Becoming A Contagious Christian
Bill Hybels, 6-2-02, #M0222
Contagious Christianity
Bill Hybels: A while back, I was on a commercial airline flight. I was reading through a business magazine, and near the back of the magazine there was a tear-out section of videotapes that could be ordered. As I recall the title of the page was “Lessons from the Masters.” It had Tiger Woods doing a training video on how to be a great golfer, and Pavarotti did a training video on how to be a great vocalist.
Russell Kutz did a training video. He was the helms person for the New Zealand team that won the America’s Cup, so he did the thing on sailboat racing. I tore it out of the magazine and I thought I might order one of those training videos, “Lessons from the Masters” some day. A few days after that I was reading devotionally through my Bible, and I came to an extraordinary passage that I’ve read before. It’s the exchange that Jesus had with a Samaritan woman at a well that he was going to take a drink from.
I read it and I thought, “This is probably the most extraordinary demonstration of how someone can point another person to faith in God that’s recorded anywhere in literature”--this extraordinary conversation between Jesus and the woman. Having just read that article or seeing that advertisement for the training tape I thought, “Wouldn’t it be something if there was a training video on how one person can point another person to faith in God?
“Wouldn’t it be something if there were a video on lessons from the Master on how to do that in a high integrity way?” About a third of the people who talk to me after services around here at Willow Creek come down and say, “You know, the biggest concern in my life right now is I have a dad, or an uncle, or a neighbor, or a colleague at work who is spiritually adrift. Would you help me pray that they would find their way?”
When I say, “Well, why don’t you help them find their way to God?” They say, “Oh, I could never do that.” They say, “You know, I don’t know enough. I don’t have that kind of personality. I wouldn’t know what to say.” I say, “No, listen. You could. You could do this.” It makes me think, “Oh, if they could be trained to do that it would be one of the greatest, most exciting things they could do to point another person to faith in God.”
Of course, around our church we have many hundreds of people who are seeking just like Mark was sometime ago. A lot of times seekers will stop me after services and say, “Could you point me to one person who can intelligently describe what true Christianity is? I’d like to hook up with a person who could help me understand all this.” Anyway, the more I thought about this, I thought, “Well, why don’t we have some fun?”
It’s a summer weekend here at Willow. Why don’t we put a training video together right on stage, and why don’t I be the voice who gives the coaching tips on how you can point another person to faith based right on this little passage out of John, chapter 4.
I’m going to embarrass three people. I stopped two of them. They know this is coming, but they don’t know what I’m going to ask them to do. Charlie and Janice please come and join me. My old friend Joe Santercier--right now could you join me here, Joe? These people do not know what’s coming, and they’re probably very nervous. Would you give them a hand for even being willing to come up here on the stage? Now Janice, we’re going to have you in the middle. We’re going to give you a microphone.
I’m going to give you some lines to read. This is a training video so you’ve got some lines to read. Charlie, can you sit in this chair here? Joe, you take the far one. Charlie, I’m going to give you some lines to read. Joe does some security for us around here. Does he look like a security guy or what? So anyway, you’re going to only have one line, Joe. I’m being easy on you. You just have one line. It’s like a bit-part-thing. You’ll do fine. You guys have a few more lines. You can be looking them over.
Janice has been around our church for a long time and has served in many different capacities. She has helped the elders over the years. Charlie Maxwell is a board member who became a Christian in our church some years ago. I may be in trouble with him after the service. Let me set the stage while they’re checking their lines out here. Here’s what the Bible says is happening in John 4. Jesus and his disciples are on a walking trip, and they’re headed North, but they’re in an arid, dry part of the Middle East.
They get about partway up in their journey. It’s very hot. They stop at a well to get a drink. Joe’s going to represent the disciples. He’s a big guy. He’s going to represent all 12 of them, OK? They take off to the city nearby to get lunch. They leave the scene. Charlie’s going to play the role of Jesus, which is a stretch, I know. You know more than I. Anyway, Jesus sits down by the well. He doesn’t have anything to draw water with, so he’s just waiting at the well.
A Samaritan woman comes, and she’s going to draw some water for herself and probably go back to the town. That’s a little bit of the context, but it’s even a little dicier than that. Jesus, of course, is from Jewish extraction. He’s in an area called Samaria and Jews and Samaritans hate each other. It would be like the Jews and the Palestinians today. There was a lot of bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans at the time.
Not only was there bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans, but Jewish men rarely would talk in public or even reference the presence of a woman in public. There was a gender bias the likes of which we can’t even relate to in our society today. You’ve got both the ethnic division here and the gender bias going on, OK? So as I set up the story, and they start getting ready with their lines. Remember, Joe and his 11 buddies are in town having lunch, so Joe, you’re just going to sit there for awhile.
Jesus has been sitting by the well for a time, and then this Samaritan woman comes up. There should have been no conversation at all. A Jew shouldn’t have talked to a Samaritan. A man shouldn’t have talked to a woman in a public place like that, but there is conversation, and it’s starts with Jesus who just says these words.
Charlie Maxwell: “Would you give me a drink of water, please?”
The woman responds, [Janice speaking] “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for water?”
Bill Hybels: Give them a little encouragement for their first line--very good, very good. Now, I just want to stop for a second, freeze-frame this, and give you a coaching tip. If you’re a Christ follower and there are people in your life that you wish would come to know God, where do you start? How do you even start pointing someone to God?
What we can learn from the Master here, Jesus himself, is that it’s often good to just start with a simple question. Jesus just said, “Could I have a drink of water, please?” Start your conversation when you’re trying to point someone to God--just start with a question. Why a question? When you ask a question, the response you receive will determine if there’s an open door for further conversation or if there’s a closed door.
If Jesus would have said to the Samaritan woman, “Would you please get me a drink,” and she would have responded by saying, “Get lost. Take a hike. I’m not going to get you a drink. I don’t want anything to do with you,” Jesus would have discerned the door was closed. And he probably would not have tried to push through it. That’s just Jesus’ style.
You read that throughout the New Testament. If someone refused to listen to Jesus and closed the door, he didn’t barge through it nor should we. When you ask a question then you find out if there is an openness. Ten years ago, I walked into a little marina in Michigan. There was a guy standing across the counter.
I said, “Would you be willing to explain to me how to do the starting line of a sailboat race?” I had just purchased a used sailboat and wanted to race it. I said, “I don’t even know how to do the starting line. Would you consider telling me?” I had heard that he knew how to do that. He said, “Well, absolutely.” He sketched it out for me, and I sensed an open door.
I said, “Well, would you ever consider joining me just to help me sort this out here? I’m just beginning.” He said, “I’d love to.” Conversation after conversation evolved. Three years later, he gave his life to Jesus Christ and was baptized right here in our lake. He married a Christian woman and has two little girls. They’re in an Association church on the other side of the lake, growing like weeds.
The whole transformation goes back to one question across the counter in a marina when I said, “Could you help me sort out the starting line of a sailboat race?” Anyone who winds up in the kingdom can trace back where the conversation with the Christ follower started. It always starts somewhere.
A lesson from the Master says, “Why don’t you start it with a question? See what happens.” Just this week I was in an area coffee shop. I’ve been getting to know the owner a little bit, and I asked him this question this week. I said, “You know, your employees seem to me to be so courteous and well trained. How do you train your employees to be as good as they are?” Well, by his response I could see, “There’s an open door.”
He was willing to talk about that and whatever else I wanted to talk about. Who knows where that might lead. Step out in faith. Start a conversation. Ask a question. See if there’s an open door. See where God takes it. Now, let’s go back to the well.
Jesus senses an open door, and he continues the conversation. He says, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink and I would give you fresh, living water.” The woman responds, “Sir you don’t even have a bucket to draw with and this well is deep. How are you going to get this living water?” This is a very interesting part of how the communication is unfolding.
Jesus senses the open door with her and so he turns the conversation from casual to something of spiritual content. He brings up this concept of living water. Friends, this is brilliant. This is communication at the highest of levels. He is seeding her imagination by comparing the difference between well water and living water, the difference between the material world and the spiritual world. Nobody has ever done this better than Jesus Christ, a master at conversation and communication.
Remember, sometimes he’d be walking around with people and he’d say, “Look at this fig tree.” People would all look at the fig tree and then he would teach a lesson using the fig tree as a visual aid. A bird would land in a tree and he’d say, “Look at the sparrow there. Not a single sparrow falls without the Father knowing it and caring, and every one of you are worth more than the sparrow is. God watches over your life and he loves you.”
People listened to Jesus because he was creative and compelling with his communication style. We can do this, friends. When we sense an open door when we’re having a conversation, we can direct the conversation from the casual to the more substantial, from the material to the spiritual. I did this recently. I was co-piloting in a private aircraft coming from the West Coast back to Chicago. I had some conversations with the pilot of this plane before, and I had sensed an open door.
That particular night we were talking to each other, and every once in a while the air traffic controller would break into our conversation and notify us of other air traffic or thunderstorms or change of course or altitude. I just said a little prayer to God. I said, “God I’d like to direct this conversation. We have another hour and a half in the flight. Help me direct this conversation to something more substantial.” We were just talking airplanes, ground speed, and that kind of stuff.
After the air traffic controller talked over the intercom, I said to the pilot, “Would you ever consider making a flight like this without listening to air traffic control? Would you ever consider shutting your radio off and doing it alone?” He said, “Of course not. I’d never consider that. It would be stupid, really. I need all the input I can get.” I said, “You know some people fly through their whole life with the radio to heaven turned off. They get no input from God. They get no guidance, and wisdom and counsel.
“They fly blindly into things, and crash and burn. Some people do that.” I just waited and prayed. A few seconds later he said, “I guess that would be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?” I said, “Well I don’t know. That’s a pretty strong word, but yeah, maybe it would be. Maybe it would be kind of dumb.”
His next question was, “Well, how do you turn the radio on? How do you establish any kind of communication with God? I don’t know how that works.” For the rest of the flight, we had a wonderful redemptive dialogue about that kind of thing. The point I’m making here is that whenever you’re in conversations and you sense an open door, just take a lesson from the Master and say, “What’s going on right now?
“What’s in this space that I could make a reference to that would take the conversation a little bit more toward the spiritual?” In recent days many of us, you know, have been talking about the events of 9-11. You have a casual conversation and say, “Where were you when 9-11 happened? What did you feel? Did you think about if anyone’s in charge? What have you done with those feelings since?” Then you’re off and running and who knows? Who knows what might happen?
Let’s go back to the well where Jesus is going to push on this imagery of the living water a little bit more and he says, “Every one who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst. The water I give will be an Artisan spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.” He’s talking about this Artisan well that can spring up on the inside of somebody.
The woman responds by saying, “Sir, give me this water then so I won’t get thirsty and won’t have to come back to this well again.” Now, she doesn’t quite get what he’s talking about, but here’s a coaching tip from the words of Jesus. He’s describing Christianity as an Artisan well that refreshes you from the inside. Here’s what I think: If Jesus were doing this training, he’d say, “Never be shy about mentioning the benefits associated with joining the Christian faith. Tell people what the Father promises.”
To those filled with shame tell them, “Grace and forgiveness can come your way.” To those who are in bondage to destructive habits, tell them that, “Whom the Son sets free can be made free indeed.” To the weak, tell them that there’s a strength from above that can be theirs for the asking. To the weary, remind them that Jesus promised rest for their souls. To the poor, richness of spirit was promised and provision in due time. To the grieving, God can bring consolation and comfort.
To the sick and dying, Jesus will promise people eternal life and new bodies in the life hereafter. Jesus, when he was pointing people to faith, declared that the life he was offering was the best kind of life any human being could ever experience. He likened it to the pearl of great price, which he said would be worth giving up anything to attain.
In fact, he told a group of listeners one time, “If you want life in all its fullness, if you want high definition, quality picture, if you want surround sound, heart pounding action, high stakes play, there’s only one place you’re going to find a life like that. That’s in a fully yielded relationship with the God of the universe.”
He said, “You can have life in all its fullness. It’s available to you.” Jesus was absolutely convinced that everybody he met would be better off inside the kingdom than outside of it, so he confidently invited people into a relationship with his Father. In recent years, I’ve been noticing my boldness factor going up, and I’ve been analyzing this a little bit in my spirit. I’m getting more reckless, I think, in my conversations with people, trying to point them to God.
I was analyzing this the other day, and I thought, “Why is my boldness going up?” Do you know what I concluded? This is going to sound kind of obvious here, but I concluded I really believe this stuff. I do. I don’t just like preach it. I really believe it. I really do believe that every wayward person that I know would be a lot better off in a loving, grace-filled relationship with God.
If you really believe this stuff, if you really do, if you really believe that your mom or dad, or your colleague or your neighbor would be better off knowing God personally and having his counsel and guidance and redemption at work in their life, then at some point if you really believe it, then you’ve got to do what the Master did when he was talking to the Samaritan woman at a well. Point them to God. Explain what it can be about. Tell them about the benefits. See what happens.
Let’s go back to the well where the plot is about to climb. Jesus says, “Go, call your husband and than come back.” “Call your husband,” he says, and the woman responds, “I have no husband.” And now listen to Jesus’ words. This is just brilliant. “That’s nicely put. I have no husband. You have had five husbands and the man you are living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.” That is very interesting dialogue, very interesting.
Now, because Jesus is the second person of the Trinity and he is omniscient, he has access to body of knowledge about the woman that you and I wouldn’t have had. He mentions, “Well yeah, you’ve had five husbands. You’ve had some broken covenants happen in your past.” But you know, he doesn’t rub her face in these broken marriages.
He tells her he knows about her past in order to convince her that in spite of her past he is still interested in her life. Living water is still available to her despite the fact that she’s had some problems in her past, and she’s living with a man who’s not her husband now. Then he goes beyond that and he compliments her for not lying about her marital status. Remember his words? “Way to go, you spoke the truth. You know you could have lied but you didn’t.
“You stepped right up and you said it in a truthful way that you don’t have a husband right now.” You know, Jesus never shied away from listing the benefits associated with Christianity, but he never shied away from reminding people of the necessity of them becoming Christians in order to deal with their past failures and sins. He always did this kind of thing carefully and in a non-condemning way.
Do you remember another woman that Jesus interacted with who had a checkered moral past? This is a woman who was caught in adultery--right in the very act. The Pharisees caught her, and they dragged her out to a public place and they were picking up rocks. They were getting ready to stone her to death.
Jesus came into the situation and said, “So you’re going to stone her. Well, let’s bring some order to this. Go ahead and stone her, but let’s just form a line and those of you with no sin, you get to the front of the line. You throw your rocks first.” That wrecked the Pharisees’ whole day. Like, “Oh no, come on.”
So one by one they all dropped their rocks and they walk away. Now Jesus is alone with this immoral woman. He had every right, you see, to walk up to her and say, “Adultery, what are you thinking, woman?” The Bible says he doesn’t act that way. He kneels down by her and he says, “I don’t condemn you.” Those were his words: “I don’t condemn you. That’s not why I came. I came to redeem your failures, not to rub your face in your mistakes.”
So he says, “Go and sin no more. Start living a brand new life. Don’t fall back into the old kind of life. I’ll give you help. Start a new life from right here and right now.” That was Jesus’ style. He asked people to acknowledge their mistakes. He just didn’t beat them up over it. He always looked for ways that he could affirm whatever was affirmable about people. In the woman’s case, “You told the truth, way to go.”
Many of you are seekers right now, and you’re listening out of both sides of your head trying to figure out what’s going on as I’m talking right here and now. Jesus expects you to be honest about your mistakes of the past. When I talk to people and I’m trying to point them to faith, sometimes I’ll say, “Do you carry any regrets around with you these days for something you did in your past?
“Have you disappointed yourself or anyone else along your life’s path?” If I’m with a golfer I’ll say, “Have your ever needed a Mulligan in life you need to do over?” Then they’ll start to tell me about some of their failures. When they do, I think of the words of Jesus and his style. Usually I’ll say something like this if someone confesses some sins of the past. I’ll say, “You know, it takes a lot of courage to admit wrongdoing. You’re a very courageous person. I commend you for it.
“A lot of people just play the blame game. You’re taking responsibility. Way to go!” Then I try to steer the conversation to Christ’s willingness to forgive. Some time ago, I was driving out after one of our midweek services. I’d already had a meeting after the midweek services so it was quite late. Out of the corner of my eye, as I was going out the front road, I saw a guy standing with his arms crossed leaning against a car. It was dark out, and I didn’t know even why it caught my attention.
I got a prompting from God to circle back in and see if I could help the guy. Again, it was late, I had a long day, and yet I just decided to obey that prompting. So I pulled my car up next to this guy and I got out. I said, “Are you OK?” When he saw who it was he burst out crying. I’m like, “Oh boy, what have we got on my hands?” You know?
When I settled him down a little bit I said, “What’s the matter?”
He said, “Today I paid for a woman’s abortion, and I just absolutely cannot live with the guilt that’s come into my heart. I sat through New Community, and I was so overwhelmed with guilt.” Then he breaks down crying again and he said, “I killed her baby. I killed her baby.” After he settled down for a while, and I had a chance to talk with him further, I agreed with him very sensitively that he had made a dreadful mistake.
There was no happy face to be put on that part of the story. I didn’t skim one bit over the seriousness of what he had done, but I didn’t have to rub his face in it. Jesus never did. I shouldn’t. You shouldn’t. That’s the convicting work that the Holy Spirit does. You don’t have to do that work, friends. I simply asked him if he had time yet to apologize to God, if he had plans to apologize to the woman and try to figure out how to make appropriate amends there. We had a prayer. That night he reopened his heart to God.
I’ve seen him around the church. He’s here all the time. Whenever I see him around the church now, I think of those holy moments we had out in the parking lot where he faced his sin head on and found forgiveness through Christ in our parking lot. I bet the woman who drew water out of that same well day after day, after Jesus was long gone, I bet you she never forgot the holiness of what happened at that well. Jesus knew everything about her, but didn’t condemn her. In fact, he affirmed her for telling the truth.
I just want to say one more time, part of our business, those of us who are Christ followers, is to point people. Part of what makes people open to give their lives to God is their realization of their sins and their failures of the past. Be very careful when you’re talking to people about their mistakes, because that’s kind of holy ground and how you bring grace to bear on that is very critical.
Back to the well. Now we’re going to see a little turn in the story. It begins when the woman says, “So you are a prophet. Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worship God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place to worship, right?” Jesus responds by saying, “The time is coming when what you are called will not matter and where you worship will not matter. God is looking for those who simply worship him in spirit and in truth.”
The heat gets a little high for the woman when Jesus is telling her, “You know, I know all about your past, and I know you’re living with a guy who’s not your husband now and all that.” She does what a lot of people do when the heat gets high. She tries the diversionary tactic. She says, “Let’s not stay in the area of my immorality right now. Let’s talk about the disagreement that Jews and Samaritans have about which mountain is the right mountain to worship at.”
You know what Jesus does? He says, “Let’s not do that. Really, let’s not. Let’s mainly talk about you and me. There’s coming a time when it isn’t going to matter a hill of beans which mountain anybody worships on. What God wants is people who come to him with spirit and truth and worship him fully.”
Friends, this happens probably fifty percent of the time when I’m pointing people to God. We’ll get to a sensitive part of the conversation and all of a sudden, there’s a strong desire in someone’s life to bolt and run and to resist making a decision. They grab a hold of whatever little rabbit trail they can grab a hold of.
They’ll say, “Well, what about the people who’ve never heard the truth about Christ? You know, people in some tribal village somewhere. Can a billion Muslims all be wrong? Don’t all roads lead to God? What about all the hypocrites in Christian circles and all that?” I take my lesson from the Master. What I’ll try to do is often I’ll say, “Look, why don’t we cycle back to those issues at a later point in time?
“I’m more than willing to address those issues. Let’s just do that later. Let’s right now talk about you and God, OK? Let’s keep this on the track just talking about you, and maybe you coming to know God. How about that?” You probably have to help someone stay on track sometime if you’re pointing someone to God. Now the conversation is back on track, and it’s going to come to a boiling point when the woman says, “Someday the Messiah will come and when he does we’ll get the whole story.”
She says, “Hey, you know what? I’m willing to talk about this, but we’re looking forward to the day when the Messiah will come and sort this mess all out for all of us.” To which Jesus says, “I am he. You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.” Let me give you a very important coaching tip. If you ever point someone to God and he gets right to this key moment, never claim to be the Messiah. That’s a part that Jesus could claim, and we can’t do that.
What is our job at that critical moment when someone says, “OK, what is the real deal?” Well, you know that I’m a very strong advocate of in those moments of great tenderness and openness, I think that’s when you draw something out for people. You say, “Let me make it as clear to you as I can. There is this wonderful God here and we’re on the other side over here of this chasm that we created because of our sin.
“The only way you’ll ever get over to God’s side is not through human effort, but by the bridge that was built for you from God’s side over to your side through the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross. Because he loves, you he built this bridge through the death of Christ his Son. Now he invites you to walk across this way and join his family on the basis of what Christ did.” We don’t claim to be the Messiah, we just have to make the Messiah’s message clear. We’ve got to be able to draw these kinds of things.
You have to be skilled and trained and ready. Sometimes when people don’t quite understand their whole morality problem, I’ll do this other drawing you’ve seen me do before. I’ll say, “God’s up here and he’s perfect and holy. We human beings, we’re somewhere on this morality ladder, if you will, where evil people are down here. I’ll say, “I want you to put a mark somewhere on this morality ladder. Do you think you’re perfect, almost as good as God? Do you think you’re a real bad person?”
Before I give them the pen I’ll always say, “Mother Theresa would probably put herself around here. Billy Graham, you know, would probably put himself around here. I’d certainly put myself more than those people here.” So then I give them the pen and I say, “Put an ’X’ wherever you think that you’d like to be.” They usually put it just a little south of me.
Then I say, “Now listen, all I want to ask you is what’s your plan to solve the gap between your morality level and God’s expectations? What’s your plan? Mother Theresa had a plan for her gap, her morality gap. It was the cross of Jesus Christ. Billy Graham has a plan for his morality gap. It’s the cross of Jesus Christ. I have a plan for mine. It’s the cross of Jesus Christ. What’s your plan?
“If you think you’re going to get up to the standard of God’s holiness on the self improvement program, you could spend every day of the rest of your life, and you’re never going to get more than Mother Theresa. Get real. Why don’t you abandon your self-improvement plan, and why don’t you decide today to trust the work Jesus did for you on the cross? You can be forgiven. Your morality gap can be closed by what Jesus did.”
Sometimes I’ll say to people if I only have a few minutes with them, “Religion is spelled ‘do’--all of the things people do to try to earn their way into God’s good favor. Christianity is spelled ‘done.’ That’s what Jesus Christ has done when he paid the price for your sin and mine.” Then I’ll give them a pen and I’ll say, “Just put a checkmark. What plan are you on, the doing plan or the done plan? Here just put a check.”
Friends, it’s our job at critical points to make this message clear and to make sure people understand it. It’s something you can do. It’s something I can do. You’ve got to step out in faith and do it. Now we’ll go back to the well and finish this up. Joe, finally you’re coming back. Don’t read your line yet. We’ve got one more line here. Joe is representing the disciples. They come back and they get in on the tail end of the conversation.
They are astonished that Jesus, a Jew, was talking to a Samaritan, and that Jesus, a Jewish teacher, is talking to a woman. They don’t say anything. They’re just astonished. The woman realizes that Jesus has told her wonderful words. She runs back into her town and she says this to her family and friends: “Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knew me inside out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?” Interesting, isn’t it? When she runs back to tell her family and friends about Jesus, she asks a question.
This is how Jesus started the conversation with her. She says, “Do you think he could be the Messiah? Do you think?” She’s checking for open doors. “Would you come out and listen to him? He’s still out at the well. Come on.” Then Joe, here it is. This is your big line. You can do it buddy. On behalf of the disciples one of them says to Jesus, [Joe Santercier talking] “Teacher aren’t you going to eat anything?” Give Joe a hand. You came through, Joe.
Jesus responds to his question by saying, “The fruit that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me. Look around you. The fields are ripe onto harvest.u” Yeah, this is an amazing little capstone of the whole passage. The disciples come back, and they see that Jesus has been deeply engaged in this conversation with a Samaritan woman. And instead of really coming to terms with the importance of what’s going on in that dialogue, all they are worried about is did he get enough food.
He hasn’t had lunch. He missed lunch. That’s all they’re worried about is food, you see. Jesus does something very interesting here. He says, “I had food that you know nothing about.” Jesus said, “I just had a steak dinner. You guys went in and had a hot dog maybe. I had a steak dinner out here. My food is to point lonely, sin scarred people like this woman to faith in the Father.”
What’s your food? What feeds you? What’s the highest buzz that you experience in your life these days? When do you feel most alive? Thirty years ago, I heard Dr. Bilezikian give a message one time. I remember it to this day. He said to a group of those of us who were leading high school ministry at the time, “Throughout the course of your life you’re going to give your life to something. You will. All people do.
“They give their life to something. They give themselves to pleasure. Some people give themselves to the acquiring of possessions. Some people give themselves to the attainment of popularity, some to the acquisition of power.”
He said, “True Christ followers who get it right give themselves to people. Most importantly, they give themselves to pointing people to faith in the Father. That’s the highest and best use of a human life is to have it be mostly about being light, being salt, being signposts, being those who point people to the Father.u” Friends, do you understand this? The single greatest gift you can give another person on planet Earth is an explanation on how they can be rightly connected to their God.
That gift pays off every single day throughout the rest of this life, and it pays off every day for all eternity. You can give people that gift. You can point wayward people. You can point family and friends to faith in the Father. You can do this stuff. You can. You have to sort it out and say, “Is my life mainly about the acquisition of possessions or pleasure or popularity? What is it? Is my life mainly about pointing people to faith in the Father?”
Well, in closing I want to say just a quick word to those of you who are seekers. A bridge has been built for you. The chasm can be crossed. Christ gave his life because he loves you. He made provision for the forgiveness of your sin. You can walk across that bridge and join God’s family today. I remind you, you have a morality gap. You’re on one of two plans.
You’re on the self-improvement plan to try to make yourself holy enough to be accepted by God, which you will never get done. You can do what other people have done, what I have done, what these folks have done. Admit your gap. Ask for what Jesus did on the cross to make up the difference there. He will.
I hope there’s coming a day when if I pass this pen to every single person at Willow and said, “What plan are you on? What are you putting your faith and trust in as you prepare to meet your God someday?” I hope, I pray that every one of you could come up and say, “It’s this plan. It’s the done plan. It’s what Christ did for me. That’s the plan I’m on.” I hope you can say that today. I hope you’ll make that decision in the next few moments. Would you stand now, and would you also thank the folks who helped me out here? Now join me in a final prayer.