I'm going to ask you to turn to John chapter 4 this morning, John 4. We're going to try to cover a lot of territory in John 4 this morning as we look at Christ the master evangelist, ten steps in guiding the gospel conversation. I'm very honored to be here today. I really appreciate Dr. Benson allowing me to have this time with you. And I'm greatly looking forward to his messages the rest of this week. He is not only a pastor, but a pastor with a great evangelistic heart. And so, so thankful to be sharing this time together with you today. Before I forget it, I'd like to just mention a tremendous gospel booklet. This is my favorite in-depth presentation of the gospel called Ultimate Questions, Ultimate Questions by John Blanchard. When you give this to someone, you're giving them a very thorough presentation of the gospel beginning all the way back at creation. I have been handing this out to people for 25 or 30 years in various languages and international travel as well a bit. And I have only had one person in all those years decline receiving it. I'll say, I'd like to give you a gift. This is usually after some conversation. And I have never had but only one person, a Jehovah's Witness lady, who just politely declined on a plane not all that long ago. But I was really taken aback because I wanted to live my life having had no one ever decline this gospel track. So if you're looking for a good one for your family, you can find this online. It's a little pricey as tracks go, but it's a really great investment that you can make in the lives of others. Here in John chapter 4, we find Jesus' most lofty words to a most lowly woman and in an unlikely place. It gives us a wonderful, the passage gives us a wonderful pattern, an example of how we can deal with the loss. The Lord engaged her in conversation, guided her thinking, and that day she received Him as her Messiah. She took the living water of salvation and she shared it with others and actually brought a city to Him. So we're going to walk through this passage and learn how, from Christ, how He dealt with her and find parallels to our life. Obviously, Jesus is God. He was at an advantage that we don't have, but it also models for us how we can find parallels as we work with people. Jesus is the master evangelist. And we know that the pursuit of the Christian life has to do with our becoming Christ-like. And Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, Paul says, of whom I am chief. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And so among the many other aspects of the character of Jesus Christ is his great compassion for the lost. Begin reading with me, please. You read silently, I'll read aloud. In John chapter 4 and verse 3, he, Jesus, left Judea and departed again unto Galilee to the far north. and he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, nearer to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour, about noon. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat, get food. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman said unto him, sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, go call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband, in that saidst thou truly. The woman said unto him, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship, you know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. For the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah is cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. We see to begin with that Jesus seeks sinners. He went to a very needy place. And he spoke to a very needy woman. As you likely know, the area between Judea, which is the province or whatever that Jerusalem was in, to the north of there, the far north is Galilee, and in between is an area called Samaria. Today, much of Samaria, biblical Samaria, would be in what is called the West Bank, that area that is west of the Jordan that is largely inhabited by Palestinians and then Jews as well. It was an area that was not looked favorably upon by Jewish people. The people that lived there kind of lived there in a sense of hostility toward the Jews and the Jews toward them. In this very locale near the city of Sychar were the mountains of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, the mountains of cursing and blessing. And at the top of Mount Gerizim was a Samaritan temple, a place of worship. Actually, there's still Samaritan worship going on on Mount Gerizim even yet today. And by the way, Jacob's well is still there and available to be seen today. There was obviously normal animosity, but Jesus intentionally went to this place and spoke to this woman because He looked beyond the conflict and the carnality And he looked beyond and saw her need and the need of the people that lived there. Samaria was actually a special place to the Lord. On one occasion, the disciples, who had not had a good reception preparing for the Lord's adventure into a certain location in Samaria, had asked the Lord to call down fire. And he said, I did not come to destroy. I came to save men's lives. Do you recall that it was the one good leper who returned to give thanks to the Lord upon His healing them, and he was a Samaritan, the Bible says. You remember that Jesus spoke of the parable of the good Samaritan. You recall in the giving of the Great Commission in Acts 1-8 that the gospel would go to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And in Acts chapter 8, Philip would go to Samaria and have great evangelistic success there. You know, Samaria can be for you and me a place that is either near or perhaps far away. It could be a place where there are people who don't quite think like we do, or look like we do, or maybe they have different clothes, or a different look, a different skin tone, a different God. Maybe it wells up within us a little bit of fear toward folks like that. We're not quite sure how to proceed and to engage them in conversation. lovingly, kindly points him to the Lord Jesus Christ. But I would say one of the greatest things that can happen to your life that will transform you from the inside out is when we take our eyes off of ourselves and our awkwardness and we get them on to the needs of the other people. And a humble heart with a burden to see someone else come to know the Savior, God the Holy Spirit will use that oftentimes to actually open the heart of the person that we view as being a little difficult to reach. Jesus set aside social distinctions, obviously here. It was not normal for a Jewish man to engage, probably a woman in general, but certainly not a Samaritan woman, and she was rather taken back that he was willing to have conversation with her. You and I have to work at this sometimes. We have to be willing to enter into new areas, new experiences, talk to people that we might not normally be comfortable talking with, to engage in a mission trip, to cross across a differing age group, to talk to an older person or maybe to a child. and show that we're interested in them. One of the greatest things you can do while you're a student at BJU is to engage in a multiplicity of opportunities of ministry that will take you out of what we often call our comfort zone and learn to engage with people that are not like yourself. He set aside social distinctions. And then he engaged her in conversation. He asked her to give him a drink of water. That seemed simple enough, didn't it? I have a good missionary friend, a graduate of Bob Jones Academy and Bob Jones University, one of the very first American missionaries into Albania, the most atheistic country in the world. Some decades ago, David and Christi Haaseflug, he initially by himself and then Christi together, they entered into Albania. Just this morning, I got a wonderful email from David Hasselflug, reflecting upon recent opportunities in cross-cultural ministries that he and others that he knows have been engaging in. David Hasselflug puts it this way very simply about personal evangelism. He says, here's what we need to do. Pray, meet people, tell them about Jesus. I like that. pray, meet people, tell them about Jesus. And this involves obviously just a starting point of engaging folks in conversation. Oftentimes I'm on planes and I'm seated by strangers that I don't know, and Almost every time, I feel that sense of awkwardness about, OK, how am I going to get this attempt at a gospel conversation started? Sometimes, I'll be reading my Bible on the plane. And maybe just a simple way to get the conversation going is just to say, have you ever read the Bible much? What do you like to read? Let me tell you, I like to read the Bible. In fact, I love the Bible. And I might just talk about that a little bit. I try to read through the Bible every day. Do you know what John 3.16, do you know what that means? Have you ever heard of John 3.16? Probably if they've never heard of John 3.16, they don't know a lot about the Bible or a lot about the Lord. I could be wrong, but that would be a good way to just kind of discover. Have you ever read the Bible much? And I'll say, you know, the Bible's 66 books. There's an Old Testament, there's a New Testament, and I'll just go into a little bit about that. And then I'll say, you know, there's two books in the Bible that are especially important, the Gospel of John and the Book of Romans. And before long, within really a couple of minutes, I can find myself in the Book of Romans going through the plan of salvation with them. And it actually flows oftentimes very naturally that way. Sometimes I'll show them, I'll be reading my Bible on a phone app, and I'll say, have you ever seen a Bible on a phone? And I'll show them that. These are downloaded, so it's got the study aids there. And I'll start working through it, and I'll find my way, I say, to the book of Romans or another Bible verse. And it just kind of flows rather naturally that way. Well, in Jesus' case, he uses an illustration, verses 10 to 12 tell us. He engaged her, wanting to have a drink of water, and they begin this back and forth conversation about this water. Obviously, she's there for the purpose of getting some water, and so he asked her for some water, and then he begins to a little double meaning around the word water and life. And he says in verse 13, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But I have some water that if you drink of it, you'll never thirst again, not have to come back here and get water. He's speaking, of course, in a double meaning sense here. Well, she gets curious about that. And before long, they're moving along in the conversation, and he senses her interest. He turns her to the spiritual point, verses 13 and 14. I'll give you some living water. She said, sir, give me this water that I thirst not. So now the opportunity has come together. And then he kind of suddenly confronts her. You have to be kind of careful about this. I'm not saying that you should use the exact wording that the Lord uses in this case, but he says to her, go call your husband. Being God, he knew the kind of life that she was living. And she said, I have no husband. And he acknowledges that technically that might be correct, but she's had five husbands, and the one that she now has is not her husband, so she's living in adultery. Now, it's never really easy. to get into the topic of sin with someone. You and I are sinners, and so it makes it, in a sense, we can certainly identify with any unsaved person. So there comes a point in the conversation where we include ourselves in the condemnation of sin, and we say, yes, I, we, us, our, we are all sinners. The Bible says there is none righteous, no, not one. The Bible says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Bible actually says the wages of sin is death. And you compassionately and kindly get into the real problem, and the real problem always, always is sin. Sin is the thing that keeps us apart from God. Sin is that which, if not repented of and confessed, receiving Christ as Savior, will condemn a person to an eternity in hell. And so we have to touch on the issue. We have to deal with the issue of sin. Romans 1, verse 18, all the way through the mid part of chapter 3 deals in depth with sin. So there's plenty of material to go through there if someone needs to be convinced. But since you and I are sinners, And since you and I, if you know Christ as Savior, have been delivered from the penalty of your sin through putting your faith in Jesus Christ, it's great news to share with someone else that Jesus Christ died on the cross and paid the full penalty of our sin and rose again. If we put our faith in Him, then you and I can be saved for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We find a tactful, a tender way, a progressive way to share these truths of the gospel. He turns her to the spiritual point. One pointed question you can ask someone is this, if you were to die today and you were to stand before God and He were to say to you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? In other words, what's the basis of your thinking that you would go to heaven? If you were to die today and God were to say to you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? So that kind of gets you into an understanding of what they might base their hope of heaven on if they have hope at all. Well, he made her face her sin. He made her awaken to this need. And then he answered, number eight, her question and clarified what truly mattered. She, of course, did not know the true God. She had only partial information about God. She was confused about where the actual place of worship was for the true God. And so, whether she was trying to distract the Lord or whether she had a genuine question, we're not absolutely sure. But the Lord did answer her question. And it's a little involved here, the answer. What was really happening here is that she had She had the spirit of an adulteress. She had the spirit of a liar. She was trying to cover her sins. And Jesus cut right through that and said that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. When we come to God, we have to say the truth about Him and the truth about ourselves. We have to have a right heart attitude toward God, not covering our sin, but having a broken heart toward our sin. And so as he dealt with her, you can kind of sense the conviction that comes upon her. And then next, what he did was to reveal his true identity. She referred to the Messiah. She had a general expectation of Messiah coming. And he says to her, just kind of point blank, he says, I that speak unto thee am he. Jesus is not always that straightforward in conversation in the Gospels, but on this occasion he said it just like it was. I am the Messiah. There is something that takes place supernaturally when we give the Gospel to others. It doesn't always happen that quickly. But when we're giving someone the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit from the Word of God, and we're talking about sin, and we're talking about the Savior, and we're talking about heaven, and we're talking about hell. And part of that presentation is to explain who Jesus Christ really is. It'll be in summary form more than likely at that point. And we need to be encouraged to know that God is with us when we do that. That God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, opens the spiritual eyes of those that cannot see, and prior did not understand, and they begin to grasp the truth of the gospel, and it registers. Twice recently at the Greenville Detention Center in my ministry there, two separate men in two different locations in the jail said, I don't know what's going on, but my heart is changing. I felt like what they were saying is I am experiencing the reality of the new birth and regeneration. Paul put it this way. He said he's commending himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. The passage goes on to say, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. You and I have the Holy Spirit within us if we know the Lord. We have the indwelling presence of Christ with us. So that when we give the gospel to someone, we can be convinced in our heart, because of what the Bible says, that it is registering. It doesn't mean they're going to get saved on the spot there. But man knows innately there is a God. Romans 1 tells us that. Man knows innately that he is a sinner, that there is an estrangement from God, that there is a sense of displeasure from God and being under the judgment and wrath of God. Those things are often innate in people. And so do not fear when you give the gospel. You are giving the person the best news you could possibly give them. And it is that good news of the gospel that God has the power to take and change their heart and grant to them new life to drink of the water of life. And that's exactly what took place with this lady. She goes back into the city. She says to people there, lots of people there, she said, come see a man that told me all that ever I did. They knew about her. Now she knows about her. And they follow her out and they hear Christ. And she actually brings a people to the Lord. People believed on the Lord because of her word. In fact, many people believed on the Lord because of the change that they began to see in her life. They persuaded the Lord Jesus to stay two more days, amazing, two more days in Samaria. And the scripture says that many more believed in Him. I've had the privilege now for some time to minister weekly if I'm in town at the Greenville Detention Center. But my ministry is usually brief. It's an hour, hour and a half on a Tuesday night. It is so wonderful to go in there. It's really my favorite time of the week. I get to look in the faces of men whose lives are broken oftentimes, who are hungry, who are confused, hungry for the Lord, confused, in need, broken. And we'll see some people come to the Lord or come back to the Lord. But the most exciting thing is not The ministry that I have the privilege to do, but it's the multiplying of that ministry through someone who started to go in with me. I had just a little part. I was just going because someone encouraged me to go. And then it multiplied and spread. This is what happened with the woman at the well. The gospel spread very rapidly. And this is what can happen in your life. Just do your part. Witness to that person. Help bring this person along. Water that seed a little bit more. Ask God to use you in a powerful way. And you, my young friend, God can use you to lead many, many people to Christ in your lifetime. Not because of who you are or I am, what we know or how clever we are, but it's because the gospel is the power of salvation to everyone that believes. It's because of who God is. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you this morning for the powerful example. You're dealing with the woman at the well. Help us to take encouragement from this, Lord. Take instruction from this, and to find ourselves interested and concerned for people, for all people, as we go our way in life. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.