The Way of Jesus: Invite Others to Jesus

Intro.

(SP NOTE: share a story of a time where you’ve felt like an outcast. The purpose is to start the night getting them thinking about outcasts in their life.)

Did anybody go see the new Superman movie that came out last month? I love going to movies like that… when I was in high school some of my friends Nathan and Josh and I would go to the movies any time a new superhero movie would come out, because I’m from the generation that didn’t have a million superhero movies so they were really cool new thing to me… and one time in our math class we were talking about the new movie Man of Steel that was coming out. It was a superman movie, because I guess they have to come out with a new version every 10 years… We always go to movies like that together… but something about this day… as we were talking they made plans to go see it together and didn’t invite me… like they said let’s go see it Saturday and didn’t even ask me if I was free… that’s some crazy friend behavior right there. Have you ever been left out of plans that friends have made? Much worse, right in front of you? It might make you feel like an outcast.

Turn.

If you’ve ever felt like an outcast, it can be hard to know how to fit in.

Maybe you’ve felt excluded from that friend group…

Maybe you don’t like all the things everyone else likes

Maybe you come from a different background as people around you…

Maybe you struggle with so much social anxiety, you don’t know how to interact with others…

Tension.

Have you ever felt that way with God? Have you ever felt like you don’t fit in with God? Like you hear stories of God’s love and you think to yourself, that has to be for other people that can’t be for me… or you know you have a relationship with God but then you hear about how some people are like super Christians and they pray all the time, read their Bible all the time, never sin and help old ladies cross the road… like if that’s what it means to be Christian I don’t know if I can fit in with that…

Maybe you know of some people in your life that view God like this… they don’t see how God could ever love them, they don’t see how they could fit in God’s family at all. How do you go from outcast to in the family?

There might be some of you that need to know the answer to this because you’ve never actually had a moment where you recognize that you want to be in the family of God.

There are others of you that need to open your eyes and see those around you that feel like outcasts.

What we have talked about the last few weeks is that there is a natural pattern of next steps that anyone who wants to follow Jesus does after having an experience with him. Here it is:

Be With Jesus → Become Like Jesus → Bring Others to Jesus

This pattern is what everyone follows, and it’s why we started with the first two because this last step doesn’t make sense if you haven’t had an experience with Jesus. That’s why if that’s you I want you to listen and pay attention where God might want to speak to you tonight.

But for those of you that are in this process and you’re being with Jesus, and you’re becoming like Jesus… the natural next step, is that you would bring others to Jesus.

Tonight we’re going to Jesus meet someone who was an outcast in their life and the moment they had an experience with Jesus and then how they brought others to Jesus. That’s our focus for tonight on Bring Others to Jesus

Some of you in here this is a whole new idea. Now I’m sure there might be some of you in here that think… I’ve been coming to Wednesdays a long time. You might think that you’ve graduated beyond this part. Like yeah yeah, Zach, I know I should bring others to Jesus. But when are we going to get deeper. When are you going to talk to me about the real stuff…

I cannot stress this enough, Bringing others to Jesus, is everything we can do. If we’re going to be with Jesus, and become like him the natural next step is that we would bring those closest to us to Him. And if you took me up on my challenge from the last few weeks and have been reading in the book of John, I hope you’re seeing that this happens to everyone who truly desires to follow Jesus! And you might have already read the passage we’re going to focus on today.

We’re going to read from John 4:

3 So Jesus left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria.

22796579121000Real quick, and I promise this is part of the story. It says that Jesus had to go through Samaria, and actually Jesus DID NOT have to go through Samaria. Here’s the map that proves it:

And looking at this map might make you think that Jesus had to go through Samaria, but if you’ll notice it says there’s a traditional route and that’s because most of the time Jewish people and, Jesus was Jewish would go around because they didn’t like having to go through Samaria. Samaritans and the Jews did not like each other. Like you get this, you go a different way to class cause you know your bully is on the direct path, or because that teacher that always writes you up is on the direct path… you avoid it because it makes your life easier to avoid it… But Jesus doesn’t choose to avoid, has a purpose in going through there… he approaches a well where there’s only one other person:

Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”

Now this feels like an insignificant moment if you don’t understand the context, so let me unpack it for us.

We already established that Samaritans don’t like Jews and Jews don’t like Samaritans. So the assumption this woman would make is that this man won’t like me, but that’s not all. They’re also there in the middle of the day, and that’s a big deal because no one went to the well in the middle of the day, that’s the hottest time to go do it. Most people would go at the beginning or the end… so this woman is trying to be at this well at a time where no one would be there. You know who does something like that? An outcast. So this is what she says back to him:

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

So she’s starting to notice there’s something different about Jesus:

3 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

Oh wow. Jesus tells her all about her past. He knows all of it. And the truth is we don’t know what it means exactly that she’s had 5 husbands, maybe they’ve divorced her and rejected her, maybe some or all of them have died, and Jesus notes the man she’s with now isn’t even her husband. Now, Jesus isn’t saying this to shame her, he’s actually just trying to bring everything into the light.

Because as she’s had 5 husbands, whatever the reason was, it’s caused her to be an outcast in her people. That’s why she’s going to the well at noon. Because she doesn’t want to interact with the people around her.

But Jesus wants to show her that he knows her. He sees her. No one is an outcast in God’s presence.

Maybe there’s someone in here tonight that needs to know, that Jesus sees you. Jesus knows you.

No matter what you’ve done, no matter how far gone you feel, Jesus knows everything you’ve ever done, and he still loves you!!!

In fact, after this moment Jesus reveals himself to her, tells her that he’s God. Then the disciples come up and they’re actually mistreating her the moment they see her, because remember their people have beef. Then this happens:

28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

She leaves to go tell everyone! Because a relationship with Jesus turns outcasts into family. Jesus has changed her whole outlook on life, she’s not just someone who has messed up a lot in life, she’s not just an outcast that is judged by all her peers, she is a Child of God!!! Like I said earlier, maybe there are some of you that feel like you’re an outcast and you need to be told that Jesus loves you. He sees you. And He knows you.

For our other group though… those that need to hear, that it doesn’t just stay with her… she runs into town telling everyone possible.

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.

42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Once they have heard for themselves, they knew that he was God.

Listen, next Wednesday is our Back to School Bash. This is a night where we share the truth of God’s love to everyone. So I’ve got a challenge for you students: Who is an outcast in your life that needs to be brought to Jesus?

Who is someone that your friend group excludes, that sits by themselves at lunch, that has done things that most people would exclude from this conversation…

Could you be the one to bring them to Jesus?

Another way to ask that is, who is your one? That’s a question we ask at 12Stone often because we believe we all have someone that’s near to us but far from God.

For our group time that’s all we’re going to be talking about because we feel like it’s that important. So I want to help you determine who might that be in your life…

I’m going to put some questions on the screen and as I read them, I just want you to think is there someone in your life that’s near to you but far from God, that you could invite to our Back to School Bash next week?

(SP NOTE: This is obviously a generic list but use it how it makes sense in your room. If you’ve got more lacrosse players, use lacrosse team as an example. When you bring up an example, allow time to reflect on it for a moment.)

It could be someone…

In your math class

On your football team

That you’ve known since 2nd grade

That you met this week

That you overlook

That is the class clown

That gets in trouble often

That messed up big time

In your family

Comes to church sometimes

Tonight, we’re going to do something different, during your small groups, we’re going to you have you go group by group to the lobby to write down the name of your one on a Wednesday’s banner using this glow in the dark marker.

When you write their name you won’t be able to see it unless the light gets shown on it. Our hope is that your one would come next Wednesday and that they might respond to the truth of Jesus, and when they do they might even see their name on this banner next week when we shine the light on it.

So we’re taking this time seriously to really think about who your one could be…

In fact I want to pray right now over all of you that you would be bold in the next week to bring those who are near to you but far from God.

Let’s pray.