Creating Thirst - Contagious Christianity Series

(We began the service with a video clip from “Contagious Christianity” called “Lesson #8 - Objections” where a Christian woman was trying to witness to a skeptic who maintained that Christianity was too narrow and exclusive for her tastes).

OPEN: Someone once speculated about how certain people would answer the age old question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

They speculated that President GEORGE W. BUSH would say:

“We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.”

Ex-Vice President AL GORE might have said:

“I invented the chicken. I invented the road... Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.”

RUSH LIMBAUGH

“I don’t know why the chicken crossed the road, but I’ll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I’ll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I’m talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.”

ARNOLD SCHWARTZENAGER

“I don’t know vhy the chicken crossed the road, but I do know IT VILL BE BACK!”

DR. SEUSS

”Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad?

Yes! The chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I’ve not been told!”

BARBARA WALTERS

“Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.”

BILL GATES

“I have just released eChicken 2004, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your

important documents, and balance your checkbook.”

What if the BIBLE addressed that question?

”And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, ‘Thou shalt cross the road.’ And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.”

And lastly, someone supposedly asked COLONEL SANDERS why chicken crossed the road… and he replied: “I missed one?”

APPLY: It’s intriguing to ask ourselves how certain men and women down thru history would answer certain kinds of questions. {Of course, this one about the chicken crossing the road is meant to be humorous…} BUT there are times when we really would like to know how would others deal with the situations we face - situations that we consider to be important.

For example: how would Jesus witness to the people we work around every day? How would He talk to my relatives and my friends about their need for salvation.

I. As I reread John 4, I was surprised at how well this story answered that question.

I mean, Jesus didn’t say or do anything there that you and I couldn’t have done. Granted, we couldn’t claim to be the Messiah as He did, but He performed to miracle here, nor did He exhibit some unearthly glow. He was simply a Jewish man meeting a Samaritan woman at a well and asking for water.

AND this Samaritan woman was not an eager convert

In fact, she was just a indifferent woman.

She had NOT come to Jesus to hear about salvation. She had come to a well to get a bucket of water.

Now, it wasn’t that she was NOT interested in spiritual things. I mean she’s MORE THAN willing to discuss religion with Jesus. But when Jesus began to began to get a little too close, when Jesus begins to bring up her past and her sin, she started getting defensive. And she tried to sidetrack the conversation.

BUT, of course, Jesus isn’t about to get sidetracked. Jesus had set His mind toward changing this woman’s life and nothing was going to deter Him from that objective.

Now, what Jesus did with this woman - what He said to her AND how He said what He said to her… changed this woman. And when Jesus was done with her… she ended telling people: "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" John 4:29

II. As I read about what Jesus did with this Samaritan woman… I realized I could do that!

In fact… YOU could do what Jesus did at the well. It’s not that hard! But, WHAT did He do?