Everyone a Witness: How Jesus reached the lost — with James Thackeray

Welcome to the Grace Church Weekly Podcast. We're an international church right

in the heart of Stockholm, Sweden.

Each week, we share a message that's rooted in the faithful teaching of God's

Word and open to the vibrant work of the Holy Spirit among His people.

Here's this week's message.

That bring our mingling to an end. My name's James. I'll lead us here.

Yeah, I'll be preaching today. There was a wedding.

It was a long time ago. And the bride and groom really wanted somebody to read

from 1 John, the first set of John, chapter 4, verse 18.

John 4:18

And that goes like this. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.

Because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect

in love. A lovely Bible verse for a wedding.

Unfortunately, the person I asked to read the Bible verse was not that familiar with the Bible.

And instead of reading 1 John 4, verse 18, they read John 4,

1 John 4:18 John 4:18

verse 18, which reads like this.

The fact is you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband.

Somewhat less appropriate for a wedding. Well, today we're going to read that verse.

We have the five husbands, but it is deliberate. It's in the right context.

We're going to be reading about this encounter between Jesus and the lady in the well.

So, Yemi, I think you're going to very kindly come up and read the word for us.

So, if you've got your Bibles or an app, turn to John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Not one John, John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Praise God. I can assure a precaution was taken to make sure I read the right

chapter of the Bible and not the wrong one. So thanks for that.

So John chapter 4, verse 1 to 26, I'm reading the New International Version.

John 4:1–26

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing

more disciples than John.

Although in fact, it was not Jesus who was baptized, but his disciples.

So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar,

near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey,

sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink?

His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to him, You're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman.

How can you ask me for a drink?

For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God, who it is that asks you for

a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

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

Where can you get this living water?

Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it

himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?

Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,

but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water when it comes to eternal life.

The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so I won't get thirsty and have

to come here to draw a water.

He told her, Go call your husband and come back.

I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, You're right when you say you have no husband.

The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.

What you have said is quite true.

Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet.

Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place

where we must worship is in Jerusalem.

Woman, Jesus replied, believe me, a time 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, for salvation is from the Jews.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship

the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.

God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth.

The woman said, I know that Messiah, called Christ, is coming.

When he comes, he will explain everything to us.

Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you, I am he.

Thank you, Yemi.

So before we dive into that passage in detail, I just wanted to talk a little

bit about why we're doing this series.

Steve mentioned, if you walk down the streets of Stockholm, most of the people

you bump into don't know Christ as Savior.

I won't go full stats today, But Sweden is one of the least sort of religious countries in the world.

It's in a rather elite group with Estonia and North Korea, I believe.

And we often, as Christians, we can think it's all doom and gloom.

I've come across a few things lately, some interesting stats.

This is from the UK, so my home country. I won't go through each one,

but there's been a recent survey amongst all kinds of age groups.

And basically, the one on the left, so the sort of teal, light blue,

that's percentages from six years ago.

And the one on the right is percentages last year of people who consider themselves

a Christian and go to church.

And you can see across the board, there's been an increase, particularly driven by younger people.

If you talk to Calla and Hannah, who are very active in the Swedish service.

Sweden at the start of the year did some survey across all kinds of young people.

And one of the expected trends for 2025 was Jesus as an influencer.

It's quite an amazing thing for Sweden, which has kind of viewed itself as outgrowing religion.

And indeed, I think in the 18 to 25-year-old bracket in Sweden,

the number doubled of people who regularly go to church.

So there's encouragement.

But for all that, as Steve says, there are many, many people who do not know Jesus.

Our church year at Grace, me and my wife are coming up to seven years in Sweden

in a couple of days' time.

I was a young man in my 40s when I arrived, and they all look at me.

But during that time, grace has really grown. But it's mainly been through people

moving in. And that's fantastic.

I look around, and a lot of you have joined this church since I joined.

Seven years, there's a few old-timers.

Sorry, I'm not going to call you an old-timer who were here before.

But mostly this church has grown through people moving into Stockholm,

finding us. And that's fantastic. stick.

But what we also want to see is the church growing through people coming to

know Christ. We want both.

Sorry for being greedy. We want you Christians and we want people moving in.

It says in the Bible, harvest is plenty, but the workers are few.

Well, the workers at Grace are quite a lot more than they were seven years ago.

So the purpose of this series is really to equip and encourage you to share the gospel with others.

So we're talking over over four

sundays about this and today i

want to see what we can learn from this particular passage

i'm often fascinated by what's in particularly in the gospel of john because

john hung out with jesus john was of all the gospel writers john was the closest

in terms of actually being there, following Jesus,

seeing these things happening, talking to him straight after these things happened.

And John says later on in his gospel, something like, if I wrote everything,

there wouldn't be enough books in the world.

So there's a whole load of stuff that happened that John didn't record.

And here we have a whole chance of 5% of the gospel of John dedicated to this encounter.

So I think there's a lot to be learned from this.

Lots of challenges. I want to just caveat things a little bit.

So when it comes to sharing the gospel, I think there's a lot to be learned from this.

Jesus has an advantage. I think we'd all agree. If you are Jesus,

you've got like another level of things you can say to people.

So I totally get we can't just say, oh, well, Jesus did that, so we do that.

And it's also this story, it's not an evangelism manual.

This is not written as a textbook. Here are the three ways to reach out.

Nevertheless, I think there are things we can be challenged,

things we can learn from how Jesus handled this whole encounter.

So I want to see three main things today, and then likely fourth bonus thing.

So first thing we see, Jesus is pervertisful.

Jesus kind of deliberately goes there.

Just a little bit of background. It hints at things in the text as for Jews

do not associate with Samaritans.

This was something that had gone back centuries. It all dates,

again, I won't go into the really minute detail, but basically during the time

of the exile, some Jews were left behind, some were taken off and then came back.

And during that time, these two groups very much split.

You had the Samaritans with Jews who stayed in Samaria, intermarried, set up their own temple.

And then you had the Jews who saw themselves as like, we're the pure, we went, we came back.

And so for literally centuries, these two groups had pretty much despised each other.

Ethnically, racially, religiously, they were enemies.

And on top of that, back in those days, a strange man would not talk to a woman that he didn't know.

A lot like Sweden, I suppose.

But it wasn't the done thing to cross the Jewish Samaria border or to cross the male female.

And yet Jesus was very purposeful with this conversation.

He's not just making a small talk, is he? We have this whole thing from him

saying, will you give me a drink?

Kind of three questions later, he's sharing the gospel. He's telling her that he is living water.

This wasn't by abstinence, was it? Or if that's our first challenge today,

Are we purposeful about telling people about Christ?

Are we purposeful with our conversation?

Do we cross boundaries?

I wonder sometimes we can almost think, yeah, that person, we'd really like them to be Christian.

I'm not so sure. They're kind of a bit annoying.

Don't really get on with them.

And we sort of withhold.

You know, the people who we choose to share the gospel with can be so small, such a minority.

Yet we need to be purposeful. We need to share the gospel with everyone.

Do you have a plan? Are you purposeful with sharing the gospel?

Obviously, Mondays are a great opportunity, aren't they? What did you do on the weekend?

I went to the beach. I had a nice time. I did a park run.

And so we kind of skip over Sundays.

It's such a great opportunity, isn't it? I went to church. This guy was telling

us I need to tell people about Christ.

Do we plan to talk to others? Are we purposeful with what we share?

Second thing we see in this passage, Jesus is relational.

Jesus meets this woman where she's at.

Again, Jesus is at a real advantage. He doesn't have to ask people what's going

on. He knows everything that's going on.

Hence the whole five husbands thing.

But he talks about her situation. Talks about her challenges.

Talks about the problems between the Jews and the Samaritans.

Instantly, he relates to this woman.

Even though it happens very quickly, it doesn't go straight from nothing to the gospel.

It's forming relations.

Again, what about us? How do we approach sharing the gospel?

Because sometimes a sermon like this can maybe charge us up.

If you're right, Monday, that person who sits next to me that I've never spoken

to in my life, other than say good morning, I'm going to tell them the gospel.

And in some ways that's great in other ways it's a very big step from no relation

to full christian conversation so if i said good christian conversations come

from good conversations,

are you relational with those around you do you actively form good relationships

with people do you care about them? Do you ask after them?

Do you follow up with people?

Somebody at work shares that they're really struggling with something for a

reason, although they've had a difficult time.

Do you follow up in days and weeks, see how they end on?

Or is it just another part of the small talk?

I'd really encourage you, if you're serious about how to share in Christ with

people. Build strong relations. Build good relations.

I say it's very hard to go from small talk and talking about sports to suddenly

talking about matters of eternal significance.

If you've not even asked how their family are, you should have good relations with people.

But this sounds maybe a little bit beneficent.

The third thing is really important too. Jesus is authentic.

Jesus is completely genuine.

He doesn't pull any punches, does he? He doesn't shy away from anything that's difficult.

This is a complex issue that's been going on for 400 years. But Jesus cursed

right to the heart of things.

He didn't get bogged down. They had this whole thing about the Jews and the

Samaritans each had a temple.

And it was literally one was this side of the mountain, the other was that side

of the mountain, and this was the big issue.

Jesus just cuts through all of that. There is a time coming when you'll worship

the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

Jesus gets right into the center. Jesus is genuine. He doesn't hold back.

He doesn't try and compromise.

Then what about us? What about us?

Are we authentic with sharing the gospel? Are we authentic with sharing Christ?

Or do we maybe take the easy way out? We just comment in a nice way on the issues

of the day and hope that somehow that'll make people kind of head in the right direction.

Are we authentic with how we share Christ?

Perhaps you look at this and you think, this is a bit daunting.

Because this is Jesus, you know.

I'm not Jesus. You're not Jesus. This was Jesus.

It's almost cheating, isn't it? He's got a cheat code. He is Jesus.

He can say, I who speak to you am he.

You can copy a lot of what Jesus said, but you can't say that.

You can't go to people and say, I am living water.

Well, you can, but you're not. to make any sense.

But there's actually a second person who works as an evangelist here.

I'm just going to read a little bit further on in the passage.

We see in verse 28 and 29, it says, Then leaving her water jar,

the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come,

see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way towards him.

Then later on it says, many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him

because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I did.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.

And because of his words, many more became believers.

If you're thinking it's really hard to do what Jesus did, then perhaps it seems

easier to do what the woman did.

Because actually through her testimony, many people came to know Jesus.

So Jesus is directly one. Through hers, it was many.

She had a simple, straightforward testimony. I've seen Christ.

I've met him. And she told others.

We have these verses right in the middle where Jesus talks about living water.

And if you're a Christian here today, you know these to be true.

Jesus says it's a gift of God. It's living water.

If you drink it, you never thirst again.

It's a spring that becomes a well, and this water gives eternal life.

You know Jesus is your Savior. You have met in Him. You've put your trust in

Him. You've put your faith in Him.

And yeah, maybe it's hard to find your way into a conversation. Maybe you feel daunted.

But you can tell people that you know Jesus. You can tell people that Jesus is your Savior.

That might lead to a lot of questions, good questions, that you'll have good answers for.

But sometimes we can worry, can't we, that we're not equipped because we don't

have the full sort of Genesis to Revelation speech ready.

And sometimes in scriptures, that's what people gave.

When Stephen is before the priests, they basically say, so tell us.

And he does, he literally starts with Adam and Eve and goes all the way up to

there and says, right, and because for this, you're a brood of vipers.

He links it all together.

But there are other occasions like this.

Jesus barely says anything. Paul is invited to speak before all these wise Greek

minds about the unknown God.

And he barely gives two or three lines. Just says, there is a God,

I'll tell you about him. He created everything. He sent his son to die for you.

He gives them a few simple words.

And the reason he can do this, the reason he can do this, mashups are heading

for the overall tour today.

God has a heart for the lost.

This isn't just something we want to do to make our church bigger so there's

a few less empty seats, so we've got some new friends.

We're encouraging you to do this because God has a heart for the lost.

God sent his son Jesus to earth to save,

to die on the cross that people might be saved Jesus is the living water,

God has a half of the lost we see when Jesus spoke in parables there's the parable

of the lost son the lost coin the Lord is calling people to him,

but it's us that he uses to spread that message.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. There's nothing we can do to drag someone from

not being a Christian to being a Christian, but we are the messengers.

We are those who have been trusted with this amazing privilege.

It's an amazing thing, isn't it, to have good news to share.

I was almost bursting two Sundays ago to share the good news of Hamri coming

into this world a little bit earlier than I expected, Ron and Marinka's son.

It's good news. It's bursting to share it.

Am I bursting to share the gospel? Are you bursting to share the good news that

Jesus came, that we might be saved.

Just as a little aside, I think there's often two sides to trying to reach people.

There's two sides to trying to reach the lost.

On the one hand, we want to live, as the Bible tells us, we want to live good Christians' lives.

Christian lives. We want to love others.

We want to show hospitality to others.

We want to live in a way pleasing to the Lord. And that in itself is a strong testimony.

In a world that is full of brokenness, full of selfishness, full of rage,

full of bitterness, full of division, showing love to people is a fantastic thing.

But I think there's also the other part of it.

I think without living a Christian life it makes our witness very hollow very

empty but I think it's still very important we do the second part as well,

I think it's important we share the gospel to people it's important we tell

others that Jesus died for them,

it's important that we tell others that we all have eternal life but we either

spend it with him in heaven or without him in hell.

If we truly believe people without Christ are lost is it really enough just

to show Christian love or should we tell them?

Tell them the good news.

Tell them the bad news. Tell them what they need saving for.

Tell them what they need saving from.

I see the early church they did both these things they were tremendously close,

they shared everything they had and they preached the gospel wherever they went

i hold my hands up i'm very much in the first category i love to have friends

around i love to have bring people together connect people i find that easy

i find that fun i don't find it is easy to share the gospel with somebody.

But it's every bit as important, isn't it?

Really urge you today, prayerfully considerate that.

How can you share the gospel? How can you be purposeful? How can you be relational?

How can you be authentic?

If you don't know Christ as your Savior and you're here today,

sorry if it feels like we're a bit sort of out of things, but I'm not encouraging

you to spread the gospel.

I'm encouraging you to give your life to Christ because you are lost.

That doesn't mean you're lost in this life. It doesn't mean you have no purpose.

But it means eternally you have no hope without Christ you have no future,

so I'd urge you to turn to him talk to one of us you've seen up front if you

want to know more about that or if you've got questions,

but if you do know Christ as your saviour I'd urge you tell us be purposeful,

think about who you can tell this week how you can tell it,

be relational be authentic So this is the first of four.

There'll be more practical examples, more encouragement, more testimonies.

But let's make a start. Let's make it our mission.

This week, tell some of the gospel. Tell someone the good news.

Tell someone about Jesus.

We hope that this sermon has encouraged you. If you'd like to learn more about

us, visit us online at gracechurch.se.

Thanks for listening.