SALVATION OF EVANGELISM
(Extended)

My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. (John 4:34-38)

In this classic passage concerning the sharing of eternal life, Jesus began by saying, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."

Later in His priestly prayer to the Father, He prayed ". . . I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). Approximately, one week before Jesus died on the cross, He finished His work. One week before the cross, His meat (His desire, His purpose in life) was finished.

In that same prayer, He prayed, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word" (17:6). Four times in this one verse, He mentioned the object of His work: "men," "they," "them," and "they."

Amazingly, to modern culture, it seems Jesus left the glory world and came to this world just to enter into the lives of a very few people. He came to share the Father with basically twelve people.

With the modern mind set today, it is difficult to comprehend that the evangelistic "techniques" of Jesus (intimately involved in the lives of a relatively small number of people) would ever be successful in getting the gospel into all the world. However, the gospel did get into all of the known world in a relatively short seventy years.

The sharing of Jesus in intimate personal relationships among a relatively small group of people was effective for world evangelism. It was effective for the salvation of the people.

With the mega-church mentality in most of Christianity today, it is difficult to comprehend that the "meat" of Jesus was to be primarily concerned with the lives of basically twelve people. Even within that twelve there seemed to be a closer involvement with three--Peter, James, and John. What a shocking contradiction to most of the visible church today to understand that Jesus spent most of His entire earthly ministry primarily sharing the life of the Father with such a small group of people.

After Jesus stated, "[My] meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work," He then gave the Christian mandate for eternal life, bringing salvation to a lost world. Jesus said,

Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. (John 4:35-38)

In the current Christian world, it is assumed by many, when Jesus said "one soweth, and another reapeth," He was referring to preachers sowing and reaping. For example, one evangelist would often sow seeds of the gospel but would not see any results. Then some time later, a second evangelist would come along and reap the harvest of the previous evangelist. Thus, it is assumed "that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together" meant that both preachers should rejoice.

Even with that understanding, if the truth was known, not too many preachers want to be the sower. Most would want to be the reaper, as accolades are never given to the sowers. Such thinking, however, should have been a clue that something was wrong with this understanding of the passage.

If "both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together" is a reference to two preachers rejoicing, what about the one who became the believer?

The new believer should be the one rejoicing. Could it be possible that in this works-oriented world of the visible church today, the gospel has become so perverted that the emphasis has shifted from the one who needs help to the ones who are assumed to be the helpers? It seems that religion always puts the emphasis on the wrong things.

The second erroneous assumption that many make on this passage of Scripture is in the statement "And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal." It is usually preached that the receiving of wages and the gathering of fruit unto eternal life is in the life to come. These wages are to be the rewards received in the world to come for the effort put forth to win the lost in this world.

However, the verbs in the phrase ''he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal" are in the present tense. These are not something that the reaper will receive in the future. They are to be received as the sowing and reaping occur. Moreover, the receiving of wages and the gathering of fruit is a reference to the quality of life received in the sowing and the reaping.

He that reaps is paid at the time of the reaping. Jesus is actually giving a vital clue as to how one experiences Him as Life. He is giving a clue to evangelism. He is revealing the essence of how one experiences eternal life, experiences salvation.

The fruit that the reaper gathers is the experiencing of the Eternal Life, Jesus Christ. No where in the Scripture is it stated that a believer's fruit is the souls he has won to the Lord. However, the New Testament consistently portrays the fruit experienced by the believer as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.

The manifestation of Jesus on the inside working on the outside is always the fruit of the Spirit, the characteristics of Jesus Christ. The wages received for reaping is the experiencing of Jesus Christ, the Life. It is experiencing the true meaning of salvation.

The good news is that both he that "soweth" and he that "reapeth" will rejoice. Who is this "sower"?  Is He referring to preachers laboring, preachers sowing the gospel seed?

Jesus reveals the sower when He said, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden . . ." (Matt. 11:28). Everyone who lives this life attempts to sow seeds of life. He is referring to every man, woman, boy, or girl who is laboring to experience life.

 Sadly, life is often sown in drugs, alcohol, success, women, men, or many other things except Jesus. "He that soweth" is not a preacher sowing the seeds of the gospel. ''He that soweth" is anyone who is putting forth effort to live.

This is the reason "both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together." The one who sows, rejoices because he has been brought face to face with Jesus Christ, the Eternal One. He now experiences the love of God, the soul-satisfaction of which he seeks. He can rest from his yoke (sowing) because he is now experiencing the yoke of Christ. He is now experiencing salvation in Jesus Christ.

The sower can come to experience this life because his sowing for life will always bring him to the end of himself. When he, finally, does come to the end of his journey, he will find someone to share his heartaches, someone to share the burdens he bears, and someone to save him from himself. He will experience Jesus Christ as his life, if only a reaper hears his despairing cry.

The reaper, one who has already encountered Jesus Christ as the Life, shares Jesus with the laboring soul. However, it is not just a verbal sharing of Jesus in the mind. It is the sharing of life itself. The sharing of the love of God flowing through the reaper to the sower produces the experience of Eternal Life.

It is the experiencing of Jesus that brings rejoicing both to the hearts of the reaper and of the sower. It is in the "connection" that Jesus Christ, the Life, is encountered: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20).

People everywhere are sowing seeds (laboring) to live, they just do not understand that the harvest of real living comes only in Jesus. Only those who have experienced Jesus as life (reapers) can share Jesus for life.

To those who have already put on His "yoke of life," Jesus said, "I have sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. " The sharing of eternal life is the sharing of the Jesus life with those in the world who are hurting.

You should look up and notice the people that God has already brought into your life. The family, the neighbor, the grocery clerk, the mailman, and the countless other people that you meet everyday. If you will listen closely ("Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."), you will hear the hurting cries for help.

Just as Jesus entered into the lives of a few people (as many as the Father had given him [John 17:11]), Jesus seeks you to enter into the lives of those the Father brings to you. The Father is not asking you "to win the world for Jesus." He simply wants you to encounter His love with other people. He only asks that His love may flow through you to care, to share, and, possibly, just to wipe the tears from someone's eyes.

The "meat" of everyone of us should be "to do the will of him that [sends us], and to finish his work." God's will and God's work is for each of us to allow Jesus to manifest His love through us unto those that God has brought into our lives (John 17:2-6).  Reaching out with our lives to our friends, our neighbor, and our family members (getting involved with just a few) can change the world.

Experiencing the love of God in intimate personal relationships has changed the world in the past and it can change the world again.  The simple experiencing of Jesus Christ in the connections of life is the salvation of evangelism for both "the sower and the reaper."