I invite you to turn with me this morning in your Bible to John chapter 4. John chapter 4, we have already seen in John 3, Jesus engaged a consummate religious insider in Nicodemus. Nicodemus, a religious leader, a ruler of the Jews, member of…he's a Pharisee, member of the Sanhedrin. He's a very, very religious man, and yet he's absolutely lost. And this morning in John chapter 4, we come to someone on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, a woman from Samaria. A woman who is wrapped up in sin and who is completely, as far as an outsider in a Jewish mind as you could be, and equally lost, and Jesus will graciously rescue her. And so it's a wonderful story we have before us this morning. Let's then read John chapter 4, begin at verse 1. Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was from the journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came near to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to Him, I know that the Messiah is coming, He who is called the Christ. When He comes, He will tell us of all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap for that which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this indeed is the Savior of the world." After two days, he departed for Galilee, for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his hometown. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast." And so far the reading in God's Word. Let's pray together. Oh Lord, now as we come to this wonderful text, we just ask for your Holy Spirit to open our eyes and hearts to receive it. Lord, teach us. Because we need to learn, we need to grow, we need to believe, we need to see Jesus. And Lord, You do all that by Your Word and through Your Spirit, and so we wait expectantly in Jesus' name. Amen. This morning we've come to one of the great conversion stories of the Bible. one of my favorite texts in the Bible. When I was thinking about preaching on the gospel of John, I was looking forward to preaching on this. You could easily spend three to four weeks just slowly unpacking this text, but by doing that, you would really lose the story, the narrative, and John tells it as a whole, and so we'll be going through it that way. This is, interestingly, one of the longest, I think the longest conversation that Jesus has with anyone in all of the gospels. This is a very important story. It's a very important text for conservative Reformed churches in general, and it's a very important text for Harvest Church in particular. I think we would all agree that the vast majority of Reformed and conservative churches struggle when it comes to evangelism. I don't think there would be much contesting that. The truth is we don't see very many adult conversions. We don't have many adult baptisms. That doesn't mean the Spirit of God is not at work. He is at work. He's building up the saints. Young people are coming to faith. God is very gracious and kind to us. People are truly being converted in our churches. But the fact remains that very few people from outside of the church world are coming to faith in Reformed churches and then being grown up in their faith there. That's just fact. And I'm increasingly convinced that it's a fact that we can't just be okay with. The fact is that We have an issue that by God's grace we can face and with prayer we can grow in, as we open our Bibles and just listen to what the Lord has to say to us. One of the things we need to realize is that many of us have grown up in a church culture where sharing your faith Inviting people to church, praying intentionally for people around you to be converted is not a natural part of how we think about living the Christian life. Elders don't ask about it generally when they do house visiting. People don't confess it as a failure in their life, something that is in need of repentance. We don't see that many conversions from folks from the outside coming in, and we don't really expect to see that. We are concerned about our theology, which is excellent, it's very good, it's essential actually. We must be concerned about our theology because it's God's theology. It's God's Word. But as Alistair Begg pointed out, he says, when doctrinal clarity and orthodoxy does not issue an evangelistic focus and fervor, something has gone wrong. And I think that's right. When the doctrines of grace do not make us hungry to see other people experience that grace, then something has gone wrong. When gospel truth doesn't drive us to participate in gospel mission, something has gone wrong. And God graciously, through His Word, knows us and lovingly calls us to better, to more, to be faithful and fruitful in our Christian lives and as a Christian church. Jesus intends more for us, and specifically intends us to experience the joy of being engaged in the harvest. Jesus talks about the joy that the reapers have when they go and gather in the harvest, and as they do that, the sower and the reaper together rejoice at God's goodness. And that's the joy that Jesus intends for us as His people, His church. And so this morning we'll look at just going through the story, but seeing a missionary encounter, and then a missionary method, and then finally a missionary message. The missionary encounter, verses 7 through 26, it's just a wonderful snapshot into a day in the life of Jesus. He and His disciples are traveling from the south, Judea, and they're going up north to Galilee, and in the middle is this place called Samaria. Samaria was a place that had been overrun by the Assyrians, and the Assyrians had removed everyone and then had put in a bunch of people from all around their empire. And so what you ended up with in Samaria were half-breed Jews. And they practiced sort of a half-breed Jewish religion. They held to the five books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, but that's it. And they didn't go down to Jerusalem to worship. They didn't participate in the Levites. They didn't have Levites serving them in that way and going to the temple in Jerusalem. They built their own temple. Kind of had their own rules. And so Jews rightfully understood that this was not the true faith. These are people who believed in God but were not following what God had commanded in Scripture. And so Jews recognized they weren't Jews. But unfortunately, the Jews then despised them. despised them so much that, as we're told in the text, Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans. And yet Jesus is here by the well, the disciples have gone off to look for some lunch, and a woman comes, a woman from Samaria. She's just coming to get water. In the middle of the day, most likely because she's shamed, scorned because of her past, She's alone and her life is about to be turned upside down. If you were a Jewish reader in John's day and you read this story, you'd be shocked instinctively by the fact that Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, is talking to a woman, but specifically a Samaritan woman, and then when you find out her story, this woman. It simply was not done. Notice, the disciples were astonished in verse 27. They marveled that He was talking with a woman, a Samaritan woman. He could talk to Mary and Martha, they were safe, but why was Jesus talking to this woman? Again, it violates the rules. It was also surprising to the woman. She says to Jesus, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? If you had sort of rings of people who were acceptable, she's way on the outside. She's a woman from Samaria living in sin, and yet Jesus is talking to her. Now, she doesn't know, of course, who He is, and so she's guarded. She's defensive. We're going to see that all through the story. What does this strange man want from her? That he would violate the known social rules to engage in a conversation with her. It's very suspicious in her mind. What does he want? Well, Jesus' response must have surprised her when He says to her, if you knew the gift of God, And who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." He doesn't want, in that sense, anything from her. He's asked her for a drink to open the conversation, but he's there to give her something, not get something. He's there to give her a gift from God. He's there to give her living water. He wasn't who she thought he was. Now, when she hears that term living water, it's understandable she doesn't really get it because, again, she knows the first five books of the Bible, maybe. It's all that they would recognize. But the prophets, any Jew would realize that this is all through the Psalms and the prophets. Psalm 46, there's a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. The prophets talked about living water. Jeremiah, for instance, rebukes Israel in Jeremiah 2, verse 13, where God says, my people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot hold water. And that, of course, was not just Israel's sin, that's mankind's sin. God is the spring of living water. God is the source of life. God is the source of peace. God is the source of joy. God is the source of love. Everything that makes life good and worth living comes from God. And yet, following our father Adam, we rejected God. And we decided to go seek life and joy and health and peace in the passing temporal things of this world, and worse, in sinfully rejecting God, we make idols of the things that He's made, and we end up thirsty, thirsty, thirsty. Why do you think that the consumerism of our day is just skyrocketing? Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. Why? What's driving that? Thirst is driving that. What's driving the sexual immorality, the unbelievable perverseness of our culture? What's driving that? Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty. And of course, it's true all the world around. Always drinking. but always thirsty, never quenched. This lady has been drinking at the cistern, the broken cistern of relationships, one man after the other, desperate to be known and loved, and yet always disappointed and always looking. Well, Jesus sees her. He sees not just a Samaritan woman, Jesus sees a lost soul, someone made in the image of God who's in bondage to her sin, who's covered with shame, and Jesus lovingly invites her to the sweet water of forgiveness and grace and peace with God. Verse 13, Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life." Well, at this point, the woman might be intrigued, but she's not buying whatever he's selling. She's not interested. He's clearly talking about spiritual things. And she just keeps talking about physical things, right? When he said, I'll give you living water. She's like, where's your bucket? You don't have anything. How are you going to get water? She just keeps it completely on a horizontal level. And then when Jesus says, right, I'll give you living water, you'll never be thirsty again. It will well up into eternal life. She's like, well, that sounds good. I mean, I'm weary of coming out to this well every day. If I can just sit home and not have to come to the well. You see, she's just brushing it off. She's not gonna go where he's leading her. She's not interested in that conversation. And it would have been so easy at this point for Jesus to just walk away. He has offered her life. She's not interested in life. So be it. And he would have been perfectly just to do so. to say, well, thanks, it's been good talking to you, and walked away and left her to her death. But he doesn't. Instead, he gently places his finger on the source of her sin and her need and her shame. Go, call your husband and come back. She quickly tries to close the door. I don't have a husband. I have no husband. We're not going to talk about this." And then Jesus so gently, but piercingly, can you imagine the look on her face when he says, you're right in saying you don't have a husband. You've had five husbands and the man you're living with now isn't your husband. What you've said is very true. You see, she's been exposed. This man who's never met her before knows her. and yet does not shame her, does not even rebuke her. Just pulls back the curtain and she's revealed for what she is. And Jesus in that, you see, is inviting her again to grace. He's not shaming her. He's not your typical Jewish man despising her. That's not who he is. He's talking about giving her water that will spring up to eternal life. Well, she's been exposed, but she doesn't, again, she doesn't dare go where he's leading, and so she frantically seeks to move the conversation to safer ground. Sir, I perceive you're a prophet. Let's talk about temples. It's a brilliant move because any Jewish man worth his salt would have grabbed the bait and would have launched into a fiery argument about why the temple in Jerusalem, that was the real temple, and you Samaritans got it all messed up. Any Jewish man would have taken the bait, and she'd have been safe. She could have argued for a little while and then brushed him off and walked away, and she'd be safe. But Jesus doesn't let go. He turns the conversation to worship and talks about a Father who's seeking worshipers. Verse 23 and 24, the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. He tells her about the great gospel mission of God the Father, that God has come into this world seeking worshipers. He's seeking people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. That's the essence of the gospel mission. That's why Jesus came into this world. To gather lost men and women to Himself that they might be the temple of God, worshiping the glory and goodness and grace of God. God is worthy of His worship, and He's gathering people to carry out that task, that glorious task. As John Piper says, mission exists because worship doesn't. And so Jesus once again invites her to taste of the grace of God and to worship the Lord, the God who seeks sinners and makes them worshipers. But having failed to distract Jesus with theological controversy, she makes one final attempt to shut down the conversation by just mouthing this platitude, this religious thing that everybody can agree with, right? Verse 25, I know that the Messiah is coming. When He comes, He will tell us all things. In other words, You have your truth, I have my truth, I guess we'll just find out in the end is sort of how it goes. Maybe you've had a conversation with someone and that's where it went. You got into some dialogue and there's some disagreement, and the person just says, well, you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe, we'll find out in the end. And that's supposed to end the conversation. That's a way to close the door. That's a way to avoid the implications of what Jesus is saying. But again, you see, Jesus doesn't go away simply because we wish Him to. Instead, He presses in. Can you imagine the stunned look on her face when she mouths this sort of empty platitude, when the Messiah comes, He will explain to us all things, and Jesus looks her right in the eye and says, I am He. I who speak to you am He. I'm the Messiah." That'd be just a moment of stunned silence. The Messiah here? At a dusty well in the heat of the day in this little no-place town of Sychar in Samaria, the Messiah talking to her, a Samaritan woman, and He knows who she is and what she's done, and He's there. This is unbelievable. It's almost impossible to believe. But notice, this is the line that breaks through her skepticism. This is the line that changes the whole tenor of the conversation. Why? What is it that finally breaks through to her? Well, of course, it's the grace that she's experienced there. I mean, Jesus is telling her that the Messiah of God, the Savior of the world, is standing in front of her, talking to her. Nobody talks to her. Jewish men don't talk to her. Jewish women don't talk to her. People from her own town barely talk to her. That's why she's at the well in the middle of the day. And now you're saying that the Messiah of God has come to talk to her and invite her to living water and to eternal life, to peace with God, forgiveness of sin? It's unbelievable. It's overwhelming. And it finally breaks through. You see, it's the grace, it's always the grace that finally breaks through the hardness and resistance of an unbelieving heart. I remember, again, I've told you this story before, but it's just burned on my mind, a woman who gives her testimony. Her name is Debbie. She was a crack addict, living with her boyfriend, and in utter despair, she's frantically searching around the apartment, through the trash, trying to find a cigarette to get her next hit, and she stumbles across a Gideon's Bible, and she begins reading the gospel story, and is transfixed by it. and begins to realize that she is in a world of hurt, that she's in a lot of trouble, that she sinned against God, and that if God were to leave her there to die, she would go to hell. That just became so evident and clear to her. But she knew there was a church down the street and it was Good Friday. She knew enough that there would be a worship service. And so she goes and she walks in, first time in her life she's been in a church. She sits down and she hears the story of the gospel, how God so loved this world that he gave his own son to die on a cross. And she realized it was for her. And she said, I was sitting in church and I was just weeping and weeping and weeping. People around me must have wondered what was wrong, but I just couldn't get over it. that Jesus had come for me, the crack addict, and he died for me, and that I could be forgiven and I could be reconciled to God and I could have a life where I experience love and joy and peace and I could live forever. It just overwhelmed her. Well, that's exactly the experience of this woman. Such an incredible thing to believe, and yet by the grace of God she did believe it. It's a beautiful conversion story. But notice John doesn't stop there. He doesn't then move on to the next thing Jesus is doing. He wants us to see how the mission moves forward. to see what happens after she believes. Because what happens after she believes is she leaves her water jar, which is the very purpose she came in the first place. Suddenly that is irrelevant. She leaves the jar and goes back into town, a changed woman with a message to tell. Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? And we're told the people in the town were coming to him. Now, let me ask you, what compelled this woman to run back to town to the people who scorned her, shunned her? What moved her to go and tell them this good news? And why would she tell them, come see a man who told me everything I ever did? I mean, everybody in town knew what she did and what she was doing. And it was shameful. It was an embarrassing story. Why would she tell that story? Because she met a man who told her everything she ever did and he didn't judge her. He didn't condemn her. He invited her to grace. That there was in God a grace that was great enough for all of her sin. And she couldn't help but tell other people about this man that she had met. Could he be the Christ? You see, the grace of God was so amazing, and the love that she experienced from Jesus was just so overwhelming, and the implications of him being the Messiah are so staggering, she just can't keep it to herself. And she speaks with great effectiveness. Verse 39, many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. You see, her story is compelling because it's a story of grace. Grace in real life. Grace not as a theology, not as a doctrine, but as a lived experience. One person saying, I once was lost, but now am found. I was blind, but now I see. That's the story that she has to tell. Grace wasn't meant to just be an analogy we nod to, but an experience of God's kindness to us. And that's her story. God's very specific grace and astonishing love for her, this one woman, this wicked woman from Samaria. You see, so she becomes a perfect instrument to carry out a message about grace. But you see, that's a story every converted person can tell. I know that we think we don't have a testimony, and it's true. Many of us have not come from a sordid past. But see, every true Christian is able to say, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. We all have a story to tell of our need and our sin and how God's grace came to us in Jesus. We can all point to Jesus and say, look, the Savior of the world and the Savior of a sinner like me. That's our story. It's my story. I was just a… grew up in the church, solid, knew my theology, cared about the Lord, and in bondage to pride and lust and covetousness. And when I was in my early 20s, God just used some Pentecostals to help me understand that there was a personal relationship at the middle of the gospel, and that I could know Jesus' love and grace for me personally. And I never forget just the joy of discovering that Jesus justifies, God justifies sinners freely by His grace. And that meant that God could justify me. That's our story, friends. You know, it's intriguing to me that John writes this gospel at the end of his life. He's probably around 90 years old when he writes this, 60 years after, at least, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it's intriguing because What did John see in those 60 years of ministry? What John saw was this gospel method played out over and over and over. He saw the church grow amazingly. How? By sinners who had experienced the grace of God going and telling other sinners about the grace of God. That's how it grew. There was no special miraculous visitation of angels or some great campaign. It was just the apostles preaching, people believing, and then those people also sharing. And the church grew and grew and grew. It's how the church has grown ever since. This is God's gospel method. But let's wrap with the missionary message. Why does John tell this story? Well, first and foremost, because he's doing everything in his power to show us the truth about Jesus, and this story just captures it so beautifully. The last line, verse 42, We have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. That's what John wants to imprint in our brains. Jesus is the Savior of the world. That's what he wants his readers to see. This is why Jesus came. He didn't come to be a moral teacher or just a life example. He came to seek and to save the lost. This woman was gripped in the bondage of her sin, just one lost, lonely person in a planet full of lost, lonely people, and yet Jesus came to her and showed grace to her. And that's why he came. It's what he does. This is his food. Remember the disciples are saying, did somebody give him something to eat? He's like, my food is to do the will of my father, to accomplish his work, to be engaged in the mission. That was his food. And so John wants us to see Jesus both as the Savior and as this wonderful missionary Lord who lives, who eats the work that God has given Him to do to save sinners. But secondly, John wants us to see the ongoing nature then of Christ's mission. Look at verse 35, do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, see that the fields are white unto harvest. Just look. And already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together." Jesus calls us, the disciples in the church today, to lift up our eyes and see the work of harvest is going on, it's happening. People are being gathered in. Some are sowing, others are reaping, some plant the truth of the gospel. We don't all reap. Sometimes we just sow seeds. But we sow and others reap. But the gathering is happening, and the sower and the reaper are rejoicing together. It's a lot of joy. Jesus tells us there's more joy in heaven over one sinner repenting, right, than of all the others kind of doing their thing. Harvest, are you hungry for that joy? I mean, we rejoice to see our children come to faith, and oh, what a wonderful joy that is. But wouldn't it also be wonderful and wouldn't it give you great joy to see God's lost sons and daughters come to faith, gathered in? Wouldn't it be amazing to hear stories of Samaritan women of our day coming to Jesus Christ? You see, Jesus is no longer physically present, is He? He's physically in heaven. But His Spirit is here, and He's sent us to go and talk to the Samaritan women of our day. That's always been the goal. Someone has said, Jesus didn't create a mission for His church, He created a church for His mission. We're called to participate in this. Jesus' desire for the church is that we engage in this great mission, that we're crystal clear about who he is, and that we're committed to his gospel cause. So how do we grow in this? Let me just wrap with two things. First, let's just pray that God helps us to see people the way Jesus saw them. When the disciples saw the Samaritan woman, they saw what everybody else saw. A woman from Samaria, an outcast, someone not worth talking to, something out of bounds for witnessing or any conversation at all. They saw her for what she was in her flesh. Jesus saw the truth about this woman. Jesus saw a A woman made in the image of God, a woman who's trapped in bondage to sin, a daughter of God who needed to be brought to life, and he loved her, and he took the time to minister to her. We just need to pray, God, help us to see the people that we meet every day like you see them. not just according to their income or their appearance or their job, what they might do for us, but to see a person who's made in the image of God and who's going to live forever either in hell or heaven. And God desires they be saved. And then, secondly, to experience the grace of God in a way that moves us to share. J.D. Greer, in his book, Gaining by Losing, he talks about the difference between air balloons and helium balloons. Boys and girls, if you blow a balloon up with air, blow it up, tie it up, and let it go, what does it do? Sinks. And then you gotta smack it up, right? And you smack it up in the air, and it'll just slowly sink again. And Greer says that's what a lot of churches try to do when it comes to evangelism. We have a sermon on evangelism, and we smack the balloon up in the air, and then it slowly sinks back down. So then we do a conference on evangelism. We smack it up in the air, and it slowly sinks back down. And then maybe we'll have a class on evangelism. We'll smack it up in the air, and it just kinda keeps coming back down. Greer says, what we need are helium balloons, because helium balloons don't need to be smacked up in the air. You've got to hold on to them. They've got something inside of them that moves them up. And Greer says, you see, the experience of the grace of God for me, for you, for us, that is meant to be helium in our lives that moves us inevitably. So who told this woman? to go back to town and talk to people about it. Nobody told her. Nobody told her. So why did she do it? Because she couldn't help it. The helium of God's grace had so filled her life, she couldn't help but talk about it. She wanted to share it with those whom she knew. And it's the same for the disciples. When the Holy Spirit came and the grace of God becomes so real to them, they just can't help but talk about it. And so, friend, think about the grace of God to you in Jesus Christ. When's the last time you just sat down and meditated on the grace of God to you? Why was God kind to you? Why did He rescue you? Why does He bless you over and over? Why did He forgive your sin? Why did He give you eternal life? And let that grace fill you with a love for Jesus and a delight in grace and a burden for lost people. Because you see, as that happens, then you won't need a class on evangelism. I mean, we can talk about techniques, but the helium of grace inside of your life will be moving you. In some way, we do this in different ways, we don't all have the same gifts, but in some way you're gonna love to talk about Jesus and share the story about Jesus and invite people to come and see. You see, there won't need to be smacking up the balloon. Greer says, let me say it as plainly as I can, Apart from genuine gospel-rooted heart change, mission will never take root in our churches. With it, we won't be able to stop it. Heart change. Change that happens by the power of the gospel. And that's something we can pray for. And God promises to answer. But let me close, and I assure you I'm closing. I just want a word to those who are not converted this morning, because you can't preach John 4 and not offer the grace that's here. Friends, in this text, in this word, in this message, Jesus is coming to you today, just like he came to that Samaritan woman. It's just as real as if Jesus personally was talking to you, because he is talking to you in his word. And Jesus, this morning, friend, calls you to new life. And maybe you've been in church all your life, it doesn't matter. Maybe it's your first time in the doors. Jesus knows you, and Jesus knows your secrets, he knows your shame, he knows your sin, and he's exposing you today, but not to judge you, not to condemn you, but to call you to life. And if you've never experienced the joy of God's grace to you, would you please just listen to Jesus' voice this morning? Listen to Him. Maybe go home and read this text again and just put yourself in the shoes of the Samaritan woman and listen as Jesus invites you to living water. And all you need to do is acknowledge your sin. When he points out her sin, she doesn't protest. She doesn't start arguing about why this happened and then that happened. There's no protest. She receives the truth. Accept the truth. but then also accept the invitation, because the Bible's full of invitations for you this morning. Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, Isaiah chapter 55. Come, let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price, Revelation 22, 17. Jesus is inviting you today to come, to drink, to live. May God grant it, amen. Jesus, I just thank You and praise You that You come for lost Samaritan sinners. For, Lord, that's who we all are. None of us here this morning are Jews. We're the Gentiles. We're the outcasts. And, Lord Jesus, You loved us, and You had such beautiful mercy on us. And Lord, there are so many others who need to hear and that you are yet to gather, you've yet to gather. The harvest is still ripe. It's white unto harvest. And Jesus, we pray that you would take your word this morning and move us as a church to see clearly who you are, that you've not come simply to bless us, but you've come to use us to be a blessing to others. And so, Lord, we pray that Your Spirit would help us as a church to love Jesus and to be amazed by grace and let the truth of Your astonishing mercy to us, Lord, then move us to care for those who still need to hear. I thank You, Lord, that there's power. in Jesus' blood still today. Power to save us and power to save others. And Lord, we do pray for conversions. I pray for conversions right here this morning. For surely not every person in this room truly knows you. And I pray, oh God, that today your spirit would speak like you spoke to the woman at the well. And that you would draw them and they would come and live. And we give you all the glory for it in Jesus' name, amen. We're going to stand together and just give testimony in song about what God has done for us as we have run to Jesus. Let's stand together and sing. ♪ My Father's everlasting light ♪ ♪ He's my shield from the devil's fiery dust ♪ ♪ He's the refuge from every hostile crowd ♪ ♪ Thou, O heavens, enticing me away ♪ So I'll flee from my sin to Christ, to Christ, to Christ. with the promise of His Word. I want all of his children to obey, live a life of submission to his word. May I learn what it means to seek his kingdom first, guide himself with my own concerned heart. There is power in the finished work of Jesus, To change helpless sages like me, As contentment where nothing else can satisfy, So I'll flee from my sin to Christ's glory. Forgiveness for every time I fail, as I turn in repentance from my sin. God provides all the help I need to pursue Him. Grace is made when my life has found a way. There is love. So I'll flee from my sin to Christ the Lord. Put my faith in the promised land. That's what people said. Amen.