The Dimensional Gospel

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

God, we uh we are comforted by the fact that you're a God that is personal and available, and you do take our hand and lead us.

That's why the 23rd Psalm is so meaningful.

It says, Yea, though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Why do we not fear evil?

Because you're with us.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort us.

God, it's been a wacky weather year here in Houston.

We've had a hurricane, floods, sleet, snow.

If it starts raining fire today, God, we're going to get concerned.

But in the midst of all of that, what we know is that you're with us.

You said in your Bible, you oath yourself.

You're not a man that you would lie.

You said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

So we have to get used to the idea of being in relationship with you, of living in relationship with you.

And so, Lord, deepen our understanding of you and the gospel so that our life is an expression of the worth of the gospel and our friends, the people on our kids' baseball team and soccer team, and that baby right there calling out.

But we all love us, we understand, and we get a sense and a longing for what we were created for.

God speak to us today in Jesus' name.

And all guts people said.

Amen.

Amen.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Uh, and if you're a guest today, we're preaching through the gospel of John.

It's called expository preaching.

Uh, it's not called boring people and blaming it on God, okay?

And so, uh because we're going through John, we started in chapter 4 last week, and I want to summarize, because I'm gonna start reading in verse 11.

I'm gonna summarize what we read last week, but I want to talk to you this morning about the dimensional gospel.

The dimensional gospel, you say, what do you mean?

Uh the word dimensional means having sufficient depth and substance to be believable.

Having sufficient depth and substance to be believable.

And so when I say the dimensional gospel, uh you'll you'll see hopefully as we go along, because I think the church and preachers are the worst.

They try to create things and program things that only the gospel and and God can produce uh in us.

And so my confession to you today, look at me, as hard as that may be.

I know I look like the love child of Tim Keller and Uncle Fester, but but bear with me.

Uh yeah.

Y'all don't even know who Tim Keller is.

Y'all are laughing about Uncle Fester.

Punks.

Anyway, uh, if you're visiting today, I wasn't talking to you, I was just talking to my people.

And boys and girls, do not use that word to describe your brother and sister, unless, of course, they're acting kind of punkish, but I digress.

Uh anyway, here's if you're visiting today, let me say this.

Look at me.

I don't have an agenda.

I'm not driving to try to get you to do something at the end.

We're not gonna dim the lights and humcoom by God and say, ooh, now feel bad for the next two minutes.

No, no, no.

We want to say, this is what the Bible is, this is what it says.

Now ask yourself, what does this produce in us?

Because that's what people responded to in the Bible.

It's what God and the gospel produced in people.

They didn't necessarily respond to great churches or good preachers, they responded to God changing people's lives.

And you were sitting in this room either because you've had your life changed or because you want your life to be changed.

Amen?

That was pathetic.

Let's try that again.

Amen.

Yes.

And so it's here's what I want to say to you up front.

What I'm gonna talk about today is in you.

It's just a matter of you learning to trust that and let it out.

And let me summarize what we read last week.

Jesus comes into a city, uh, he he says, Hey, I'm going back to Galilee, I'm going up here, but I gotta go through this town.

I gotta go through a town called Sikar.

And he didn't have to.

We looked last week, there were two roads he could have gone around because Jews and Samaritans avoid each other, but Jesus says, I gotta go back because there's a woman at this well.

She believes things about herself and about me that aren't true, and I'm not cool with that.

So he sits down at the well, woman shows up at high noon.

Most women come out at six in the morning to get water and get their kids scrubbed up and get food going.

She comes staggering out at high noon.

She's been married five times.

She's living a man right now that's not her husband.

She comes staggering out, smells like cheap vodka and bad cigarettes, okay?

Everybody in town that's talking about her, I'll look at her out there, skanky self.

What does she think she's doing?

Jesus is sitting at the well.

He looks at her and says, Would you give me a drink?

And she's like, Hey, dude, you're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan?

We don't even talk to each other.

What are you doing talking to me?

And he's like, Well, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked me, and I would have given you, and that's where we'll pick up this morning.

But last week we talked about those two things.

Jesus said, if you knew the gift of God, now by the way, look at me.

The gift of God is God.

The greatest thing that God could give you is not a new truck, not a new, as much as I have SUV lust, every once in a while, like I have Tahoe lust right now.

I'm at a red line, I look over, I'm like, see, I'd be so much happier if I had one of those.

Uh but the greatest thing, the gift of God is God Himself.

Jesus said, if you knew the gift of God, and then secondly, he said this, and we'll start reading the text this morning.

He said, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink.

Who it is.

He's talking about himself.

If you understood who I, Jesus Christ, really am, it would clarify so many things in your life.

We'll pick up the conversation there.

In verse 11, the Bible says, after Jesus says, Hey, if you you would have asked him, he would have given you living water.

Verse 11, the woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

Where do you get that living water?

I mean, are you greater than our father Jacob?

He gave us a well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

Whatever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.

The water that I give him will become in him, in her spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

And the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

And Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here.

The woman said to him, Well, see, that's kind of a long story.

Hmm, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, You are right, saying, I have no husband, for you've had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.

What you have said is true.

The woman said to her, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming that neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know.

Mark that in your Bible.

You worship what you do not know.

We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

For the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to him, I know the Messiah is coming, who is called to Christ, and when he comes, he will tell us all things.

And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He.

And just then his disciples came back.

They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, What do you seek?

Or why are you talking with her?

So the woman left her water jar, went away into town, and said to the people, Come see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Christ?

And they went out of the town and they were coming to him.

When I talk about the dimensional gospel, the power of the I want you to see the power of the dimensional gospel.

There's three things I want to point to that I think are demonstrated in the text.

The first one is this right here is that the gospel is conceptual.

The gospel is conceptual.

What I mean, a concept means an idea or a mental picture.

Jesus was really good.

Talking, having spiritual conversations with people is not regurgitating religious facts upon them.

Oh, you're gonna go to hell when you die.

Oh, okay, thanks.

As long as obnoxious people like you aren't there, I'll be okay.

Uh no, no.

It's conceptual.

And so what Jesus was good at was that he could talk to people and he could talk about things like in these verses, like verse 11 down to verse 15, Jesus talks to a woman at a well about she's she he starts off talking about, would you give me a drink of water?

And then he transitions the conversation to begin to talk about living water.

Now get this.

This is a concept.

He's kind of saying, I want you to get your head around this.

This woman has never heard this before, yet in about two minutes uh of time, she is like, Oh my gosh, give me some of this so I will not have to get thirsty and keep coming here to draw water.

The problem, when I say the gospel is conceptual, I want to free you up in how you think about it.

Not to dilute the gospel at all, but but most of us have very limited language when it comes to talking to people about spiritual things.

It's heaven, hell, typically it's church.

It's church.

Oh man, I want you to come to my church, and that's great.

Invite someone to church this Sunday, but invite them to meet you at the first or third service.

Amen?

A little crowded up in this thing today.

Uh and it always is crowded.

I tell I met some visitors for the first time this morning.

They got here early, and I said, relax.

And we'll we'll start at 10:30, and everybody get here at 10:41.

And now that person's kind of going, that's exactly what happened.

Yes.

Uh, because we run on Baptist Standard Time here.

But anyway, I digress.

A concept.

What I mean when I say a con that the gospel is conceptual.

Like I was talking, I have a friend of mine, we were hanging out this week having coffee and talking, and my friend is agnostic.

That means he just believes in nothing.

It's just, hey, it doesn't matter.

You live, you die, that's it.

Uh, but he also struggles with debilitating anxiety.

He just being around people, he just doesn't communicate that much.

And so I didn't say to him, well, if you become a Christian, this will all get better.

Look at me.

You can be a Christian and struggle with debilitating anxiety.

It's not like you're deficient and you didn't get enough Jesus, okay?

So I didn't say that.

So I try to practice what I'm preaching this morning about a concept.

And so I said to my friend, I said, Hey, look at me.

I said, when people are big and God is small, like in your case, non-existent, so God's like barely a dot down here, but people are big.

The Bible speaks to that, and it's and he's like, Well, where?

And I said, The Bible says that the fear of man is a snare.

And so you when you get around people, this fear, because people are big and there is no God, and so he's really, really infinitesimally small.

And I said, but also there's another ratio where God is big and people are small, and that doesn't mean people are diminished, but they're in their proper place and they don't have power over you.

And the Bible also speaks to that when he says in the 27th Psalm, the Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear?

Of whom shall I be afraid?

I said, but for you as an agnostic, there there is no sense of refuge.

The Bible says to Christians that the name of the Lord is a strong tower, that the righteous run in and they are saved.

There's nowhere, here's the problem with your unbelief: there's nowhere for you to run to to experience this refuge that is God.

And I said, and by the way, I said, I'm not trying to get you to go today, but maybe we could just move a little bit.

That's what I mean by concept.

Jesus painted pictures like that in people's minds, and they walked away and they were like, Yeah, you know what?

I'm as dumb as a box of rocks, but I got that.

Because what Jesus never did was make people feel feel dumb.

He never diminished people.

He never, matter of fact, we read towards the end, the people were like, What's he talking to that woman for?

Nobody.

I said it last week, I say it again, nobody did more to bestow dignity upon women than Jesus Christ.

So when I say the gospel, it's conceptual.

What I mean is that you got to get better, we got to get better, I gotta get better at having these kind of conversations where the way you talk about it leaves people interested and curious.

Let me give you three words I want to just inject or three phrases that have helped me, that I'm trying to kind of practice in my own life.

They come from the education background.

So if you're a school teacher, you've probably heard of some of these.

And and one of them comes from a kind of a leadership, uh, some leadership community.

I learned these from a guy named Todd Atkins.

But let me give them to you.

The first one is just the word pipeline.

Just the word pipeline, uh, which is the process of applying what we learn all along the way.

You want people to move up the pipeline and understand different concepts as they grow.

And these different concepts, they want to understand them deeper and deeper and deeper.

And this process of understanding these concepts deeper and deeper and deeper produces in you and in them a sense of competency.

Let me demonstrate it in a practical arena like parenting.

Uh, so how many times you have to repeat things to your kids?

Uh, you're kind of like about 44 times a day.

Here's what you need to do.

This is pipeline parenting.

Like, let me give you a visual.

If I went out in that parking lot and looked under every vehicle in here, that on the axle will be a thing called a spring.

It's about that big, it's a coiled piece of metal that kind of goes like that.

The pipeline means I learn these things down here, and I just apply them to more and more areas as I get older.

To parent with this pipeline perspective means you don't say, now what did mom tell you?

Because your kids kind of struggle, like, I don't know, you're gonna tell me again, so why should I remember it?

Yes, they've got the power over your parenting.

Pipeline parenting says this.

Hey, how does what mom taught you last month apply to this situation?

See, you've pushed the onus back on them, and they don't even know it.

They're kind of like that Jedi mind trick.

These are not the droids you're looking for.

You know they're not.

Okay, go ahead.

Stop saying to your kids, what did dad tell you?

What did mom tell you?

All you're doing them, all you're doing is telling them, hey, I'm gonna keep repeating this over and over.

Instead, start asking your kids a question, hey, how did what mom taught you about this apply to this situation?

And they go, I don't know.

Well, come back when you know.

Stop rescuing your kids from competency.

They were created to be competent.

That's pipeline.

Let me give you an example from the life of Jesus and his disciples.

If you read the whole New Testament, what you'll see is that over and over, Jesus is trying to establish who he is to his disciples.

You're like, don't they know?

No.

At one point they act like goofballs, and he's like, because they they they're like, hey, we got the WWJD bracelets, but we just didn't kind of know what you'd do in this moment.

And Jesus says, Have I been with you this long and you still do not know who I am?

At one point, they they're in this little area called Caesarea Philippi, this little town, two little towns, and Jesus is sitting down talking to them.

They're just hanging out, and Jesus is like, Hey, who do people say that I am?

And they said, Well, some say you know Moses and some say Elijah, one of the prophets, and Jesus says, Who do you say that I am?

And Peter says, You're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus says, Hey, blessed are you, Simon Son of Barjona, flesh and blood, did not reveal this to you.

The next verse, don't miss this, says this.

And from that time on, Jesus began to speak to them about his death.

Here's the pipeline, the progression pipeline.

Now that you I've been trying to establish who I am.

Now that you know who I am, now you can have your minds blown by the wonder of what I'm about to do.

So when it comes to having spiritual conversations and kind of speaking out this dimensional gospel, uh, I want to give you the word pipeline.

Second word I want to give you a phrase is concentric learning.

This comes from the education arena.

In church, we say spiritual maturity, but uh conceptual or concentric learning means you don't teach uh just things, you teach concepts that can be applied all along the growth continuum.

But never outgrow these concepts because they have the opportunity or the capacity to scale with development.

Let me say that again.

Never you teach them concepts, and you because most parenting and most teaching is repeating the same things over and over and over and over and over.

And here's the thing: after middle school and high school, you never take another star test ever again.

So it's just not I want to pass the test, it's hey, I want to be competent because you were created to experience competency, and your kids were created to experience competency.

But say, what do I mean when I talk about concentric learning?

It's just one concept applied to different arenas.

Let me give you an example.

Uh, this is the the the example that Atkins, the guy learned it from youth.

It's grace.

Take grace.

Like I became a Christian in 1982 and understood grace.

Oh my gosh, I'm forgiven.

Grace.

Kind of got that worked out in my life, grace.

Okay, I got it, and then I got married.

And I had to give grace to her, and she had to give grace to me, and we got that all kind of sorted out, and then we had kids.

And it's just a one-way street of grace.

It is like, oh, are you kidding me?

And you get that worked out, and then you go to work and you work with people who have this tattooed on their forehead, E G R.

That stands for extra grace required.

And you know who they are because when you see them coming down the hall, your first thought is, oh, not today.

I can't do him.

And you just go down this hallway over here, or you see somebody coming, you see her coming, you're like, Oh, never mind, talk to me.

Here she comes.

Why?

What you're saying is I do not have the grace to deal with this.

I just don't.

Okay?

Because see, here's the thing: one thing, different applications: salvation, marriage, parenting, work.

See, that's concentric learning.

The last thing I would give you that would help is competency-based development.

Basically, it sounds all heady and everything.

Basically, it's this the more competent someone feels, the more they learn as a byproduct.

Learning is not the goal.

Competency is the goal.

Let me say that again.

Every teacher in here is like, no, yes.

Yes, yes.

Learning is not the goal.

Competency is the goal because the more competent someone feels, this competency breeds confidence in them.

You can ask yourself, can people see themselves living the life that you describe when you have spiritual conversations?

Again, I'll take it into the realm of the familiar.

You see this in your parenting.

When your kids get to be about 11, they no longer want to be treated as a kid.

Uh, and because the little bit of competency that they've experienced has created in them an appetite for more.

And you keep giving them, unless you're giving them experiences that feed their competency, they stop looking to you as a part of their development because they don't feel like you trust them.

Let me say that again.

This is not a sermon on parenting.

I'm just trying to give you an arena that we're all want to get better in.

Your kid's going to be about 11.

They taste a little bit of competency, and it creates them an appetite for more.

And you want to feed that.

You don't want to diminish that because if you don't feed them and their sense of competency, they begin to look at you as someone's like, hey, you're you're not for me.

Um if you want to, if you want to get down to it, ask it like this, okay?

Ask your kids or ask yourself, hey, in my parenting, simple question: what does my parenting communicate to my children?

Does it communicate you're competent or does it communicate I can't trust you, and one day I'm gonna find a reason why?

Because here's my concern, okay?

Back back to Jesus.

Y'all are kind of like, I'm right, let's parenting stuff down, forget that Jesus stuff.

No, back to Jesus.

Here's what I mean by competency.

Uh, he introduces to this woman who on the surface appears to be the most spiritually incompetent person in the town.

Get that, had five husbands, is living with somebody now.

He introduces to her this concept of living water, and she immediately wants what he's describing.

And she's grasping the concept, her competency grows.

And we'll come back to her in just a minute.

Let me tell you the second thing about this dimension, the power of a dimensional gospel.

Uh, second thing is simply this it the gospel is directional.

The gospel is directional.

Look at verse 16.

Verse 16 says this it says, Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come here.

The woman answered him, I have no husband.

And Jesus said to her, You're right in saying I have no husband, for you've had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.

What you have said is true.

Now ask yourself this question: why does Jesus bring this up?

Now, because here's what we do we all, everybody in this room, you have dirt on somebody else.

You know what I'm saying?

You know stuff about them that nobody else knows.

You know what I'm saying?

Hello?

Y'all are like, I'm back on parenting.

Could you teach a class on parenting?

No, not today.

Uh but but we all, hey, I know stuff about that person, but that person knows stuff about me, and blah, blah.

So it's a great question to ask.

Hey, why would Jesus, well, I mean, we're going good.

Why do you want to go over there?

Here's why.

When I say the gospel is directional, if you're visiting today, don't go like, that don't make any sense.

Yes, it does.

Look at me.

The gospel is directional, it doesn't just go forward.

That's what we want to do.

Man, I'm gonna be the best person I can be, and I'm just gonna quit doing that and not do that and never look at that again, and never drink that, and never smoke that, and never even think about that ever again.

I'm just onward and upward.

The gospel is forward, but look at me.

The gospel also goes back.

And so Jesus says, Hey, go call your husband.

And she's that, well, see, uh, what about you, Jesus?

What does your wife do?

She's a stay-at-home mom.

I don't really have a wife, but let's stay on you for right now.

No, he just not rubbing her nose in it.

He's not kind of saying, hey, see, it doesn't just go forward.

What God wants her to know is he wants her to know the acceptance that it's born of adoption.

In other words, I don't just tolerate you, I accept you because I've chosen you to be mine.

Well, I don't I don't get it, I don't get why he brings it up.

He brings up her past.

If you hear anything this morning, hear this.

This will change the way you read the Bible.

He brings up her past so she'll know that everything he says to her is with a full knowledge of everything she's ever done.

Everything he says to her is with a full knowledge of everything she's ever done.

Because some of you in this room, despite my best efforts, you live with this fear that one day God is gonna somehow find out what you did that you're so embarrassed of, and you should be embarrassed of.

It's not what you were created to do, but you live with this fear that oh, God's gonna find out and it's gonna really be bad.

He knows.

And everything he says in here is through the lens of what he knows about you.

And look at me.

That's why it's so filled with wonder.

That's why it's just so mind-blowing.

I'm not minimizing what you did.

I'm not going wink, wink, no big deal.

Big deal.

Big deal.

But doesn't change the mind of God one iota.

So that's what I mean when I say the gospel's directional.

Thirdly, the gospel's clarifying.

The gospel is clarifying.

What do you mean when you say the gospel's clarifying?

It's verses 19 to 30.

I'm not going to reread them.

But the woman realizes that Jesus kind of knows her, he's up in her business, and she goes, Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.

No duh.

If someone comes to you today and kind of tells you, hey, this is what your life has been, you might want to just go, hey, do you got those winning lottery numbers?

Because I'll give to the church, okay?

It'd be a win-win situation here.

No, the gospel is clarifying.

What I mean by that, it's not the answer to every controversy of the day.

It's as much as it is the clarifying reality at the center of it all, which is Jesus Christ.

Let me say it again.

The thing that the gospel, the good news of Christianity, makes most obvious and most clear is who is Jesus.

And when people get a clear biblical, not cultural, but biblical view and understanding of God, and they respond to that.

It is just like, oh my gosh, that's preachers can't create that.

Churches can't program that.

Only God in the gospel can produce that.

Because Jesus does shed light on some things in these verses.

Let me point to two or three, uh, and then we'll be done this morning.

Like he he in that section from verse 19 to 30, he says this to the woman.

I I said, Hey, remember that or mark that.

He says, You worship what you do not know.

And that you're like, What?

That applies to her and us.

What do you mean?

She was a Samaritan.

So the Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament.

The rest of the Old Testament they didn't believe.

So they they believed and read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

And Jesus says, Hey, you worship what you do not know.

In other words, you have a really underdeveloped knowledge of God.

And so you are limited in the way you can enjoy God in the name of worship.

So the issue is not what mountain do we worship on, and do we sing hymns or chorses or whatever.

The issue is have you have a really diminished knowledge of God.

Now you say, how does that apply to me?

Some of you in this room, you have a really, you knew some stuff.

The stuff you learned about God was when you were a kid.

And now as an adult, you stand here and you're kind of like, uh, uh, hey, relax.

We're all here to learn.

You don't have to know everything.

I tell my kids all the time, they go to school, oh, Dad, I say, hey, those teachers are there to teach you.

Teacher is not a noun, it's a verb.

It means to teach.

Not just say, hey, this is high school.

You ought to be able to do this.

What are we paying you to do?

Be a class monitor?

No.

You're you're here to learn.

Jesus says to her, hey, you worship what you do not know.

Why?

Because you got this very limited exposure to the history of God's faithfulness with his people.

The more you know, the more you know, the more it increases your capacity just to enjoy God and have your mind blown by, oh my gosh.

Second thing Jesus kind of clarifies, he says that they will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

Talks about these worshipers.

Uh, when he says, we'll worship the Father in spirit and truth, it's not a reference to the Holy Spirit, but your spirit.

And the point is simply this is when it comes to worship, we need to be in the right attitude inwardly and outwardly.

Let me say that again.

It's to be in the right attitude inwardly and doing the right things outwardly.

Truth is a quality of action.

So when he says they worship the Father in spirit and truth, that's not like, oh, that's some deep mystery.

No, it's not.

It just means by the time you get to church, you get your kids checked in, you get your coffee, you get in here, between getting in here and when we start, you need to kind of get your head and your heart synced up.

You need to kind of like, okay, I I'm I otherwise you're gonna worship externally and not inwardly.

And Jesus says, hey, no, no, no.

You you it's both.

Third thing he clarifies for this woman is simply this.

He says, for the father is seeking such people to worship him.

The father is seeking such people.

I've always uh heard uh worship leaders try to motivate their people to sing.

And by the way, there's a difference between singing and worshiping.

You know that, right?

Look at me.

I mean this.

Some Sundays you've come in here and you have so had the life beat out of you this week by job, neighbors, kids, your own depravity.

Your act of worship is just to get a cup of coffee and get to your seat and be like, y'all saying, I'm just gonna sip this coffee.

Oh, thank you, Jesus.

I didn't kill people on the drive home yesterday because I wanted to.

Thank you, Jesus, my 16-year-old son.

Whoo! Whoo, help, oh, help me.

There's my prayer.

That's all I got is help.

And guess what?

Look at me.

God's not looking down, kind of going, you better sing along.

He's look at me.

He's looking down, going, I got you.

I got you.

I know what this is like.

I get this.

He's not like, well, I mean, sing louder.

No.

No.

So when you say, hey, I heard worship pastors a lot of time, they try to motivate the people to sing by saying, hey, let's bring the father our worship.

Look at me.

He doesn't need your worship.

If you went to God's house, the thermostat, his house is set on worship.

He lives in an environment of worship every day in heaven.

He's not deficient of worship, okay?

He's not seeking worship, he's seeking people.

For the father is seeking such people to worship him.

He's seeking these people that worship in spirit, in here, in your spirit, and in truth.

In other words, what I'm doing outwardly is a reflection of what I'm feeling on the inside.

Like somebody asked me probably a month ago, he said, every once in a while we're singing something, and I I sat behind you so I kind of watch you because I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Look at me.

There's not a prescribed behavior in worship.

There's not.

You want to raise your hands?

Great.

He said, every once in a while, you'll just hold your cup up and just do this.

I'm like, yes.

Yes, because I think we should be somewhere at all.

We should be a bunch of men with our shirts off, eating barbecue, singing these songs to Jesus.

I feel like a Viking.

I wish I had a helmet with horns on it.

Yes! And the guy's like, oh okay.

And now I'm not saying you gotta be that way, but sometimes, like we sang it today, that first song, Nailed to the Cross, and when it says, and I will preach the gospel to myself, I'm like, yes, yes, because sometimes I have to preach the gospel to myself.

Because I just act like I forget for a nanosecond that it's true.

Because sometimes I think I've given all the grace I can to everybody, and I want to go home and just be left alone.

And my wife says, Oh, by the way, it's my birthday today.

We're gonna celebrate all day.

And I think it's great.

I'm not complaining about we celebrated all day yesterday.

It's great.

I just don't celebrate my birthday a whole lot.

I'm like, eh, I was born.

Perhaps we should give presents to my mother.

She did all the work.

But I don't impose that on my wife.

But sometimes I gotta be careful because sometimes I give grace to everybody here at the religion factory, and then I go home and I'm out of grace.

And I don't say this, but I think this.

Please don't need anything from me tonight.

Because I've been doing hand-to-hand combat with the devil.

And my wife just smiles and says, uh, not only do I need stuff, but you're gonna give it to me.

And I pray, Lord, she's being needy again.

Yes.

I know I'm the only man in the room that thinks that.

Yeah.

Y'all got like a 45-minute commute.

I got 45 seconds.

There's no recovery time.

It's just, I leave here, boom, I'm there.

And then it's, oh, hey, how was your day?

Like I was fixing something, and she started asking me questions the other night, and I was felt myself getting frustrated, and I said, just stop asking me questions.

I can't fill your life with purpose while I'm fixing this.

I said that.

That's horrible.

But I was just like, for the love of Pete, why do I have to give you something to do?

She goes, Well, I came to help, and I don't feel like I'm helping.

You ain't helping by asking these questions, I can tell you that.

Well, I should have just stayed home.

Oh, yes, Lord, you should have stayed home.

Why do I tell you that?

Look at me.

Because in that moment, I'm out of grace.

But then I gotta go back and say, hey, you know what?

I learned the concept of grace in 1982.

I should be well versed in applying grace to people.

And I have to say, hey, I'm sorry.

My frustration was situational, not personal.

That worked the first few times I said it.

It don't work anymore.

She's like, well, it felt personal because you were speaking to me.

Well, it wasn't personal.

Well, I wonder what it felt like it was personal.

We can find out.

Keep pushing me, woman.

I'm like, Kevin Costher in open range.

Don't stand behind me, boss.

I'm like, oh.

Here's the thing the father is seeking people to worship him.

Because sometimes my confession, when I'm standing over here, there's an amber alert.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody right now, just turn it off.

We're not being invaded by the Russians.

Yes.

Somebody's colluding with them, but it's not Donald Trump.

We're better now?

Here's what all y'all are thinking.

Is he mad right now?

Does that bother you?

No.

Life is unpredictable.

Okay?

It just is.

Stuff happens.

Here's the thing: the Father is looking for worshipers, for people who worship him in spirit and truth.

That means sometimes you can just kind of say, you know what?

I just need to kind of get myself ready.

And sometimes, I mean, just come ready.

Just come ready to pour yourself out and kind of say, hey, whatever we put on the screen, whoo! I'm gonna jump into that because I got a lot in me today, God.

That's the kind of worshipers that God is seeking.

And I said that he clarifies some things, but the thing that you see most clearly in the gospel is Jesus Christ.

Let me just read from verse 27.

We'll be done this morning.

Verse 27, just then his disciples, because Jesus says to her, I who speak to you am He.

Just then his disciples come back and they marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, What do you seek?

Or why are you talking with her?

So the woman left the water jar and went away to town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Christ?

See, her response to this dimensional gospel gets interrupted by the disciples coming back, but just to just to kind of close the gap on it, Jesus says to her, Hey, I who speak to you am He.

The greatest clarifying reality of the gospel, the central thing to the gospel is Jesus.

It's the right knowledge.

And oh my gosh, you're right here offering me this.

And the woman leaves her water jar, runs into town, and comes and says, Come meet a man who told me everything I've ever done.

Just stop right there.

Wouldn't you want to know somebody that knows everything you've ever done and still loves you anyway?

In verse 30, they went out of the town.

Now, by the way, let me just skip down to verse 39 before we do that.

Look at verse 39.

At all that red there, Jesus talking to the to the disciples about what nourishes him, doing the will of God.

Verse 39, many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

He told me all that I ever did.

Hey, why am I pointing that out?

She didn't know even the first five books of the Bible.

She didn't even know what a Bible is.

I mean, this woman has had a rough life, and this is her testimony.

He told me all that I ever did.

That's all you have to know.

Hey, there's a God in this world, and he knows everything I ever did, and he likes me, and he loves me, and he died on the cross to forgive me.

And look what happens.

He told me all I ever did, verse 40.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them.

And he stayed there two days, and many more believed because of his word.

And they said to the woman, it's no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.

Remember, I said a few minutes ago that the thing we see most clearly is that in the gospel is Jesus Christ.

That's what happens for this woman.

This is what happens for her town.

Verse 30, they went out of town and they were coming to Him.

The church can't program that response.

This woman goes into town, leaves her water pot there, goes into town, and all she knows to say, all she can get out is He told me everything I ever did.

Oh my goodness.

And she's why?

Because she's kind of seen Jesus clearly.

And that's all she can say is He told me everything I ever did.

He told me everything I ever did.

He told me everything I ever.

And everybody knew her.

And everybody knew what she'd done.

She was the person they all talked about at the 10-year high school reunion.

Boy, she let herself go.

She was a cheerleader.

What happened?

Lottie Taddy, gosh almighty, who's big now?

Not her.

All she knows about Jesus is he told me everything I ever did.

And look at me, and we're done.

This is the power of the dimensional gospel.

Her town streams out and pleads with Jesus.

Please stay here for a few more days and just keep talking.

And he did.

Because he wasn't efficient.

He was always available.

And look at me.

He's available to you.

There's none of you that's done something that God's kind of like, nope, that's a deal breaker.

He knows everything you've ever done.

And he accepts you and forgives you.

Let's pray together.

Just take a moment and think about what you've heard this morning.

What stood out to you?

What arrested your attention or provoked your curiosity?

Because what I'm saying to you is just what the Bible says.

Jesus is having a conversation with a woman with a checkered, rough past.

And all she knows about him is that he knows everything I've ever done.

And so I say to you this morning, on the authority of God's word and the nature of God Himself, Ali again free.

Come out, come out wherever you are.

He knows.

Ali and free.

Come out, come out wherever you are.

He knows.

And he's done something about it.

Let's think about this for a moment.

Father, our confession today is that we need to be reminded because we forget what the gospel is, what its capacity is, that it's conceptual.

That doesn't mean it's like a math theorem or some kind of geography or proof or what our trigonometry proof.

No, it's just a big juicy picture that you paint on a bunch of different canvases so we can get our head and our heart around it.

And so Lord, remind us today.

This is in us.

This is in us.

You're the parent of parents with competency-based parenting.

You don't come to us and say, What did I tell you?

You come and say, Hey, how does this apply?

How do you apply what I told you to this situation?

And God may we grow in competence so we can see ourselves opening our mouth and living water coming out.

But that's our prayer.

We prayed in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

Thanks for your presence today.

If you're a guest, hopefully you've had the opportunity to fill out on your row.

There's some uh guest cards in the back of the seat.

So if you don't have one of those, reach and grab one if you would right now and just fill it out before you leave.

And on your way out in just a minute, if you would just drop it on these wooden boxes by the doors.

And also, if today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity when it comes to giving, that's where you do that as well.

Okay.

Let me make you aware of three things by way of announcement we want to just point you to.

The first one is that this Friday night, our children's ministry has the Family FX experience.

So from 6 30 to 8.

Uh, Chick-fil-A dinner is available.

There's an optional fee that applies to that.

You can register online.

This is a great way, mom and dad, to model for your kids.

I don't outgrow the gospel.

Your dad's 38, and I'm still captivated by this, and it's it, you're not taken away from my Friday night plans.

I would rather be here with you doing this than anywhere in the world, okay?

Or if you're a single parent, I was raised by my mom, uh, you got this.

You got this.

You don't have to be able to make a hundred on the Jesus pop quiz.

The church exists to equip you to grow in your knowledge and understanding so that competency just swells up in you, okay?

And confidence comes from that.

This Friday night, great opportunity.

We'd love you.

I think Registracing closes on Wednesday so they can get the food order in.

We'd love you to be a part of that.

Secondly, our men's breakfast uh is this Tuesday.

The date is wrong.

It was for last week, but we got snowed out.

Uh, and so uh this Tuesday, 6 o'clock, 6 to 7, in the warehouse, which is the building at the very back of our property.

Uh uh, I talked for about 20 minutes and then we sit around round tables, we have discussion questions.

Breakfast is free.

Everyone's welcome.

We'd love for you to be there.

Great way to start your day.

Last thing I want to remind you of is that we have a new uh new ministry that's starting called Little Sprouts.

There's an interest meeting uh in about 30 minutes in a children's building, which is right here.

And Little Sprouts, basically, our preschool director, Krista, started this.

It's for experienced moms to kind of mentor first-time moms and kind of just say, Hey, you got this.

Because remember when you had your first kid, you dropped the pacifier, you'd sterilize the thing and dunk it and go buy new ones.

That second kid, you drop that thing, you pick it up, there you go, you're fine.

Yeah.

But here's the thing: you're a first-time mom.

People can tell you, hey, it's gonna be great and great, great.

You go through all kinds of scenarios in your mind.

What if this and what if that and what if this?

Them kids are mostly cartilage, they'll bounce, they'll be fine.

Uh, but just a joke, uh one of ours rolled off a changing table when she was four months old.

Hit the ground, boom, and bounced.

My wife, well, we gotta get her a CAT scan and blah, blah, blah.

And I held her up, yeah, she looks good.

But this is a great ministry.

If you're remotely interested, like I said, it's for moms that have kids and have survived the process, and you'd be willing or at least open to being paired with an expectant mother.

Uh, little sprouts interest meeting at 11:30 in the children's building, which is just right here at the first building you come to, okay?

Hey, look at me.

You can do this.

Everything the Bible talks about, it's not for smart people, it's not for preachers, it's not for whatever.

It's for you.

Okay?

You can do this.

Otherwise, he wouldn't ask you to do it.

Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

The kingdom of God is so indestructible, Jesus let little kids play with it.

You can't break it, you can't destroy it.

So look at me.

Learn to enjoy it.

You're a part of it, and he trusts you with it.

You got this.

Now go get this now.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you dismiss.