Good morning.
Appreciate each and every one of you being here this morning.
And uh as was mentioned, uh Justin is out, but I do appreciate the mention that was made concerning the bookmarks.
If you do have your bookmark, hold it up.
Grab it out.
Don't put it back away yet, even if you've already held it up.
Here's what we're going to do.
We're going to take one minute of silence and your job is to pray for the names that you've got on this bookmark.
They hear the gospel, that they're receptive to the gospel, pray for them silently by name, review that list.
You don't have to close your eyes.
You can pray with your eyes open.
Look at the list and let's spend one minute praying for those who are lost.
want us to spend a moment talking about this list.
Because some of you may say, Aaron, I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to get 10 names on this list.
Or maybe what you might actually be struggling with is not.
Thinking of 10 people you know who are lost, whose names could go on the list, you may be having a hard time thinking of 10 people who you think will actually be receptive to being
open to a Bible study to go on the list.
So one of the things that we do when we learn something new is we try and assimilate the things we already know to better understand the things we don't already know.
So as you're thinking about those names, you're thinking, well, I know that this person needs to be interested in God.
I know that they need to be open to a Bible study.
I know they need to be willing to sit down and have a discussion about religious matters, and I can tick off a whole list of people who aren't any of those things.
Can't put them on the list.
Wrong.
This list...
is not about people who you think will be willing to have a Bible study.
This list is about 10 people who you know who are lost.
That may be your CPA.
That may be your bookkeeper.
That may be that person that you grew up with who lives a few doors down the road from you.
Maybe your neighbor who's a Muslim.
That may be the person who you greet who always has a smile on their face at Kroger and you may not even know their name, person who smiles at Kroger on the list.
This is about you remembering.
that you are not the ultimate solution to the problem of them being lost, that the power of the word of God and God is.
So the goal of this list is 10 people.
And you may, when you get your thinking about it, go, I'm gonna need more than one card.
That's fine, get more than one card.
If you've got two cards, three cards, or four cards, that's fine, fill them up.
These are people you're praying for, and the prayer might be, Lord, I have no idea how...
This person who is a devout Muslim is going to be open to hearing the gospel, but I am quite certain that you can do it.
And that's your prayer for them.
It's not about you having the answers.
It's not about you knowing how it's gonna work out.
It's about you being willing to put their name down and trust God enough to pray for them.
that he can figure it out.
Sometimes the scenarios in life that we find that open doors can take a really long time.
There's a family member of my mother's side of the family who has known about the church for years because my mother's parents
were once members of the body of Christ and became unfaithful when she was 12 and never have darkened the doors of the building since.
But her uncle was aware of the church, but he married someone who was from a denomination and just always did whatever she did.
My mother has been working on having discussions and conversations and trying to get a Bible study with her uncle for...
40 years.
So not long ago, back at end of last year in September, you might remember that there was a hurricane that hit the western part of North Carolina.
It just so happened that the western part of North Carolina was where my parents, my family, and my brother's families were all headed to three days after the hurricane hit.
Well, we didn't go because there weren't any roads to get to the place where we were supposed to go.
My parents had already left home.
They were already left Missouri.
They were taking it in multiple days.
They were in middle Tennessee when everything got canceled.
And they were trying to figure out what they were going to do.
Were they going to go south and go see my oldest brother in Alabama?
Were they going to turn around and go home?
And mom looked at dad and said, why don't we go to Michigan, which happens to be where Uncle Larry resides.
Because mom and Uncle Larry had finally
started having Bible studies, finally had started having serious discussions after his wife had passed away.
So they went up to Michigan for one reason, to go spend some time with Uncle Larry.
As a result of a hurricane and a whole lot of disasters and a canceled vacation and a missed opportunity to see family, my parents ended up in Michigan for a week and my great
uncle was baptized.
They found out he had been going to the local congregation for a number of weeks, but he, because of his religious background, was under the assumption that he needed a, in his
mind, ordained preacher to baptize him, and the congregation, the small congregation in Michigan doesn't have a full-time preacher.
So he had been at that congregation desiring to be baptized but hadn't said anything about it because he thought there was no preacher there to baptize him.
My whole point in that story is this.
Was there anything miraculous about a hurricane?
No, there was a lot of devastation as a of that hurricane.
Do I think God caused a hurricane to cancel our trip so that my parents went to Michigan?
No.
My point is this.
You don't know.
What door will be open?
So this list is not about you knowing how it's going to happen.
This list is about belief in the power of prayer.
that it can happen.
One other reminder.
Scripture tells us that God's Word will not come back to him void.
That is a warning, not a promise.
It is a warning to God's people that when God's Word is spoken and God's Word goes forth, it's going to end up in one of two scenarios.
It's going to end up in blessing or judgment.
One of the reasons why sometimes we don't put names on a list and we don't pray for people and we don't have awkward conversations is we don't want to ruin a good relationship on
this earth.
Brethren, a reminder.
If you spend your entire life having a good relationship on this earth with someone who ends up in hell, you didn't love them nearly enough
to take the chance on ruining a relationship to save their soul.
So the people who you put on the list sometimes will be people who you say, don't know how I'm going to do this without ruining our relationship.
But remember, it's not about you knowing how.
It's about you having confidence in God that the word of God can bear fruit.
Paul makes the point that the one who sows the seed,
puts the seed in the ground and waits.
He doesn't know, especially in Paul's day and time, first century, he doesn't know how that seed germinates.
He didn't have a microscope.
He didn't have a couple hundred years of biology built up to figure out how this germination process works.
He puts the seed in the ground and trusts that it's going to produce fruit.
Why?
because God designed a world where every seed bears fruit after its own kind.
So because of the power of the Word of God that declares that every seed shall bear fruit after its own kind, a farmer can put corn seed in the ground and expect corn to come
forth.
What do we plant as Christians?
What do we plan as Christians?
the Word of God, okay, which is the seed that we sow.
All right, now we're talking about Jesus, the master evangelist.
Jesus in John chapter 4 demonstrates a number of things that we need to understand, a number of techniques that we need to evaluate, a number of things that we need to
conceptualize and synthesize in our own hearts and minds so that we understand how to teach people.
Because sometimes
When you use a hammer as a wrench, you're not going to reach success.
Why?
You're using the tool wrong.
So we need to learn from someone who's skilled.
If you know anything about people who work in trades, you know that the best tradesmen are those who know how to teach the next generation how to do the job.
And Jesus,
is getting ready to teach his disciples.
But as we considered last week, Jesus did not let culture close doors to souls.
Jesus was willing to teach a Samaritan woman concerning the kingdom.
Jesus overcame fatigue.
The text specifically tells us that Jesus was wearied, yet Jesus was wearied and found an opportunity
to reach the lost Jesus began engaging in friendly conversation.
Jesus didn't start off with the fact that the woman needed to be obedient to God and needed to correct her immoral life.
He started with, "Give me a drink of water." Consider as well that Jesus chose a time when others were not around.
Do you remember, and if you don't remember, we're going to see it as we get to it, the disciples' reaction when they see as they come back from the city where they've gone to
buy food, their reaction when they observe Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman?
they would have been a roadblock to his conversation with her.
So Jesus found a time when the disciples were not present in order to teach this woman.
Jesus was not put off by potentially offensive statements.
The woman will say, you Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
She pointed out a fact that was culturally true, but was not true about Jesus.
Yet Jesus wasn't offended.
Jesus didn't throw up his hands and storm away because she had
misjudged his character.
Rather, Jesus taught her anyway.
Jesus offered her something more than she had.
If you look at a person's life who is not a Christian and every day you wish you had their life, you're gonna have a hard time reaching them with the gospel.
until Christians realize that they have something that the world does not have.
The richest man on earth does not have what you have.
For what shall a man profit if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
If you can't offer someone who's in a completely different wealth strata than you are,
The one thing they don't have, the hope of eternity in the gospel, because you're too focused on getting what they do have?
we have a problem.
Jesus offered her what she did not have.
Now this is our goal.
This is our goal for this year, six to ten baptisms.
But that's going to involve more than six to ten Bible studies.
That's going to involve many more visitors and it's going to involve considerably more contacts and prospects.
Because seed...
needs a lot of seed sown to produce.
One the things that I was always a little confused about growing up in life is when we had a garden.
We had a garden and I was told as we were going, I think it was beans we were planting, as you go you drop three or four seeds down there in the same hole.
I'm like, why do multiple seeds need to be in the hole in order for, well aren't you gonna get multiple plants?
Does every seed produce fruit?
No, it doesn't.
So I was told put three or four seeds in a hole.
And sometimes we ended up with two or three or four plants that grew out of the same hole.
But the reality was most of the time we only ended up with one.
Because not every seed is going to bear fruit.
Now,
Consider some additional points.
We turn to John chapter 4.
If you're not already there, please turn to John chapter 4.
We're going to pick up around verse 11.
In John chapter 4 and in verse 11, notice what we read.
The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with.
Jesus has asked this woman to dip down in the well and give him a drink.
She questioned why he being a Jew would ask that of her, a Samaritan woman, because the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
And he says, if you knew who I was, you would have asked for a drink from me.
And yet she responds and she says, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
Where then do you get that living water?
The woman wants.
to know how he is going to accomplish this thing because he has none of the physical tools.
He has none of the correct resources with which to get down into that well and get her this living water.
And even if he got the water out of the well, he'd be getting the same water she could have gotten.
So what resource does he have?
What magic does he have?
What thing that he knows about that she doesn't know about does he have in order
to give her what he's offered her.
oh
Jesus is going to point her in a direction.
He doesn't say, you had asked of Me water, I would have given you a drink.
He qualifies it.
He says the water that He has to offer is living water.
The thing which He has to offer is different than everything she already has.
Notice what the text says.
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." As the woman stands there and is discussing this with Jesus,
Jesus points out that there is something different about what he's offering her.
He is creating interest.
He is creating in her mind curiosity.
There are some things in life you can't teach me, no matter how well you know them, because I have no desire to learn.
I'm going be honest here for a moment.
There are some things around the house that my wife has tried to teach me to do her way, like load the dishwasher.
We have now been married many years.
I still can't load the dishwasher the right way.
Why?
I don't have any interest in learning.
Be honest with you, I don't have any interest in learning to do it her way instead of my way.
And in my mind, the dishes come out just as clean.
She'll argue over that, but in my mind, they come out just as clean.
So I'm going to keep doing it my way.
You can't teach someone who has no interest something they don't want to learn.
but Jesus used words to create interest.
Jesus used words that meant something, living.
Jesus used terminology that meant something, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.
He told her something she already knew, true or false, every woman who had been to that well, who had drawn water out
that if they drank that water they would eventually get thirsty again.
Everybody knows that.
Why is Jesus wasting his breath?
He's not.
He's building a bridge between what she knows to what she thinks she knows but doesn't.
But he's got to start with where she is.
It is going to be very hard for you to convince someone about something they're not interested in learning that they don't know that they need when they have no foundation
upon which both of you can stand to start to build the conversation.
But Jesus builds the conversation on the fact that she's back to draw water again just like she was yesterday.
And the day before, and the day before.
and the day before, and the day before.
Jesus says, 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.
The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.
Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come here." Consider as well that Jesus did not ignore sins that potentially closed the door.
The woman says, I'm interested in whatever you're selling.
I want this water because I don't like coming here in order to draw water.
It is uncomfortable, it's a lot of work, it takes time out of my day that I could spend doing other things.
I'm interested.
If you've got water, that will make me where I never thirst again.
want some.
Jesus says, go call your husband.
Jesus did not avoid the very clear and apparent landmine that existed in this conversation.
We have some kind-hearted, well-meaning brethren in the body of Christ who will do everything they can to avoid talking about the sin in a person's life as they're trying to
get them into the water.
Brethren, can't do that.
You cannot be saved and born again out of a desire for heaven without a recognition of sin.
because salvation involves a death to sin.
And you can't die to something you don't know anything about.
You can't give up and repent of something you've never heard of.
And you can't correct something you don't know is wrong.
Jesus did not ignore sins that potentially closed the door.
Rather, Jesus introduced them into the conversation.
Now did Jesus begin by saying, I know that you're living in a wrong relationship?
No, he didn't.
You see, one of the things that Rob taught during the seminar and one of the things that I think is incredibly valuable for us to learn is you don't get very far telling people
they're wrong.
especially about very sensitive matters.
But you can get a lot farther if they tell themselves they're wrong.
There was a prophet who was sent to David.
The prophet came to David with a story.
The story was there was a rich man who had abundance, had flocks and herds, and a traveler came to his door.
and the man who was wealthy desired to provide for this one who was traveling.
And so the wealthy man went and took the neighbor that he had, he went and took that one ewe lamb, that only lamb that his neighbor had, that lamb that was treated like a member
of the family, the lamb that ate from his very table, that rich neighbor who had flocks and herds took that one ewe lamb and took it and killed it and served it to the man
traveling.
What was David's reaction?
Who is this man?
I'm going to kill him.
David's righteous indignation at this rich man's actions as a king brought forth his immediate judgment of the man for his actions and the prophets reply, you are the man.
Would that prophet have been as successful in reaching David if the prophet had walked in and said, I know what you did with Bathsheba?
The answer is no.
thing to realize, everyone knew what David did with Bathsheba.
It wasn't done in secret.
Everybody may not have known every action that David took, but everyone around the court, everyone, who did he send to go get Bathsheba?
Did he go get her himself?
No, he sent his servants.
All the servants knew what David did with Bathsheba.
becomes pregnant and the child and she's in labor, guess what?
Everybody knows Uriah isn't the father of that child.
Everybody knew what David did with Bashiba.
Nobody was addressing it.
Would he have been as successful just because somebody came along and said, know what you did?
No.
David needed to be reached by David in order to be convinced that what he was doing was wrong and that he needed to change.
Also consider he had had abundant time to change and yet he hadn't.
Jesus did not ignore sins that potentially closed the door.
Notice what we read, verse 17, the woman answered and said, I have no husband.
Jesus said to her, you have well said I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband, in that you spoke truly.
Jesus had not met this woman.
Jesus did not grow up in the same town with this woman.
Jesus had not interviewed this woman's parents, daughters, families, relatives.
Jesus had had no interaction with this woman, yet Jesus, as the woman will later testify, told her everything she ever did.
Jesus said, know that you've had one husband, two husbands, three husbands, four husbands, five husbands.
You got somebody who can go on this list who's been married five times and you think, man, this person has so messed up their marital life they will never be reached with the
gospel.
You could be wrong.
You got somebody who's currently living in adultery with a person or living in fornication with a person who is not their spouse and you think, man, they're lost, but in the
lifestyle they're in right now, they won't hear.
Put them on this list.
Start praying for them.
Jesus said, the one you now have is not your.
husband.
This woman was living in fornication.
And Jesus did not say, you will just simply change your life and be obedient to the gospel, then all your sins will be washed away and you can go back to living the same way
you're living.
You cannot resolve an adulterous marriage in the watery grave of baptism.
It doesn't become a righteous marriage because somebody gets baptized.
You cannot fix a problem of a person living in sin and living in fornication because they're baptized.
Now they can be forgiven of the sins they've committed in the past, but you have to be dealing with the problem of the sins they're committing right now.
oh
and the sins they're gonna go back to if they continue to live the way that they've lived.
You can't ignore a potentially door-closing sin just to get them in water because they have to repent of it.
What comes first, repentance or baptism?
Repentance.
They have to repent of it.
Now.
You say, Aaron, that's great.
That is why what we do here at our congregation is we first make contact with them when we wait for them to visit, then we sit down and ask them if they'd to have a Bible study, and
then we embark on a 17-week Bible study in which we explain to them every single thing the Bible says that is sinful so they can correct their lives before they get baptized.
Is that what the Scriptures tell us to do?
No.
There are some sins people have to grow out of.
There are some sins that people have to mature out of.
How are you going to help the person who needs to repent over anger?
You don't wait until they're never angry again before you baptize them?
No, I don't think so.
There are some sins that you have to...
grow them out of by the power of the Word of God and the maturity as Christians.
Paul wrote, as we discussed in our Bible class this morning, about the fact that there were those in Corinth who were still carnally minded because they had not matured
themselves to be spiritually minded.
Was it wrong for them to be carnally minded?
Yes!
But what is the only thing that would get them out of being carnally minded?
It wasn't baptism, it was maturing as Christians.
but there are some sins that must be stopped in order for a person to repent.
True or false?
We can baptize the serial killer and allow them to continue committing the murders.
No, we all know that.
Well, if it's true about the serial killer, it's true about the serial fornicator.
And it's true about the serial drunkard.
Okay?
There are some sins that must be addressed in order for repentance to occur.
But then consider as well Jesus emphasized sincerity and truth.
One of the biggest lies that the denominational world will tell you is that sincerity is enough.
That if you just have a good heart, that's enough.
God will accept it.
Jesus didn't teach that to this woman.
Notice he said, the one who you have is not your husband in that you spoke truly.
The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.
Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the father.
By the way, that's one of those occasions where Jesus did answer a question.
because the woman had already shown she was honest about her life.
And Jesus responds to her statement, but then Jesus helps her understand.
This is a woman who's interested in the truth.
He says, worship what you do not know, and we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and now is, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and in truth.
Jesus said, I know that your people are sincere in their desire to worship God.
The problem is that they're not doing it in truth.
They're not doing it in accordance with God's commandments.
As a matter of fact, you have those in this scenario where you have Samaritans.
You have these individuals who say, know what, Abraham was our father, Jacob was our father.
As a matter of fact, it was Jacob's whose well this was.
And so here we have a woman who recognizes the Old Testament.
She recognizes the covenant of Abraham, and yet they worship on the mountain.
God had specifically told the Israelites, God had told those individuals who were their ancestors, you don't worship on the mountains.
You come to one place to worship me, and it's Jerusalem.
You don't worship under every grove, you don't worship on all the high places, you don't do that.
You worship where I tell you to worship.
Jesus does not allow
her to have a free pass at, well, our fathers worshiped here, so if it's good enough for our fathers, it's good enough for us.
Jesus said, you're ignorant about what you're doing.
But He didn't do it in a demeaning way.
Rather, He pointed her towards a solution.
He pointed her towards a truth.
He emphasized that if she was going to be acceptable to God, she was both going to have to do so out of a sincere heart, one that was desirous of obedience, but also obedience.
The biggest struggle that people have in this world today and in this country today is not their desire to please God.
It's that no one has told them how to do it the right way.
And instead they've actively lied to them about it.
just the other day.
was noticing something online, and I happened to come across a religious individual preaching, and he had a great sermon just point after point after point about the
knowledge of God, about the willingness to admit concerning sin, and he got all the way to the point of even reading a passage about baptism and then made no application.
because he doesn't believe that baptism is necessary for salvation.
And it was glaringly obvious that he just passed over it when he had gone through verse after verse after verse in a context that led you to baptism.
consider as well that Jesus identified the Savior.
One thing we need to remember, and this cannot be missed, you do not convert people to the church.
Let me say that again, you do not convert people to the church.
you convert them to Christ.
When they are converted to Christ, they are added to the body of Christ.
They are added to the church.
All the good works that we do should never be enough to convince someone to be part of the church.
Their love and willingness to obey God ought to be what convinces them to submit to His will, in which they are added to the body of Christ and they can become part of a group of
people who are obedient to Him, but we don't convert them to the church.
We do not convince them because we are such great people that they ought to do what we do.
Those great things that we do ought to open doors, but they should never be the end.
Do you want to know what happens to congregations that grow and grow and grow and are involved in great things and people see those great things and they want to be a part of
those great things?
And so they grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and somewhere along the way obedience to God stops being the motive for growth.
we do not convert people to the Church of Christ.
We convert people to Christ in which He adds them into His Church.
Jesus identified the Savior.
Consider, He says, the woman said to Him, I know that Messiah is coming.
Who is called Christ?
When He comes, He will tell us all things.
Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He.
She says, I know the one I'm waiting for.
I'm waiting for the Messiah.
And as soon as He arrives, we're going to do exactly what He says.
She had already acknowledged he was a prophet.
She knew that whatever came out of his mouth came from God.
When he said, one who speaks to you is he, she didn't have any doubt because she already knew that what he said came from God.
Now here's the thing we have to be clear on.
If we teach people that they ought to be doing what we do because of us, when we fail, they'll leave.
When they are converted to us and we're imperfect, they'll leave.
But when they're converted to Christ, who will never fail, who is perfect, who is sinless, when we stumble, when we struggle, they'll be faithful.
They'll be the ones helping us up because they were converted to Christ and not us.
But then consider as well Jesus used one contact to lead to many others.
At this point his disciples came and they marveled, verse 27, 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 that I ever did.
Could this be the Christ, the Messiah?
Then they 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.
The woman departs from his presence.
She's not done anything yet.
Is there going to potentially be a point where somebody says, I'm ready, I know what I need to do, but I need to go get somebody else first?
Maybe.
That's what she does.
She goes to the city.
She goes back into the city to start telling the people who she knows, who she loves, who she cares about that Messiah has come.
She wants to spread the good news.
She doesn't tell them and then stay there.
She tells them and brings them back out to him.
She says, come and see a man who told me all things that I ever did.
Could this be the Christ?
The word come implies she's going back.
They're coming with her.
But then consider as well Jesus took advantage of a spiritual opportunity at the cost of physical loss.
You know, as you think about this next statement, consider...
that if we're going to be successful, we're going to have to prioritize spiritual matters over physical.
There's going to be times where we're going to have to say no to physical things in order for evangelism to be successful.
Jesus said, I have food to eat of which you do not know.
Therefore the disciples 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 is 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 that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
For in this the saying is true, one sows another reaps.
I sent you to reap that for which you have
not labored, others have labored, and you have entered into their labors." Jesus is one who is going to teach his disciples to focus on the spiritual things, to sustain
themselves on the spiritual things, not the physical things.
But then again, Jesus also believed that there are always souls ready for harvest.
There are 7.7 billion people in this planet that do not live in this country.
That's one of the reasons I'm grateful for the work that Louis Rushmore does and that many others do.
So I encourage you to be back here this afternoon as he gives us a presentation on his most recent mission trip because there's a whole lot of people out there that are souls
ready for harvest, but we must not forget.
There are souls ready for harvest here too.
If you're here this morning and you're outside the body of Christ, understand this.
that woman who sincerely thought she worshiped who sincerely believed in the Messiah, who was anxiously waiting for the Messiah, who was so invested in her desire to find the
Messiah that the moment she knew about the Messiah she told an entire city she had found the Messiah.
that woman was still lost in her sins and headed towards judgment with God.
All the sincerity in the world won't save a soul, but the gospel will.
And if you have questions about how to be obedient to the gospel plan of salvation, how to achieve fellowship with God and salvation in Christ and forgiveness of sins, don't leave
today without asking those questions.
If you have need of the invitation, why not come now as we stand and as we sing?