Today I'm bringing a special word on the topic of evangelism titled, Let's Witness Like Jesus Christ. In response to our trip to the Philippines, A couple of weeks ago, myself and four others, three members of this church, went to the Philippines for two and a half weeks on a missions trip. And so I wanted to bring a word of encouragement to the church on the subject of evangelism. After the service, we'll have a fellowship meal. Please stay. And then all of the members of the trip will share a short testimony with you, filling in a lot of the specifics of our trip. So if you have a Bible, turn with me to the Gospel of John, Chapter 4, the same text that Brother Walter just read from. John's Gospel, Chapter 4. Our text is verse 34, which reads, Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. The amplified version reads, Jesus said to them, my food nourishment is to do the will pleasure of him who sent me and to accomplish and completely finish his work. A little girl in a Chinese village watched a missionary as he went about the Lord's work. She saw him go into homes where there was sickness, death, sorrow, and she watched him as he moved about the village ministering to people. One day she went to another village and followed some girls into a mission school. There she heard a lady talking to them in Chinese about someone who little children went to. One of the little girls asked the visitor, do you know who it is? Yes, she replied. She was talking about the missionary who lives in our village. You see, the little girl had never heard about Jesus Christ. And when the teacher described the life of Jesus, she thought she was describing the missionary. Well, the point is this, is that when a Christian's witness is like Christ and witnesses like Christ, then unbelievers will observe the character of Christ. The personality and holiness of Christ shining from them for all to see will complement their gospel message. It will reinforce their gospel preaching. Well, let me introduce this topic on Let's Witness Like Jesus Christ with a little background, a little context of John chapter 4. Because the Pharisees were trying to incite competition between Jesus and John the Baptist that we read about in the immediate context of John chapter 3, Jesus left Judea and started for Galilee. He went north. He could have taken one of three possible routes along the coast. He could have went also across the Jordan River and up through Berea or straight through Samaria. Well, we know he went through Samaria, but Samaria was the outermost way or out of the way of all three routes. Well, Orthodox Jews avoided Samaria because there was a long-standing, deep-seated hatred between them and the Samaritans. The Samaritans were a mixed race, part Jew and part Gentile, half and half, most of them, and that caused the Jews to hate them. The Samaritans back in 727 BC Well, actually, Jerusalem, when it was invaded by the Assyrian army in 722 BC, carried away most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem into captivity. The few Jews that were remaining intermarried with the Gentiles and the pagan people of the land, and so they became the Samaritans, and they eventually settled in Samaria, and they were known as the half-breeds. They were not pure-blood Jews, and so all the Jews hated them. Rejected by the Jews because they could not prove their genealogy, the Samaritans established their own temple and religious services on Mount Gerizim. This only fanned the fires of prejudice. So intense was their dislike of the Samaritans that some of the Pharisees said that the Samaritans will not be raised in the resurrection. When his enemies wanted to call Jesus an insulting name, they said, did we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? So to say someone was a Samaritan was an insult, according to the Jews. But it was necessary for the Lord Jesus to go through Samaria because he was on a divinely appointed schedule. He had a divine appointment in Samaria. Why? Because he would meet a woman there and lead her to saving faith in himself. And this would affect the entire village that she was from. Our Lord was no respecter of persons. Earlier, he counseled a moral Jewish Pharisee in John chapter 3 named Nicodemus. And now, he would witness to an immoral Samaritan woman. Well, Jesus arrived at Jacob's well about six o'clock in the evening, which is the time when the women would go out to the wells and draw water for the evening and for the next morning. And the disciples went to the nearby town for food. Jesus was hungry. And Jesus now deliberately waited at the well. He sent them away. He waited there. And while he was waiting, he felt his hunger. He was tired and he was weary. And thirsty. So John not only presents Jesus as the divine son of God, but also as true man. Our Lord entered into all the normal experiences of our lives and is able to identify with each and every one of them. He was hungry, he was tired, he was thirsty. So in looking at John chapter one with that background, verses one through 30, We want to learn the witnessing approach of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we have a classic ideal passage here in John 4 to learn how to witness to unsaved people, to those who are not Christians. And though there's many gospel applications, many gospel teachings that we could identify in this text in John 4, 1 through 30, we will not do it. because of a lack of time. That's for another message or 30. Well, in the first place, then, let's look at the lifestyle of our Lord Jesus. When we talk about witnessing like Jesus, and we should all witness like him, we see that his lifestyle in many ways was connected and bound up to his witness. When we talk about lifestyle here, we're referring not only just the way he lives, where he lives, and his economic status. We're talking about his attitude towards others. We're talking about his personality. All of these are intermeshed with his lifestyle. These are all the elements of the way our Lord relates to people and in them, in his personality, in his words, in his dealings with others, his relationships with others, we see how all of these circumstances, his personality traits relating to them, shape his evangelism. Well, if you look at John chapter four and verse four, it says, but he needed to go through Samaria. Now, we could have taken a quicker route, it would be like you and I driving from here to San Jose, and the quickest way that I know of is to go 880 south. Well, actually, we can go 680, but I'm thinking of Castro Valley from where I live. Okay, I'm always thinking Castro Valley as the main point of reference, but from where I live, the quickest way would be to hop on 880 South. You'll be there in a half hour with no traffic. Now, it would be like me getting on 880 and going north, then going over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, and then going down 101 South all the way down to San Jose, which would take me about an hour, at least an hour. And someone would say, Pastor Joe, why are you going north, 880, taking the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, going south, when all you have to do is go down. 880 south directly to San Jose, you'll save a lot of gas and time. Well, when Jesus went to Samaria, it was like Pastor Joe going over the Bay Bridge and then south, he took the long way. Why? Well, nobody logically takes the long way somewhere unless they have a specific reason for it. And yes, Jesus had a deliberate reason for going the long way. And we see in it our Lord's condescending grace and concern for the sinner's smallest need. He went out of His way to seek out basically a Gentile woman to talk with her at a well, which Jews did not do. Jews did not talk to any women publicly. It was a tradition, a custom of their day, that was taboo. You not only did not talk to a pagan, non-Jewish woman, or non-Jewish person, you didn't talk to one who was a woman. So yes, women were second-class citizens back in that day. And she would have been a fourth-class citizen because of her situation and because of her circumstances. But in this we see in our Lord's lifestyle, the way he related to people. He went out of his way to talk to this woman, to meet her every need. Well, someone could say, well, the reason why is because she was one of the elect, and she was foreordained, and all these other considerations, earthly considerations, who she was, her gender, her race, Jew, it matters nothing. She was one of the elect, and that's all that matters, and that's why Jesus went out of His way. No. Are you saying that Christ's heart of affection and love and concern for this woman as a sinner was completely outside the equation, completely outside the consideration that he with robotic logic fixated on the father's eternal decree. And that's the only consideration that entered his mind in this whole wonderful chapter and description in John four of our Lord, witnessing to this poor, pitiful woman who had five husbands. Well, both are true that, yes, Christ went and sought out the woman because of the Father's decree, because of the Father's will for the Lord to complete the mission and fulfill the calling that God gave Him. But also, on the human side of things, we know that our Lord Jesus Christ was not only God, but He was man. And His sanctified manhood, including His godly sympathy and concern for the sinner's smallest need, was brought up in full in full use. He cared about this woman and he went out of his way to seek her out and to deal so tenderly with her. This is the way the Lord Jesus deals with people and this is the way we should deal with people as believers. We should not have this little doctrinal parrot on our shoulders, driving us forward, reaching out with the gospel to sinners because the parrot keeps parroting, reminding us of the doctrinal reasons to do so. Talk to him. One of the elect. Talk to her. One of the elect. We know all this. This is true. But what is it that inspires us forward? It is love for the sinner. Love for the sinner. Both are true and both provide inspiration and motivation for us to fulfill the Great Commission. But our Lord Jesus, we see in this wonderful lesson and teaching tool for evangelism, has both at work in moving him forward, fulfill the father's will, but also because of his love for this woman. She was blind. She was living with a six man who was not her husband. She had five divorces from five husbands. And all along the way, she had not a strong enough conscience to stop after one husband and say, thus far and no more, I will not sin against the Lord any further in this. I will remain a single woman for the rest of my life and devote myself to prayer and supplication in the temple or the synagogue like Anna the prophetess did. No. Her conscience was defiled enough and weak enough to have her marry, remarry, divorce, remarry, divorce, remarry, divorce five times. And then finally, I don't know if she got tired of the formality of marriage, but she said, why bother with the expense? Let's just cohabitate with this six guy. Our Lord Jesus saw her many miles away because he's God, he's omniscient, he knows all things. He saw her and he wanted to not only use her as an example, but he also cared for her as an individual. So we see that he needed to go through Samaria. The Greek language is a lot more than just a necessary tool. It's a driving thing. It's a great need. And doesn't the Lord seek us out and find us where we live? Suddenly we come to our senses in life, and maybe it's a good thing to go to church, or to read the Bible, or to pray, not realizing that from the week before, the month before, the year before, all the while the Lord has been preparing us behind the scenes, in the deepest recesses of our minds and hearts, preparing us to hear the Word of God leading to our salvation, leading to our conversion, Convicting us of our sins, making us suddenly uncomfortable in our sin, stirring up within our hearts a restlessness that will not allow us to be content and complacent and at peace as we fully drink sin in, like iniquity, like water. No, he seeks us out and he finds us where we live. He's the one who makes these divine appointments. And when He does, we feel very special because it's as if we're the only one in the whole world. And He gives us that personal attention we need, and we know God is speaking to us as an individual. He deals with us as individuals. He cares about us as individuals. He takes time and makes time for us because He's God. He created us. And He sent His Son to die on the cross to save His people from their sins. And as Christians, we should have the same attitude towards the loss. Every single encounter we have with the loss as a Christian is a divine encounter. And we ought not to have a statistic counter in our other hand, clicking each one that goes by, thinking that if we show God we have shared the gospel with 110,000 people during our lifetime, that we believe that God is impressed with statistics. He's not. It was just like our walk and the Christian life quality is everything with God. The same is true with evangelism. Each person is important. And we're not to be like someone at a fast food restaurant saying next, next, hurry up, hurry up, next, waving them on by. God sees them. God hears their prayer when they cry in their hearts. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God sees them when they're trying to earn their way to heaven by trying to do better next time. Oh God, forgive me, I sinned again in the privacy of my room, in the privacy of my life. And I know what you're saying is wrong. I shouldn't be doing this. Help me! I'm drowning in the quicksand of sin! Help! Pull me out! I can't get myself out! I've tried a thousand times. And that faint cry from that lost one who no one cares about but God in the end. And no one can save but Jesus Christ in the end. God hears that faint cry and He'll send a missionary to some uncivilized tribal member in Papua New Guinea. Or He'll send a Bible to some Self-righteous businessman in San Francisco. Somehow, some way, the Word of God will come to that person because God cares about the smallest needs of his creatures. And then we read in John chapter four, beginning at verse seven. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you being a Jew ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The woman explains a historical and cultural fact that I just explained. Jews did not talk with Samaritans and Jews did not talk with women publicly. And she's shocked that he did ask her. Not only did he talk to her, but he asked her help. How is it that you, a Jew, ask me for a drink? What do we see here? Well, we see the Lord Jesus Christ relating to people on their level. He had a need. He had a physical need. He didn't ask John the Baptist. He didn't say to one of his disciples, send for John the Baptist to fill the water jug so I can drink this holy water from his sanctified hands. No. He asked it of a Samaritan woman, please give me a drink of water. And so he enters into need. Because he can and therefore he not only does he enter into our needs. But he did this so that he can identify with us when we call upon him in similar situations, he got thirsty. But more than that. These situations allow us the honor and privilege of ministering to Him. The woman served God a drink of water because he was thirsty. She was not even saved. This shows the infinite condescension of God in using an unworthy vessel to bless him, to help him. He doesn't need anyone. God doesn't need anything. God doesn't have a need. He's self-sufficient. But he does allow us as Christians to minister to him, and through our unworthy, weak labors and efforts, he receives glory and is indeed blessed by our ministry. Think about that every time you get a little weary in serving the Lord. That he has chosen the weak things of the Lord, not only of the world, not only to confound the things that are mighty, but also to bring blessing and glory to himself. His lifestyle. We see so much that would teach us how to be good witnesses. When he asked the woman for a drink, we see that he shared in human infirmity. He identified with those who are thirsty and needy, and that's what we read in Isaiah 53. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. The next time you feel lonely, as if no one's listening, no one's caring, I'm here all alone. Mom and Dad sent me away empty-handed. The church didn't help me, those hypocrites. No one's listening. Remember, our Lord Jesus Christ was rejected by everyone. Everyone hid their faces from him, including his own disciples. When Jesus needed his disciples most, the three top ones whom he asked, pray with me, fell asleep. When he was dying on the cross and he asked for a drink, some pagan Roman soldier had to lift up a sponge. And even then he wasn't given thirst quenching liquid. He was given wine mingled with gall. Oh, He knows all about human suffering and sorrow and need and thirst and hunger and pain. And so when we share the Gospel with people, we're to manifest not a condescending attitude as Christians, not an attitude, well, you're unworthy of the Gospel. If you reject what I'm saying to you, then you're rejecting the Lord. Get away from me, you unworthy pig! No. We are to enter into the sorrows of the weakest and most helpless among us and express sympathy because we're telling them that Jesus cares. And if we're telling them that Jesus cares, should we not care? Should we not manifest? An empathetic, sympathetic attitude towards needs that we may not have, that we may not think are important needs, but to them, they're very important needs. Oh, my fingernail! I didn't cut it straight, and now I'm going to have to get a new... If you see someone who's very stricken emotionally, and they're serious, however small the need is, Pray and reach down and try to find some kind of sincere sympathy to identify or at least send them to the Lord Jesus Christ who does have the sympathy. And he took Peter, James and John with him and began to be troubled and deeply distressed. Then he said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. When the father began to lay on his shoulders the sins of his people, he said he became exceedingly sorrowful. So you would say then, well, what kind of sins were they that were laid on their shoulders? What were the nature of those sins? Were they just big sins or medium sins or small sins? Well, it doesn't say, but I'm sure it was a mixture of the three. That to us, the smallest sins would be to someone else, major iniquity problems, where they need to have Jesus identify with them, sympathize with them, pray for them, and help them. So we need to manifest and express our Lord's attitude, our Lord's care to people, and never consider the smallest need something that is stupid. When it says in John 11 that Jesus wept, the Jews saw that the Lord Jesus Christ really cared for this nobody called Lazarus who died. But Lazarus, though he was a nobody in most places, was a friend of Jesus. And if Jesus is your friend, my friend, you have a great friend indeed. And in Jesus you do have a friend. And we're as Christians not to get in the way of people being led to the logical conclusion that Jesus is our friend when we're witnessing to them because we do not express the love and care and sympathy that we should express as his people. How perfectly the Lord Jesus Christ entered into human need, but also he had an infinite patience. with those who are dull of hearing and narrow and sinful. Very, very patient. You notice something in the conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman, how patient He was? He didn't stop in the middle and say, woman, slow of heart, stupid, can't understand it. He got a little impatient with His disciples, but it wasn't really a sinful impatience, because He had been teaching them For so long, he said to them, slow of heart. To his disciples. But he didn't do that with the Samaritan woman, sometimes we get impatient with unsaved people because we have to explain the same thing to them three times. One of the things that brought me to Christ, at least what God used to bring me to Christ. Was the person who was witnessing to me was so patient with me. I must have cut him off 30 times over a five-hour period while he was witnessing to me. In mid-sentence, when he was conveying a very important point to me, I cut him off because a question shocked my mind at that moment where I needed an answer immediately. He didn't mind. He didn't mind that I said to him like 50 times, what? What? What do you mean? What does that mean? He explained it all. And over and over again. Well, this is the patience of Christ that we see manifested in His conversations with the woman. You know, it's a privilege to even have an opportunity to witness to somebody. Some people complain to me sometimes, Pastor Joe, it's been a long time since I witnessed to somebody. I don't have any opportunities. Please pray. And then what? We get an opportunity to witness to somebody, and we're going to get impatient with them the first time we explain something, and then the second time? It is the Holy Spirit who opens their minds and provides spiritual understanding to comprehend the mysteries of the kingdom of God, which even the most intelligent in Jesus' day, like the Pharisees, could not comprehend without the help of the Holy Spirit. We have to keep that in mind when we share the gospel. But our Lord Jesus, let us follow His patience, His example of courtesy. Can you imagine someone You ask someone a question, say you're a woman today, with feminism, and all the rights that women have, and everyone's demanding to be treated the same, and all the rest, and rightly so, we should. Can you imagine, as a woman going up to somebody, especially a public official who's trained in political correctness, and saying, asking a very important question, and then that person ignoring you? Just total ignoring you like you're a persona non grata? A non-person? You would be highly insulted. Not so with Jesus. The courtesy, the respect, the attention that He gave the Samaritan woman was, in Jesus' day, shocking. As a matter of fact, the disciples were shocked, were they not? When they came back and found Him talking with a woman. The woman's lack of culture didn't hinder our Lord Jesus from teaching her the greatest truths. Her being a very lowly person in her station in life didn't stop him from repeating over and again or teaching her the mysteries of the kingdom of God. And that's what's going to get the attention of the world when we witness to people like Jesus Christ. When we witness to people like that, when we manifest His personality, when we live the kind of lifestyle He lived, in the way in which He related to people. And this kind of way of preaching the gospel, like Jesus did, will surpass all the expectations of everybody we witness to. Because people of the world, unsaved people, have heard so much bad press about Christians, that they're all a bunch of hypocrites, that when we manifest the divine patience of Christ in our witnessing, the divine love of Christ, when we manifest an otherworldly, agape kind of personality, like Jesus, they stand up and take notice, don't they? We exceed their expectations. They're expecting our patients to run out eventually. And people were blown away by what Jesus did. The Bible says. How is the woman, first of all, in 4.9? How is it that you being a Jew ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. He humbled himself. She expected him not to talk with her, not to ask him for a drink, but he humbled himself. What about some of us? We get so comfortable in our station in life, our caste in society. Middle class, middle upper class, upper class, maybe a lower middle class, but we're at least middle class. And we develop this subliminal, subtle attitude is that we cannot condescend to men of low estate. We cannot humble ourselves to the lowest level of the low and relate to them without being self-conscious about it, where they are in life. Jesus blew people away. He went against all the conventional wisdom. The woman said, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. We need to follow our Lord's example. We need to have dealings with everybody and have a sincere, loving attitude and personality towards everybody, like Jesus did. We read in Matthew 8, so the men marveled, saying, Who can this be that even the winds and the sea obey Him? Matthew 9, now when the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men. Matthew 22, when they heard these words, they marveled. and left Him and went their way. Everywhere Jesus went, He brought a different kind of religion, a different kind of Christianity. It wasn't the same old tried and true conventional organized churchianity. There was a power. There was an otherworldly life at work in the messenger that touched the people. The words broke a bone. They were convicting words. They were gospel words which attracted the hearers to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are the kinds of words and attitudes and demeanors that we should have in emulating our Lord's evangelistic method when we share the gospel with other people. Amen. Well, secondly, we see in John four concerning witnessing like Jesus, his knowledge. We see his knowledge. When you read the discussion he had with the woman, Notice how her knowledge of Jesus increases as that discussion goes along until she finally acknowledges him as the Messiah. He's being patient with her. He's focusing on one thing. She is interpreting him completely in the realm of food, physical food. physical things, physical worship. He's gently trying to lead her in the spiritual direction. In verse 10, it says, And Jesus said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? Her mind is on the physical water. Where are you going to get something to get that water out of the well? Verse 12, Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered and said there, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. What a master. Evangelist, he starts with the physical water or something of the physical, and he gently and slowly leads her to the spiritual. And we are to do the same thing, the same approach. Most situations do not start off where us brashly and brazenly and boisterously getting in people's faces and telling them one sentence, the whole thing all in one package. You cannot give meat to someone who can only handle milk. And you've got to get your personality and your rough edges out of the way so that they're not focused on you and your loudness and my misbehavior or my roughness or coarseness. We need to have people see Jesus in us. We want His knowledge, the knowledge of His love and the knowledge of His gospel to get through to the other person. So therefore, we must get ourselves out of the way. And so when we look at this conversation with the woman, the Lord Jesus gently steers the conversation in the spiritual direction, testing the waters little by little along the way, seeing what she knows and what her interpretation is based on what he says so that he can respond in kind. He accommodates her as much as possible. He uses earthly objects. He uses metaphors and symbols and earthly object lessons that she will understand. He talks about the water and the well. Or she talks about water and the well. She understands these objects. So the Lord Jesus plays off of that. and uses similar illustrations that the woman can understand, because she doesn't have background in the weightier matters of the law, the deep spiritual things of God. And so as he speaks in simple language that she can understand, and he uses earthly metaphors that she can relate to, Little by little, he leads her along, and the Holy Spirit's working, and she begins to get it. And when she begins to get what he's saying, he creates a thirst in her, and he begins to appeal to this thirst that she already had but wasn't aware of. A thirst that was taking place subconsciously for years, perhaps while she was living with her five husbands and becoming more convicted and feeling more guilty over her sin as time went by. He begins to tap into that thirst that she subconsciously was experiencing over time, but now he finally made her aware of it. He said, oh, you've had five husbands. He brings it up. He appeals to her, not only logically, but he appeals to the need that she had that she couldn't deny. And we ought to do the same thing in our evangelism. He uses his knowledge of the other person's situation, and so should we. And we get this knowledge during the conversation. We pick up on things that they say. They may have an accent. They may be dressed in a certain way. We pick up these cues from people to understand who the person is that we're witnessing to and we adapt our gospel message accordingly wherever we can. We don't change the gospel. We don't reinvent the gospel. We don't water the gospel down. We just make it a little bit more simple for them to understand. And we use speech and metaphors and types and analogies that they can understand to be able to comprehend the gospel that we're sharing with them. Do you hear that? And that's what Jesus did. And that's the way he imparted the knowledge of God to the Samaritan woman. In verse 15, it says, the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water that I may drink or that I may thirst, not thirst, nor come here to draw. Ah, now she's getting it. Jesus is talking about another kind of water, not the water at the well. Oh, and now he identified my need. He told me I had five husbands and the one I'm with now is not my husband. He knows all about me. He knows I'm a sinner. And her guilt comes back with fresh power and conviction. And now she connects her guilt with the need of this water that would take the guilt away. Sir, give me this water! Give me this water! Give me this water! This other water that I may drink of it and never thirst again, never be convicted that I will stand before judgment again and have to give an account of all my sins before God. You see, Jesus here introduces the element of sin to her. We need to follow his example. What's his example? He gives her the gospel. He doesn't strip sin from the gospel, but includes the message about sin as a vital part of his presentation. He doesn't arbitrarily make the choice by himself to say, well, we don't need this part. Because she may not be able to relate to it or she won't like that part of my message. No, he shares that message of sin that all have sinned that come short of the glory of God. You see, she won't see her need of a savior. Unless she sees the need to be saved from something, why do we need a savior? If sin is not in our face, reminding us that we can't save ourselves, but we have to deal with this sin somehow or else we will give an account to God for it. Either we will have to pay for this in ourselves or someone else will have to pay for it in our place. So he deliberately brings up sin. So he gives her the full knowledge of the gospel in a very gentle, loving way. He didn't feel constrained at the end of the conversation to bow their heads and close their eyes, and he lead her in a prayer. He saw her heart, he knew her heart and she believed. And true faith began like the thief on the cross began to proclaim Jesus. The thief on the cross had a change of heart and a change of mind midstream just hours before he died as he was laying there or hanging there, crucified next to Jesus. He rebuked his former partner in crime and began to manifest and show everybody his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this woman didn't need to bow her head and close her eyes. She ran into the town saying, come and see a man who told me all things that I ever did. What's the lessons here? Concerning imparting the gospel like Jesus did the full gospel, not the partial gospel. Well, one of the lessons is that no aspect of evangelism is more difficult than that of starting a conversation on the things of the soul. It's hard to warm up to someone and share the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ alone when you're going to be telling them eventually that they're on their way to hell unless they put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not easy to do that. After all, as Christians, we're to be loving, aren't we? Well, that is being loving by warning someone of impending danger. We don't like to tell them that because it's a painful thing to hear. And therefore we take it upon ourselves to soften the blow somehow. When we're not supposed to do that, no, no, don't do that. Let the Holy Spirit be in charge of that part of it. Well, what do we do? Well, we go to the Lord and we say, Lord, this is hard to start a conversation with somebody when we're talking about, at least at the beginning of the conversation, such a negative thing, although it's not negative in the end. It's good news. It's great news. It's fantastic news. It's the only news that people will hear that can save them. Ask the Lord to give you grace and love and strength to start those conversations. Look how Jesus did it. He was tired in His humanity. He was hungry and He was thirsty in His humanity. Do you think in His humanity it was easy for Him to just warm up to this woman who His culture said was the opposite, total last person in the world that you should be starting a conversation with Jesus is this woman. She is culturally taboo. Do not talk to her. You're a Jew. She's a Gentile. And besides that, she's a woman. And he's weak already and thirsty and hungry. But he did. He came sideways. Give me a drink. But as he went along, it led to the gospel. You just trust the Lord and ask the Lord for grace to start these conversations. He'll give you the grace. But do it in a way where you're humble and you're loving and you don't come across as condescending. You and I are to reflect the demeanor, the attitude, the holiness, the meekness, the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. But notice the skill with which Jesus avoids a plain answer. To a plain question. and answers in a way that he becomes the questioner and arouses deepening curiosity and interest in the woman. That that will help us sometimes. To not go down rabbit trails in our evangelism, where we get stuck, try to steer the conversation in a way that will help the person understand the gospel without, like I said, you and I getting in the way. Thirdly, he used the woman's moral intuition and the truth she already knew. And this was one of our Lord's favorite methods of evangelism. The woman knew she was a sinner, but he brought it up sideways. Go call your husband. He didn't say, you're a sinner because you've had five husbands. He softened the blow a little bit, but when he came down on her, he came down on her. Go call your husband. I don't have a husband. Well, that was true. But she was the one who told him, instead of him just coming out at first saying, You've had five husbands, the one you're with now is not your husband. She's the one who brought it up first. So that kind of made it easier for him to come into her life as deep as one can come by talking to another person about their worst sins. So when you're talking with someone about the gospel, if they admit that they're a sinner and they're very self-deprecating and very transparent at a certain point in the conversation where they really honestly, you know, let let their hair down and come out with how bad they are. Use that opportunity to expand on that without judging them, because we don't judge, only God judges. But since we're sinners just like them and no better than them, we are to come around to the other side of them and talk with them as if we're standing next to them as a fellow sinner on the same level, understanding where they're coming from, saying, yeah, I can relate to that. I'm a sinner, too, and identifying with them as a sinner instead of coming down on them and judging them. Because we're all in the same boat, aren't we? There's none that does good, no, not one. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So at best, when we talk to other fellow sinners who may not be saved at this particular time, we are to identify with them, not judge them. Like he did with the rich young ruler. When he said to the rich young ruler, come sell all that you have and follow me. Instead of saying, oh, no, you're a commandment breaker, you're a covetous man. He said, all right, you want to be my disciple? Go sell all that you have. Come and follow me. And the rich young ruler said, well, he knew that he was covetous and he broke the commandment because he couldn't sell everything he had and follow Jesus. But lastly, look at the zeal of the Lord in verse. Twenty seven, it says, and at this point, his disciples came and they marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her? The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city and said to the men, come see a man who told me all things I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Then he went out of the city and came to him. In the meantime, his disciples urged him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know. Therefore, this disciple said to one another, Has anyone brought him anything to eat? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life. Both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together, for in this the saying is true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labors. What zeal do we see in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of a soul? Now, the food part of the conversation, the physical food part, the water being behind them. The woman now is completely absorbed with her spiritual need and the matter of the Messiah being before her. And it says that she forgot her water pot. Why did she go out to the well to begin with? Well, to get water. But now she forgot completely about the physical mission, the physical part of her purpose being there to begin with. Something else had come in and completely taken her away in her thoughts. This is a key element in our gospel evangelism. Why? Well, the Lord Jesus was trying to get her mind off of things physical, all along in the conversation, to things spiritual. Finally, it happened. And so that she totally forgot about why she was there to begin with. She left her water pot. That's what you and I are trying to do in conversations with people, just like Jesus did. We're to witness like Jesus did. We start off with people. We talk about football sometimes. We talk about how's your job doing? We talk about this, that, the other thing. And we can never get unstuck from discussing worldly things. And we leave such a conversation with our tail between our legs, sometimes thinking, Lord, I didn't do it right. I didn't share the gospel. Remember, the goal is not to talk to them about the 49ers winning the World Series two out of the last, I don't even know, three years, two years, four years, whatever. The 49ers, I mean the Giants. Sorry. See, I get my football mixed up with my baseball. Our goal is to bring them into an understanding that they have just, at this moment in the conversation, they have come into the zone. They have come into the presence of Christ. And you know when that happens, when the Holy Spirit takes the Word, the Gospel, begins to convict them, begins to fixate their minds on spiritual things. All of a sudden they forgot about everything else you were talking about. They forgot about every earthly care, every earthly thing, because somewhere along the line the Holy Spirit has taken over and has helped them come into this realm of the Spirit. That's your goal in every witnessing conversation, in emulating the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. where to bring souls from earth to heaven, where to bring souls from earthly needs to heavenly needs and heavenly thoughts. He says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me in to finish his work. I wish, would to God that we all had such an attitude all the time. I know that we are weak and we struggle. But Jesus was so consumed with his earthly mission in preaching the gospel and saving the lost that his thirst and his hunger and his weariness at the well paled in comparison with fulfilling the will of the Father. And you and I as Christians need to understand that sometimes, most of the time, we are not going to be able to present the gospel in ideal conditions after just eating a meal so we're all physically strengthened again, just getting water, just being able to use the bath, just getting eight hours sleep at night. The Lord Jesus had this conversation which led to the woman's salvation. In his humanity, he was hungry, thirsty, and tired. And he didn't say, well, I can't witness now because I'm not strong enough. He trusted in the Lord to strengthen his humanity, to be able to fulfill the will of the Father. And there are many, many times, not all the time, But many times we need to do the same thing. We need to show zeal. We need to show dedication. We need to have faith for God to fill up what is lacking in us. We need to look for the grace of God in mid-sentence while we're thinking to ourselves, I can't do this. I'm too weak. Let patience have its perfect work that we may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Let faith go out to the Lord while you're pondering a witnessing opportunity and look within yourself for the strength and the wisdom and the knowledge and you find yourself coming up empty handed. Push on, press on, trust in the Lord for the grace. I'll tell you, that's what I do. The Bible tells pastors we're to be instant in season. I always have to be on. I can never be off. How do you think I do it? Because I'm better educated than you? Nonsense! He has a Ph.D. He has a Ph.D. It's not about education, it's about trusting the Lord. I don't have a Ph.D. How do I make it? I look to the Lord. It seems like sometimes I forget every verse in the Bible I've memorized. Maybe it's because the bread I ate had gluten in it. I don't know. But it seems like sometimes I'm so dull in my thoughts that I can't remember anything. And I'm groping for a verse, for a word for this person. And I don't have it, so I just pray. That's what happens when at the end of the night, in my evening prayers, I sit down in my chair and I begin to pray. And thirty seconds later, I didn't make it through three people on my prayer list. I wake up and I confess my sin to the Lord of falling asleep while I'm praying. And I keep on going while I'm looking for the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit to pray as I ought to pray. And that's how it's done. And I find by doing that three or four times, back and forth, eventually the strength of the Holy Spirit comes, even though I'm physically exhausted. And here I am an hour later, I'm still praying with fervency. Faith! When you're weak, when you're at your weakest, that's how it happens in all the spiritual duties that we have, where we find we come up shorthanded on the strength side of things. Do you hear what I'm saying? Christianity was never intended to be, to operate within a compartmentalized nine to five or a very specific sphere where everything and the conditions are ideal. If that was the case, then we wouldn't need the strength of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit. I see my time is up. But let me at least convey one or two applications, I went out of my way to share these by way of application, let me say no soul is so lost, but that the Lord cannot find it. Here's this woman, out in the middle of nowhere, outside of Samaria. The Jews didn't go there. A Jew wouldn't be caught dead over there. Only Samaritans usually went there. Here, the Lord Jesus went out of His way to find her. What about you, my friend? You say, I know a little bit about the Lord, or maybe I was raised in a Christian home, and I'm putting up a really good front, but in my heart, I am the woman in Samaria. I am lost. I am. If I died, I'd go to hell and I know it. That's the truth. I've had those five husbands and the one I'm with now is not my husband's. I'm enmeshed in sin. I'm in the quicksand of wickedness and I can't pull myself out. But I'm my friend. The Lord Jesus Christ loves to seek out and find those people from Samaria. He loves to go to where the need is, to where the cries are heard from on high. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And He loves to go out of His way, over the Bay Bridge even, to find lost sinners and to save their never-dying souls. You're not so lost, but the Lord cannot find you. If you get a phone call or a word from somebody that even in it gives you the slightest impression as a believer that here's someone who needs to hear the gospel. Call them. Write to them. Email. Text them. I like to text. And you know that. Text them. Get in touch with them because you never know how the Lord will work. Number two, no occasion is so small, but that the Lord can use it. No occasion is so small, but that the Lord can use it. The woman came to just get water. She wasn't looking for spiritual fireworks. She wasn't looking for the Messiah. She just came to get water. A common act. Who would have thought that the way that she went to get the water eventually would lead to everlasting life for her? The least important activity may become in God's hand a means of salvation. Even a word spoken at random, God can use. I've read in the history of revivals, a spirit-filled man of God coming into a room, and the first word he would utter would slay people with conviction, and lead to their repentance and salvation. You never know what God will use. A familiar scene, an unforeseen hindrance, a flat tire maybe. Maybe the monotony of life, or the influence of a friend. You see, God's seeking grace encompasses us like the air we breathe. And God uses everything, even the smallest things that we would never think God would use to lead people to salvation. The Lord experienced this as well. So never think, oh, God can't use that. God won't use that. He won't go there to save those people. God loves to confound. The wise and the mighty who are, who've figured out this evangelism process or think they have. Number three, no strength is so feeble, but the Lord can increase it. Few could have been morally weaker than this woman. She lacked the power to understand Christ and even herself. Christ had to awaken everything in her. He had to give her all the knowledge she needed. But the Bible says that we're impotent, we're weak, but the Spirit helps our infirmities. Christ asks in order that he may give, not that he needs anything. He requires humility, not only to exalt, but To cause the old life to surrender in order to confer eternal life to the person. And lastly, no beginning is so small, but the Lord can lead it to a blessed end. No beginning is so small, but that the Lord can lead it to a blessed end. What a small beginning here with the woman. And yet before long, a disciple is found and an evangelist. Don't despise the little things and the struggling souls. Don't waste any opportunity that the Lord gives us. Look at the example of our Lord Jesus. Look to him. Model and emulate his example of witnessing in his lifestyle, his knowledge that he imparted through the gospel and his zeal. For the most sinful. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for our Lord Jesus, his example as an evangelist. We pray that we would copy. His example, forgive us if we have failed you or have tried to rethink the gospel presentation, perhaps unknowingly or ignorantly. Help us to make the needed adjustments in Jesus name. Amen.