After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson selected Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition exploring the land.  Lewis was charged with investigating the possibility of an all-water route west to the Pacific Ocean.  Between 1804 and 1806, Lewis and Clark explored thousands of miles of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. As the leader, Lewis guided the expedition safely across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and back.  In the course of the journey, Lewis observed, collected, and described hundreds of plants and animal species previously unknown to science. Lewis also conducted studies of the Native American cultures he encountered, and laid the groundwork for a trade economy in the new territory. When Lewis returned from the expedition, he was a hero.  Jefferson gave him 1,600 acres of land and named him Governor of the Louisiana Territory.
 
He didn’t enjoy this position long, though.  Lewis began drinking heavily, and is believed to have committed suicide at age 35.

Have you ever set your eyes on a goal, thrown yourself into a project, seen great success, and then felt depressed when it was over?  It’s a natural human response.  Sometimes we call it a mid-life crisis – when a person believes he (or she) has accomplished most of their life’s ambition, a sense of panic sets in, because we realize all of our efforts amounted to very little in the grand scheme of things.  We’ve done all we thought would satisfy us, and we’re not satisfied.

We are just like Lewis; if we don’t have a lofty purpose for which to live, we lose the will to live.  Many people don’t go to such extremes as suicide when they lose this will to live.  Instead, they set their eyes on new goals – a bigger house, a nicer car – or fill the void with as many distractions as it takes.  We waste countless hours watching TV and movies, we waste our money on things that advertisers tell us we need in order to be happy…

Janelle and I used to know a woman named Dawn who was in her early 20s.  She was a Catholic by heritage and a hedonist by practice.  She knew something was missing in her life, so she found herself a boyfriend.  Though he was lazy, and made Kevin Federline look like a gentleman, she figured her life would be more meaningful if she married him, so she spent a year planning a very elaborate wedding.  And when the wedding came and went, and she still wasn’t happy, she bought a classic Mustang.  When that didn’t satisfy her, she bought a house, and when that didn’t satisfy her, they took out a loan to buy a dog, and the dog disappointed them, too, so they knocked down some walls of their house and started to remodel.  When we lost touch with Dawn, she was just as dissatisfied as when we met her, but she was much further in debt and her life was considerably more complicated. 

Her life has been a reminder to me that it’s in our nature to chase the next big thing. We set goals for ourselves, and if we reach them, we’re happy for a moment.  But the satisfaction really is fleeting, and so as soon as one goal has been met, we’re looking for another goal, another purpose to drive us.

So how can we have the satisfied soul that Jesus had?  He walked through his life with such determination, such power, such a presence.  He knew what he wanted to do, and he did it; and he found joy in it!  The Bible even says that he found joy in the cross: “for the joy set before him, he endured the cross…”

Can we live like Jesus?

The answer lies in John 4:34:

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

Food is a most basic need; it sustains you.  What was Jesus’ most basic need?  According to this verse, it was “to do the will of the Father.”

The same is true of us.  What is the food that will satisfy your soul?  It is doing the will of the Father.  Doing the Father’s will is the food that satisfies your soul.  Jesus thrived on doing things that the Father wanted to get done. 

Let us move into our passage, John chapter 4 verses 1-42.  What is the example that Jesus gives us?  Jesus says that doing the will of the Father is his ‘food.’  What is he talking about?  What is the Father’s will?

Instead of reading the entire passage together, let us watch it.  I have a clip here of the movie The Gospel of John.  This will be four or five minutes, so make yourselves comfortable.

(Video)

Now we can see that there are four things that Jesus did – and that we can do as well – to do the will of the Father.  (We do want the food that satisfies, don’t we?)

The first thing that we see that Jesus did – and that we can do – is:

Focus on others.

We read in verse 4 that Jesus “had to go through Samaria.”  Actually, he didn’t.  Here’s the map.  Jesus took the red route, through the parched terrain of Samaria.  It is true that the shortest route from Jerusalem to Galilee was straight through Samaria, but in fact most Jews crossed the Jordan and went the long way so that they could avoid Samaria.  Why?  Because Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans in turn hated Jews.  You see, back when the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, the Assyrians deported the Israelites from their land and resettled the land (Samaria) with foreigners.  When those Israelites who were captured by the Babylonians were returned to the land in 539 BC they didn't get along with the Samaritans… and from that time forth, the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans grew. 

The Samaritans hated Jews and Jews hated Samaritans.  And Jesus “had to” go through Samaria?  Why didn’t he avoid it? 

I hate driving on Olive Avenue:  It’s crowded and there are too many stop lights.  I avoid it whenever I can, even when it’s the most direct route.  For a Jew in Jesus’ time, Samaria was hot and filled with undesirable people.  You’d have to stop and interact with these people if you went, which could be very uncomfortable, so most Jews avoided it.

But Jesus didn’t sit around thinking about himself.  Jesus focused on other people.  The easy thing to do would have been to do what all of the other Jews did – take the long way around Samaria.  But Jesus wasn’t concerned about doing the ‘easy’ thing, he was concerned about loving other people.  Aren’t you happy that Jesus didn’t choose the easy way, but instead chose the way of love?

We need to do the same thing; focus on others.  Focus on loving others.  That’s our purpose on this planet!

Consider: why are you still here?  Why are you still living on planet earth?

I became a Christian about 18 years ago; why didn’t God just zap me home to heaven?  There must be a reason why I am still here!  I can tell you one thing, it is not for ME.  My life is not about ME.  Paul writes in Philippians: “I’d rather die and be with Christ!  But I know I am going to stick around… why?  For your sake!”  Paul had it right!  God had Paul alive for a purpose, to share the love of Jesus with others.

God has you and me alive for a purpose: to share the love of Jesus with others.

God has Creekside Evangelical Free Church of Merced alive for a purpose: to share the love of Jesus with others.

The food that satisfies the soul is doing the will of God, and the will of God is that we focus on others… on helping others to know God.

The next thing we notice in this passage is that we need to:

Observe God’s rules.

Notice in verse 7 that when a Samaritan woman shows up at the well to get some water, Jesus asks for a drink.  That is perfectly acceptable, right?  If you were drawing water from a well and a weary traveler was thirsty and asked for a drink, you’d be happy to help!  But something is wrong: Jesus wasn’t following the rules!

The woman replies to Jesus’ request: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?”

According to the social rules of the day, a Jewish Rabbi would NOT have a public conversation with a woman… and, he wouldn’t think of drinking from a Samaritan’s cup!  He would be defiled!

So Jesus didn’t obey the social rules.  Should we?  What do our social rules say?  Don’t be caught speaking with so-and-so, preserve your reputation, keep your image clean…

Jesus wasn’t concerned about social rules like “don’t talk to those people, they’re bad” and “if you’re her friend, then you’re NOT my friend!”  Actually, Jesus went out of his way to care about people he was supposed to hate… and he went out of his way to love people who hated Him!

Shouldn’t we do the same?  Who are the ‘Samaritans’ for Creekside Evangelical Free Church of Merced in 2008?  Who are the Samaritans in your life?  Who are the people that you are expected to avoid?  Think of an outcast at your workplace.  How would it change your work environment if you went out of your way to be kind to that person?  Maybe you’d be shunned by your other co-workers.  Maybe the outcast himself would reject you.  Or maybe others might see that your Christianity affects your behavior.

Consider for a moment: who are the people that your social group tells you to avoid.  Do you love them with the love of Jesus?

The Father’s will is that we focus on others.  What is the food that will satisfy your soul?  It is doing the will of the Father.  And the will of the Father is that we observe God’s rules about whom to love.  Love without boundaries; love across boundaries – purposefully… that is the second thing that we learn from Jesus in this passage.

The third thing we need to do in order to satisfy ourselves with real food – doing the will of God… is to:

Obliterate misconceptions about Jesus

Notice the misconceptions that Jesus obliterates in this passage!

The first misconception is this: Holy people don’t associate with sinners.

We learn from this passage that the Samaritan woman came out to the well at the sixth hour – that’s noon – during the heat of the day!  Most women in Samaria at the time didn’t come to draw water at noon; they were in the shade of their houses!  But that is most likely the very reason that this woman came at noon – to avoid the stares and the gossip and the hatred of her peers.  This woman is not the prime example of marital fidelity!  She has been married five times before, and now she is living with some guy she’s not married to.  If you think that’s scandalous today, think of how well it went over in 30 A.D.

But Jesus cares about her.  He loves her.  In fact, about three years later, he died for her.

We seem to have this misconception that sinful people are not welcomed by Jesus.  Would the Samaritan woman here be welcomed at Creekside?  Would she find people here caring and loving toward her?

And consider the next misconception that Jesus obliterates: the misconception that what he has to offer will make life easy.  He tells the Samaritan woman that he has living water, to which she responds, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  In other words, she thinks Jesus is going to make her life easy!  Wouldn’t that be wonderful; I won’t have to work hard any more to get water!

Some people seem to think that Jesus will fix all of our troubles in this life.  If we think this, we won’t be Christians for long!  We’ll instead quickly lose faith in Jesus because it is guaranteed that life is not going to turn out exactly how we want it.  We’ll have to deal with the fallenness of this world - including sickness and death.

Notice how Jesus responds to this woman’s request for the water that will enable her to not have to come back to the well every day; he says, “go call your husband and come back.”

Isn’t that a bit intrusive?  Jesus already knew that she’d been married five times and was now living with another man; why’d he have to bring it up!

Jesus isn’t all about making life easy.  Jesus’ goal for you and me is not to make us ‘happy,’ his goal is to make us holy.  Jesus wants to deal with our sin.  After all, what’s going to kill us is not hard work, sickness, or even death…. What’s going to kill us is sin. “The wages of sin is death” Paul writes.  So the woman at the well wanted an easier life; Jesus wants to get her to deal with the reality of her sin… so she can find forgiveness.

We need to be on the same page with Jesus: we need to obliterate the misconception that Jesus came to make your life easy.  He didn’t.  He came to take away our sins.  Unfortunately, we too often don’t want to give them up.

And more than that, we are too often afraid to tell others that Jesus calls them to give up their sin.

One of the purposes for which Jesus lived was to obliterate the misconceptions people have about God; so should we.

And lastly, we’ll see from this passage that the food that satisfies is within our reach.  In verse 31, the disciples come back to Jesus with food that they bought in town.  They say to Jesus, “eat something!”  Jesus replies in verse 32:

“I have food to eat that you know nothing about…”

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

What is he talking about?  It is abundantly clear in the next verse:

“Open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for harvest.”

The fourth point is:

Do it.

“Open your eyes,” Jesus says.

The harvest is now.  There are people in your life who need to hear the good news of Jesus.  There are people in your life who need to see Jesus’ love.

If I can give you an assignment today, I’d like to ask you to pray for God to show you the Samaritans in your life.  You have a role in the harvest.  He might direct you to people in your neighborhood, someone from work or school, or to a complete stranger.

A few years before Janelle and I were married, Janelle was on a train going from Whitefish Montana to Oakland, and she had a six-hour layover in Portland.  When she arrived in Portland, she put her duffle bag in a locker and walked out of the Amtrak station with her wallet and her Bible, figuring she’d get some lunch and find a quiet place to read.  About a block into her walk, her nose began to bleed for no reason.  It was bleeding so badly, she had to take off her sweatshirt and hold it to her face.  She looked for a business with a restroom so she could stop the bleeding and clean up, but all the businesses in the area were bars and strip clubs.  She walked two more blocks before a prostitute saw her and led her into a bar to get her cleaned up.  The prostitute assumed that Janelle’s nosebleed was due to drugs.  They ended up spending all six hours of Janelle’s layover sitting in a park and talking about the Bible.  The prostitute introduced Janelle to two other prostitutes, both of whom were in their early teens.  It was the first time these three had understood the Gospel.  Before Janelle left, the four of them prayed together.   We’ve never heard what became of that, but we’re pretty confident that God had the whole thing planned before Janelle even booked her train ticket.

Focus on others.
Observe God’s rules, not people’s rules.
Obliterate the misconceptions

Do it.

This why we are here.  This is what we at Creekside are all about.

This is our purpose: Leading people into a relationship with Jesus Christ and equipping them to serve God.

Let us unify under this purpose, for in so doing we’ll find ourselves quite satisfied.

Let us say with Jesus, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.”

Let’s pray…