Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Keith Miller in his book The Scent Of Love tells of the young intern who was brilliant and competitive, and wanted to get his hands on the toughest cases that came into the hospital.

One day a man was brought in very sick.

His temperature was high, his blood count was down, and his fluids were out of balance.

He was in bad shape, and this young doctor said, "I'll take him."

He started working on the sick man and got his temperature down.

Then he got his blood count up, and his fluids in balance.

Everything was going quite well, but suddenly the patient died.

The supervising physician came by just as the intern was covering the patient, and he noticed he was furious.

He watched unobserved from the hall as the young doctor grabbed the chart at the front of the bed, took a pen out of his pocket, and scrawled something across it.

Then he stormed angrily out passed the supervisor, and never said a word.

The older physician could not resist going into to see what he had written.

It said, "This patient was in better condition when he died then when he first came to me."

This is in the same category with the statement, "The operation was a success, but the patient died."

It sounds strange, but this is the goal of the physician of the soul-to make sure people are in better condition when they die.

Corrie Ten Boom got the warning that a Jewish orphanage was to be raided, and all the babies killed.

She quickly got some of her Dutch boys dressed up in Nazi uniforms, and sent them to the orphanage to demand that the babies be turned over to them.

With tears they were handed over.

The people did not realize that they were really saving the babies.

All were given to families to raise.

One of the boys involved in this clever rescue said to Corrie that he believed the most important work of his life was the saving of those babies.

Corrie said to him that as important as it was, the more important work is saving people forever by telling them of Jesus.

She put her hand on his shoulder and said, "Pete, every Christian is called to be a soul winner for Jesus.....and in your life there will come a times when you will see that as the most important work for you.

Six months later he was arrested, and given one week to live.

The day before he was executed he wrote this letter to Corrie.

"All the boys in my cell are sentenced to death.

I am so glad that I could tell them about Jesus and they have accepted Him.

I know that when they shoot us tomorrow, we will all go to heaven, because we have brought our sins to Jesus and He has made us all children of God.

We know that the house of the Father with many mansions is our very close future.

I see now that the most important work for a Christian is to win souls for eternity.

Like the young doctor, this young physician of the soul could have written their death certificates with these words: "These boys were in better condition when they died then when they came to me." Jesus could have written this concerning the thief on the cross as well.

This is the ultimate need of all mankind.

We cannot solve the problems of the world.

It will be a fallen world until Jesus comes again, and it will be a world of unsolvable problems and crooked paths we cannot make straight.

But we can make sure that the victims of this fallen world are in better condition when they die, then ever before.

That is the great human need that Jesus addresses in John 4.

He does not offer the woman at the well marriage counseling, or some advice on self-esteem therapy.

After being rejected by five husbands, she no doubt had a head full of psychological problems.

Jesus did not inquire if there were children involved, and offer her family guidance, or legal advice on how she could get out of Samaria and start a new life.

This woman may have had more problems than we could imagine, but all Jesus offered her was a spring of water that would well up to eternal life.

He was not solving all her problems, but He was offering her the chance to be in better condition when she died, than she ever was before she met the Messiah.

The point I am getting at it this: Man's greatest need is for eternal life.

There are a great many studies on man's basic needs.

He needs food, air, water, shelter, clothing, and he needs love and security, self-esteem, and a host of other things for the ideal and balanced life.

But the bottom line Biblically is, man needs God.

He needs to know he is a child of God, and a part of a family that never ends.

This woman at the well had five families that ended, and we do not know what state she was in with her present family.

Jesus offers her a chance to be a part of a family where she will be loved permanently.

Her wells kept running dry, but Jesus offers her a well that will never run dry.

He offers her a place where she will always belong.

This meets her basic need for love, acceptance, and security.

This whole passage is about meeting needs, and it leads us to focus on another principle truth about evangelism-the purpose of evangelism.

Let's review the key truth that Jesus is teaching us in John 4. We have looked at-

1. HIS PASSION FOR EVANGELISM.

2. HIS PROCEDURE IN EVANGELISM.

3. HIS PROSPECTS FOR EVANGELISM.

4. HIS PURPOSE IN EVANGELISM.

This last one is our focus now.

There are literally thousands of definitions of what evangelism is.

I have written a couple myself.

Here are some of the most famous:

1.

The Madras Foreign Missions Council, "Evangelism is so to present Jesus Christ to the world in the power of the Holy Spirit that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, accept them as their Savior and serve Him as their Lord in the fellowship of His church."

2. The World Council Of Churches, "Evangelism is so making Christ known to men that each is confronted with the necessity of a personal decision, yes or no."

3. Toyohiko Kagawa, "Evangelism means the conversion of people from worldliness to Christlike godliness."

4. Albert W. Beaven, "Evangelism is simply the contagion of enthusiasm for Jesus Christ.

The methods which we employ are only channels through which this enthusiasm flows."

5. Archbishop Temple, "Evangelism is the winning of men to acknowledge Christ as their Savior and King, so that they may give themselves to His service in the fellowship of His church."

6. Samuel Boon of Siam, "Evangelism means living, doing, and talking for Christ."

There are many ways to say it, but when you reduce it to its essence, evangelism is simply meeting mans basic need for salvation, or the need for eternal life.

When this purpose is achieved, there will be many changes in time, but the ultimate value will be, people will be in better condition when they die than they were before they met the Great Physician.

As we watch the Master at work in fulfilling the purpose of evangelism, we see how the entire process is need oriented.

Jesus deals with each person He encounters according to their need.

Find a need and meet it was His strategy.

In John 3 Jesus said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again."

This analogy of coming into the kingdom of God by the process of a new birth has so dominated the minds of modern Christians that they have completely ignored the fact that Jesus never once referred to it in dealing with the woman at the well.

His analogy here is tailored to meet her need, and He uses the analogy of drinking at a fountain that never runs dry.

For Nicodemus, and millions of others, the concept of being born anew is just what they need to grasp the Gospel.

But for others, the need is to see being saved is like finding a fountain of water that quenches the thirst for love, meaning, and acceptance.

Still others need to see it as being a lost sheep found by a loving shepherd, and being returned to the fold.

There are different analogies used in the Bible to describe the experience of being saved, because the people who need to be saved have a variety of individual differences.

Jesus did not treat people like pieces of plastic coming along in a assembly line, all alike, and all needing the same label attached, or the same hole drilled in the same place.

People are all different, and though they all have the same ultimate need, they have very different temporal needs, and these need to be addressed in witnessing to them, and leading them to have their needs met in Christ.

We should all have a sort of canned presentation of the Gospel prepared, but we need to be aware of the importance of being flexible, and not so locked in to a specific presentation that we ignore people's differences.

If all you ever say to people is, you must be born again, you are not being Christ like, for He only used that as one of several analogies of salvation.

So use them all, and vary them with the circumstances, and the nature of the people you are dealing with.

This woman was at the well in the heat of the day, and she was obviously in great need of water, so Jesus takes this need and builds His presentation of the Gospel around that need.

Jesus said you need living water, and this got her attention, for that was her most relevant need just then.

A wise witness will observe and listen so as to know something of the needs of the person he is witnessing to.

If the Gospel does not speak to a felt need, you can count on it,

it will seem irrelevant to the person you are talking to.

If the purpose of evangelism is to meet a basic need, then you have to be dealing with a persons need to get anywhere in achieving this goal.

You can never catch fish unless you appeal to a need.

They need food, and so you offer them bait, and a variety of bait for appeal to different fish.

You also have to appeal to a need to be a fisher of men.

That is why Jesus has so many different names and titles in the Bible.

Each one makes Him just what people need at a particular time in their life.

To the lonely, Jesus is the friend.

To the lost, Jesus is the Good Shepherd.

To the sick, Jesus is the Great Physician.

To the ignorant Jesus is the teacher.