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I think you'd agree with me there
are few places in Scripture where Jesus makes the first move. In
fact, this is almost one of the very few places where Jesus makes
the first move. Often through Scripture people
are coming to Jesus. The chapter just before this
is a very famous person, Nicodemus. Remember Nicodemus? He comes
to Jesus by night and basically says, what do I have to do to
get saved? And we have the most quoted verse of scripture, John
3, 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but
have everlasting life. Many people, probably even in
this room, would be very happy to share the gospel if someone
came to you and asked. I hope that's true, by the way.
If you're here this morning and you're not comfortable with that, you
need to get comfortable with that. I believe, by the way,
the Bible says for him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to
him it is sin. And I would challenge you that
the Great Commission, going to all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature, was not a command to pastors. It
was a command to the church. All of us are to be sharing the
gospel. In fact, I'm gonna make this point later on. We all talk
about what we love. You know what our problem is
in most churches? We love God in a different way than we love
everything else. Because I promise you, we all talk about what we
love. So why aren't we talking about Jesus? And yet we come
to church and why do we sing? Oh, how I love Jesus. Really? You never talk about
him, that's a shock. And so why is this so instructive? Because most people are not coming
to us and say, hey, can you tell me what I have to do to get saved?
If you're here this morning and you're a Christian and you don't
know how to do that, you need to learn. But I would hope in
an established church that most of you in this room would say,
hey, if my coworker, if my neighbor came and knocked on my door in
a panic and said, I have got to know how to be saved, I hope
everyone in this room would say, absolutely, let me get my Bible.
I'm gonna walk you through what you have to do to become a Christian.
But how many of you have ever had that happen? Very rare. Most of us are gonna
have to do this, what Jesus does in John four. We're gonna have
to find ways to share the gospel with lost people. And that's
why I think this is so important. I would challenge you that most
of the churches in our circles would not be a hyper-Calvinist.
A hyper-Calvinist just says the elect are gonna get saved. It's
just gonna happen somehow. And so we would not say that's
what we believe. We're not hyper-Calvinists. It is end up how we practice.
Somehow they're gonna get saved. I don't really know how. I'm
not really involved in it, but somehow, Lord, it's gonna happen. In doctrine, that's not where
we are, but in practice, it is. Does it matter whether I share
the gospel or not? Keep your finger here, but go
over to Romans chapter 10. Just back up a few books. Romans chapter
10, let's read verse 14. Romans 10, verse 14. How then
shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And
how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things. And then skip to verse 17. So
then faith cometh by what? Hearing, and hearing by what?
the Word of God. If you've done any evangelism,
if you've tried to witness to your co-workers, your neighbors,
if you've tried that at all, all of us in this room would
know not everyone we witness to gets saved. I wish that was
true. But not everyone we witness to
gets saved. But would you also agree with me this morning? That
according to this passage of Scripture, 100% of people who
never hear the Gospel will never get saved. Would you agree with
that this morning? That's what the text says. If they don't
hear the Word of God, then they're not gonna go to heaven. And as
much as I don't even fully understand this, the Bible's very clear,
there is an eternal hell. And God describes hell as a place
of eternal torment, a place you never get out of. As you drive
home today and as you pull into your driveway, think about the
neighbors on either side of you. Are you okay with them going
to hell? If you go to lunch today and you sit in that restaurant
and look around and think, how many of these people know Christ
as their savior? I don't know your town, but I
would just say most places I go, if I said, how many of you think
50% of the town you live in, if it ended today, 50% would
die and go to hell? Almost everywhere I've been,
now I'm in the deep south, I would say probably you still have a
lot of people who say that, but are they really saved? How many
of you are convinced, 50%? I'm gonna just tell you, I was
in Edmonton, 1.3 million people, less than 10%. Are you okay with
those people dying and going to hell? You do realize that the whole
reason Jesus came was to seek and to save those who are lost. This is remembering, we celebrate
this at Christmastime when the angels come to the shepherds,
glory to God in the highest on earth, peace, goodwill to man,
for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a what?
A savior, which is who? Christ the Lord. By the way, are you glad you're
saved this morning? And you know, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow,
I'm waking up in heaven. I've told my, everyone who knows
me well knows that when I have a funeral, they're gonna put
my body and they're gonna put a fork in my hand on my chest. And I
want everyone to walk by and go, what is up with the fork?
Have you ever been over to someone's house, you have a great meal,
and at the end of the meal they say, save your fork? What does
that mean? There's dessert. I don't know
about your house, we only have dessert when we have guests over.
So I love it when I'm at someone's house and you finish the meal
and say, hey, save your fork. I'm like, right on. There's dessert. And I want people walking by
my casket going, what's up with the fork? There's dessert, he's
in heaven. I'm so thankful, when I die,
I'm going to heaven, but you know what? I want everyone else
to go to heaven with me. And so does Jesus. And I would
challenge you, as I travel America, when I pastored for 18 years
in the same church, I didn't know what was going on out there.
And I have, your pastor has given me carte blanche. He's not given
me any inside information. He's letting me preach whatever
I want. I would just challenge you, but in many churches I'm
at, they're not caring about lost people. New Christians do this intuitively.
When someone gets saved, they want all their friends to get
saved. They go home at Thanksgiving and think the whole family's
gonna get saved. And if you did this, you know what happened
after that, right? Your family thought you just joined a cult. In fact,
I had one guy got saved, he went home and I literally told his
family, you're not my family anymore, I have a church family. I'm like,
oh, that's a wrong approach. That is not the right way to
do that. That's high on the weirdo meter, all right? Let's not do
that. But when's the last time you
purposely engaged a lost person? Do you pray for an unsaved person
every night to get saved? And by the way, I'm gonna at
least challenge you to start there. You know that every single
night, you should have someone you're working on that you say,
I want Joe, Sally, my coworker, my family member, I want them
to get saved, and I'm praying every night that they get saved.
By the way, that's what the Bible tells you to do, pray the Lord
of the harvest that sends forth labors in the field. And so though we would say we're
not hyper-Calvinists, but often in many churches I'm at, they
practice that way. And the Bible's very clear, 100%,
if you agree 50% of your town is not going to heaven, the only
chance they have is for you to speak up. Because if you say
nothing, they're going to hell. And if I could paint the picture
of hell for you this morning, it's worse than you could imagine.
And by the way, you know who spoke the most about hell in
the Bible? Jesus Christ. And if you come back to our text
in John 4, why is he going through Samaria, do you think? It says
in verse 4, he must needs go through Samaria. Jews didn't
do that. Even if it was a shorter route,
they would take great efforts to walk around. Would you agree
with me that the main reason that seems to be why Jesus needed
to go through Samaria is he knew there's a bunch of people that
needed to be saved? I mean, from the text, when you know the whole
story, you go, I think that's why Jesus needed to go through
Samaria. He needed to meet the woman at the well, and a whole
bunch of people are gonna get saved in this text. What's interesting is here, Jesus
is pursuing lost people. He needed to go through Samaria,
and I'm gonna walk you through just several lessons that we
learned from this. Number one, be intentional. You
see that in verse four, he needed to go through Samaria. Verse
seven, to come at the woman of Samaria to draw water, Jesus
saith unto her, give me to drink. Jesus starts the conversation.
In this culture, a Samaritan woman would never talk to a Jew,
and a Jew would never talk to a Samaritan. It would have been
very easy for Jesus just to sit there. In fact, that would have
been what was expected. And the fact that he opens the
conversation with her and says, hey, give me the drink. By the
way, do you think that was a leading question? I mean, you know from
the text it was, right? He's going somewhere with this
question. Did he ask the question because he's thirsty? How many
of you think that was the case? No, he's asking the question
because he wants to take her somewhere. And I would just challenge
you, do you know how many Christians, we are so quiet about Christ,
We go to the well, the coffee shop, we walk in our neighborhoods,
we sit in an airplane, we go to work, we rake our yards, and
we never talk about Christ. I travel a lot, and if you ever
go in an elevator, the unwritten rule of every elevator is you
don't make eye contact and you don't talk, right? You get in
an elevator and someone starts talking, it freaks everyone out,
so I like to do it on purpose, that's just how I'm wired. And we act that way about Christ.
And we'll talk about everything except Christ. And here in this
text, Jesus is asking a question because he wants to talk to her
about salvation. He intentionally engaged the
lost. He came to seek and to save those who are lost. Could
I ask you this morning, what are you deliberately doing to
engage lost people? In fact, one of the qualifications
of a pastor is we're to be hospitable. Crazy rabbit. But especially
to lost people. When's the last time you had
a meal with a lost person? When's the last time you had
an unsafe person in your home? We did this all the time up in
Canada. I got to faith. We were in big trouble and just
so swamped that for about a year and a half, I had not reached
out to my neighbors. And one day, God just broke my heart
and said, here, you're the president of a Christian college training
people for ministry, and you've not given the gospel to either
side of your neighbors. And I remember back in the day,
you could walk up to people and say, hey, can I ask you a personal
question? That doesn't work so well in our culture today, right?
Our culture, they're very private, but they want connection. And
back in the day, when you could say, hey, could I ask you a personal
question? Oddly, back in the day, people would say, sure.
And we'd say, hey, if you were to die right now, do you know
for sure where you'd go? You know what, today, you're gonna
have to build a relationship with people. If you walk up to
a lost person you've never met, say, can I ask you a personal
question? That'd be like me walking and say, hey, how's your kidney?
You're like, I've never met you before. I'm not talking about
my kidney. But if I'm your friend, if I have a relationship with
you, and I go, hey, how's your kidney? Well, now you'll tell me. And
so we gotta build a relationship with lost people. And so as God
worked in our hearts, we decided to do two things. And this is
one thing Dr. Allen and I do share. We go for
walks. I don't know about you, but if you walk slowly through
your neighborhood, people will come and talk to you. And we
walked slowly through a neighborhood and my wife went on a walk and
four houses down we have two lesbians who are there. And my
wife engaged with them and told them, it's so easy for us. It's
a spoiler. I mean, when everyone says, what
do you do? Are you president of a Bible college? It's an easy
end to talk about the gospel. And my wife came back and she
said, hey, they said they're born again. I said, oh man, I
can't wait to talk to these two. This is gonna be awesome. And
so I was going on my slow walk and she was in the yard and she
stopped me, she hadn't met me yet, she'd only met my wife,
had a conversation with her, and she waved me down, stop.
So I stopped and she came up to me and this is what she said,
you're the big guy at faith, aren't you? And I said, are you
talking about my weight? And she laughed and she said,
no, you know what I mean. I said, you mean am I the president?
I said, yeah, I'm the president. And this is what she said to
me, you think I'm going to hell, don't you? And I said, why, because
of your lifestyle? And she said, yeah. I said, no.
That's not why anyone goes to hell. I said, in fact, my wife
said that you were born again Christian. I said, I would love
to hear your testimony. She said, oh, you don't have
time for that. And then she just kind of walked away. But you know
what, every time we're in our yard, she'll come up and talk
to us now. We built relationships on either side. They consider
us best friends. We've given the gospel, we have
people coming out of an odd form of Mormonism and just secular
on the right side of us. She was the valedictorian at
Iowa State. She's a scientist, smart person. They go on vacation,
they ask me to watch their cat, give me the keys to their house,
I mean, and I'm allergic to cats, they don't know that though.
And you go, why would you do that? Because I want them to
get saved, does that make sense? and says I've built a relationship
with them that they allow me to give the gospel and we're
still friends. He just invited me, there was
a big block party and this same neighbor said, hey, for March
Madness, for the championship game, which I know where you
land, I know where Pastor Brendan and I land, we were happy to
see UConn win that. And he called me up and he said,
Jim, you wanna go? I said, sure, I'd love to go. So I go there,
I am the only non-drinker in the whole group, 20 guys. And of course, every guy comes
up, hey, what do you do? Well, I'm the president of Faith Baptist
Bible College. Oh, that's nice. But you know, as I just hung
out and watched the game and had a good time, you know, the
next morning, two of those guys texted me and said, hey, I'd
like to get together with you. You know, unsaved people think
we're weird because they never interact with us. And if you have no interaction
with unsaved people, they're gonna get weird ideas of what
happens in this building. And visitors, when they come
in, they have no idea what's going on. Do you know how many
churches I'm in and we're not friendly to the guests? I would just challenge you, that
should never happen. Do you know how hard it is to walk into a church where
you don't know anybody? I know this is a shock to everyone,
but no one comes to church, a visitor does not come to church for good
preaching. Lost people do not wake up on Sunday morning and
go, hey, when's the last time you've heard a sermon? I just, let's go. I mean, I've never heard one.
Let's go hear one. I know you have awesome music. Unsaved people
do not wake up Sunday morning going, man, when's the last time
you heard some good tunes? Let's go to church. I mean, I
hear it's awesome. Let's go check that out. Lost
people do not come to hear music. The number one reason a lost
person comes to church is they want a friend. You know how many churches I'm
in where the lost person comes in, a visitor comes in, and people
in the pew in front of them and the pew behind them are engaged
in conversation and they can't even say hi. In fact, no one
says hi. And that person leaves. And you
know what that person decides? Never going back. Why? That was the most unfriendly
church I've ever been in. And folks, we've got to get intentional
about sharing the gospel, Christ was. We had a, one of our college
and career girls up in Canada worked at a coffee shop, and
she built a relationship with this older couple. And we were
having a special Sunday, and they came up to get coffee one
day, and she said, hey, I really, you know, we've talked, but I'd
really like to invite you to my church. And the guy said,
what church is it? And she said, well, it's Meadowlands
Baptist Church. And his wife looked at him and said, you promised.
And what no one knew is that he grew up in a Baptist home.
When he turned 18, he bolted, ran away from the Lord, went
off into the oil patch, had nothing to do with church ever again.
His wife went to a United Church. She begged him to go to church
with her, and he said, honey, if I ever go to church, I'm only
going to a Baptist church, because my mom was a Baptist. Well, our
college and career girl didn't know that. And she just says,
hey, could I invite you to church? What church is it? And the wife
says, you promise. So he says, OK, I'll come. came that Sunday,
he sat in the back row, we always had an invitation. I didn't have
a come forward invitation, I just said, hey, if you're not sure
you're saved and you'd like to have someone make an appointment
to talk to you, just raise your hand. Up goes his hand. The favorite
thing we love to hear in our church is when I said, I see
that hand. And everyone in our church knew if I said, I see
that hand, leave Pastor Jim alone. And so no one would bother me,
and I would just purposely make sure I walked by that person.
And I got by this couple, and he said, hey, I put my hand up. I said, hey, I saw that. I said,
would you like to get together? He said, yeah, I would. Can we
meet on Tuesday? And his wife says, good, he needs it. She
says, I already know this stuff, but he needs it. I said, OK.
So I went over there on Tuesday. By the way, he is 77 years old. I call this my big Bible. So
I bring my big Bible over and I sit down with him on the couch.
She's sitting in a rocking chair across the living room because
she already knows all this. And I start going through the plan
of salvation and I am so focused on him that I'm about halfway
through and I look up and she's taken her rocking chair and literally
moved it right in front of me and said, I've never heard this
before either. And when I got done sharing the
gospel, I said, is this something you guys would like to do? And
they both started to tear up and they said, absolutely. and
they bowed their heads and trusted Christ as their Savior that day.
Do you think they would have ever come to church if a college
and career girl had not had the courage to say, would you like
to come? She didn't know all that backstory. You know, if you have unsaved
people in your home, they're gonna do unsaved people things. I've had unsaved
people in our home and they're like, hey, can we smoke? And
I always say, not in the house. That's just kind of our rule.
Need to smoke. But you know what? Lots of people have that rule.
So they go out and smoke in our back deck. I don't let them sit
out there alone. I go out and I talk with them
while they're on the back deck and I come in. You know what? I'm gonna
have to wash my clothes afterwards if you've been around a smoker. And they invite you over to their
house. And you go over to their house and they start pouring
drinks. And you know what I just say? No, thank you. You know
when they want to pour you a drink, you don't have to go, ah! Back!
I am a man of God. That's high on the weirdo meter
again, right? But sometimes we've been around
Christians so long, we don't know how to act around lost people.
Would you agree with me, Jesus did not offend this lady in the
text? Jesus was not offensive. But
he is asking questions, he's going somewhere. I would just
ask you this morning, how intentional are you in reaching out to lost
people? When's the last time you invited
someone to church? When's the last time you had an unsafe person
in your home for dinner? When's the last time you did
a random act of senseless kindness to a neighbor? I know you don't
have a lot of snow down here, but up in Canada, snow's a big
deal. And every snowfall, you have 24 hours to clear your sidewalk.
And every good Canadian knows where the line in the sidewalk
is, where their sidewalk ends and the neighbor's begins. And
every good Canadian is not going to shovel one flake of snow that's
not theirs. And I had new Christians get saved. I had one new Christian
go out and buy a snowblower and did the entire subdivision. And
he told me all that. I said, why'd you do this? He
says, because pastor, someday I want someone to ask why I'm
doing it. I just want to tell them I care about you, I love
you, and I just, I want you to know the God that I know. and
it's because God saved me that has changed my life and I just
wanna do something to help the people in our neighborhood. There's all kinds of ways you
and I can be intentional. Are you intentionally trying
to engage lost people? Number two, have a God-aligned passion
for lost people. Verse four, he needed to go through
Samaria. We know in John 3, 16, God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Do you
care this morning? Do you care that half of this
city would not go to heaven today? When you go to work tomorrow,
do you care that most of the people at work are not going
to heaven, unless you work in the Christian organization? I remember I was an assistant pastor,
but I had to work a job and took a secular job, and my first day
at work, I just always do this when I eat my food, I bowed my
head and prayed. I was in a construction crew. I didn't pray out loud,
I wasn't making a big deal, I just said this. I came up and every
guy I was working with was staring at me. And they immediately nicknamed
me Preach. My name's Jim. That was the last
time I ever heard Jim at work. Hey, Preach, can you get this?
Hey, Preach, can you get that? And it was sort of a put down
at first. But over time, it was like, hey, Preach, can I talk
to you? Yeah, I think things aren't going
too good with my wife. My wife was a fantastic cook.
We'd have all the single guys over. They would do anything.
My wife wanted a piano one time. They all volunteered. I was like,
why? Because they knew she'd feed
them if they helped. Went to their softball games. Why? Because I cared about them. I
care about my neighbors. Why will I watch a cat that I'm
allergic to? I want my neighbors to go to heaven. Jesus, why did
he go through Samaria? Something Jews don't do. because
he cared about those people. In fact, often, it's a fascinating
study through the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Read how many times you read this. Jesus was moved with compassion. Remember then, they started out
the day and Jesus says, we need to take a break, guys. We've
been going way too hard. Let's just go across and take
a break. And the Bible says the people
outwent them, remember this? And the people went out there
and what do you read again? was moved with compassion. If that was me, I would say,
guys, let's just roll back to the other side. They can't do
that twice. Jesus gets out of the boat. Do you care about lost people
this morning? And if you say yes, could you
prove it in the last two months? If you say to yourself, you know,
Dr. Jim, I do care about lost people, really. Could you prove
it in the last two months? What have you been doing to show
that you care about lost people? Number three, spend time with
lost people. It seems pretty obvious in verses six and seven.
Jesus goes to the well, a place that he knew lost people would
be coming. He engages the woman, go down to verse 40. It's when
the Samaritans were coming to him, they saw that he would tarry
with them and he abode there two days. How often outside of work do
you spend time with lost people? Who are you working on to get
saved? Who are you praying for and intentionally spending time
with? Do you at least greet visitors when they come? Do you at least
do that? Do you at least say, man, if
a visitor comes, I'm at least gonna, and I've had people say,
well, I don't know what to say. I said, here, I'll help you. We can even practice this, it's
not super hard. When you have a visitor, just
walk up to them and say this, hi. And if you wanna get like
super crazy, throw your name in there, right? Hi, I'm Jim. Thanks for coming to our church
today. It's wonderful to have you here. You know, our church
in Canada, as was mentioned, we started with 10 people, but
our whole church grew with first-generation Christians. There was no transfer
growth up in Canada. So when you get that large of
a church and they're all first-generation Christians, man, we mobbed visitors
when they came. Everyone was excited. Everyone
was like, hey, it's so good to have you here. We had greeters
as you did, as I came in this morning. There was a gentleman
standing at the door, opening the door, greeting people. That's
great. It does matter who you have at that door, though, right?
Some of you aren't waking up till your fourth cup of coffee.
You should not be the greeter at the front door. You want your
happy people at the front door, right? That matters, and I would just
encourage you, if you evaluated your life, are you spending any
time with lost people? Next, take opportunities to share
the gospel. We saw that all the way through verses eight to 27.
If you're only a friend, a coach, a coworker, but you never give
the gospel, you're like a salesman who never makes an ask. Be creative
in steering the conversation to the gospel. Earn the right
to be heard and then speak up, and this is exactly what Jesus
does in this text. He walks her through, Can you
give me a drink was the opening line to tell her, hey, I have
water that you'll never thirst again. Really, I want that water.
I'd love to have water. I don't have to come to the well.
And then Jesus asked in verse 16, go call your husband. He's
asking that on purpose so he can prove to her, I know everything
about you. And could I say it this way?
I know everything about you and I still love you. And this is
shameful. And when she goes into town and
says, come see a man that told me all that ever I did, you know
there's a bunch of men in that town going, he told you everything?
Uh-oh, that's not good. Lost people are more willing
to talk than you think. I remember a guy came in, booked
an appointment to come see me up in Canada. Walked in and we
had a track rack in our church, and we had the bridge track.
I don't know if you've ever seen that track. It's a well-done track of walking
through the gospel. And he walked in, sat on the
other side of my desk, and he said, Pastor Jim, I had to come
see you today because I just wanted to let you know that I
stole one of these tracks. He was so new, he didn't realize
they are for free. We want you to give them out.
He thought he stole it. And he said, but I want to tell
you what happened. He said, I stole this tract because I saw it and
I thought it was so good and I've been working on my neighbor
and I just wanted my neighbor to get saved. We're both farmers.
And one day there was a storm coming and my farmer's tractor
broke down and he was trying to bale this hay. And he came
over to me and said, hey, is there any way that I could borrow
your tractor? I need to get this hay up before
the rain comes and I just don't want to lose its value. And this
guy said, I thought this is my opportunity. He said, better
yet, I'll help you. He says, so I jumped in my tractor
and we baled hay and we got all the hay baled before the rain
came. And we, I mean, we went right to dark. And at dark, we
finished and he says, okay, how much can I pay you? And this
guy said, you can't pay me anything. He says, get out of here. He
said, listen, we're neighbors. I have the money. It wasn't that
I couldn't afford it, I just didn't have time to get my tractor
fixed. And you've used your gas, you've worked all day, let me
pay you. And he says, no, you can't pay me. He says, but one
thing you can do, I want you to read this track, the bridge
track. This guy said, get out of here.
You spent all day and all you want me to do is read this little
track? Are you serious? He says, I'm dead serious. He
says, I'm not taking any money. And you don't have to read the
track, but I'm just telling you that it would make me really
happy if you just read this track. He's like, whatever, and he took
the track. As most farmers, he had to have a second job, and
that next week he went to an interview for a job, got the
job, on his way home was hit in a car accident and killed. And this farmer who had stolen
the bridge track said, I wonder if he ever read it. He said,
honey, I gotta go talk to his wife. He said, I got in my truck,
I drove up to their farm and I knocked on the door and she
came to the door. And he said, as soon as she saw
me, she said, you wait just a minute, you just wait right here. He
said, she went in the back and she came back holding that bridge
track. And she said, do you remember giving this to my husband last
week? And he said, yeah. He said, he
came home that night and he was so blown away that you wouldn't
take any money and that all you wanted us to do was read this
tract that he said, honey, I don't know why this is so important
to him, but after what he did for me, after we're done eating
supper tonight, let's read through this tract. And she said, we
finished supper that night, and she said, we read through this
tract. And we said, we got to that back part. And we got to
that back part, we looked at it and he said, honey, I think
we need to do this. And she said, I do too. And she
said, we bowed our heads and we kept our eyes open, because
we had to read all the things it tells us to do at the end.
And she says to this farmer, does that mean he's in heaven
now? And this farmer said, yes. Yes,
he's in heaven. If you prayed that and you meant
that, Then the Bible says he's in heaven. And she said she just
hugged him, weeping. And now he's sitting on the other
side of my desk saying, I need to tell you the story about me
stealing your bridge track. Would we all agree in this room
this morning that if he had not done that, that farmer would
not be in heaven today? Does it matter if you share the
gospel? You know what a lot of us think? I'm glad he did that. Boy, Dr. Jim, that is a good
story. But you know what God wants you
to think? When's the last time I did that? Do your coworkers know where
you are today? Do they know you're in church? Does everyone at your work, they'd
be stunned to find out you're a Christian? Or the people you work with go,
yeah, we know he's a Christian. By the way, it matters what kind
of a Christian you are too, right? Number one reason people won't
visit church is because of what? The hypocrites they know. Don't
be in that crowd. Next in our notes, don't be so
busy doing ministry, you missed the point of ministry. Look at
verses 30 to 33. Disciples went out of the city
and came to him. In the meanwhile, his disciples prayed him, saying,
Master, eat. By the way, if you didn't know the story, we've
already read the story, but if you didn't know the story, and I said, here's
two groups of people that go into a town full of lost people,
an absolute baby Christian, I mean, all she knows is she just got
saved, that's all she knows, and trained disciples who have
seen miracles, not Benny Hinn style, like the real thing. I
mean, they like, I mean, if you just went back to John chapter
three, the disciples have seen water turned to wine. I mean,
they've seen Jesus doing miracles. They've seen Jesus heal people
that have never walked. I mean, I could prove this if
I had the time, but they've just seen this. They're just coming
from this and they go to Samaria. And I said, here's your two groups,
baby Christian and people that have seen Jesus doing miracles
and spending time with Jesus himself, who brings the most
people back to Christ? You know what I would tell you
this morning? It's the same today. If I said, who's bringing the
most people to Christ? The people that go to church every Sunday
and have been in years and years of Sunday school and years and
years under Dr. Allen's preaching and are those
the people bringing the most people to church or is it the
baby Christians? You know in most places who it
is? It's the baby Christian. And the disciples, I mean, how
did they go into town and go, can I have two loaves of bread,
please? I mean, how did they not go, do you know he's at the
well right now? He's here, the Messiah's here,
you gotta come, you just gotta come, he's at the well right
now, you gotta come. In fact, they come back and they
see Jesus sitting, talking to the woman, and you know what
they think? What's he doing talking to her? And this is Jesus' wake up moment
to them in verse 32. But he said, I have meat to eat
that you know not of. Therefore the disciples said
to one another, has any man brought him out to eat? And Jesus said,
my meat is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish
his work. Say not ye there yet four months, and then cometh
harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, guys. Look
on the fields, they're white, all ready to harvest. Pay attention. Guys, you walked into a town
full of lost people and you didn't bring anyone to me. The text
will tell you many get saved because of the saying of the
woman, but many more come to meet Jesus because of the woman. When's the last time you've impacted
a lost person? And God's so clear, we all need
to be a part of this. You know, we all talk about what
we love. I love to hunt, and you say, man, I love to hunt too.
I said, really, what gun do you have? I don't have a gun. Really, I
said, have you ever been hunting? No, I've never been hunting.
Well, do you watch it on TV? No, I never watch it on TV. You
know what I'm gonna tell you? You don't love to hunt. Say, man,
I love to golf. I said, really? What clubs do
you have? I don't have any clubs. Really? I mean, have you ever
been golfing? No, I've never been. Well, do
you watch it on TV? No, I never watch. You know what
I'm gonna tell you? You don't love to golf. We all talk about what we love.
Every grandparent in this room, we talk about Our first grandchild,
you'd have thought we were the ones that had the kids, you know
what I'm talking about? We're buying the crib and the high
chair, and I'm like, honey, why are we doing all this? You're
only here for a week. Well, it's our grandkids. You get a hole-in-one in golf,
are you never gonna talk about that? Man, I've shot in some trophy,
I was a moose hunter, and you come to my home, I can strategically
place you where you can see some mounts so that eventually you'll
say, hey, what's up with that? I'm glad you asked. I'm a huge
Minnesota Viking fan. I wear a lot of purple. I love
Ford. You come into my driveway, there's two signs in our driveway,
Ford parking only. I love it when people park way
down thinking I was serious about that. You can't spend time with
any one of us and people know who we love. And when everyone knows your
favorite sports team, when everyone knows your favorite vehicle,
but they have no idea you love Jesus, That's a big problem,
Christians. Man, we'll talk to anyone about
our sports team. We'll talk to anyone about our
car. We'll talk to anyone about our kids, our grandkids. Are
we telling people about Jesus? And I think the problem for many
of us is we just love Jesus in a different way. Man, we don't read our Bibles
every day, but we check ESPN every day. We don't read our
Bibles every day, but we spend half an hour watching news every
day. We don't read our Bible every
day, but we check our stock portfolio every day. Christians, there's something
wrong with that. What's the first and great commandment? Love God
with how much of your heart? If you were honest this morning,
would you say that's true of you? If I went into most churches
and said, hey, can you tell me who's on fire for God? I've never been
in a church where the answer was all of us. But it should be. All of us should be on fire for
God. Easter wasn't that long ago,
was it? Man, aren't you thankful you're not going to hell and
you are going to heaven because of what Jesus Christ did for
you and I on the cross? And that should make me wanna
share. Why do I tell about my grandkids and my sports team?
Because I love them. The same should be true of Christ.
Don't be so busy doing ministry, you missed the point of ministry.
That was the problem with the disciples. Two things happen
in the text. A lot of people get saved and
the disciples have a teaching moment. The reason people are not getting
saved is not that the field is too hard. I hear that all the
time. Well, the field is too hard. You'll never read that
in scripture. You'll read this cover to cover.
I read it every year. Not one verse in scripture will say,
the reason people don't get saved is the field is too hard. You
know what you will read? Pray, therefore, the Lord of
the harvest, he sends forth laborers into the field. Why? Because there's not enough laborers. If there was enough labors, there'd
be a difference. There's no rewards for sitting.
You never get to heaven and God say, well done, thou good and
faithful sitter. No one sat in church better than
you did. Know what you want to hear? Well done, thou good and
faithful what? Servant. Pray for faith. Pray for all
the Christian colleges. Pray for your church. Pray that
we'll impact young men and women to go out and make a difference.
And lastly, as we close, be urgent in sharing the gospel. Verses
34 to 36. Fields are wide unto harvest,
but the laborers are few. I think if you are a study of
end times, I think I can make the case that North America has
gone early in the tribulation period. If that's true, then I think
people do get saved during the tribulation period, but I don't
think many in North America because North America's gone. And I would just ask you this
morning, are you doing what you can? We all have different gifts and
different abilities. You don't have to be Dr. Allen. You don't have
to be Bob Brenneman. You don't have to be Jim Tillotson. You
have to just be you. Use your gifts. Use your abilities.
I heard last night someone here loves board games and just says,
hey, you're using board games to have guys come over and spend
time. You found out how you're going
to do it. But I personally believe it always starts with prayer.
Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest. Would you at least
walk out of today saying, God, if you have not been praying
on purpose for someone to get saved, would you at least get
alone with the Lord today and say, God, I'm sorry? God, I'm
so thankful I'm saved, and I'm so sorry I've not cared about
lost people. And God, I'm gonna start praying
for my neighbor, my coworker, a family member, and I'm gonna
look at ways I can engage with them. Don't get so used to being saved
that you don't care about lost people. How will they hear without
a preacher? And how will they hear without
the word of God? God saved us to use us to make
a difference in the lives of people. Do you care this morning? Let me close in prayer and I'll
turn it over to Pastor. Heavenly Father, I thank you
for the opportunity we've had to look in your word. And God, I pray
that if you spoke to our hearts, God, if we sat here this morning
and you brought to mind an unsaved coworker, an unsaved neighbor,
if you brought something to our mind that reminded us, you know
what, we haven't been witnessing, been trying to build a relationship
with anyone that's not saved. If we sat here this morning and
thought, man, all my friends are in this room. I don't have
any unsaved friends. God, I pray that you'd work in
our hearts. God, help us to have the heart that you had to seek
and to save those who are lost, the heart that you had to reach
out to this woman so that many others would come to know you
as their savior. God, help us not to be saved so long that
we stop caring about lost people. God, I pray that you'd work in
us and through us for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
A Lesson in Evangelism
| Sermon ID | 43024034221278 |
| Duration | 42:37 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | John 4 |
| Language | English |
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