The Response of a Transformed Heart
Tom Shrader expounds John 4:27-42, focusing on the Samaritan woman who left her water pot and rushed into the city to tell others about Jesus the moment she encountered Him. Drawing on her example, Shrader challenges the congregation to examine whether their own transformed hearts produce a corresponding urgency to share the gospel, noting that knowing the gospel is sufficient reason to proclaim it. He closes with a call to prayer — asking God to bring lost people into believers' lives — and a practical discussion of God's will, arguing that faithful obedience and gospel proclamation are at the heart of what it means to do the will of the Father.
“If you know enough to believe the gospel, you know enough to share the gospel.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: A Study Of The Life Of Jesus Christ (2003/2004)
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: evangelism, transformation, urgency, sharing faith, prayer, obedience, gospel, witness, new believer, struggling to share faith, feeling unqualified, young adult, spiritually stagnant, seeker, church member, someone doubting their transformation
Scripture: John 4:27-42, John 4:9, John 4:13, John 4:19, John 4:25, John 4:26, John 4:34, John 3, John 6:38, Romans 1:16, Matthew 5:16, Matthew 5:44, 1 Peter 3:15, Deuteronomy 8:3, Ezekiel 28:12, 1 Corinthians 3, 1 John 4:14
Theological Themes: soteriology, regeneration, new heart, sanctification, great commission, missiology, God's will, gospel proclamation
Full Transcript
Introduction and Background
Jesus and the disciples are in Judea and headed to Galilee. Verse 4 tells us He had to pass through Samaria. Humanly, He had options. Most of the Jews would go from Judea over to Jericho, to the Jordan River Valley, and up north to Galilee. Some would go over to the sea and up. So when it says He had to go through Samaria, He certainly did not have to go through there by any human necessity. He did, however, have a divine appointment. God was orchestrating things so that Jesus would have this life-changing encounter with this Samaritan woman at the well.
Jesus comes to a point outside the city of Sychar, at Jacob's well, and there is this woman. He says, "Would you give me something to drink?" The disciples have left — they have gone into the city to get food. She says, look at verse 9, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink? I am a Samaritan woman. The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." She understood the rules of engagement, and there were none. They did not talk to one another. And it is even deeper than that — it is not just a Jew and a Samaritan issue. It is this Jewish man, this teacher, speaking to this woman, and that has all sorts of implications.
Jesus said, "If you knew the gift of God, and who said to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." She said, "Sir, you do not even have a bucket. You have no way to get water out of the well." So, just like Nicodemus before her in John chapter 3, this woman at the well in John chapter 4 is listening to what Jesus is saying and thinking on a physical plane. Jesus is using a physical picture — in this case, the idea of water; in Nicodemus's case, the idea of being born again; and in the case of the disciples today, the idea of agriculture, growth, crop production, and harvest.
Setting Up the Study
We are continuing our study in the life of Christ, looking today at a section from verse 27 through verse 42, which I have called "The Response of a Transformed Heart." We are in the process of studying the story of the woman at the well, and that will be the focus of our time today.
Before we begin, I want to highlight something by asking you to consider three questions. First, if you are in this church today because someone invited you — whether this week or five years ago — you are at East Valley Bible Church because some other human being invited you. Second, if someone, or some part of East Valley Bible Church, has had a significant impact on your spiritual growth. And third, if God used East Valley Bible Church, or someone from it, in the process of opening your eyes to saving truth when He saved you. That third category is always the smallest, and that is exactly what we would expect — and it is a key part of why we need to spend time today breaking this passage down.
The Woman at the Well: Setting the Scene
Jesus used this physical picture. The people listening understood it literally as a physical picture and missed the spiritual truth that He was teaching. She did the same. Jesus says, in verse 13, "Everybody who drinks from this well is going to be thirsty again. But you drink from me and I will give you a water of springing up of eternal life." And she said, "Sir, give me this water. I don't want to come out here and draw water every day. This is a hassle. This is work. I don't want to do it."
Then Jesus said, "Go tell your husband." And she said, "I don't have a husband." And He says, "That's exactly right. You've got five. You've been through five guys and you're on the sixth one and you haven't married him." She perceives in verse 19 that He is something special, a prophet, and she asks Him a question: "Our father, the Samaritans, we worship here at the temple of the mountain outside of Sychar. You guys worship at the temple in Jerusalem. Who's right? Which church should I belong to? Where's the truth?"
Jesus said there is this hour that is coming — speaking of the death and resurrection — when you are not going to worship here, you are not going to worship there, you are going to worship in spirit. By that He means what is deep down inside of you. You are going to worship in spirit and you are going to worship in truth.
The Woman's Response and Jesus' Declaration
Here is what she responds with in verse 25: "I know the Messiah is coming, He who is called the Christ, and I know that when He comes, He will declare all things." This is a very complicated conversation — it might even be beyond your understanding and mine — but she knows the Messiah is coming, and she knows that when He comes, what He is going to do is clarify all of these things once and for all. She knows there will be this Messiah, this deliverer, and she may have in her mind all sorts of other things that this deliverance might mean.
In verse 26, Jesus makes this bold declaration: "I who speak to you am He." That is me. I am the Messiah. I am the one that you have waited for. I am the one that for hundreds and hundreds of years you and your people and the Jews have been praying for, waiting for — that is me. Right here is the culmination of all that you have desired.
What a Converted Person Looks Like
J.C. Ryle writes of this short section, verses 27 through 42: "These verses continue the well-known story of the Samaritan woman's conversion. Short as the passage may appear, it contains points of deep interest and importance. To all who desire to know something of the experience of a converted person, they will be found full of food for thought." If you want to know how a converted person is supposed to think, and how a converted person is supposed to act, you can get a pretty good indication from this passage before us.
This is a very important time of self-examination — for you, for me, for us — to look at this woman who has been introduced to the Messiah just moments before and see how she responds. Let's unpack it.
The Disciples Return
In verse 27, the disciples came and marveled because He had been speaking to the woman, and yet no one said, "What do you seek?" or "Why do you speak to her?" Remember from verse 8, they had gone into the city to buy food. They return, and there is an assumption that this somewhat brings the conversation to a close. The conversation stops.
They marveled that He had been speaking with a woman. The rabbis taught that no rabbi should talk to a woman on the street — not his own wife, not his sisters, not his daughters. So that Jesus would be speaking to a woman, much less a Samaritan woman, stunned them. And yet they said nothing about it. It may be that they were a little intimidated by Him. It may be that they were afraid of the answer. It may be that in this short period of time they had walked with Him, they had seen that when He acted in this somewhat strange and unconventional way, He had a reason for doing it. They may have simply concluded: he knows what he is doing, he has it figured out, we do not even need to ask.
She Left Her Water Pot
In verse 28, the woman left her water pot and went into the city and said to the men, "Come and see a man who told me all the things that I have done. This is not the Christ, is it?" And they went out of the city and were coming to Him.
As noted, the conversation between Jesus and the woman is now over. The last words recorded are: "I am the Messiah." How did she respond to that? The text indicates that she began to understand this and believe it, and it transformed her life immediately. Her values changed. Look at what she did — she left her water pot. That is why she was there. That is what she did every day. Going to that well and drawing water was a central part of her daily life, and all of a sudden everything began to change for her.
In your life, all of a sudden the bottom line is not the bottom line anymore. All of a sudden, getting that handicap down to single digits is not the driving force anymore. Those things that used to drive you begin to change in a converted heart. All of a sudden, you start to see the world as God sees it, not as you used to see it. All of a sudden, your agenda begins to change, and your values and agenda line up with His. She leaves the water pot.
A Lesson from This Moment
We see in this woman — who has had eyes to see for just moments — a valuable lesson for you and me. James Boyce writes this: some time ago, he was reading a book on childbirth, which he found odd, that included within it a partial listing...
The Response of a Transformed Heart
Consider the changes that take place in a baby's life during the first few seconds after its birth. I'm told that there are dozens of these changes. To begin with, eyes that have previously been accustomed to darkness must adjust themselves to the light. A body that was used to the temperatures of nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit within the mother must adapt to a temperature approximately 20 degrees lower. The circulation of the infant's blood changes, no longer flowing through the umbilical cord as it did when the child was in the womb, but instead flowing through the lungs.
A valve in the heart, which had been open until birth, must close permanently so that the used blood and fresh blood circulating through the heart will not mingle. Mouths must fill with air and begin their lifelong function. These and many other changes involving the nose, throat, digestive tract, and skin must all take place within a few seconds of birth if the baby is to live its healthy new life.
What Must Happen for Spiritual Health
Here is this woman at the well whose eyes have been opened, and I think there are some things that have to happen in her life for her to have a healthy spiritual life — and there are some things that have to happen in your life. Now, if we just asked what those things are, I guarantee those of you who have been around here for a while would start talking about knowing the Bible, understanding doctrine, and you would go down that entire list, and we would all say amen. But there is something else. It is to share the gospel. It is to evangelize your world. It is to share the life-changing truth.
Look at this woman. This is amazing to me. She says, "I know that when the Messiah comes, all these things are going to happen." He said, "I am the Messiah," and all we know is that she drops her water pot. She heads into the city. She heads toward the men of the city — men who have been an object of disdain toward her for perhaps all, if not most, of her adult life. And there appears to be no embarrassment and no shame.
She said, "I want you to come and see a man who told me all the things I've done." My suspicion is that took a while. There are no secrets to hide from Him. There is nothing for her to conceal. He knows it all. And she says, "I want you to come and see, because this might be the Messiah. This might be the Christ." She moves, not in shame and embarrassment, but in boldness.
You Know Enough to Share
Here is what we have said a thousand times: if you know enough to believe the gospel, you know enough to share the gospel. Is it possible people are going to ask her a bunch of questions she doesn't know the answer to? Absolutely. And in our own lives, shouldn't we be learning more and more? Absolutely. But we don't wait until we can answer every question before we share that truth. A couple of the guys on campus would identify this woman as "ignorance on fire." I love the story of this woman.
When we put up our hands and ask how many people are here because somebody invited them, a good number of hands go up — about half. The other half found the church by driving by or through the website. And when we ask how many have had a serious spiritual impact on someone, many hands go up. But when we ask how many have brought someone along so they could hear and learn the gospel, not many hands go up. That troubles me, and honestly, it was exactly what I expected.
At the eight o'clock service, it was four people. I knew that going in, which is exactly why I handpicked those questions. I was sitting there writing them out the day before, going before the Lord, saying, "I know this is going to be embarrassing, because it's not just what you've done — it's what I've done, what we've done together." That is embarrassing. And what it tells me is that we probably are not sharing our faith. That is sad, and I plan to explore why that might be a little more next week.
Not Ashamed of the Gospel
Here is what Paul says in Romans 1:16: "I am not ashamed of the gospel." So what is he? He is proud of it. He has suffered for it. He has been beaten for it, stoned, smuggled out of Berea, laughed at, embarrassed, and ridiculed. And he says, "I am not ashamed of it." Why? Because it is the power of God for salvation — for deliverance, for rescue. It saves us from our lostness. It saves us from the wrath of God. It saves us from our spiritual ignorance. It saves us from self-indulgence.
Spiritual Constipation
I was walking into a church just last Sunday morning to teach. As I walked up to the front, there was a man sitting in the back row, and I'll be honest — I didn't like the way he looked. He waved me over and said, "Are you teaching today?" I said yes. He said, "Well, I hope it's a Christ-centered message — something I can learn from and take out into the world and that will change my life."
I said, "Oh, wow. I never thought of that. I should have tried that." And I will be honest — I was walking in the Spirit and not the flesh, but I was thinking, this man does not suffer from spiritual malnutrition. He suffers from spiritual constipation. He is taking it in and taking it in and taking it in, always wanting more and more, and never giving any of it out. I thought to myself: what good is that?
Sharing What Matters Most
Do we need Christ-centered messages? Obviously. Do we hope that the Holy Spirit uses messages to change our lives? Absolutely. Do we need the Institute, the Training Center, Women's Ministries, Men's Ministries, and AFL? We need all those things. All those things are important. But to what end? That we glorify God in our lives.
How do we glorify Him? In a variety of ways, but at the top of the list is to proclaim the truth. That has to be up there toward the top. And I find great encouragement in this woman at the well. She hadn't been through a class yet. All she did was say, "This man told me everything. He might be the Messiah. In fact, I think He is."
Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." There's the power. If you go out this afternoon and see a great movie, I guarantee that tomorrow, with the people you run into, you are going to say, "I saw a great movie yesterday." I was standing between two guys recently, waiting, and one of them said, "Hey, I saw this movie last night." The other guy said, "How was it?" And away the conversation went. That's just the way it is.
I am going through a Kona Grill phase right now. I am really into the macadamia nut chicken in particular, and all of a sudden I find myself saying to people, when food comes up in conversation, "Have you been to the Kona Grill? Have you had the macadamia nut chicken? It's unbelievable." It is the most natural thing in the world. This morning I saw there was a collision in the Braves game yesterday, and I said to somebody, "Did you see the Braves game?" That is just what we do.
Here is what I want you to understand. Those of you who are Christians, those who took communion — what you are saying is that you were lost, Jesus became man, dwelt among us, died on the cross, and rose from the dead. How does that not supersede macadamia nut chicken? Or a basketball game, or a football game, or a movie?
A Personal Testimony
I like to hear Susan's testimony. She has a section where she talks about how God saved me first. She says that I used to come home every day and say to her, "You know you're going to hell, don't you? You are going to hell." She says it happened every day. I don't remember that, but she says that after about a week she said, "Tom, are you going to be there?" And I said no. And she said, "Then that's fine with me. I don't care. I'm sick of hearing about this."
My brother introduced me at a family gathering, and he was talking about how, because we were raised in a very religious family, when word got back that Tom had been saved, it got a little exciting. Everybody was concerned and talking about what it meant. And my brother said, "Don't worry about it. You know how Tom is. This is not going to last. This will be gone and changed in a month."
From both of those stories, I take a good deal of comfort in knowing that there was a point early on in my life when I was telling everybody what had happened. But I am not sure that that truth is as evident now as it was then. How about in your life? My prayer is that when we do this again, this place is filled with people that God has used you to reach.
Now, having said that, I am not calling on you to be a soul winner. You cannot win souls. We do not even want the souls you would win. God is the soul winner. Our call is simply to share the truth. We tell the truth, and if God blesses it, great. If God saves that person, great. Our job is to proclaim the truth.
The Disciples Miss the Point
Now, in the meantime, there is a little parenthetical insert here in verse 31. Nicodemus did not get it, the Samaritan woman did not get it, and here the disciples do not get it either. The disciples were requesting Him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." Remember, they had gone into town to find food. We are told that when Jesus got to the well He was thirsty, and I would guess He was hungry too.
He said, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." And the disciples were thinking He must have energy bars in His backpack, food stashed away somewhere. They said to one another, "No one brought Him food, did they?" — just the same kind of literal misunderstanding we saw with Nicodemus and the woman.
Then in verse 34, Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work." This is very similar to what Moses said in Deuteronomy 8:3: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." My satisfaction, Jesus is saying, is found in doing the Father's will. James Boyce writes about this, and it is a great sentence.
The Keynote of Jesus' Life
It is even a golden sentence, as Charles Haddon Spurgeon once described it. These words are an expression of what is undoubtedly the keynote of Jesus' life, telling us that above all else, Jesus lived to do God's will. They are the essence of His life. Moreover, they tell us that doing God's will gave Jesus complete satisfaction. That is what He says in John chapter 6, verse 38: "I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me."
Look at it in verse 34. My food, my satisfaction, flows from doing one thing — from doing God's will, from doing the will of Him who sent me. And that carries through all of Jesus' life, up to the very end, the night before His death in the garden, when He says, "Not my will, but Thy will be done." So if I am to be like Christ, if I am to be Christlike in my life and in my thinking as I face decisions, then it is to do His will — God's will, not mine.
Lucifer stands on the other side of this. In Ezekiel 28:12 we learn that Lucifer had the seal of perfection, was full of wisdom, and was perfect in beauty. But Lucifer became the devil. How? He said, "I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne. I will sit on the mountain. I will ascend above the heights. I will make myself like the Most High." When I say "I will do this," I am not following Christ — Christ is not my role model. The devil is. As Christians, that is the choice you have before you: to do God's will or your own will.
Three Kinds of God's Will
My food is to do the will of Him who sent me. Well, if I am to do God's will, I need to know — what is God's will? What is the will of God for your life? That is probably one of the top two or three questions I am asked most frequently, not so much here at East Valley Bible Church as at Priority Living, or out in the marketplace, or when I speak elsewhere and meet people from other churches. They want to talk about a decision they have to make, whether to do this or not do that, and they will ask how they can know God's will. They seem very perplexed by it and find it very difficult.
But it isn't difficult, is it? When somebody says they want to know God's will, they can only be speaking of one of three possible things. The first is God's sovereign will — His mysterious will. By definition, I am never going to know it ahead of time. It is mysterious. I cannot know it except after the fact, and that is not going to help me as I am praying my way through a decision.
The second way someone might mean it is this: God, I want to know Your moral will for my life. Scripture is filled with that. He says in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." That is His will. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Matthew 5:44. Be ready to answer any man who asks you to make a defense of the hope that lies within you — 1 Peter 3:15. Humble yourselves. Romans 12:1–2: present your bodies as a living sacrifice. You can go on and on.
In this book we find God's moral will for your life. So if what you are asking is how God wants you to live, what you are really asking is what His moral will is. He wants you sexually pure. All of these things are here. Can you know God's moral will? Absolutely. Read it. There it is.
The Question People Are Really Asking
Typically, when someone asks about God's will, they are asking about neither of those first two things. They are asking about a third thing: can I know God's individual will for my life? Should I work at Motorola or at Intel? Should I buy the red house or the blue house? Should I live at Ocotillo or Agritopia? Those are the kinds of decisions they are wrestling with.
Fasten your seatbelts, especially if you are new, because this is going to bother you just a little. I do not think God has a knowable individual will for your life in that sense. How are you going to know whether He wants you to buy the blue house or the red house? And even when you line everything up and say you know He wants you to have the red house, how can you truly say you know it? The only way you can really know it is if it is in here — and He does not say anywhere in here, "Bill, buy the red house." It is not in there.
I have an alarmingly high number of people coming to me and saying, "God told me to." What did He tell you to do? If it is not in here, I am a little suspicious — and so, frankly, are most of those people. I had a man ask if we could have breakfast, and over that breakfast he told me God had told him to move to Dallas and asked what I thought. I am not stupid, so I had to ask: if God told you to move to Dallas, why are you talking to me? Why don't you have a plane ticket? Why isn't everything packed and gone? I am very wary of this "God told me to" approach.
Making Decisions Wisely
So how do you make a decision? This is actually quite simple, and we have messages and books that go into more detail, but we can condense it quickly. When you are making a decision, what you have to figure out first is whether God speaks to that issue. Does He speak to it directly? Does He say, for instance, that red is better than blue when it comes to houses? No. But He does give you principles that relate to it.
Do Whatever You Want
Don't take on too much debt — God speaks to all of those different things. Talk to your friends who are Christians, those who are a little more mature than you, and gather the wisdom. Talk to those who know you best. If you are getting ready to move to Gila Bend and your friends know you don't like small towns and you don't like heat, you need to hear that. You have to have that information.
Then examine your own life. Is there sin in my life? Is there ongoing sin in my life? And then when it is all said and done, if there is no sin and you have gathered the wisdom — here is the killer — do whatever you want to do.
The illustration I use all the time is with trying to figure out who to marry, from a guy's perspective. You are a guy and you have got to get married. You need a grid. You need a girl — let's start with that. What should this girl be? Does Scripture speak to it?
It does. She needs to be a believer. She needs to be growing with the Lord. We are told that in this relationship she is to submit to you and you are to love her, so it had better be somebody who can submit to you and somebody you can love.
You build this grid, you take all of these things, you put all of the candidates through it, you let them come to the bottom — and then what do you do? You marry the prettiest. It is so obviously simple. Or you marry the one that likes you. You marry the one that likes golf if you like to golf, or the one that likes baseball, or the one that is a homebody if you like staying home, or the one that likes to dance. Do you see that? There is great freedom in this. This is exciting.
How do you know she is the one? The minute you say "I do," we know she is the one. That is just the way you live. That is the way it is supposed to be. If you want to find real satisfaction, meaning, and fulfillment in your life, it is simple: do God's will and obey Him.
The Fields Are White for Harvest
Look at what happens next. Jesus is still teaching. "Do not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, and they are white for harvest."
Jesus is using an agricultural picture. Most scholars agree this event is probably occurring in November, December, or January — the planting time. It would take about four months for the crops to grow and be ready for harvest, around mid-April. Jesus is saying, do not say it is not time to harvest. Look up, lift up your eyes — the fields are white, just like a crop ready to be brought in.
What is He pointing to? It seems reasonable to assume He is pointing to the men from Sychar who are coming out to see Him, there in their white robes. He is saying, there they are.
"Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering the fruit of life eternal. And he who sows and he who reaps are rejoicing. For in this case the saying is true: one sows, another reaps. I send you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor."
One Sows, Another Reaps
Paul says something very similar in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. He is speaking to a divided church — people saying "I am following Paul" or "I am following Apollos" — and he says this: "When one says I am of Paul or one says I am of Apollos, are we not mere men? Who is Apollos? Who is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each of you. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters does anything, but it is God who causes the growth."
There is the principle. It may be the woman at the well who planted. It may be John the Baptist who planted. That does not matter. These people are ready, and you may be the one whom God allows the privilege of sharing the truth when they respond. It is the same thing in your life and mine.
A Dinner That Got Tom Thinking
Early on, Susan and I had been married and we were invited over to the house of a man I was working with — he and his wife had us over for dinner. He was a really, really nice guy. We did not typically spend time with people quite that polished, but we went, and I thought, how bad can this be?
We ate dinner, we finished, and we were ready for dessert. In the middle of all this, he started talking about Jesus. Then his wife started talking about Jesus. Susan jumped in and just buried these people — she was so good. I said, oh yeah, everything she said and more. Then I said, hey, can I get my dessert to go? I am out of here.
Walking to the car, Susan said, aren't they something? I said, that is dumb, that is stupid. But it got me thinking. It stirred something in my life. I went to a man — went to Dave Newquist, one of my —
The Response of a Transformed Heart
Many Samaritans believed in Him because of the word the woman had testified — she had told them about living water, and it overflowed from her, and they responded. Verse 40 tells us: "So when the Samaritans came to Him, they were asking Him to stay with them and He stayed there two days." This is remarkable. The Jews would not eat anything a Samaritan had touched, and now Jesus is going to go and live with them for two days. The barriers are falling down fast.
Many more believed because of His word, and they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this one indeed is the Savior of the world." That is a phrase John uses again in 1 John 4:14, where he writes, "And we beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world."
James Boice writes something particularly good here. The great phrase "Savior of the world" concludes John's story and is therefore particularly significant. Of course, no one really wanted a Savior of the world in Christ's day. The Jews wanted a savior of Jerusalem, the Samaritans wanted a savior of Samaria, the Greeks wanted to save Greece, and the Romans wanted a savior of Rome. But Jesus was not that kind of Savior. Jesus is the Savior of the world, who appeared on this earth for men of all races in order that He might die for them and be the means of their salvation.
A Burden for the Lost
Take some time this afternoon and think about the fact that Jesus came, lived, died for the sins of His people, and then rose again. He rose again. That is bigger than the Kona Grill, bigger than a movie, bigger than anything — and yet there is such freedom and compulsion to tell people about these things. Why not this profound truth?
There is a world out there — a huge world — that is absolutely lost. A world that cannot even figure out that men should not marry men or women women, that has not yet figured out that it is wrong to kill a baby in the womb, and that has no idea how to find forgiveness for sin. But forgiveness is found in Christ and Christ alone, and you know that truth.
This has personally become a burden for me. I am so happy at East Valley Bible Church, and I think we stand up and declare the doctrines of grace magnificently — all the way through, from the smallest children hearing this to junior high, high school, men's ministry, women's ministry, and college. But I am not sure we have a corresponding passion for lost people, and we should. Especially since we know the doctrines of grace so well, there is great freedom in the midst of all of this to share it.
Planting, Watering, and Harvesting
It is not important that you are the one who harvests, or the one who plants, or the one who waters. What is important is that you take advantage of whatever opportunity God brings into your life. I experienced this firsthand. I told a friend I was all messed up and needed help, and he said, "Jesus is the answer." I thought, what else do you have? That doesn't appeal to me at all. Then three months later Larry came along, and God used Larry. That is just the way it is.
Praying for Open Doors
We need to start praying — individually and corporately — that God would bring people into our lives with whom we can share this truth. Pray that God would prepare hearts and get them ready. If they are already saved, glory to Him. If not, glory to Him in the proclamation of the gospel. Ask God specifically to bring someone into your life.
A man came in on a Wednesday morning after I had been teaching through this, and he said, "Here is what happened. I prayed that prayer all day. That evening a couple came over for dinner, the women went their way, and I sat down with a man I did not know very well. We were just talking along and all of a sudden he stopped and said, 'Tell me about Jesus.'" I asked that man, do you think that was a sign? I hope he stopped and prayed right there.
It will not always look exactly like that, but we need eyes to see these moments when they come. When someone says, "How do you have such peace in the middle of this difficulty, and I don't?" — they are saying, tell me about Jesus. When someone looks at your family, your children, the order in your life, and remarks on it — they are saying, tell me about Jesus. When someone says something has changed in you, that there is something different about you — they are saying, tell me about Jesus. What we need is the courage, the insight, the gentleness, the love, and the truth to share it, and then to wait and see what God does.
And I will tell you this — set them aside for a moment. Sharing your faith will transform your life. It will make your faith more real. You will begin to see God work in extraordinary ways.
Moving Forward
Because I have gotten so deeply into this subject, I think I am going to spend a couple more weeks on evangelism. It is important for us to talk about what we are looking for, how we share, what we try. We will spend a couple of weeks working through that together.
Father, thank You for this truth. Maybe there is someone here today who has questions and would like answers. We pray, moving forward, that You would bring people into our lives and prepare their hearts. To You be the glory. Amen.
Introduction
God, prepare our hearts. I am praying now for the people of East Valley Bible Church — those that know the truth, who know salvation, who know that in a moment they will be in Your Son's presence forever. God, soften our hearts toward lost people. God, give us a thirst to teach this truth. Father, we pray that to You in Jesus' name. Amen.
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