Breaking Down Barriers & Building Up The Wall (Pt. 1)
Sermon – 20 June 2004
I know today is Father’s Day and is would be quite seem to make sense that I preach on a subject that would speak to us Fathers.
I am not necessarily opposed to preaching messages based upon special seasons, times of year or holidays – as the Lord leads. I really seek always to preach what I sense the Lord wants to say to us TODAY. Regardless of what day it is on the calendar.
The Lord has been doing some wonderful things in our midst over the last couple of weeks – leading up to, during and since the visit of Brother Hogan. I believe the Lord has been, among other things encouraging us to stay the course and believe him to fulfill his calling on our lives.
As most of you probably know, the Lord has really given me a burden on my heart to work in this community in order to see unity in the church of Jesus Christ.
It is not that I think I am anything special per se, I simply believe God has placed this burden on my heart so that with the help of others in the city, we may be a catalyst for change in the church.
To that end the Lord has brought another minister into my life that is going to be a great blessing in this regard.
(Share about meeting with Pastor Mark Thomas…)
Jesus came to tear down the dividing wall that was separating people.
Ephesians 2:14-18
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit
Galatians 3:26-29
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
One of the great travesties in church history is that with the dividing barrier that having been destroyed through the blood of Jesus, man has undertaken to rebuild all kinds of dividing barriers in it’s place.
I sincerely believe that as we endeavor to break down the walls that divide the church and the community we will enjoy the manifold blessings of God for we are expressing the unity that he called us to.
The title of my sermon this morning is Breaking Down Barriers & Building Up The Wall and our main text will be John 4
John 4:1-42
1 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17 "I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
33 Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, ’Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ’One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
(from New International Version)
1. Geographical Barrier –
John 4:3-4
He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
NKJV
Due to deep seeded animosities between the Jews and Samaritans whenever the Jews traveled from Galilee in the North to Judea in the South they would circumvent Samaria all together.
They did so out of an effort to avoid any potential contact with Samaritans at all – any such contact was regarded as defiling.
When the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity in 722 B.C. by the Assyrians they settled the land with captives from other nations. These people had blended their worship of false gods with worship of Yahweh.
When the Southern Kingdom of Judah returned from their captivity in Babylon in 539 B.C. they found the land populated by people they deemed to be half breeds or mongrels. Furthermore, the Samaritans opposed the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem under Nehemiah.
Nehemiah 4:7-9
But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. 8 They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. 9 But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.
(from New International Version)
Jesus was willing to cross over a geographical barrier in spite of the issues that existed – not only so but he took his disciples. We know from later in the text that he stayed there for a couple of days as well.
Jesus would later send his disciples to Samaria as witnesses of the gospel.
Acts 1:8
…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."
NKJV
Not only was Jesus giving instructions as to the geographical spread of the gospel (we see this very pattern in Acts) but he was saying something more – you will be my witnesses to not only to your own people, but to a people you’ve grown up hating and people you don’t know.
2. Ethnic Barrier –
John 4:9
Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
NKJV
The sentence following this woman’s words sums up clearly the ethnic barrier that Jesus was breaking down on this occasion. “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”. This further illustrates the immensity of what Jesus was doing here and saying in his parable of the Good Samaritan.
Luke 10:25-37
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
27 He answered: "’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’"
28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
30 In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ’Look after him,’ he said, ’and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
37 The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
Gandhi and Christianity Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most respected leaders of modern history. A Hindu, Gandhi nevertheless admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. Once when the missionary E. Stanley Jones met with Gandhi he asked him, "Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?"
Gandhi replied, "Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ." Apparently Gandhi’s rejection of Christianity grew out of an incident that happened when he was a young man practicing law in South Africa. He had become attracted to the Christian faith, had studied the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, and was seriously exploring becoming a Christian. And so he decided to attend a church service. As he came up the steps of the large church where he intended to go, a white South African elder of the church barred his way at the door. "Where do you think you’re going, kaffir?" the man asked Gandhi in a belligerent tone of voice.
Gandhi replied, "I’d like to attend worship here." The church elder snarled at him, "There’s no room for Kaffirs in this church. Get out of here or I’ll have my assistants throw you down the steps."
From that moment, Gandhi said, he decided to adopt what good he found in Christianity, but would never again consider becoming a Christian if it meant being part of the church. Source: information reported at pursuingchrist.com
This story reveals an underlying attitude that pervades many churches throughout the world – and the U.S. is not immune.
It has been said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week – this is a sad but true reality that I truly believe grieves our Lord.
It has been further said that the United States is a melting pot – I don’t believe that the Church is to be a melting pot. The true definition of melting pot is where people essentially leave behind their own culture and melt into a greater culture that takes on certain nuances of each one.
The Church is to be a mosaic, where we are made up of all different pieces but each one keeps it’s own cultural distinctive.
Example: European missionaries to the New World, American missionaries.
We are not called upon to spread our own culture – we are called upon to spread the gospel.
Revelation 5:6-10
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. 8 And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song:
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."
If we are going to be effective for the Kingdom of god we must be willing to break down the barriers that divide – even…
Geographical Barriers and
Ethnic Barriers
