You are listening to the preaching ministry of Faith Baptist Church. This morning we're going to take a little bit of a different approach to the sermon. Rather than expositing a whole passage or a chapter, we're going to be comparing two stories. two stories from the Gospel of John that instruct us from the life of Jesus about how we can be witnesses, more effective witnesses for Christ. Before we get to the passage, I want to share a little bit of My own experience as a young person growing up in the public school system here and what it was like to be a witness in that environment. I knew as a high school kid that my classmates, my peers, they were my main mission field. I mean, my life was church and school and home. Everyone at home was saved, everyone in church that I knew was a believer, but lots and lots of people at school were not. And so if there was anyone that I needed to win to Christ, it was those people. Those were the individuals, my classmates, that I had a gospel impact on. Now, as a young person, of course, you can imagine you have a lack of confidence in your own ability to share Jesus with anybody, let alone, you know, your own classmates that you see every day. And it didn't help that I was already dealing with my own regular teenage struggles that just about every teenager goes through. It made it difficult to be effective. Most of my friends knew that I was a believer or that I went to church or had some religion in my family, some faith that I was following. But unfortunately, I was not as regular in telling them about that faith. In fact, to my own detriment, my friends probably knew more about my views on current events and politics rather than they did about my faith in Jesus. My senior year became the turning point, though, because I realized in 12th grade, this is my last opportunity to talk to my friends and make an impact in their lives. I had a burden for one particular friend named George. This guy was an exceptionally bright kid. He took way too many advanced placement classes, more than he needed to. He really challenged himself and pushed himself. We had a lot of the same classes together throughout high school. We both were Hispanic. We both loved baseball. He's had a lot of common interests that way. But he was not saved. And I was determined to change that in my senior year. I asked him one day, could we meet up for lunch during a school day when we don't have a lot going on, we have more free time? And in my mind, I'm planning to use this lunch meetup to share Christ with him. I didn't know what I was going to say. I didn't know how I was going to present it. I just knew, you know, this may not be my last time, but it's one time I can schedule and plan for, where this is what we're going to sit down and talk about. And so we met up at a deli near Queens Plaza, where our school was. After we got our food, we started talking about our plans after graduation. And at some point, probably early on in the conversation, I just took the plunge. I said, you know, George, I really wanted to meet up for this reason. And I started to share Christ with him. As best I could, I gave him the whole gospel. And, you know, to my surprise, he really listened and asked thoughtful questions. And, you know, again, he knew I was a believer. He had grown up in a Catholic family, so he had some understanding of Jesus and the Bible and Christ's death and resurrection. That wasn't news to him. But when the conversation ended, I couldn't help but wonder, what would George do with Jesus? I really had no way of knowing. My conversation with him, even though it was planned for, I didn't feel prepared. When you're 17 years old, it's hard enough doing an oral presentation for class, let alone trying to convince one of your best friends that he is on a fast track to an eternity without God and that he needs Jesus to rescue him. Now, at that time, again, I was having plenty of challenges in my own life, and talking to George, I didn't feel spiritually or even emotionally capable of talking to him on this level. All I knew was that George was on his way to hell, and I had to do something about that. As believers, I think we all know that the gospel is our sacred trust. The Great Commission is ours to complete. And yet, more often than not, we feel ill-equipped, we feel incapable, and even scared to share our faith with unbelievers. The problem is not so much you know, the fish in the pond, as it were. I mean, we see people all the time. It's not for a lack of people that we can't witness or we don't witness. The problem ends up being with our lack of confidence. We don't know what to say. We don't feel adequate enough. You know, how can I persuade someone else to believe on Jesus and trust him for salvation? Thankfully, We are not left without an example in the New Testament. Jesus was a master evangelist. Jesus was a master at interacting with people who were not saved, who were searching for spiritual answers, who were looking for eternal life. We're gonna look at two such conversations. You're familiar with both of them, I'm sure. Jesus and Nicodemus in John chapter three, and Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John chapter four. We're not gonna read all the passages necessarily, but we will reference different verses throughout our study here. My point is to compare these two stories, what they teach us about how to be more effective witnesses. And really the point I wanna draw out from these stories and the lessons that we can learn is simply this. Use the strategies that Jesus employed to share the gospel. If he's our shining example, if he's someone we can look to for answers as to how do we do this? How do I share my faith? How do I grow in my confidence to know what to say, how to say it, who to talk to, when to talk to them? All those questions that we usually have in an evangelistic situation. Jesus gives us a lot of answers here. These stories don't give us the definitive, these are all the answers, but there are many here. And specifically, we'll see later on in the message, we're going to look at six lessons that he gives us. But before we do that, I want to jump into just comparing these stories. Again, we're familiar with Nicodemus. We're familiar with the Samaritan woman. We might forget details here and there. But we get the gist. We understand what's happening here for the most part. But let's recap. Let's pretend we don't know very much about these people at all. In John 3, there's a Jewish leader. named Nicodemus. He comes to Jesus at night to talk to him. He knows what has been going on with Jesus. He knows about the miracles that he's performed, as he calls them signs. He knows about what Jesus has taught about the kingdom of God. And so Nicodemus approaches Christ in a one-on-one conversation and says, hey, I have some questions, Jesus, can you answer them? He knew that Jesus did not act alone. If he was doing these miracles, if he was teaching this way, God must be with him. The Lord then turns the conversation to pretty much his favorite topic in all the gospels, the kingdom of God. He says, Nicodemus, if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must experience the new birth. You must be born again. Now Nicodemus didn't understand that immediately, so Jesus explained further. He used pictures and he explained passages from the Old Testament and he brings all these themes to clarify what he meant. And he really draws it home at the end to point to the answer that God provides in his son, the only begotten son who gave his life for the sin of the world. In John 4, the second conversation, John records for us Jesus' conversation with a Samaritan woman. She's unnamed, but he's traveling through Samaria, and he arrives at this well, Jacob's well, and he's tired. It's a hot day, and he stops to rest. Now, mind you, Samaria is an area hostile to Jews. They don't take kindly to Jewish people. Jesus rests by the side here by the well and encounters this woman who is coming from the nearby town to draw water for herself. Now Jesus surprises this woman by asking her a favor. Can I have a drink? Jews and Samaritans don't talk to each other, let alone a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman. So the woman you can imagine is very surprised by this. And even though she is taken aback, she does continue the conversation. She doesn't shut it down. And eventually Jesus reveals that he knows a lot about her own personal life. He knows about her marriage situation. He knows about some of the sins of her past. Their conversation then concludes with some religious back and forth, you know, arguing over, well, where do we really worship? And Jesus draws her home when he reveals himself as the Messiah to her. So both stories, again, we're familiar with. But you may not have thought about the similarities, how these stories really compare to each other. Both stories are obviously gospel conversations, right? Jesus is telling these people about eternal life, about how to have a relationship with God. Maybe he doesn't follow the format that we would expect. That's okay, he's God and he knows way better than I do how to win these people. in those situations. He shares the central purpose of his teachings on earth, pointing people to himself as the answer for salvation. He explains the gospel with simple common pictures, things like birth, wind, light and darkness, water, right? These are common everyday pictures we deal with all the time. The conversations were both one-on-one. Jesus didn't do a Bible study group, or he wasn't talking to a large crowd, he was just talking to these individuals. And then finally, in both accounts, Jesus teaches from the Old Testament. Now, he doesn't necessarily always reference a particular verse. In one case, he does mention a story of Moses lifting up the bronze serpent on the pole to Nicodemus. But otherwise, he kind of is drawing from a lot of Old Testament truths and themes that you find throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The similarities, though, if you're looking for any more, really end there. Because John 3 and John 4 present very different situations with very different people. You almost couldn't get more different. The first story is about an influential, well-educated, religious Jew. Jewish man, right? The second story is about a Samaritan woman who is a serial adulterer and practices, well, a different kind of Judaism. She's practicing the Samaritan version or style of Jewish belief. In chapter 3, Nicodemus is the one who approaches Jesus with his questions. So the unbeliever is the one who comes and approaches Jesus. In the Samaritan woman's story, though, he comes to her. He's the one who approaches her in that situation. Nicodemus came to Jesus looking for a spiritual discussion. He was absolutely looking forward to getting his spiritual questions, his Bible questions answered. The Samaritan woman didn't come for a spiritual conversation. She came to get water. In fact, she came at that time of day purposely to avoid people, avoid a conversation. But instead, she gets confronted by the Son of God. Now comparing the stories reminds us that gospel conversations come in a variety of ways with a variety of people. We recognize some of the situations here because we find ourselves in the same situation sometimes. The chance encounter with a stranger, a scheduled meetup with a close friend. These opportunities come our way and very often we don't think of them as gospel opportunities. We miss out on the chance to engage others with the truth about Jesus. We also recognize the kind of people Jesus spoke with, the religious observer, the wayward sinner. These are people that we know. We have relationships with people like this, and the Lord expects us to give them the good news, just the same, not any different. Now, thankfully, we're not left without an example of how to talk to people like this, the way Jesus did. There are many examples in the New Testament of witnessing evangelism opportunities, but maybe none are more influential and impacting and memorable than these stories right here in John 3 and 4. The stories are giving us extended, personalized conversations with the Savior that he had while he was on earth. I want us in the rest of our time to look at six lessons that Jesus gives us that we can draw out from these passages about how we can be more effective in our own personal witness, how the Lord can grow us and make us better at this commission he's given us to share Christ with the lost. The first one is this, know your audience, know your audience. These accounts are presenting people on two opposite sides of the spectrum, right? We already discussed this. Nicodemus represents the well-educated, the religious, the respectable, the ethnically pure and acceptable class, right? What does the Samaritan woman represent? Well, she symbolized everything on the bottom rung of the social ladder, right? She was disgraced. She was shunned by society because of her lifestyle choices. And to top it off, she's a mixed-blood Samaritan, half Jew, half Gentile. So in her situation, I mean, she's in a very bad place. She's very disadvantaged. Jesus knew in both conversations how to approach these people. He didn't approach them the same. He approached them distinctly, uniquely. Now, first of all, you notice with Nicodemus, and again, we won't have time to read through the whole passage, but we'll pick apart different verses throughout our time. Nicodemus is a fellow Jew educated in the scriptures. So Jesus took that approach with him, with this man. He knows he knows the Bible. So when he's talking to him, he expects him to understand Old Testament truth. In fact, Jesus brings up this whole idea of being born again, you must enter the kingdom of God by being born again. And what is Nicodemus' response? Wait, so you're telling me I'm supposed to, like, go back to my mom's womb? Go back and be born again? Like, how does this work, Jesus? And Jesus explains it to him again and uses even more, you know, uses even more pictures. He talks about wind and all of these things. And Nicodemus' response is still, but, but Jesus, how can these things be? And finally, Jesus just has to say, wait a second, Nicodemus, aren't you a teacher of Israel? How is it that you did not know these things? How is it that you are unaware of what is going on here? He doesn't treat Nicodemus with kid gloves. He recognizes the person he's talking to is a well-educated man, well-versed in the scriptures, so he's gonna talk to him that way. He also refers to himself as the son of man, right? This is an idea that comes from the prophets in the book of Daniel. And then we're very familiar with how in verse 14, before he gets to the famous, you know, for God so loved the world, Jesus brings Nicodemus to kind of an obscure Old Testament story. The nation of Israel has sinned against God and God sends snakes into the camp. to plague the people, to bite them and make them sick and even die. And the people are like, Moses, you've got to help us. And God's answer to Moses is, Moses, I want you to construct and fashion a bronze serpent, a metal serpent. And I want you to hang it up on top of a wooden pole. And anyone who looks at that snake on the pole will immediately be healed. They will not be sick. They will not die. Kind of a strange story. But Jesus takes this truth out of it. Just like that snake was lifted up, Moses lifted it up, and when people saw it, they were healed from the curse of this plague. In the same way, the Son of Man would be lifted up to cure the curse of sin for all mankind. What a beautiful picture. Nicodemus, as a religious Jew, should have had no trouble following that story. Now in chapter four, we find Jesus in a bit of an awkward situation with this Samaritan woman. He's alone with her at the well. She's not expecting this, even though he seems to have expected it. Reading the story though, you realize Jesus obviously had some supernatural knowledge of her past, right? Because not only does he mention her current marital status, you don't have a husband right now, but he also mentions the exact number of previous marriages that are already broken. So, okay, that's not something anybody told him. He knew that. I mean, he's God. He understood that already. But what we may not realize is that this woman, by being there at the well at that time, actually gave away a bit of her own life. She kind of gave us a clue as to what kind of a woman she is. You notice here that as John is recording the story for us. He says specifically the Samaritan woman comes to the well And it was I'm sorry. Jesus comes to the well. He's weary from his journey in verse 6. It was about the 6th hour It's midday. That's 12 o'clock noon right as it's it's burning bright The Sun is is bearing down on all of it all the land of Palestine and here this woman comes in the heat of the day to draw water when no one else is around and Now, if you're a smart woman from the town there, what you would have done is gone to get your water earlier in the day, when it was much cooler, when it wasn't as hot. But this woman does something different. In fact, it seems like she's intentionally avoiding people. So, whoever this woman is, clearly she is either one, a recluse, someone who's just introverted to herself, or she's an outcast. She's someone that society does not accept. Now, Jesus recognizes not only her sinful past, but also the inherent need that she had. She comes to draw water, and what does Jesus offer her? Living water. He says, in fact, this living water that I'm offering, it so satisfies, it so quenches your thirst, that it will be like a fountain of water inside of you, gushing up into everlasting life. She's so drawn by this beautiful picture from the Savior that she eventually asks him, give me this water. I need this. Whatever you're offering, stranger, I want that. And Jesus eventually turns the conversation over to her past, but also to man's intimate need for a relationship with God, for this idea of worshiping God. Where does that happen? It doesn't happen in a temple or on a mountain. It happens in the heart because God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And he draws all the dots together by revealing himself as the Messiah. The one who speaks to you, I am he. So knowing your audience, it's an important part of any speaking engagement, right? If you've spoken professionally, if you're a teacher, if you've given a presentation at work, if you have an oral project at school, if you sit for a job interview, I mean, you've got to know who you're talking to, right? And who you're talking to determines how you present your message, how you go about what you say. In this case, the same is true for the gospel, right? Thankfully, the gospel message is still the same. The men yesterday, we looked at 1 Corinthians 15, how the gospel is the simple story that Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, came into the world to die for our sins. He rose again, and anyone who believes on him will be saved. That's the basic story of the gospel. So that message never changes. What we need to work on though and practice ourselves is tailoring our message to the people we're talking to. You know, just last month, My dad called me and said that a family friend that we've had for many years called him and said that he wanted to know more about salvation, know more about God and how to be saved. This man has had a difficult family situation for many, many years. He's done well financially. His work and everything, he's always done well for himself. But many years ago, his wife divorced him. His three adult children don't speak to him anymore. They have no contact with him. So this is a man broken in a lot of ways. And he knew he had hit rock bottom in his own life. And he had nowhere to turn but to God. Sharing the gospel with him between my dad and I was actually very fruitful than previous conversations we've had with him. My dad has witnessed him many times, and it never quite clicked. He never quite got it. It wasn't until he realized his need, until he was so broken by the deadly consequences of his own choices that he came to the end of himself. Knowing my audience, knowing the person we were talking to and the needs that were there made our conversation that much more effective. And I pray that he genuinely was saved. I really, I can't say I know for sure. But at the very least, he knew the decision he had to make. And I pray that he did make that choice. So knowing your audience, very important in Gospel Witness. Secondly, answer questions with the scriptures. A gospel presentation is really incomplete without confronting the lost with scripture. It's not necessarily that we need to quote verses verbatim, we need to know them word for word, but we need to definitely share with lost people, with unbelievers, what the scriptures have to say about who God is, about who Jesus is, and what he came to do for us. There's nothing that convinces people more than biblical truth empowered by the spirit. Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. We can be as persuasive as we want, but if we're not communicating scriptural truth, people's lives will not be changed. Jesus knew this. He approached Nicodemus with lots of biblical references, right? His teaching on this new birth is kind of obscure. It's not clear where he's drawing that from in the Old Testament. Many people believe that he's drawing from Ezekiel 36, in which the prophet Ezekiel talks about how in the new covenant, the Lord is going to give his people a new heart and a new spirit. That seems to be indicating some kind of spiritual change or rebirth happening. Of course, you have the Old Testament story of Moses putting the serpent on the pole to heal the nation from judgment. The conversation with the Samaritan woman, though, is a lot less focused on Bible references. Like, Jesus is not exactly quoting from Scripture. You could argue, it's very possible Jesus, when he's talking about this living water that he offers to the woman, I'm gonna give you water that can offer everlasting life. It's very possible he's drawing from the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 55, when he says, come everyone who thirsts to the waters, they're here for you to take. And it's an offer of salvation, it's an offer of God's deliverance. In any case, knowing the scriptures was vital to winning this woman to the Savior, even though she herself was not fully Jewish. In a similar way, we can't disregard the importance of the Bible in our evangelism. There are many gospel presentations you can find that walk you through different Bible passages. One of the more famous ones is the Romans Road, right? You know, starting with, you know, there is none righteous, no, not one, Romans three, and it kind of walks you through some different verses in the book of Romans that talk about gospel truth, our sin and the judgment of sin, how Christ came to die for our sins. He gives us the gift of eternal life. All of that you can find in the book of Romans. If memory doesn't happen to be your strong suit, and that's definitely some of us, right? Then by all means, buy a pocket New Testament, mark it up, highlight it, put bookmarks in your Bible so that you know where to go if you need to address certain verses with the person you're talking to. Carry gospel tracts with you that use scriptures that talk about the gospel and explain the gospel story. Most importantly, know the gospel well from your own Bible study. Friends, I can't tell you how many times I've read just in my own personal devotions, and I'm reading through and I don't anticipate it, but I come across a verse and I say, wow, that's a great gospel verse. That's a great passage to use if I'm sharing the gospel to explain this point. Look out for those kinds of things in your own Bible study. And finally, Another key ingredient is being able to explain the identity of Jesus and his mission from the Old Testament. Be familiar with some of the prophecies of his birth, his miracles, his deity, his life and his death, his resurrection. That's all found in the Hebrew scriptures, friends. Now, if all of that sounds like it's too much information to process, I mean, there's no way I could remember all that stuff, Pastor Christian. That's okay. I'm not telling you these things so that your next gospel conversation, you have everything lined up, you know exactly what to say. As you digest that kind of biblical truth, as you meditate on it, as you're thinking on it, and you're communicating those truths to different people, over time it will become very familiar. I mean, it's like a person who's training in martial arts, right? Maybe at the next fight, you don't know all the moves, all the skills that you need to use. But eventually, when the time comes, those skills are going to kick into place. They're going to kick into gear because you've been practicing. You've been going and training and practicing for many, many hours. That's the idea with your witness. It doesn't happen automatically. It happens by, over time, accruing more and more gospel truth that you store and that you use at the right time. I'll close with this on this point. Sometimes an unbeliever asks a tough question. Sometimes they ask a question you don't know the answer to. Friends, it's okay to say, I don't know. It's okay to say, I'll get back to you. Let me research that. And then do that. Look it up. Ask pastor myself. There are lots of good books and resources that can give answers to all sorts of questions. And more than likely, the Bible might just have the answer that you need. And that's why we need to point people to the scriptures. Number three, be creative and thoughtful. I love this point because Jesus does it so well in both stories. One of the more memorable aspects of John 3 and 4 are the pictures Jesus uses to communicate gospel truth. Nicodemus really gets the heaviest dose, doesn't he? Because in his story, I mean, Jesus starts with birth, right? You must be born again. We think of it as a spiritual term, but in Nicodemus's mind, that's like, I know what birth is, I know what again means. What does that mean together? It was very confusing for him when he first heard this. The best way to describe how you enter God's kingdom is you experience a new birth. You experience spiritual transformation. Just like man is born physically, he must also be born spiritually. except that this birth is not easily noticeable. Like when a baby's born and a baby comes out of mom's womb, right? That's obvious. We know when that happens, but what does it look like when someone gets spiritually born? Jesus uses a second picture. He says, Nicodemus, it's kind of like the wind. The Spirit of God moves this way. He's the author of that spiritual birth. And the Spirit of God moves like the wind. You can't see it. You can't touch it. But you know the evidence of it. You know when the wind is whistling through the trees. You know when it's blowing around the garbage all around the streets of New York. It's there. It's evident. It's provable. The Lord closes the conversation by contrasting light and darkness, right? He talks about how the Son of God has brought light into the world and it dispels, it moves away the darkness of man's sinful hearts. The Samaritan woman got only one picture and that was living water. Jesus uses this casual request, can I have a drink, to kind of as an excuse to bring up his own spiritual point, right? Revealing this woman's need for thirst quenching water. The living water offers true satisfaction. It produces this inward change. It becomes that fountain of water that turns into everlasting life. If Jesus didn't refrain from being a little creative in his gospel witness, what does that mean for us? I mean, Jesus could have explained these passages of scripture, he could have talked about the Old Testament in lots of different ways, just like a teacher would, right? Expositing the scriptures. But he didn't. Instead, he taught about salvation with pictures. He employed images that were memorable, that stick with us even today. We sing about being born again. We talk about being born again. We'd say to friends and family, you know, I'm a born again Christian. We say it like everybody should understand what that means. But it's because we know the story of Nicodemus so well. We know that truth and it sticks with us. Same with this idea of Christ satisfying our thirsty hearts. We know what it's like to crave water and Jesus meets that need. These pictures are important because they show us our need to employ illustrations when appropriate. You know, there's no doubt, all of us, if you've ever had a gospel conversation, you've ever talked with someone about Jesus, we all have our own styles of conversation, our own unique personalities, our own backgrounds and experiences, that's okay. Some of us are probably more prone to use pictures, because that's easy for us, that's how we process information. And some of us are like, give me the textbook, man, that's all I want. Give me the textbook answer, that's how I want to get it across. I would say whatever your personality is, whatever your style is, it's not a bad idea to introduce some gospel illustrations that really communicate the truth about Jesus. If you're familiar with our children's ministry, you know that many times, especially in vacation Bible school, we've used the wordless book. It's a very good tool because it helps kids associate gospel truth with a color. And kids love colors, right? So each color is a different truth about the gospel message. One picture that I would recommend for adults is one that we've talked about before, the three circles. This is one we've taught about in family camp. A few years ago, we had an evangelism class and we actually taught through how to use the three circles. If you're looking for what that looks like and how to do that, sharing that with someone, that's not a believer, you can certainly just Google online, or you can actually go to Pastor Thomas's old blog, shepherdthoughts.com, and the detailed information is there as to how you do the whole presentation. I'll close with this on this point. We can also be creative, not just in how we present, but in the medium through which we present. Sometimes we think the gospel is just words, right? It is a message, it is words, no question about that. But what if you communicated the gospel through your actions? What if communicating the gospel looked like cutting your neighbor's lawn? What if it looked like picking up a project from your coworker? You didn't have to do it, but you just, you wanted to. Boy, those acts of love, those intentional, deliberate acts of service for other people probably prove the gospel better than any message you can give. And there's lots of other ways I could mention, but those acts of love are gonna be very demonstrative of what Jesus has done to change your life. Let's move on to number four here. Engage with a variety of people. Engage with a variety of people. We've already noted how different these two people are, Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, but the differences become even more apparent if you look further in their stories and how people responded when they started sharing Jesus with others. On the one hand, you had Nicodemus, a respected religious figure in his community. Yet under cover of night, he comes to Jesus to ask his questions because his own religion, his own Jewish faith wasn't meeting those needs. He didn't understand what Jesus came to do and what the kingdom of God was about. Nicodemus found the answers he's looking for. I mean, apparently he did believe on Jesus, except that he really didn't bring anybody else with him, at least as best as we can tell. The Gospel of John is our only record of Nicodemus' life. He's mentioned nowhere else. We don't know much about him except after this conversation, he did a pretty good job of hiding his faith, not being very public about his approval of Jesus's message. There's an occasion in John 7 where the chief priests and the Pharisees are arguing about what Jesus is saying and what are we gonna do with him? How are we gonna deal with this? And Nicodemus kind of sheepishly says, hey, should we really cast judgment on a prophet before we've evaluated him? He doesn't really give an affirmative like, hey, I believe on Jesus. Look what he's doing. He gives no positive affirmation that way of Christ's work and ministry. And then in John 19, after Jesus dies, Nicodemus shows up on the scene again to help bury Jesus in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. But after that, he comes off the scene and he's gone in the pages of history, as best we can tell. These actions, though well-intentioned, show us that what John said about many of the Pharisees was true. Even though they believed on Jesus, some of them did, They were not willing to follow him openly because they loved the praise of men. Because they were more worried about their religious positions rather than following the truth, no matter what it cost them. So that's Nicodemus, a religious man you would expect to stand up for his principles, right? A man of conviction. Oh no, he cowers in fear. The Samaritan woman, on the other hand, a woman with no social capital at all, was willing to go out to some of the very same men in the town that knew her as a harlot. They knew her as a loose woman, a woman of the streets. And yet she's running around to all of them and saying, hey, have you seen this Jesus? Come and hear him. He told me everything about me. He told me everything about my past. He knew me from top to bottom, beginning to end. Come and listen to what he has to say. and they were all compelled to come. They all were persuaded by this woman. In no time at all, the people flocked to Jesus from the town of Sychar, and all over Samaria, many believed on him. John later writes in chapter four, that woman was more persuasive than an influential religious Jewish man. If nothing else, these stories are teaching us to cast our gospel nets very wide, not to restrain them. Jesus didn't shy away from talking to the strict religious man or to the loose, promiscuous woman. He made himself available to all these people. His everyday interactions were leading him to people just like this. He didn't restrict himself to a certain class or social circle. He was friendly, he was courteous, he was engaging with all sorts of people that he came across. Sometimes when we do evangelism, if we're in the midst of outreach, right? We have in our minds the kinds of people that will respond to the gospel, right? We measure up people in our heads and we say, that person over there, they're gonna take the track. That person over there, mm-mm, no, probably not. We do this, we do this mental gymnastics. I've been guilty of that. I've done that plenty of times. And you know what, we make those decisions purely based on our own human biases. We have no reason to cast that kind of judgment because we're not seeing from God's eyes. But when we look through God's eyes, I think we might just be surprised. In his view, anyone is a candidate for salvation. The educated, the spiritually curious, the seeker, the socially awkward, and yes, even the outcasts. You may be surprised to learn that there are spiritually sensitive people, people who know the Bible, who know God's truth, but they're not saved yet. When you tell them the gospel, they're not quite ready. or at least they're very hesitant to make that decision. Let me think about this a little more. Let me research it more. Let me look at other religions. Meanwhile, the guy on the street with tattoos all over him or the lady with weird piercings all over her body, that may just be the person the Lord has prepared for you to talk to because they're ready to hear. We have no idea. All we can do is cast our nets wide and let God do the rest. Number five, prepare for planned conversations. We look at the story of Nicodemus with great enthusiasm, right? Because Nicodemus was the one who came to Jesus. Boy, that's great. If every conversation with the lost person was like that, I'd be on cloud nine. That'd be so, that'd be wonderful. If people just came to me, if lost people just talked to me instead of me seeking them out. If you read the story, you find that this conversation was planned ahead of time, right? It does seem like there was some element of planning. Nicodemus met Jesus at a certain time, certain place, at nighttime, because he had lingering questions. We don't know why exactly, it had to be at night. It could be that Nicodemus was just trying to get Jesus at a time of day when there were no crowds and no people around, and he had one-on-one time with him. It might be that he was afraid of the Pharisees and what they would say if they found him with Jesus. Knowing this conversation was coming, Jesus had the time, the ability to prepare his thoughts, think through, okay, I know this man knows the Old Testament, so I'm gonna give him the Bible. I'm gonna have him, I'm going to draw him into Old Testament passages that will clearly explain why you must be born again. The only way to enter the kingdom of God is this way. These kinds of scheduled meetings with unbelievers don't happen very often. Rarely does a person come to us with a question like, hey, I want to know more about God. Can you show me? I want to know how to get to heaven. Can you tell me how to do that from the Bible? That doesn't happen very often. But if it does happen, friends, we have a responsibility to arm ourselves with a defense for the faith. We need to consider our audience and address their spiritual needs accordingly. I'll tell you a story. Several years ago, I went to a movie theater in the city to watch a documentary on biblical manuscripts, a great blockbuster, right? I went with actually a visitor who was coming to FBC at the time. He wanted to see this film as well, so we both went to see it. And after the film, we came out of the theater and there was this Indian woman, an elderly Indian woman who was in the theater with us. There were not many people there, so it was easy to tell who was in the attendance. And we started talking to her and I assumed she was a Christian because who else would come to see a Bible documentary except a Christian, right? So as we're talking to her, that's how I'm addressing her. And then I come to realize she reveals herself to be a Muslim. I was shocked. I was like, if you don't mind me asking, why would you come to see a Bible documentary? And she said, well, actually I'm very curious in other religions. So I knew about this and I came to watch it too. Long story short, we got to exchange numbers and we've met up for coffee and theology several times. and have had great conversations together with this woman. Now, knowing that she was Muslim helped me to know how to prepare. I didn't know much about the Islamic faith at the time, but learning and listening and reading books and doing my own research helped me understand more about what Islam believes, and more specifically, what Muslims believe about Christianity. So doing my own work on that end helped make those conversations productive. And I still have an open door with this woman to this day because she knows I care enough about her faith to research it and talk about it intelligibly. And friends, we can do a similar kind of thing in our own lives if we want unbelievers of all kinds of faiths and ideologies to be drawn to the Savior. Finally, very last point here, number six, optimize everyday occurrences. If Nicodemus and his story represents the planned, scheduled conversation, the Samaritan woman represents the everyday occurrence, right? This woman wasn't planning to come to the well to have a spiritual discussion, but Jesus did. I feel like we do need to approach witnessing more like that scenario, where it's us who are gonna have to be the ones to address spiritual topics, bring them up, even if it's not comfortable, even if it's a little awkward. It's uncomfortable for many of us who are introverts ourselves, we're bad at small talk, or maybe we're just awkward around strangers, right? We don't know how to address people that way. Even if you are comfortable in those situations, it's not always easy to know what to say. How do I take happenings in my routine life of work, home, sleep? You know, that's my Monday to Friday, nine to five, right? How do I take that schedule and maximize it for gospel impact? Let's take a cue from Jesus. If you look at chapter four, you'll notice that he doesn't start with anything spiritual. What is his first words to this woman? A question, right? A favor. Give me a drink. I mean, a simple casual request you could ask anybody in almost any given situation. And specifically, this is one to meet a real physical need, right? I don't think he was just making it up. He was tired from the hot sun. He was thirsty. He wants a drink of water. Now we know Jesus wasn't afraid to break social conventions either. Talking to this woman was enough to put him in an awkward spot, let alone asking her for a favor. but he turns the woman's frustrated response, right? Why would you talk to me? You're a Jew. He turns that into a spiritual transition point. He says, hey, if you knew whom you were actually talking to, if you knew the gift of God that I'm offering to you, you would be asking me for a drink of water. Wow, what an interesting switch. What an interesting turn of the tables, right? Let me ask you a question. Have you ever made a gospel contingency plan? Now, a contingency plan is, you know, it's a plan that you set up for emergencies, right? Like when there's a fire or a tornado, if there's a robber that comes to your house, you know, you plan for these drastic emergencies. What do I do? How do I respond? How do I get to safety? In a similar way, we can prepare ourselves for gospel contingencies in our everyday lives. How can I plan to share Christ as I go about my day? Just spitballing here for a few examples, how about this? When you stop by the food cart outside of the office or outside the subway station, when you're going into work Monday morning, you're picking up breakfast, you see the same vendor every day. He knows your name, he knows where you work, says, hey, you know, how you doing? Every single day asks you the same question. How can you introduce Jesus to this man in that conversation that lasts all of two minutes? It's not a bad idea to think about a gospel contingency plan for that kind of situation. If you're filling up your car at the gas station, and this doesn't happen all the time, usually people don't talk to you at the gas station, but if the guy next to you or the lady next to you happens to say, these gas prices, man, they're killing me. How can you share with that person that, you know what, my confidence is not in the strength of the US economy, it's in my God who takes care of me. What if that was how we viewed that conversation? When you go to the park on Saturday with your kids, you see the same moms, the same grandparents, they're always there every weekend, they're playing on the same playground. Have you tried getting to know them, showing them the love of Jesus through your words and actions? You know, I could mention many, many more. You're probably thinking of some yourself in your own everyday routine. It's not hard to come up with these situations where I'm interacting with strangers, with people all around me, right? It's hard not to in New York City. We know they come up, but it escapes us to consider how the gospel might enter that kind of scenario. Instead of letting these open doors pass us by, what if they were maximized for gospel impact? You know, just a few weeks ago, my wife and I, in case you didn't know, we've been in the midst of moving. We've been done moving for a while now, but last month that was all we were doing for several weeks, moving stuff back and forth. And one day we took a pit stop at the Rego Center Mall at Panera Bread. And we said, let's just take some time to relax. It's just the two of us. This is great. And we sat next to someone, and this lady asked us if while she went to the restroom, we would watch her stuff. Sure, no problem. Well, she came back, and we finished our food. And as we were leaving, my wife, being a good wife, says, honey, why don't you give her a track? And she pulled one out from her purse and, you know, I wasn't thinking that way, but I'm glad my wife was. And giving that woman, that lady, that track turned into a 10-minute conversation. I was so glad it did, you know, because I wasn't anticipating that. That made me more happy than the rest stop at Panera because, you know, when do you get these opportunities? It was amazing. This woman told us that she actually believes in Krishna. And, you know, that's where she draws her beliefs from. She shared some of, you know, some of her viewpoints and some of her religious beliefs. In that short time, we gave her the gospel, we handed her a track, we invited her to church. We said, you know, hey, if you ever have any questions, you know, here's my phone number and, you know, we'd love to talk with you more, have a Bible study with you. You never know what opportunities are going to come your way. But it's worth asking the Lord for wisdom to know how to respond in those situations. have given us six lessons from Jesus from this story. We haven't really, you know, exposited these passages so much as just observed. What did Jesus do in order to be effective in his evangelism? Because yes, he's the son of God. Yes, he knew exactly what to say and how to say it so that these people were convinced to come to him, to come to salvation. But you know, it's not an accident that we have these stories recorded for us. They're written down for our learning. And I hope that these have been a help in understanding more about how I can be a witness. This Saturday, we have the street fair outreach. We're gonna see lots of people there we don't know. We're gonna see lots of people from different faiths, different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different ages. What a great opportunity to get the gospel out. What a great chance to exercise my evangelism muscles. Say, okay, I may not know much about how to share Jesus, but I know my testimony. I know what God has done for me, and I can share that. I can hand a tract to someone. I can say, God bless you, come visit our church someday. We'd love to have you. That's all it takes. It starts there, and Lord willing, it can grow into having full-fledged gospel conversations with people that produce fruit for the kingdom of God. I'll close with just sharing the rest of my high school friend, George, and his story. After I told him about Jesus at the deli over lunch, again, I wasn't sure how he was going to respond. I wasn't sure, would George see me any differently? Would we still be friends? Who knows? As we ended our talk, Around that time, we were gonna have a teen rally here at church. We were gonna have a special evangelist, a speaker come, and he was gonna talk to the teenagers. And I thought, shot in the dark here, let me invite George to this event. And he said he would think about it. Well, the day of the event came, and George never confirmed with me whether he was coming or not. And I was just, I was like, well, that stinks. But a few minutes before we were getting things started, I got a call from George. He says, hey, Christian, I'm here at the 7 train. Could you give me directions to the church? I don't know where to go from here. I was more than happy to tell him that. And how surprised I was to see him walk through the doors of our church. We sat right there, right where Brother Marius and Debbie are. He sat through the whole rally, and he enjoyed it. He was paying attention. At the end of the special speaker's message, he actually came to George. I don't know how he knew he was not a believer, or I think I may have told him he was my friend, I'm not sure. But he took George aside for a few moments. And at the end of their time, at the end of talking together, they came back and the speaker said, George, you want to tell Christian what you just did? And George said, Christian, I just got saved. And man, I couldn't tell you, there was nothing more joyful than just knowing that a friend of mine came to know Jesus. I haven't talked with him since high school, but at the very least, I know he knows the gospel. And to my knowledge, he's a believer. It didn't happen by accident, George's salvation. It happened because, by God's grace, he was showing me, Christian, you've got to make intentional choices to be a witness in the mission field that you are at. My mission field was high school at that time, a 17-year-old. Who are the people in your life that need to have that same conversation? Again, whether spur of the moment, unexpected, or something you've planned and something you've prepared for, apply the lessons from the life of Christ and watch him turn you into a fisher of men. Thank you for tuning in to the preaching ministry of Faith Baptist Church. We are conveniently located in Corona, New York City, and are devoted to loving God and making disciples. For more resources and helpful information about our church, visit StudyGodsWord.com. We'd also like to extend a personal invitation for you and your family to join us on Sundays at 9.30 in the morning for a time of interactive Bible study for young people and adults, followed by an 11 o'clock worship and preaching service. If you have young children, they will really enjoy our exciting Bible-based children's ministries in both the morning Bible study hour and worship service. If you have any questions about the church or would like to learn how to have a personal relationship with God, please give us a call or leave some feedback at StudyGodsWord.com. We would be thrilled to meet you in person and show you firsthand what God is doing at Faith Baptist Church. Until next time, may God richly bless you.