Opening illustration: I heard a story about a guy who applied for a job as an usher at a theater in the mall. As a part of the interview process, the manager asked him, "What would you do in case a fire breaks out?"
The young guy answered, "Don’t worry about me. I can get out fine."
That’s exactly how many in today’s world respond to a lost and dying world around them. If you asked them "What would you do if Jesus came back tomorrow?" they would probably respond, "Oh, don’t worry about me. I’d be fine."
But what is all too easy to forget is that you’re an usher! It isn’t enough just to get out yourself. You are responsible for helping others know the way.
Introduction: Evangelism is a generally accepted core value in the Christian church. However, it is more of a stated value than a realized value. The goal of this teaching series is to turn-up the evangelistic temperature of our church to the point that on-going evangelism becomes a realized value.
• Evangelism is a central theme of the New Testament, and of our text in John Chapter 4.
• Evangelism is essential to the salvation of the elect, as Jesus must go through Samaria.
• Evangelism is the life blood of the Lord’s churches.
• Evangelism is essential to a churches spirituality and zeal.
• When a church loses its evangelistic vision, it is at a low ebb spiritually.
• Evangelism is essential to a churches purpose and reason for existence.
• If a church is not evangelistic, they’ve lost sight of their purpose. It is now a club.
• Evangelism is essential for a church’s growth and continued existence.
• The Lord promised perpetuity for His church as an institution, but not to individual churches. Our continuance is dependent on our evangelistic efforts and our community.
• The lack of evangelism will result in the death of a church.
So, where do we begin? (2 Timothy 4:5)
• There are two groups of people who really hate evangelism; non-Christians and Christians.
• Evangelism is an emotionally charged word.
• It often sends shivers of guilt running up and down our spines.
• Everyone agrees that evangelism involves giving away the message of God’s love.
• We mostly agree on the focus of our message, but we diverge greatly when it comes to how.
What BARRIERS you may have to BREAK to build bridges?
1. GENDER barrier (vs. 7-8)
I want you to note that there are in fact four barriers that Jesus has to overcome even to speak to her. First of all, there is the fact that it was improper in that day for a Rabbi to speak in public to a young woman. In fact, typically, even if you were married, you often wouldn’t even speak to your wife in public. You need to understand how radical the gospels are - how liberating they are with regard to women because they are so utterly contrary to the culture of that time. We often fail to see that. Often what we’ll do is take our own ideas and impose them on the gospels but actually the gospels were liberating and radical in their treatment of women. Jesus, as a Rabbi, furthermore, should be more cautious about speaking to a woman, let alone a woman in this condition who was a Samaritan. There was the barrier of sex because the public discourse between a man and a woman, especially an unmarried man, would be prohibited or looked down upon. Jesus was going counter cultural and crossing this barrier.
If we look at the woman at the well, she’s never named. We looked at Jesus’ encounter with the disciples. He’s always using teachable moments. They never did mention about the woman but Jesus talks about the harvest and illustrates what a harvest is like. He talks about what food is like. He talks about what the will of God is like and how that satisfies. He’s always using and leveraging teachable moments. Then the Samaritans arrive. It goes from second-hand knowledge to first-hand knowledge. This is always critical.
Even speaking to the woman, He overcomes a number of barriers, as we’re about to see.
2. RACIAL barrier (vs. 9)
God has divine appointments. He didn’t necessarily leave Judea with any fixed intention of ministering in Samaria, He just planned to pass through, but the Spirit will always blow wherever He wishes. True messengers of God are never subject to fixed programs and to prejudices. We need to keep that in mind for ourselves. You don’t know what you’re called to do. You don’t know what ministry you’re going to have and very often your greatest moment might be something that was not planned- something may appear to be an interruption or something that might not seem very productive.
We see here in a way, the proclamation of the gospel by the early Christian evangelist to the people of Samaria. In Acts 8, it’s already foreshadowed in this interview and in Jesus’ subsequent stay in a Samaritan village. This is something that is very telling because in this text, this prefiguring of what is to come in the book of Acts several years later is the idea of what Jesus is already launching in His public ministry. Namely, that since the advent of Christ, the people of God consists of all who acknowledge Him as the Savior of the world and who have received from Him the life-giving Spirit and who worship God in spirit and in truth. In this and the other gospels, Jesus ultimately overcomes all racial and all cultural barriers. It’s an anticipation of things that are to come.
The Jews when they had the opportunity in 128 B.C. actually destroyed the Samaritan temple. They burned it. Now you can see there that this was not a happy combination. There was a racial enmity. The Jews never accepted them. The Samaritans had an alternative form of worship that was a rather bizarre combination of paganism and Old Testament Judaism in regard to the Pentateuch.
Jesus does something that is very dramatic here. When Jesus is discussed in this chapter as having spoken to a Samaritan woman; it’s a shocking concept. In fact, in the synoptic gospels, Jesus does something quite surprising. He made the Samaritan the hero of one of His parables - the Good Samaritan. You’ve got to understand how radical this is. It’s like making an Arab the hero to the Jew or the Jew the hero to the Arab in a parable. That would be the same kind of enmity they had.
3. LIFESTYLE barrier (vs. 16-19)
Thirdly there was the barrier of lifestyle. In fact, that’s why she was coming in the middle of the day. Typically, women would come, and it was a place of congregation. It’s a place where they would meet because you had to spend a lot of time collecting water. Usually they’d come early in the morning or at dusk when it was cool. There, women would discuss things with one another. It was a meeting point. Why was she coming in the heat of the day? It was because the women did not accept her, so she finds herself virtually an outcast. We discover later she doesn’t have the best reputation in town. Her own people regarded her as an immoral person. But she rightfully identified Jesus as a ‘Prophet.’ They were two contrasts.
4. RELIGIOUS/NON-RELIGIOUS barrier (vs. 20-26)
Finally, there was the barrier of religion. There’s an expression of bewilderment because Jews and Samaritans don’t share things in common. The Jews did have some dealings with the Samaritans but the idea of sharing from the same bucket was totally contrary to that concept.
We see here that Jesus is soon going to point out to her that there can be no unity between Jew and Samaritan unless both accept the same gift of God - that gift of God which He is prepared to bestow, eternal life, which can be received from God alone. In fact, from Jesus because He Himself is that gift as we saw in John 3:16. He Himself is the actual gift of God to His people.
Result (vs.39-42): 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.” This is a strong text here because these villagers then had done what the disciples who were first called by Jesus and what Nathaniel had done- come and see. So, they came, and they saw him, and they ultimately believed. Their faith was based on a first-hand experience. Jesus broke all the barriers to not only reach out to the Samaritan woman but to her entire community.
Illustration: I find, for example, when I’m sharing the gospel with a person who is perhaps a computer programmer or an engineer or perhaps an attorney, often they’re going to be very concerned about evidence. They’re very impressed by the facts. They want some logic and clarity. But if I’m dealing with a person who might be a literature major it might be a totally different kind of a thing - a story, a narrative or a film. You see where I’m going. In a postmodern culture a story or narrative becomes particularly relevant. I might have to adapt, and I might discover that for this person I will have to adjust my approach midcourse. My approach also depends on the questions they are asking me. You know that you can ask a question in three ways. You can ask a question to say, “Show me how much you know.” You can ask a question to get information - an honest attempt to get it. You can discern sometimes if the question is a smoke screen or not. There’s a need for us being led by the Spirit to adapt our words to speak graciously and wisely to each person we encounter and tailor our speech to each person. Jesus was a master at this. He could know people. Remember it says, He Himself knew what was in man (John 2:25). He could understand what the heart was, and He would adapt. It’d be very interesting for you to contrast His approach to Nicodemus with His approach to this woman. It is a very different orientation.
Application:
• At first, she saw Jesus as just another Jew (vs. 9).
• She certainly didn’t see anything special about Jesus.
• She saw Jesus as just a man and nothing more (vs. 11).
• She saw Jesus as being inferior to the patriarchs (vs. 12).
• But then she began to see Jesus as a prophet after He revealed her sin (vs. 19).
• Finally, she saw Jesus as the Christ of God, after Jesus revealed Himself to her (vs. 28-29).
• How do you see Jesus this morning? As just a man; or do you see Him as the Christ.
