising them for the surgery
that I didn't have to have.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
What I thought?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Somebody say, the harvest is here, the harvest. Come on this, son,
don't feel left off. You can get in on this too.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
The harvest, it's already here.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So the disciples are thinking about food and they mean well,
but they are missing the mission over a meal.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
I said, they're missing the mission over a meal.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Don't let what you didn't get keep you from praising
God for what you have and wherever He is sending you,
please believe he's already been there.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Because he's the sower. I'm the reaper.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
He gave his life so I could live mine. He
is the breath, I am the sales. He is the vine.
I am the branch. I'm trying to get you to
say out loud, I'm reaping this.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
This life that I have is a gift. This opportunity
that I have is a gift. This moment that I
have is a gift.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
This breath that I have.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Is a gift. Breed out his praise. And if you.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Were the devil. I'm not saying you are. I'm sure
you're an angel, But if you were the devil. If
you were, if you were, tell your neighbor if you were,
wouldn't you want to.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Keep you from reaping? Because you've already cried. You've already cried, You've.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Already shed tears over it, You've already been through the
pain of it.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Why would you?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Why would you cry over the seed and then not
reap the harvest when it came.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
It's I went twenty six.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
One of my favorite things that Thesauma said was that
they that sow.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
In tears will what.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Read with songs of joy? Are you so in your
tears that you cannot even reap what you cried for?
Speaker 1 (48:57):
And it's here the herv this is always here.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I was talking to my mom about some things she
went through in her past, and I was ministering this
message to her because she couldn't be here today. Now,
I can't do that for everybody, but I can do
it for my mom. When she's not in church, I'll
call her and give it to her personal. And she
said that when I told her, I know it's hard
because of some of the things she's been through in
her past, and I know it hurts, and it didn't
(49:22):
stop hurting. But God is with you in your hard place,
and you have more help than you have hurt. She said,
thank you for telling me that, because I get bitter
sometimes because I start thinking, well, where was my help
(49:43):
when I went through the abuse? Where was my help?
When my husband was dying of als? Where was my help?
But I realized that the answer is always John four
thirty six.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Open your eyes and look, the harvest is here. I
believe this thirty five. I messed that up. That's a
good moment too, and I really ruined it. Open your
eyes and look at the fields. Wait a minute, the fields. Jesus.
(50:19):
We're trying to get you to eat a meal. Eat Jesus.
Eat this Samaritan woman. We'll deal with her.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
No, no, no, I've already dealt with her. She's bringing
me a harvest. Now watch this. This is mind blowing.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
I love the Bible, y'all. Can I preach the Bible
to y'all for like the next fifty years? I mean,
I'm just want to stand on this thing.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Because the tears in the passage belonged to the woman
who had been through so much, and the.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Opportunity belongs to the disciples.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
And Jesus said, open your eyes, Verse, please, and look
to the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Yeah, Jesus,
but we're not ready for the harvest. Just because you're
not ready doesn't mean it's not ripe.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
And if you will open.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Your eyes, your eyes, that's the first tool you need,
is your eyes. The moment that they opened their eyes,
let's pretend to be the disciples. They open their eyes,
Jesus is talking about a harvest and coming their way
are the Samaritans that they hated. What do you do
(51:31):
when your harvest comes looking like something that you hate?
This will this will be the test in this season
of your life? Will you think like a reaper to
say that even the regret We all have regrets. This
woman had regrets. I'm sure she regretted every manda she
(51:54):
said yes to that had left her. But through the
power of faith, you can reach into a regard and
reap a lesson.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
So I'm harvesting this.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
It's hard for me right now, but I'm harvesting this
because those who sow with tears will reap with joy.
And I came to call somebody today who the devil
has been reminding you of every reason that you have
to feel bad about yourself, every reason that you have
to feel resentful about your life, every reason that you
(52:29):
have to give up and throw in the towel and
quit and duck and hide under the covers and not
call anybody back till next Thursday, and delete your hope
for the future.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
But God said to remind you you have a reason
to rejoice, because those who sow in tears you got it,
you got it, will read with joy.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
And you, my friend, are one thought away from joy.
And many in that town believed in Jesus because of.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
What that woman went through. I wonder what God wants
to do through what you went through. I'm gonna blow
your mind. I'm gonna blow your mind. God blew my mind.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
If he had sent the disciples into the town, the
men wouldn't have come back with them.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
She had to have been with men in order to
bring men.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
I'm not telling you to go live a sinful life
so you can build a bigger testimony.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
But i am saying watch this. Nothing will be wasted.
Nothing will be wasted.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Nothing will be wasted, Nothing will be wasted, nothing will
be wasted.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
I'm reaping this. Nothing will be wasted. Tell your neighbor.
Nothing will be wasted.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Nothing, nothing, not a breakup, not a bad turn, not
a left turn, not a bad day, not a wrong
nothing that you'll been through. I'm thinking like a reefer
now I am seeing that God is transforming through my tears.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
And feelings don't come first, Faith does.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
So we're gonna do something that is going to absolutely
confuse the enemy in.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Just about twelve seconds.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
We are going to absolutely rejoice because we're reefers, and
reefers reap with joy, and we have been crying with
tears of anxiety, and crying with tears of regret, and
crying with tears of pain and unhealed trauma.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
But we are going to confuse the enemy in just.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
About three seconds because we're gonna start rejoicing.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Because we're reaper. Give me my joy back. Get me up.
I'm a wicked when I think of all you go.
Speaker 5 (55:23):
When I think of volume, when I think I'm reaping
where I didn't sew I never seen.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I'm standing in what I didn't deserve.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
I think I'm breathing breath that's borrows.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
I'm gonna need every reaper to get your hands something
like that. Hold on, let's receive, let's receive seed, and
then let's turn it the plain.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
Come on. When I think, thank thank you for joining
us special thanks to those of you who give generously
to this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry
is possible. You can click the link in the description
to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast
(56:13):
for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you
can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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