Sermon Tone Analysis

What things in life delight you?

What do you live for?

What is it in this life that fills you with satisfaction?

A freshly brewed cup of coffee in the morning, sitting down in the quiet of the early morning, reading my bible and letting the Word of Christ dwell in my heart richly.

Walking out to my garden, that I put a lot of labor and toil into this year, and every day seeing the progress and the success of each plant.

Coming over to the new church building and standing in the new auditorium and dreaming of the future of this church.

Hearing my three year old giggle when I sing the “wheels on the bus” song.

What delights you in this life?

What should bring you delight, what should you be living for, what should fill your heart with satisfaction as a disciple of Jesus Christ?

What should the biblical delight of your life be?

What was the delight of the Master?

What was the one thing that filled Jesus Christ with satisfaction while He was here on this earth?

Last week we looked at the story of the Samaritan woman.

We studied the example of Jesus Christ the master evangelist.

We developed several principles of Christlike evangelism that we could apply to our own personal evangelism in an effort to become more Christ-like.

And we boiled all of those principles down into one statement: Our goal is to make people curious enough about spiritual things to read the Bible with us.

I would encourage you to go back and re-listen to those sermons if you missed it, or if it didn’t stick the first time because there is a lot of important “stuff” that we need to learn about our evangelism from the example of Jesus.

The narrative dealing with evangelism and focusing on the Samaritan woman ends in v. 26

Starting in v. 27 I believe the focus of the narrative shifts to that of Jesus’ disciples.

And it shifts from viewing Jesus as the master evangelist to instead looking at Christ as the master disciple-maker.

In vv.

27-42 Jesus takes the divinely appointed opportunity to instruct His disciples on what being a real-disciple maker looks like.

Remember Jesus has three years to get these guys up to speed.

After that Jesus ascends back up into heaven, and as he is leaving He gives them the Great Commission- Go into all the world and make disciples.

Here in John 4 we see Jesus wisely taking this real life opportunity to train his disciples to be disciple-makers themselves.

This is no class room setting- Jesus does this in the normal patterns of life.

And through this real life situation Jesus teaches the disciples several important lessons about what it means to be a follower of Christ and ultimately a disciple-maker themselves.

And I think we need to learn these same lessons, so that we can all be used by God, as disciple-makers for Jesus Christ.

What lessons do we need to learn from this story about what it means to be a disciple-maker for Jesus Christ?

I. Established cultural or religious “norms” may actually be detrimental to the real work of making disciples for Jesus Christ (vv.

27-30)

Actually, there is a subtle lesson in the beginner of v. 27 that the disciples almost assuredly missed in the moment of the day.

Perhaps, as they reflected back upon the day’s events weeks, months, or years later then they would have understood this subtle lesson.

Remember back to v. 26-

Jesus just reached the whole point of his conversation with this woman.

Jesus just point blank told her that He was the long awaited Messiah.

Remember everything that Jesus said to lead her to this point?

Jesus did not give people answers until what?

Until they were ready to hear them.

1. Become their friend before you become their preaching- Jesus asked her for a drink of water- he showed himself friendly.

2. Make them curious about spiritual things- He offered her living water, and she had no clue about what he was talking about- but eventually she asked for this living water for herself.

3. Help them to see their wrong thinking- Jesus pointed out her immoral lifestyle and how she had been seeking fulfillment in husbands instead of in God, and he pointed out the futility of her religious thinking- worship was not based on geography it was something done in spirit and in truth.

4. Don’t give them answers until they are ready to hear them- Jesus waited until she made a profession about the coming Messiah, and then and only then, when she was ready to hear the answer did he make the statement, “I that speak unto you am He.”

Now, think about the timing of all of this.

First of all Jesus just happened to pass through Samaria, and he just happened to arrive at the well at noon at the same time that she arrived.

And it just happened that Jesus sent his disciples into town to get food so He could have the time He needed to lead the woman to faith in Himself.

This all just happened right?

Wrong.

What do we call this?

Providence.

What is providence?

It’s that theological word that means God controls all contingencies, all circumstances, all exigencies, all choices, all events, all people, all time to converge to precisely fulfill His will.

It is the massive miracle of redemptive history.

(John MacArthur)

As soon as Jesus makes his statement that He is the Messiah, what happens?

v. 27a- Καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἦλθαν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ

And upon this exact moment, at this exact point in time, His disciples came unto Him.

What would have happened if they came 5 minutes earlier?

They would have interrupted Jesus.

What would have happened if they came 5 minutes later?

Look at the next verse:

What does the woman do?

She leaves and she leaves in a hurry.

Notice what does she not take with her? Her waterpot.

Why is that?

We don’t know exactly why, but maybe it’s that she is so excited (because she really believes what Jesus just told her), she has found the Messiah and she can’t wait to tell the whole town.

So if the disciples would arrived 5 minutes later what would have happened?

They would have missed Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman.

Now, that is providence!

Jesus timed his gospel presentation down to the exact second.

Thousands of minute details all converge together at exactly the right time, in exactly the right manner, exactly as Jesus wanted them to happen.

Illustration: Do you know that as a follower of Christ sometimes you get to see God’s providence at work through you?

The other day I was out driving in my car and I was praying about what God wanted me to do that day.

The Lord laid it on my heart to stop at on of the church member’s houses, so I stopped and no one was home.

I though, “well, that’s weird.”

So, I had to go stop by my mechanic and God opened the door to continue to build a friendship with him for the purpose of the gospel.

So we talked for an extended amount of time.

I get into my car and I had an extra half-hour before my next engagement and I prayed, “Lord, what do you want me to do now?”

At that exact moment a saw a truck drive by, and I recognized that truck.

It was one of the members of the church.

So I said to the Lord, “OK, thanks very much.”

I followed that person for a block or two where they pulled over and we had a half hour conversation about disciple-making and evangelism.

That is providence.

Strictly speaking this is not a miracle.

God did not alter the natural order of the universe, but He controls all contingencies, all circumstances, all exigencies, all choices, all events, all people, all time to converge to precisely fulfill His will.

And the cool thing is we get to be a part of it!

And, if we will just make ourselves available and have the heart of disciple-maker and learn the lessons that Jesus taught us all those years ago, God can use us providentially for His will.

And it’s not all up to us.

We just water and plant seed, but God gives the increase!

Coming back to our story we have to ask the question, why?

Why did Jesus plan for his disciples to see him talking with this Samaritan woman?

Look at v. 27 again.

What was the response of the disciples when they came back at the exact moment that Jesus wanted them to come back?

They “marvelled”- this means they were extraordinarily disturbed by something.

Why?

Well, Jesus was talking to a woman and a Samaritan woman at that.

Their unvoiced surprise that he was talking with a Samaritan woman reflects the prejudices of the day.

Some (though by no means all) Jewish thought held that for a rabbi to talk much with a woman, even his own wife, was at best a waste of time and at worst a diversion from the study of Torah, and therefore potentially a great evil that could lead to Gehenna, hell (Pirke Aboth 1:5).

Some rabbis went so far as to suggest that to provide their daughters with a knowledge of the Torah was as inappropriate as to teach them lechery, i.e. to sell them into prostitution (Mishnah Sotah 3:4; the same passage also provides the contrary view).

Add to this the fact that this woman was a Samaritan (cf.

notes on v. 9), and the disciples’ surprise is understandable.