Journeying with John - It’s a Blast (JWJ-17)
The Jesus Way
John 4:39-42
This morning I want to invite you to look with me at the rather simple but profound way Jesus turned a Samaritan village upside down - and it started with a conversation with one woman - a lonely Samaritan woman at a well.
• She may not have been the type of woman that you and I would typically hang with - but in a very real sense she is like every one of us.
• She may not have had a handle on the theological truth like you and I do, but her pursuit of truth was not unlike ours.
• She may not have been exposed to the privileges and opportunities that most of us have, but her struggles, her pain and her dreams were exactly like ours.
She has been called morally weak, theologically confused, intellectually limited and publically despised - but Jesus used her as a beacon of hope not only for the village but for all the world. You see, I believe she is everybody - not a single one of us hold the high ground of perfect moral virtue, absolute theological orthodoxy, complete intellectual discipline or total social perfection. She is you. She is me. She is everybody. And if Jesus can meet her needs, make her whole and use her powerfully and profoundly - He can you and me.
How did Jesus impact this woman’s life? In three ways I guess.
i. He Showed Her Love
But it was in a different way - many other men had loved her - too many - and that love was anything but love, it was self serving. With Jesus she knew it was different - different to the way others had loved her, different to the way the village thought of her.
Have you ever wondered why this woman had to go in the heat of the day to fill her jar?
It’s a good possibility that she didn’t gather in the morning when everybody else was the well talking as they do in small villages. I cannot help but wonder if what kept her from going in the morning was perhaps because she was the talk of the town. She carried a huge burden of shame. After all, she had been married 5 times and the man she was with now lived with now was simply a lover. He was just using her and she was so broken that she had got OK with that. Even in these days of relaxed morals and extreme permissiveness - being married 5 times carries something of a stigma - let alone in those days when thing were probably more conservative or at least less exposed - especially in the Samaritan faith. In all likelihood she had become the talk of the town - the woman with loose standards and easy morals. Had she lived today, she’d have probably been a guest on the Jerry Springer show. But she was not satisfied.
I read a news brief about a prostitute this week who had been arrested in a police raid. As they brought her into the station, took her picture, and fingerprinted her . . . she kept protesting: “I’m really not like this! This isn’t who I am!”
I could not help but be reminded that there is a dream inside even the most broken of us that recognizes instinctively that we were created for something infinitely greater than the pain of this broken life, and infinitely higher than the pleasures of this human life and infinitely longer than this short span of this limited life. Despite the fact that this world had broken her, she never lost the dream that she was made for something better.
Jesus Showed Her Love - Because that is Who He is.
Can you imagine Jesus standing there with a posterboard saying that “God Hates Loose Women” or “God Hates Immoral Men?” May I suggest to you that the opposite is true. If Jesus had a posterboard it would read, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” God loved this woman in the Bible and God loves each and every one He has ever created.
Listen to me if you would this morning - this is important - The love of Jesus is the only thing that can satisfy the human soul.
You can try and satisfy your soul with the admiration of others, the pleasures of your flesh or the accomplishments of your hands - each one of these things will leave you empty. Friends will let you down, pleasures will leave you hungry and your accomplishments will never quench the thirst within you.
What you and I need is the love of Jesus.
i. He Showed Her Love
ii. He Gave Her Truth
Love without truth is too soft to depend on and truth without love is too hard to accept.
You cannot love me by keeping the truth from me. Jesus would later tell them, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” and that is what he gave her.
It seems she had spent her life believing the lies of the devils. He had told her that her only worth was sexual, and her only value was to be used. He had told her that she would never amount to much and could never live up to the expectations of others. He had told her that because of the choices she had made in her past she no longer had the right to expect to be respected, to believe she could ever be loved for who she was.
And as she listen to his lies, she gave up thinking she was unique. She just stopped believing that she was special - and the flame of eternity that God put in her heart all but went out.
And Jesus gives her the truth. All her life she had been lied to - by men, by the devil, by her community - but when Jesus speaks the truth - something in her that is bound sits up, the flame within her that was a smouldering wick somewhere in the recesses of her soul flickers - and ever so faintly starts to burn again. Something in her starts to come alive.
i. He Showed Her Love
ii. He Gave Her Truth
iii. He Offered Her Hope
Now this always amazes me - no matter how lost we are from the road of truth, how badly beaten we may be on the road of life or how far we are from the road to eternity, in each one of us there is a near unsilenceable inner voice of hope - that is looking for validation of what each and every one of carries inside of us - and that is that we dare to believe we are special. In our dreams we are sometimes boldly exceptional. In our fantasies we sometimes dare to believe we are incredible. And then somebody like Jesus comes along - and He offers us hope - and that which we secretly dream starts to become a reality - we start to believe again that we are phenomenally significant to the most significant One who has ever existed.
i. He Showed Her Love
ii. He Gave Her Truth
iii. He Offered Her Hope
That by way of background to our passage. Please open your Bibles with me to the book of John - John 4:39-42
I want to talk with you this morning about The Jesus Way. I have heard many different approaches to sharing the gospel, explaining your faith, telling the God story. I have attended and taught many courses and how to share your faith. I have even written a few myself. But time and time again I find myself coming back to the simplicity of the Jesus Way.
John 4:39-42 - Read - Pray
There are simply two things that come out of the passage that I want us to focus on this morning because I believe there are some keys here that will change your life and mine.
The first is this . . .
1. The Impact of a Power Testimony
All this Samaritan woman did was what I want to call the Jesus Way - she simply told others what the Lord had done for her.
John 4:39 “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’”
Mark 5:19 “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”
Psalm 96:3 “Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.”
Acts 1:8 says, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
Watch this - this is a kingdom principle - when you testify to the things the Lord has done there is a power anointing over your words - and they are live changing.
You will tell what the Lord has done and peoples live will be changed. This woman of questionable repute tried it and a village was changed forever.
There are many good gospel presentation courses - and they all have value. But Jesus Way was to keep it simple. “Go and tell what the Lord has done for you.” You do not need to go with clever arguments or clever tricks. You may not have a good gospel presentation or well thought through approach. Well that is fine - simply go and tell what the Lord has done for you.
Can you for a minute thing what a difference it would make if just once a day every Christian told somebody what the Lord had done for them. That too much - how about once a week - I know you can - I know I can - this world would be turned upside down in a few short years.
Now you know what - we cannot change what other Christians do - so we probably won’t see that impact in the next few years. But we can start with us - and we can change the place we live, our home, out work place, our circle of friends.
2. The Importance of a Personal Relationship
John 4:40-42 “So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”
That is how it happened me - and I imagine that is how it happened for you. While God may work in any way He chooses - what we have just read is the way it normally happens.
We first learn about somebody else’s faith - we hear somebody else’s God -Story. It interests us, intrigues us, perhaps even excites us - but we still do not have a story of our own.
Watch this - salvation never rides on coat tails. You cannot be saved because your friend is saved, your parents are saved or your spouse is saved. You must be saved for yourself. God loves you and He wants to have a relationship with you.
You must be saved for yourself.
What does it mean to be saved?
A Proper Religion
Some people think they are going to go to heaven because they have a proper religion. Let me tell you what a proper religion is:-
Going to Church
Reading your Bible and saying your prayers.
Putting money in the plate.
Trying not to cuss too much and trying to be a good person.
You know what the Bible says? These things are not enough.
Being baptized or Christened does not make you a Christian.
Joining a Church does not make you a Christian.
You know that - there are people who join the church and sing in the choir - even preach from the pulpit but they are not going to heaven.
Jesus said “Unless a man is born from above he cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
A Perfect Record
Listen to me if you will - you will not go to heaven because you know somebody who is born from above - you must be born from above for yourself. And you cannot go to heaven by doing good things and trying to be a good person.
As a matter of fact - if you want to be good enough to go to heaven you must be perfect - because the Bible says that you must be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect - and strive after holiness without which no man shall see the Father.
Ephesians 2:8-9
A Personal Relationship
But my friend - it is not a proper religion that will get you to heaven, and nor is it a perfect record - it is a personal relationship.
How many of you know us President Nelson Mandela is? Some of us. How many of us know who President Barak Obama is? All of us. How many of us know President Obama? Many people think they are going to go to heaven because they know about Jesus - or even because they believe He is the Son of God.
My friend - you must become a child of God - enjoy a personal relationship with Him.
John 1:12-13 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
My friend - you must be born of God.
As we close this morning - I want to ask you the most important question you have ever been asked in your life - and that is this:-
Have you been born of God?
I am not asking if you have a proper religion - I trust you do.
I am not asking if you have a perfect record - I know you don’t.
Do you have a personal relationship - have you been born of God?
You see, until you have been born of God you are not going to heaven, and you have not power testimony. Your pursuit of God is simply a religions lifestyle. But this morning it is your opportunity to be sure you are born from above - have a personal relationship - and know you can live the rest of your life as a child of God - and then one day when you die - you will be with Him forever.
Will you pray with me please?
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