You may have seen a group of friends together who are all so preoccupied on their cell phones that they're missing out on the social opportunity that is right in front of them. Maybe you've been in a group like that.
Well today on Truth for Life, Alastair Begg considers Jesus' response when the priorities of his disciples got similarly off track. I'm going to read just part of John chapter 4. And you can follow along, I'll guide you.
Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria, so he came to a town of Samaria called Sicer, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well, It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water, Jesus said to her, give me Give me a drink. for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying 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 water with.
and the well is deep, Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty. Forever.
And the water that I will 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 will not be thirsty. or have to come here to draw water.
Well, we pick it up with Verse twenty seven. The disciples came back, they marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, What do you seek, or why are you talking with her?
So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town, and said to the people, Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?
So they went out of the town and were coming to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about.
So the disciples said to one another, Has anyone brought him something to eat? 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? 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.
For here the saying holds true One sows. And another reaps. I sent you to reap, and That for which you did not labour. Others have laboured. And you have entered Into their labor.
We'll stop there. I'll leave you to read the balance. As your homework. After all, You're supposed to have homework. Father, as we turn to the Bible, What we know not teaches us.
What we have not give us. What we are not Make us. For your son's sake, Amen. John, in the book of Revelation, gives us this immense picture and this huge vision. in Revelation chapter seven, of a company that no one can number, that has been assembled from every tribe and nation and people and language under the sun.
And when we stand, as it were, before that portrait painted for us there in Revelation 7. We're aware of at least two things. First of all, that God has ordained men and women to salvation. otherwise there would be no company assembled. And number two, that he has ordained the means.
Whereby men and women Come to salvation. And that the storyline of the Bible. Is the history of God putting together a people that are his very own. from every place and background and context, Men and women whose lives have been touched and changed by the gospel.
So in other words, when we think in that term, when we think in terms of the vastness of it all, it is as a result of the gospel going out into all the world to the Jew first and then also to the Gentile. And it is absolutely imperative that we have that in our minds. And as we come to this particular passage, to realize just how important it is that men and women are confronted with the claims of Christ. and are invited to turn to Christ. Murray, in his collected writings, says it is on the crest of the wave of divine sovereignty.
That the unrestricted summons comes to the labouring and to the heavy laden. This is Jesus' own witness. and it provides the direction in which our thinking on this subject must proceed. Any inhibition or reserve. in presenting the overtures of grace, should no more characterize our proclamation than it characterized the Lord's own witness.
Jesus, Mark tells us, stands forward after the announcement of John the Baptist to declare, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news. We are then told that the evening came. And they brought to him those who were sick with all kinds of diseases, and he healed them. Many who were oppressed by demons were set free. Then Mark tells us that in the early hours of the following morning Jesus was away and by himself in communion with his Father in prayer, sought out by his followers, who announced to him That the whole place is ablaze with what has happened the previous evening.
Essentially, the inference is: Jesus, this whole mission thing is off to a terrific start. And what happened last night has built the foundation for what looks to be like a significant long stay opportunity in this context. And if you know your Bible, as I hope you do, you You will remember that Jesus says, Let us go. To the other villages. Let us go somewhere else.
in order that I might preach there also. For that is why I came out. In order that I might declare The very things that the Father has given me to say For as he says elsewhere, the words that I speak are not my own, but they are the words that the Father has given me to proclaim. words which were then passed on to his followers.
Now John wonderfully in his Gospel, in chapter three and then in chapter four, provides for us these two encounters with Jesus. First of all, an encounter with a man who was a religious professional, who had come out of a background that is not unfamiliar to some of us. And he was a religious man who desperately needed to know Jesus. He then, in chapter 4, records for us a lady who's at the other end of the spectrum. Uh she's female, obviously.
She's Samaritan and she is a moral outcast. And in doing this, he provides for us an opportunity to understand not only the ministry of Christ, but also in many ways his methodology. Billy Graham said that the way to reach the masses is to reach them one at a time. And it is in this context that his followers, who are not the brightest bunch, Are more concerned about sandwiches than they are about salvation. It's not unkind to say that, the record tells us that.
They left him there in order that they might go and get food. That is a good thing to do. When they came back, they were still on about food, and their surprise in verse 27 that he was even talking with a woman is equal to the surprise of the woman herself, as recorded in verse 9, that he, a Jew, would speak to her, a Samaritan, and that he, a man, would speak to her. A woman Now it is because of this consternation on the part of the disciples that Jesus is going to give to them a necessary exhortation. and that exhortation straightforwardly is, Look.
I tell you that Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. You're missing something here, fellas. And I need you. To lift your gaze. from your own preoccupations, from your own necessary considerations.
You mentioned food. I have food to eat that you know not of. We can talk about that later. But for now, what I need you to do is take a look at the opportunity that is before you.
Now that exhortation, I suggest to you, is a necessary exhortation in every generation. in every generation. to lift up your eyes and to look on the fields. If you have been in pastoral ministry, if you're going into pastoral ministry, if you're serving in any context at all, you will realize that within relatively short time, it is possible for all of your evangelistic fervor, for all of your lifeboat mission station mentality, to be dissipated, to be depleted to the point that your local congregation becomes more like a marina in which people sail their own pleasure crafts around in, playing their own music, listening to their own tunes and talking to each other. They never thought they would get that way.
They never planned to be that, but they have become that. It is stagnant. It is no longer vibrant. It is no longer possessed of the dynamism that thrust the Apostles onto the streets of Jerusalem with the story that this Jesus Christ is alive, and we want to introduce you to him. No, they're preoccupied with all kinds of things.
the equivalent of the disciples' sandwiches.
Now, read church history, and what do you discover? You discover that the men and women that have impacted the church have been men and women full of the love of God. full of the love of God for those who need to know that love. We read Whitfield and the great evangelical awakenings. and we think of it in macro terms.
But if you read Whitfield's journals, what do you find? You find that this great and effective preacher had a heart that pulsated with a longing to see unbelieving people becoming the committed followers of Jesus Christ. He was not roaming this part of the nation in order that he might propound a theology. He was not roaming around jumping off his horse to go through the order, salute us. He was actually proclaiming Jesus Christ.
and in his journal from North Carolina, Christmas seventeen thirty nine, his entry reads as follows Oh, how it will rejoice me to hear that some poor soul this day has been born again, Then It would be a Christmas day. Indeed. This is not just somebody with a big mouth and a big Bible and a big congregation. This is a man whose heart is engaged with God. You see, when we teach the Bible evangelistically, when we teach the Bible to doctor, when we teach The real purpose in it is not that we would be able to convey information.
So that people would be more knowledgeable about the passage. And then give them a few practical points that they can try and take home with them in the afternoon and talk about. That's not the primary point. The primary point in teaching the Bible is that we might have a life-shaping encounter with God. That our lives would be absolutely transformed by the very truth.
that we ourselves are proclaiming. And not least of all, When we think of the challenge That is before us. in the world.
Now I have a treat for you this morning. In that I have been able to ask the lady herself. To come. and address us. You say you've gone crazy?
No, not really. But instead of going back through this dialogue again to he said, she said, will you allow me to become the woman for just a moment? All right. You have to stretch your imagination, I understand. And I'm not doing this as a ploy, I'm doing this in order to advance the ball up the field.
It started out as a routine trip for me. I do it every day. I come to this well every day. It's always hot, I'm always alone, it's always sticky, it's always a mess by the time I get back. I never See anybody.
At least usually. This one caught me off guard. A stranger? With a simple enough request But even the request itself was bizarre because I'm a woman, he's a man, he's a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan. We don't really talk to one another.
He actually aroused my curiosity by suggesting that. I was actually one that was in need. and that he was the one who could supply the need. Which seemed completely upside-down to me because I noted that he had no way of getting down into the well, he had no mechanism with which to draw up water. Didn't make sense.
I actually said to him, Are you greater than our father Jacob who built this well? What an irony that is. Are you greater than our father Jacob? Why he didn't get into it. He just let that question go by.
But this is what he said Everyone who drinks the water from this well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I will give them will never thirst again. Uh I said sign me up for that. Because I hate coming here like this every single day. I didn't get what he was on about. But you know when you sense that something is being said beyond what is being said.
You know, when you have that notion that there's more to the matter than you're actually grasping, that's exactly what happened to me. That's how I felt, and I was right. Because out of the blue He says to me, Go and call your husband. Go and call my husband. I thought to myself, which one does he want me to go and call?
But he didn't try and wring any of the details out. He didn't try and dig into my dirty, messy past. In fact, it became clear. that he knew it all.
So much so that I said to him. You you must be a prophet. And I started into a question about where you want to go if you're seeking God, where do you go if you're making a sacrifice for sin? And he actually said to me, Well, it's actually, you've got it upside down. It's not about where you go to meet God, it is that God is the one who is seeking you.
Well, this was really getting out of my control, and so I thought I could just bring it to a close. And I said to him, Well, why don't we just wait? until the Messiah comes. Because we know when the Messiah comes, you know, he'll explain all of this. And then without so much as batting an eye.
He said that's me. The one speaking to you. I am. The Messiah. Speaking to me?
Why would the spo the Messiah speak to me? Doesn't he know what a mess I am? Doesn't he know that I'm a no name lady? In a small little town? Doesn't he know that the life that my life to this point has been a broken series of failed beginnings.
That my life has been marked by looking for love in all the wrong places. That the reason I'm here all by myself and not with a cluster of women, as would be normal in the early part of the day or when the evening shadows have fallen, the reason that I'm here in the middle of the day by myself is because of who I am and because of what I am. Doesn't he know that?
Well, of course. He knows it. But just then his friends came back. I never had any chance to chat with them, but apparently they said they had something to do with Burger King or McDonald's or whatever it was. They were completely preoccupied with something to do with sandwiches.
And so I thought, well, this is my chance to get out of here. And so I just l I I find I even left my water pot. I was so, so amazingly overwhelmed by it all that I just went running back. That's essentially How it would have been, right? That's the encounter.
John then tells us Of the impact. of the impact the impact that was made by one solitary life. By one lady who didn't know everything, but she did know something. And what she knew Is that in some dimension? This encounter with this man.
was revolutionary. Her life would never be the same again. Remember, Jon Stodd is in Christian Mission to the Modern World, where he says, Nothing seals the lips. Or ties the tongue like the poverty of our own spiritual experience. We say nothing.
Because we have nothing to say. She had something to say. I have met the master Won't you come and meet him too? That's her story. She did not have an answer to all of their questions.
She had no better answer than the man who had been born blind, remember.
Well, what is the problem here? What are you doing here? Look, I don't know. I know this. I used to be blind.
But now I can see And some of us have done nothing really in personal evangelism because we're waiting to read the great book, you know, the final story of whatever it is, the ten keys to doing it. You don't need it. You just need to know Jesus. You just need to love Jesus. And you just need to love people.
And you just need to let them talk. And then you just need to give them an opportunity to hear the good news that you have to tell. Listen, this is fine talking about China, and I'm good for China and for Africa and for everywhere, but I'm a missionary in Cleveland. If you want to come somewhere tough, you come with me. All right.
Okay? You want to come and find out how it goes down? Here we go. You want to know whether there's a difference between the cults and Christianity, between genuine Biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism that holds people into their grasp. The opportunity is there.
The impact is there. And she goes back into the town and she she says to the people. And I can't imagine uh how this must have gone over. But she goes back into the the village, uh the town, and she's shouting out, Come and see a man. Come and see a man And the progression in the text, which when you do your homework, you'll get this, is obvious.
Verse 29, come and see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?
Is this the Messiah? Verse thirty they went out of the town and were coming to him. Verse thirty-nine Many believed in him. Because of the woman's testimony? He told me all that I ever did.
Verse 40, and so they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed for two days. Verse 41, and many more believed because of his word. And they said to the woman, It's no longer because of what you have said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world. Isn't that a great that's that's got to be the greatest satisfaction in in engaging with an unreached people group.
That you go and you speak to them and tell them of Jesus, and eventually they say, you know what? We finally got this for ourselves. You can go somewhere else now, we'll take it from here. They had seen they had believed. We're learning about the importance of telling others about Jesus on.
Truth for Life with Alastair Begg. As parents, one of our highest priorities is to tell our children about Jesus and how they find their identity and security in Him.
So as kids navigate the beginning of a new school year, we are recommending to parents and grandparents that you get a copy of a book called Grounded in Grace, Helping Kids Build Their Identity in Christ. This is a book written by Jonathan Holmes, who is a longtime pastor and Christian counselor. It's a tremendously insightful guidebook that helps you better understand the identity struggles your child may be dealing with. Specifically, the book explores five core areas where young people can get sidetracked in terms of defining who they are. It includes sports, academics.
being a good kid, moralism, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Grounded in Grace explains the adverse effects of letting academic or athletic performance define your identity. It provides practical instruction to help you guide your child to root his or her identity not in grades or in being a star athlete. but in Christ, being a beloved member of God's family. Ask for your copy of Grounded in Grace today when you donate to support Truth for Life.
You can do that online at truthforlife.org/slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for joining us today. As Alistair pointed out, we don't need to know everything before we talk to others about Jesus. But what do we need to know? We'll hear about that tomorrow.
The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the learning is for a living.
