Conversations // Showing People Compassion

Amen, amen, amen.

Pastor Cody said about having a conversation with people, and last week we actually began a brand new series entitled just that Conversations how to have conversations that change lives with people.

And last week what we said is we said for conversations to be life-changing they need two components.

And I wanna see how well we remember from last week how many of you guys would say I have a good memory.

One person raised their hand, that's it.

How many would say I used to have a good memory?

How many would say I never had a good memory?

That's right.

Actually, some of you.

I won't bring that up, but anyways, when we said this, we said conversations that change lives are conversations that are filled with grace and truth.

That's right.

You could say, let's say with a little more confidence conversations that change lives are filled with grace and truth.

That's right, they're filled with grace and truth.

Let's pretend, for example, I was getting all dressed up like a real pastor and I wore a suit, and it doesn't happen very often, so I kind of have a hard time with what that looks like.

I would go to you and I would say, hey, I have this suit on.

Do I look okay?

Am I presentable and you're going to be like, oh, pastor Nate, you look like a million bucks.

You're a kid, but what if I had a little something, something hanging out of my nose?

You know what I mean.

You're like, oh, I can't tell him.

I can't tell him, you know, I mean Nate seems like he's kind of sensitive I'm like.

Can I just say guys in front of God and all of these witnesses help a brother out.

Like, let me know.

You know what I mean Like, but don't be a jerk about it, but give me some truth, and conversations that change lives are filled with grace and truth.

Now, last week we were in John, chapter 3, and we learned about a guy that Jesus had a conversation with.

John 3 · chapter mention

And the guy that Jesus had a conversation with, his name starts with an N.

Does anybody remember what his name is?

His name is Nicodemus.

That's right.

His name was Nicodemus and we learned some things about that guy on the right, that young guy in the FCC youth group.

We learned that Nicodemus well, he was Jewish.

We learned that he was educated, he was powerful.

We talked about the Sanhedrin last week.

If you missed it, you can check it out and they're just a powerful group of people.

He had a good reputation because he was a Pharisee, so he was really spiritual.

Everybody looked at Pharisees and they were like I want to be like you.

He was righteous and, if you notice, it was in quotation marks because he thought he was a lot more righteous than he actually was.

This is Nicodemus.

We get to the next chapter in John chapter 4, and this person couldn't be any more different than Nicodemus over there In John chapter 4, it's a woman and it's a Samaritan.

John 4 · chapter mention John 4 · chapter mention

Now you guys are like big deal, samaritan?

No Big deal.

It's a Samaritan Because Samaritans, they were half Jewish and the Jews looked down on the Samaritans because the Jews thought you're half-breeds, you're second class.

In fact, samaritans were so looked down on if they used a utensil, the Jews would not use that utensil.

It's crazy like that.

Y'all you talk about racial tension.

It high.

It's female she.

Because she's a female, she's uneducated.

We actually don't even know her name.

All we know is she was a woman at the well.

She had a bad reputation, which I'm not going to tell you why, yet she's a little scandalous, and she was sinful, like openly sinful.

And, by the way, nicodemus didn't know, but he was sinful too.

But these two people are completely different.

And Jesus didn't go out of his way to talk to Nicodemus over here, but Jesus went out of his way to talk to this woman.

Here's the thing.

This woman in this culture she did not belong, she was outcasted, she didn't measure up, she was not enough.

But what Jesus did is Jesus says I want to have a conversation with her and I want to come to her.

Here's why I say this.

Let's just be real.

It's just us here.

Some of you walk in here and you feel like you don't measure up, you feel like you don't belong.

You look around and you're like these people know the words on the screen for the songs.

I don't know any of these songs.

That's.

You're like why are we singing these songs?

Why are we singing about Jesus dying?

It's kind of morbid Grape juice.

This isn't enough to have a full meal.

This isn't even a snack.

Why are we doing this?

You're just new here and you just feel like I don't belong, I don't measure up, I don't know this stuff.

I wasn't raised in this.

I'm kind of checking this out.

Can I just say that you are the one who Jesus comes to.

You are the one who Jesus loves, you are the one who Jesus pursues.

And in a world that's filled with measuring and posturing and saying, this person's better than this person and I'm good, and all this stuff, jesus says I'm not worried about any of that.

I'm not worried about your story, your past, your trauma, your difficulty, because my grace supersedes all of that.

And when people see a Samaritan woman and she's outcasted and want nothing to do with her, that's the person I pursue after, because Jesus was somebody that was filled with compassion, a compassion that not a lot of us are used to in this world.

I want us to watch a two-minute clip from the Chosen series of what this interaction that Jesus had with this woman may have looked like, and then we're going to get into the text and we're going to see the full-length conversation of how Jesus changed somebody's life, because Jesus was somebody that was filled with compassion.

Let's check it out.

Would you give me a drink?

Did you hear me?

That's bad, huh what?

You, a Jew, ask her to drink from me, a Samaritan, and a woman.

I'm sorry, I should have said please.

You know it's not safe for you to be alone out here.

Nor you.

Why haven't you come with others?

Why so late in the day?

Don't women come to the wells in the cool of the morning?

Yeah well, none of them will be seen with me, so I have to come out new in the heat, as you have so kindly reminded me.

Why won't they be seen with you?

Long story, I'd still like a drink of water if you can spare it.

Amazing what a parched throat will do.

Aren't I unclean to you?

Won't you be defiled by this vessel?

Maybe some of my people say that about your women, but I don't.

Yeah, and what do you say?

I say, if you knew who I am, you'd be asking me for a drink.

Really.

And I would give you living water.

Would, except that you have nothing to draw water with, and this is a deep well.

Besides, what do you need from me if you have your own?

supply of living water Long story, but Jewish water is better than Samaritan water.

That's not what I said Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well?

Your water is better than his.

I know Jacob and everyone who drinks this water will thirst again.

But whoever drinks the water that I give him will never be thirsty again, living water.

This was the crux of the conversation.

Let's read about it in John, chapter 4, verse number 1.

John 4 · chapter mention

If you're ready for it, would you say amen?

It says this.

It says when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, he was making and baptizing more disciples than John though Jesus himself was not baptizing but his disciples he left Judea and went again to Galilee.

Now I want to show you why this is significant.

If we can get the map up on the screen, jesus was down in Judea, he was going up to Galilee.

Now, naturally, you would think that if you're going to go from Judea to Galilee, you would go in a straight direction.

Makes sense, right?

The Jewish people would never do that Because, if you notice, between Judea and Galilee there's a region.

And what's that region called?

It's called Samaria.

You know what the problem with Samaria was?

Samaritans live there.

That was a problem.

So they would never go right through Samaria.

They would go out near the Jordan River so they could just stay away from all those Samaritan people.

But Jesus in verse 4, it says that he had to travel through Samaria.

It doesn't say he wanted to, it says he had to.

Now, the word had to comes from a Greek word.

It's translated from a Greek word.

Day had to comes from a Greek word.

It's translated from a Greek word day.

This is the same Greek word that is used when Jesus would talk about obeying his father and doing his father's will.

He would say I day, I must, I have to.

This is how weighty it was for him to do his father's will.

When it comes, john writes when it comes to him going through Samaria, there was that intentionality and that much of importance of saying I have to go through Samaria.

Why?

Because of the woman, because there was somebody that needed him.

So what does he do?

He does the unthinkable.

He goes through Samaria and he comes to a town of Samaria, the town of Samaria, verse number five.

It's called Sychar.

It's near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph.

Jacob's well was there and Jesus.

He was worn out from his journey.

He sat down at the well.

Jacob's well was there and Jesus.

He was worn out from his journey.

He sat down at the well.

What I really like about John here is John doesn't just show the deity, the fact that Jesus was God, but he also shows the humanity of Jesus.

Jesus is tired.

How many of you have ever driven from NorCal down to SoCal and at the end of that trip you were tired and you had a car.

And it's tiring to travel these guys, they don't have a car, they just have feet walking.

It was a long trip, it was many miles.

So, jesus, he was worn out and he sat down at the well.

It was about noon.

Verse number seven a woman of Samaria came to draw water, give me a drink.

Jesus said to her and as the video showed her response, she couldn't believe that he wanted to do this.

In verse 8, where were his disciples at?

His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

They had to run by Winco real quick Winco and get some food.

They went to Raleigh's and picked something up.

So Jesus is alone.

They had to go get some food.

And this is what she says.

She says how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

For Jews do not associate with the Samaritans.

John lets us know they don't do this.

Verse 10,.

Jesus answered if you knew the gift of God.

And who is saying to you give me a drink, answered if you knew the gift of God and who was saying to you, give me a drink.

You would ask him and he would give you.

What are those next two words?

He'll give you Living water.

Pretty bold statement, bold Sir, said the woman.

You don't even have a bucket and the well is deep, so where do you get this living water?

You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you?

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

Jesus said everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again.

In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.

And what Jesus is doing he's not actually saying well, I'm going to give you water and there's going to be.

I'm going to give you this water and you'll never be thirsty again for the rest of your life.

He's not talking about the physical need.

What he's doing he's using a physical picture, a physical thing of water, to communicate a spiritual reality to this woman, to say here's a physical need that you have Spiritually.

I'm going to meet the needs of your heart and your life.

Now, the woman thought Jesus was just speaking of the physical.

Naturally, she says sir.

The woman said to him give me this water so I won't get thirsty and come here to draw water.

Sir, if you don't give me some water, I don't have to come back out at noon every day and get some water Like I'm all about that.

She hasn't made the connection yet.

Go call your husband verse 16.

He told her.

And come back here In verse 17,.

We start learning a little bit about this woman's story.

I don't have a husband, she answered.

You have correctly said I don't have a husband, for you've had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband.

Now can I just stop for a second and state the obvious?

Okay, how much would it freak you out if you just met somebody and all of a sudden they're telling you all about your relational history.

You'd be like whoa, what is going on?

Jesus says what you have said is true.

Now we learn some things about why she's going to draw water at noon, why she wants to be away from everybody, because she's been married five times Now.

We don't know her story.

We don't know the hurt that she's experienced.

We don't know the rejection she's experienced.

We don't know the betrayal she's experienced.

We don't know any of that.

We do know.

Seemingly she's given up on marriage.

She's like I ain't doing that again.

So now she's just shacked up with the dude and she's gone on this cycle of dude, dude, dude, dude.

And now she's here and she's like, ah, and now she's here and she's like, ah, that's where I'm at.

And Jesus tells her, he's going to tell her.

He's like hey, I have the answer for what you're looking for.

It's me.

And it's easy for us to look at this woman and be like, oh, she had five husbands, she had this, she had that.

But we don't know this woman's story.

We don't know this woman's struggles.

What Jesus could have done is Jesus could have condemned her in that moment and Jesus could have been like what's going on?

But he didn't.

In verse 19,.

In fact, the woman didn't run for the hills.

If somebody just walked up on you and they started telling you about your life story, you might be running for the hills.

I know I probably would be.

I'd be like who are you?

Are you a stalker?

Are you a psychic?

Are you possessed Like leave me, I don't know you.

That's all I've done.

This is what she says?

Her response is I see, you're a prophet.

Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.

Jesus told her believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know.

We worship what we do know because salvation's from the Jews.

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

Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him.

God is Spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

And the woman said to him I know the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will explain everything to us.

Jesus told her I the one speaking to you.

Am he?

Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys.

We can't rush past this, okay?

For hundreds and hundreds of years, they had been waiting for the Messiah to come.

The Messiah is the one, the anointed one, the forgiver of sin, the son of God, the one that is the source of life.

That's who the Messiah was going to be For hundreds of years.

The one that is the source of life.

That's who the Messiah was going to be.

For hundreds of years they wait for this Messiah to come.

Up until this point in John, jesus never clearly tells somebody I am the Messiah Like.

Very clearly, this is who I am.

And who does he choose to tell that to?

Not Peter, not Andrew, not even his own brother, james.

He goes to an outcasted woman.

He goes to a woman that feels like she doesn't belong and that she doesn't measure up.

He goes to a woman in a world that's dominated with males and that's all about pride and power.

And he goes to her who's outcasted and forsaken and looked down on her because she's sexually broken and sexually enslaved.

And this is what he says to her.

He says I am what you're looking for.

The religious people outcast you.

Your friends want nothing to do with you.

But here I am, I meet you here.

And you know why he does that?

Because Jesus has compassion.

Jesus has compassion.

In fact, the disciples were crazy.

They were amazed that he was even talking to a woman.

Verse 27,.

In the next verse it says just then his disciples arrived and they were what's that word?

They were.

He's talking with a woman, bro.

Dude, is Jesus doing?

She's Samaritan.

What's he doing?

He was showing his heart, he was showing his compassion, and he had such compassion when he started telling this woman about herself.

This woman didn't run for the hills and say whoa, whoa, whoa we're not talking about this anymore, but she stayed there with him.

In other words, jesus knew about her life, but he still had compassion and love on her and he loved her and for all of us in the room and in the balcony.

Something that we all desire is to be known and loved, but our greatest fear is to be fully known and rejected.

This is why we have a hard time opening up to people.

In fact, I'm like hey, how many of you have a hard time opening up to people?

Some of you would have a hard time raising your hand because, to some degree, you would be opening up to everybody else.

This is why we have a hard time trusting people at times, because we have been rejected, and that's totally normal.

Our greatest fear is you know me and you choose that.

You don't want me.

But here's the deal, guys.

This comes in conflict with something else in our life is that we have a desire.

One of our greatest internal desires is to be fully known and fully loved.

This is not a Jesus thing, this is not a Christian thing, this is a people thing.

You want somebody to fully know you junk issues and all, by the way.

We all have junk issues and all we all got stuff.

All of us do and somebody know all of our stuff and they still say I love you.

This is what you desire and this is the compassion of Jesus towards this woman, because he fully knew what she was doing and he still fully loved her because he's compassionate.

And some of you are here and you're like I can't open up to Jesus, I can't do this because he won't accept me, because he won't.

This Jesus goes through Samaria for you.

Jesus goes out of his way for you.

Jesus doesn't say when you measure up and you get your life together and you take the three-week challenge, when you come to FCC for three Sundays in a row and you join a serve team and you clean yourself up, then me and you, then we can be friends.

But until then, no, that's what religion says Fix yourself, build yourself, put yourself together, rely on your discipline, then, when you measure up, then he comes to you.

No, my friend, when we realize that we don't measure up, that's when we're a candidate for the grace of God, because he's filled with compassion.

I remember my freshman year of college.

I had some really hard moments Moments of tears, moments of fears, moments where I just felt like I didn't belong.

So I prayed about it, because I'm like I should probably pray about these things that I'm experiencing, and it helped a little that I still was going through some challenges and at that point, freshman in college, I was 18.

And for me, when I was 18, I thought I knew a whole lot more than I actually knew.

I thought I had myself together quite a bit more than I actually did and I was like I'm good, it's me, it's me, it's Jesus, we can do it all.

Until we couldn't, until I had this thought, I was like I should probably talk to somebody about this.

Ah, no, no, no, I'm good, I don't need to talk to anybody.

You know, I just need to pray a little bit more and do a little bit more.

But then I'm like, no, I need to talk to somebody.

And I remember walking across the college campus that seemed like forever to get to the administration building.

See, I had this college professor that cared about me like genuinely and he would just talk to me a little bit after class, like we weren't like besties or anything, but he would just check on them hey, what's up how you doing?

And I thought maybe he'll talk to me.

So I walked across the campus and I walked up to the second floor of the administration building where his office was, and walked up the stairwell and it goes straight then to the right and there was a desk right there and it was where the admin for the college professor sat and she called people in and out and she said hey, how can I help you?

And I said, hey, is this person available for me to talk to?

And she picked up the phone Now, this is back in the dark ages, when the phones had like cords, you know and she said hold on just a second.

And she picked up the phone and she dialed the extension and I was hoping that he wouldn't pick up.

And she said, hey, nathan Stonestreet would like to speak to you.

And then I don't know what she said Okay, she hung up the phone.

I know what he said and she said he would love to talk to you.

Come on back, I'm like oh come on.

He's a college professor, like shouldn't it be like grading papers or something?

Or I don't know what they do, studying Wikipedia for his next lecture he's given.

So I went upstairs and I walked down the hallway and his office was towards the end of the hallway, towards the right there's a door on the hallway and his office was towards the end of the hallway, towards the right there's a door on the right.

And I walked in the door and he's a college professor.

So he had like his name played on the desk.

You know it had like his name and I was like, wow, you know.

He's like so how's your freshman year going?

I said it's going.

He said what's on your heart, man, and I shared what's going on in my heart for a while and he listened to me and then this is what he did, and it was so beautiful.

He gave me this is what I needed in that moment.

He gave me some biblical principles to help me with that and he was like hey, this is what I encourage you to do, man.

Read this passage of scripture.

It was like the book of 1 John.

I want you to read this and then come and talk, and we'll talk more about it and no exaggeration.

That conversation and a couple conversations I had with him after that, it literally changed the trajectory of my college life, literally changed the trajectory of my college life.

And it happened because a man that was way above me, that was a college professor, that was busy, that had life, that had like five kids, had compassion on me.

And when we have compassion on people, like Jesus has compassion on people, it makes a difference in people's lives.

And I wonder, friend, who can you have compassion on?

Who is the woman at the well, who is the person that, if we would just step out of our busyness and ask them how they're doing, if we would just step out of all these things and say, hey, I'm here, I'm present for you, I wonder what do they have on their heart that we could talk to them about?

I'm so thankful that we have a church that is super filled with compassion.

This past Thursday night in this room, we had our growth group leaders and coordinators here for our growth group leader and coordinator kickoff night and we have a great selection of growth groups coming up in just a few weeks and our growth group leaders and coordinators.

They were here on Thursday night and they were praying for you.

These are people that work.

These are people that are busy.

This is what they were here.

They were here on Thursday night praying for you because they care about you.

And Jesus had compassion.

And when we have compassion, it makes a difference.

And when we have compassion, it makes a difference.

And when we have compassion, it allows us, number two, to talk about real life stuff.

To talk about real life stuff.

I don't have a ton of time to talk about this, but what Jesus did is he talked about her real life.

And sometimes, when we have conversations with people, we just like stay on the surface, like, hey, it's in the 80s today.

Isn't the weather so nice?

Yeah, everybody knows the weather is so nice.

Right, I'm not wrong with doing that.

But ask questions about people's lives Like what's your story?

Like, are you from here originally?

Like, how long have you worked here?

What's your family like?

Like, are you married?

Do you have kids?

Oh, you have kids.

How many kids do you have?

Do you have grandkids?

Awesome, tell them what are their names.

Getting to know people.

Maybe somebody shares about a difficulty they're going through and this is what you can say.

You can say man, that's really hard.

How are you finding strength in that trial?

Maybe somebody's going through a and you say, hey, I don't know where you're at spiritually, but can I just pray for you?

And sometimes what can happen is, when we talk about things like that and ask questions, it allows conversations to open up, to talk about real life stuff and talk about spiritual things.

And what Jesus did is he had compassion, he talked to her about real life stuff and then, third and finally, he offered this woman the solution, which was himself.

I didn't tell you all about the rest of the verses of the story of this woman, but her life was totally changed, because you guys remember this woman in John chapter four.

What she did before is she would go to the well at noon so people wouldn't see her because she was filled with shame, didn't want to be around people.

After this conversation with Jesus, look what happens in verse 28.

It says the woman left her water jar.

She went into town and told the people hold on.

This was a woman that avoided people.

Now she's going into town talking to people.

I want to talk to you.

I want to talk to you.

What is she telling them?

Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could this be the Messiah?

And in verse 30, they left the town and they made their way to him.

That's Jesus.

And skipping down to verse 39, many Samaritans from that town believed in him.

Why?

Because of what the woman said.

There's like a spiritual awakening and revival.

That happens in the town, in the city, because Jesus had compassion on a woman and she was used to be a mighty evangelist in that city.

Because Jesus had compassion on her.

Now, here's what I want us to do.

We're going to end the service in a different way than we've really ever ended our service before.

I want you guys to take out these little white sheets that Pastor Cody talked about earlier.

The ushers probably passed out to you.

If you don't have one, maybe the ushers can get you one.

You could just slip up your hand and Dave can grab you one.

Here's what I want you to do.

If you haven't done it already.

I want you to invite somebody's name down.

We have like three hands over here.

Awesome.

We have one hand in the front of Wendy down here, I think Giovanni in the second row here.

Here's what I want you guys to do.

I want you, if you haven't already.

I want you to write down the name of somebody that you know that either needs the Lord, or maybe they need to recommit themselves to the Lord, or maybe they're kind of drifting in their faith a little bit like we all do at some point.

And here's what we invite you to do to write their name down.

And in a moment I'm going to invite you to come down to the front and lay this card on the stage, just like the rest of these cards are here.

Here's why I'm going to invite you to come down and put the name of the card down here.

Put the card down.

It's because I think something happens in us spiritually when we respond physically.

And if you'll have the courage to come forward, like, as you can see, many people at the other services did if you'll have the courage to come forward and drop the name down those are mine right there I'll save it for the 1115 service, because we've got a light flashing all around here I think it will give you the confidence and the courage to say I can talk to them this week, I can invite them this week, and when you come and put the car down, this is what I want you to do.

I don't want you just to put the car down and go back to your seat.

I want you to just take a moment and just pray for them it could be a 20-second prayer and just say, okay, here's the person I'm going to pray for them here.

And just say, okay, here's the person I'm going to pray for them.

Here's what you need to know is Jesus loves that person and has more compassion on that person than even you do.

He loves them and, as Pastor Cody said, he is working in their lives.

And what we want to do this week is we want to partner with what he's doing and we want to invite people.

And here's how it begins with.

It begins with today.

I was saying, hey, this is what I'm going to do.