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Well, good afternoon. If you would like a handout for the lesson this afternoon, just raise your hand. There are some gentlemen who are walking around and are sharing those with you. I would encourage you to get one of those if you can. It might be helpful to you, not just for the lesson tonight, but for something I'm gonna ask you to do with that beyond this afternoon.

So... And if you'd like to open up your bible to John chapter four, John chapter four is where we're going to be for all of our lesson tonight. John chapter four. We'll read a few other verses from John, but primarily, we'll be right there in John chapter four, and we'll start reading in verse three here in just a moment. John chapter four and starting in verse three.

Try to be really careful and mindful when it comes to applications that I make to lessons. I want those applications to be helpful. I want it to be something that you can take and actually use practically in your everyday life. And so a lot of times, what I'll do when I'm thinking about applications to make the lessons is I'll try them out in my own life. I'll workshop it for a little while.

I'll try and do it for a month or two. And if it really sticks for a while, well, I know this is something that's gonna be helpful to you. But that's not possible with every lesson or every application. And so sometimes I think, hey. This is something that could be good.

This that might work. And so let me suggest this, and maybe this was something that that will work for you even though I've personally tried it myself. So it's been a couple of years ago now. I came up with a little acronym for for evangelism, and I shared that with, our high school class, at the Monday night meeting. I had a little, portable whiteboard that had a white paper on it, and I wrote it up there on there.

And I shared that, and later I shared it in a class in the back, but it was not something that I intentionally did myself. But a few months ago, the geaselings, where Monday night meetings were being held, they came to our house for some reason, some event or something that we were hosting, and they brought that portable whiteboard slash place where you could write on the big pad of paper. They brought it and say, hey. You've left this at our house for months and months. Here it is.

You can take it back. And so I took it and I put it... This is the garage, and you see it right there? There is that portable whiteboard. And so I put it up there.

Maybe it's Providence. I put it up with that side where I had written that acronym on it. And I've seen that for the last several months multiple times every day as I'm going in and out of the garage, and I started really trying to go through those steps, that acronym. Some of you are writing it down. You got really good eyes.

Here's a little bit closer there. CARES is the acronym. I figured out this really works. This is really helpful. And so I wanted to share it with all of you tonight, and our lesson this evening is Jesus cares from John chapter four.

But each of those letters is gonna stand for one of the steps that I've been trying to do as I talk to my friends and neighbors about evangelism. You're writing feverishly. It's gone. You're gonna have to write it as we go. So Jesus cares, and I wanna take it here from one of my absolute favorite texts in all of the Bible, and that's where Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at the well.

We learn so much from Jesus and the way that he interacted with people, and I think we can make great applications from what we see and the way he interacts with this woman. Jesus cares, and so should we perhaps in just these same ways. Will you read with me beginning in verse three? John chapter four starting in verse three. He, Jesus, left Judea and departed again to Galilee, but he needed to go through Samaria, which certainly was unusual.

I suggest he needed to go through Samaria because he knew this woman was there. He knew he was gonna have this interaction with her, and he knew it needed to be recorded for us to read and study and even talk about tonight. He needed to go through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there.

It's a well that Jacob dug, not the well where he met Rachel. Don't get that in your mind. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. Likely, that's noon according to Jewish time.

It's possible that he's using Roman time and that's six in the afternoon. Either way, it's hot outside and nobody else is coming to the well to draw. Verse seven, a woman of Samaria came near to draw water. And Jesus said to her, give me a drink. Or maybe your translation says, will you give me a drink?

For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews, John tells us, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it was who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Here's the first thing that I think we see here as we think about approaching someone, talking to someone about the gospel, about Jesus Christ, evangelism as we call it.

Jesus cares and so should we, and the c stands for consider the person. Consider your relationship with that person. Again, I did this with a bunch of teens. I didn't have room for yours, so consider your relationship with that person, both them and what your relationship with them is. Is this someone you've just met?

The way you approach them is gonna be different. Is this someone with whom you have a lot of history and a long standing relationship? The way you approach them is gonna be different. Is this a friend or a family member or a work relation? The way you might approach your boss and talk to your boss regarding the gospel might be different than the way you approach an employee because of the power dynamics contained in those relationships.

Certainly, the way you talk to a teacher is gonna be different than the way a teacher might talk to a student. Starting when I did my student teaching, I got into this habit. One day, I was taking my backpack with me. I had a bunch of my stuff in it, and I had my bible in there. I said, here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm just gonna put my bible on the desk that I'm using while I'm doing my student teaching. And so I just put my bible there. I turned it where it said holy bible. It's really clear what it was. And I knew that I'm not supposed to be initiating those conversations with the students, but I had that bible there.

And what happened was they commented on it, and they asked questions about And that's a that's a relationship where you have to be careful about how you're gonna handle that, how you're gonna go about doing it. But considering that relationship ahead of time can be helpful to us. We think about Jesus and this woman in verses nine and ten. They both recognize the barriers in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans. And Jesus says that she needs to know who he is and what it is that he offers her.

This is their first interaction, certainly as far as we know. We assume this is their first interaction, and yet Jesus knows this person and approaches her in just the right way. So here's what I want you to do. Maybe you've written down consider the person, consider your relationship with that person on your handout, or maybe you're taking your own notes and writing these things down. But here's what I want you to do now.

This is a little interactive. I want you to think for just a few minutes. I want you to think about someone that you have a relationship with, that you've interacted with, that you do not believe is right with God. Someone with whom you have influence of some kind, someone perhaps that you've had conversations with or you know you should have conversations with. And here's what I want you to do.

I want you to write their first name or maybe write their initials up there by the c on that handout. So think about that. In fact, this is gonna be wildly entertaining, but that's not why we're here. I'm gonna give you a minute to think about that and write that down. Not bible class.

I'm gonna give you a minute to do that. Wait a minute. It's a long time, isn't it? Alright. You have...

At least have someone in mind. Give me a thumbs up if you at least have someone in mind. I want you to meditate, not just right now, but I want you to meditate this evening and tomorrow about that person and your relationship with them. I want you to pray to God about that person and your relationship with them. I want you to try and identify some things about that relationship.

In John chapter three, Jesus had interaction with a very different person that was Nicodemus, And I suggest and have suggested that Nicodemus in chapter three and the Samaritan woman in chapter four kind of presents the spectrum of all the people we're gonna come in contact with who need the gospel. So think of this person where you've written their initials or their first name. Where are they on the spectrum from? Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews who knows he's saved and has all this background and all these sorts of things to the Samaritan woman who's an outcast of an outcast, knows she's lost, and needs all the help in the world. Where does this person fall on that spectrum?

Ask yourself questions like, do they think that they're saved, that they're right with God or not? Do they think that they're moral or immoral? Are they moral or immoral in their activities? What's what's their background? How much do they know about Christ?

How ingrained are they in what they believe? Ask yourself those questions, and then try and formulate how you might interact with them in order to make the most impact. There there are all kinds of examples we could give for this sort of thing. I know of a young lady who grew up in Kentucky and grew up in a Christian home, a very strong Christian home, and yet she wandered away from the faith in college and ended up teaching English in Asia. And there, she met a man who was also teaching English, and he was Buddhist.

A romance blossomed, and they started talking about religion. In fact, they started getting serious enough that they were talking about marriage as well. And she's like, well, I know I'm not doing right, but this whole Buddhism thing ain't gonna work for me. And so they start talking about it. And through that relationship, he decided he was gonna prove her wrong.

He became a Christian, and now he's a preacher of the gospel. Well, they had that relationship to build upon. And maybe you think about someone and you think you know the right approach with them. I remember when I was in graduate school, I was going to school with someone who's... Was a Mormon, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saint.

So Latter day Saint, I think they like to be called now. And we had had a couple of conversations, and she she asked me if we could sit down and study. And so I came loaded for bear. I had this whole stack of, like, photocopies I got from someone about why the Book of Mormon is unreliable and how all of these changes have been made and so forth. And so we're about to start our study, and I set this stack on the table.

And she looks across the table, and she says to me, you know, I know the Book of Mormon is wrong, and I've known it for a long time. And so I took the stack and put it back down. Right? And she said, what I really want to know is what Christianity looks like without the Book of Mormon. And so you know what we did?

Totally different from what I expected in this relationship. We opened up our Bibles. We talked about Christ. We talked about his mission. We talked about the church, and she was baptized into Christ and became a Christian.

So consider those relationships. But I want you to be warned. This is not judging those relationships and these people on whether or not we think they would accept the gospel. That is not our job, and we don't have the power to do it anyway. If we are making those kind of judgments ahead of time, we're making two mistakes.

First, we're overestimating our ability to judge someone else's heart and character, and secondly, we are underestimating the power of the gospel to change people. But our approach should be impacted by the person. This Samaritan woman does not look like a good candidate up to this point, But we see that what Jesus does to initiate all of these things is that she asked her a question. In the NIV, the NLT, and the message translation, it translates it that way. Will you give me a drink?

Jesus is asking a simple question to start a conversation. And in John's gospel, Jesus was often doing this. In fact, Jesus' first recorded statement in the gospel of John comes from John chapter one, if you turn back over there, John chapter one and verse 38. John chapter one and verse 38. Then Jesus turned and seeing them following said to them, what do you seek?

And they said to him, rabbi, which is to say translated teacher, where are you staying? Jesus' first words in the gospel of John are a question, a question to Andrew that ultimately led to he and Peter coming to Christ. And he was always asking questions of the characters with whom he interacted. You go down to chapter one and verse 50. Chapter one and verse 50, he interacts with Nathaniel, and Jesus answered and said to him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?

You will see even greater things than these. He asked lots of questions of Nicodemus in chapter three and verse 10. Chapter three and verse 10, Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and you do not know these things? Again in verse 12, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Again, there are lots of questions in chapter four, but if we go on to chapter five and verse six, this invalid man by the Pool Of Bethesda, Notice what Jesus says to initiate this interaction with him in verse six of chapter five.

Then Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, and he said to him, do you want to be healed? What a question. And no doubt that spurred something in this man that ultimately leads to his healing and then his acceptance of the truth. And even those who were contrary to what Jesus was preaching, who were against the gospel message, In John chapter five in verse 44, Jesus asked questions of them as well, the Jewish leaders. How can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes only from God?

Verse 47. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? Jesus was always asking questions of people. And so often, that's how he initiated these discussions that came up between he and others. And may I suggest we need to be doing the same things?

Not necessarily probing the heart with the same precision as Jesus does here. Just be interested in people and ask people about themselves. What is the favorite topic of most people? Themselves, their kids, and their grandkids. Well, ask about it.

Ask about their hobbies. Ask about their work. Ask about their weekend, their complaints, their health, and be genuinely interested in people because of the souls that they have. And we're gonna talk about that more here in just a second. But I want you to go back then to John chapter four, and let's read verses 10 through 15.

So we have this relationship. Jesus asked her a question, and she's gonna respond to that question. And what Jesus does beautifully is something that we should seek to do as well, and that is relate the responses to these questions to something spiritual. Read verses 10 through 15 with me. John chapter four and verse 10.

Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock? Well, yes, of course, Jesus was, but she didn't know that, at least not yet.

Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water, this physical water, will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life, everlasting life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. It starts with a woman in a water pot. And a question that is asked of her, will you give me a drink?

But Jesus' intentions were always spiritual in nature, and she keeps, over the course of the conversation, turning things back to the physical. And most of the people with whom we interact are gonna feel somewhat uncomfortable talking about spiritual things, and so it's gonna be easy to run back to the physical. But as spiritual beings focused on spiritual things, we should keep turning things back to the spiritual as well. There are all sorts of questions that we might ask. What did you do this weekend?

And maybe somebody asked that of us. That's perfect. Right? Because what did I do this weekend? Well, I went and worshiped with the saints.

Maybe we ask people, how's your mom if we know that she's been sick? Or we say, I'll be praying for you because we are and will be. Maybe something comes up in the midst of conversation and we say, hey. There's a Bible verse about that. Or even better, we're able to quote that verse in such a way that it applies to what's going on.

Whatever the case, our interactions with people can't just be nice and pleasant forever. At some point, spiritual things need to be brought up, and that's exactly what Jesus does. But Jesus doesn't stop there. What he does next is he expands this woman's understanding. He challenges her so that she might understand things better and more deeply than she did before, and that's the next thing we should do as well.

Seek to expand their understanding. Keep reading with me in verse 16, if you would. John chapter four and verse 16. Jesus said to her, go, call your husband and come here. Woman answered and said, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, you have well said I have no husband for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband and that you spoke truly. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. And so she has a religious question for him. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. How does Jesus respond to that controversy?

Well, he answers her question, but he's gonna expand her understanding beyond the question that she asked. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the father. You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. The Samaritans had this kind of hybrid religion that that took in a lot of aspects of paganism with some aspects of Judaism.

They acknowledge the first five books of the Old Testament, though they didn't really follow them. And so they have this kind of mishmash of true and false religion altogether. And Jesus says, there is a true place to worship, a right place to worship under Judaism. It's in the temple in Jerusalem. But let me tell you that something greater is coming.

The hour is coming, verse 23, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus masterfully expands her knowledge about him and who he is, her knowledge about herself and her sin, and her understanding of what proper worship looks like. And maybe we read this and we say, I could never do that. Like like, accomplish all of those things in just a few words.

Well well, maybe not. We're never gonna be as perfectly aligned with what someone needs in our speech as Jesus is. But what's our goal in terms of their understanding? Well, maybe part of that goal is just to shake them up a little bit from what they already believe. I like the images of give them a pebble in their shoe that just kinda wears a little bit.

Give them a burr under their saddle. Give them a seed in their hearts. In the old westerns, John Wayne was always talking about people having a burr under their saddle. Raise your hand if you've heard that before, burr under your saddle. That's something we actually had to deal with in West Texas, burrs under the saddle.

This is what I always thought of when I thought of a burr when I was a little boy, that small prickly little sticker seed, because I'd get that in my feet. And I would say, you know, a burr in your saddle, that's gonna hurt, and you're gonna feel that really quickly. But I think, actually, what this phrase is talking about are more of these rounded burs that aren't quite as sharp. They're larger. Either way, what these burs do is they attach to anything.

Velcro is actually based on burs. And when it does, it pokes and annoys you and doesn't wanna let go. And so what happens with horses a lot of times is when you put the saddle blanket on, these burs have attached to that rough material, and so it rubs between, the saddle blanket and the horse's back, and it annoys the horse and bothers the horse. Well, that's what the word of God can do if we'll let it. It'll work on somebody's heart.

It'll rattle around in there to where it just kind of annoys them. I wanna know if this is true or not. We want to get the gospel message, the word, the truth of scripture into people's hearts and minds. We want it to be an irritant that they can't ignore, that they have to deal with, an itch that they have to scratch, where they believe and are forced to ask the question, what will I do with Jesus? At that point, we're there to help and assist, but it's between them and God.

And we can water the soil and put them... Point them in the right direction if possible, but they have to decide how to act on that annoying belief in their hearts now that they've been exposed to the truth. Again, the goal is to put a pebble in their shoe to get them to think about it, for it to be in the back of their mind working on their heart, rubbing a little blister that can't be ignored anymore. The image that Jesus uses is not of a of a pebble or of a of a bur. Jesus says it's like a seed.

It's a small thing planted and watered, and over time, that small thing can grow in the hearts of people until it becomes a great tree that the birds can nest in. That's what faith That's how faith happens. And what we must do is plant the seed and let the seed do its work. I think that's helpful. At least it's been helpful to me.

Evangelism... Personal evangelism is personal. It's about the relationships we have with people, but it's also like a relationship in this way. Grand gestures made a few times are great. And when it comes to evangelism, I think a lot of times that's the way we think about it.

A grand gesture. You know, I'm gonna really pray for them, and then we're gonna study this, and then they're gonna be baptized, and it's all awesome. But a lot of times, the way this happens is progress over time through consistency where the small things continue to add up. That's what we want in relationships, and that's what Jesus wants of us when it comes to these relationships where we're bringing them to Christ. That means a comment here, a discussion there, a business card handed over here, a Facebook post or a comment there, an invitation, a prayer, hospital, an attendance to a funeral, answering a question, giving a kind word, being a consistent godly example.

Another invitation may be followed by a visit. And lo and behold, over the course of time, so often people see the light, and they give you the first opportunity to preach the gospel, to evangelize. And that's what we all should be doing because we care. And so we consider those relationships. We ask questions.

We relate those responses to something spiritual, and we seek to expand their understanding so that they can see the truth more perfectly. That was the acronym to start with. And it's great because we could say we care, but I thought about this, and I realized that it falls short in one way, certainly of what we see here with Jesus. And so now I have to say we cares, which doesn't work quite as well, but it works with saying Jesus cares. Because I think there's one more thing.

As it is, this acronym maybe feels a little formulaic, but what's our goal when we interact with someone? What is our goal when we interact with someone? May I suggest it is not just to save them? Maybe, ultimately, that's what we desire, and that should be our goal. But I think also our goal is to know that person, be known by that person, to have a relationship that hopefully lasts for all eternity as we both submit ourselves to Jesus.

And that's dramatic, maybe, but it's true. This can't be just some formula we follow. It must be genuine. And so I add an s to the end of this, seek a deeper connection. And isn't that exactly what Jesus does?

There is this back and forth between this woman, physical and spiritual things, and Jesus keeps pulling her, pulling her to the spiritual. He tells her that there is the time coming when true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth. And it seems as though the woman is ready to end the conversation. She throws up her hands and says, well, agree to disagree maybe in some ways. Because in verse 25, she says this, the woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called in Greek Christ.

When he comes, he will tell us all things. I know you're a prophet. Maybe we don't agree on these things, but the Messiah's coming. He's gonna work all this out. And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.

I've tried through the years to put myself in the shoes of this woman, and, usually, it's all about this interaction. But I want you to think back as she's walking up to the well, and she has no idea what's about to happen here. And sometimes these connections, these deeper connections are made when we least expect it. Jesus, multiple times, is trying to go deeper with this woman to have a closer connection with her, and she keeps throwing up barriers and he keeps trying to break them down. He answers her question, but he says, we've got something deeper to consider here.

And this is not manipulation or trying to butter someone up for the gospel. Loved ones, if we're gonna be successful in bringing the gospel to a lost and dying world, we have to be interested to start with in a lost and dying world. We have to love them, but we have to be interested in them, that they are people too created in the image of God. And that means we have to go beyond surface level interaction and seek to know the person because we care about their soul just like Jesus cares about their soul. And where did all of this caring lead?

Led to an unexpected outcome. Read with me there in verse 28. Then the woman left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, come, see a man who told me all the things I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Then they went out of the city and came to him.

Drop down to verse 35. Jesus says to his disciples who come back to him, do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest? Asking another question. Behold, I say to you, Jesus says, lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they're already white for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

For in this, the saying is true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap for what you have not labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labors. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified. He told me all the things I ever did.

So when the Samaritans had come to him, they urged him to stay with him... Them, and he stayed there two days, and many more believed because of his own word. Then they said to the woman, now we believe, not because of what you have said, for we ourselves have heard him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the savior of the world. Isn't that where we're trying to get? Where people say to us, I believe not because of what you have said.

I believe because I see it for myself. So here's what I'm asking you to do. I want you to write those things down on your handout or if you've written them down for yourself and either take this sheet or make it prettier or make it uglier. I don't care. Make it uglier.

Maybe that'll be helpful to you. But put it up somewhere where you can see it every day, and then seek to do these five things as much as you can in your interactions with other people so that we might bring them to the one who can bring them to eternal life. If you're here this afternoon and you're not yet a Christian, well, we want a deeper connection with you. We want to know you as you are, but we also want you to know that Jesus can change you as he has changed us. And if you're willing and know that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the will...

The living God, and you're willing to confess that before men, if you're willing to put off who you were, that old man of sin and repentance, you can be buried in a watery grave called baptism so that you might rise to walk in newness of life. And if you're already a Christian and you realize you've not been living as you should, not giving that example to others as you should and you want to make things right, Can we pray for you? Can we pray with you? All you have to do is come while together we stand and while we sing.