Sermons

← back to list

Oct 16, 2016

Meet People Where They Are At

Meet People Where They Are At

Speaker: James Gallaher

Series: John

Category: Sunday Morning

What prevents you from befriending the lost of our world? Now is the time to cross the divide, to conqueror the prejudices, and to meet people where they are at, so they can encounter the Jesus they are desperately in need of.

Opening Scripture

Read John 4:1-38

v. 1-7  Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. There was a social divide based upon centuries of hatred towards one another. To the Jews, Samaritans were half-breeds due to an invasion by the Assyrians who intermarried with the Jews in 720 B.C.

Samaritans had invited into their worship of God the idols brought by these foreigners.

Jesus was standing in the face of all of this division and making a profound statement about how this kingdom was to operate.

We, church, have not done a good job of conveying this message to people. We live in a day where an entire group of people are questioning whether or not their lives matter.

Jesus was moving beyond the divide and declaring His kingdom was about meeting people where they were at. It was about whether or not HER life, a Samaritan woman, mattered to Him.

___________________

There must come a point in all of our lives where we, not they, cross over the prejudices and empty traditions of the past to encounter a society desperately in need of Him.

v. 10-26  Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

The timing of this encounter is unusual. This was not the traditional time to draw water and women did nothing alone, unless you were a woman of poor reputation.

v.6  So Jesus, being wearied from His journey…
Jesus had a need that prompted this conversation.

Christians, please stop being weird when you encounter people who don’t know Him. Meet people where they are at!

To this Samaritan woman, it became evident, this was something different, there was something intriguing about this man.

vs. 15-19  The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.

This wasn’t about immorality, this was about forgiveness. All of the conversations leading up to this Jesus was saying, “I know your story. I know your past and My offer stands. There is room for you in My kingdom. You belong to Me.”

Don’t tell me she didn’t have insecurities; don’t tell me she didn’t question her worth and then, even if she could get past all of that, there was still one major problem.

v. 21-24  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus begins to break down not just the religious divide but the Spiritual one. And then something remarkable happens…she begins to believe the words this man from Galilee is speaking.

v. 25  The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.”

She recalls an old story of belief about a Messiah who can finally repair her broken life, a Messiah she must have assumed had given up on her many years ago.

And now, here He is, breaking all sorts of tradition and protocol to meet with her.
_______________________

Our response to everything going on in our society today matters.

Your willingness to meet people where they are at and offer the same grace you have received is critical to the spread of the Gospel.

The result of Jesus’ interaction that day was a great increase to His kingdom.

v. 39  From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.”
_______________________

Digging Deeper:
Who in your life needs you to enter their world?
_______________________