Seeing Others for Who They Can Be [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Jesus in a most surprising way speaks to the woman because Jesus is very thirsty in the natural sense of it and asks her for a drink. It starts a conversation, amazing how conversations can start so simply at natural levels and who knows where they might go in spiritual ways.

And this is one of those conversations starts at a simple level, but soon Jesus is speaking about spiritual things while the woman is speaking about natural things. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series You'll See as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. We want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program.

When you first get started with today's teaching, here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Yes. People aren't always what they seem.

Sometimes they're a whole lot better. We're in a series called You'll See. It's based on the promise of Jesus to Nathaniel that you'll see greater things than you're seeing right now. It's an invitation to see all of life through Jesus' eyes.

It's an invitation to a new spiritual discipline to just pause throughout your day and say, Jesus, how do you see this? How do you see this person? How do you see this situation? How do you see this predicament? How do you see this opportunity? How do you see this crowd? How do you see this land? How do you see it? Because when you get Jesus' eyes, it changes everything. And today we're going to look at what is perhaps one of the most unlikely conversations to have ever happened in the history of the world.

And yet it did. And a revival broke forth because of it. All because Jesus sees so perfectly.

I want to invite you to ask for Jesus' eyes as you look for the best in people and for how much they can change. We are in the Gospel of John chapter four and the story of the Samaritan woman at the well occupies almost the entirety of this chapter. It's too much to read the whole chapter.

I want to summarize the story so we can dive into it. Jesus is going to travel with his disciples from Judea down in the southern areas around Jerusalem back to Galilee, the rural areas north in Galilee. In order to do so, they need to pass through Samaria if they're going to take the most direct route. And while on that journey at midday, they come to a well in a town called Sychar. And there Jesus meets a woman who is doing something unusual. She is fetching water at midday in the hot noontime sun.

Women would gather water and bring it back to their families early in the morning or at dusk when the sun's heat had set. She had come probably because she was ashamed and didn't want to be around all the wagging tongues and gossipers because she had a very checkered history of five different husbands and was currently cohabiting with a man that was not her husband. Jesus in a most surprising way speaks to the woman because Jesus is very thirsty in the natural sense of it and asks her for a drink. It starts a conversation. Amazing how conversations can start so simply at natural levels and who knows where they might go in spiritual ways. And this is one of those conversations that starts at a simple level, but soon Jesus is speaking about spiritual things while the woman is speaking about natural things. And Jesus is leading this woman into a conversation about living water and about the ministry of Christ and his own messiahship, his lordship. And so it is that they have this conversation in which she becomes incredibly intrigued and Jesus then identifies that he knows that she's had five different husbands and she realizes there's something supernatural that's happening.

She goes back to her village and though she's a scandalized woman, she begins telling everybody she knows about this man who quote, told me everything about my life. And the people come to meet Jesus and it's a fascinating story because there is a revival in this Samaritan village as Jesus stays for another two days. But I wanna highlight for you a portion of this text starting at verse 31. The disciples had during this conversation, they had initially been gone to the village to try to find some kosher food.

And they had come back and saw him there. But this is what we pick up reading at verse 31. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him saying, Rabbi, eat, but he said to him, I have food to eat that you do not know about. There again, Jesus speaking spiritually, the disciples thinking naturally. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat? And Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest? And evidently scholars think was a proverbial saying because generally between seed time and harvest about four months. And normally it's a figure of speech to say, there's seed time, there's harvest, you plant and later you're gonna reap.

Do you not normally say that? And he has said this, and this is the focus for today. Look, I tell you, look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. I think what happened was that the village people who had heard the woman's testimony were making their way to see Jesus and he could see them in the distance. And he literally said to the disciples, lift up your eyes, look. And what the disciples would have seen is a band of despised Samaritans.

And what Jesus saw was the fruit of the kingdom of God and a coming revival. You see, you can see something quite differently. It's one of the most famous optical illusions ever.

It was a German artist in 1915 that drew a postcard. And see if you can see, it's very famous, but if you haven't seen it before, he called it my wife and my mother-in-law. I would not call it that. Just the old woman and the young woman.

It depends on how you look at it. Do you see an old woman or a young woman? You see the young lady's face? She's got her head turned over her right shoulder just slightly. The old woman's here with a big nose. This is a bracelet on the young woman. It's a mouth on the old woman. And so they're both there.

Now put it back to the drawing. Now, can you see them both? Take a moment and see. You know what's interesting is that studies show the younger you are, the more likely you are to see the young woman. That's interesting. Studies show that the older you are, the more likely you see the old woman. For me, it might just been what mood I'm in.

I don't know. Of course, if I had shown you a picture of a young woman or a young woman that looked like that, or even a young woman, someone with their head turned slightly, before you looked at the picture, you would have probably seen that. In other words, what you're predisposed to see often determines what you see. We aren't very good, Malcolm Gladwell says in his recent bestseller, At Talking to Strangers. He's right about that.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Want to give someone a present this Christmas that they'll never forget? Let us help you give a gift that money can't buy. This Christmas, give someone your blessing, a positive, biblically-based, faith-filled vision for their life.

In the beginning, God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful to multiply because in God's design, blessing isn't the reward for productivity, it's the fuel for it. Now, more than ever, someone you love needs your blessing and we're here to help you craft it. This month's special offer from Alan Wright is a beautiful booklet that will teach you how to craft a meaningful blessing. The easy step-by-step instructions are biblically-based and even include a worksheet that helps you write your blessing. So this Christmas, give someone you love a present not found in stores, a gift from your own heart that will encourage and empower. Write down the blessing and put it in a package under the tree or put it in your Christmas card. They'll never forget it. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you this booklet as our thank you so you can discover the power to bless. Call us at 877-544-4860 or visit pastorallen.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Well, I need to always preface it. If ever I'm going to use the words, I have a confession to make.

Let me just tell you, it's not bad, but don't worry. I have a confession to make. I had a brush with the law this week. I did. I was pulling out of a restaurant parking lot onto busy Louisville-Clements Road and making a left there is precarious. You have to step on it. I had to get the old Avalon juices going and lurch out into the traffic, but you have to do that there.

You have to or else you perish. I zipped out in traffic and I hadn't been going 500 feet and blue lights came on behind me and I thought, what? I haven't even been, I haven't had a chance to be speeding yet.

I mean, the Avalon's got some zip, but not that much. You know, what have I done? I pulled over into the gas station and the police officer behind me. I waited for him.

He came to the window and he said, the reason I've pulled you is I was behind you there and realized that your registration sticker is out of date. I was completely shocked. I had no, I still have no idea.

I later blamed my wife for losing the mail, but that didn't go well. But I have no idea and I just looked at him. He said, you didn't even know, did you? I said, no, sir, I didn't. I said, I've got grown kids with cars and a wife with cars.

I got cars everywhere and I'm always getting somebody's registration sticker done and I'm always on everybody about it. I said, I don't have no idea how that happened. I'm sorry, officer. And he said, well, he said, I know. I said, I got grown kids of my own.

It's hard to keep up with all of this. And I said, let me have your license. I'll be back. And he went back to his squad car. He was gone for a long time.

I thought he's back there watching a ball game or something, just sweating it out. But I was taking some consolation in the fact that as he was looking up my registration, the license plate that he was looking at reads, grace to you. And I was praying for some.

He came back, nicest police officer in the world. He said, this is just a warning for you tonight, but you need to get your car inspected and get the registration up to date. And I said, absolutely. I said, thank you for that kindness. And God bless you. And he said, well, bless you too. And off he went. And he was just, he did me a service.

Honestly, he did me a service because I need to get that done. I don't know who lost the mail on that. I don't know what happened on that. And so how different from a story that Gladwell tells in his best-selling Talking to Strangers at the opening chapter of a 28-year-old African-American, Sandra Bland, who moved from Chicago to Texas to try to get a fresh start in her life. She took a job at Prairie View College teaching and she'd only been there for a day. She was in the left-hand lane on the highway and a Texas trooper rushed up on her rear and so she moved over to the right to get out of his way and when she did, the trooper moved over behind her, turned on the lights and pulled her. And he informed her that he had pulled her for failing to signal at a lane change.

Turns out that he was for some reason keeping his eye on this car and he pulled up on the car and then when she didn't signal, technically that was an infraction of the traffic laws. And so he was speaking to her and was just poised to see if there was anything else going on. She was nervous and she was agitated. He said, I see you have Illinois plates.

What are you doing in Texas? She said, I just moved here. She said, how long you been here? She said, only a day. And he continued to agitate. She was shuffling her feet around.

She had wrappings from fast food on the floor. She didn't look right to him and he said, you seem nervous, are you okay? And she said, no I'm not. She said, it's really bothering me.

Pulled me for, I was just trying to get out of your way and you pulled me to give me a ticket for not signaling for a lane change. And she said a few other words and said, just give me the ticket. And the conversation began to escalate. And then he said, would you mind putting out that cigarette? She was smoking and she said, I'm in my car and you don't have a right to tell me to do that, which was true. And then he began to get elevated in his emotions and he said, ma'am, I'm gonna have to ask you to get out of the car. And she said, why, I'm not under arrest. All I did was not signal for a lane change and she got more agitated. And then the conversation got worse and worse till he threatened to use the stun gun on her and physically remove her. She began jostling about back at him.

He called another officer and pretty soon had handcuffed her and taken her to jail on a felony charge of assault. What he didn't know was that Sandra had had a rough spell of it the last couple of years. She was hoping to make a fresh start. She had been depressed. She'd had a couple of suicide attempts. She had lost a child.

She had scars on one of her arms from cutting herself. He didn't know that she'd been under psychiatric treatment. He didn't know any of that history. He didn't know any of that. And so the conversation went terribly wrong.

And three days after she was in the county jail, she contrived a way to take her own life. I just want to highlight that to say I had a worse infraction. I actually had an inspection that was, something needs to be, you know, and rightfully deserved a ticket. But the very wise, kind officer that I interacted with, well, first place, we were about the same age, had the same color skin, and it was easy to understand each other. I think he's probably from North Carolina. It sounded like he was.

I have a license plate that says grace to you. And the conversation went very well. But that Texas trooper with the 28-year-old African American woman who was battling depression and was agitated didn't go well at all. The story today of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, I say is one of the most unlikely conversations that would ever happen.

But it's also one of the most unlikely conversations to ever go positive. And part of the reason for that is that the Samaritans and the Jewish people were enemies of one another. What had happened in the eighth century before Christ, the Assyrians invaded that northern part up in Samaria and the areas. And a lot of the people, make a long story short, a lot of the people that were displaced ended up interacting with Gentiles and intermarrying people from other nations and other religions. This was anathema to the Jewish people who were committed to moral and ethnic purity and not intermarrying. It was seen by the Jewish people as an act of impurity and compromise. And the Jewish people who had been later exiled to Babylon and had remained true to Mosaic faith, you can imagine were especially upset at those who had softened and wound up intermarrying. As usually happens, as hostilities grew between the Jews and the Samaritans, it increased both directions. The Samaritans, for example, decided to erect their own temple at Mount Gerizim and say this is where you should worship rather than the temple in Jerusalem.

Anger was so great that in the second century BC, some Jewish radicals destroyed the Samaritan temple. The Samaritans and Jews not only didn't get along, but the Jewish people considered them ceremonially unclean. And if you interacted or contacted them, then you were deemed ceremonially unclean, which had ramifications for your rights at the temple.

For this reason, sometimes people would just take a different route. If you were to look at the route, you see that Jerusalem in the south, as you go to Galilee, it's just straight north. But oftentimes, according to historians, Jews would travel around on the eastern side of the Jordan just to avoid even going through Samaria, even though it was longer. But Jesus had decided they would go through Samaria, which meant they would interact with the Samaritans. So it was extremely unlikely for a Jew and a Samaritan to be talking to each other at all. And here's the second thing, she was a woman. And in the ancient Middle East, a man, a Jewish man, would never speak to a woman in public.

In fact, the strictest of the Jews would not even speak to their wives in public. I don't advise that. I'm just saying this is the way that it was. Alan Wright, today's good news message, it's titled Seeing Others for Who They Can Be. And we'll have the conclusion to this teaching on our next broadcast.

In the series, you'll see. Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio today, sharing a parting good news thought in just a moment. Want to give someone a present this Christmas that they'll never forget? Let us help you give a gift that money can't buy. This Christmas, give someone your blessing, a positive, biblically-based faith-filled vision for their life.

In the beginning, God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful and multiply because in God's design, blessing isn't the reward for productivity, it's the fuel for it. Now, more than ever, someone you love needs your blessing and we're here to help you craft it. This month's special offer from Alan Wright is a beautiful booklet that will teach you how to craft a meaningful blessing. The easy step-by-step instructions are biblically-based and even include a worksheet that helps you write your blessing. So this Christmas, give someone you love a present not found in stores, a gift from your own heart that will encourage and empower. Write down the blessing and put it in a package under the tree or put it in your Christmas card, they'll never forget it. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month we'll send you this booklet as our thank you so you can discover the power to bless.

Call us at 877-544-4860 or visit pastoralan.org. Back now in the studio with Pastor Alan and I was just, I just found an old tape of my kindergarten graduation and my kindergarten teacher put me on the spot as the best sight reader of the class. And what did I read? I read a passage about the Samaritan woman and Jesus the Jew and how they were different. So it's a story, it's a biblical account that we have heard a lot throughout our lifetime but this is taking away here, bringing us something that we can apply to our lives in this series you'll see. Well I'm glad that she prophesied that over your life because here you are still reading better than anybody else out loud. Well there's something to be said for that Daniel, that the way that people see you ends up impacting how you see your own life and how you see your own life determines how you live your life, that's the way it works. And so Jesus has this conversation with a Samaritan woman and how he sees her is so different than what any Jewish man of his day could have possibly been able to relate to.

And it ends up working not only a miracle in the woman's life but brings about a revival in the town. So we have so much to learn, especially in today's culture of racial unrest, about talking to strangers and about listening and understanding. So the key here is to start asking Jesus, how do you see this person? How do you see this situation? Instead of trying to figure out always, well what's the right thing, the politically correct thing, what's the, you know, Jesus how do you see it? And he's amazing and he's amazing in that he will share with you his own vision of a person and you begin to see their potential and you begin to see them in a different way. If you see people the way Jesus does, all of the prejudice comes off. So it's a remarkable story and it invites us back to the simple prayer that we're inviting listeners to pray. Jesus, how do you see this? Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.