Behold Jesus the Missionary (Church Planter Assessment - NAMB )

Intro

Hello church planters and friends! If you have your Bibles why don’t you go ahead and grab those and turn with me to John chapter 4.

John chapter 4 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture and when I saw it on the list of preachable passages for this retreat, I was super excited. Here in this passage, we get to see Jesus, the Master, living out the same mission that he commissioned us to. And the mission is so important, especially to Church Planting because real church planting isn’t setting out to start a church service and hoping that people will show up. Instead, our focus must be to make disciples. When you make disciples, churches are planted.

Today we are considering. John 4 and this is what I want you to see from this text today. I want you to see,

Jesus as a missionary sent by God to intentionally reach unlikely people.

I love reading about Christians who lived long ago and were used by God to do incredible things for the sake of the Kingdom. This week I was reading about a guy that I’m sure most of you have heard of, by the name of Hudson Taylor.

Hudson lived in the 1800’s and he is known for his mission work in China in the mid 1800’s to the early 1900’s… Around the time Wong Fei Hung (one of my Kung Fu heroes)… He has a really insane story.

Taylor was born to James and Amelia Taylor, a Godly couple who were absolutely fascinated with the Eastern Asia. This is what they prayed for their newborn son, "Grant that he may work for you in China."

Years later, a teenage Hudson Taylor experienced a saving faith in Jesus during an intense time of prayer laying stretched out on the floor... his words are that he was, "before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy." He spent the next years in frantic preparation, learning the rudiments of medicine, studying Mandarin Chinese, and immersing himself even deeper into the Bible and prayer.

Hudson Taylor spent 51 years in China preaching the gospel, ministering to those in need, and translating the Bible into Chinese. He founded the China Inland Mission which is known today as the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

And what is so great about Hudson Taylor and what made him so effective in his ministry is that he was Intentional in his mission. From the time he first got there as a young man he he decided to dress in Chinese clothes and grow a braid (as Chinese men did). He hated how the missionaries that were there were spending all of their time near ports with business men who could help them translate. They made no attempts at learning the language or learning their culture.

Hudson wanted to take the gospel to the inland. To where there were Chinese who not only have never heard of Jesus but who haven’t even seen a foreigner before.

Everything that Hudson Taylor did was intentional to reaching people with the good news of Jesus. You see, he saw Jesus as the one who was sent by God and he saw Jesus as the one who sends his disciples into the world to make disciples of all people. No matter how different they are. God has a heart for the nations of the World and he gives us this same heart.

God gives us a heartbeat for the nations that transcends cultural and racial barriers. And Jesus himself demonstrates that for us today in our text.

So if you have your Bibles opened to John chapter for look with me starting in verse 1...

English Standard Version Chapter 4

4 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

This is the Word of the Lord. Let’s Pray.

Father, thank you for sending Jesus to seek us out. For coming and taking our place on the cross. We do not deserve it but you loved us that much. Holy Spirit, come now and open our ears, eyes, and hearts to see our sin and to understand your Word. In your Sons name… Amen.

This morning I want us to see three things about Jesus in John 4. If you are taking notes this is the first thing...

Point I: Jesus was intentional with the mission God gave him (4:1-6).

Have you ever thought about this? Jesus is a missionary. God sent Jesus from heaven to a people (us) that did not know God to preach good news and see lives changed. When we go to a foreign land that does not know God we are walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

When we live on mission where God has sent us we are walking in Jesus’ footsteps. Even this campus and the classes and the place that you work is a place to be a missionary. We’ve said so many times here but God has sent you where you are primarily to make disciples of Jesus.

Are you being intentional where you are? Look at Jesus in verses 1-6...

Jesus knew that God sent him here to make disciples. To pay for the sins of anyone, not just the Jews, who would believe in him. If you remember from the chapter before this one Jesus told Nicodemus...

English Standard Version Chapter 3

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus was sent by God to be the savior for all who believed regardless of where they are from. This is what I’m thinking. Jesus is doing ministry. He seeing fruit. People are believing. And everything that he is doing he is not just doing for the sake of seeing as many people believe as possible… he’s also doing all this to disciple the 12 that are with him. His 12 disciples are learning from Jesus what it means to live an intentional life. He is demonstrating John 3:16 in chapter 4.

We see in verse one that Jesus hears that there may be some trouble from the Pharisees pretty soon so he decides it’s time to go back to Galilee. I don’t think that it’s because he’s afraid of some conflict or some hard ministry. I think it’s because he knows 1) there’s more work to be done before he is murdered by these people and 2) his disciples still have so much to learn about the mission.

Look at verse 4. John says that he had to pass through Samaria.

In Jesus’ day there were three regions stacked on top of one another. There was Galilee in the north, Samaria in the middle, and Judea in the south. The easiest and quickest way to get to Galilee from Judea was to go due north right through Samaria. John 4:4 says that Jesus “had to” go through Samaria. Now why did he have to do that? The answer is, he didn’t. There was another route he could have taken. Some pious Jews would go east, cross the Jordan River, enter the region of Perea, then go north, re-cross the Jordan River, and they would be in Galilee. This was out of the way but it meant they wouldn’t have to go through Samaritan territory.

You see there was extreme racial tension between the Jews and the Samaritans. They hated each other.

It all went back to 722 B.C. when the Assyrians conquered Israel and took the northern ten tribes into captivity. They brought in Gentiles from other areas to settle in that same region. Eventually those Gentiles with their pagan ways intermarried with the Jews who had been left behind. Over the generations those people were called the Samaritans, and they developed their own religion that was partly based on pagan ideas and partly based on Judaism. Eventually they built their own temple at a place called Mount Gerizim. And they developed their own language and their own version of the Old Testament (which contained only the first five books).

The Jewish called them half-breeds who worshipped Yahweh sacrilegiously.

And because of their racism toward the Samaritans, Jewish men when traveling would go around Samaria to get to where they were going. Which was out of the way.

But Jesus had to pass through Samaria. Jesus breaks down cultural barriers… the Gospel transcends race.

Bringing us back to verse 3. Why did John say Jesus “had to” go through Samaria when the Jews either didn’t go there at all or passed through as quickly as possible? The answer is simple and profound: Jesus went because he intended to meet the woman at the well. He knew she would be coming to the well at precisely the moment he was sitting there weary from his journey. Nothing happens by chance in this story. Every detail is part of the outworking of God’s will. And that, I think, is a hugely important point. The woman isn’t looking for Jesus. All she wants is water. But Jesus is looking for her. You have to go to Samaria if you want to reach Samaritans. He doesn’t avoid Samaria and he doesn’t hurry through it. Though she does not know it, this woman has a “divine appointment” with the Son of God.

So what can we take away from this in our own lives and ministry?

Well, be sensitive to what is going on around you. Just like this woman is at the well just wanting to get water, you can have classmates who just want to get a passing grade. But at the same time God could be setting you up a divine appointment to share the gospel with them.

You never know when this could be happening or when someone is experiencing God working in their lives. We got to be ready.

And just like the Jews in that day could never perceive a Samaritan repenting and believing… who in your mind do you see as too far gone to be saved? Remember God saves who he wants. Do you remember the Apostle Paul? The early Christians thought that he was way too far gone to be saved… he was persecuting the church and throwing Christians into prison! But God saved him anyway.

So Jesus was focused and intentional with the mission that God sent him on and this is the second thing I want us to see in this text this morning...

Point II: Jesus was intentional with his conversations (vs. 7-26).

So Jesus makes it to Samaria. It’s about noon. It’s hot and he is tired. So he sits by Jacob’s well.

Just then vs. 7...

English Standard Version Chapter 4

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

She says,

English Standard Version Chapter 4

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Jesus talking to her is a double whammy. Jewish men would never talk to a woman in public. And on top of that… a Jewish man would never be caught talking to a Samaritan… much less asking them for help with a drink of water.

This woman knew this and I love Jesus’ response to her. He says...

English Standard Version Chapter 4

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Jesus is saying to this woman that if she just knew who he was… he could satisfy all of her need. Not just her physical thirst but she could experience just how satisfying Jesus is!

English Standard Version Chapter 4

13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

This is the good news that we preach here each week! This is the reason why we urge each of you to stop drinking from these wells that will not satisfy you! You will never be satisfied from sex or partying. You will never be satisfied by having good grades or a degree. You will never be satisfied by your political party being on top.

The only well that can satisfy you is Jesus. Drink from that well and you will never thirst again.

Things start to get real in Jesus’ conversation with this Samaritan woman. She says… “yeah that sounds great! Give me this water so I don’t have to come to this well each day at noon when it is the hottest.”

There is a reason that she was coming to the well at noon. All of the other women would come early before it was hot. She’s avoiding people and Jesus is going to address that now. He says...

English Standard Version Chapter 4

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

This woman is an outcast of a people who are seen as outcasts by the Jewish community. She’s a divorced woman who is shacking up with her boyfriend. She’s a fornicator.

And Jesus is there to talk to her. He’s there to save her. He’s there to love her.

What is she supposed to say to this? She begins to feel uncomfortable so she shifts the topic to something that is still uncomfortable but maybe a little less personal to her… the topic of religion. Specifically, the proper location of worship. Listen to what Jesus says… I love this...

English Standard Version Chapter 4

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

True worshippers will worship God in Spirit and in Truth. They will worship God with their emotions and with their mind. They will worship God in all that they do and in all that they say.

The worship of God is for all peoples. It’s not just for those who are in Jerusalem. It’s not just for those who are in America. It’s not just for those who are in Africa or China as missionaries. Location isn’t important. The heart is.

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 4

Authentic worship involves an inward change of heart, not just outward observance. Real followers of God worship in complete sincerity.

Jesus wraps up this conversation with this woman when she says...

English Standard Version Chapter 4

“I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Of all people for Jesus to come and reveal himself to… he chooses a Samaritan woman who has only ever experienced brokenness and pain… She’s gossiped about by the other local women forcing her to get water in the heat of the day.

Last week Pastor Barry talked about Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. I was reading through this and if you look at just the differences of Nicodemus and this Samaritan woman is insane...

1. He was a man. She was a woman. In that day men were favored and teachers normally didn’t even talk to women.

2. He is named. She is not named. His name, Nicodemus is given. She is simply “a woman of Samaria” (4:7).

3. He was a Jew. She was a Samaritan. He was a part of the right group,  whereas she was a part of a despised group with wrong beliefs and practices.

4. He was righteous. She was a sinner. He was a Pharisee and they were known for being rigorous and devout. She was living with a man who was not her husband.

5. He was honored. She was an outcast. He was a ruler and enjoyed a high place in his society. She was by herself at the well most likely because she was rejected by the other women of Sychar.

6. He was educated. She was uneducated. Jesus calls him a teacher. She would have had little training, as was the case for women in that day.

John Seeking the Gifts, Not the Giver

Can you imagine how thirsty this woman was? How empty her life was? How barren her soul was? I don’t mean that she was passionately pursuing the things of God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness. That obviously wasn’t the case. I’m speaking of spiritual bankruptcy.

She’s not much different from many of us is she? There are some of us here who have really messed up lives. God saves some of the most unlikely people. Have you ever just stopped and looked at the people that make up the church?

Everyone in here has a unique story of how they came to meet Jesus. Everyone has unique struggles and sins that Jesus paid for. We are all just as unlikely as that Samaritan woman.

I’m sure that each of you have heard the old hymn, Amazing Grace. This hymn was written by John Newton in the 1700’s and he has an incredible testimony.

He left school at the age of 11 to become a sailor.

Amazing Grace—366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions 3. Amazing Grace

Eventually he engaged in the despicable practice of capturing natives from West Africa to be sold as slaves to markets around the world. But one day the grace of God put fear into the heart of this wicked slave trader through a fierce storm. Greatly alarmed and fearful of a shipwreck, Newton began to read The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. God used this book to lead him to a genuine conversion and a dramatic change in his way of life.

Amazing Grace—366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions 3. Amazing Grace

Until the time of his death at the age of 82, John Newton never ceased to marvel at the grace of God that transformed him so completely. Shortly before his death he is quoted as proclaiming with a loud voice during a message, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior!” What amazing grace!

It is by the grace of Jesus that a man who captured people for the purpose of selling them could come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. He began to be disgusted with the slave trade and partnered with a man by the name of William Wilberforce to fight it.

You don’t have to have a crazy testimony like John Newton. Maybe you’re like me. God saved me out of my own self-righteousness. I was good and religious. I received the same grace from Jesus. I was just as unlikely.

So we have seen that Jesus was sent on an intentional mission from God and because of that he was intentional with his conversations. Now this is the last thing that I want us to consider this morning...

Point III: God intentionally uses unlikely people for mission.

I absolutely love what happens next in this text. The Samaritan woman responds with faith! Look at verse 28...

English Standard Version Chapter 4

28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

She left her jar and immediately went back to town to tell everyone who would listen that she had found the long awaited messiah!

John Jesus’ Identity Revealed

When she made it back to town, she said to the people there: “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (v. 29). She didn’t go to them and pronounce that she had suddenly become a righteous woman, a paragon of virtue, and issue a command that the community follow her. She simply told the people she had met the Messiah. She knew that she had been redeemed by that encounter, and she wanted everyone in town to know it. For the first time in her life, she was not an agnostic. She suddenly understood the things of God.

Jesus uses this as a great teaching moment for his disciples and to us.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

What he is saying is that God is working in places even when we don’t see it. Places like Samaria. Places like UNF. Jesus says that the fields are white with harvest! You have classmates and coworkers who are ready to believe. The seeds have been sown… you just need to reap.

As we begin to close out our time together this morning I want you to think of who it is in your sphere of influence that you need to speak to this week about Jesus. You can’t know what they are going through and how the Lord is working in their hearts.

Because of her witness many of these Samaritan’s came out to see Jesus and they asked him to stay with them for two days. Many believed and were saved because one woman went out and told them to come and see.

We were thirsty… we were in a desert dying of thirst. And then Jesus came and gave us Living Water that forever satisfied that thirst.

Like that woman that invited those in her community to come and see… if we have truly tasted how good Jesus is wouldn’t we want those on this campus to come and see so that they can experience the same grace of Jesus?

By way of application and then we will stand and worship together...

Ask yourself: How am I intentionally living out the mission Jesus sent me on? What do I need to do or who do I need to talk to this week intentionally?

If you are here today and are not a believer let me just invite you to come and see. All of those wells that you are drinking from will never satisfy you. They live leave you empty and wanting more. Jesus freely offers you living water today. All you have to do is believe that Jesus is the Christ who came and died to pay for your sins and he rose from the dead. You will be saved. If you want to talk to someone come see me or Pastor Barry or one of our leaders with the lanyard.

Let’s pray