John: Grace Realized as to Gospel Communicate

Maybe seated.

So we continue our sermons in John chapter 4, third part in this story about the Samaritan woman at the well.

John 4 · chapter mention

Final part in this story about the Samaritan woman at the well.

And so let's recap if you haven't been here, and this also will kind of refresh the memory of where we've been.

So it's the middle of the day, and Jesus has chosen to go through this region that usually a Jewish man would not go into, Samaria.

The Jews hated the Samaritans, right?

I mean, the Jews thought Samaritans to be racially inferior heretics.

This was for Jesus, a rabbi, a Jew, a man, to show up at a well, and then he's at the well and he's waiting, and this woman shows up, middle of the day, a time that a woman wouldn't or shouldn't be drawing water.

This is a time of day that is hot.

Usually the women would draw water in the morning, so right away we know a few things about her that she's avoiding people.

And she shows up, and then Jesus starts a conversation with her and says, You know, will you draw water for me?

And she says, You know, who are who are you to ask?

Why would you ask me?

Why would you even talk to me?

You're a Jew, I'm a Samaritan.

Why would you even talk to me?

And he says, Well, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who asked you, you would ask him, and he would give you living water.

And she doesn't pick up on the metaphor of what's going on here, the metaphor of water, and the metaphor for satisfaction of our inadequacy and fulfillment in him and in God's grace.

She's not picking up on all that storyline, and so she says, Well, you don't have anything to draw with.

I don't understand how you're even going to get any water.

You don't you don't have a bucket, you don't have anything.

And he says, Well, this water I'm talking about, it's it it you will never thirst again if you drink of it.

And she says, Well, give me that water.

I think she starts to pick up on the metaphor at this point.

She says, Give me that water.

That water I am I'm interested in.

I'm in for that water.

And this is the turning point in the story that we've been talking about.

You know, in the conversations with Jesus, he you think a conversation's headed somewhere, and then all of a sudden he there's a little twist or there's a little turn, and he says, Okay, so she says, Give me that water, and then he says, Well, go call your husband.

See, there's something else to talk about here.

She says, Go call your husband, and she says, Well, I don't have a husband.

He says, You're right, you don't have a husband, you have five, and then you're you're living with a with a six man.

And see, she can't she can't move into receiving love until she understands her brokenness and the well she's been going to.

And so, you know, part one of the woman at the well was us sort of getting honest with our wells that we drop buckets into to find adequacy and satisfaction, and whether that's in control or beauty or power or approval, whatever well we drop into, is for us to get honest about it.

And that honesty and that brokenness, and yeah, that's that's where I go.

That's where I go to.

And now we're now we're able to receive.

And so our first word to God, we see this with the lady, we see, we see it in our own lives, and we talked about this last week, is us saying to him, You aren't worthy.

You aren't worthy of my life.

I'm gonna go and I'm gonna find and pull satisfaction from somewhere else.

You aren't worthy, and then his word back to us in Jesus is, you are worthy, and I will come toward you.

And then our response back to that word is uh the flip of our initial word, and now our response is you are worthy.

So we're saying to God and our nature, you aren't worthy of my life.

And he's saying in Jesus to us, you are worthy, and then that word of relief creates response in us to say back to him, which creates worship, which we talked about last week, you are worthy.

And then this week the conversation continues, and we see the lady do something that we would have never thought she would have done at the beginning of this story.

And we see the second response that goes on.

And so, John chapter 4, uh picking up in uh verse 27.

John 4 · chapter mention

So all this has happened, everything I just reviewed, and then we get verse 27.

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman.

But no one asked what he won, or why are you talking with her?

See, even for a man to be talking to a woman publicly, I mean, this was the whole scene was absurd.

A Jew talking to Samaritan, a man talking to a woman, a rabbi talking to a woman, everything about it.

But the disciples, they didn't say anything.

They showed up, they had gone to get food, they're showing back up.

He's been talking to the Samaritan woman.

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town, the people she had been avoiding 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 Christ?

And they came out of town and they made their way toward him.

So she was avoiding these people, and then she turns and she runs back into the town.

She she abandons her water jar.

Here's the storyline for me, usually is um great, thank you, God, for your grace, for the word you've spoken to me, for the relief you've given me.

I will now fill up my water jar.

I'll take it home.

I'm gonna finish up a few things I need to handle with my schedule, and then maybe I'll make it into town later, and maybe I'll declare something about you.

Maybe I won't.

I mean, that's just kind of my personal storyline.

Her storyline is uh I've been so broken and so loved, I'm leaving my water jar.

I'm leaving the schedule, I'm leaving the to-do list, and I want to go, and I'm gonna, the people, the very people I was avoiding, I'm gonna speak to them, and I'm gonna tell them, perhaps, perhaps this is the Christ, the one we've been waiting for.

The relief.

And so while they're waiting, those disciples, they've come back.

These people are on their way, disciples are come back, and we pick this up in verse 31.

Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something.

But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about.

And of course, they don't pick up on this.

And then his disciples said to each other, Could someone have brought him food?

And Jesus said, No, my food is to do the will of God, the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

Do you not say four months more and then the harvest?

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields.

And you kind of wonder at this point, is he literally at this point, can they see the people coming?

And he's saying, My food, people, the harvest, people, they're coming.

Open your eyes and look at the fields.

They are ripe for harvest.

Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.

And I love that.

That the sowers and the reapers, everybody's not doing all the work for the kingdom of God, that some of us are sowing and seeds, and some of us see like the fruit and the result of it.

I love that both can be glad together.

Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps, is true.

I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.

Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.

So back to this lady.

She's taken off into town.

She didn't take a socioeconomic poll when she got to town of who she was gonna talk to.

She was no longer avoiding people, she didn't check their politics, she didn't even get into a political conversation.

She just wanted to talk about the Christ and what he's done to her, with her, for her.

And could could this be?

Could it be?

She understood grace, which changed everything.

Tim Keller, my pastor, I listen to online, he calls this gospel realizing.

Go call your husband.

Get honest, be broken, and you're loved in that same place.

See, the gospel is though, I'm not perfect, I've fallen short, I have wells, I have five husbands, I'm living with a sixth man.

There is a well for me of forgiveness and acceptance.

And it's not based on my merit or my moralistic striving, but it's actually a big word, imputation.

Jesus has taken our sin, he has imputed to us, he's given to us his righteousness.

That on the cross, when God came and died on the cross, there was an exchange.

This is what makes us right with God.

Not what we do or even what we'll do in the future or how we're gonna prove it, none of that, but solely what was done on the cross, that our sin was put on him and he imputed to us.

He gave us his righteousness.

So when God sees us, he doesn't see the screw-ups or the five husbands or the other wells we go to, that he sees the righteousness of himself.

This is what she received at that well.

She received this sort of love.

And so she gospel realized as to gospel communicate.

This story has turned into a first a story about brokenness and confession, and then a story about worship, and now the final part of the story is a story about evangelism.

I mean, I've I've been in religion a while, since I was a little kid.

I mean, the word evangelism, it kind of makes me cringe a little.

Because what I think about is I think about sort of, well, I distinctly think about being an 18-year-old, and I was visiting a church in Rome, Georgia.

I was up there for my freshman year of college, and some friends were going to this church, and say, Oh, you gotta come, it's great, it's great.

You know, we we I go and worship's lively, and everything's gonna be a preacher, he's pretty fiery, and you know, sermon's okay.

And we get to the end, we sing some worship songs, and then the invitation occurs.

And this is what I think when I think of evangelism, the reason I cringe, I think of this moment.

And it goes like this close your eyes.

Well, you don't have to close your eyes.

This is how it goes.

Close your eyes.

All I'm gonna ask of you is for you to raise your hand if you want to give your life to Jesus.

All I'm gonna ask of you.

So a few people raise their hand.

If you raise your hand, I'm gonna ask you to walk down front.

Well, hold on a second.

You just said all I'm gonna ask of you is for you to raise your hand.

But if you raise your hand, you come down front.

That's all I'm gonna ask of you come down front.

All right, we get you down front.

We have somebody for you to meet with.

15 to 20 minutes.

Yeah, I mean it it's I'll ask you this, and I'm gonna ask you this, I'm gonna trick you into this, and and and that happened, that happened.

I've been a part of that a lot, and that happened, and so okay, well, maybe people gave their lives to Jesus, that's great.

I'm for that.

I'm not for kind of the manipulation there, but I'm for that process.

And then I'm thinking, one more song, close this thing down, go to lunch.

No, it's not over.

It has just started because apparently everybody in the room needed to do what those people did.

And so what happened then at this point was fear, more guilt.

Let me just pile it on you.

You know, as much emotional manipulation as I can create as possible, as much fear as possible.

And it basically just, you know, invitation after invitation, uh, another chorus, another verse, and basically I won't let you leave until you walk down, until somebody else walks in.

And it just kept going on and going.

You know, at the beginning of the service, I was worshiping with these people.

By the end, I hated everybody in the room.

I think I left.

I think me and my roommate just left.

We're like, you know, the people are walking out front, and we're Christian, but we're walking out the back.

We're headed the opposite direction here, and we went to lunch and had a great time.

But that's what I think of.

I think of this high pressure, fear-driven, kind of manipulative, emotional manipulation, evangelism.

That's that's my baggage, right?

My baggage.

Some of you don't have the some of you grew up Presbyterian, you don't even know what I'm talking about.

You're like, I don't even know, understand what you're talking about.

Some of you grew up like me and you've experienced that.

And actually, I was quite good at this.

I was really good at this.

In high school, we had this class at our church, and I'll skip the name of the class in case your dad wrote the curriculum or something.

And and so it was a script that we memorized, and what we did was uh we showed up, me and a couple other friends, and then like an adult from our church, and it's a visitation.

I'm not down on visitation, it's a great idea, go visit people and love people.

But what we did was is we showed up and we pushed our way into the house, and we just we just wouldn't leave until we got we got that decision, until we got that commitment.

And we were good.

I was good.

I mean, we had this, we had this in the in the trailer at the church where we met for our class, we would meet and go over our script, and then we would go out, and then we'd come back, and we had a scoreboard up on the board, and and we had our names, and then if you if you produced a decision, you got that per under your name.

I was I was winning.

I mean, I was you know destined to be a pastor, right?

I mean, I was winning in that class because I could do it.

I could read people, I could, you know, get it, and you know, and then you know, make sure you pick people in your grade that you felt like you had leverage over and just show up at their house and then just don't leave until you get that decision.

And and that's that's what we were doing.

And there's some love mixed in there, but there was a lot of just kind of like force.

That's my baggage, okay?

Not your maybe not your baggage for evangelism.

That's my baggage, my issues, right?

And you can kind of feel my issues with me telling you all this.

So I I became reactionary to some extent.

And so we moved to Grant Park years ago, and we were living in Grant, we lived in Grant Park for five years, and surrounded by people with lots of different lifestyles and beliefs.

I loved it.

We loved it.

And somewhat, somewhat reactionary to you know what, I'll build the relation.

I'm gonna build the relationship, I'm gonna build the friendship.

And and you know what?

They they will ask me when they're ready.

You know what?

Most of the time they don't ask.

I'll just can I just be honest.

I mean, I mean, most of the time they go home, they watch the voice, and then they go shopping, and they forget about you know any any type of you know, friendship evangelists.

You know, so all right, here's here's what I'm saying.

Uh more baggage that I was kind of venting there.

All right, here's what I'm saying is that I'm saying that there's a role for friendship, there's a role for love, and there's a role for declaration.

Right?

We can become reactionary to the point of saying, you know, I'm not really gonna declare, I don't want to really get too bold because I don't want to be that.

I don't want to be like the Bible beater that I have in my mind.

And so I'm just gonna love you, I'm just gonna do friendship, and you know what?

They will ask me.

You know what?

They might not ask you, they may never ask you.

I mean, maybe it actually does take that point of you declaring something to them.

The other reactionary stance is to say, well, you know, this proclamation of the good news.

Well, we're gonna do it by good deeds.

Right?

And what's great about the Bible is the Bible is balanced in regard to this.

We don't have to pick.

We don't have to set these things against each other.

We don't have to set friendship against proclamation, and we don't have to set deeds against declaration.

1 Peter chapter 2, 9 through 12.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

Been so helpful for me with all my baggage when it comes to this.

But you are a chosen people.

Right?

So our distinctiveness starts out.

Our distinctiveness, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that, because of this, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

So it's just, it's just embedded, it's just saturated with remember who you are.

Remember what happened, remember the grace of God, remember your distinctiveness, remember you are his people.

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

Live distinctive lives, literally saying, live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Here's what this has.

This has distinctiveness that we can rest in, as declaration, go and declare, and it has deeds.

Right?

That we don't have to set all these against each other.

That evangelism with deeds or humanitarian effort or loving people, that this can go together.

We don't have to leave declaration just to be like all about friendship and deeds, and we don't have to leave friendship and deeds to be all proclamation and declaration.

But what we see in this passage, we see in this story, we see throughout the Bible, is what we see is that it always begins with the gospel.

I mean, this story, John 4, is one of declaration, right?

This is what she does.

She doesn't go and perform good deeds in this story.

She just goes and declares.

Nothing wrong with just going and declaring.

The word evangelism is actually the same word, the same root word as gospel, which means good news.

And news is what?

News is what?

Something done outside of yourself.

Oh, this is so relieving.

So the gospel, and you sharing the gospel, is not you trying to convince somebody to do something, it's you telling them something that was done outside of themselves for them.

See, the charge of evangelism, of declaring the good news without the gospel, only creates moralism, pride, and guilt.

This is my this is this has been my story.

The charge of evangelism without the gospel leads to moralism, pride, and guilt.

Because what happens is either you're really good and you get the tally marks in the trailer, the church trailer, and you leave feeling so good about how good you are at convincing people, and you have that pride.

Or there's guilt because there was another time in my past where you know I committed to witnessing 20 times, 20 people in 20 days.

And I walked down front and I made that commitment to do that.

You know how long that lasted?

Two days.

And I felt guilty for 18 days.

Right?

And I I'm willing to say pretty much 95% of the people who walked forward probably were similar to my story.

So a few years ago, I went with my friend James, who's an older pastor than me, and uh much freer from past baggage.

And he's quirky and he's fun, and he's he loves people, he's a very disarming individual.

You just he's interested in people.

He's free of.

I'll tell you a few stories, you can get a picture of it.

So we're on the subway, went to Boston.

We went to Boston for a class on atheism and how to how to share faith with atheists and love them and communicate with them.

So we're on the subway in Boston, and we're sitting down, and it's it's me, it's James, and then there's a um a shorter African-American lady.

We think she's African-American, she ends up being Haitian.

So she's to the right of James, and I'm sitting there, I'm self-consumed, probably thinking about how I need a new pair of jeans and where I'm gonna buy them, or something like that.

That's pretty normal for me.

And James is there, not thinking about himself at all, and he sparks up this little conversation with this lady, says, Are you going to work?

And right away you hear the accent, well, she's not African-American, okay, and you're going, okay, you know, she's South American, and you know, and you're trying to figure it out, and Caribbean.

I and he says, Well, where are you from?

I know it's the accent.

She says, From Haiti, and this was right after the earthquake.

And he said, Well, did you have you have family there?

And she says, Yeah, I still have family there.

And ends up, she was going to work, and she goes to school at night, and she's sending money back and all of this.

And so we we get up and he just speaks to her, just loving her.

He's not pressing anything of like the gospel of like, oh, by the way, let me tell you about Jesus.

He's just showing interest in her.

Like, tell me about your family, what's going on, how are they doing.

And we get up, all three of us are getting off at the same stop.

I'm watching this.

And I knew this weekend was gonna be me watching him love people because he's so good at it.

And so I'm just watching him, and she walks in front of him, he pulls his wallet out, he just he empties it.

Maybe a couple hundred dollars, he empties it.

Puts it in one hand, puts his wallet back, and she's walking off, he says, excuse me, excuse me.

He says, uh, can you send this to your family in Haiti?

And she's just overwhelmed.

He says, But you have to tell him it comes with the love of Jesus.

And she just takes the money.

That's it.

That's it.

Well, and then we took the turn in a few steps.

He looks over at me and he says, Hey, do you have any money?

I don't have any, I don't have any money.

You know, a little bit later that evening, we're we're we're at a restaurant, and the lady says, Well, you know, y'all from out of town, yeah, okay.

And he says, Yeah, we're uh we're here for a class on on Christianity and atheism.

And he's she's kind of like, Okay, that's not normal.

Um and he and then next time she comes by, he says, Can can I tell you a few things we're learning just to see what you think?

And every time she comes by, he shares something.

Okay, so that was I'm just watching.

And he's just doing it, it's just effortless.

Just because he's interested in people.

Home, we sit down, we sit next to people.

I get into my book, doing my own thing.

Sure enough, he looks beside, and before long, lady next to him is married with children but has children living with a man, and she grew up, Christian family, and she's kind of far from it at this point, and and just questions and asking her where she's at, what's what she believes.

And nothing forced, just interest in people.

Just care for people.

I've had people do this for me.

I I can remember being 15 years old and being in the uh 10th grade, beginning of the no, in ninth grade, beginning of the ninth grade, Christy's older brother, he was in charge of the FCA at our school.

I don't think Christy and I might not have even known each other at that point.

And so uh I go to I go to show up to an FCA event, and it was we were going to a prayer breakfast at another school, and the only people who show up is Kevin, Christy's brother, uh, his girlfriend, and me.

And I can remember I get in the back of his blazer.

Blazers were so cool back there, Chevy Blazers.

They were so cool.

And so I get in the back of the blazer, and I'm like, this blazer's awesome.

And so I'm in the bag, little ninth grader, and he was either junior or senior, and he's kind of in charge of the FCA.

And and the two of them, I just I just remember it so well, the two of them over that 30-minute drive to that school and back, and I'm just little skinny, scrawny, you know, neither creator.

And they they didn't script me, you know, they didn't beat me down with the Bible.

They just asked me, they just loved me.

And I think for me, it was one of the first times somebody evangelized me out of interest and love.

And like, hey, what do you what do you believe about that?

What do you think about this?

What's been your story?

And listened to me, not just waiting to get to, like, okay, now I'm waiting to get to where I really share what I, you know, that that I that question really didn't have anything to do with you.

It actually had to do with me waiting to share what I want to say, you know, but but actual interest.

You know, this is over and over again, the this care that people have had.

And how do we move, right?

I mean, this is what this lady in this story does.

She moves from avoidance of people to caring for people.

Gospel realize.

It means we know the story.

We know our story of being broken, being loved in our brokenness and receiving it.

It means we know the story.

This has to do while we listen to sermons, while we do devotions, while we study.

It's that we know the story.

We know the story of creation, fall, redemption, new creation.

We know the story of law and falling short of it and the relief of grace.

We know this story.

And so we can speak it.

We can ask questions.

What do you believe about this?

And you have a little bit of confidence about how you believe and be able to communicate it back, and you start to see the gospel elements in our world.

So when you read the biography of Steve Jobs, and you go, this guy was insanely addicted to production.

What's that about?

The human nature desire to be recognized.

You know, or Nelson Mandela dies this week, and I'm watching stuff on that this week, and just hearing, you know, that the world has celebrated him because he chose, when he could have come out of prison and he could have called for violence, he chose peace and forgiveness.

And that's what brought a better future for his people.

Oh, okay.

Transformation came by grace that we start to see these gospel elements and we know the story, and so we can speak it.

Why would why would why would this lady avoid people, then go show care?

Why would Christy's brother Kevin, why would he care about me?

Why would anybody be like this?

I think this story tells us that they love because they have been broken and they have been loved.

See, God's pursuit of us and our brokenness and our receiving it creates a response of worship back to Him and evangelism.

And we can just kind of let go of the baggage of that word if you have past religious experience with it, but declaring the good news.

And maybe you'd say, well, I don't love people.

All right, so well, I'm just gonna try harder, I'll commit to 20 people in 20 days, or whatever program we're gonna set up.

Listen, it won't work.

It won't work.

You just deciding to commit to it out of obligation, it won't work.

It won't last.

People will feel it, and you will feel guilty.

So if you don't love your neighbor, how does that love get created?

See, this is the big question that moralistic Christianity cannot answer.

How is love created?

Because this is what this lady had for these people because she was avoiding them, and then all of a sudden she runs into them to declare to them.

Telling me a million times over or telling me louder to tell my friend or my neighbor about Jesus and God's love for them, telling me over and over again is not actually going to help me love them and want to do it.

I have to gospel realize as to be gospel motivated as to gospel communicate.

I'll say it again.

I have to gospel realize at the well, broken from my wells, ashamed, loved in that place, gospel realize, so I am gospel motivated, love for people, so I can gospel communicate to them.

I mean, it's 1 John 4.19.

It's the gospel truth.

We love because he first loved us.

That's what the story is.

That's what our story is.

We pick up it back in verse 39.

So the people are coming toward them.

She's gone and declared, the people are showing up.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

He told me everything I ever 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.

And they said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said.

Now we have heard for ourselves.

And we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.

So belief is not truly created by what we say, it is created by God Himself.

And so this brings great freedom when we speak to people about the gospel.

We don't have to leave going, I wasn't good enough, I didn't share it right enough.

God Himself creates belief.

But we do declare into the world.

I mean, many of us, a lot of us have been Christians for some time, and maybe some guilt when it comes to oh, I don't I don't speak enough of the gospel, I don't evangelize, or maybe some of us is this is kind of new, and even the word evangelism, or I used that imputation word earlier on, that's kind of weird.

Um you'll know these feelings shortly if you continue in the faith journey.

Um it's this feeling of I should, but really I don't.

Like I should evangelize more, but you know, I I really don't.

Or I commit and then I don't.

So can we just try something different?

Something biblical.

Start at the beginning, start back at the well.

Always.

Gospel realize at your well, where Jesus came to you, and your brokenness, and your tendencies, and your issues, and loves you there.

And that we care for people, we care for them in deed, and we care for them in declaration.

And this requires that gospel realizing.

This lady shows up and says, I met a man who told me everything I did.

I think he's the Messiah.

I'm pretty sure he's the Messiah.

He loved me in my brokenness, and there's this water, and it's living water, and it covers everything.

He takes away our sin, he gives us our righteousness, acceptance, forgiveness, value.

Gospel realize, as to be gospel motivated, as to gospel communicate.

This is the way for declaration into the world while we are free as the redeemed.

Let's pray together.

God, we do confess.

We're not great at this.

We're not always like this lady just responding so fervently.

God, we thank you that even there you are at that well of failure, saying to us, I'll give you living water.

Would you help us?

Would you help us to start at the beginning always and again, over and over and over again?

So we're not witnessing out of a legalistic, moralistic obligation, but out of a care and love for people birthed in our hearts by your gospel and by your grace toward us, our brokenness.

God, would you create interest, care, and love for people that we might help them, that we might speak into their lives?

Would you inspire this?

Would you empower this?

We entrust this to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.