Personal Evangelist (Part 1 of 2)

When we read in the gospel about Jesus serving others are healing people see clearly that he was humble and compassionate. But we ought not overlook the fact that what Jesus came to do was to share the gospel and in doing so he sets a standard for us today on this weekend edition of Truth for Life. Alastair Beck describes Jesus in his role as a personal evangelist John four verse 27.

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him, that is Jesus talking with a woman I know and asked what you want our wire you talking with her, then leaving her water jar. The woman went back to the time and said to the people come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ leaking out of the time and made their way towards him. Meanwhile his disciples arched him, Rabbi, eat something, but he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other. Could someone have brought them food my food said Jesus is to do 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 they are right for harvest. Even now, the reaper draws his wages even now he harvest the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying one source 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 reap the benefits of their labor. 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, he urged him to stay with them and he stayed two days and because of his words. Many more became believers, they said to the woman we know 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.

Amen. What I wonder does it appear unduly harsh to suggest that these disciples were more concerned about sandwiches than the whereabouts salvation sandwiches rather than salvation, and it wouldn't be wrong to suggest that the present day church's that we his disciples.

At this point in time are in danger of making a similar divide largely the same mistake losing track of the central issue for getting really what it is all about. That God has come in Jesus to do because you will notice from the text that it was while they were buying food that these events unfolded. They had gone into the town and John tells us of these disciples who would later on be dispatched by Jesus to go out into their community and beyond.

And while they were gone. Concerned about the importance of providing for Jesus.

Not that we would want to diminish this in any way. But while they were doing that Jesus is involved in what is clearly a moment of cross-cultural evangelism. Indeed, the surprise on the part of the disciples in verse 27, when the return was equal to the surprise of the Samaritan woman as you have it recorded for you there in verse nine.

The woman is asking.

Could this be the Christ in verse 29 and the disciples are asking. Could someone have brought him food in verse 33. It is just as wonderful irony that runs all the way through John's Gospel.

Here the disciples preoccupied with the affairs of physicality in the immediacy of temporal need and a woman who earlier in the day had been focused entirely upon the routine task of collecting water now finds herself involved in telling the whole community concerning this man that she had met so if you like the disciples are involved in the developing saga of the sandwich and they're completely unaware of the fact that while they are preoccupied with these things.

The villagers are on their way towards Jesus and so he provides them. You will notice in verse 34 with a word of explanation which we read. He says I know that you are concerned and rightly about these things but my food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work. That's his explanation and then his exhortation is in verse 35 I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields they are right for harvest. Now that word of exhortation from Jesus said in the historical context here in John four is a word that needs to be sounded in every generation and most importantly, when the people of God are in danger of turning the affairs of time into the experience of sailing around in a marina, rather than taking them the lifeboat of their life out onto the troubled seas of human existence is very very possible and you will see this even in the history of the church that is familiar to us very, very possible for the church for a local assembly of God's people to begin with a very clear understanding of their coalition and their mission to be engaged in reaching men and women of the good news of the gospel to be out as well on the highways and byways compelling people with the news of the kingdom to be seeking to turn their lights into bridges that are possibilities for people encountering Jesus and then somewhere along the line imperceptibly, slowly instead of taking their boats out onto the sea. They decided that they should just circle their boats in the safety of the harbor and you go amongst these people and their congregations are very engrossed in teaching small groups. Discipleship's and the establishing of the family and the caring for all of the internal facets of Christian living, all of which are clearly important in the framework of Christianity, but none of them on their own nor all of them together come close to the issue of seeing unbelieving people becoming the committed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and to every generation that is in danger of losing its focus to every Christian may be preoccupied with that which is helpful but not best. This exhortation rings out from the lips of Jesus I tell you. Lift up your eyes and look on the fields are white for harvest. I often say to younger ministers. Now as the lawn showed into their privileged responsibilities amongst God's people, I say to them I concern for you is not so much that you will fail, but that you will succeed at the wrong stuff that you will succeed at the wrong thing and the disciples here need this lesson and so do we. You see the passion for reaching people with the gospel is quenched. When we lose sight of the grandeur of the gospel, the passion for reaching people. The passion for mission. Whether it is a local mission whether it is the mission of reaching our children, our grandchildren, that passion will always be quenched if and when we lose sight of the grandeur of the story that is in the gospel when we sing of the name of Jesus. As we been singing.

We need constantly to remind ourselves what their name is in the word of the angel was clear was in it and you will give him the name Jesus. Why, for he shall save his people from their sins. How in the cross and when we take our eyes off Christ and off the nature of the atonement. Then we will find that our zeal for evangelism is diminished. I may give you a quote that will pin your ears back just a little from an amazing book written years ago by sweetener Scottish theologian and on the nature of the atonement and this is what he writes in that book to convert one sinner from his way is an event of greater importance than the deliverance of an entire kingdom from temporal evil said to you again. I like to take this into all of our Christian colleges and and and I want them to write me now a 2000 word SC on smitten's quote. I want to hear from them and I am a horrible sneaking suspicion that a significant number of them will challenge smitten's quote and I'll tell you why, because either they have never understood or they have lost sight of the grandeur of the gospel. Here's the quote again to convert one sinner from his way is an event of greater importance than the deliverance of our whole kingdom from temporal evil. Now you must understand that smitten was not suggesting that the issues of temporal evil, where relevant, or that they should not be engaged in by the Christian community surely they must for the Christian is about. Good news and good deeds good deeds foreordained for us to do as it says in Ephesians 2 but smitten is introducing proportionality to the thing and if he was speaking in 10 contemporary terms. He might say something like this to convert one sinner from his wherefrom her way is an event of greater importance than the deliverance of sub-Saharan Africa from the problem of AIDS. You see, that's where it really bites no to convert one sinner from their way. Why do you think it was the Jesus went to individuals. Why is it that Jesus apparently and purposefully goes out of his way for encounters with individuals while I think because smitten's quote is right and in John chapter 3 you have this encounter with a religious individual with a man of some standing of stature in the community and then you turn into John chapter 4 is we've done now, and you find that the encounter is with somebody from if you like the opposite end of the spectrum in three it's a man in four it's a woman in three is religious and has some stature in the community in for. She is apparently irreligious understanding in the community is questionable and what is the fulcrum.

If you like what is the pivot point in between three and four will let me suggest to you that is the 16th verse of John chapter 3 and maybe the 17th as well. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son. These verses are absolutely foundational to the whole development of John's Gospel and I suggest to you are the very foundational pivot point in between these two encounters.

If you want to put it in the more personalized terms than you could say that God did not send his son into the world to condemn the woman at the well, but to save the woman at the well and send them to the well simply that the woman would discover what a horrible rat. She was, but in order that she might discover what a wonderful Savior Jesus as now if we prize this kind of thing, then surely we ought to be ever increasingly committed to asking God the father to make us more like his son Jesus, who was preoccupied with the gospel.

Jesus from the very beginning of his ministry is preoccupied with the gospel.

I will get back to John for here a moment, but I'm waggling the club a little on the TI admit that and some are your say, why don't you hit the ball hit it in just a moment just a couple just a couple more wackos out your member at the very beginning of of the ministry of Jesus were told how he he has performed these miraculous signs people have brought the sick doing and the demon possessed the whole town Mark says has gathered at the door. Jesus has healed many of various diseases. He's driven out demons and so on and then Mark says that very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and left the house and went into a solitary place, where he prayed and his companions.

These fledgling disciples come and find him and when they find him. They wanted to know Jesus.

Last night was fantastic. Everyone is looking for you. Your mission is off to a tremendous start. I mean the whole town was gathered outside the door.

The crowds are here in droves. It is just right for the picking and Jesus replied let's go somewhere else.

Why, why would we go anywhere else. The market is right here. Not all we need to go and open up other areas. Letters go somewhere else to the nearby villages now listen to this so that I can preach there also.

That is why I have come member look for he sends me to preach good news to the poor so he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues, and driving out demons. I resist the temptation to have another sidebar on the nature of preaching at this point in the 20th century that will leave that for another day and another time. Let's get to John for for a run out of time, in its entirety. First of all and find I have three points number one. The encounter number two the impact and number three a lesson or two. First of all, the encounter the encounter between Jesus and this lady we didn't read it and instead of listening in on the conversation as it is reported in the third person by John. I want to suggest to you that it might come across with a little more vibrancy.

If only we could have the lady here herself to tell it in her own words and remarkably, I've managed to get her.

And here I is now you have to imagine that I am the woman of the well okay try your best.

Close your eyes while your head twice and then listen. It started out for me the way most days do just a routine trip to the well. I always go there by myself not because I want to but because I have to go in the middle of the day when it's hot and sticky and lonely so you understand when I say that I was caught offguard, even by the presence of someone else there and even more so when the individual proved to be a man and then when he spoke to me. I found myself immediately recall has it here. We don't do that you you're a man I'm a woman kind of, and you are Jew and I am a Samaritan and we don't really converse, but he aroused my curiosity because he created the sensation that I was the one in need of the water although he was the one who is asking for a drink of water. It really didn't make any sense to me because he had no way of getting water out of the well and that was why he had said to me, could I have a drink of water. If I actually asked him if he thought he was greater than our forefathers who built this well, but he let that go.

He just pointed to the well and he said everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again while I sit sign me up for that. I like that program because I don't have to keep coming back to this well to draw water, but you know any sense that there's more to it all than meets the eye.

There is something behind it all. Some more substantial matter that you're not grasping. That's the notion that I have that's how I felt and it was then and right out of the blue, that he says to me go, call your husband and come back. My first reaction was which husband does he want me to call but all I could get out was. I have no husband. Weiner hidden Tryon Pro hidden Tryon ring any of the details out of me any of the messy bits and pieces of my past and find it quickly became clear that he knew it all that he could see right into me and I immediately said to Mike and see you must be a prophet, and indeed I started with a question about where you would go if you were worshiping God, should you go where the Samaritans usually go you should go where the Jews go. Is it Gary Ziemer is in Jerusalem, and he quickly said all that aside, said that really that wasn't the issue.

Five. The story was that God was seeking God's while I sit in. Let's just fold this up now. Why don't we wait until the Christ, the Messiah comes.

He will explain everything and it was then when I was a much batting an eyelid that he looked at me and he said that's me the one speaking to. I'm the Messiah speaking to me and no named Samaritan woman at this point my life a broken series of failed beginnings and shattered hopes speaking to me the Messiah meeting me, knowing me just and all his friends came back and I realized it was over.

So I guess I left my water port. I left the right right near the well, and I get I came back here as fast as I could I come back right here to use my friends and to my community have come right back my town here and I want to say to you. Could this be the Messiah.

Why don't you come out let you come out and meeting you will come and meet this man.

He told me everything I ever did.

That's the encounter Jesus encounter with the woman at the well gives us a timeless model for sharing the gospel and eager willingness to invite others to come out and meet him inspires us to tell others about Christ as well. Alastair beg is titled today's message personal evangelist from the series to know Christ.

After hearing today's message. If you like the woman who encounter Jesus want to know more about what it means to follow Christ. There is a very helpful video presentation. We'd invite you to watch you'll find it a Truth for Life.org/the story this brief animated video explains how Jesus sacrifice on the cross frees us from sin and grants us salvation again go to TruthforLife.org/story a Truth for Life. We teach directly from the Bible every day of the year so that God's word can do God's work in the lives of those who listen teaching the Bible plants and waters. The seeds of saving faith, but only God can use the hearing of his word to open blind eyes and soften hardened hearts in a way that transforms us into his children for all eternity. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life. You know, we recommend books and other resources designed to help you become better established in your faith. Our featured book right now is titled created to draw near.

It's written by Pastor Ed Welch in this book describes the Old Testament system of the priesthood and he shows how it points us to Jesus who replaced the old covenant by becoming the great high priest and are only true mediator between us and God why we don't often think of ourselves as priests. Our belief in Jesus grants us the same intimate personal relationship that the early priests shared with God created to draw near will help you view your connection with God in a new way way that is close and accessible. We'd love to send you a copy of this book so you can deepen your understanding about what it means to share the lineage of the royal priesthood learn how to request the book created to draw near. When you go to Truth for Life.org or click the book image on the mobile app about Lapine inviting you to join us next weekend for the conclusion of Alistair's message entitled personal evangelist, next time we'll find out how Jesus encounter with the outcast woman impacted her entire town. The Bible teaching of Alastair beg is furnished by Truth for Life.

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