We often think of evangelism as the responsibility of pastors and missionaries who have been properly educated and trained, but the Bible makes it clear that we don't need to know everything before we talk to others about Jesus.
So what do we need to know? That's the subject Alastair Begg addresses today on Truth for Life, teaching from chapter 4 in John's Gospel, picking up right after the outcast Samaritan woman's encounter with Jesus at the well. And she goes back into the town. And she she s she says to the people, Yeah, and I can't imagine how this must have gone over, but She goes back into the village, 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 he 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 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.
I remember the wonderful story of being at Urbana in 1984, and there was a lady who spoke there. I'm not sure who she was, but she was an OMF missionary. And she told of going I think it was to Thailand, she and another lady. And they were there on their own in a place where there had been no missionaries. And they began to teach the Bible, they began to explain to people who Jesus is.
and a couple of them had come to faith in Jesus Christ. And as they were teaching through the Bible and they got into the pastoral epistles, where Paul made it very, very clear about male headship in the church. One of the men said Well, then you can't teach any more. I must be the teacher. Because the Bible says that you shouldn't be teaching.
I should be teaching. And she said, You finally got it. And pastor reins to eldership that was as God intended? And they were able then to take their place within the context. They needed to be there when there was no one else.
But as soon as the truth had dawned, They had seen They had understood. They had believed. And the great finale of it is in verse 42. And they said to the woman, We know that this is indeed the Saviour. of the world.
Do you believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world? The only Saviour of the world? Do you believe that there is salvation in no other name? Given under heaven among men? Through which salvation comes?
That God so loved the world that He gave His only Son? everlasting life? That he did not send his son into the world to condemn the world? but that the world through him might be saved. That whoever believes in him is not condemned.
But whoever does not believe is condemned. Already? because he has not believed in God's one and only son.
Well, the encounter is really clear. And the impact is straightforward. What a wonder it must have been in those two days To have Jesus stay and teach them. I'm assuming it would be akin to what happened as it's recorded in Luke chapter 24. Jesus takes them back through the Bible.
Shows them For example, too, where it says, Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God. And there is no other. Walks them through the whole story line E. J. Young says monotheism and true conversion.
And the universality of the gospel message. Always go together. Monotheism. True conversion. and the universality of the gospel message always go together.
Now, my friends, this morning The reason we seek to Ponder this is because this is actually the message that we are then entrusted with taking across the street. and around the world. This is the message. That Jesus is the only Savior. because Jesus is the only one who is qualified to save.
And when we say these things, We need to learn to say them not only with clarity, but also with kindness.
So, for example, my Jewish friends, of whom I have a goodly number in Cleveland. Believe that Jesus Is not the Messiah We believe that Jesus is. We cannot both be right. That Hindus believe that incarnation has happened thousands upon thousands of times and still continues to happen. As believers, we affirm that the incarnation was a unique, unrepeatable event whereby God invaded time in the person of.
of the sun. We cannot both be right. Islam says by virtue of its symbols, That the scales of a sinful man need to be tipped by that same sinful man in his own favor if he's ever to be accepted finally by God. We say that we could never tip the scales in our favour. but that one has come and done for us what we cannot do.
to provide for us what we do not deserve. And those two concepts. are diametrically opposed. to one another. I have less in front of me.
Then I have behind me ten. time-wise. I'm 32 years into this ministry on the east side of Cleveland. As best I know my heart, I'm not jaded. I'm still enthusiastic.
In fact, given the opportunity, I would like to start all over again. I'm jealous. for you younger men. and women. with all before you, I'd love to have a second go at it.
But I'm concerned for you. I'm concerned that some of you are now going to fail. But you're going to succeed at the wrong things. You're going to invest your life in the wrong way. You're going to use your loaves, your fish, whatever it is.
And at the end of your day, look back and say that was a bad investment. The encounter is clear, the impact is obvious, and the lesson, and I'll just point it out to you. The lesson that is given to the disciples is, as I started, a very necessary lesson. They said to one another, Has anyone brought him something to eat? John is wonderful at these little ironies, isn't he, in his gospel?
He does it all the time. And it's so it's so super. I have food to eat that you do not know.
Well, where did he get that? I just told you you do not know. What are you asking for? What a what a group, incidentally. I mean, who would who I know Jesus chose them, but they're no good.
There's no there's not one of them any good. I mean, frankly, the ministry of Jesus was a flop. As far as the disciples are concerned. Until post Pentecost. And even post-Pentecost are not exactly on their game then.
As I'm going to show you just as I close. And so he says to the disciples, Listen, fellas. You're the ones who routinely say there's four months and then comes the harvest. What's he essentially saying to them is this. By my coming I have ushered in the harvest.
By my coming. Everything has changed. And paradoxically, sowing and reaping are going to coincide. You're tempted to say, Well, we see the need, we see the opportunity, but of course, it's not the time. Jesus says, it's always the time.
The time is ripe. For the harvest. Look, I tell you. Lift up your eyes. Lift up your eyes.
It's like the psalmist says, Ye gates, lift up your heads on high. For he, the king of glory, enters in the constant call of the scriptures: lift your eyes up off yourself, lift your eyes up of your own preoccupations, your own sorry little pathetic dreams and schemes. Lift your eyes up. People will not die for these trivialities. Lift up your eyes.
Have a look. And of course all the commentators say that this is probably because you could see the headdresses of the people coming out from the city as they've begun to leave.
Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't. If it helps you believe it. If it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. But lift up your eyes and you'll see. Do you walk around with your eyes closed?
I hope not. You'll bang into lampposts. But do you walk around with your with the eyes of your heart opened? Did you see these young mothers in the grocery store? Do you see that person as you walk past them?
Do you see the tattooed girl? In apple? as someone for whom Christ died. wearing a red t-shirt. And taking too long to answer your question.
I confess, it's so easy. For that to happen. Do we really need Lennon and McCartney to teach us about compassion? Oh, look at all the lonely people. Where do they all come from?
Look at all these lonely people. Where do they all belong? Chapter three, Nicodemus is Father Mackenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one could hear. Chapter four is the woman in Norwegian wood. She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn't. She crept and crept off and slept in the bath. This is the real world. These are the people. This is our area of opportunity.
Lift up your eyes. People are looking for love, looking for freedom, looking for forgiveness, looking for significance, looking for meaning, looking for kindness, looking for clarity. We live in a world that has completely lost its story. In the introduction to a book by Benedict the Sixteenth, that is the Pope. In the introduction to the book by George Viegel, this is what he says.
We live in a world that has lost its story. A world in which the progress promised by the humanisms of the past three centuries is now gravely threatened. by understandings of the human person, that reduce our humanity to a congeries of cosmic chemical accidents. a humanity with no intentional origin, No noble destiny And thus no path To take through history. Essentially I don't know who I am.
I don't know where I came from. I don't know where I'm going. And I've had five husbands, and I'm living with a guy. And of all the things you could have said to me, you said, go call your husband. How did you notice say that?
Because he was putting his finger on the issue in her life that was representative of her need. He wasn't simply going to say, Oh, that's fine. You know, I'm Jesus and go home and have a lovely afternoon. No, no, no. He was saying to her, Come on now.
face up to things. You have the same thing with a man let down through the roof. His friends get up and bring him and drop him down. What a hullabaloo that is. And when he finally is in position, Jesus looks at him and says, Son, your sins are forgiven.
What an anticlimax that was, huh? Your sins are forgiven. What are you talking about? My sins are forgiven. And the fellows looking through the roof are going, what a waste of time this was.
We came here for his legs, Jesus. And you want to forgive his sins? Of course Because the man's real need was the forgiveness of his sins. Don't waste your time going somewhere to do what everyone else in the world can do. Don't use your voice to proclaim another message.
Save this message. This is the message. And in the nature of things it is usual for uh reaping to take place after the sowing. In the spiritual realm, says Jesus, it is usual that one reaps. Where another has sown.
That's why I said to you what I said. You thought I didn't have an introduction. I was just trying to think of something to say that I went in the dining room, you know, like, oh, thank you for sharing that. No, I did it purposefully. Why?
Because one plants and another waters and only God can make things grow. We reap. on the strength of what others have sown. We are the beneficiaries of their investment. They gave their minds, their lives, their intellect.
For the sake of the gospel. And we are here today because of that investment. Would we do anything less? Missionary hymns are passe. When is the last time you sang a missionary hymn?
Exactly. Nobody knows what to do with them. Because it's all been sightswiped as colonialism. The British Empire, the American zeal, spoiling these poor people with this dreadful way of giving them navy blue jackets and so on. There's no doubt we did some of that, but the passion was clear.
Facing a task unfinished. that drives us to our knees and need that undiminished Rebukes our slothful ease. We who proclaim to know him Renew before his throne. The solemn pledge we owe him to go and make him known. We take the torch that flaming.
fell from the hands of those who gave their lives proclaiming That Jesus died and rose, and ours is the same ambition. the same glad message ours. And it is to him And to him alone. That we yield. are pars.
John chapter 4. Lift up your eyes. All the way through. It's Good Friday. Good Friday, they're not sitting around on Good Friday saying, hey, only a couple of days till Easter Sunday.
They're not s they're not uh they're not planning a sunrise service, not those characters, no, no. The ladies make a stab at it, but the men are nowhere to be seen. I told you, they're a bad bunch. And uh And Jesus has told them: it's very important that I go away. I send the Holy Spirit, He will finally.
unstopped your ears and opened your eyes. And so it is that that's exactly what is about to take place They've had the resurrection appearances. And now, before Jesus' ascension, They gather together as it's recorded for us at the end of Luke and at the beginning of Acts. Jesus is caught up out of their sight. And there are these angelic visitors.
And what do they say to them? Why do you stand? Looking up? Ha ha ha ha. Yeah.
They scattering light. We can't get a break at all. John chapter 4, why do you look up?
Now we're looking up. Why are you looking up? You've got to be looking in the right place at the right time. You're looking the wrong place because what did he ask? Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
Their preoccupation was already wrong, understandable, but wrong. They were thinking nationally, they were thinking territorially. They hadn't grown it yet.
Soon as the Spirit of God falls upon them. That's what Jesus says. He says, this is not a time for this kind of stuff. He says, What you need is this: that what I've promised you will happen, and then you take my message to the ends of the earth. You just wait for the promise of the Father and then get on your way.
and get it done.
Well, that's the story in every generation. Let me quote Murray, and one final thought. I like to quote John Murray. It's not just because I'm here, I quote him all the time. We Scots have to stick together.
There aren't many of us. This is Murray again. This is, for those of you who are note-takers, this is page uh it's a collation of page fifty-nine and page ninety-one of his collected writings, volume one. The passion for missions is quenched. When we lose sight of the grandeur It is a fact that many, persuaded as they rightly are, of the particularism of the plan of salvation.
and of its various Corollaries And we would include ourselves, I take it, in that group. They have found it difficult to proclaim the full, free and unrestricted overture of gospel grace. They have labored under inhibitions arising from fear that in doing so they would impinge upon the sovereignty of God in His saving purposes and operations. In other words, We're frightened. that if we make this appeal too clear some of the non-elect are actually going to get converted.
That's what he say. And we don't want that on our you know. On our watch. No, no, no, no. The result is That though formally assenting to the free offer, They lack freedom.
In the presentation of its appeal, and of its demand, Can I say again, as an older person to younger people, a word of caution, a word of warning, in the new, young, reformed circles that I meet everywhere I go and in which I rejoice. I am deeply concerned. That there is an absence. of a sort of pulsing longing That under the sound of the opening up of the scriptures itself, men and women like this woman. like the religious man in three.
would be brought to saving faith. in Jesus Christ. As a boy in Scotland, We had Sunday school in the morning hours. There was a little man used to come I called George Stewart He was old. When I was small, he was like the engine of days by the time I was in my teens, And he he taught us songs.
And one of the songs went like this. Um Lord, send me. Here am I, send me I want to be greatly used of thee. Across the street or across the sea. Here am I.
O Lord, send me It's a long time since I learned that song. I was probably seven or eight years old. I've never really been able to sing. but I can almost hear myself singing it. And I believed when I sang it I meant it.
We never know what that will mean. or where it will take us. If someone has said, you know, if you sing that song and mean it, you're going to spend 32 years of your life in Cleveland, Ohio. I said, nah, nah, I don't think so. But what do we know?
We know that there's no ideal place to serve God. Except the place he sets you down. Except the place he set you down.
Well, I leave you to your homework one final thought. Do you think this lady in John 4? showed up in Jerusalem. On the day the sun turned black, Did she stand in wonder? when the man on the middle cross cried out Titleest thy It is finished.
And did she say I get it now. He knew all the things I'd ever done. Because his blood has covered everyone. Oh Lord. such grace, to qualify me as your own.
I need to hurry away from here. and tell others this amazing news. Across the street. around the world. Lift your eyes.
The fields are white for harvest. We're listening to Alistair beg on Truth for Life. Alastair returns in just a minute to close today's program. Today's message is part of a series titled Lessons for Life. In this collection of messages Alastair teaches college students about living for God's glory despite the social pressure that seeks to lure young adults away from their devotion to Christ.
We're currently in Volume four of this series, but you can own the complete four volume study on a U S B, which you can plug into your laptop or your phone or your car for easy listing wherever you're headed. And if you'd like to share the Lessons for Life series with a student you know, you can do that by clicking the Share icon on our website or the mobile app. The series will be a great encouragement to a young person who is seeking to live faithfully, even when they're swimming against the tide. Simply search Lessons for Life on our website at truthforlife.org.
Now here's Alastair with a closing prayer. Father. For your word, we thank you. We pray that it may find a resting place In each of our hearts, that what is of yourself may be brought home to us, that anything that is untrue or unkind, unhelpful. may be banished from our recollection.
Fellows afresh, we pray with the Holy Spirit. With a renewed love for Christ and a renewed longing to see people. Embraced by the immensity of his sacrifice. We commend ourselves afresh to you in Christ's name. Amen.
Thanks for studying the Bible with us today.
Sometimes in our life pursuits we lose focus of the chief reason for our existence. Tomorrow we'll investigate just what that is. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
