Reach: Draw It Out

Welcome

Happy Father’s Day!

Hey, before we get started, let me talk just for a second to you fathers out there who are, like me, in the middle of raising up little people. Mine are 8 and 11; yours might be younger or older than that. But just a quick couple of things for you.

First:

Best gift you can give your kids and family is for you to be a man who spends time with Jesus, who hangs around Jesus, who looks and talks and acts more like Jesus.

Jesus is alive; he’s revealed himself in Scripture; his words are right there for you. He listens to you when you pray. He’s speaking to you when you give him room.

Best gift you can give your family, dads, before safety and a good house and income and stability and advice and all of those other good gifts —

Best gift you can give your family is for you to be a man who spends time with Jesus, letting him change you from the inside out as you experience his love for you and as you do what he says. That’s first.

Second:

Fatherhood was God’s idea. When he went to create this world, he thought up dads. So: just being a dad, in and of itself, is a holy, spiritual, divinely-designed job.

Now, practically, it’s cutting the grass, and making sure the cars have oil in them, that your kids don’t do things that are too stupid, disciplining them when they do, and all of that other stuff that can at times feel like one giant headache on top of another.

But:

Being a dad is a sacred thing, because God created it. And although none of us dads are anywhere near perfect, here’s the deal:

When your kid thinks about God as their father, the first picture they’re likely going to have is...

You.

So:

Cut the grass. Say yes to playing catch. Do the dates with your daughter. All of that. Because everything you do faithfully, humbly, diligently, and consistently is a picture not only of a good dad, but a good God.

Happy Father’s Day.

Series Intro

Alright. Hey: welcome to Prairie Lakes Church. Hope you’re all having a great start to your summer. If this is your first weekend around here, you’re jumping into a series that we’ve been in for a couple of weeks now called “Reach.” Here’s the idea:

One of the best things about living in Iowa is that we get all (4) seasons. It’s awesome. And with each season comes a different rhythm. So we’ve hit the summer in Iowa. (Well, better put, summer kinda hit us. Smacked us, really. But we’re not gonna complain about warm temps and sunshine, right? Pray for rain; be glad it’s not 20 below.)

But in Iowa, summer rhythms are weekends at the baseball or softball diamond; times on the water; parties or fires out on the back deck; camping or day trips… we lather up with sunscreen and Off for the mosquitos and we crawl out of our hibernation, white legs and all. Those are some of the rhythms that summer in Iowa brings our way. And they’re great.

And around here at Prairie Lakes, they give us a pretty unique opportunity to do something that we call “Reach our Little Iowa.”

Here’s how Pastor John defined that for us:

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“Little Iowa:” Where you live, work, & play. Friends, neighbors, coworkers, relatives, servers… regular contact people.

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Summer in Iowa gives us some great opportunities for us to reach our Little Iowa.

And so here’s where we’ve been in the series so far:

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Reach:

Week 1: Reorient Your Heart (Prayer Walk Challenge)

Week 2: Shift Your Gaze (Be Intentional Challenge)

Week 3: Draw It Out (Below the Surface Challenge)

Week 4: Make the Invite

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So, let’s take another step this weekend and jump into a few things here. Let me start with a few stories.

Introduction: Stories/Review

In the last 2 weeks for me—in just the last 2 weeks—here’s a few snapshots:

First: I was helping one of my old neighbors move. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve been in the same neighborhood. We stayed in Waterloo, just a different neighborhood; they moved over to Cedar Falls, and now are moving up to Waverly just north. But we got to be pretty good friends.

While we were neighbors, I met his father-in-law who lives out in northwest Iowa. Great guy; farmer; but also had an alcohol problem. Kinda went to church; but just had a drinking problem.

He and I would have some great conversations around my neighbor’s back deck and in the garage. We’d talk about a lot of that.

Long story short: he got sober. God got his heart. There’s a great Methodist church out there and the pastor’s really invested in him. And so 2 weeks ago, we’re sitting on my same neighbor’s new deck, talking about the change that’s taken place in him, talking about how weird it is to feel something when you’re at church (even cry), and talking about how burdened he feels for his friends and kids and grandkids to know God in the way that he now does.

Pretty cool.

Second: I was up in Decorah at our monthly gathering up there. We’re launching a church up there on Christmas Eve, God-willing. Anyways: I’m talking to a lady that I’ve never met before, and she looks at my name tag and says, “What’s your last name?” And I said, “Tink.” And she says: “I think you know my sister.”

Again, long story short: her sister worked in the same office that my mom did for several years, just one desk over. My mom was the church secretary. And this gal’s sister sat next to my mom for years. Crazy connection, right?

Third: I am in a Wednesday night men’s golf league. I’m a horrible golfer. But it’s fun. Me and one of our new elders are on a team together. Anyways, last Wednesday, we’re waiting for our other pairing to show up, and they don’t—but there’s a different pairing there who are only there because of a substitution that happened.

One of the guys has his son with him, who I recognize because I think he and my son played on the same baseball team that I coached a couple of years ago. Sure enough, it was him and his dad. And the other guy playing with him (who I had never met) knew my brother and played in the same annual tournament with him for the last several years.

Finally—finally: I got a text from my neighbor on Monday talking about how we need to do a better job this summer of getting into each other’s backyards. In fact, let me read his text to you: “Can the Amish drink beer? You guys are more than welcome any time to come on over.” Amish is kind of an inside joke about me being a pastor.

Alright? Crazy coincidences, right? Hey: that’s not normal for me. But, maybe like you, I’ve been trying to take some intentional steps these past couple of weeks as well. And I think as we all do that, God honors that. I think he starts bringing some opportunities our way once we do some of the things we’ve been talking about doing in our Little Iowa.

Remember what Pastor John said last week:

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You can’t notice God working unless you shift your gaze.

Intentionally move from being 1) busy to interruptible; 2) aloof to alert, and 3) “holier than thou” to just being holy.

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(Explain/expound upon the above.)

Transition: Draw It Out

So… now what? I’ll probably run into the guy in golf league again… I’m gonna be in my neighbor’s backyard shortly… I’ve reoriented my heart and shifted my gaze, and God’s opening some doors with people and conversations… now what?

Because for some of us, even taking the step to go on a prayer walk and be intentionally interruptible was a pretty big step. And the thought of like actually being in a conversation with someone that might get below the surface and even spiritual...

That’s enough to send us right over the edge.

Because we’re worried that we won’t do it right, or that we won’t have the right answers, or that we’re gonna be this weird “Jesus salesman” that’s supposed to do some kind of awkward bait and switch. “Hey, thanks for the invite over to your house. Let me return the favor with an invite into eternal life.”

Okay. That’s why we’re gonna say this as we take another step this weekend:

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Draw It Out: Discovering what God is already up to in someone’s life as you uncover their story. (John 4:3-26)

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Go ahead and open up your Bibles to John 4. We’ll have some of the verses on the screen here as well for you as you follow along.

But this weekend we’ll be talking about this idea of “drawing it out.” And here’s what we mean by that: it’s discovering. It’s discovering what God is already up to as you uncover someone’s story. It’s not selling them something; it’s not some sort of bait and switch or awkward Bible quiz. It’s… natural.

And there’s a great example of how Jesus did just this as he drew out a woman’s story while they were having a cool drink of water on a hot day.

Let’s start reading together in John 4:3 together:

Exegesis: Samaritan Woman at the Well

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So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 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.)

John 4:3-9

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Ok. So it’s noon. Middle of the day. Which means it’s hot.

And if you travel to Israel today, you could visit wells that were literally dug during Jesus’ day. They dug down deep to get down to the cool water below. Mostly unchanged since antiquity.

So… cold drink on a hot summer’s day. That’s the setting.

Now: we don’t have time to explain all of the social and cultural dimensions of this interaction here, but a few things are worth noting.

First: Samaritans and Jews were racial categories. That’s the note about them not associating. The Jews saw themselves as a race set apart by God, pure and separated from the rest of the world. And they saw the Samaritans as impure.

Here’s why:

Hundreds of years earlier, the ancient Jewish nation of Israel split into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Both nations eventually left the faith of their ancestors, rejected God, and were conquered. But Israel was conquered first by the Assyrians. And what the Assyrians did with conquered people was deport them to a different place in their empire, force them to intermarry with some other culture, and then resettle them in their places of origin. It was their way of obliterating the cultures of conquered peoples and establishing their own.

That’s what they did to the Samaritans. Samaritans were actually Jewish people from the northern kingdom of Israel who were conquered, deported, intermarried, then resettled.

And so Jewish people in the south, especially in the region of Galilee, viewed their Samaritan neighbors to the north as literally “half-breeds.” And the Samaritans in the north viewed their neighbors to the south as judgmental, holier-than-thou, hypocritical jerks.

In fact, Samaritans set up their own versions of the temple and other parts of their Jewish faith—primarily because they knew they weren’t welcome in the one their ancestors built.

Long story short: these two races of people hated each other, at times to the point of violent conflict.

But here’s Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t care.

And with one simple question, he destroys all the barriers that could’ve easily remained in the way between him and this woman. He says:

Can I have a drink?

Get this:

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Spiritual conversations rarely start on a spiritual level. They start on a surface level.

God can do a lot with your normal, everyday conversations and connections.

Start normal, not spiritual.

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Jesus could’ve just as easily drawn that water himself. He’s a man; she’s a woman. He’s a Jew from Galilee; she’s a Samaritan from the north.

But he doesn’t. He’s in her territory, at the well that she frequents. So he’s gonna engage with her on her terms—not with some sort of Scripture sharing or miraculous sign or anything like that—but with a simple request:

Mind getting me something to drink?

And with that simple, surface-level, normal request was an implied invitation. Now, over a drink, they could talk. They could connect. Not that they had to. But there was an option now.

Let’s not miss this:

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Don’t underestimate the power of a simple invitation to a normal thing.

Inviting someone into your normal , everyday life might be the very thing that changes someone’s mind about God.

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Jesus is going to end up learning a bunch about this woman and she’s going to end up learning a bunch about him. But before any of that, she is just floored that Jesus, a Jewish man, would even be willing to talk to her.

Believe it or not, people in your Little Iowa just might have that same impression—especially if they know you’re a church-going person. They just assume: you’re not interested, you probably think you’re better than them, you probably wouldn’t have anything in common or don’t like to have fun...

But a simple invitation is sometimes all that someone needs in order to change their mind—

Not only about you, but about God.

Jesus goes on to have an interesting conversation with her, basically using the literal water that they’re drinking as a metaphor for the kind of life that he can offer. Just like the rest of us would if we were in her situation, she’s not quite tracking, and basically thinks that Jesus is offering her magic water that would forever quench her thirst so that she doesn’t have to sweat it out carrying water anymore.

But Jesus plays along for a little bit. She’s on the hook for magic water. He’s gonna tell her that she should share this magic water with her family.

Picking it up in verse 16:

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He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”

John 4:16-18

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Now: we don’t know why she’s had five husbands. We don’t. And so we gotta be careful what we’re assuming.

But… five husbands. That’s a lot of husbands.

Maybe she was widowed with one or two… but, probably not all five.

Probably, she was kind of… messy.

And probably didn’t have a great eye for what kind of man she should be hitching her wagon to. Messy as she might have been, I’m sure the men she called husband for a time weren’t exactly great specimens themselves.

And because Jesus is Jesus, he knows her story. Without her even saying a thing, he knows the messier parts of her story. But here’s what I want you to see:

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Spend enough time with someone and you’ll learn their story.

Listen long enough to their story and they’ll trust you with their mess.

Navigate their mess with grace and truth and they just might trust Jesus.

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Look at what Jesus does here. She tells him just the tip of the iceberg of her story, but he tells her the rest. He tells her the whole truth. Basically Jesus says:

I see you. Not just the person you’ve presented yourself to be. But who you really are. Not just part of the truth; the whole truth.

But notice what Jesus doesn’t do.

Jesus doesn’t try and teach her about the sanctity of marriage. He doesn’t try and convict her of her sin.

Nor is Jesus repelled by her mess. It’s not awkward for him.

At this point, this woman knows that Jesus knew who she really was before he even asked her for a drink. He’s not discovering her story in real time; he knew it before he walked over.

And he walked over anyway.

And not only that:

He asked her for a drink.

He sat with her over a couple of glasses of water.

He engaged with conversation with her.

And when he knew her story,

He didn’t think any differently about her or act any differently toward her,

But rather leaned in.

Even though he knew the truth,

He extended grace.

He wasn’t put off by her story. He was interested in being a part of it.

That reminds me of a phrase that Pastor Chris Rygh has said to a lot of us on staff as he’s coached us over the years. Here’s the phrase:

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Be more interested than interesting.

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Be more interested than interesting.

I love that phrase. If God opens up a door for you in your little Iowa; if you’ve reoriented your heart, shifted your gaze, and you’ve either been invited into someone else’s life or have invited someone else into yours,

Be more interested in their story than anything else.

Even the people who don’t like talking about themselves... eventually like talking about themselves.

Let’s finish the story here. Verse 19:

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“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 

You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

John 4:19-26

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So here’s the crazy thing about this woman’s story:

Messy as she might be… she’s got some kind of a faith story.

We don’t know exactly what it was, or how serious it was in her life, or how relevant it was for her.

But it was there. She had some beliefs.

And as she shares those with Jesus, Jesus starts to interact with it, redirect it, refocus it, and point her to… him.

Here’s the thing we need to take away from this part of the story:

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Don’t be surprised to find that God was already at work in someone’s life.

Before you invited them, God did.

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And that, my friends, should take a lot of the pressure off for you.

Here’s what I mean:

What if rather than being worried about how you’re gonna worm God into your conversation, you instead sat back, learned someone’s story over just normal life, maybe saw their mess, and then looked for how God was already working in it?

What if you didn’t make it your job to persuade them or convict them or disapprove of whatever and you just interacted with what they believe and share what you believe?

Doesn’t that sound… like… not hard?

Maybe even fun?

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