Well, we're going to be looking at John chapter 4 and we're going to look at 42 verses. So are you scared? It's OK, I know how to zoom out and and preach a little bird's eye view, so. How many of you have ever heard of a of a man from church history named Billy Sunday? Anybody ever heard of him? All right. Billy Sunday was famous for being an evangelist in the early 20th century. One thing I didn't know about Billy Sunday was that he actually was a professional baseball player. And Billy Sunday had a problem, and it was alcohol. And his conversion story is that, I believe it was in Chicago, he had had what we used to call it a bender. He was on a bender one night and basically passed out in the street. and there was this evangelistic group that came up to him the next morning and shared the gospel with him and he embraced it. Later on, I didn't know this either, Billy Sunday was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. I never knew he was a Presbyterian. Billy Sunday preached 300 revivals and it's estimated that a hundred million people attended those revivals and it's also estimated that about 300,000 people were saved with those revivals. Now, when you hear about that, how does it make you feel? Do you feel like, do you want to stand next to Billy Sunday on the Day of Judgment? Like the comparison game? Does it make you feel a little intimidated when you hear about men like Billy Sunday, George Whitfield, maybe even Billy Graham? You might think, what am I doing for the kingdom? Is God even using me for anything? Well, I think here in John chapter four, Jesus shows us through his interaction with the woman at the well, that every small little opportunity that we have with individuals can be a great opportunity and it can multiply into a great harvest. So no matter how small you think your impact is, God wants you and has chosen you to be part of what he calls this sowing and reaping process. So I'm going to read the first 15 verses to start off with, but then I'm just going to walk through the text and read it as I go. This is a very rare sermon where I don't have points. Alright, John chapter 4 beginning in verse 1. Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar. near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.' Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, Give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. The text says that the Pharisees learn that Jesus is baptizing more disciples than John the Baptist. And for some reason, this causes Jesus to leave Judea, going to Galilee, passing through Samaria. And we can speculate as to why Jesus did this. I think the best rationale is that in God's sovereignty, Jesus knew it was not time to have a big confrontation with the Pharisees in Jerusalem at that time. But the main reason that we know that Jesus took this route is because he had every intention meeting a woman from Samaria at Jacob's well verse 6 tells us that Jesus was weary he was sitting next to Jacob's well and it was about the sixth hour which just means noon a woman from Samaria approaches to draw water and Jesus speaks to her and he says he gives her the simple request give me a drink Now in our time, that sounds like a very innocent, very unexciting thing to say. But if we understood that culture, Jesus in this one phrase is pushing through all kinds of social norms and barriers. It was almost a scandalous interaction according to his culture. And in verse 9, we'll read the woman's response. It alludes to some of the man-made rules that Jesus was breaking here. She says, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? And John tells us that the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. Now, if you don't know the history, I'm not going to go through a long history of this, but there were two kingdoms in the Old Testament, right? So there was the northern tribe, or the northern, how many tribes anybody know in the north? Huh? There was ten in the north. And there was two in the south. And so they split up under Solomon's son Rehoboam and Jeroboam I. There was a rebellion. And so the northern 10 tribes, you're probably familiar with the exile, like the Book of Ezekiel, Book of Daniel. That's when the southern tribe was taken to Babylon. But we're probably less familiar with the foreshadowing of that exile, which was the 10 northern tribes were conquered by Assyria and they were taken to the north. And so These tribes never came back to the promised land. Now, there might have been individuals that made it back, but as a whole, these 10 tribes, they basically were lost. And they intermingled with the people there, so their children were marrying Assyrians and other northern pagan tribes there. And the Jews looked at them and said, they're half-breeds, and they have poisoned the blood of the Jewish people. So there's one barrier. That's why they didn't have any interaction with the Samaritans. It also was not appropriate for a Jewish man to speak to a woman in public. Not even your wife, not even your daughter. And ladies, you're going to love this. There actually is a prayer in the Talmud that men pray thanking God that they're not a woman. There was also a rule that you didn't use You didn't share utensils with Samaritans. And this woman was going to dip a bucket. She might have even had something to dip the water out with. And Jesus is just breaking all these rules when he just says, give me a drink. And Jesus does this because he cares more about the soul of this woman than he does about external man-made rules that would keep him from her. What barriers keep you from planting gospel seeds? Now, thankfully, I don't think anybody has these gender or race barriers like we see in Jesus' time. Personally, I've been convicted lately because I don't really take opportunities like I should when I encounter homeless people. And that happens the most when I go to General Assembly, because we go to big cities. I mean, there's homeless people in Morganton, but I'm not face to face with them as much. But when you're in these big cities and you have to walk to the convention center, you're going to come across homeless people. And so when we had it in Memphis, I actually did talk to a man, talked to him about Jesus a little bit, but it was very clear that he was drunk, that he'd been drinking. So I have a difficult time with homeless people because I feel like they're going to tell me whatever I want to hear so that I will give them what they want so that they can feed their substance abuse. But it's really not a right attitude of me. I shouldn't even let their wrong motives keep me from an opportunity of sharing and planting seeds of the gospel. I don't know what God will do with that. There are lots of barriers that we can face when we're given opportunities to share the gospel. Maybe you're shy. Anybody in here shy? No, you're not going to raise your hand if you're shy. That's kind of a joke. Maybe the person is more intelligent than you. You ever face this? Like everything I say to this person, they're going to wrestle my brain, and it's going to be pointless. Maybe they're from another religion. Maybe they're a Hindu, or a Muslim, or even a Mormon. And you just think, they are so entrenched in their beliefs, there's no way, there's no way that I'm going to get any results from sharing the gospel with that person. But all these seemingly rational excuses really become irrational when we consider the fact that one, God has commanded us to share the gospel, and two, It is not our responsibility to convert the person. That's the Holy Spirit's responsibility. And He will take those seeds and apply them according to His will, which is stronger than any person's will. Now, in verse 10, Jesus teaches us how simple it can be to plant gospel seeds. He says, If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Here Jesus is just using his situation, his surroundings to advance a spiritual reality. There was a well, he was thirsty, he didn't have the means to draw from the well, and the woman did. So Jesus uses his physical needs to kind of flesh out the fact that this woman had greater spiritual needs. Her response in verse 15 is, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. And then Jesus, he gives her the water, but in a way that she and we probably don't expect. He gives her the water by saying, call your husband. And in verse 17, she responds, I have no husband. And Jesus says, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. Here, Jesus is giving us a vital component to sharing the gospel. It's not good enough just to tell people that God has a wonderful plan for their life. That's true. But they have to recognize that they're a sinner. They have to repent. But that old nature, it does not like to look at sin. So when we are faced with someone who might show our sin to us, our first reaction is to usually either hide or deflect. I don't want to talk about that. Let's talk about something else. And this is what the woman does in verses 19 to 20. She says, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our father worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship. You may face this type of deflecting if you ever get a little too personal with somebody. That's what I love about this passage because Jesus so elegantly shows us how to be patient, how to be kind, how to be gentle, but lead them back from their deflection to the spiritual reality. Let's say you're sharing the gospel with somebody and you start getting personal. You start getting close to saying there's a sin that you need to recognize, that you need to repent of. And they just abruptly say, what happens to babies when they die? I have this a lot as a pastor. This is like a common question that I'm asked all the time. And it can be a deflecting question. You need to be patient with that person. You need to try to answer the question. Now, you might not know the answer to the question, and that's okay. You can say there's lots of different opinions. I don't completely know, but we do know what's going to happen to you if you die without Christ. So let's get back on track and let's talk about your personal salvation, not this question out here that's distracting us that there's lots of opinions about when babies die. And this is what Jesus does in verses 21 to 24. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Now there's a lot of theology in this passage that's very difficult for a Reformed pastor to not stop and preach a whole sermon on just this passage. But I'm not going to do that. But I want you to recognize the main thing I want you to see here in this passage is how concisely Jesus answers her question and then leads her back around to her need for spiritual living water. How you worship, is that important? Yes? No? Maybe? I think so. How you worship is important. Where you worship is less important. And that's what this woman was hung up on. She was hung up on things that she perceived. She was a woman. She was a Samaritan. She couldn't worship at the temple. Those were all external barriers that kept her from God. And she was hung up on those things. And what does Jesus do? He answers her question. He affirms to her the truth that worship has never really been about a place. Think about that. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob? Was there a tabernacle? Was there a temple? Now you might say, well they did maybe worship in Jerusalem, and that's true. I don't think they did it regularly, but they might have worshipped in Jerusalem at some time. But what about the exiles? Daniel left Jerusalem at about age 15 or 17, and he never went back. and he worshipped in spirit and in truth in Babylon where there was no temple and there was only paganism. I also believe the type of worship that Jesus is describing here is not limited to what we're doing right now. It's not limited to formal worship. I think Jesus is including Romans 12 when Paul says, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. This woman could worship God right there in front of that well, she didn't have to go down to Jerusalem by repenting of her sins of living in a sexual impure relationship. And Jesus is calling us to worship like this too. The text bids us to ask the question, do I worship in spirit? Do I worship in truth? Are there sins that I don't want to sacrifice? Are there duties that I'm forsaking? Your battle with your flesh is spiritual worship. And dying to self, that's real easy, isn't it? It's really fun, isn't it? We don't want to do it. But if we want to follow Christ, we have to engage in this battle and offer up our obedience as spiritual sacrifices. And here we see the beautiful genius of our Lord as he takes the topic of worship straight back to the woman's heart. worship in spirit and truth. And in verse 25, the woman said to him, this might be another little deflection, but it's not as bad as the first one. She says, I know that the Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Now you can't say this as well in your English Bibles, But in the Greek, Jesus is literally saying, I who speak to you, I am. And if you don't know the significance of that, that is the name of Yahweh. It is the name that God from the burning bush spoke to Moses and said, tell them I am has sent you. Jesus is letting her know that he is the Messiah. He is Yahweh. And this statement causes a change in the woman. In verse 28, the text says, the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, come and see a man that told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to him. I think it's amazing that this woman, I don't think she grasped everything Jesus was saying when he said worship in spirit and truth. This woman did not understand worship, but immediately she was engaging in spiritual worship. She wasn't a theologian. She didn't have all this training. She didn't know Romans Road. It's not a bad thing to know Romans Road. I'm not discouraging that. But she just had a simple message. She said, come and see. And verse 30 tells us that people did come for themselves to see the Messiah. Now John is going to, in verse 31, he's going to take like a commercial break. That's what it seems like in the text. Or he could say, comedy relief, in come the disciples. They seem to be that a lot of times. 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. Have you ever been so busy enjoying doing something that you forgot to eat? that you forgot to drink, that you forgot to sleep. For me, in my older years, I don't think I ever do that. But when I was a kid, the only thing I could think of was the water park that I used to go to as a kid called Schlitterbahn. I'm sure nobody's ever heard of that. But it's a park in Texas. It's like an hour north of San Antonio. And the park's not that great now. But in the 80s, when I was a kid, it was the best place on Earth. And I would be at that place. I'd be so hyper-focused on fun. I didn't care about eating. I didn't care about drinking. And I probably wore myself out to it. I'm sure that I passed out when I got home from that place. I was too busy having fun to care about those things. Well, this is what's going on with Jesus here. Remember, Jesus was weary. He was thirsty. He was hungry. He sent the disciples to go get him food in town. But now he says to the disciples, I am being nourished by seeing my father's will done right in front of my eyes. The changed heart and the evangelistic effort of this woman, it excited Jesus. He was so excited he didn't want to eat. And as we look at this response from Jesus, I think we should pray that God gives us this kind of excitement when we see the will of the Father being done in other people. So that's kind of the guilt side of it. But the encouraging side is when you do the least of things in the will of your Father, Jesus is excited. He's excited as he looks at you and sees you doing the work of the Father. Now, Jesus says his food is to do the will of him who sent him. And in verses 35 to 42, he's going to explain how we are all part of that will. He says, do 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 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 Now in this passage we see Jesus using one of his very common agricultural illustrations to make a point he talks about the labor and the prophet of the harvest and And he uses these images to explain what's going on. Something magnificent had happened. The Messiah showed interest in one Samaritan woman. And that woman went out to her town and persuaded people to come and see. And the disciples, who had done none of that work, get to reap that harvest. And I think this speech is meant to encourage the disciples, and it's meant to encourage us. When we hear of evangelistic powerhouses like Billy Sunday, when I quoted that 300,000 souls, that's just the harvest. We don't know how much labor went in to planting the seeds before Billy Sunday reaped that harvest. The larger harvest, the great harvest that we see Jesus doing at the end, that does not happen without your involvement. He has chosen you to be involved in that. So don't believe the lie that your contribution doesn't matter, even if it's small. We are all part of the process. We work. We harvest. God rewards us. He encourages us. But we also take great joy in knowing that we don't get credit for any of it. That belongs to the master of the harvest. So what do you think evangelism is supposed to look like? There's many valid ways to evangelize. I've probably done all of them. I've done bus ministry. I've done door-to-door. I've done what's called cold turkey evangelism. But I think here Jesus teaches us perhaps the best way. Jesus doesn't give her a sales pitch. He doesn't melt her face with the truth. You ever seen people that do that? They're just like, they're not interested in you. It's just like they're just truthing you into the ground. He's not trying to win an argument. It's not about being right. He shows interest in her as a person. She's a woman. She's a Samaritan. Jesus sees a soul that needs living water. And I believe this is the most winsome way to approach unbelievers. Be genuinely interested in them. Get to know them. Get personal with them. They're not just one in a multitude of scalps that you need to win for the kingdom. And maybe there's somebody here who's not part of the harvest yet. Maybe you have not partaken in the living water that Jesus offers. You see Jesus' heart here in John chapter 4. What's keeping you from accepting his offer? Are you worried that your sin might be exposed? Jesus knows all those sins. That's why He went to the cross. That's why He knows you need the living water. But the text says, if you ask Him, He will give you living water and you will never thirst again. Amen. If you will arise, And we're going to sing hymn 304, I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say, and hopefully I know this well enough to lead it. I told the pages I did.