How to Succeed in Sharing
One of my favorite stories concerns a barber who was a very devout man. One day he heard a sermon about evangelism and he was convicted that he never really did it, so he decided he needed to. But he was very nervous. He worked himself up to it and he worked himself up to it and there was one particular fellow he knew needed to hear about the Lord and that guy came in for a haircut. The man sat down. Back in those days they did shaving and so he lathered him up, he got his razor out, and he said, “Are you ready to die?”
I would suspect that most of us are in that boat, that evangelism makes us nervous. Christianity is an evangelical faith; we share with others the Lord because it is one of the commandments, if you will. It is not a suggestion by Jesus. But, we don’t know how to do it. Today I want to talk with you about that using the story of Jesus and the woman from Samaria, the one where he is at the well and addresses her and talks with her. What better place to learn a little bit about evangelism than from the Lord himself. So let’s read this story together. (John 4:1-30)
The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, 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 the sixth hour.
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.)
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.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
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.”
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.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, 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 spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in 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 who speak to you am he.”
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Would you pray with me?
Thank you for Jesus who is not only our Savior, he is our example. Lord, help us to follow you. Help us to follow you in what you have done that we may do it too, however imperfectly, because we know that is not just about us doing it, it is you working through us. Lord, give us not only the wisdom about how but the courage to do, as well. We do pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well before we start, a couple of things, well actually just one, sort of a side comment, Jesus is very forthright with this woman and, in fact, we could probably say he was a little bit politically incorrect. Jesus doesn’t diverge from the truth. She tries to get him into an argument about whose worshipping was right; and he says very plainly, “You Samaritans worship what you don’t know. Salvation comes from the Jews.” Today he would be accused of prejudice at the very least. But Jesus tells the truth. And that is what evangelism is about but it is doing it kindly. We have to remember that we are not Jesus but we can follow in what he does. So where do we start?
Well I would suggest that we pray for divine appointments. Here is how the story begins. Jesus is down in the desert and that is east of Jerusalem, down by the Jordan River. When Jewish people wanted to go north to Galilee, they usually went downhill, straight downhill to the Jordan, they hung a left and they went straight up to Galilee. Why?…because they wanted to avoid Samaria. Now your biblical history tells you that the Samaritans were people who had been shipped in by the Assyrians five hundred years or so before this, the northern kingdom had been defeated. The Assyrians had the practice of basically removing everyone from a piece of land and deporting them someplace else and then they would import other people. So there were several groups that come in just north of Jerusalem, that is where Samaria is, and they joined up with the Jews that were left and they sort of made their own religion. They claimed the five books of Moses. They claimed some things about the Jewish faith, but it was a big mix.
Along five hundred years later, the Jews, who had the true faith, literally hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans hated the Jews, so the Jews would have nothing to do with them. So they went the long way around. It was actually the best way because going along the Jordan was cooler, it was flatter, it was a nicer way to go instead of going through the hills; but Jesus, Jesus, chooses the hard way. He walks uphill which is going from about one thousand feet below sea level to three thousand feet above sea level. It is a thirty mile walk and then he hangs a right and goes north along that route. Why does he do that? Why did he go through Samaria?
Well, I believe it is because Jesus had a heart for lost people. Jesus had a heart for people who didn’t know him. Part of his job, part of his task, was to share that faith with everyone and it didn’t matter who it was – Samaritans, poor people, tax collectors, you name it; he shared it with them. Even Pharisees, like Nicodemus. Now what in the world is a divine appointment? It is the belief that God is involved in your day-to-day life. I would encourage you before you go out every morning to pray about who you are going to contact that day. “Lord, be with me as I talk to people at work.” Or, if you are homebound or you are retired, “be with me as I talk to people over the phone or my neighbors or my family. Help me keep the divine appointments.” You would be surprised how sometimes God brings you into contact with people who need to hear it or at least, at the very least, need to be ministered to, like bringing meals to people at their door, to keep those divine appointments.
The question for all of us is do we really believe that God does that? Is God involved in our life? Do we believe that that God is very much involved in what we are doing? Do we really have a sense of urgency for the people around us?
Let me ask you a rhetorical sort of question. What if you knew someone who had the cure for cancer and yet, for whatever reason, never shared it with people outside of himself? Maybe he was waiting for the market to get better and he would make more money out of it. Maybe he was just lazy and didn’t want to do it. Maybe he didn’t care. But suppose people found out about that, what would happen to that person? What do you think would happen to that person? I suspect they would be put into jail for a long, long time, or certainly be denounced. And yet, Christians have a message for people which brings healing, which brings redemption, which brings salvation and we so often say nothing to anyone. We often say nothing to anyone about our faith, and yet we are called to do it, however imperfectly. Do you pray for divine appointment?
Well you might say, O.K. I believe that, but I don’t know how to begin. What do I do? Do what the Lord did. What is the first thing he did? Well, in this particular situation he asked questions. I don’t know if you ever read the book by Dale Carnegie, called “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” but he says something in that book that is true of everyone. He says, “The voice that most people like to hear is their own.” So all you really have to do to get to know someone, and believe me, you know evangelism isn’t just about sitting down and going through a linear process and no one should get that impression. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes it takes months, sometimes doing the things we are talking about today is sort of circular. You do one one day and one the other, it is not necessarily in a line but if you want to get to know someone, ask them questions. What are their hopes? What are their dreams? Who are they? What’s bothering them today? What’s happened in their life? And that is what Jesus does for this woman.
Now a couple of cultural things here: One is she is a Samaritan and the other is she is a woman. Just like in the Muslim world today, parts of it, you didn’t talk to women in those days in a public manner. You don’t do that in many Muslim countries today. It is still alive and well. So here she is. She has come up there at noon because no one will have anything to do with her. Normally you would come at another part of the day. She is drawing water and Jesus is sitting there, obviously a Jewish man, and he asks the question. She may have dropped her bucket. “Why are you talking to me?” She is probably intrigued. Why is he talking to me? And yet, she is also defensive. You can see it. “Why are you talking to me?” I suspect that she has come up the road at the same time the disciples have gone down the road to the town and you know what had to happen there is she literally had to get off the road and let them go by, a bunch of males coming down the road and a female, probably of ill repute. But Jesus talks to her. Ask questions. Ask questions. Begin in that way.
The second thing you can do is give attention to real needs. By real I mean the needs that that person perceives to be real for them. Jesus was great at that. When Nicodemus came to him earlier, he perceived he needed some theological truths, so Jesus talks about being born again. That phrase “being born again” was an issue of the day and Jesus talks to him about that. Later, Jesus will talk to the blind man and talk about how he is light to the blind man. Now this woman comes looking for water and Jesus uses that as a bridge to talk with her. Go after the real needs of people. Put it in context for them wherever they are because we believe that Jesus, Jesus can meet those needs wherever a person is.
Not only that, we can meet bigger needs, and that is what this ministry that we just heard is all about. The meeting people at the door, and some of the things we are going to be doing in the community. There was an interesting comment made several hundred years ago by an Islamic commentator who said this about the influence of Franciscan monks in the Middle East. He said, “The only missionaries we fear are the Franciscan monks. For seven hundred years they have given us fits. Our approach is to persuade potential converts with apologetics. We are great at arguing, but that doesn’t work with the Franciscans. Instead of engaging us they quietly go about our cities serving everyone. Once people are served they become interested in Christianity and the next thing you know they become followers of Jesus. Those Franciscan Christians don’t fight fair with us.”
We meet real needs, but we also need to close the deal. It is not enough just to serve people. It is a great beginning. I am going to talk a little more about this the next time when I preach and it is kind of the second half of what we are talking about today but we give attention to real needs. So Jesus talks to her about water. Now obviously she thinks of it in terms of literal water and Jesus is talking about a symbolic spiritual water. But he uses it as a bridge to talk to her about spiritual things. So pay attention where a person is.
A fourth thing we can do is address sin kindly. I noticed in the notes I gave you it sort of looks funny. There is a blank and then it says “sin kindly.” That may not be such a bad idea…I don’t know, but… Now I want you to hear this very carefully. Jesus has shown his concern for the Samaritans just by going through Samaria. He didn’t have to do it. He could have taken the eastern easy route but he takes the trouble to take the hard route and go deliberately into Samaria. I am sure there was some grousing by his disciples: Why are we doing this? He has also shown his concern for this woman. He has shown concern just by talking with her. In this context that was a big deal. But he does address the sin issue. He does address it. He says, “Go call your husband. Go call your husband.” That had to be like cold water in her face. I suspect she blushed at this moment, because she knows what the answer is. You know, this is a side comment. Jesus already knows too. He could have guessed as much. She comes at noon instead of the end of the day; he has to guess something is wrong, but he is Jesus. He knows. You know, Jesus knows everything about you and me, every detail. There is no place to hide. So Jesus knows. He asked the question deliberately and opens up the issue with this particular woman. And she is a little bit embarrassed. Now what does Jesus say. I like this. He is so kind about it. Now he speaks the truth with her. He says, “You are right when you say you have no husband, the fact is that you have had five husbands.” In other words, you are not very good at relationships, are you? And secondly, “the man you now have is not your husband.” You are shacking up. You are shaking up.
You know, we have the same kind of issues today, don’t we? Do we speak about things or do we not speak about things? Now we can always say, well, he’s Jesus, I am me. He is not a sinner; that is true. That’s true. I remember speaking to somebody one day who said, “Well we really can’t talk to anybody about Jesus until we get our own act together.” But if that is the case, none of us will ever talk about Jesus, because none of us in this life will ever have our act together. None of us will cease to be a sinner. But we must do so with kindness, always with kindness. If we are talking to somebody it is not that we point a finger. Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus didn’t point fingers. He asked questions, and the issue came up.
I remember a man who really was a friend of mine in Afghanistan, a fellow officer. He was asking me a question. He had a girlfriend back in his home and he said, “Is it true the bible says that that is not O.K.? And I said “Yeah, Tom, it really is.” He said, “O.K.” We didn’t go any further with it. He was just checking. He didn’t come to church. We were still friends but I told him what I had to tell him. Maybe I planted a seed; maybe not. I am hoping that I did. I had a lot of other conversations with him. But Jesus does address the issue and he is kind about it. He is kind about it. Why does he address the issue? Because no one comes to Christ until repentance happens, some kind of repentance has to happen, some kind of turning away from the old life to the new life, to something better. When people live a certain way we do not do them any favor in keeping silent because the way they live is destructive.
If you have had the opportunity to see the Narnia movies I would encourage you to see the first two. There are not bad. I am hoping the rest will be O.K., being a fan of Narnia. The third one has to do with a voyage by a ship called the Dawn Treader. Two of the children do not get to go on this trip but the two younger ones do. They bring along a really nasty character named Eustace, and Eustace is just a self-centered little boy. He is always getting into trouble. They get to this island and he goes off by himself, finds a cave full of treasure, it’s dragon treasure; and he steals a piece of it. It is an armband. He puts it on his arm, he falls asleep, he wakes up; and, low and behold, he has become a dragon. He has become a dragon and this armband is digging into his arm and he is in pain. He is suffering and he sees himself as a dragon and he is going “Wow, this is crazy.” You know what happens to him, he repents. Finally he is crying and Aslan shows up and here is what Aslan does. He takes a claw, one claw, and he starts peeling off the skin, one layer at a time. It is no fun, it is painful. Finally he puts it in really far and gets all of it and out pops a little boy. Repentance is necessary to be a Christian.
Fifthly, avoid arguments. You know, in our day if you got to close to someone and you were talking about things that were right and things that were wrong, there are a lot of people who would say, “Well that is just my lifestyle. I do that.” Or “how dare you to say that about me. This is the way I have chosen to live my life.” All kinds of different things. Or some people choose the way the woman did. She does it the passive aggressive way. She changes the subject and tries to get Jesus into an argument. Jesus very rarely gets into arguments. He does answer questions and he talks to the woman about her questions. She tries to get him to talk about whose worship is better – the Samaritans or the Jews. There is actually a couple sermons here, but don’t worry, were not going there. He avoids the arguments but he does answer the questions.
Then in the end, she sort of throws her hands up and talks about “the Messiah is coming.” You know, I have learned something in my life that when you talk with people you really have two choices. You can argue with them or you can talk with them. Usually you don’t have time to do both. Rarely is anyone brought into the kingdom by arguing. Now sometimes arguing is necessary. I once heard two people talking about a book. They were expounding their opinions about this book, but it was obvious to me that they hadn’t read it. Maybe they had seen the movie, maybe they had read the cliff notes, maybe they had heard about it from a news commentator but they were talking about it but they hadn’t read the book. How many people do that with God or the Church? Everybody has an opinion about God, and unbelievers, non-believers, say so many crazy things about God and the temptation is to go “Wait a minute!” But that will often not get them into the kingdom. Now sometimes you have to. Sometimes you have to answer the Bill Mahers of the world, the guy on HBO. You have to answer those people. You have to answer some of the points that people make. But if you are out to bring them into the kingdom, that often doesn’t work. Avoid the arguments if you can.
Then Jesus, through it all, has worked the conversation to say, “Guess what. I’m it.” “Guess what. I’m it.” Now what do we do with all this. Like I said, it is not meant to be a linear thing. Suggestions about, maybe talking with somebody over a period of months. The thing is that, and I want you to hear this, that it is not your job to bring salvation to anyone. You don’t save anybody. I don’t save anybody. Thank God. That’s God’s stuff. All our job is is to witness. It is to tell people about Jesus. Invite them to church where maybe they can find out about Jesus. That is all our job is. When it happens it is the most wonderful thing. It is the most wonderful thing to watch what God does in somebody’s heart.
What happened with this woman? Notice what happened to her. Leaving her water jar the woman went back to the town. She comes to the well with the idea of getting water. That is her main pain. She is going after the water. Now she has forgotten it. Something else has come, another kind of water. She has been born again. Her first impetus is to go tell everybody else. She is excited. It is fun to watch. It is fun to watch when people’s hearts get changed. It really is. That is the joy of it. If you have seen somebody come to Christ, there is nothing like it, nothing like it at all.
That is what I want to encourage you in. It is hard in our day and age. There are many, many people who are denouncing the faith. Many, many people who say, “Oh you shouldn’t do that. Just live and let live. Don’t share the faith. Let other people do what they want to do.” There is some sense in that. There is some arenas in which we can’t evangelize, but most people come to Christ through conversation. Estimates are that if you were to raise your hand here, I am not going to ask you to do it, about how you came to faith, I would suspect that eighty percent of you came through conversations with other people. Not through preaching, but simply talking to people over time, family members and friends. That’s what it is about. Attend what God has to do.
Let’s pray together.
Lord God, help us to learn from Jesus our Savior who didn’t shy away from sharing that he was the answer because you are the answer for the world today, above you there is no other. That is the message Lord God. Help us to learn how to share it, give us the courage to share it, give us the opportunities to share it. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.