Open Your Eyes 2/17/2019

We know there must be some reason I was put here. We have, inside of us from birth this deep need to have a purpose. I want to address our purpose today. Let me say to you, if you are asking the question, yes you have a purpose.

Jesus had a purpose. He came with one purpose.

Luke 19:10 NKJV

for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Jesus had a purpose.

If you and I escape this earth and eternity having been saved. Jesus fulfilled His purpose.

His purpose was not.

to make life easier.

give us the fleshly desires of our heart - using a prosperity gospel.

He prospers us, but prospering is not always about money.

His purpose was to give you a hope to keep your eyes on, a healing to experience, and a heaven to look forward to.

To be Christian is to be Christlike, or at least to pursue being like Christ. We repeat the words of John the Baptist. “I must decrease, He must increase.” We say it with the idea of giving up some part of our life toward more Christ like righteousness. I agree, we should be striving toward holiness and righteousness to be more like Christ. After all without holiness no person shall see the Lord.

John the Baptist was talking about surrendering who people saw when they looked at the forerunner of Jesus. John was saying “if you are looking at me, look toward Jesus.”

John had a purpose. To be the forerunner of the Messiah.

You have a purpose.

2 Corinthians 5:18–20 NKJV

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

We are ambassadors for Christ.

I want to represent Him to the best of my ability. You want that too!

How would Jesus represent Himself?

John 4:4 NKJV

But He needed to go through Samaria.

Jesus was a Jew. This was not the direction that Jews normally took. They avoided this route. Because it would take them thru Samaria. The Samaritans were held in utter contempt by the Jews, and so there would be few if any dealings between them.

But Jesus needed to go. He has an appointment with a woman that He will meet at a well. So near the village of Sychar He sits down on Jacob’s well to rest. It is this setting that Jesus is going to meet her.

This woman is one of the best examples of the very culture we find ourselves living in today.

Samaritan Worship

The Samaritans were spiritual people. But they lacked knowledge. Jesus acknowledged this reality.

John 4:22 NKJV

You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

Samaritan worship was enthusiastic worship. But they did not accept the entire Word of God. They accepted only what we call the Pentateuch, first five books of the Bible. So their knowledge was limited.

They had constructed a temple on Mount Gerizim to accommodate worshippers who could not or would not go to Jerusalem. Even though their temple was destroyed in 125 B.C. Samaritan worship is still going on today.

They are enthusiastic, but they still lack truth.

There are people all around us who are enthusiastic in their worship. But they lack truth.

I heard one woman say of her church experience. “I grew up in a real conservative church. They still taught that fornication was a sin and stuff like that.” Sin remains to be sin. God has not changed. She is enthusiastic in her worship, but lacks knowledge.

Jesus is the Messiah, came to save us from our sins. If we believe Him, then we are to repent. Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and He will fill us with the Holy Spirit with the witness of speaking in tongues. An experience and sign that confirms what He promised.

The Jews were the opposite of the Samaritans. They accepted all thirty nine books of the Old Testament. They had the whole revelation of the teaching of salvation in the OT. They became locked in formalism that resulted in rejecting Jesus Christ and rejecting truth.

Both the Samaritans and Jews needed truth, but they did not know they were lacking. Today is similar.

There are people all around us, enthusiastic but lack the knowledge of truth. Lack the experience.

In this room today, for some of us this was your story. You believed, you were enthusiastic, but there was a part that was missing. Maybe more knowledge of truth. Maybe experience of receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues.

I remember we baptized a woman in Jesus name. While still in the water worshipping God she began to speak in tongues - it was beautiful. You could see the glory of the Lord fill her face as she spoke a language she had never known before.

I ask her did you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit? She said yes, I heard myself speaking in tongues. I will never forget what she said next. “all my life I have looked for a personal connection with my God. I finally know.”

I am telling that story because there are people all around who are enthusiastic about Jesus. They lack some knowledge of truth and they have a promise that God wants to give them.

They need an ambassador

Ambassadors are not obnoxious or abrasive. They are tuned in to God, and they are tuned in to the souls around them. Ambassadors meet people where they are.

Jesus uses the well and the water as an opportunity to strike up a conversation with this woman.

John 4:7 NKJV

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

John 4:9 NKJV

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 have no dealings with Samaritans.

She knew both cultures.

John 4:10 NKJV

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.”

Jesus carefully led her into an understanding of herself and into a revelation of who He was.

John 4:13–14 NKJV

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this 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 everlasting life.”

She wanted that water. She expressed her deep desire. “give me this water.”

Jesus caused her to confront her sins. “Call they husband.”

She tried to skirt the issue. “I have no husband.”

When we come in contact with Jesus He always confronts unresolved sin.

John 4:17–18 NKJV

The 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; in that you spoke truly.”

She quickly realizes that Jesus was a prophet and she asks about the Messiah.

John 4:26 NKJV

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

She could have just left enjoying the conversation. She could have went away knowing she was blessed to interact with the Messiah. Cherish the truth she had experienced.

She became an ambassador. She ran to the village.

John 4:29 NKJV

“Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

It was the power of her testimony that impacted a city.

John 4:39 NKJV

And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.”

You have a testimony. Come see what I have experienced, could this be the promise?

Call for music

She made it possible for Jesus to minister to an entire town.

John 4:41 NKJV

And many more believed because of His own word.

Jesus ministry touches lives of every part of society. The down and out, the up and out, the over and out. He did not let any prejudice or His own physical need to affect ministering to hungry hearts. When he spoke to His disciples as they left Samaria. He spoke of a world ready for harvest.

John 4:35 NKJV

Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!

Altar service

There are hungry hearts all around us. Suwanee, Gwinnett, Georgia is ripe for the Holy Spirit to be poured out. People all around us are enthusiastic, but lack knowledge. They are hungry. They want the experience you have.

One of my dear friends, a missionary came to stay with us. I picked him up at the airport, we went to eat, and drove a few places. He looked at me and said the people of this city are so God conscious, they want more of God but don’t know where or how to find it.

The fields are ripe. You could be the one who brings them to that experience. You could be the one who leads them to the revelation of more truth.

Maybe you need to deal with unresolved sin - repent. Take the next step - Baptism in the name of Jesus. Want the baptism of the Holy Spirit - ask believing God is going to give it to you today.

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