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Becoming A Person of Compassion in a Culture of Callousness

!!! John 4:1-42 Countercultural Faith Series # 3

 

 

We’re thinking about confronting our culture in faith.

And we’ve been talking about the fact that we are molded by someone.

We looked at Romans 12:1-2 and thought about the idea that we are either molded by the culture that we live in, or we are molded by the Word of God.

The bad news is, we are in someone’s mold.

The good news is, we can choose our mold.

We can be molded either by the culture, or by the Word of God.

It’s up to us.

We talked also about renewing our minds, intentionally working to think God’s thoughts, looking at the Word of God to say, Am I thinking the way God thinks?

Who does He want me to become?

And how do I become that person?

Last time we talked about the issue of being a person of integrity in a culture of duplicity.

The idea that God is calling me to be one person—the same person on Saturday night that I am on Sunday morning, the same person when people are watching as I am when no one will ever find out—calling me to be one single person, to be projecting one image and to be that very same image inside, privately, quietly, when no one can check on me.

Today I want to think about a second area in which our culture impacts us, and that is specifically, calling us to be a person of compassion in a culture of callousness.

If you have your Bibles, I’d like to look at John chapter 4 to think about this issue together.

We’ll be looking at John 4:1-42.

I’ll read this story for us, one which may be familiar to many of us.

John chapter 4. The Lord Jesus is on an itinerant ministry traveling around with His disciples.

He comes into this town and has an interaction with a woman, which just has incredible impact for our own lives.

You understand that this is a chapter you could write a whole book about.

You can relax, I’m not going to preach the whole book today.

I’m just going to deal with one little principle out of it.

John 4, beginning in verse 1.

“When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, 2  (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) 3  He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.

4 ¶  And he must needs go through Samaria.

5  Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

6  Now Jacob’s well was there.

Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.”

That means it was around high noon.

7  There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

8  (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)

9  Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

10  Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

11  The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

12  Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

13  Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14  But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

15  The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”

There is a lot more to verse 15 than you might imagine.

Part of this woman’s problem is, she is an outcast who cannot come and draw in the cool of the day, when all the other people are here.

Apparently, she comes by herself, comes at the warmest time of the day to be away from other people who would ridicule her.

Verse 16.

“Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.

17  The woman answered and said, I have no husband.

Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: 18  For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.

19  The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

20  Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

21  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

22  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

In other words, it won’t matter what mountain you are in, or what valley you are in, or what town you are in—it will matter what’s going on in your heart.

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

25  The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

26  Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

27 ¶  And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou?

or, Why talkest thou with her? 28  The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 29  Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?

30  Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.”

There is apparently a big crowd of folks coming out of Sychar, headed out to the well, and Jesus is speaking to His disciples, saying, verse 31 …

“In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.

32  But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.

33  Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?”

Now, think about what He is going to say in light of this huge crowd of people coming to see Jesus.

“Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

35  Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest?

behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”

In other words, look at this crowd coming—they are white for harvest.

“And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.

37  And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.

38  I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.

39  And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.

40  So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.

41  And many more believed because of his own word; 42  And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”

This is not a story to entertain us.

It is a story that is designed to motivate us to obedience, and give us a new understanding about why we are here, and why we are alive.

Seven or eight years out of high school—and this has been a number of years ago now, and the condition I describe can be magnified perhaps many times.

Several years out of high school, I had been invited to the school by a student of the school who was a member of the church I served, to come and speak to a psychology class.

What struck me as I registered my presence at the appropriate office and was directed toward the classroom I needed to be in, was the callousness which permeated that place.

I remember in particular, the time I arrived was between classes.

The halls were filled with students and teachers, making their way to different locations in a rather large complex.

What arrested my attention almost to the point of panic, was a large trash can in the hall with fire blazing out of it.

Students, teachers were whizzing by without any concern, as if a trash can on fire was a normal, everyday occurrence.

As an adult walking down those halls with high school students, I also heard all kinds of absolute hostility.

I heard all manner of vile language.

I heard all kinds of kids cutting down other kids.

And I was thinking to myself, I need to pray more for this young lady in our church who comes into this war zone setting every day.

Every day, she experienced in her life the hostility, the callousness of this setting.

If you think about the culture that we live in, would you define it more as compassionate or callous?

As I think about our culture, I would certainly define it more as callous than compassionate.

I want to ask you to think about some of the pressures that are brought to bear on us that try to mold us into being callous people rather than compassionate.

Pressure # 1.

The news media shows to us on a regular basis death and tragedy and destruction.

And we see so much of it that we get to a place of compassion overload.

You just can care any more for that many people.

You just can’t feel bad any longer for those number of things that are happening.

And so it is possible to look at an earthquake or a monsoon or a tsunami or a flood and to hear of x-thousands of people who died, and it makes about as much impact on us as hearing a plane fly overhead.

Pressure # 2. The entertainment industry shows us so much violence that it has become as common as a sneeze.

One researcher discovered that the average American child sees 16,000 murders on TV before they are eighteen years old.

This is the average child.

Think of it.