The Gospel of John-24 – Heavenly Food the World Does Not Know

John 4:31–37

“Meanwhile his disciples urged him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you know nothing about.’ Then his disciples said to each other, ‘Could someone have brought him food?’

‘My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, “It’s still four months until harvest”? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying “One sows and another reaps” is true.’” Amen.

 

Heavenly Food and the Will of God

John chapter 4 records in depth the dialogue between the Samaritan woman and Jesus, as well as the events that unfolded during that process. As we observed last time, this Samaritan woman finally encounters Jesus Christ—the true object of worship and worship itself. Immediately upon meeting the Lord, she runs to the people of her town to testify about the Christ she has met. As the conversation between the woman and the Lord draws to a close, the disciples, who had gone to the village to get food, return. The disciples must have witnessed the final part of that conversation. They saw the moment when the woman confessed, “The Messiah who will tell us all things is coming,” and Jesus made the wondrous declaration, “I am he.” Regarding the situation at that time, the Scripture records: “His disciples were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’”

 

The disciples found this scene very strange. According to the customs of the time, it was not common for rabbis to converse with women in broad daylight. Rabbis were so strict that they would not even talk to their own wives on the street during the day. Yet, Jesus was not only speaking with the woman but also making the radical declaration that he was the Messiah. Considering that Apostle Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” occurred much later, this was a truly shocking event. The fact that no one asked a question, even though it was a significant enough event to be a major topic for the disciples, suggests much to us. It could be seen as them remaining silent out of trust, thinking, ‘He must have a deep reason for what he is doing,’ but a careful reading of the text suggests that the disciples' interests were diverted from the remarkable event itself.

 

The Disciples' Interest and the Change in the Samaritan Woman

This was because their hearts and minds were already filled with other practical matters. Even though the wondrous history of the Messiah, truth, and salvation was unfolding before their eyes, the disciples paid little attention to anything other than what they were preoccupied with. If the Samaritan woman, originally a Gentile, is the image of the ‘younger son’ returning to the Lord, kneeling before Him and entering the house, then the disciples at this moment are like the ‘older brother’ who refused to enter the house when his brother returned. The contrast is stark—the disciples, though staying by the Lord’s side, had hearts that had already wandered outside. Ironically, the interests of the disciples are very similar to the longing shown by the Samaritan woman at the beginning. Earlier, when the Lord spoke of living water, the woman had requested, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” To put this in a modern context, it is no different from wishing for a life where ‘there is no need to work hard, and everything is solved just by pressing a button.’

 

Verses 31 through 33 record that situation vividly. When the disciples urged Jesus, saying, “Rabbi, eat something,” the Lord replied, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then the disciples asked each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” They were wondering if Jesus had something he was eating in secret or how He had obtained food while they were away getting it. However, in the meantime, the Samaritan woman even left her precious water jar behind and ran into the town to proclaim Jesus. The essence of evangelism lies not in any special technique or training, but in the experience of life where one who was spiritually blind opens their eyes and one who was dead comes back to life. One who has truly experienced that life cannot help but talk about what they have seen. This honest confession, “I was blind but now I see,” is the most powerful motivation and the core content of evangelism.

 

The Quenching of Life Through Meeting Christ

The woman left her water jar without hesitation and ran. Just as the blind Bartimaeus threw off his cloak and came to Jesus, the woman cried out to the people of the town, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” John Calvin offered an interesting insight while commenting on this passage. Even though Jesus did not tell her everything about her past but only said, “Go, call your husband,” the reason the woman confessed “everything” was because she had the wondrous experience of her entire life being fully revealed before the Lord in that short exchange. In other words, the woman met the only person in her entire life who deeply understood and accepted her existence. She met Jesus, who knew her wounds, pain, failure, and frustration—which no one in the world, not even her five husbands, had known—and accepted her exactly as she was. In this surge of emotion, the woman left her water jar, but the disciples were still looking elsewhere.

 

The disciples' gaze was still fixed on physical food. While the woman was already walking the path of a believer in Jesus, the disciples were paradoxically pouring their hearts into worldly needs. However, the true protagonist of this story is neither the Samaritan woman nor the disciples, but Jesus Christ Himself. The grand history of God’s salvation shown in Exodus is being reenacted in the life of this one insignificant woman. The Lord sought out one soul persistently. The same faithful love of God that brought Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, through Mount Sinai, and into Canaan is now being revealed in detail toward this woman at the well of Samaria.

 

God’s Persistent Love for One Soul

We should be trembling before this Word, but we must look back at ourselves to see if we have become too accustomed to this narrative of grace. This is because the wondrous history of the Exodus manifested in the Samaritan woman's life is the same event occurring in your life and mine. Therefore, we should not treat this record merely as someone else’s story or a play, but remember that we ourselves are the protagonists of that history. The Lord is now bringing a woman out of the ‘Exodus’ of sin. By revealing that He is the living water to the one seeking water, He reenacts in our hearts the history of God turning the bitter water of Marah into sweet water. To the woman who was trapped in the shadow of failure, resenting herself and the world, the Lord makes her face her reality and points out the fundamental problem of sin. This is like God’s providence that led the people of the wilderness on the right path by revealing their sins when they grumbled.

 

The woman now ascends the spiritual Mount Sinai with the Lord through the discourse on worship. When the woman asks, “Where should we worship? Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim? Which laws must we keep?” Jesus points to Himself, the fulfillment of the Law. And He grants her soul the feast with God that the Israelites enjoyed at Mount Sinai in the past. Worship is no longer a matter of a specific place or form. He is declaring that a new era of grace has arrived, where Jesus Christ Himself becomes the worship, the object and content of worship, and simultaneously the perfect worshiper.

 

Jesus Christ, the True Worshiper

We usually try to arm ourselves with the attitude of a worshiper when we come to church. We make resolutions like, ‘I will offer a perfect worship to God today.’ However, no matter how firmly we resolve to stand in the place of worship, if we try to offer a true worship pleasing to God by human will alone, we will soon face our limits. We quickly realize that our hearts are not governed as we wish. In fact, even pastors often find it difficult to fully immerse themselves in worship. If a member is not in their usual seat, one’s heart is preoccupied even while leading worship from the pulpit, worrying, ‘What happened to that person?’ How about you? At the moment you enter the sanctuary, are you filled with the excitement directed only toward God and Jesus Christ, reaching a state where nothing else but the Lord is visible? Does the hymn confession, “All the world has faded away, and only the redeemed Lord is visible,” truly become a reality that resonates in your soul?

 

We often sit in the place of worship burdened with the heavy anxieties of the world. Just as Korean saints in the past worried about whether they had changed the briquettes properly, today we often let precious worship time slip away while preoccupied with other trivial daily worries. Even without specific worries, it is virtually impossible for a human to offer perfect worship by their own strength and will alone. Countless thoughts that we cannot control ourselves keep following one another. Even while listening to a sermon, thoughts frequently wander off. Thus, the Lord now declares to us, “The era of worship where you served by your own strength, bound by the letters of the Law, is now over.” Now, it is not by human will, but by the grace, love, and the boldness given by Jesus Christ that a new era of grace for coming before the Lord has arrived.

 

Jesus Christ, He alone is the true worshiper. We are those who participate in that worship by dwelling in Jesus, the true worshiper. To worship is to move forward relying on the Lord, holding onto even the hem of His garment and confessing, “Lord, I come before the Father relying only on You.” Therefore, every time we try to offer a ‘grand worship’ by ourselves while ignoring Jesus, the true worshiper, we cannot help but fail. This is because it is merely a religious act focused on form rather than spiritual worship. We must acknowledge that we can never fully face the glory of God with our finite will and narrow interests alone.

 

Jesus' Food: Doing the Will of God

Because Jesus knows our thirst deeper than anyone else, He chose to be thirsty Himself. And through the thirst He endured, He granted us the living water that never runs dry. Even when seeking the Samaritan woman, the Lord approached with endless interest and love. As recorded in the Bible, the Lord ‘had to’ pass through Samaria. The scene of Him sitting tiredly at the well was not simply due to the fatigue of the journey, but was the result of the Lord's zeal in walking until He was exhausted to find one lost woman. This is the most important background of today's text. And this narrative of persistent love now shifts its focus beyond the woman to the disciples.

 

When dealing with the lives of the disciples, we inevitably think of the self-portrait of the Israelites in the wilderness. What was the image shown by Israel in the wilderness? They protested, “God, how could you do this to us?” and constantly tested the Creator. They would say, “Give us bread and water. If you grant us a better environment, then we will finally seek and follow God. If everything is filled, we will serve you with all our lives.” But was it so? The level of interest of the disciples in today's text was not much different. To them, the covenant of Mount Sinai or the miracle of the Red Sea was merely a past event irrelevant to their current hunger. The cry of ‘Give us something to eat right now, even if there is no miracle of parting the Red Sea’ might have been the true heart of the Israelites at that time. To them, God's history of salvation was merely a one-time event.

 

Worldly Desires and True Interest

The reason Israel failed thoroughly in the wilderness is the same as the disciples in the text. It was because their hearts and minds were filled with worldly desires rather than God. What was blocking the disciples' vision at that time was nothing other than ‘food.’ Friends, do not take this matter lightly. No matter how high an ideal a human discusses, we are ultimately not free from the problem of survival. As the worldly saying goes, “It’s something done to eat and live,” survival is the most practical and desperate problem in our lives. Therefore, it may be natural for us to fall into temptation and lose our hearts over this matter. However, the problem lies in the fact that our interests are ‘only’ buried there. It doesn’t mean that daily needs are unimportant, but the tragedy is that our entire soul is fixed only on those needs, failing to see the eternal.

 

In the cartoonist Ko Woo-young’s ‘Journey to the West,’ there is an interesting scene satirizing human obsession. When Tripitaka sees the beautiful autumn leaves of Mount Wutai and exclaims, “What a wondrous landscape,” the only thought in Pigsy’s mind, who is preoccupied with food, is, “How should I cook and eat those autumn leaves?” Even before a magnificent waterfall, his interest remains in “What should I cook and eat with that water?” The noble values or beauty unfolding before his eyes are outside his interest. Right now, before the Lord, a great spiritual event has occurred where a woman is born again and confesses Jesus as the Messiah. But where is the disciples' gaze fixed? It remains at the level of: “Teacher, where did you get food? We struggled so much to get food, so when did the Lord eat?” This is the shameful reality that is eroding our hearts today.

 

What Is Filling Our Hearts?

With what is your soul filled right now? Where do your thoughts stay, and where is the aim of the life you pursue directed? Are you still staying only in the personal comfort of ‘I alone being saved and going to a comfortable heaven’? Or are you soaked in a vague religious security, thinking, ‘I am in the place of worship, so I am a person who has safely boarded the heaven train’? Or are you sitting in this place with a compensation mentality to ‘receive appropriate help from God in this earthly life’? Or further, you might be fallen into a noble self-satisfaction, thinking, ‘I am leading a more cultured religious life than others.’ However, no matter what we hold in our hearts, if it comes before the Lord, we cannot help but miss the true Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus Christ declares: “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” When the disciples were puzzled, the Lord provided the clear answer through verse 34: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” This short sentence most clearly reveals the essence of the ministry Jesus performed throughout the entire Bible. He is saying, “What is my food, and from what do I gain true fullness? I am satisfied not by the world's food that you bring, but by perfectly fulfilling the will of the Father who sent me.”

 

Salvation: The Will of God Fulfilled in My Life

The disciples are thinking only of the physical food right before their eyes, but Jesus declares that doing the will of God itself is His food. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we often say, “Lord, if you give us food and water, we will follow the Lord.” But as you well know, humans do not fully return to the Lord simply because their physical thirst is quenched. One does not follow the Lord just because what they want is achieved. Rather, humans take that as an opportunity to start pursuing their own interests thoroughly. It is the fallen human nature to ask, “God, can you do such a thing?” to get what they want by provoking God’s pride, and then leave again to take care of their own interests. It is our reality to witness God’s power and yet have our footsteps head toward our own desired path. We appeal before the Lord, “If you just let me get through this crisis, I will dedicate my life to the Lord,” but in fact, we want to mobilize Jesus to go our own way after passing that hurdle. This is a point where we are easily deceived by ourselves, and it is a fundamental problem that must never be overlooked. Using God as a tool to go your own way is not the way of following the Lord. The Bible teaches that there is only one way. It is the way that Jesus Christ Himself showed by coming to this earth—the ‘way where the will of God who sent me is fulfilled.’

 

It is not that your worldly wishes are achieved, but that the will of God who sent me is perfectly fulfilled in me—the Bible says that is precisely our true food. How are you defining the fact that you are ‘saved’? If you understand it simply as ‘I was saved because I believed in Jesus Christ one day,’ we are missing a much more important essence. Salvation is actually the event where the holy will of God toward you was actually fulfilled in your life. My salvation is the history of God’s will being fulfilled. If so, that should be your food. You are in this place as evidence of that salvation, and you are sitting in this place of grace today, led by God’s persistent love. This is God’s love. Because that love came upon you, the will of God was finally fulfilled in you. If so, you are those who have already received the heavenly food abundantly.

 

The Believer’s Food That the World Does Not Know

Therefore, you too must be able to proclaim to the world like Jesus: “I have food that you do not know.” If we covet what people of the world like and try to possess exactly what they want to have, what difference is there between us and them? It is right for believers to speak in a language completely different from the world. When unbelievers ask us, “How on earth can you live like that?” this is the confession we can boldly share: “I have food that you do not know. It is precisely the will of God being fulfilled in my life. In your eyes, I may seem to be losing something, being oppressed, and being in failure and frustration, but in reality, it is not so. I have food that you do not know, and the holy will of God is being fulfilled step by step in my life right now.”

 

Jesus finds the glorious scene where the will of Him who sent Him is fulfilled precisely in the Samaritan woman. Through this amazing event of tracking down one soul and finally embracing her with love, the Lord says, “The will of God has been fulfilled here like this, and I have come to do this.” In John 6:39, the Lord speaks with the same meaning once again: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.” Finding this woman today is a clear proof that the will of God has been fulfilled. It is the persistent love of God who does not lose even one of His people. Friends, if you truly realize the depth of that love, you will not be able to contain your admiration or you will feel a trembling shiver in your soul. To what extent does God love us? It is God’s firm determination to love us and save us even if He has to give up this whole universe. It is God’s will to save us even by giving His only Son to death. Who can stop that determination? Nothing in the world can block this love of the Lord.

 

Christ’s Atonement and the Fulfillment of the Law

How does God, who tracks us to the end for our salvation, perform that will? Hebrews 10:7 records, quoting the content of Psalm 40: “Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, my God.’” The following verses declare that He does not desire sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, or sin offerings, but through Christ who came to do God’s will, He sets aside the ‘first’ to establish the ‘second.’ And it concludes, “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” This is the essence of the will God performed: the fact that Jesus Christ made us holy by offering His body as a sacrifice once for all.

 

Here we again realize the meaning of the conversation about worship and Mount Sinai—that is, the Law—which the Samaritan woman had with Jesus. The woman had stayed in the past way of trying to serve God by keeping the Law with her own strength, but Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Law before all those limitations. By offering Himself as a sacrifice once for all, He fulfilled all the requirements of the Law and taught us what true worship is. To have obeyed unto death and perfectly finished God’s work—that was the will of God that Jesus performed.

 

The Temptation and Victory of the Wilderness

The reason this fact is so important is that all the ultimate questions of the temptations faced in the wilderness eventually converge into one. It is the fundamental question: “Can you reach God by keeping the Law with your own strength, or are you a being who can only rely on Jesus Christ?” In the wilderness, the people of Israel failed repeatedly, but in Matthew chapter 4, Jesus perfectly overcame the temptations of the wilderness. The Lord, who said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” perfectly performed God’s will. Against all the requirements of the Law and the temptation of ‘bread,’ which was the main interest of the disciples, the Lord gained a complete victory. Because Jesus Christ was victorious, we too can now move forward boldly and be victorious before the temptations and trials of the world.

 

The love of Jesus Christ, who constantly seeks out the Samaritan woman, is precisely God’s will. And the essence of that love lies in the sacrifice of giving His all by offering His body as a sacrifice once for all. The Lord gave ‘once for all, and everything.’ He gave His life, love, holiness, and righteousness—everything—to us at that time. The greatest gift God has given us is Jesus Christ Himself. Then, a question may arise for us: “If the Lord has given us everything, what should we do now?” The Lord answers through John 6:29: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” To you, Jesus Christ gave His all, and you received it freely. It is not the result of what you have done. It is that the Lord Himself achieved what we could never do and granted everything to us.

 

The Grace of Reaping What Was Not Sown

Therefore, we must deeply engrave the word of John 4:38 in our hearts: “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.” Even though the disciples did not personally sow or grow them, Jesus sends them to the field of harvest. The reason the Lord does so is “so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.” God will surely let you see the works Jesus Christ started in your life being borne as fruit. And He will let you enjoy the joy of reaping that harvest together with God. This is not a result obtained because you sowed or did well. Because Jesus Christ, who started the good work in you, is personally fulfilling that work, God shares with you that wondrous joy of the fruits of God’s grace, mercy, Christ’s love, and patience being borne in our lives.

 

You are standing before this brilliant glory given to us through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that extreme love that constantly seeks you. The Lord wants you to fully enjoy this joy—the joy of the work the Lord started being fulfilled within me, the joy of the amazing grace of reaping even though I did not sow. Though what I sowed was only lies, sin, and curses, the mysterious joy of God’s grace and love blooming in the field of life is not our own, but God’s alone. I sincerely hope that you truly realize this joy. Do you see what God is doing in your life? Rather than your worldly success, God wants this confession to burst forth from the depths of your soul: “We have food that the world does not know and does not have. We are satisfied and full only with that. Even if the hardships of life scratch and surround me, I have something to say boldly: Jesus Christ is my food.” I pray in the name of the Lord that you make this confession your only hope and joy.

 

Let Us Pray

Lord, we have such a great joy. Even when our thoughts, actions, and the many conditions surrounding us hold us and do not let go, Jesus Christ becomes the heavenly food that overcomes all those limits and becomes our eternal fullness. The food that the world does not know—the conviction that God’s will is being fulfilled in my life—truly makes us rich. This amazing grace that a grand kingdom of God is being achieved in this insignificant life makes our hearts beat.

 

Because it is a process where God’s holy will is fulfilled rather than our own will being done, even if it is painful and tears fall at times, we want to make the fulfillment of the Father’s will our true food, just like the Lord's prayer: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Let us realize that even the enemy who opposes me is actually a blessing that allows God’s kingdom to be achieved, and let us know that the thorns in my flesh are the glory that makes me look to the Lord more. Thus, let us firmly keep the place of true faith within true joy and hope.

 

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who is our bread of life. Amen.