The Importance Of A Witness

The Importance of a Witness

- Read John 4:39-42

This past week I got a call from some men I’ve worked with in Orlando, about some appliances they had available. They said, “Gene, we’re tempting a warehouse over here on Lee Road, and we have a number of appliances, some of just about everything. We were going to haul them to the dump, but Dave reminded us that you have a cap pile down at your church that you recycle and we were wondering if you wanted these. I told them sure . . .

Tuesday night at 4-H I told the folks that if they a need for some appliances, we had some used ones coming.

Lady shared with the Episcopal church and they put the word out at their thrift store. We had a dump trailer filled with file cabinets and appliances, word got out that we had a semi trailer filled with appliances and furniture from Disney properties.

For a while, the church driveway looked like it does during Christmas in the Country. People streaming up and down it.

That’s about how I picture it with the people coming out of town to see Jesus. People streaming from the town to see this “Man who told the woman everything she had done. This couldn’t be the Christ could it?”

As we look at this passage, I would like you to notice with me first, Why Jesus Came.

I. WHY JESUS CAME - Verse 42

Jesus did a great many things while He was on earth. He raised Lazarus from the dead, and what a miracle that was.

He went around healing the sick and casting demons out of people who were possessed.

He fed the multitudes and 2 occasions. One day He fed 5,000 men, plus women and children. On another day He fed 4,000.

He stopped storms by speaking to them.

He walked on water.

He turned water into wine.

He taught. He confronted hypocrites, and religious folks who thought they had it all together and who looked won their self-righteous noses at folks who didn’t live like them.

Jesus did a great many things, while here on earth. But the most important thing He did was to do something for us we could not do for ourselves. He came as Savior of the world. He came to pay a price that we couldn’t pay.

- Read verse 42.

> John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him, should not perish but hath everlasting life.

What was the primary mission of Jesus? What was the primary reason He came? It was tho save us from our sins.

Mary became pregnant. Joseph was going to divorce her. He was going to put her away. But an angel came to talk to him and told him that this child was from the Lord. Then in

> Matthew 1:21 She will give birth to a Son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.

I sure am glad our denomination and other Christians around the world have followed the example of our Lord and tried to minister to people. I am glad we have built hospitals and established medical facilities around the world; but if we are not sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ we are wasting our time.

I am glad we have established orphanages and followed the example of our Lord in loving on and taking care of children.

When my dad was young and getting a bit distracted and a little wild, mu grandfather tried to give him something to do to help keep him out of trouble, so he sent him to live with his uncle on a ranch in Jacksonville. It got him off the street and gave him something to do.

When my dad saw my brother and I starting down the same path, hanging with not the best people in Orange City, he moved us out here to the woods, to give us something to do, to get us off the street and to help keep us out of trouble.

Several years ago, we started a 4-H club . . . to teach, to serve, to minister . . . but if we are not sharing the Gospel we are spinning our wheels.

1/2 the year we run Mission Possible Camp to teach the kids . . . but if we don’t teach them about the Lord Jesus Christ, if we don’t teach them about the Savior of the World, we are helping them for only a very short time.

The Bible teaches on many things . . .

Family, finances, relationships, friendship, employee - employer interaction, speech, politics and the importance of wisely choosing our leaders, but the most important message of the Bible and the reason it has survived for so many centuries when people have tried to destroy it, is that it contains the most important message. That Jesus came as Savior of the world.