John chapter 4. Over the last few weeks we've
seen the testimony of John, the Gospel writer here, and the work
of Jesus Christ in reaching out to the non-Jewish world, the
Samaritans from Sychar. We've seen The deep doctrinal
teaching of Jesus when He taught with Nicodemus and He spoke with
him and taught him the things that he should have already known.
We've seen the woman from Sychar and the confusion that she had
in her religion. The righteousness that she felt
she was obtaining through the following of certain precepts.
in conjunction with what she understood that the Old Testament
would teach and the way in which they should worship and the place,
more or less, in which they should worship. It's all about the location.
Where is the presence of God, they would argue? Is it in this
temple? Is it in that temple? Jesus remarks by answering her
in such a weird way to defy the very nature of the culture of
Judaism by saying, And in truth, we've learned how
we should approach these things and these truths. We've learned
that we are the church. The church has come together
in this building. This building is not a church. Though we may call it a church
building, it is because it is where the church gathers. It
is what we do when we get in here that is worship. It is what
we engage in with our minds, with our heart. We learn with
our minds the truth, who is Jesus Christ, who is revealed to us
through Scripture. And then out of our adoration
and out of our thanksgiving, we worship in spirit. Because God is in spirit, we
worship. Not because of what we do with
our hands, but what we do with our hearts. And of course we
saw that Jesus was violating the cultural norms of His day,
the religious norms of His day, speaking with a woman, not only
a woman, but a woman of uncleanliness, a woman of ill reputation, a
woman that was not in any circle, even her own, an accepted person. not looked at as someone who
was pious. And He very well called her out on that and said, Go
ask your husband. And she says, I have no husband.
Jesus says to her, You say the truth when you say you've had
no husband, for you've had five, and the man you are now with
is not your husband. So we see the type of reputation
that this woman had. Jesus knew divinely who she was. Much more than what she did,
He knew who she was. He knew the intricacies of her
soul. The things about us that we do not even comprehend, sometimes
we need to realize and keep fresh in the forefront of our mind
that God knows everything. God knows the motive behind every
movement. God knows the motive behind every
word. God knows the motives that we
hide from ourselves and our psychological endeavor to pretend and to believe
the lie of our own existence. You might say, what are you talking
about? Just think. Just think about it. You can think about
it after service on your drive home. We all lie to God. and we try to hide who we really
are and there's no sense in it. Confess who we truly are to God
and that is sinners in need of great mercy who have been saved
by the mercy and the love of God through Jesus Christ alone.
And it is because of the mercy of God that Jesus met intentionally
with all divine purpose this woman at the well of Jacob here
outside of the city named Sychar of the Samaritans. And we saw
last week where, in a rush, she left her water jar. Remember,
that's the whole dialogue that he had. Can I have water? How
would you, a Jew, ask me for water? If you knew who it was,
ask you the water. If you knew the gift of God, you would ask
Him for water, and He would give you living water that wells up
to eternal life. Oh, give me this water always. And then that doctrinal debate
that she had with Jesus. And then she perceives that He
is a prophet because He tells her all that she'd ever done.
And that is the testimony of this woman when she leaves in
a hurry, and she runs back to her village, and the disciples
show up at the same time, seeing all of this come to a close.
And now this woman who was hiding from her own people began to
boldly say, Come, see, I've met a man who told me everything
that I've ever done. Could he be the Christ? And that's
where we are today in verse 39. Let's hear the word of the Lord.
John chapter 4, verse 39 through 45. Many Samaritans from that
town, the town of Sychar, believed in Him because of the woman's
testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans
came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed
there two days. and many more believed because
of His word. They said 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 is indeed the
Savior of the world. After the two days, he departed
for Galilee, for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet
had no honor in his own hometown. So when he came to Galilee, the
Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in
Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast." Let
me pray. Father, I pray that as Your Word
is taught today, Lord, in this simplistic end of this dialogue
and the outcome of what Jesus did through the evangelism to
this woman, Father, I pray that we would not take it loosely
and we would not take it without grave meditation. That we would
focus on what it is that is here. The short, small things that
we see in Scripture, Father, they're not hidden from us, but
they're there if we would just take the time to pray that You
would show them to us. And so, Lord, my preparation
is insufficient to help anyone here see and understand, but
God, by Your grace and through the power of Your Spirit, Lord,
You will help us understand all things. You will teach us, and
so, Lord, it is my prayer today that it gives You pleasure to
teach Your church. that we would be worshipful,
that we would be satisfied, that we would be full and hungry for
more at the very same time. And Father, we are thankful to
be able to have Your Word openly and freely this day, not running
for our lives and not hiding from the authorities, but God,
openly. May we take this Gospel to the open world outside. May
we take this Gospel to our home. May we take this Gospel into
our own minds and preach it to ourselves every moment of life.
so that we are prepared continually in a state and a heart of thanksgiving
to share the truth of Christ with all those who we come in
contact with as you see fit in the timing that you've ordained.
We thank you, Lord, for this truth, for this grace, and for
your love for us. In Christ Jesus we pray. Amen.
There are several things that we can see here. It's not very
long, is it? You might say, well, I've heard
sermons on words that lasted several hours. And there are
a lot of things here. For example, when we see in verse
42, they said to the woman, listen to this for a second. It is no
longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have
heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the Savior
of the world. I mean, I can imagine that Spurgeon or, gosh, Lloyd-Jones
or some of those guys probably preached like 40 sermons on that
text alone. I can imagine that some of the
writings, if we were to dig into some of the Reformers and some
of the old Presbyterian fathers of old, we would probably see
thousands of pages of dialogue on this text. There's a lot that
we could say there. But we've already dealt with
this already. We've already looked at the beauty of the fact that
Jesus is the Savior of the world and what that really means because
Jesus has already had that conversation with Nicodemus. This is the example
that those who are not even Jewish understood this, but Nicodemus
could not understand it. He could not fathom that God
would save a Gentile people. He could not fathom that anybody
else but Israel would be saved through Messiah. And this is
the outcome of that. So we could dig into that and
we could talk about that, but let me tell you, beloved, the
rest of the Gospel of John will show us the revelation of this
truth over and over and over again. And you may say, why does
it matter? It matters on several counts, but two that I'll give
us this morning. It matters because there is a sick False gospel
that teaches that every person is saved because Jesus paid for
their sins. That is not true. The only way
you will have salvation through the work of Jesus Christ is that
by faith you believe in His finished work. And the only way that you
will have faith is if God grants you the repentance for your mind
to change. And the only way you will have
repentance is if you hear the Word of God taught, and the words
of Christ that command you and proclaim to you the goodness
of the gospel, of the story, of the good news of Jesus. And
the Spirit blows where He wishes. So my prayer for you this morning
is that no matter who you are, where you are, or where you've
been, or how long or shortly you've been in the fellowship
of our church, or in any other congregation, or any other kind
of spiritual things, that you would strongly consider the reality
that if God blows in you, you can believe. If the Word of God
comes to you, you can believe. But there is no other testimony
through which you can have life. And that's what's being taught
to us here. That's what's being taught to
us here. There are many people in Christendom this day, and
I use that term lightly, but in the culture of churchiness,
in the culture of religion, in the culture of Christianity,
who never teach the gospel. The gospel has been just sort
of crammed into the corner of the end of a service and say,
someone will say something like this, well, if you want to get
saved, Beloved, if I teach you all sorts of interesting things
from Scripture, and then I ask you, do you want to get saved,
but I've never taught you the gospel, what are you going to
say? From what? What am I going to be saved from?
The gospel is not an appendix. It's not an add-on. It's not
an appendage to the end of any other teaching. It is the teaching
of Scripture. The gospel of grace is the one
and only message of God as He's revealed Himself to us. He is
the judge of all humanity. He is the creator of all the
world. And He is righteous and holy
and just. and He is merciful, that before
the world began, He purposed to send Jesus Christ, God in
the flesh, God the Son, so that He would live a perfect life
as a man, satisfying the requirements of God for us to be holy, for
He is holy. And then He would die a perfect
death to satisfy God's judgment against us, so that God would
be just in forgiving us our sins, because it is not just for a
judge to forgive wickedness if something is not paying for that
wickedness. This is the Gospel. And by faith
alone in Jesus Christ, who He is and what He's done. You can't
believe on Jesus if you don't know who He is. You can't believe
on Jesus if you don't know what He's done. Some people say, well,
all you've got to do is tell people to believe on Jesus, but
what if who Jesus is to them is a false Jesus? You know what
that is? False faith. It's an unconverted
faith. We see it all over the place.
The last few verses of chapter 2 of this gospel says that many
people believed in Him because of the signs and the wonders
that He did. But, Jesus did not entrust Himself to them for He
knew what was in man. No one had to tell Him what was
in the heart of man. And we automatically, in our culture, we think about
people who are just living evil, wicked, just sinful things. But the example that the Scripture
gives is the most pious man in Israel. who trusted in His works,
who trusted in His lineage, who trusted in His blood, who trusted
in His knowledge, not Jesus Christ. And then we see one of the most
wicked women we could find in the world, and she believes on
Christ. Why? Because Christ entrusted
Himself to her. That's the difference. Jesus
did not entrust Himself to those who believed in the flesh. He entrusted Himself to those
who believed by faith. And you know why they believe by faith?
Because He revealed Himself to them. It is the work of God.
It is the divine work of God. That's the gospel. So now when
I say to you, do you want to believe on Christ? You need salvation? You know what I'm talking about.
It is the point of all of this. And people will skip over texts
like this one. You know, a lot of people came
to faith. You know what they would say? A lot of people accepted
Jesus in their heart. That's the vernacular of our
day. Listen, if you hear a pastor say, accept Jesus in your heart,
proceed with caution. Proceed with grave caution. Number
one, what does that mean? Number two, what does the heart
accept something that's inherently wicked according to Scripture?
Number three, how do you do that? Number four, what's the outcome
of it? You know what accepting someone in your heart looks like?
I don't either. I don't either. But you know
what man created mid-19th century? Just say this prayer. Just do
this stuff. Here's a little magic dust. Here's
a little magic word. Here's a little magic aisle.
Here's a little magic shoe. Here's a little magic altar.
Here's a little magic this and a little magic that. Now I'm
not saying that God doesn't save people and then they respond
that way because they've been told to. God saves you through
the gospel of grace by His Spirit. And you believe. And then, that's
my story. Then years later, somebody tells
me I need to do all this stuff to what? Quote, nail it down. You know what nails down my salvation?
When Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. That nailed it
down. Because all of my sin and all
the record of my debt that I owe to God for eternal wrath has
been nailed to the body of Christ and nailed to the cross, so therefore
it is no more. The Scripture says as far as the east is from
the west that my sins are forgiven. Friends, that's amazing. Don't
think of a sphere, don't think of a globe. For the first time
in your life, think of a flat earth. Just go east as far as
west and it never meets. Don't be a mathematician. Trey's
not here this week. So just relax. Let's just use
the imagery that the Scripture teaches us. As far as the east
is eternally, from the west is eternally, so our sins are departed
from God. He does not see them, for He
has pleasurably and purposefully put them on Jesus Christ. And
there is no other message under the sun that gives more joy than
that. So let me show you some of the
things that we see in here. The first thing that I see in this,
and it's not exhaustive, but this will get the point across,
is that the power of the gospel is revealed through individual
testimony. You see that? The power of the
gospel is revealed through individual testimony. I have to be careful
in this kind of teaching because if I'm not, I can ramble a lot.
Now where do I get that from? Many Samaritans, verse 39, believed
in Him because of the woman's testimony. It says that. So then
sometimes in our culture we think, oh, you know what, if I tell
my testimony, and what is a testimony here in our day? Well, I was
drunk and I was a drug dealer and I was a murderer and I used
to be an alien from outer space and then I met Jesus and look
at me now. And I want to say, well, you're still ugly. I mean,
sometimes, and that's what I heard. And I remember youth rallies
and things that I've seen and Luke can testify to this too.
We've been to some of these things together through the years in
ministry. And people get up there and tell a testimony about how
much they partied, how much they lived for the world, and how
much fun they had. And then God saved them from
it. Certain death. And these kids are going, wow,
there's hope for me to have fun and come to Jesus when I'm old.
You know? But there's no life in testimonies. You can't come to faith through
testimonies. And so, when we see that many believed in Him,
we need to recognize what's going on there. This sinful woman ran
to town and told her story. What was her story? Was her story
one of prosperity? Was her story one of incredible
transformation? No, she was still the same sinner
she was when she met with Jesus. She still had a shack up man
at home and she still had five husbands before. She was still
looked at in the very same way and she had done nothing from
that point to this point to do anything else in her life except
believe in her heart that Jesus Christ is Messiah and He just
spoke to her at the well. So then she goes to town and
she says the only thing she knows to say, which is what she just
learned about this man. Come, I have met a man who told
me everything I have ever done. Come and see. And then many people
believed. And she asked the question, could
it be the Christ? She told the truth of what Jesus
did. She didn't sit there and tell
them about the theological discussion. She didn't go there and say,
you know what, we're worshiping wrong. Hallelujah, y'all. We don't have
to worry about how the Jews look at it. You know, to heck with
those Jews. They're mean. They're mean. But Jesus has set
us free. Let them be mean. Isn't that what we would want?
If Jesus were around today to satisfy some of our doctrinal
problems? We'd be wanting to say, hey, hey, hey, you know
what? I just met with Jesus and you're a heretic. I mean, that's
really where we would go. That's where our culture is,
especially with guys like me. In all of our circles, we like
to discuss and debate things, but it's not the testimony. That's
not what she did. She didn't get up there and talk
about those things. She didn't debate doctrine. She didn't even
debate or she didn't even talk about how this man was so prophetic
and he knew this and he knew that. No, she just confessed
the outcome of what Christ had revealed to her and that is that
she was a sinner and he knew every bit of it. He knew every
bit of it. She proclaimed that this man
was a prophet by declaring what he did, revealing her sins to
her heart. See, when Paul says to the Corinthians
in chapter 1 that God uses the nothings of this world to bring
the nothing to things that are, this is what it looks like. We
have a big error in judgment, and sometimes judgmentalism,
when we think that the grander the pulpit, or the grander the
ministry, or the more broad the reach, the greater the work.
You know what? It's not true. Yes, we all have
this stir in our stomach sometimes when we're at home and we're
sleeping and we wake up and we think, man, I wish I could just
do more for Jesus. You know, I seriously doubt we've ever
even put a full hand to the plow of everything that we have before
us right here, much less do more. How are we going to do more when
we can't even hoe the rows that we have? You know what it's about? It's about faithfulness of God
and it's about His faithfulness to bring faithfulness to us.
and about securing us in everything that we have to do. Jesus did
not need John the Baptist anymore. He didn't need that public ministry.
He needed a woman from Sychar, and I say needed very loosely.
God did not need to use a massive pulpit. He used a messy woman. with no testimony except that
I've met a man who's told me everything. Could he be the Christ? You know what? If God can use
her, God will use you. Do not ever fall short to think
you have to be educated or equipped to share your faith. What is
the testimony? What is your testimony? See, the reality is that we are
in war. We are in a war, as we see Paul
talking to the Ephesians in chapter 6 of that letter, against the
principalities and the powers of darkness. Not against flesh
and blood, not against ourselves. And so when we feel insecure,
when we feel insignificant, when we feel as though we have no
purpose in the scheme of God's economy, We have no reality in
ministry because we're not a pastor, we're not an evangelist. God's
commanded all of us, each of us, every one of you, children,
young people, teenagers, all of us, He's commanded all of
us who are born again to share the testimony of Christ with
others. We've all got it. When? As we have opportunity.
And sometimes He puts a fire in some of us and we just don't,
we don't take a normal path in life in the sense of what we
do. Remember we talked a few weeks ago about just the normality
of things. We're working and doing and always
going. I mean, that's what the Great Commission is. As you are
doing all these things, teach people. Teach people. What opportunity
is there? We don't have to give sermons
on every corner. We don't have to have all of
the doctrinal understanding of all the things that have happened
historically. We just need to be able to tell the testimony
of Christ to us. And the war, the only victor
is Jesus Christ and His Word. The Bible says, by the sword
of the Spirit, the Word of God, we overcome. Like I read in Romans
8, we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. Christ is overcome. The testimony that I am a sinner,
He's told me everything I've ever done is the evidence of
grace toward me. That the scales of my blindness
and the judicial state in which I stood as an object of wrath
has been lifted by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.
No longer do I look at how I worship and what I do and how I live
as hope, but I look at the person of Christ and what He's done
for me. This is the gospel. And it is in direct contrast
to the human mind and everything that it believes about how we
are to be faithful and fruitful in ministry. The Samaritans of
Saqqara, when they heard these words, they did not wait, did
they? You know what's interesting about
that is that they, though they were not worshiping the true
God, though they were really a cult, though they were a false
religion, guess what? They were looking for Messiah.
They were excited to hear this woman may have met Messiah. And
they did not hesitate. They did not hesitate. That's
why I believe that she says, could this be the Christ? Not, this
is the Christ. Who would have taken her testimony?
Number one, she was female. No testimony. Don't take that
to heart because it's not biblical. Because the first evangelist
of the resurrection were women. And the disciples didn't believe
them either. So they went to see for themselves. But they
looked and they said, why? I need to go see who this woman
is talking about. Had she said, this is the Christ,
many of them would have laughed at her. Who are you to tell us
who the Christ is? You can't even live your life
rightly. She says, could this be the Christ? They were excited to see the
Christ. They could not wait to have the
answers to their questions, the right place in life, and the
right worship. So the power of the gospel is revealed through
individual testimony. The power then, second thing
I want you to see this morning, of individual testimony, is that
it points to the power of grace. You see that? The testimony that
we have points to the power of grace. It points to the Christ. It points, as we'll see now,
to the Word of God. So when our testimony is of Scripture,
if it's of God, it actually sounds like Scripture. What happens
in our lives, what happens in regeneration, what happens in
faith, it shows others that something's going on in us. We tell the story
of what Christ has done, and who Christ is, and then what
happens? It points to the power of grace,
not to transformation. It points to the power of grace,
not intellectualism. It points to the power of grace,
not experience. See, we live in a place in our
world today that many people, they believe that they are truly
born again because of their experiences. There are some cults who would
say that the experience is that I've seen things. I've seen things
in my mind's eye. God's given me a vision. But
the Scripture says that that's not true. The Scripture says
that that's a vision from the devil, from the enemy of God.
Because the Word of God is the only and sole revelation of God
to His church today. And it is powerful. We don't
need extra words when God's Word is sufficient. We don't need
experience. Well, I felt the Lord. You want
to feel the Lord? Read the Word. You want to feel
the presence of God? Dive into the pages of Scripture.
You know why we can't do that? Because our flesh hates God.
Our mind is hostile to God. Well, I just don't understand
it. Because you're not reading it. Yes, it is difficult to read
in our culture, because we live on emoticons, and we live on
short phrases, and we live in a place where, you know, these
kids and they text message you, and it's like, what the world?
You've got to have a 400-page dictionary to know what they're
trying to say, with all these phrases, and these words, and
these different abbreviations, and acronyms. For long we just
have like 73 letters all crashed together and it'll be like a
whole novel. Oh, nice book. Enjoyed that. And us older generations
are going to fade into obscurity. We're not going to know what's
happening or what's being said. But friends, we can't talk about
our experience and expect it to bring life to people. But
what it does do is it points to the power of God. It points
to the power of grace. Our testimony must be so that
it takes people to the Scripture so that They can be saved. Now, yes, taking them to the
Scripture could be the next thing out of our mouth. It doesn't
mean that we have to read it straight out of the text, but
if we memorize it, if we have it in our hearts, if we know
the Scripture and how to teach it and what to say, then we just
say it. It's the Word of God that brings
life. What was her testimony? I've
met a man who told me all that I ever did. Did that save anybody? No, not at all. Hey, I met a
man that told me all I've ever done. What is this woman talking
about? Could it be the Christ? Oh, we've
got to go check this out. So they went to the source. Now
it says there that many believed because of her testimony. Behold,
I met a man who told me all that I've ever done, all that I ever
did. See, Jesus appeared into her heart. He has seen us, as
I've already said. He has seen you. He has seen me. He knows
us. Are you convinced of that? The emphasis here in her heart,
she was convinced that this man could see inside of her. She
was convinced that this man knew her intimately. And she had earnest. And she had urgency. And she spoke the truth that
this man could be the Christ because He knows me. He knows
me. Now, she knew that Jesus had
said, I am the Christ, right? But she didn't say that. Why?
Because no matter what they believed about her testimony, it was not
going to be effectual for their salvation. We've met Messiah,
oh wow, we're saved. No, they must know Him. He must
do a work in them. Could this be the Christ? They
knew she wouldn't accept her dogmatic declaration that this
is the Christ. Her testimony was not sufficient.
And not only was it not sufficient for most people in her day, but
it was not sufficient for eternal life. But only the words of Christ
are sufficient for eternal life. Romans 10, 17 and other places,
2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 and so on and so on. Our testimony points to the Word
of God. If the Word is in our hearts
and in our minds, then our testimony is true. But His testimony is
powerful. Jesus is my Savior. Is He your Savior? So I've already
asked that question today, right? The only way that you can know
and the only way that you can believe is if I tell you how
He is Savior. If I tell you what He's done
on your behalf that you might believe, our testimony points
to the Word. Many people believed here, it
said, because of her testimony. But friends, this is not saving
faith. It's not talking about saving
faith. It's talking about the same faith that we saw in John
chapter 2. And there's a very big difference. See, many people,
many, in my life, every single week, many people come into my
life and they probe me. They probe my mind. They ask
me questions. I mean, some of you have shared
those same things with me. You get in conversations with
neighbors, or coworkers, or family members, or enemies, or whoever
it might be. We get in conversations, and
they come back, and they ask questions, and they ask questions,
and they ask questions. I don't know how many questions
I get, but I feel like I answer a thousand a day. And I know
that's not true, but that's what it feels like. There's always
somebody with something else and they want to probe, they
want to find out information. Many people come into the ministry
of our church, you know, you'll see them like one time, or you'll
see them come in a little late and leave a little early, and
then I'll get a text message or a call, and I'm like, who
is that person? They don't stick around. What's going on? They
come into my life and they probe continually for answers. And
they want deep things. They want to know, well, what
about this? What does the Bible say about this? And there's nothing wrong with
these things. But these are sort of the beliefs of these people
loosely when they say, okay, it must be the Christ. We're
going to come. We're going to inquire of this man, who he is. We're
going to find out all the things that we are dying to know. We're
going to indulge our curiosity. We're going to feed our flesh. We're going to feed our flesh. But they're not transformed by
the Scripture. They're just eating the information.
It's like trivial pursuit Christianity. I want all the answers so I can
get the pie. The problem is there's no pie. There's no pie. There's only
the bread of life. Many believe that it's not saving faith. Sometimes even the Jews, like
what did Nicodemus say? We know that you are from God.
It's not some type of confession of belief. And they air their piety out
in public, wearing their phylacteries, doing their righteous works before
the Lord, and in the end they fall away. And these same things
that I'm talking about, these same people that like to inquire
and continually search out the Scriptures or search out answers,
they don't really want the Word of God as their answer. to figure
out how they can come to walk in a manner that gives them the
answers they're looking for. And eventually they go and they
fall away, and they go about their lives without Christ and
without the truth. They go from this type of faith to this type
of faith, from this type of faith to this type of faith, from this
type of faith to this. You'd be surprised to know the
number of people who have come in and out of our fellowship
after a couple of weeks who have come in the fellowship and then
they went into this type of church, or then they went into the Jehovah's
Witness Kingdom Hall, or then they went into this type of thing,
and some now that I heard recently that are getting into Eastern
mysticism. I think the Buddhists have the answer. And you think,
really? I mean, you were so... you were
diving in. You bought an ESV. That's almost
proof of salvation. I mean, you know, It blows my mind, but they don't
want to hear the truth, but they love to grab the meals of our
labor and eat the bread of our labor, but they never desire
anything for themselves. And these people believed in
that same way. We've got to go see this guy. And what do they
say? Will you stay with us? Will you stay with us? That's
what they ask him. Come on, this must be Messiah,
this could be Christ, and they immediately go, and they walk
back up and say, hey, can you stay with us? Can you teach us?
And this is the same type of thing. And for us as believers,
listen, for us as believers, it's often frustrating because
we share the gospel, we share the faith, we share the answers,
we go after all of these people who are hungry, they seem to
be hungry, and then all of a sudden, you know, they're like, psst.
It's like a cloud of smoke and they just dissipate into the
atmosphere. And then we feel like, what did we do wrong? Maybe
you don't. I do. What did I do wrong? I
mean, I shared the gospel with this guy like seven billion times. He should have understood it
by now. But guess what? It's not for me to make you understand.
It's not for you to make me understand. It is just for us to be the conduit
of the message of grace. And by the will of the Lord and
through His Spirit, and as He wishes, He will give understanding. And that understanding will come
at a time when the Lord has purposed for it to come. See, here is
the crazy thing. Here are these Samaritans asking
a Jewish rabbi to stay with them. Here are these Samaritans saying,
oh, you stay in our town. This was a big deal. This was
a big deal. It'd almost be like if the Pope
had called Lutheran to stay a spell and to discuss doctrine back
during the 16th century. Wouldn't that happen? Just like
this does not happen. Something was crazy going on
in this culture, and what was happening is that the Spirit
of God was moving. The Spirit of God was drawing.
The Spirit of God was convicting. The Spirit of God was proclaiming.
Jesus Christ was proclaiming the gospel of grace, and He was
teaching others. Her testimony was not sufficient
for salvation, but it taught them enough that they wanted
to see for themselves. And then they went and found
Jesus. Beloved, if you want to bring
people to Jesus, it's not about bringing them and putting them
in the front seat of this fellowship, of this assembly. They'll probably
be very uncomfortable. But it is for us to teach them
the Scripture where we are. Nothing wrong. If you want to
invite them to come, come. But don't be upset when we go, let's
pray, and we open our eyes and it's like they went invisible.
Bing! Door's open. Because it does not suit well
sometimes in the fallen state for people to hear exposition,
for people to hear the gospel. It drives a stake into the heart
of our flesh, and it hurts. Because it takes away everything
that we are, and everything that we could do, and it puts everything
in the hand of God sovereignly. I heard a pastor out of Arizona
this week talking about how people that believe in the sovereignty
of God are wicked. And I'm thinking, this guy has
lost his mind. Lost his mind. Why in the world is God not sovereign? You know
his answer? Because the Word isn't in the Bible. That's what
he said. The Word's not in the King James
Bible. So, that's a false doctrine. So in people's mind, you know,
that sounds silly to us. And it would sound silly to most
people who profess Christ who are sitting at home right now,
you know, not engaged in the assembly of the church, not engaged
in fellowship, don't have a desire to be. And we say, oh yeah, God
is sovereign. I know Brother Levi and I have
had many conversations about this. He's having conversations
with people in this regard. It comes up. And people go, well
yeah, I believe God's sovereign. Tell them what it means. Tell
them what it means in relation to their will. Tell them what
it means in relation to their salvation. There's a little poem
there. Tell them what it means in the
context of the whole of human history. And they'll be like,
wait a minute. No, no, I don't believe that.
Well, sovereignty either is sovereignty or it's not. You can't have a
sovereign God who's not sovereign over everything, because then
He's not sovereign. He's just sort of special. He's
just got some control. But people like to blame and
change things so that why they can be on the throne of their
lives. These people believed that He was a powerful prophet. These people believed in their
minds that He could be a Messiah, but not in a transformative way.
Not in a regenerate way, but just like the Bible tells us,
and I've already said the word, out of John 2.23. Now, when he
was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, it says, many believed
in his name, but then they saw the signs that he was doing.
They knew this man could tell this woman's heart, and so they
thought, ah, this is Messiah. That's not salvation, beloved.
Just like if I were to bring some of you up here today and
put hands on you and heal you of a disease, and you go, oh,
I believe in God, that's not salvific. You would not believe
in the gospel of Christ, you would just believe in the power
of God. But guess what Paul says in Romans chapter 1? The power
of God is evident by looking at the trees outside. So whether
somebody grows a new head, or you look at a tree, the power
of God is evident. And you know what that means?
That we're guilty for disobeying the command to believe on Christ.
We're guilty. Many believed in His name. but
it was not salvific. Why? Because the power of the
Word gives life apart from testimony. The power of the Word of God
gives life apart from testimony, which points to the life giver,
who is, in this illustration, the living water that wells up
to eternal life. They believed because then of
His Word. Look at what it says there. They
said to the woman in verse 42, it is no longer because of what
you said that we believe. So see, the faith they had because
of what she said, they recognized that wasn't enough. We were just
excited in our spirit. We knew that He was Messiah,
but now we have faith in Him. Now we're alive in Him. Why?
Because we heard what He had to say. We heard His word. We
heard the living water pour into our souls and fill us up to eternal
life. We were drowned, baptized in
the Spirit of God. Conversation Wednesday that I
had with someone Wednesday morning talked about how so many times
expositors are dry and powerless in their teaching. You don't
understand that. I don't understand that at all.
And I disagree with some of the great orators of old, even though
they were sound men of the faith. They would say, if you talk softly
and normal and you don't have some emphasis in your conversation
with the congregation, then God's... it's going to be weakly received.
I disagree with that. I believe that I can stand here
in the most mundane voice talk to you until half of us are asleep.
But God, even while you nod off, can save your soul." Did you
hear what I just said? Even while you nod off, you can
save your soul. Even when the little kids and
the babies get a little fussy, I believe God can enter their
ears and help them hear. I believe that God can overcome
any obstacle in the heart of any human being through the hearing
of His Word, no matter how it's done. Yes, when I get excited,
my personality lends itself to get louder, and more movement
happens in my hands, and if I had feathers, I'd fly. I mean, that'd
be great, but that's not what's going to make a difference in
you. What's going to make a difference in you is that the Bible is taught
correctly, and that the Spirit of God, through His taught Word,
is doing a work in you. It's doing a work in you. See,
Jesus spoke to these people. They believed in Him because
of what He taught them. What is this? It's self-revelation.
He told the woman, the one of whom you speak, I am He. I am
Messiah. I am Messiah. You know what? He told that to a lot of people,
didn't He? He told that in a veiled way, in a coded way sometimes,
so that they wouldn't understand it to some people, to the Pharisees,
and to the Sadducees, and to some of the Jews. But they still
should be able to see through it, but they couldn't see through
it because their mind was warped and hostile toward God, and He
had not given them the grace to see. He had not granted repentance,
which is a change of mind. You know that. Repentance is
a change of mind. When you say, I need to repent
of something, that means you need to change the way you think
about it. You need to renew your mind, as Paul would teach in
Romans 12, by the power of the gospel of Jesus. So repentance
is not cleaning yourself up, it's changing your mind that
you can clean yourself up, and trusting in the fact that Christ
is the only hope of righteousness, for He is the righteousness of
God. And then what Christ does in us in the season that He grows
and matures us, and if I can use the word in a dual position,
sanctifies us in a temporal way. through giving us the ability
to put off the flesh, and to love our neighbor, and to worship
God in spirit and in truth, and to have a desire to be in the
Word, and to be in fellowship with the church. That's great!
But repentance is what God did when He changed the hearts and
the minds of these Samaritans. He revealed Himself to them,
and they saw Him supernaturally. They saw Him powerfully. Reminds
me of what Paul taught to the Thessalonians when he says, I
praise God, I thank God. Because you received the Word
not only just as, not as from men, but you received it with
power and through the Holy Spirit. Do you want to feel the power
of God this morning? Do you want to see the power
of God this morning? then behold, beloved, the Word
of God is before you. It is in your eyes and it is
in your ears. And if it is in those places
and the Spirit is blowing through the hearing of the Word, then
you, beloved, have felt and seen the power of God. And there is
no miracle that God could perform on this earth in the context
of the natural laws or against them in the cosmos that is greater
than the understanding and the sight of the glory of God beheld
in the face of Jesus Christ, which is eternal life for you,
beloved." This is the greatest, powerful manifestation of God
in the world. And this is what happened in
Sychar. Why do we go to the place in
our culture that we've got to put on this grand show and this
grand act? I mean, don't raise your hands,
but how many of you feel sometimes when you come to church you've
got to put on a different face? Stop putting on a different face. Let's see each other for who
we really are. Because when I see you long-faced,
The Spirit of God will tell me to pray for you and to encourage
you. If I see you joyful, I'm going
to test that joy. Why are you so happy today? It
better not be because you got a new bike. That's okay. But I want to hear that you have
joy because of Christ above all things. An immovable, unshakable
joy. Because many of us have had experiences
in the faith. Many of us have had testimonies
come to our ears about people who have had experiences. And
what do we do? We long to feel them again. We long to see them
again. We long to experience them again.
We long to go back to that place. Or we long to say, oh, I wish
I could feel God that way. I wish I could know God that
way. I wish I could have that kind of a testimony. And then
we feel inferior and insignificant. We feel weak and we feel lost.
And we feel like we've got to find a way to search ourselves
out and to put ourselves in a place where we can come again to the
experience of God's power when all it takes is for us to see
His Word, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. It's no
longer because of what you said, but we've heard His words. We
heard for ourselves and we know that He is the Savior of the
world. We know, not we think. Not we hope, not we desire to
see, none of that stuff. We know that He is the Savior
of the world. We know that He has come and is not just this
Jewish Messiah. We know that this is Messiah
because He's come to Samaria and He's come to Sychar. And
by His grace, He has revealed Himself to us. Beloved, if it
were not for Jesus being the Savior of the world, there'd
be none of us in our Anglo lineage. that would ever have come to
faith. None of us in our Scottish or
Irish or English, none of our Britain lineage, none of that
stuff, none of us. Eastern European, I don't care
where our descendants are from, none of us would have come to
faith in Christ for the gospel would have been withheld from
us if He were not the Savior of the world. It does not mean
that every person is going to be saved, but it means that all
peoples will be saved. all peoples. When we see Revelation
4 and 5, when we see the imagery of John's apocalypse, and we
see that every... He says, Behold, I heard the
number, He said the number, the perfection of twelve thousands
times twelve. And then He says, Behold, I looked
and I saw the number. I heard the number, And I saw
the number. And He said, thousands of thousands
and myriads of myriads more than can be counted of every nation,
of every tongue, and of every tribe. Brothers and sisters,
this woman from Samaria will be counted among the number of
the elect when we stand at the marriage supper of the Lamb and
we worship forever. She will be there. She'll be there. And she awaits
that day, this moment. This is not historical past to
just be, oh, that was neat that that happened. Her testimony
is still true today. And see, that's something that
we need to keep in mind, that the testimony of the gospel in us is not a
temporal testimony. It is an eternal testimony. When
we die, it remains. It goes with us. It takes us
to Christ. But the Word of God is what brings
people to Christ. Our testimony, if it is not contextual,
our testimony, if it is not found here, is not a testimony of grace. Where in the world do we see
the words, so and so had eternal life because he accepted Jesus
in his heart? Where do we see the word, so-and-so
had eternal life because he became a deacon? Where do we see the
word, so-and-so had eternal life because he saw a miracle? Matter
of fact, we see the opposite, don't we? We see Jesus rebuking
those who believe because they saw miracles. We see Jesus rebuking
those. And even with the Pharisees and
Caiaphas in John chapter 12, they knew that He was God because
He raised Himself from the dead. I mean, they raised Lazarus from
the dead, and he would soon raise himself from the dead. And they
said, we must kill him and the one who he raised from the dead.
What a glorious miracle was that. Lazarus, come out. And there he came. There he came. But as we see this closing, We need to keep in mind that
evangelism was rejected amongst most of the Jews and accepted
amongst most of the Gentiles. The evangel was accepted. And
Jesus revealed Himself to more Gentiles, and He revealed Himself
to these Samaritans, and the reaching of the world for His
glory had begun. See, those who love their traditions
and thought themselves righteous, they hated Jesus' first message.
In Luke chapter 2 we see that. They hated Jesus' first message.
They rejoiced. Oh, how gracious! And He says,
but it's not for you, and they hated Him. They hated Jesus not only for
His message, but they hated Jesus for His mission. How dare you
take our saving promise to unclean people? See, that's what happened. Much like when we in our lives,
our individual lives, stand. When I say we, I'm not talking
about what we do in the pulpit. Much like when we stand firm
on a pure gospel, the Jews were quick to pass judgment and slow
to hear and slow to obey and slow to see because they did
not want to relinquish what? Their glory. They didn't want
to relinquish their power. They didn't want to relinquish
their authority and subject themselves to the headship of Jesus. Much
like ministries, and I use the air quotes, much like ministries,
would not want to subject themselves to the exposition of Scripture
because what it does is it takes away the very thing that gives
them glory. Several weeks ago when I preached at an open-air
event, I preached on the miracle of God through the hearing of
the Word. And the authority of the Word of God is the only standard
by which I can call you a brother or sister. And that the ministry
that somebody may have, no matter what title they have, whether
it be bishop, or pastor, or elder, or whatever it might be, If they
are not expositors of Scripture, they are not my brothers in Christ
because they teach a different message. And then we need to
stop purveying as a culture the experience. I said, let's take
that into an evangelical chosen and frozen type mindset. We're
not doing anything, and most churches this morning that are
like us in makeup aren't doing things that actually are extravagantly
weird. But they're doing things just
as wrong because they are enticing people to be in the presence
of the church by anything but Christ. Why do you attend and
why are you a member of Grace Truth Church and Covenant? I
pray that it's because you want to hear the Word of God and you
want to hear it rightly. So that you can grow, so that
you can worship, and so that you can grow and worship with
each other. I pray that's the truth. And for you, if I got
up here today and said, you know what, we're not going to have
a sermon today. I'm going to give a little testimony. You all would sit
there with smiles on your face. You'd laugh at my stories. And
then after service, I would probably be very, very beat up. I pray
that I would. By most of you. We appreciated
all that, Pastor, but boy, you robbed God this morning. It's
not worth it. So sometimes we don't want to
hear the message and the mission of Jesus. One of the very reasons
why so much trouble came toward us when we first started, why
so much trouble came to Pastor Luke and others, is because we,
by what we taught, called their babies ugly. But it wasn't what
we taught, it's what the Bible said. They consider Jesus in His day
less than themselves. They consider Jesus a lesser
minister than themselves, a lesser prophet, of less importance,
when He was indeed the Son of God, the God of heaven, the Creator
of all things, and the King of the world. You might think, well,
where do we live? Where do we go with this? Well,
I think you go with this by seeing how important our testimonies
are, but how unimportant they are. How important they are that
they must be true. And how they must point each
other, they must point others and each other to the Word of
God. And this is not the only place you see this. This is it
played out in a dialogue. But if you went to 2 Peter chapter
1 and you start in verse 16, you hear these words. I should
read the whole thing. For we did not follow cleverly
devised myths." Y'all remember that text? We did not follow
cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and
the coming of our Lord Jesus, but we were eyewitnesses of His
majesty. Now see, that sounds great, doesn't
it? So we don't want to take that
and not go further. We were eyewitnesses. Oh, I saw
a miracle! The majesty of God. Okay? But what does Peter say? Now
the crazy thing is that now Peter's words are in the canon of Scripture,
because that's what they were. He didn't know that. But he knew
his word was authoritative as Scripture. Peter points to the
Old Testament. He says, "...for when he received
honor and glory from the Father, and a voice was born to him by the..." And the voice was borne to him
by the majestic glory, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am
well pleased. He says, We ourselves heard this very voice borne from
heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. Transfiguration,
Matthew 17. And we have a prophetic word
more fully confirmed, listen to what Peter says, to which
you would do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place. You see that? Nothing I say if
it's not from here, will have effect on you. Nothing. And I'm a creative person. I
can come up with some really cool sayings that you might take
home and work on for a week, or a year, or a month. They're
worthless. Don't listen to my fortune cookie
garbage. Go home taking the Word of God with you. You might say,
well what good are you? Exactly. Exactly. As long as I'm in this, you're
safe. When I start preaching like this, you've got problems. Bible? Oh, where'd I put my Bible?
You better hurt somebody. Me. No prophecy was ever produced
by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried
along by the Holy Spirit. The woman of Sychar's testimony is
in the Bible now, for she was carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Your testimony, if it agrees with what Scripture teaches,
is carried along by the Holy Spirit. Let us point each other
to the Christ of Scripture, that we may have joy, that we may
have life, that we may have freedom, and that we may share that freedom
and proclaim that freedom that is only found in Jesus with the
world out there that lives in darkness, blind, unable to see.
And beloved, it is not always the most wicked of the world
that need to hear it. It is sometimes the most pious.
And sometimes it's you. And sometimes it's me. Let's
pray. How beautiful are the feet of
those who proclaim the gospel of peace. That through preaching
the gospel, Lord, You bring people to salvation.
Father, Your Spirit changes them and transforms them into believers,
people who trust fully in Jesus Christ. And Father, even though we are
born of You this day, there are many times when our faith wanes.
There are many times when our faithfulness fails. Help us in
those weak moments to be truly, truly trusting in Your faithfulness,
in Your promises, This is especially true, Father, as we are always
feeling convicted to share the Gospel. Let us share the Gospel
as You've ordained us to share it. The right message and the
right opportunity, Father. But Lord, drive us to the Word.
Drive us to Your Scripture so that we might hide it in our
hearts so that we would have something to share when the opportunity
is there. And Lord, help us never to trust
in ourselves. Never to trust in the testimony
of others, but always to trust in Jesus Christ and Your testimony
of who He is and what He's done. I thank You, Father, for this
day, for this opportunity, for this place, for these people,
Lord, that I love with all the affection of Your Son, Jesus,
because You first loved us. We can now love each other. And
it's in His name we pray. Amen.