“Gospel Without Walls”
John 4
INTRODUCTION: “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” is an action movie starring Tom Cruise. Early in the film, Tom and an IMF teammate must sneak into the Kremlin and steal something out of the vault. How in the world will they attempt that? By tricking a security guard with a fake wall that he won't see. While the guard is distracted, they throw up a screen and rear-project an image of an empty hallway. Then they sneak behind the screen undetected toward their objective.
The screen that obscures the guard’s vision and conceals an enemy action is a wall that he can’t see. If there’s a wall in front of you that you can’t see, you’re likely to either accept it unknowingly or you’re going to run into it painfully. There are walls we cannot see with our eyes but that are very real—and this morning I’m talking about walls between Jesus and lost people. Sometimes we run into such walls; often we just accept them. But when we look in Scripture at what God wants us to do as followers of Jesus in our world today, there’s a third way: TO FOLLOW JESUS IS TO WALK THROUGH WALLS WITH THE GOSPEL. That’s not easy to do and we aren’t often inclined to do it. But it’s vitally important, as we’re about to see, that we walk through walls with the gospel. So we need to understand what & where these walls are. [READ John 4:1-4]
The most direct route followed by Jewish travelers heading north from Judea to Galilee passed through Samaria. The alternative was to cross the Jordan near Jericho, travel north up the east bank, and cross back to the west bank near the Sea of Galilee. Often Jews would have taken this route to avoid Samaria so great was their antipathy toward Samaritans.
• After the Assyrians captured Samaria in 722BC, they deported many Israelites and settled the land with foreigners, who intermarried with the surviving Israelites and adhered to some forms of their ancient religions. After the exile, Jews returning to their homeland viewed the Samaritans not only as the children of political rebels but as racial half-breeds whose religion was tainted by unacceptable elements.
• About 400BC the Samaritans erected a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, which was destroyed by the Jews toward the end of the second century BC. This combination of events fueled religious and theological animosities.
I. JESUS WALKS THROUGH WALLS OF OUR PREJUDICES WITH THE GOSPEL (5-10)
A. While the disciples are in the city, Jesus requests the favor of a drink from the lone other person at the well—a Samaritan woman. The woman’s response is her reminder to Jesus that Jews and Samaritans have no dealings.
1. There is a gender wall between them
2. There is a racial wall between them
3. There is a religious wall between them
We can appreciate this woman’s surprise that a Jew would speak to her at all. She is troubled by the walls that exist between them.
B. Jesus ignores her reservations—he doesn’t even allude to the walls. Instead, he walks right through them and dares her to see both the gift of God and who is talking to her. He offers her “living water.” She is intrigued by this strange offer, but does not understand it. So Jesus equates it with eternal life. She responds in the affirmative.
>> Jesus delights in walking through walls with the gospel. He speaks; he reaches out; he takes a risk. What does that look like for us?
C. [ILLUSTRATION] Every three years InterVarsity Christian Fellowship sponsors the Urbana Conference, a gathering that challenges university students to get involved in world evangelization. About 16,000 students from around the world attended the 2009 conference.
After the main session each evening, students would leave the larger conference auditorium to meet in smaller groups for prayer and reflection. In one of the banquet halls, there was a small group comprised of Chinese students, another group of Taiwanese students, and another group of students from Hong Kong. Large dividers stood between the three. These walls were important, because historically these three peoples have harbored bitterness and animosity toward one another. They felt it was best to pray and worship each with their own people.
But as the Chinese students were praying one night, they told their leader they wanted to invite the other countries to join them. When the Taiwanese students received the invitation, they prayed and sang a little while, and then they opened up the wall divider. It wasn't too much longer before the students from Hong Kong pulled back their divider, and some 80 students mingled together.
"In Christ, we are all one family," said one leader. "And [Christ] breaks down political boundaries. In Christ, we have the desire to make the first steps to connect." The Taiwanese students asked the students from China and Hong Kong to lead them in worship. The next night, they invited the Korean and Japanese groups to join them, nations which also had experienced fierce animosity. The leader told them, "We are living out what we have learned this week in John: This is 'God with us.'" One girl from China said, "It was a really moving time. This kind of thing would not happen [without Jesus]"
D. [APPLICATION] segregated worship—one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. By accepting these racial & cultural walls, have we put up a wall to the gospel in our increasingly multiethnic world? What ethnic or racial walls does the gospel need to walk through in this community?
>>Walls of prejudice are ugly if you see them. But some walls are even more personal:
II. JESUS WALKS THROUGH WALLS OF OUR PAST WITH THE GOSPEL (13-19)
A. The next wall between them is at first embarrassing to the woman, but is an essential part of their encounter because of who Jesus is and what her needs are. She is a person with a history of broken relationships.
1. That she comes alone to the well at midday may reveal her desire to avoid her neighbors, who would come to draw water in groups during the cooler periods of the day.
2. Since she had had six of the men of that village, we can imagine the other women would have little affection for her. Her reputation is well-known. She is a woman with a past.
B. Jesus is preparing to walk through that wall of her past.
1. He tells her to bring her husband. She responds with an answer than is factually truthful but functionally dishonest.
2. She tells Jesus she has no husband, and so puts up a wall in an attempt to conceal her past.
a. She is drawn to his inviting promise of eternal life,
b. But her joy is clouded by the reality of who she is, with her story of relational defeats and disappointments.
3. But his disclosure is the love of Jesus breaking through a painful wall in order to find one lonely human being. Notice how powerfully and helpfully Jesus is able to move in. Walls do not keep him out. Not even the wall of her past.
C. [ILLUSTRATION] Russell Moore recounts a conversation with the evangelical theologian Carl Henry. As Moore and some of his friends were lamenting the miserable shape of the church, they asked Dr. Henry if he saw any hope in the coming generation of evangelicals. Dr. Henry replied:“Of course, there is hope for the next generation of evangelicals. But the leaders of the next generation might not be coming from the current evangelical establishment. They are probably still pagans. Who knew that Saul of Tarsus was to be the great apostle to the Gentiles? Who knew that God would raise up a C. S. Lewis or a Charles Colson? They were unbelievers who, once saved by the grace of God, were mighty warriors for the faith.” Russell Moore added: “The next Jonathan Edwards might be the man driving in front of you with the Darwin Fish bumper decal. The next Charles Wesley might be a misogynist, profane hip-hop artist right now. The next Billy Graham might be passed out drunk in a fraternity house right now. The next Charles Spurgeon might be making posters for a Gay Pride March right now. The next Mother Teresa might be managing an abortion clinic right now.”
D. [APPLICATION] Pray for a future member of our church's Leadership Council who isn’t a Christian yet. We mustn’t accept the walls of a person’s past—we walk through them with the gospel.
III. JESUS WALKS THROUGH WALLS OF OUR PREFERENCES WITH THE GOSPEL (19-26)
A. The sudden change of subject in v. 20 has prompted many to suggest that the woman raises a disputed point of theology as an attempt to distract Jesus from the sin she finds so embarrassing. A simpler explanation is that, having realized that Jesus is some kind of Jewish prophet, she raises a point of theological contention between their two peoples to test him. (Some folks can’t talk about religion without bringing up points where they disagree.)
B. Jesus literally says “the hour is coming,” (in John’s gospel that refers to the hour of Jesus’ cross, death and resurrection). When that hour comes, says Jesus, you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
1. In other words, there is little to be gained by a prolonged debate over the relative merits of Jerusalem and Gerizim, since both sites are about to be bypassed by those who truly worship the Father.
2. Jesus describes worship tied not to holy places but empowered by a holy Person. To worship “in spirit and truth” means to worship as one who is spiritually alive, in union with the Father, (who is spirit) according to the revelation of the Son (who is truth).
a. Truth without spirit you’d dry up
b. Spirit without truth you’d blow up
c. In spirit and truth we grow up into the worshippers God created us to be.
d. APP: No more holy space (here, gym, work, house)
C. [APPLICATION] A lot of this narrative is really applicable to our own cultural preferences in church (music style, liturgy, preaching style, location, service times, etc.); God has bigger concerns—lost people—on His agenda! What of our preferences might be walls to the gospel? Which are we willing to set aside for the gospel?
1. In Hot Springs AK, is the Morris Antique Mall. Nothing on the inside distinguishes this antique store from dozens like it in Hot Springs. There's a musty smell and dusty relics from the past. But if you look closely at the outside of the Morris Antique Mall, you'll see something that makes it distinct: before it was an antique store, it was a church building. Churches that preserve their preferences ahead of gospel priorities will eventually be antiques.
2. Helmut Thielicke: “The gospel must be preached afresh and told in new ways to every generation, since every generation has its own unique questions. The gospel must constantly be forwarded to a new address, because the recipient is repeatedly changing his place of residence.”
IV. [BIG IDEA] TO FOLLOW JESUS IS TO WALK THROUGH WALLS WITH THE GOSPEL (28-42)
A. Gospel concerns must always take precedence over our prejudices, our past, and our preferences, no matter how strong those walls seem and no matter where we find them.
B. [READ 28-30] In her eagerness to enjoy the new and living water, the woman abandons the old water jar. (See how eager the woman is to bear witness among the townspeople she had previously been avoiding?) She excitedly breaks through those walls with the gospel: “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.” She’s experienced acceptance, forgiveness, and freedom from Jesus, and she wants to share that. Strikingly, the people listen and respond. They begin walking toward Jacob’s well while Jesus is still talking with his disciples.
C. [34-35] The disciples are 'coming back' from getting food just as the Samaritans arrive and Jesus says 'Look, the fields are ripe unto harvest'. He's trying to get them to move beyond their cultural prejudices to introduce lost people to the Messiah!
D. “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.” Jesus came to do his Father’s will, and always did no less. He finds greater sustenance and satisfaction in that than in any food the disciples could offer him. This mission of the Son becomes a big theme in chap. 5
E. [39-42] The Samaritans re-enter the narrative in v.39. That Samaritans would urge a Jewish rabbi to stay with them attests not only to the respect he had earned, but also their conviction that he was the promised Messiah. The walls are down, the gospel is spreading, and “many more became believers” (41). Jesus’ ministry to Samaritans represents the first cross-cultural evangelism, undertaken by Jesus himself and issuing a pattern to be followed by his church: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
F. But how? How do we walk through these walls?
1. The computer game "Portal" is a game my kids love. It's a first person shooter game, but you don't shoot zombies or aliens, you just shoot holes in walls and move through them in order to win the game. When it comes to sharing the gospel, we’re not only commanded but also empowered by Christ. He opens the wall—we walk through with the gospel.
2. Matt. 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
a. APP: Where will you go with the gospel this year?
b. APP: Where will New Hope go with the gospel this year?
c. APP: What might the Lord do in Greenwood, in Indianapolis, and around the world through New Hope if we commit ourselves to walking through walls with the gospel.
