The living water of life, John 5:1-15

I have said before that every miracle presented in the gospels is given to illustrate a spiritual parable.  And so it is with the miraculous account of the healing at the pool of Bethesda.  In fact, this text perhaps more than many others offers several spiritual lessons which I would like to bring out today.  Not the least of which is the nature of healing. That is the most obvious application in the context and so we should look at it first.  

I suspect that everyone sooner or later will come to a point of desiring to receive a healing from God.  If not for yourself, then perhaps for a loved one.  It is the nature of human frailty to find oneself afflicted in the flesh sooner or later.  It is the nature of man to die.  That is a certainty.  And the same curse of death also produces various illnesses, not all of which produce immediate death - we may in fact recover - but eventually everyone will one day still die.  

However, there are numerous examples in both the Old and New Testament of people being healed.  And while I believe that they symbolize a greater spiritual principle, I do not want to minimize the fact that physical healing does occur in the Bible and that the possibility exists for physical healing today.  But I would strongly emphasize that being healed of an infirmity is not universally promised in the Bible. And that is proven by our text today.  Not every facet concerning healing is dealt with in this text, but let’s start by looking at what it does teach us, and then at the spiritual principles it teaches.

First of all, a little historical background is necessary.  John says that Jesus has left Galilee, where He had healed the nobleman’s son, and now has returned to Jerusalem to attend a feast.  There were three feasts which Jewish men were required to attend, and it’s possible that this could be any of the three or even a lesser feast.  Many would like to say this is THE feast, that is the Passover.  And that is possible, but to say that extends the ministry of Jesus by a year more than that which the synoptic gospels seem to indicate.  

But as to which feast it is, it is not really that important to John, otherwise he would have made it clear.  He then describes a pool which is by the sheep gate.  It was called Bethesda, which means “house of mercy.”  That sounds like one of those holy roller healing churches, doesn’t it?  I recently saw one called “The Holy Ghost House of Deliverance and Healing” or something like that.  You see them here and there in Sussex county, and I suspect other places as well.  

So I suppose that people are drawn to that sort of thing.  The promise of miraculous healing. John tells us that this pool was called Bethesda and it had five porches or porticos.  Now there is a very interesting historical fact here which is helpful to know about.  And that is, when you read early commentators, particularly those in the 18th and mid nineteenth century, there was a common consensus that this place did not exist.  And many skeptics said that  was evidence of the unreliability of the scriptures.  Additionally, they pointed to the fact that the Bible said it had 5 porticos and suggested that it had to be untrue because that would indicate a five sided pool which would have been unheard of in those days.  But in any event, there was no evidence for it’s existence, so it put a doubt upon the reliability of the scripture.

But in the late 19th century certain excavations were made by archeologists during which this pool was discovered, and they found that it actually did have five porticos.  Turns out that the pool was rectangular shaped, but divided across the middle to form in effect two pools, and the center division had it’s own porch on it.  Thereby creating 5 porches.  So as in so many other cases, archeologists came to verify what the Bible claimed all along, but they had not yet discovered.

There is another situation regarding these verses which have been viewed suspiciously as well.  Starting halfway in vs.3 and through vs. 4, you will notice that your Bible may have brackets around those verses indicating by a side note that they are not found in the best manuscripts. Some Bibles eliminate them altogether. And so a lot of translators say that those words were not inspired in the original text, but were added later by an overzealous scribe.  

The fact is that the information contained there is not essential to the story.  Most commentators dismiss the legend concerning the pool being stirred up as superstition and therefore not factual, and furthermore should not even be in the Bible.  But I am not so sure about all of that.  I am hesitant to dismiss something that God let stand as scripture for 500 years.  The truth is, that there are no original copies of the New Testament.  However, there are a tremendous amount of early copies compared to other historical texts.  There are about 6000 early copies of the New Testament.  But of those, some are considered earlier than others.  The KJV of the Bible used one set of texts called the Textus Receptus.  But since that time, translators have found other copies which they believe are older and thus more reliable which are called the Morphological Greek New Testament.  But both are copies of the original texts.  There are not a lot of differences between the two, but this is one of them. 

However, there is some other evidence that this suspect information does in fact belong in the text.  It is found in the Alexandrian manuscripts, and in the Latin and early Syrian versions. The second century Christian writer Tertullian refers to it. So all of this points to a wide acceptance from the second century onwards, which lends a lot of credence to it being claimed as original. 

So that being said, I have no problem accepting those verses as part of the original text.  However that does not answer the question if what it’s speaking of was just superstition or if it was a divine act of God that brought about healing at certain seasons.  

There is another historical note that is of significance and possibly has bearing on the correct understanding of what happened in this pool.  When archeologists discovered the pool of Siloam which is mentioned in context with another miracle healing of Jesus in John 9, it was determined that it was a mikveh, which was a pool constructed in such a way as to perform ritualistic cleansing.  And since the discovery of the pool of Bethesda, it is also believed by some to be a mikveh.  So there is a possibility that Jesus deliberately healed two people at mikvehs, which may have some theological implications in the stories.

Now I know this is a lot of technical stuff, but I promise it has some application if you will just bear with me for a moment.  In order for a pool to be considered a Mikveh, it had to have a well of water or spring of water coming up in it, so that it had fresh water flowing through it.  They referred to it as “living water.”  Interesting, isn’t it? Especially in light of the previous chapter when Jesus was speaking with the woman at the well and said that whoever asked of Him He would give them to drink of the living water. 

The purpose of the mikveh then was to provide a means of ritual cleansing according to Jewish law.  A man had to be ritually clean before he could enter the temple.  And there were a number things that could make him ceremonially unclean.  The bath by the way had to be big enough and deep enough so that they could be fully immersed.  This was also the bath that was used to baptize persons who wanted to convert to Judaism.  So this is the predecessor of the baptismal pool.  And it should answer the question of whether baptism is by immersion or sprinkling.  John the Baptist did not initiate a new ordinance, but he simply administered it to everyone as a means of repentance, which symbolized spiritual cleanliness. 

So that’s the context of the pool.  The pool at Bethesda then was more than likely a mikveh, and also had become known as having miraculous powers at certain times.  Now the question remains was the angel stirring up the water causing healing true or just superstition?  I would say it is impossible to know for sure.  But I would lean towards being true.  To accept the text at face value, then at certain times, an angel of the Lord would stir the water and the first person who made it into the water was healed.  I would suggest it may have just been a way that God showed His mercy towards HIs people, and especially towards the sick.  I would also suggest that it would seem that this man had been there a long time (maybe as long as 38 years, but not necessarily), and there were many others there as well, so that there would undoubtedly have been multiple examples in those years of people who were healed.  Otherwise, I think that it would have soon been proven to be a false hope, and the sick people would have deserted it. Many infirmed people in those days survived by begging, and there would have been limited resources for that if all of them stayed there together.  So I think they stayed there because there was real hope, but it was only achievable for a few. 

And I think there is Biblical evidence of God showing that kind of compassion upon His creation. Jesus said in Matthew 5:45, “for [God] causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” And Paul said in Acts 14:17 “and yet [God] did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”  So God does good because it is His nature to do good, to be merciful, and to leave Himself a witness on the earth so that men might turn to Him.

Now note also that it says all kinds of sick or infirmed people were lying around this pool. Vs. 3, “In these [porticos] lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered.”  Now to this place Jesus comes, we are not sure why.  Maybe He or His disciples needed to ritually cleanse themselves prior to entering the temple.  But irregardless, He goes to this place full of sick people who were lying around this pool under these porches.  And yet He focuses His attention on just one man there, the paralytic who had been sick 38 years in that condition.  

There are a couple of points to be made about this.  First, that Jesus does not heal everyone who is sick at the pool.  Some people have a hard time with that.  They have a hard time with the sovereign prerogative of God.  That He has a right to choose some and not choose others.  We want to know why.  We want to try God according to our understanding, according to our concept of justice or fairness.  But I would suggest that to question God is to have a failure of faith.  And the Bible says whatever is not of faith is sin.  So I would caution against questioning God’s motives.  Rom.3:4 says, Let God be true and everyman be a liar.  God is true, He is just, He is good, and He is merciful.  But He is also sovereign.  Our responsibility is to trust Him.

So the obvious conclusion that we can make from this is that not every person is healed of every disease.  Everyone there at the pool was desirous of being healed.  But only one was chosen to be healed. God does not chose to heal everyone.

This man laying there did not even seem to know who Jesus was. But Jesus knows who He is.  He knows that he has lain there for 38 years in that condition.  And if Jesus knew that, then obviously He knew the man’s heart. Jesus reveals His omniscience with this man the same way He revealed His omniscience with the Samaritan woman.   So for reasons which are the domain of only God to know, Jesus spoke to this man and asked him what seems to be a superfluous question; “Do you wish to get well?”

But I would suggest that it isn’t superfluous. I don’t ever see Jesus do anything superfluous in the gospel accounts.  His every word and action were in obedience to His Father.  Rather, I think that Jesus asks this man a simple question, similar to the question that He asked the Samaritan woman, in order to produce a desired response.  Even though God acts in His sovereign will to do whatever He pleases to do, He almost always includes the agency of man.  He doesn’t override man’s freedom to choose, but operates His will through the agency of man’s will.  So Jesus asks a question designed to get the man to admit that he wants to be healed.

I have some experience with people that are caught up in addictions.  And one fact I have learned is that rehab or AA or anything like that cannot deliver a person.  They can help, they can be tools to help that person who desires to be healed.  But in order for a person to be healed of addiction, they must come to the point of surrendering all hope of doing it themselves out of their own strength.  They have to come to the point of asking God to heal them.  And when that point is reached, then the help of God is there for them.  I know of many people who have done that and have been delivered from addiction, but as far as I know they may not have been saved.  But God heals people who stop trusting in themselves and call on Him.  

So that is what I think Jesus is doing.  This man is hopeless, helpless, depressed and probably close to giving up.  I would suggest Jesus picked him because he had already given up.  He had no friends to help him get into the pool.  Year after year he must have waited only to see someone else, maybe someone who didn’t even have as serious an illness as he had, and yet they slipped into the pool and were healed when he wasn’t hardly able to move.  Perhaps he had given up on anyone helping him. Perhaps he had given up on having enough strength to muscle his way into the pool.  Perhaps he had come to the end of hope in himself and his circumstances.  And that is the point at which God can help us, when we surrender.  

So the paralyzed man says to Jesus, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”  Notice the phrase, “I have no man to put me into the pool.” What a tragic statement.  I have no man to help me.  I can hear the heartbreak in this man’s voice, even 2000 years later.  Lying by this pool in misery for years and years, being in this paralyzed condition for 38 years and there is no one to help him, no one who cares about him.

But Jesus has compassion on him.  Jesus said I have come to seek and to save that which is lost.  This man was surely lost. He was hopelessly, helplessly lost, and he knew it full well.  And perhaps in response to some private unspoken prayer, God sent Jesus to help him.  In 1 John 2:1 John says that Jesus is our Advocate with the Father, acting on behalf of sinners.  Advocate is from the Greek word Paracletos, which means one called alongside to help; an Intercessor.  Jesus comes along side this man to help him because of the mercy of God.

So Jesus said, “Get up, take up your pallet, and walk.” I love that.  I think there is a sermon in that statement alone.  Get up, take up, and walk.  That’s a formula for the Christian life.  Get up out of your sin, get up out of the world, take up the full armor of God, take up the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith, and then walk with your feet shod with the gospel of peace, walk in the power of the Holy Spirit in obedience to His commands and after His example.  

Now notice something.  This man didn’t even ask to be healed.  Christ chose to heal him out of compassion and out of a desire to show forth the glory of God.  And notice that Jesus didn’t ask him if he had enough faith to be healed.  I don’t think this man had any faith at this point.  He had no man, no one that showed him compassion, so he had no reason to hope in any man or even perhaps in God.  The Jews really believed that to be infirmed was evidence that God was punishing you for your sins.  So he had no reason to have faith that God would heal him.  And note that Jesus doesn’t do all kinds of physical remonstrations in order to heal him.  He doesn’t smack his head, He doesn’t knock the poor guy over backwards, He just simply speaks and gives him a command to get up, take up his bed and walk.

You might say, well the guy had faith in that he tried to obey Jesus.  I don’t think that is indicated in the text at all.  I think that the power flowed into this man’s body, and he suddenly felt strength in his legs that hadn’t been there before. He was able to move, to feel, and so he got to his feet. Vs. 9, “Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.” In fact, I think that the spoken word of Jesus brought this man to his feet.  It says immediately.  He didn’t have to think about it, or get used to the idea, or try it.  Jesus spoke it and it came to be.  That is the power of the Creator.  He spake everything into existence and it came into existence.  That’s what John was talking about in chapter 1,vs.3, when he calls Jesus the Word and says about Him that “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”  The Word spoke and it came into being. So Jesus spoke and the man got up completely and immediately healed.  

This man is obedient as well.  Jesus said “walk”.  And I”m told by Greek experts that the tense of that word indicates “keep on walking.”  So this man walked right out of the porches of Bethesda and kept right on going.  Some have criticized this man for not stopping to thank Jesus and find out more about Him.  We see in vs.13 that the man did not know who it was  who healed him because Jesus slipped away into the crowd.  

In fact, most commentators I read seem to want to find fault with this man.  They say that he ratted out Jesus to the Jewish leaders.  That he showed more allegiance to them than he did to Jesus.  They say that he was some sort of obvious sinner since Jesus said to him to stop sinning or something worse would happen to him.  But I just don’t buy all of that.  I believe this man was sincere, earnest, and appreciative of what Jesus did for him.  And I’ll tell you why.  Because immediately after being healed this guy headed for the temple.  Why would he do that?   Maybe because his prayers had been answered.  Maybe he didn’t know who Jesus was, but he believed that God had healed him and so he went to the temple to give thanks to God.  Maybe he had lain there in that portico for umpteen years and had wanted to go to the temple, but couldn’t.  But now that he was healed he made a beeline for it. 

I would to God that more people were like this guy.  I’ve seen far too many people caught up in some sin, or some addiction, or some debilitating situation and they pray and pray for God to have mercy on them and deliver them.  But then when God does deliver them, they quickly forget all about God and all the pledges that they made to Him when they were in need.  When God answers your prayers folks, then He expects to find you worshipping and praising Him in HIs temple.

So this man picks up his pallet and walks, and heads for the temple.  But the Jewish religious leaders head him off at the gate and say “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.”   I don’t think that they could have known at this point what happened to this guy.  I think that they just see this man walking in the gate of the temple carrying his pallet on his head on the Sabbath day.  He probably stood out from the crowd just a little. So he says, ““He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’”  See, I told you this guy was obedient.  He didn’t care about the laws concerning the Sabbath because the One who made him well told him to pick it up and walk.  He was just being obedient.  

Of course they want to know who that was.  And he says he doesn’t know. So presumably they left him alone.  But then afterwards, Jesus found him in the temple.  That’s why I think Jesus went to the pool to be cleansed or His disciples needed to.  Because Jesus was going to go to the temple.  Remember they had stayed in Samaria for two days.  That wasn’t forbidden by the law particularly, but who is to say that something there did not ceremoniously defile them.  But anyway, Jesus finds him at the temple.  To me that is an indication that this guy was sincerely ready to surrender to God.  Jesus didn’t find him at the bar, Jesus didn’t find him fishing, or at a nice restaurant.  It was the Sabbath, and he was in the temple.  Boy, we can learn a few things from this guy for sure.  We aren’t under the law of the Sabbath anymore.  I will be the first to declare that and defend that freedom we have in Christ.  But I think the principle is the same.  That there is to be a day set apart to the Lord as His day.  A day of rest.  A day of worship.  A day to come together corporately as a body to give thanks to God for all that He has done for us. 

I’m appalled that Sundays have become Little League days.  They have become football game days.  They have become “get out of town” days. Us Christians love to blame the woes of this world on the sinfulness of the unsaved.  But I think that’s the wrong focus.  I think that the world is so corrupt because the salt has lost it’s savor.  We can barely give an hour a week to God, and everything seems to take precedence over church.  And then we wonder why the world is in the mess it is.  “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7:14

So Jesus found him in the temple.  When the Lord comes back, I hope that he finds us in church, don’t you?  I hope He doesn’t find us in a bar, or at a rock concert, or watching some  Hollywood movie. I hope we are not embarrassed when He comes back.

Vs. 14 “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you."  The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.”

So this is where the critics point to say that this man was obviously guilty of some heinous sin and was loyal to the priests and not Jesus.  But again, I don’t see that at all.  I would rather believe that this is the means by which this man was saved.  Up until this point, he was merely healed.  But as I said concerning the nobleman and his family last week, God had something bigger in mind than just a physical healing.  God desired salvation; spiritual healing.  The physical healing was just to bring him to the point of recognizing that Jesus was the Son of God.  

Jesus meets him and says don’t sin anymore so that nothing worse happens to you.  What could be worse than 38 years of being paralyzed?  Well, the answer of course, is an eternity in hell.  That’s far worse.  So what Jesus is presenting here is the need of this man for repentance.  To turn away from his sin.  To be willing to turn from it, to want to turn from it.  He needed to understand that if he really wanted to be well, then he needed to be spiritually well.  He needed salvation.  He already had a belief in God.  That’s why he was in the temple to thank God, to worship God.  But as Jesus said in the last chapter, they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  What is truth?  Well, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father except through Him.  So this man needed to know who Jesus was in order to be saved.  And so I believe that Jesus introduced Himself to him there in the temple.  I’m sure that John does not record all the conversation that occurred there.  He doesn’t say that Jesus said, “Hello, I’m Jesus.”  But yet the man tells the priests that it was Jesus who healed him.  So there was obviously more conversation than what was stated in the text.  And I believe it was enough for him to know that Jesus was the Son of God.  

So then salvation comes to the former paralytic by repentance and faith the same way all men come to Christ.  The physical healing was only an instrument of God’s grace to show this man Jesus Christ.  The physical healing had not saved him.  It merely was the means by which Jesus opened his eyes to see who He was and to believe in Him.  

That’s the spiritual application.  This whole scene was divinely designed to illustrate a greater spiritual truth, the only truth that can set you free.  All of humanity is represented in the multitude of sick and lame and blind and withered people that were lying by the pool of Bethesda which was by the sheep gate.  “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have each turned to our own way.”  

So the entire world lies in the sickness of sin, bound to the captivity of sin and under the penalty of death.  The world is gathered together in the “house of mercy” where the living water is supposed to be stirred up on occasion so that some may be cleansed of their illness, but where many come to be washed ceremoniously.  It’s a picture of the ineffectiveness of ceremonial religion that believes in a form of God, but denies the power thereof, and relies upon the sick person’s power to get himself into the pool at just the right time.  

But Jesus comes into this world, into this world of death, into this world of religious ritual, into this world of hopelessness and helplessness, and He finds there one who is ready to be well.  Who wants to be made well, but who realizes that there is no way  to be made well without God’s intervention.  And so to that aching heart, Christ speaks, “Get up, take up, and walk out.”  

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”  This water that the angel stirred up in the pool of Bethesda could only heal one person.  The water of the mikveh could only make one clean until they sinned again.  But the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, for all time and forever, and purchases for us an inheritance which will not fade away.  He is able to save completely.  He is able to heal completely, both inside and outside.  Both physically and spiritually.  

The question for each of us today is the same as it was for the paralyzed man.  “Do you wish to get well?”  Not just get healed from some malady.  That may or may not be in the plan of God. But it is the desire of God that you would be made well.  That you would not have something worse happen to you.  The formula is simple; repentance and faith in Jesus Christ results in forgiveness of sins and new birth resulting in eternal life.  God will produce in you a well of water springing up into eternal life, everlasting life, where sin and death will no longer have dominion over you.  I trust that you wish to get well.  Surrender to God and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior today and receive the eternal life that God has promised.  

Belief through the Word; John 4:27-54

There are many degrees of faith.  Often, Jesus rebuked people for not having enough faith, or too small of faith.  So as believers, it is important for us to consider our faith and examine it in light of what the word of God says.

There are a lot of ideas out there which seek to say what constitutes faith, but the best definition of faith is found in the scriptures themselves.  Several places in the scriptures speak of faith, but Hebrews 11:1 says it very succinctly; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith then is believing in what is unseen, but hoped for.

Many professing Christians however, if questioned, base their faith not necessarily on the unseen, but on a tangible or physical experience that they had sometime in the past.  Perhaps they were going through some sort of crisis and they prayed to God for help, and He seemed to bring about deliverance in some miraculous way.  And so they believed in God and now consider themselves to be people of faith.  They believe in the existence of God because of something that  happened which established their belief.

That may be well and good up to a point, but I would suggest that sort of faith which is founded on an experience is a lower tier type of faith.  I believe God does sometimes work in visible ways in order to bring about the beginnings of faith.  So that may serve as a starting point in our faith, but I think that is not the kind of faith that satisfies God.  I think that God desires us to grow in faith so that we believe what God says without having to rely on substantiating evidence.

A good verse which speaks of that kind of faith is found in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  This is the standard for faith in the scriptures.  God speaks, and we believe it, and trust it, and then act in obedience to it.  So then our actions prove our faith, and not waiting for God to prove our faith before we act.  That is the example throughout the scriptures, from Abraham through Moses, and on into the New Testament. God spoke, they believed and then acted in faith.  So faith that pleases God is that which trusts in God’s word and acts upon it.

Today in our exposition of this text we are going to see four examples of faith.  Two that were pleasing to the Lord and two that were not.  The Samaritan woman exemplifies that sort of faith that was pleasing to God.  You will remember she had a conversation with Jesus by the well, and though they started off by talking about Jesus being thirsty and wanting a drink of water, He skillfully led the conversation around to spiritual things.  And in the process, He brought her under conviction of her sin.  She responded by trying to talk about religion and the difference between the way the Samaritans and the Jews worship God.  But Jesus continued to press her towards the goal of accepting the truth of God.  And then Jesus said one of the most forthright claims to His divinity to ever come from HIs own mouth, He said in response to her statement about the Messiah, “I who speak to you am He.”

Now at that point is where she believed in the word of Christ and she was saved. She doesn’t have some out of body experience, she doesn’t walk down the aisle or repeat a sinner’s prayer, she isn’t even baptized at that point.  But the fact that she is saved by faith in Christ is evidenced by the fact that she leaves her water pot and goes back into town, telling everyone about Jesus.

There are a number of things that can be learned from this text.  But the main point which is brought out in this passage is that saving faith is believing in the word of God and then acting upon it. The Samaritan woman believes in the word of Christ, His declaration that He was the Messiah promised in scripture.  And she obviously believes Him and so begins to share her new found faith.

Now much has been made by commentators about the way she phrases the question found in vs.29 as if she expected a negative response.  But I don’t think that’s really born out by her actions.  I’ve looked at all the major translations of this phrase, and I think it is best understood as follows, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; is this not the Christ?” Now that statement still lends itself to some ambiguity.  But I don’t think she is really being ambivalent at all.  I think it’s evident she believes that Jesus is the Christ.  And obviously that is not all that she said, as evidenced by the men of the cities answer to her in vs.42: “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.’” Obviously she told them much more about Christ than that simple statement because what she had said was enough to make them believe in Him.  At least enough to be a starting point in their faith.

And there is another important aspect to her testimony.  She says “Come and see…”  Not go, but come.  She is inviting them to come with her to see Jesus.  She left her water pot by the well with Jesus because she was coming back.  And she was coming back with her townspeople.  That’s evidence that she was rejoicing in the news about the Messiah.  And she knew that her people would rejoice as well.  In spite of the flaws in their theology they knew that the Messiah was the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  He was the Savior of the world, and so it was only reasonable that she would share it and rejoice in it.

What a contrast to most Christians view of sharing their faith.  I don’t know if it is a product of the PC culture, or just a reticence on our part to give testimony to our faith, but how many of us fall far short of the example given by this Samaritan woman.  She boldly goes into town and begins to broadcast the fact that Jesus was outside of town at the well.  And she invites them to come with her and listen to Him.

Our lack of willingness to witness makes me wonder if we really believe what we say we believe.  Do we really believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life?  Do we really believe that our friends and loved ones who are without the Lord will end up being cast into outer darkness for eternity?  Do we really believe that there is coming a day when everyone will be judged by what they did concerning Jesus?  I’m afraid we must not really believe what we say.

You know, back to the Samaritan woman’s statement, I think there is not a hint of unbelief there at all, but rather a hint of a challenge.   She is suggesting that they need to decide for themselves based upon her testimony.  I know that some of you may feel intimidated about sharing your faith.  The culture is not very tolerant towards real Christianity it seems.  And maybe you feel intimidated because of that, or because you don’t think you know enough to be able to answer people’s objections or questions.  But I would encourage you to consider this woman’s example as evidence that you don’t have to have all the answers to point people to Jesus Christ.  If you don’t feel adequate to explain everything, then simply invite them to “come and see.”  To come to church and hear the word of God for themselves.

I will also suggest to you what else made her testimony effective.  And that is the transformation that she obviously exhibited.  There is no more effective testimony to the saving grace of God than a transformed life.  We don’t have a description here in the passage that articulates her transformation.  But we do have the evidence.  When she began spreading the word about Christ through the town, all the townspeople started coming out to see Jesus.  Something about this woman was different than before she went to the well.  It must have been very obvious.  And so people wanted to see this Jesus, if He made such an impact on this woman.  It’s evident from the text that she was a woman with a sordid past.  It must have been well known to everyone in a small town. But after being with Jesus, there must have been a noticeable change is this woman’s demeanor.  I believe she was rejoicing, for one thing.  And people took notice of that and wanted to examine it further.

I remember when I got right with the Lord in California after years of living in sin and rebellion against God.  And the next night I stopped by work after the shift was over and all my coworkers were sitting in the lounge.  And when they saw me they thought I was drunk.  I wasn’t staggering around or acting boisterous or anything.  But I must have had a different demeanor than what I normally had. Maybe I seemed happy.  And so they noticed it, and it gave me a chance to share with them about my faith.  It wasn’t too long after that my friend who worked with me gave his life to the Lord as well, and he cited the change that he saw in me as a reason for his faith.

So the first example of people believing the word of God then is that of the Samaritan woman.  She believed, and was saved.  Consequently, she immediately began to confess Jesus as Lord in her community.  And people believed in Christ due to her testimony.  Vs. 39 says,  “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.’”  God wants to use our testimony to bring people to Christ.  That is our mission; to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel, starting in our homes, then our neighborhoods, then our communities, and then to the ends of the world.  This woman may not have been the best role model before she was saved, but she is a great example of the transforming power of faith after she is saved.

There is a second example of faith that is given in this text as well.  It’s sort of understated, we need to read between the lines so to speak.  But it’s not such an exemplary example of faith.  It’s a lower tier faith.  And that is the faith of the disciples of all people. They have faith, but at this point it’s a superficial faith that eclipses the spiritual and focuses on the physical.  Even to the point of neglecting their commission.

The Samaritans were considered outcasts, half breeds who the Jews would disdain to even speak to.  And yet their response to Jesus is that of coming out from the city in droves to hear Him.  In fact, some commentators have suggested that when Jesus told the disciples that the fields were white unto harvest, He was referencing the white robed Samaritan’s coming out of the village and walking across the fields the half mile or so to the well.

Jesus uses that illustration as an inducement to the disciples to be about the Father’s business.  It’s ironic that all of the disciples had just been in the village buying food. And yet in spite of the fact that 12 Jewish men descended on this little village in Samaria, when Jews would go miles out of their way to avoid Samaria, yet not one Samaritan was presented with the news that the Messiah was sitting just outside the town by the well.  The disciples were just too focused on buying food. They were hungry.  They were in a hurry.  They didn’t like those people anyway.  So they missed an opportunity.  And in reality, they missed the purpose of their discipleship. They missed the purpose of their faith.

The disciples came back from their mission with the food and saw Him talking to the woman.  They were surprised by that, but didn’t want to ask Him why He was talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan.  So they just kind of ignored it, and when she left they offered Him the food that they brought.  But Jesus isn’t thinking about food at that point.  He says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  And their answer is to ask did someone bring Him food while we were gone?

You know, the disciple’s cluelessness would be funny if they were not so indicative of the way we are oblivious to the opportunities that God puts in our path to be about the kingdom of God. I’m afraid too many times that we are just thinking of the physical, rather than the spiritual.  Our concerns are our appetites, our work, our little routines or duties that we do each day.  Instead of looking for opportunities to witness for Christ.

Jesus said to the disciples in vs.35 "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, 'One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

Now there is a whole sermon in that which I don’t have time to delve into today, but suffice it to say that Jesus is saying that half of the work has already been done, all you have to do is reap the benefits of what other’s have done. Now that’s pretty amazing isn’t it?  That should encourage you to witness to people that God puts in your path.  He is saying, I have already begun a work in those people’s hearts, they have already had the sowing of the word into their hearts.  Now if you will just be willing to act in faith and speak to them, you will reap what other’s have sown.

But as I said, many Samaritans believed in Him, simply by the word which He was preaching.  He did not do any signs or wonders or miracles in Samaria.  But then it says that He went into Galilee, which was His own country.  And the people were coming out to Him, but not because they had accepted Him formerly when He was among them, but because they heard of the miraculous works that He did when He was in Jerusalem.  So Jesus quotes what was probably a well known proverb; “that a prophet has no honor in his own country.”

I will attest to the truth of that.  I’ve lived in this area 16 years, not all of which I was a pastor.  And the result of that proves another true proverb which is; “familiarity breeds contempt”.  In other words, it is much easier to go someplace where you are not known and be received with a certain respect than it is to grow up around people who think they know you.  I think that’s part of the reason why our summer services on the beach are well received by out of town people, but the locals rarely come.

So anyway, the Galileans are coming out to see Jesus, but they are not necessarily believing in Him the way the Samaritans did.  They don’t believe Him for His word, but for His miracles.  So Jesus rebukes them when He responds to the nobleman’s request by saying, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” I don’t think Jesus was necessarily rebuking the nobleman, but He was rebuking the Galileans who obviously were gathering together hoping to see a miracle.  Perhaps they would believe in Him if they saw some astonishing miracle, but not because of His word.

So the third group, the Galileans, receive a rebuke because they did not have the faith in HIs word, even though many of the Samaritans who were hated by the Jews believed in Him simply from His word.  They were more noble than the nobleman and the rest of the Galileans.  And I’m afraid that most Christians today fall into that category of the Galileans.  We go from church to church, from concert to movies, to revivals, to conferences, all in the hopes of finding some new experience which is going to galvanize our infantile faith into something substantial.  But in fact faith comes by hearing the word of God, not by signs and wonders or music or concerts or movies or conferences.

And that leads us to the fourth group which is illustrated in the nobleman. He is from Capernaum, which is about 25 miles from Cana, where Jesus was at that point.  Cana, you will remember, was the site of the first miracle Jesus did in His ministry, in which He turned the water into wine at the marriage feast.  Now Jesus has returned to Cana, and this nobleman, probably of Herod’s court, has heard that Jesus has returned from Judea.  So he made a 25 mile trip from Capernaum in order to come to Jesus and implore Him to come home with Him and heal His son. In fact, his son was at the point of death.

I can commiserate with this nobleman.  When calamity strikes your child, there is nothing you wouldn’t consider doing to save them.  I would suggest that this example is given to us here for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is to provide a contrast between the apathy of the disciples who felt no pity on the Samaritans, and the anguish of this father for his dying son.  Would to God we felt the anguish over our brothers and sisters and loved ones impending death the way that this man felt over his son.  It’s just that we cannot see the cancer of sin which is leading our loved ones to a certain spiritual death, but we can see the physical suffering from sickness that leads to physical death.

So this man travels 25 miles in hopes of seeing Christ and getting Him to come home with Him to heal his son.  And certainly, the Galileans who have gathered there are watching to see what Jesus will do.  Perhaps many of them would follow Him to Capernaum if it meant they could see a miracle.  I’m not surprised that so many Christians will pay all sorts of money and travel great distances to see some supposed faith healer.  It was common then, it’s common today.  I had a business partner once who stole money from our business to fly to have a private meeting with Benny Hinn. It only cost him $10,000 to get a private audience and his blessing.  Didn’t do us any favors though.  Our business went bust in 3 months because of that kind of foolishness.

But Jesus is not going to go to Capernaum.  Not because He doesn’t commiserate with the nobleman, or because He isn’t compassionate. It’s noteworthy that no one ever comes to Jesus for help and leaves without Jesus helping them.   Jesus said in John 6:37  "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

But Jesus doesn’t go to Capernaum with the nobleman because He wants to teach an important lesson.  And that is the lesson that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  He wants this nobleman to believe in His word.  Jesus is going to heal the boy.  But for 24 hours this man is not going to know that for sure.  He is going to have to take Jesus at His word. So Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.”

Now the rest of that verse is amazingly understated. It says, “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.”  Let me tell you why it is understated. It’s understated not just because it took a lot of faith to believe Jesus could heal with a word from 25 miles away. But it is also understated because it doesn’t just mean that the boy was healed, but it also means that the nobleman was saved.  Jesus didn’t go with him because He wasn’t compassionate, but He didn’t go because He was compassionate.  Jesus wanted to give more than just the physical healing, He wanted to give spiritual healing as well.

I have told you many times before that every miracle in the gospel is a spiritual parable which illustrates a spiritual principle.  And this one even more so.  Because as a result of this man’s faith, he was saved, his son was saved and healed, and his entire household was saved.

Vs.51-53 “As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living.  So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives’; and he himself believed and his whole household.”

There are so many applications that we could take from this illustration.  But let me just try to leave you with a couple.  One, our faith is not founded on experience, but on the promises of God.  That is what we are talking about when we talk about the word of God.  We are talking about God’s revelation of Himself, what He has to say about Himself, and His plan and purpose for the world.  And He gives that to us in the form of promises.  He gives us His word, His promises, by which we may believe.  And when we believe in Him as He has revealed Himself through His word, He credits that to us as righteousness.

Three times in the New Testament, in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23, it says “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  This is how we are saved, by grace through faith in the word of God, made flesh, and written down for us.

Another application we can take from these verses is that when we are saved by faith, God can use our faith to save our families.  We saw that with the Samaritan woman.  I believe she started witnessing to all her former husbands.  That was probably half the town.  But the whole village responded as a result of this woman’s faith.  And of course this nobleman’s faith resulted in his whole household coming to the Lord.  And we see other examples of that in scripture.  I think of the centurion who called Peter to come and preach the gospel, and the whole house was saved.  I think of the jailer who was saved when Paul and Silas presented themselves after the earthquake, and his whole house was saved.  

The point being that you can have a confidence that when you believe in the word of God resulting in your salvation and you share that with your family, then they can be saved through your testimony.  I’m not going to say it is guaranteed.  That is not taught in this text.  But I do think it’s a principle that we can use to reach our families and that God will bless when we act upon it.

Well, let me close by encouraging you today to make sure that your faith is grounded in the word of God.  If God said it, then trust Him and obey.  God may give you an experience, He may give you a miracle, but more importantly He has given you His word.  And that is the greater miracle, which produces a greater faith, and a greater work in you.  Because God’s word is sufficient for every circumstance, for every day.  We don’t need to wait for a sign, when we have the word made more sure, the written word of God, tested and proven for thousands of years.  And that is what John calls this miracle - a sign.  It points to something greater, and that is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. That was the purpose of the miracles Jesus did. They point to Him.

And then finally, don’t keep your faith to yourself.  God didn’t give your salvation to you so that you can say, “us four and no more.”  God gave you your salvation so that you might be an ambassador of the gospel.  He has given you the good news to share with those that He has already started a work in their hearts.  There is no greater work on earth than leading someone to Christ.  As Jesus said in vs.36, there is reward in heaven for those that reap souls; “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal, that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.”  We were saved that we might bear fruit for eternal life.  I hope that you will focus on the will of God and accomplish His work in the time we have here on earth.

Jesus said in John 15:16  "You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”  Let’s pray.

Worship in spirit and truth, John 4:19-26

Today in 21st century Christianity, one of the most misunderstood words or principles in the church is the word worship.  If I were to ask you this morning to write down a succinct sentence describing worship, I would not be surprised if there were as many definitions as there are attendees.  Today when we think of worship, we think of a church service, or worship music, or even a worship pastor.  The connotation is that worship is a part of a church service, or a separate experience in the church or life of the believer.  

But as I indicated, worship is misunderstood by most Christians today.  In our passage we are looking at this morning, Jesus talks about worship with a Samaritan woman by the well.  And in the process of this conversation, He teaches us the Biblical meaning of worship and how we are to engage in it.  In fact, in just 5 verses, the word worship or a derivative is used 10 times. I believe this indicates that God wants us to worship Him, and that He has a plan for worship.  So I want to take this passage this morning and break down the principle of worship so that we might be sure we are accurate and authentic in our worship.  Because as Jesus said in vs.24, God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  That’s an imperative statement.  If we are to worship God, then we must worship Him as He wants us to. 

So I am going to apply all the standard questions, like what, where, why, how and when, to this question of worship.  Rather than asking you to define worship according to your perception or experience, or rather than consulting the so called experts out there for their two cents worth, I want to go to the source, which is the word of God. Because I believe that what Jesus is saying, in addition to all, is that you must get it right.  God is not obligated to accept false worship, or strange worship, which does not meet His requirements.

So let’s start with what is worship?  We could look it up in the dictionary and get a human definition.  But let’s look it up in scripture. Worship simply means honor paid to a superior being.  The common word in the New Testament Greek used for worship is prosekuneo, which means to kiss toward, and it came from that ancient custom of kissing the hand or foot of a superior, a person bow down on the ground, bow his head and kiss the hand in a sign of submission and honor.

But I think we can go a little deeper into all that scripture teaches us concerning worship by employing a principle of hermeneutics called the principle of first mention.  The principle of first mention says that the first time a word or principle is mentioned in scripture provides a basis for how we are to perceive it or understand it.  

Now if you go to your concordance and look up worship, the first one will be in Genesis 22, when Abraham is taking Isaac to the mountain that God showed him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.  And I am not going to take the time to review all of that story this morning as I’m sure most of you are very familiar with it.  But perhaps you missed the word worship there.  Abraham says in vs.5, ““Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  

Now think about that for a moment.  God asked Abraham to take his son and offer him as a sacrifice on an altar on Mt. Moriah.  By the way, this is really interesting.  When the Samaritan woman tries to wiggle out of the convicting questions of Jesus, she says something interesting.  She says, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”  Now the mountain she and Jesus was on was called Gerizim, which was the place the Samaritans built their temple in opposition to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.  But the thing was, both the Jews and the Samaritans believed that their temple was seated on Mt. Moriah, the spot where Abraham offered Isaac.  

Now knowing that helps us to understand why she brings up worship, and then Jesus says to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”  Jesus is saying the time is at hand when neither mountain is going to be the place of worship.  There is going to be a new place, a new way to worship, which will not be defined geographically.  So that’s the historical significance of Abraham taking Isaac to the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice.  Both Samaritans and Jews claimed to have their temple on the correct mountain.  And what Jesus indicates, is that the Jews were on the correct mountain.  But that is not going to matter anymore. What had served to be an argument between them would be completely done away with when Jesus was sacrificed on Mt. Zion.  The temple veil was rent from top to bottom, signifying that the way into the presence of God was open to all, through the blood of Jesus Christ.

But let’s think back to Abraham and Isaac for a moment.  Abraham has been commanded to kill his son, and he speaks of this offering of his son on the altar as worship.  Now that’s a heavy thought. Can you imagine comparing sacrificing your son as worship to God?  Well, what can we learn from that incident concerning worship?  First of all, it shows me that worship involves an offering.  Secondly, worship involves sacrifice.  Thirdly, worship involves obedience.  Fourthly, worship involves submission, humbling yourself. Abraham’s pride and joy was his son.  And yet he was willing to humble himself in order to worship God.

Now that is the first mention of worship.  But there are a couple of other examples that come to mind which are not described as worship, but which obviously incorporate worship.  The first one is that of Cain and Abel, in Genesis 4, when they come to bring an offering before God. “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.”  

What does this example tell us about worship?  Once again, that there was an offering, a sacrifice.  We recognized that already.  But what new thing do we learn about worship? That God accepts some worship but not others.  God isn’t obligated to accept all forms of worship. To worship God in an unacceptable manner is to reduce God to an image, to reduce God to a material representation, to reduce God to an idol, or to reduce God to anything that is the result and product of your own thinking.  I very often hear people say, “Well, everyone is free to worship God as they think Him to be.”  But if your definition of God does not square with the Word of God, then your worship is unacceptable even though you may identify it with the true God.

And that correlates with what Jesus said in John 4, that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  It has to be a worship based on the truth that God has given us, if it is going to be acceptable to Him.  So then we might define worship as a sacrificial offering, as obedience, as humbling yourself before God, and according to His truth. That’s the what of worship.  

We could say from those examples what worship is not but we won’t take the time to produce a definitive list since that could go on forever.  But let me just be brief; worship is not a song, worship is not ritual, worship is not a building.  And you can do the rest of the list on your own.  

So the scriptures have defined what worship is.  Next, Where.  Where should we worship.  Well, we have already answered that to some degree.  Worship is not a building, or an auditorium, or a mountain or even a temple.  Jesus said in vs. 21, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” And then vs.24, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.”  The first reference to Spirit is capitalized because that refers to the nature of God; He is Spirit.  That means He is not corporeal.  But the second use of the word spirit in vs.24 is not capitalized, because it is speaking of our spirit.  He is saying, we must worship God in our spirit.  It’s not physical, it’s spiritual.  It’s not a location but a state of the heart.   

True worship must come from the heart. Worship is not dependent upon where you are, but who you are.1 Cor. 6:19 says we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  If you have been born again, then you are the temple of God because the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you. You don’t just come to church, you are the church.  

Unfortunately, though a lot of people may have heard that truth, they don’t live that truth.  We get all cleaned up for Sunday morning, we dress a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way because we know we are in church.  And yet on Monday we act completely different.  We talk differently.  We behave differently, seemingly unaware that the Lord of our temple is still in the building.  

Worship should then be a way of life.  Not just on Sunday. But in all our ways, in everything we do we do it for the glory of God.  We are obedient to what He asks us to do because our body is HIs church.  Our time is His time.  Our possessions are His possessions.  You can’t expect to have an intimate relationship with the God who dwells in us when we act like He isn’t there 6 days out of the week and then suddenly act all friendly to Him on Sunday.  God isn’t blind.  He was there all week.  We just ignored His presence.

When we have a full time, 24/7 intimate relationship with God, then we are worshipping all the time in private.  And what’s on the inside will reveal itself on the outside.  In other words, what was private produces corporate. What is spiritual will produce physical.  We are the church so we come together with the rest of the body as the church to serve the body. Not for routine and ritual, but to serve Him. 

And that brings up another definition of worship.  To serve God.  Romans 12:1 gives us a great illustration of that.  Paul says,  “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”  Present your bodies as a sacrifice to serve God.  That’s worship. Once we are born again spiritually, we become holy, which results in becoming obedient, which in turn produces righteous living, in the fear or honor or reverence of God knowing that God is in you, and then God can use the body that you submit to Him in humility to serve Him.  And that comprises worship. The where of worship then is wherever we are, we are the temple of God, and therefore all that we do is for the glory of God.

The next question is Who.  Whom do we worship?  Well the answer of course is God.  But Jesus narrows that title down further in vs.21 and 23.  Three times Jesus calls God the Father.  That is specific.  God is the Father of who?  Well, first He is the Father of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the Son of God.  The only begotten of the Father.  So we know who God is by who Jesus is.  Jesus told Philip, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”  He told the Jews in John 10:30, “I and the Father are One.”  

Now that narrows God down.  Those that worship Allah cannot be worshipping God because Allah is not the father of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the exact representation of the Father, because He is the only Son of God.  And if you do not believe that Jesus is God’s Son, then you cannot worship the Father.  

Secondly, God is the Father of the saints.  The believers.  Those that have been made holy by the blood of Jesus, that have been born again by the Holy Spirit.  So that we are children of God. John 1:12 “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.”  So God then as our Father speaks of our relationship. We are born again not of the flesh, but of the Spirit into the family of God. 

And thirdly, God is Spirit. Vs.24, Jesus said, “God is Spirit.”  That means that God is not corporeal.  He is an invisible being.  He does not have a body like we have, but He is eternal, divine, unknowable, unsearchable, holy and righteous.  He is a person, but not a body. His essential nature is that He is Spirit.  And so we must be made spiritual to have communion with God who is Spirit.  

1Tim. 1:17 says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.”  Those qualities, eternal, immortal, invisible, are spiritual qualities. God is Spirit speaks to His immortal, eternal and invisible nature.

The next question is who can worship?  Who can worship God? In vs. 23 Jesus said,  "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”  First, note that God seeks worshippers.  God wants to have a relationship with men, and so He has made it possible through Jesus Christ.  So in order to have this relationship, Jesus said in John 3:16 that we must be born again. We must be born of the Spirit, and this is accomplished by faith in Christ.  So in order to worship Him, God must become our Father.  We must be born again.  The Holy Spirit must dwell in our hearts by faith.  Just as the Old Testament saints had to bring a sacrifice to offer to God in order to worship, so Hebrews 10:14 tells us that “by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” The sacrifice of Jesus Christ has purchased for all who believe in Him the sanctification by which we may be reconciled to God.

The Old Testament priests had to always offer a sacrifice first for their sins and then the sins of the people before approaching the Holy of Holies into the presence of God.  Heb 9:11-14, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;  and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.  For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,  how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Notice the phrase, “serve the living God.”  So then, those that can worship God are those who have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

The next question, is how do we worship? And Jesus makes that clear in vs.24, we worship God in spirit and in truth.  First we are made spiritual by new birth through faith in Jesus Christ.  I think we have made that point.  But also we must worship God in truth.  According to His truth.  Not according to our understanding of God, according to our concept of fairness or righteousness, or any standard other than God’s standard.

There are lots of people in our society who think they worship God, and they have some self-invented way to do that.  I heard about the lady in New Mexico who baked tortillas, named Mrs. Rubio.  The Chicago Tribune recorded the story some years back, and one day she was frying a tortilla, and she took the tortilla out of the pan and she said with a great amount of shock, “It is the face of Jesus.”  Because burned on that tortilla were skillet burns that she said looked like Jesus.  And so, she was so thrilled she showed it to her husband who agreed that it must be Jesus.  And she showed it to her family and they agreed, and a neighbor and she agreed.  And she went to her priest to have the tortilla blessed.  And the priest, who had not really been accustomed to blessing tortillas, was somewhat reluctant to do so, but nevertheless he did it.  And she took the tortilla home and she built an altar in her house.  She put the tortilla in glass and put piles of cotton around it so it looked like Jesus floating on a cloud.  And within a matter of months, Mrs.  Rubio had over 8,000 people come to the shrine of the Jesus of the Tortilla.  And everyone unanimously agreed that it looked like Jesus except one reporter who said it looked to him like Leon Spinks.  And so, she worshipped the tortilla and she gave her testimony which was recorded in the Chicago Tribune, and said the tortilla had changed her life.  And her husband agreed she’d been a more peaceful, happy, submissive wife ever since the tortilla had arrived.

We must worship God as He is, and for who He is, and not as we imagine Him to be.  Anything less is idolatry.  And the only way we can worship God as He is with any certainty is if we rely upon the truth of God’s word. In John 1 Jesus is presented as the Living Word made flesh. In Hebrews 1 He is the exact representation of God. And then in John 17 Jesus says that the word of God is truth. God has presented Himself in His word. When we combine the Living Word with the written word, then we are worshipping God in truth.

To worship God in spirit and in truth then signifies that of the heart and the head. Worship must be authentic and accurate. Worship in spirit speaks of our attitude.  Our heart must be aligned with God by faith. When that happens the Holy Spirit dwells in us, linking the inner man with God. And truth speaks of information. God has revealed Himself most completely and accurately in the scriptures. 

As I said last night at the Valentine’s dinner.  Knowledge produces intimacy.  The more you know and learn about your loved one, the more you love them.  We tend to worship God but a little, because we only know a little about God. But the more you know about God the more it produces true worship. 

Spirit and the truth signifies worship from the heart and the head.  It’s kind of like Valentine’s Day for some of us men.  We know that it is Valentine’s Day because the calendar tells us.  So we know that we have to respond by buying a card, maybe some chocolates or flowers. The expectations of what we know about Valentine’s Day produces a response on our part which is expected.  But if that is all that it is, then it’s a form of legalism, of ritual that your wife is going to know is not from the heart.  But she wants much more than just fulfilling an obligation or a ritual.  She wants romance, passion, love, intimacy, fellowship.  She wants you, she wants your heart.

And so does God.  He wants all of us. Yes, He wants us to follow His word.  He has written down His expectations and requirements for worship.  But when we just show up for church and drop our offering in the box and sing a few songs and go through the rituals only then we are missing the heart of worship.  God wants your heart.  He wants a heart in love with Him, a heart that wants to intimacy with Him, fellowship with Him.  That comes from a right relationship with Him. 

Finally, one last point.  The result of worship. In vs 25 the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He.”  This is the most clear statement that Jesus ever makes concerning the fact that He is the Messiah with the possible exception of His response to Pilate before His crucifixion.  But what did the Messiah accomplish?  Jesus declared His purpose in John 14:6.  Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”  

Through Jesus, and only through Jesus, has the way to God been made available.  He is the peace between God and man.  He has made it possible for us to be reconciled to God.  So when we come to Him and worship Him, we have fellowship with God, we have the benefits of being the children of God, and we have the inheritance of ruling and reigning with Christ for eternity.  Worshipping God in spirit and in truth is simply began in salvation, and it continues as our sanctification, and will be consummated in our glorification.  We who worship God now as He has presented Himself and according to His requirements, will worship Him forever and ever in glory.  I don’t think that’s going to look like what popular imagery indicates though.  I don’t think we will be sitting around on clouds playing harps, or even just having a praise service for eternity.  But I think that we will be serving God for eternity, and all that we do will result in praise to His glory.  Worship here on earth is just practice for what will go on for eternity.  

Eph. 3:14-21 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,  that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,  to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

The living water; John 4:1-42

I cannot read the story of the Samaritan woman at the well without thinking of a similar story my dad used to tell.  He grew up in a very isolated rural area of North Carolina during the depression years.  His family were what were known as sharecroppers, which is the poorest sort of farming.  Others own the land, and basically you get to live on it and farm it, but the owners gets the lion’s share of the profits.

So as a young man, dad would often hire himself out to other farmers in the area to work the fields for extra money.  And he tells the story that one day he was working in a farmer’s field, and it was hot and he became very thirsty.  He had seen a ramshackle house a little bit down the road that looked pretty sketchy, but eventually he was so thirsty he decided to walk over there to see if he could get a drink of water.  Now in those days there wasn’t any town water or even electricity in rural areas of North Carolina.  So he went up to the front porch and knocked and an old woman came to the door.  Dad said that this woman was a sight.  She epitomized all that you might imagine a country bumpkin would look like.  She was filthy.  She smelled.  She had no teeth.  And to make it worse, she was chewing snuff which had run down the corners of her mouth and stained all over the front of her blouse.

Dad tried not to act too put off by her looks though, and took his hat off and politely asked her if he could please get a drink of water.  She said “yes, of course, follow me!” and led him around the back of the house where there was a well.  Dad let down the bucket into the well, and then cranked the handle to draw it back up, and then the woman handed him this old stained up gourd that had been made into a dipper for him to dip into the bucket to drink out of.  Now normally, in the fields the men would all share the same dipper and not think too much about it.  But Dad said this woman was so rough looking, and the snuff staining her mouth and chin was so disgusting, he couldn’t imagine drinking out of that dipper thinking that he was going to be putting his mouth where her mouth had been.  But there was nothing else to use.  Then he had a bright idea.  The gourd had a long curved handle that was hollow and at the very end there was a hole which was made when the dried out the gourd.  So Dad figured that he would fill up the gourd with water, but rather than drinking out of the cut out part on the fat end, he would drink from the end of the handle, the end with the little hole.  That way he wouldn’t have to put his mouth on the part that the woman would have used.  So he scoops up some water, and then held it up and drank backwards out of the gourd by putting his mouth over the little hole at the end of the handle and sucking on it like a straw. 

And when he did that, the old woman began to practically convulse in a fit of laughter.  Dad thought it must have been because he looked silly drinking that way, but he didn’t really care how he looked, he just didn’t want his mouth to touch where hers had been.  But he said she was laughing so hard, and then she clapped him on the shoulder and said, “My lord boy!  I ain’t ever seen anybody else drink water out of gourd the same way I do!” 

There is a word in the Greek text in vs.9 that basically is saying the same thing.  It’s a word that conveys the idea that the Jews so despised the Samaritans that they would not even touch the same utensils, or drink from the same cup.  This attitude illustrated the hatred of Jews for Samaritans.  But as we look at this story today, we see Jesus deliberately, purposefully, arranging not only to meet this woman that would have been hated by the Jews, but also to drink water from her cup. 

In Jesus’ day, there was obviously no running water.  Things we might consider a hardship were typical things you had to deal with during the course of the day.  Typically, the women of the village or town were the ones who were responsible for drawing water.  You remember Rebecca drawing water for the camels when Abraham’s servant went to the well.  But they would usually do so in the evening when it was cooler, or perhaps first thing in the morning. 

This woman in Samaria is going to the well in the middle of the day.  Around the sixth hour would be the Jewish way of saying around noon. So this wasn’t a typical time for her to be drawing water.  And Jesus has arrived at this well, which is identified as Jacob’s well, and is sitting there by the well.  There were probably step that led down to the well. 

The text says Jesus was sitting there because He was weary from his journey.  Jesus and His disciples had been walking all morning having left Judea probably very early while it was still cool.  Most commentators believe that He had walked at least 20 miles that morning.  That’s quite a walk.  And it’s not a flat plain he walked either, but hilly terrain and rocky paths.  That’s the equivalent of walking from my house in Millville to the Cape May/Lewes Ferry.  I don’t think I could even ride a bike that far, much less hike that distance in five or six hours.

So Jesus was tired, he was worn out.  So much so that he sent the disciples ahead of Him into the village to buy food while he waited at the well.  Now I want to suggest that this is not happenstance.  I think that this is a case of divine appointment.  The normal way to go from Jerusalem to Galilee for most Jews would have been to go the coast route or across the Jordan and then go around Samaria.  Orthodox Jews would have avoided going through Samaria.  They hated the Samaritans so much that they would go miles out of there way to avoid even walking through Samaria.

And part of the reason they hated them seems almost justified from a certain perspective. The Samaritans were considered half breeds - half Jew, half pagans - that had come about when the 10 northern tribes were taken into captivity by the Assyrians about 700 years before.  The educated, wealthy people were taken into captivity, but the Assyrians left some of the poorest Jews in the land to care for the land so that it did not revert to wilderness and to care for the cattle and so forth. But over time, these poor Jews left there intermarried with the pagan people that moved in to that area, and they adopted many pagan customs along with worshipping pagan gods while maintaining a certain worship of the God of the Jews.

When the Jews came back into the land during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, these people tried to hinder the returning Jews from rebuilding the temple.  The Jews ended up shunning them, and so the Samaritans went off in a huff and built their own temple in opposition.  So though the Samaritans claimed to be Jews, they had desecrated their heritage by intermarrying with pagans.  They claimed to worship the One True God, but yet they also worshipped foreign gods.  They claimed the Jewish scriptures, but they only recognized the first five books of the Old Testament, called the Pentateuch.  So it would seem that the Jews were almost justified in their hatred of the Samaritans. 

Yet Jesus has traveled by foot 20 miles across hot dry wilderness to get to this village in Samaria in time to meet this woman, who is coming out to draw water from a well outside of town, at a time when it was unlikely that she would meet anyone, which was obviously her intention.  The obvious question, is why?  Why would Jesus leave an area where all were coming out to Him, where He was having bigger crowds than John the Baptist, so much so that the Pharisees were taking note of Him as a new threat… why leave that success and head off to a place where no one even knew who He was? 

Well, I think the answer is hinted at in the previous chapter when Jesus tells Nicodemus that God so loved the world, that He sent His Son into the world, so that the world might be saved through Him.  Jesus Himself would say later, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”(Luke 19:10)  This woman was from the lost tribes of Israel.  She was truly lost.  Her people were worshipping God in ignorance.  And they needed to know the truth so that they might escape the judgment which is upon the whole world.

Furthermore, I think Jesus comes to visit this woman as a counterpoint to the coming of Nicodemus at night which we studied in chapter 3.  Nicodemus was a religious leader, he was the religious teacher of the Jews.  He was moral, an upright citizen.  He represented everything the Samaritan woman was not.  If as I said before, Nicodemus was the representative man, the best that man had to offer, then this woman was the representative sinner, even the worst of sinners.  A woman who was considered extremely immoral.  She had been married 5 times, and was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband.  She was lost.  And the good thing was, she knew she was lost.  Nicodemus thought he was a good man, and consequently Jesus had to show him that he wasn’t ever going to be good enough to be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven.  But this woman knew she was a sinner, and though she tried to hide it, what she needed was for Christ to tell her about the grace of God.  Jesus came to save sinners.  He traveled 6 hours through the wilderness by foot to take the gospel to one woman who knew she was a sinner and was looking for redemption.

See, what we think of as good moral people, pillars in the community will usually come to church, they will seek for religion.  Unfortunately, they tend to come to church though in order to bolster their sense of self righteousness and entitlement, as we saw with Nicodemus.  But people who are trapped in sin and are suffering the consequences of their sin rarely think of the church as a refuge.  Maybe they feel too guilty to come to church.  And yet these are the very people that we are called to go seek out to tell the good news.  People that are sick, the outcasts, the downtrodden, the world weary.  They are ideal candidates for the gospel.  As Jesus said in Mark 2:17,  “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

So Jesus travels 20 miles by foot to meet this woman.  And He is tired.  That shows us His humanity.  He was fully man.  But it also shows His omniscience.  He knows the woman is going to be there at noon.  He sends the disciples away so that He can talk to her privately so as not to unnecessarily embarrass her.  He knows her past, which she tries to hide.  His omniscience shows His divinity.  He is fully God, and yet fully man.  This is the mystery of Christ, born of a virgin, and yet fathered by the Holy Spirit.  Fully God and fully man. He is the Messiah, or the Christ.

And let me stress something on this point; He was fully human, fully God, that He might be our substitute, that He might be our Savior, but also, so that He might be our example.  That we might do as He did.  This text is one of the greatest passages in the Bible that illustrates how we are to go about being evangelists of the gospel.  How we are to witness to the lost.  There are many important principles to be learned from this passage, but not the least of them is how we are to evangelize the lost.

Notice then that Christ’s mission was calculated.  He was purposeful, He was strategic. He planned it, executed it, timed it perfectly so that He might set up this divine appointment with this woman. And note secondly that He was confrontational without being condemning.  When I say confrontational, it sounds menacing, doesn’t it?  But it doesn’t have to be.  It can simply be engaging.  In Jesus’ case, it was confrontational because it was unexpected.  It wasn’t considered appropriate for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan.  It was even more inappropriate for a man, a rabbi, to speak to a woman.  Yet Jesus says, “Give me a drink.”

If Jesus is omniscient, which I believe this text and many others clearly demonstrates that He was, then He certainly knew that she was an immoral woman.  She came to the well in this location, at this time, presumably to escape scrutiny and scorn from the other women of the village who would usually all come at the same time to draw water and talk of the business of the day.  But Christ comes to a sinner, and yet as chapter 3 vs. 17 says, He did not come to judge her, but to offer her salvation.  He shows her compassion.

Now notice though that Christ does not condone her sin.  The gospel message  has two pillars on which it depends; repentance and faith.  Jesus confronts her about her sin, and then tells her that He is the Messiah.  To receive the gift of salvation requires that both principles are enacted on our part.  We have to acknowledge our sin, confess our sin, and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  At the same time, we have to believe that Jesus is the Savior from sin which He accomplished by being the righteous substitute who paid the penalty for our sins.

Now to accomplish all of that, notice how Jesus skillfully weaves the conversation around, starting  from a normal everyday occurrence such as a drink of water, and using it to teach a spiritual principle.  He asks for a drink, and she responds with a sarcastic response; “why are you asking me for a drink, knowing I am a Samaritan?”

But Jesus knows better than let Himself get sucked into a debate with this woman over race, over the cultural divide between Jews and Samaritans. Instead, He turns the tables on her.  And says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who says to you, “Give Me a drink” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Rather than focusing on her insufficiencies of heritage or race or culture or even morality, Jesus changes the conversation from one where she is automatically defensive, and instead He is the benefactor, rather than the beneficiary.  He doesn’t need her water, but He has something that she needs. 

Notice the difference between His approach with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman.  With Nicodemus who thought he was righteous, who was rich, who seemed to have everything including morality, Jesus told him what he lacked.  He had nothing.  He had to be born all over again.  Nothing he had was good enough.  But with this woman, who had no standing in the community, who was culturally an outsider, and was a known immoral person, Jesus offers her the gift of God.  Grace that covers all her sin.  Eternal life which will spring up in her like living water. 

Though some principles in the gospel can not be deviated from, such as faith and repentance, we need to seek the discernment from God to know how to approach different people in different circumstances and from different environments.  God will give you the wisdom if you ask for it.  But notice that there isn’t a one size fits all approach to Christ’s evangelism.  He has divine discernment which we don’t have.  But we do have the wisdom that God gives to those that ask for it, so that we might do His will.   Recognizing those that are ready to receive the truth and those that are arrogant and think they know all the answers is possible through the discernment of the Holy Spirit as we witness in obedience to Him.

So first Jesus sidesteps her natural tendency for defensiveness, her attempt at being argumentative by turning the tables from her giving Him something, to Him giving her something.  But she still wants to argue.  Some people are like that.  No matter what you say, they want to argue.  The Bible says we are to be wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove.  The devil is a serpent, isn’t he?  So we are to be wise to his schemes, and yet harmless as a dove.  As much as it depends on you, Paul said, be at peace with all men.  You aren’t going to win disciples to Christ by being argumentative, or by debating someone.  And neither are we going to win souls by insinuating that they need to become moral to be saved.  We become moral by being saved.  First there must be a change of heart, and then out of the heart comes a new morality. 

I’ve found when I deal with people who are hostile to me, who are defensive about their actions, that instead of focusing on the negatives or the repercussions of their decisions, if I focus on how much God has done for them and what God wants to do for them, how much God loves them, then many times that will have a softening effect on their heart and we can break through their defenses.  For instance, if you are dealing with a person who is caught up in drug use, rather than focusing on the consequences of using drugs, focus on their spiritual vacuum that is making them desire drugs. Focus on what Christ has done to give us a new life, a more fulfilling life.

That’s what Jesus is doing with this woman.  He knows her life is unfulfilling.  How many times she must have had her heart broken.  How hopeless she must have been to have seen five marriages crumble and now even given up on marriage and living in open adultery.  So Christ offers her new life;  the gift of living water if she will just ask for it.  But instead she is still defensive. She is not ready to trust Him yet.  She hasn’t gotten over this whole race thing, this whole us versus them mentality between the Jews and Samaritans.  So she says, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”

Basically, she appeals to her sense of national self righteousness.  The Samaritans claimed Abraham as their father just as the Jews.  So she says Jacob, who was also called Israel, is her father as well and he gave them the well.  Again there is little jab on her part as she says “You aren’t greater than Jacob, are you?”  Well, of course He was.  He was the seed of Jacob from whom the whole world would be blessed.  He was the promised seed of Adam who would crush the serpent’s head.  He was no less than the promised Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God. 

And yet Jesus doesn’t argue with her.  He doesn’t defend His honor.  He simply goes back to the metaphor of the water and the gift that God has of eternal life.  And in a very understated way He says that the water that Jacob gave has only the power to slake thirst temporarily, but the water that He gives will be a well springing up to eternal life. Vs.13, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

He is saying I am greater than Jacob, and yet He doesn’t say it outright. He is not saying I am greater as an arrogant, boastful claim, but He says as His water is greater water, and so by extension He is greater than Jacob.  He is making the point that the tangible blessings of being a child of Abraham might be evidenced by their land, by this well of Jacob, but the blessings of being a child of God far exceed temporal blessings.  They are spiritual blessings that spring up in him supplying an endless supply of blessings throughout eternity.

Well, finally she starts to show a crack in her armor at this point.  She is obviously tired and weary and ready to have this blessing that Jesus is talking about.  But like a lot of people, they are interested only in the physical and not the spiritual.  She says, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” 

Now what do you do with that?  On the one hand, she is saying I want this water that you are offering.  You offered it, then give it to me.  But on the other hand, she reveals her motivation; she wants physical relief.  She wants the spiritual water but only for a physical benefit. 

Well, it’s interesting to see Jesus’ response.  At first glance, it would almost seem like there must be something missing between vs.15 and 16.  Jesus says in response, “Go, call your husband and come here.”  What’s that about?  Does she need her husband to get the water?  What relation has the husband to do with her desire for the gift of water? 

What I believe Jesus is doing is He is accepting her request for water, even though it is founded on physical desires, but He is going to treat it spiritually.  So even though she asks with imperfect intentions, Jesus is going to treat it spiritually and apply spiritual principles in order to bring her to salvation.  And to do that, He says, “ok, if you want the  living water, go bring here your husband.”  Jesus already knows that she doesn’t have a husband.  So He is saying this in order to get her to confront her sin.

Her response is still defensive.  She’s not argumentative now, but she is still defensive.  Jesus is touching a nerve but she doesn’t want to address it yet.  So she says, “I have no husband.”  And then Jesus reveals His divinity.  Vs. 17, Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” Now that’s pretty specific revelation.  That’s not general information and He had no way of knowing that kind of personal information.  And so it must have floored her which is evident from her response. She said “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.”  Now she knows someone greater than Jacob is here.

But before I get into her response, notice that Jesus says to her “you are speaking the truth.”  He actually says that twice.  You have said correctly, and you have said truly.  Twice Jesus emphasizes that she has spoken the truth, even though she doesn’t speak the whole truth.  The whole point of what Jesus is doing here is to get her to recognize and accept the truth.  And before she can do that, she must first start telling the truth to God.  That’s what repentance is.  That’s where it starts; with telling God the truth.  You can lie to men, you can lie to yourself, and you can lie to God.  Even though God knows the truth, yet men still lie to Him.  Repentance starts with telling the truth about yourself.  And then accepting the truth about God. 

It’s amazing how people can lie to God, and yet we do it all the time.  We somehow don’t think that God sees.  David said in Psalm 66:18, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”  He says again in Psalm 51:6 “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.”  The gospel is the truth, and we need to tell people the truth, and help them to tell God the truth, so that the truth would set them free. When someone finally comes to the point of recognizing the truth and confessing to God the truth that they are a sinner in need of salvation, then as Jesus said in John 8:32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Well, we are not going to finish this study today.  We are going to have to continue it next week.  But what I want to impress on you today is that Jesus is our model for personal evangelism, that we might walk in His footsteps.  By His example we should be better equipped to fulfill the great commission in our neighborhoods, with our relatives, even with strangers who may be defensive or argumentative, as was this Samaritan woman.

But I hope to leave you with a committment to be like Christ in your personal evangelism.  We obviously are not going to possess divine discernment as Christ had, we are not omniscient like Christ is.  We are not great teachers as Christ was.  But we do have the Spirit of Christ living in us.  And we do have the power of the Spirit to help us and give us wisdom if we will ask for it. 

However, I don’t think you nor I need to be omniscient to think of someone today that we know needs to hear the gospel.  They are not saved.  You could probably write down on a note card at least 5 people in this community that you are certain do not know the Lord as their Savior.  I pray that you will write down those names, and then make a plan to go see those people, to talk to them specifically about their need for salvation, about the gift of God which He has for those that will ask for it.  I challenge you to start to do this with at least one person on that list this week.  Come up with a plan, be purposeful about it, strategic.  Get rid of all possible distractions.  Then confront them with the gospel.  Expect them to get defensive.  Expect them to be argumentative.  But be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove; in other words, don’t argue with them.  Stay focused on the gift of living water which satisfies every thirsty soul,  which God has prepared for those that will receive Jesus as their Savior. 

I would ask you to deliberately decide this week to be compassionate.  There is no greater show of compassion than to present the gospel to someone.  There is no greater love than to lay down your life, lay aside what you are so busy doing, what you would rather be doing, lay that down, lay down your pride, and go take the gospel to those that are perishing.  This is not just the job of a pastor.  This is your job.  This is what you were saved for.  This is what God has tasked you with while you are on this earth. 

The gospel is pretty simple.  As I said, there are only two steps you need to remember; repentance and faith.  Pray for discernment and wisdom and then pray for the opportunity.  And then go in faith and present the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit.  I believe that God has someone for you to talk to this week.  I hope that you will do it.  Let’s pray.