Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. OK. Let me open in a word of prayer. Father, I just thank you for this delightful place. Just a really lovely location, quiet church building. Soon the windows will be open and the farmland smells will be coming through. And Father, I just thank you for this family of believers that has gathered together like flowers in your sight. Father, I pray that you would bless them, establish the work of their hands in this area, May your good tidings roll in the surrounding area of Kinzer and from the surrounding land where each of these dear people come from. I pray, Father, this morning that your word would be a delight, a challenge, a conviction to our souls, that we might leave here with a renewed encouragement from you, O Holy Spirit, that we might fulfill that which you might say to us this morning. Father, give me the words. The horse has been prepared for battle, but victory rests with you, Lord. Only you, O Holy Spirit, can do the wonder of speaking to our hearts. Your word is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, able to penetrate even the division between soul and spirit, and to convict our hearts, Father. And I pray that you would do that this morning. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Well, we are back in the fourth chapter of John. How are you liking having different people every Sunday? Good, good. We have a, we belong to a church that has several pastors and I like the variety. And we do have a main preaching pastor, but he mixes it up quite a bit. And so I trust that this has been beneficial to your souls as well. We're kind of doing things backwards. We're back in John chapter 4 with the woman at the well. If you recall last time I was here, I talked about the response of her salvation to the disciples, if you recall it. So we actually started with the back end of the story and kind of brushed over her story. But we're going to go back to the lady this time and look more, zero in more closely at her encounter with Jesus Christ. And I'll just start reading. I'm reading out of the New International Version, so if it's close enough to your translation, I trust that it will be. The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although, in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria, and we talked about that last time, how Galilee was up above, that's where he wanted to go, Samaria was in between, and he was down in Jerusalem. And how the Jewish leaders really didn't like the Samaritans, so many of them actually crossed the Jordan River. and went around on the outside by the desert and came into Galilee without having to touch foot in Samaria. But I like Jesus' directness. He sees he's going to Galilee. It's straight up and so he has to go through Samaria. But there is a real animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews. They do not like each other. But, verse 4, Jesus goes through Samaria, and so he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour, which would be high noon. According to Genesis, Jacob was in this area. It was near Shechem, Mount Gerizim, where the blessings were pronounced. Sychar is nearby. We don't know exactly where it is. Some people think it has a different name today. But it's kind of out in the boonies, but it does have theological history. Jacob and his sons were there before they went down into Egypt. And so they had dug wells, and this must apparently have been one of them. Jesus is tired. He is fully man. When Jesus became a man, he just didn't look like a man. He became man, took on our nature without sin, but fully God, 100% God, 100% man. And after walking through desert country for the first six hours of the day, he is tired. Disciples have gone into town to buy food. We spoke a little bit about them last week. How did 12 Jewish guys showing up at the local delicatessen not get so much as a yawn out of the crowd of Samaritans? But they don't. They come back with the food we saw last week. A woman comes along. When a Samaritan woman, verse 7, came to draw water, Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? Jesus' M.O., if you've noticed it, modus operandi, his way of encountering people is to quickly move them from physical realities to spiritual realities. Have you noticed that? He's constantly moving them from wherever they are, to take them where they are, to move them to a spiritual reality. She comes to the water to draw a well. He uses an analogy with water to move her from the physical to the spiritual. And really, John chapter 4 is often used as an evangelistic study. And I want to go in that direction today because it just cries out for that. We are not Jesus. We cannot do some of the things he did. He could read people's minds. We find out that he knows her history. Here he is, a stranger from Jerusalem, and he knows this woman's history in a little town in Samaria. We're not able to do those things, but we're going to see that there are things here yet that we can emulate because the activity of evangelism is a faith activity, much like prayer. It's often said that prayer is the most It really shows the depth of our faith because here we are talking to someone we cannot see and nobody's watching us do this or listening to us. So faith is a great, prayer is a great example of faith. Evangelism is too. It shows you, shows me that we must really believe this stuff if we're gonna step out and tell people about this God that they cannot see who has died on a cross for them. that they've only heard about. So that is, whenever you share Christ, you have stepped out of the natural into that which is strictly supernatural. Isn't that so? And so evangelism is a barometer of our faith system. Jesus told these men that he was going to make them fishers of men. How many fishermen here? I mean, really, I know Chuck Volo is. But he's not here. But anybody else get into fishing at all? So-so? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we all know what it is. You know, if you're a fly fisher, you throw that little feathery thing out into the water and you keep bringing it back and throwing it again. And one thing's clear is you can't put the fish on the hook. They've got to decide to do that. And I think the idea that we are fishers of men is such a great example because we're asked to throw the line. That's all we can do. Share the gospel in whichever way that we can to the degree that warrants that particular encounter. You're just a link in the chain. And I often think of that. I often ask myself, where is the person now? What seems to be the next bit of information they need in their journey towards salvation? And so only the Holy Spirit can give us that. And so Jesus starts with where she is. She's there to draw water, so he says, would you give me a drink? She's an interesting character. Let's read a little bit of, just a little bit of her attitude. Verse 9, the Samaritan woman said to him, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Well, that's coming later. Verse 11. Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds? Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water, now it's up on the board. Thank you for putting that up there, by the way. Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I 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 won't have to get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. So he's got a challenge with this lady. She isn't quite getting it. Jesus said to her in verse 10, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. This is really an understatement, isn't it? This woman comes to the well, we know from her, the fact that she comes by herself at high noon when the time to come is early morning, comes as a group with the women, or early evening. They come as a group for protection, coolness of the day, but you do not come at high noon to the well by yourself. So it's an indication, as we learn later, that Jesus points out she's had five husbands and she's living with somebody now. So chances are in this small town where word gets around, she's like low on the totem pole. But she figures that he doesn't know this. Jesus has three strikes against him as a religious leader. Now if he were a Pharisee, the Pharisees, A, would not have been in Samaria, B, they would not have been talking to a woman, and C, they would not have been talking to someone who has a bad reputation. We see that in Luke chapter 7 with the sinful woman who comes into the Pharisee's house, remember, and washes his feet with her tears. She's so broken and wipes them with her hair. And remember what the Pharisee thought to himself? If this man were a prophet, meaning Jesus, he would know what kind of woman is touching him, that she is a sinner. Now there's a Pharisee's attitude wrapped up in pretty much one attitude. The Pharisee said to himself, If Jesus knew what kind of woman this was, he wouldn't even be messing with her. Well, the woman is aware of two strikes against the Pharisee, and she sees him as a rabbi, a teacher from Jerusalem, and she hits both of them. Sir, in verse nine, you are a Jew and I am A, a Samaritan, and B, a woman. She's hoping he doesn't know anything about number three. that she's also got a sinful reputation in the town. But she only mentions two. Jesus knows all three, as we discover later. But again, I look at Jesus' answer. I don't give titles to my messages, but if I did, I think I would have titled this one, If You Knew the Gift of God, You Would Have Asked Him. This woman, think about it. She runs into God. at the well. Do you think that's what she's expecting? No, she's surprised to see him even talking to her. But she's talking to God in human flesh. God, if you knew the gift of God and who it was that asked you for a drink. There are two phrases there. The first one is if you knew the gift of God and the second was and who it is that asks you for a drink. The theologian John Calvin says that the second phrase actually in his mind defines the first one. If you knew the gift of God, the second one defines who that gift is, Jesus Christ. Because the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. For God so loved the world that he gave the gift of salvation through his only son, Jesus Christ. And Jesus is talking to a woman who is a bit sassy, a bit brash, a bit mocking. And he says, if you knew the gift of God and who it was that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. We see by this verse that the living water is eternal life. In the seventh chapter of John, he's gonna stand up on the eighth and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and he's gonna yell out in a loud voice, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. For out of him will come streams of living water. In other words, the source of your life, the source of nourishment will be within you. And by this he meant the Holy Spirit. Now this is where I would say it strikes me. God will make us fishers of men. Our job is to throw the line. We cannot read minds like Jesus could. We cannot know other people's histories. But to say that it's strictly a human exercise would be wrong. We have assistance in evangelism. And had we not, the whole activity is fruitless. Our human strategies, our plans, they're all good. But we pray that God would bless it, don't we? Your desire to reach kins are in the surrounding area. You're putting out a mailing, right? Is it for Easter or something like that? It's a great idea. But if it were strictly a human strategy, this ain't going nowhere. We are trusting that those mailings are going to reach people's homes at a time and a season and a condition in their lives where they're going to go, this is just what I need. I need to go check this out. Why, it's right down the street. Why, it's just over in Kinzer. I can go there. That's our prayer, isn't it? When we're asking God to be involved in this activity, Lord, may it reach them at just the right time. I find that evangelism is often about God's timing. I can remember When I was doing prison ministry in New England, I was doing a lot of prison ministry up in Maine. And if you've ever been up to Maine, it's like another country. It's huge. And the exits are like 20, 30, 40 miles apart. And I had stayed overnight at some friend's house in mid-Maine, and I was heading north. And so early morning, I'd say about 8 o'clock, I'm getting on the highway, and there's a man hitchhiking there. So I picked him up. One of the ways that I fish is by just saying things like, well, the Lord sure gave us a beautiful day today, didn't he? Now I figure when you're out there, spring's coming, you're going to run into people everywhere and people are going to be saying to you, what a gorgeous day. Oh, we can take more of this. I say, why waste that opportunity? Why not throw the Lord into that? Say, wow, the Lord sure gave us a beautiful day today. It doesn't cost any extra. It's warranted. They're just not thinking from that direction. They're just saying, wow, what a gorgeous day. And they run into this person who says, the Lord sure gave us a beautiful day today. I can't tell you how many times God has used that. You say, well, what's that going to do? It brought from the physical to the spiritual. When people ask me, how are you doing? You know what my response is? Most people are going, it's Philadelphia. How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? People say, well, I'm doing fine. You know what I say? I'm doing great by the grace of God alone. Not everybody can say that. It may not be your personality. But you might be able to say, by God's grace, I'm doing good. What have we done by just saying that? On one level, it's just a human response, isn't it? But it's tossing the line out there. It gives God the opportunity to make something of that. And so I said that to this guy that I picked up. Well, the Lord sure gave us a beautiful day today. And you know what he did? He did a double take. He actually went like that. He said, I can't believe you mentioned the Lord. And I'm going, yeah, that was clever of me. It's like all of a sudden the fish are biting. And I says, well, what do you mean? He says, well, he says, I just left the hospital in Waterville, a detox center, again. I'm an alcoholic and I get so bad that I have to be hospitalized for two weeks. And last night was my last night. I talked to my wife, said, I'm coming home today. She wanted to know if she wanted to come down and get me. She lives in northern Maine. I feel like my alcoholism has wrecked my family. And I'm not going to ask her to drive all the way down here to get me because of my addiction. So it says that. He says, and last night was the last night and I know I ain't changed. And he says, and as I was sitting in my bed realizing what a depressing situation I'm in and even that my wife is still with me, all of a sudden a priest walked by my doorway out in the hallway and I thought, God. Maybe God's the answer for my life. He says, I haven't been to any kind of service since I was in the war when a chaplain did a mass over the back of a jeep. And it was like, it had been like 30 years before. And he said, but I just, it just a thought struck me when I saw this priest go by that maybe God's involved. Maybe God could do something. I've tried everything else. So I rushed out into the hallway, looked both ways, and he was gone. But I could see down the end, there was a little sign that stuck out, it said chapel. It was a tiny little room where people could go and pray. He said, I never used it. But I thought, maybe that's where he went. I ran down there, opened the door, and it was empty. And so there was like a pew there. He says, I sat down on it and it was a cross up on the wall and I just started crying. And he says, God, I've messed up. I'm sorry for the life I've lived, all the pain I've caused people, but I don't know what you want me to do. He had no knowledge of the gospel. He had no knowledge of what God wanted him to do. And that's where he ended his story. I said, you asked him, you didn't know what to do? And he says, yeah. He says, I didn't know what I was supposed to do. So I asked him, what am I supposed to do? Now, I'm thinking God is up in heaven, and he heard that prayer, and he says he's going to be out on Highway 95 tomorrow about 8 o'clock. Who have I got in the area? Not only who have I got in the area, who will bring me up? Well, you know, I'm not a great evangelist. I just said, wow, the Lord sure gave us a beautiful day today, didn't he? And as soon as he told me what his story was, with authority, I said, well, you know what? I know that I've been sent to you by God to answer your question what you're supposed to do next. And we spent the next 30, 40 miles. I shared the gospel with him. And it was his time. He was so excited about Christ and that he could be forgiven and that he has now the power of change that I missed my exit because I figured he needs to have some basics. So I talked about finding a good church, what are the marks of a good church. I'll tell you, the next exit was 20 miles away. It was another 40 miles up and back to get back to where my exit really was. But I dropped him off, and he was so excited, he says, this is going to change everything. I can't wait to tell my wife and children. And he went on his way rejoicing, just like the Ethiopian eunuch. And I felt like Philip. Now let me ask you, how clever was I in all of this? Did I arrange to meet him at 8 o'clock on Highway 95, whatever the cross street was? No way. I just want to say that to encourage you. God is involved not only in our witness, but in the timing of the thing. That's why I really do pray, and I think the church ought to pray, Lord, make the arrival of that flyer be at just the right time, because he's engaged in that. I've said, I've been on a ski slope and said that to the operator, you know, those little T bars that you kind of plop yourself down and moves you up the mountain, you know, those things. Not much of a skier, my wife is. But I can remember saying the same thing to the ski operator. I said, well, the Lord sure knows how to make a beautiful day, doesn't he? And boom, the little thing hit me in the rear and I'm starting to go up the mountain. And he yells after me, yeah, and he sure knows how to wreck them too. I said, hold that thought. I went up the mountain. I had borrowed a pair of skis from my pastor. He's much taller than me, and they were much too big for me. And he had only sharpened one of them. So one of them would turn, and the other one wouldn't. And so I'm not very good at skiing, but I was really bad that day. As soon as I wanted to turn and one didn't, you're in a whole lot of trouble. So I would tumble down the hill. But I was on the bunny hill. So I ran back to the ski operator and I said, well, what do you mean God knows how to wreck them? He says, well, look at all these people. We get rainy days and their whole day is wrecked. Boom, the little thing hit me in the rear. I'm starting to go up the mountain again. I said, there's an answer for that. Anyways, this went on for four or five times, about a three-minute discussion before that little T-bar hit me and I had to go up. He got so frustrated, he got someone to replace himself and took me over by the fence. And we talked for the next hour about the Lord. How clever was I in all of that? Wow, the Lord sure knows how to make a beautiful day, doesn't he? Brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you. Fish, but throw the line out. Just bring God's, is that very hard to say that the Lord knows how to make a beautiful day? Or didn't he give us a beautiful day? Is that hard? I think we can do that. And what have we lost? We often say it to people we'll never see again. You never know what God is up to. Well, this woman doesn't get it, so Jesus moves into high gear in verse 16. She's a little brassy, a little sassy. You don't have anything to draw with. The well is deep. Give me this water so I won't get thirsty again. He says, go call your husband and come back. She says, I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, you're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true. Busted. She's been busted. You notice that the joking ends here with her, but she does change the subject. She thought everything was cool as long as Jesus didn't know that she had a bad reputation in town. But Jesus just tells her everything that reveals that she's low on the totem pole in this town. Now you and I can't do that, but we can receive from the Holy Spirit only that which he can do. I can't tell you how many times I've had opportunities to talk to people by just saying something like what I said before. You know, even asking someone, do they attend church? Or do they go to a church nearby? Giving them the benefit that they attend church. You'd be surprised how quick the discussion will get to where they are. Because you're hitting a little closer to, I know something about you, that I couldn't have known when you do that. When you ask someone, do they attend the church nearby? What have you opened up for that person? The whole God discussion. See, for us, it's nothing to say, where do you attend the church? But for people who aren't going to church, and who probably think, well, you know, good people go to church. You've just opened up, where are they with God? That's a big thing to them. But you did it in such a non-challenging way. Do you attend church nearby? You'll not only, if they do, you find out what kind of church they're going to. And if they're not, their answers are always almost, we don't get into that too much. Already a discussion, a can opener has been penetrated the top of that can. These are little things that we can do that God might assist. I remember one jail I was in. I had a guy who, he was a pretty tough character, and we got a bunch of tough guys that night. This guy was, actually he ran explosives for the IRA. Did I tell you about him? I tell so many stories, I'm sorry, please forgive me. I'm an old guy, I forget what stories I told, so just say, we heard that one. And some are not. But this one I think is, because it goes again to what God's assistance by the Spirit will do with us. He came in, he had one plastic arm, because on one, he was moving explosives from the US to Ireland during the troubles that they had. And he was a runner for the IRA. And a tough guy came in, and his thing was, as he listened to me for a little while, he says, if God made me, he made me the way I am, so why is he gonna judge me when I die? God made me, so how can he hold me accountable? What passage in scripture would you say deals with that? Romans chapter nine. Why do you say, oh man, why do you talk back to man, oh God? Shall the clay say to the potter, why did you make me like this? Now, I knew if I said that to him and quoted that verse, he'd probably get even more mad. But that was the answer, wasn't it? That was what he needed to know, is that he's not the creator. So the Holy Spirit told me to say, ask him if he makes anything by hand. Now, brothers and sisters, I would not have thought of that. I'm being honest with you. But I heard clearly that I knew the scripture said Romans 9 is his answer, and the next thing the Lord said by that was, ask him if he uses his hands to make anything. Turns out he's an artist. He's a painter. He draws really well. And so when I asked him that, he said, yeah, I'm an artist. I'm thinking to myself, wow, good one, God. How many artists we got in this room? Probably none except this guy. And so I said, well, let me ask you a question. And now all his buddies are listening. I said, if you drew a painting or a picture of somebody and you didn't like the way it turned out, what would you do with it? He says, I'd toss it in the trash. Really? I said, what gives you the right to toss it in the trash? That's a little person you just drew. You might have drawn a picture of this beautiful girl. And she's got personality, she's got looks, and you could toss her in the trash? Why would you do that? You know what he said? It's mine, and I can do what I want with it. One of his buddies, as soon as he said that, poked him in the ribs and says, you're answering your own question. They got it. Now had I quoted Romans 9, the verse and everything, and why are you talking back to God, he would have just tuned me out. But I took the truth of the scriptures assisted by the Spirit to ask a question I would have never thought of. And God brought it home to his heart. He quieted down after that, and the whole group listened to the message after that. Brothers and sisters, this is not an activity that's purely human. What are we required to do? Speak up. Bring God into the conversation. Bring the reality from the physical to the spiritual. That's what Jesus does. But we can do it in such small ways, can't we? Wow, the Lord sure gave us a beautiful day today. Do you know, 90% of the time I say that, I don't get any response. I'll get a nod. People will say, yeah, that's cool. I'm sure some are thinking, oh no, I just ran into a religious weirdo. I'm sure there's a few of those. But I'm telling you, the fish have struck often enough that I just keep doing it because I can't put them on the hook. But if God is working in their life, you mentioned that, someone here mentioned that niece that overdosed. I pray she makes it. And I pray that the Christians in her life are there for her. The window is wide open in that girl's life. Because life is not being handled very well right now. You're dead, Mike. What he needs most is what happens next. Fortunately, I didn't get the chance to get that far. But you know, that's what the reality is. What does Jesus say? If you'd asked him, he would have given you living water. Why does Jesus move us to the spiritual? What's his motivation? Because there's nothing more important. There's nothing more important than what happens after we die, if there is something after we die. Can there be anything more important than that? Jesus moves people quickly from the physical to the spiritual because he is familiar with heaven and knows what hell is like. I once heard an old saint say, if we could put our ears to the sound of heaven for just three seconds, It would change our enthusiasm level for the rest of our lives. And they said, conversely, if we could put our ears to the other place and hear the sounds and the cries, it would change our motivation for the rest of our lives. What makes Jesus move us from the physical to the spiritual? Because the spiritual is forever. The spiritual is forever. The things we see now are temporary. That which we cannot see are eternal. We are involved in the greatest activity known to man. If you are involved in letting people know that Jesus loves them, that Jesus can forgive them, that Jesus died on the cross for them, you are involved in the greatest activity known to man. Verse, she gets into a little theological thing when she switches gears. Talks about our fathers worshiping on this mountain, you Jews claiming that you worship in Jerusalem. Jesus declares in verse 21, believe me woman, a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. Excuse me. We worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews. Salvation is from the Jews. Only they had received the oracles of God. The word of God came to the Jews. And the plan of salvation was put out there. Moses wrote great instructions on worship. The ceremonies, the instructions. Hebrews tells us that all those were a shadow of the things to come and that the reality, Jesus says, the time is coming and has now come. The reality of those things that Moses wrote about is here and that woman is talking to the one who will fulfill them. That woman is talking to the one who will seal the new covenant with his blood. That woman is talking to God. That woman is talking to the only one who can give her eternal life. And she says, I know that when Messiah comes, he will explain all things to us. There was something about her theology that still included the Messiah. But do you know what she says when she says that? She has elevated Jesus higher than her perception of the law, higher than Moses. She says when Messiah comes, he'll explain everything to us. In other words, you and I, person at the well are talking about where we should worship. There are some things in the scriptures that are hard to understand, but I know that when the Christ comes, he will explain everything to us. So in this woman's theology is that when the Messiah comes, his authority is higher than that of Moses, higher than that of the prophets, And the New Testament bears witness to this, doesn't it? First verse of Hebrew says, in the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in many ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, through whom he created the universe and is heir of all things. Think about that. We are this side of the cross. We have not only the Old Testament, We have the new, we can name the name of the Savior. And then he says what is an astounding statement, probably the clearest declaration until his trial about who he is. I who speak to you am he. Now the Greek doesn't have I am he, it just says I am. I am is the one who is speaking to you. It's the same words he'll use a few chapters later when the Pharisees say, hey, you think you're a bigger deal than Abraham? And Jesus said, before Abraham was born, I am. And they picked up stones to stone him. This woman is talking to God. And what do we know about his visit? A, that he searched her out. This passage is extremely popular in prison because they're feeling excluded. They're feeling ridden out of town. They're feeling condemned. They have great evidence that many of their friends have dropped off. They've been humiliated in many cases. They've lost their job. And some people will say, even Christians, what goes around comes around. You want to do the crime? Do the time. I have no problem with justice. Neither does God. If God is not a just God, then we don't have to worry about hell. But God is just. He's already shown us that he will do what he said. But God did not call Christians into prison ministry to condemn them. God called prison ministers into prison to declare a message that their sins can be forgiven. I'm not their judge. I'm not their correctional officer. I'm not their counselor. I'm not their social worker. I'm not their family intervener. I'm a Christian who is there to say God has not forgotten you. And that if you want forgiveness for what you've done, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our job. And I can tell you that there are more people coming at a higher rate in places like prison than they are on the streets. Why? Because God has done them the favor of putting them in a place where they slow down long enough to feel the pain and to ask themselves the right questions. What is wrong with my life? This woman is a prisoner. I think most of us have discovered that prison isn't only prison. There are many prisons that people can get into. Addiction is one of them. Pornography is another. You name it, they're out there. This woman is a prisoner in her own town, not economically strong enough to break free of that town and move somewhere else. She's gone through five husbands, and now she's living with someone, and he's not at the well with her. The Bible says that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, that what was promised may be given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. If I were to ask you, how many of you have done time before? How many of you were prisoners? How many of you would raise your hand? In light of Galatians 3.22, the whole world is a prisoner of sin. So if in that were the behind the question, how many would raise their hand? How many of you were prisoners? All of us. Some people find themselves in a physical prison for their activities, but this woman was just as much in a prison. What do you think her self-image was? What do you think going to the well by herself reminded her of every day? That she's unloved, unwanted, and the God of heaven took time to go through Samaria to find a town called Sychar and to ask this ostracized woman, if you'd have asked him, I would have given you living water. I told you that I knew this woman. I'll tell you her name. Already? Get your pencils. Patty. Didn't know that, did you? The woman at the well's name is Patty. Actually, it was in Maine again. It was in Portland, the capital, the biggest city, not the capital. And there's a city jail in Portland. And we had helped get the ministries going in there. And so my job was to go back once in a while and see how the ministries are going. So I joined the group. I made arrangements to meet them outside the jail. And they had two or three new people. There's a group of about six of them now from this church. There were two or three new ones that I hadn't met before. One of them was a woman, I'd probably say, I'm not sure of the age, 30s, 40s, big sweatshirt. She was a little overweight and the sweatshirt was big. What was unusual about the sweatshirt was across the front of it, it said, I've been born again. That's a little bold. Well, she not only wore a bold sweatshirt, wherever she went inside that place, as soon as she went up to the control room where the officers get your information and stuff, she went, I'm a Christian. I've been born again. Jesus forgave all my sins. Do you know Jesus? Have you been born again? And all the officers, you know, when we left the control room, I'm looking through the glass, and there were two or three officers in there, and they had one of those half smiles, and the other half is going, I don't know if you're too young to remember the white tornado commercials, maybe some older folks. It was this cleaning thing that had a white tornado go through the building and everything got cleaned afterwards. But afterwards, all the people are all in disarray. She reminded me of that commercial. She went into the visiting room where the people are there with their children to visit the inmates. She went up to everyone. She coochie-cooed every little kid. She shook every hand. She said to every adult, I've been born again. Have you been born again? Do you know Jesus Christ? You need Jesus. Do you know that Jesus will forgive all your sins? She was like unstoppable. And I noticed that the rest of them were starting to put a little distance between them and her. She was like this white tornado. We went down to where the inmates meet. They met in the cafeteria. They came down. It was a rough crowd that night. She went up to every one of them. Do you have Jesus in your life? Are you coming because you're a Christian? Have you been born again? You need Jesus. She just went on like that. I wish I could say her theology was perfect. It needed some help. She was only a believer about, I think she was about two years old in the Lord at that time. And so I gave the message. And as we all left, she continued the same thing all the way up, all the way out. And when we're out on the street heading towards our cars as a little group, I'm kind of conservative. And I said to her, you know, I couldn't help but notice your exuberance. understatement. It was more like, I couldn't help but notice you're a hurricane for the Lord. And she says, I've been born again. She said, and she began to tell me her story. It was pretty quick. But she said, I, my parents, I had a rough relationship with my parents. I left the home early. I was, I got involved in very promiscuous lifestyle. She says I was doing drugs. I was drinking. I had a foul mouth. And if anybody tried to talk to me about God, I just chewed their ear off. She says, I don't need God. I don't want God. Don't talk to me about that. she had a Christian friend who always stuck with her. She came over her house one afternoon, and they were talking, and this woman, I have to tell you, had been married four times, and was living with someone now, when her friend came over. And her friend came over, and they were sitting in her living room, and the girl was being her brassy self, and the girl, the Christian girl says, you know, there's a woman in the Bible just like you. And she was kind of intrigued. She says, what do you mean? And so she took her, guess where? To John chapter four. And this is the woman telling me her story. She said, when I realized that Jesus had come to a woman who had been married five times and was living with someone, for the first time in my life, I thought there was probably a chance for me that God might be willing to forgive me. She admitted that her whole persona of rejecting God was because she knew that God rejected her. She didn't want anything to do with God because she thought God didn't want anything to do with her. But she had this friend who did not give up on her and who brought her to chapter 4 of John. And she realized that not only had this woman fallen into the same kind of lifestyle she had and had kind of an attitude like she had, that Jesus went out of his way to find her. And she realized for the first time in her life that God wanted her. That God wanted her. that he gave her a friend who stuck by her. And she saw in the Bible that here was a woman who'd had one more husband than she'd had, and Jesus went out of his way to find her. And you could not shut her up ever since. Look what this woman does when she finds Jesus. Verse 28. And then leaving her water jar, don't you love that? That was the whole reason she came to the well. Leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, to the people I might add who put her down, who did not want to associate with her, who thought she was the lowest one in the town, she knocked on every door. Told every person she could, you've got to come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. She says, could this be the Christ? Not because she doubted it, but she knew that they wouldn't believe her if she said he was the Christ. So she invites them to come and see for themselves. Isn't that what you're doing with the flyer? Come and see a man who wants to see you. Brothers and sisters, if we try to reach people without loving them, without really caring for them, don't go. Remember like that guy I said last time? I went to that guy's cell, but I'd already been infected by the newspaper reports about him. Remember that story? And I couldn't go in. And God wouldn't let me go in because he knew I cared nothing for that individual. And I never did witness to him. But that was the last time that ever happened to me. Because with the spirit's assistance, there is this overwhelming love that rises up in my chest whenever I'm in any prison anywhere. They are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. I'll close with this. One verse that we talked on last month, verse 35. Do you not say, four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. I call this the four more months syndrome. I hear it with the inmates a lot. It's that, it's that, it's that thing in our life that keeps us from serving God full out. It's that thing that we're waiting for to happen before we can really do business with God. It can happen to us individually and it can happen to us as a church. The inmates will say, well, not until I'm released. Obviously, that's what they think. I get guys who just got life sentences until they come to grips with the fact that this is their mission field, that God in his sovereignty took where they are and has placed them where he wants them to serve them. Did God make them do their crimes? No. God is not the author of evil and he doesn't tempt anyone to evil. But he is so great, so God, so loving that no life will be wasted that comes to Jesus Christ. And the man who gets a big sentence has to make that conversion in his or her heart. And it's not a quick one because now they realize they're not going to see their loved ones for many, many years, if ever again. if they got a life sentence. But when they get to the place, if they're Christians, where they realize that God is sovereign, God loves them, and he's going to use them, and when you start hearing them say, and I hear it often, this is my mission field, then I know they'll be okay. My question this morning is where has God placed you? You don't work where you work by accident. You don't show up at a intersection while you're driving, if he so wills, by accident. You certainly don't go to the school and have the friends you have by accident. Fish, just bring the overwhelming enthusiasm that I've been born again. You're never going to see the gates of hell. But look at the way the world thinks. The world is so topsy-turvy, aren't they? You're going to be out there in a world where they think opposite of the kingdom of God. There is a way that seems right to men, but in the end it leads to death. Look at our own society. Abortion is our great national sin. How did we ever as a country get to the place where we think we're smart enough to think that killing babies in a womb is legal? What is wrong with this picture? How many think this way? We need a response, brothers and sisters. Wide is the gate, and broad is the road, and many are they who think like they think, that leads to destruction. But small is the gate, and narrow is the road that leads to life, and few are those who find it. Brothers and sisters, that's our charge. We know what the scripture says. Bring the scriptures to bear in a way that they can hear it, the way they can understand it, but leave the results to God. We can't put a single person on the line, but we can testify. We can offer living water. Even Jesus here, his allusions to water don't work, and so he's got to penetrate their hearts. That's what I needed. All the muck and mire in my life, you know what my assessment was of myself? God knows I'm basically a nice guy. That's what I thought about when a pastor and his wife that talked to us asked me that question. They asked me that, where do you think you'd go if you were to die today question. You know what I said? Sassy and brassy. Heaven. Because God knows I'm basically a nice guy. Same attitude. And all the muck and mire in my life. Locked up several times. Hurt people. Physically, emotionally. Did my own thing. Was all about me. Why would God have mercy on me? I committed an armed robbery, was arrested with my best friend. We did the same things together. He died on the West Coast, never changed, went from bad to worse. He and I were no different. And this pastor's wife said to me, she took the scriptures, and she said to me, well, I hate to tell you this, Lenny, but he's going to tell you, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, because I never knew you. Now, she didn't tell me Matthew 7, 23, but that's what she said to me. And it cut me to the quick. Oh, I got angry at first. Drove off in my car in a huff. But as soon as I was down the road a mile, I thought to myself, she reads the Bible. Could she be right? Could I be in a whole heap of trouble? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And I received, by God's grace, the fear of the Lord. And then the pastor, about a month later, gave me the second clue. For God so loved you that he gave you his only son, paid for all my muck and mire. I kind of want to say today, you need to be born again. I don't have it on my T-shirt, but I think it all the time.