Passage 📖: John 4: 31–45

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👋 Introduction to Today’s Lesson

Most of us live hungry — hungry for success, for progress, for something that finally feels like enough. We focus on what’s urgent, what needs fixing, what depends on us. Meanwhile, we make quick assumptions about the people around us. They’re not interested. They wouldn’t be open. That conversation isn’t worth it. But what if we’re missing something? What if what truly sustains us isn’t comfort but obedience? What if the people we’ve written off are more ready than we think? What if the work we feel pressure to start has already been started by God? In this next moment in John 4, Jesus reframes what feeds us, who is ready, and how the Kingdom really grows.

Last week, we stood at a well in Samaria and watched something unexpected unfold. Jesus walked straight into a place most people avoided and started a conversation with a woman others would have overlooked. She carried labels — outsider, complicated, isolated — but beneath all of that was something deeper: thirst. And instead of shaming her, Jesus named her story. He brought it into the light — not to condemn her, but to heal her. He shifted the conversation away from religious debates about the “right place” to worship and toward something more personal: real relationship. Worship, He said, isn’t about location. It’s about honesty. Spirit and truth. Being fully known and not rejected.
And when she experienced that kind of love, she changed. She left her water jar — the very reason she came — and ran back to her town to say, “Come and see.”
What started as a private encounter became a public movement.
Because when living water fills you, it doesn’t stay contained. It overflows.

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Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

This moment happens immediately after the Samaritan woman leaves her water jar and runs back to town, telling people, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.” While she’s doing that, the disciples return from buying food. Picture the scene: Jesus is sitting at the well, the woman has just left, the disciples are confused, and in the distance a group of Samaritans is likely beginning to walk toward Him. This is not a separate story. It’s the ripple effect of the encounter we just witnessed. And now the focus shifts — from the woman’s transformation to the disciples’ understanding.

The disciples urge Jesus to eat, which makes sense. He’s been traveling, He’s tired, it’s noon, and He’s physically hungry. But Jesus responds, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” They assume someone secretly brought Him a meal. They’re thinking physically. But Jesus is speaking metaphysically — just like He did with “living water.” Earlier, the woman thought He meant literal water. Now, the disciples think He means literal food. John intentionally repeats this pattern of misunderstanding. Jesus clarifies, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.” In plain language, what satisfies Me most is doing what God sent Me to do. And what had He just done? He revealed Himself to an outsider. He started something in a village that would change everything. That moment — not bread — is what filled Him. This tells us something important: Jesus is sustained by mission, not comfort.

Then Jesus shifts metaphors. He says, “You say there are four months until harvest. But look — the fields are white for harvest.” In agricultural language, harvest time is when crops are ready to gather. But here’s what likely makes this moment powerful: as Jesus says this, the Samaritans are probably walking toward Him. He may literally be telling the disciples to look up — because the people they’ve been trained to avoid are ready. This is culturally explosive. In first-century Jewish thinking, Samaritans were not the “ripe” ones. They were spiritually compromised, religiously confused, outside the covenant center. But Jesus reframes everything. The harvest isn’t defined by ethnicity, background, or moral history. It’s defined by readiness — and readiness often appears in the places we least expect.

Jesus adds something else: “One sows and another reaps.” In other words, you’re stepping into work that didn’t start with you. This connects back to the prophets, to John the Baptist, and even to the Samaritan woman who just shared her story. The disciples are about to benefit from seeds they didn’t plant. That’s humbling. The Kingdom grows through shared participation — not individual credit.

Jesus adds something else: “One sows and another reaps.” In other words, you’re stepping into work that didn’t start with you. This connects back to the prophets, to John the Baptist, and even to the Samaritan woman who just shared her story. The disciples are about to benefit from seeds they didn’t plant. That’s humbling. The Kingdom grows through shared participation — not individual credit.

At the end of this section, Jesus moves on to Galilee, and John adds a striking line: “A prophet has no honor in his hometown.” This introduces tension. While the Samaritans believed based on His word, the Galileans often responded because of signs and miracles. John is quietly drawing a contrast between belief based on encounter and belief based on spectacle. Not all belief is the same. Some people want miracles; others want truth. The Samaritans received Him without signs — and that’s significant.

In this moment, the disciples are focused on lunch — what’s urgent, practical, and physically necessary — but Jesus reframes the conversation entirely. “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me,” He says, revealing that what truly sustains Him is not comfort but obedience. He has just revealed Himself to an outsider, a village is beginning to respond, and redemption is unfolding in real time — and that is what fills Him. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ identity and mission are inseparable; to do the Father’s will is not just something He does, it is who He is. And that presses into us: we all run on something — productivity, approval, achievement, distraction — but temporary fuel never fully satisfies. There is a deeper kind of life that comes not from getting more, but from aligning with God’s will. When obedience becomes your sustenance, work shifts from self-promotion to participation, and you begin living on something eternal instead of temporary.

While the disciples focus on practical concerns like food and next steps, Jesus tells them to “lift up your eyes” because the harvest is already ready. The very people they were trained to avoid — the Samaritans — are the ones moving toward Him. In John’s story, insiders hesitate while outsiders believe, revealing that Jesus sees readiness where others see rejection. He isn’t limited by cultural categories or assumptions, and He invites us to see people with the same hope. The question becomes whether we’re looking at others through expectation and bias, or whether we’re willing to look again and recognize that the people we’ve written off may be more open than we think.

We often feel pressure to be the one who starts everything — to initiate the change, fix the problem, or carry the outcome — but Jesus reframes that mindset when He says, “One sows and another reaps.” By the time the disciples arrive, the work is already in motion; seeds have been planted, and people are responding. Throughout John’s Gospel, God has been preparing the ground long before anyone realizes it. This means we are not responsible for starting the story or forcing transformation. God is already at work in people’s lives. Our role is simply to step into obedience when the moment comes — to participate, not to control. The Kingdom grows not through ownership or pressure, but through willingness.

At the well, the disciples were thinking about lunch while Jesus was thinking about redemption. They were focused on what felt urgent; He was focused on what was eternal. In a single moment, He reframed everything: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me.” “Lift up your eyes.” “One sows, another reaps.” This wasn’t just teaching — it was an invitation. An invitation to live on something deeper than comfort, to see people differently than culture does, and to stop carrying weight that was never ours to begin with. Jesus was sustained by obedience, saw readiness where others saw rejection, and stepped into work already in motion — and because of that, a village declared Him “Savior of the world.” That’s the widening of the Gospel, and it continues through people who choose purpose over comfort, hope over assumption, and participation over control. So the passage leaves us with simple but searching questions: What is feeding your life? Who might be more ready than you think? And where is God already working that you’re being invited to step into? The harvest is closer than it looks — and when doing God’s will becomes your food, when you lift your eyes with hope, and when you step into what He is already doing, you don’t just witness the Kingdom growing. You become part of it.

Blessings,

Michael

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