John 4:16-42 • The Mirror in the Well
Listen to the audio version of this message with the player below.
Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let's stand for the reading of this Word that we know our forefathers gave their lives to establish in our behalf. We're going to be looking at John 4. John 4.
In your Grace Bibles, that's page 889, and you may remember the context Jesus has just spoken to a woman at the well about living water
that will lead to eternal life. That has got her attention.
And Jesus continues the conversation. Verse 16 of John 4. Jesus said to her, "Go call your husband and come here."
The woman answered him, "I have no husband."
Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true."
The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."
Jesus said to her, "Woman,
believe me, the hour is coming when neither on 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 the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. 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 was called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things."
Jesus said to her,
"I who speak to you am He."
Just then His disciples came back. They marveled that He was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or "Why are you talking with her?" So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, "Come see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Can this be the Christ?"
They went out of the town and were coming to Him. Verse 39 continues the account as it deals with her. Verse 39,
"Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did.
So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed there two days.
And many more believed because of His word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know
that this is indeed the Savior of the world." Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, this word indeed is from and of the Savior of the world.
And with that knowledge, we recognize not only the goodness of His provision for us of this mercy that exceeds our sin,
but we recognize also the privilege, the wonder, the goodness of being able to say it to other people.
We don't have to have lives straightened up to do that. Here we have a woman, Father, who recognized mercy because of her great sin, and yet because she knew a greater love for her, she became one of the great instruments of the gospel in the Bible. So help us to take encouragement from her and from the acceptance of our Savior of her that we too might be instruments of your grace. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Please be seated.
These words
were too close for comfort.
If baseball legend Mickey Mantle had not asked that these words be sung at his funeral, we would have thought them too candid to be appropriate.
These are the words that Mickey Mantle requested to be sung at his own funeral.
Yesterday when I was young,
the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue.
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day, and only now I see how the years ran away.
I used my magic age as if it were a wand, and I never saw the waste and the emptiness beyond. The game of life I played with arrogance, and pride, and every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died.
Yesterday when I was young, so many drinking songs were waiting to be sung, so many wayward pleasures lay in store for me, and so much
pain.
My dazzled eyes refused to see. I ran so fast
that time and youth at last ran out,
and now the time has come
to pay for yesterday when I was young.
He requested those words at his own funeral, and in some measure we all understand. As one avenue after another of life's experience promised him happiness and satisfaction, and when he grabbed for it, he came up empty. Think of the opportunities, fame and fortune and great physical ability. He turned to family and to faith and to affairs and to the bottle.
Each in turn offering some satisfaction, some fulfillment, and each in turn
ending up, leaving him empty.
And so there at the end of his life, even after he'd spent those days in the hospital bed battling the cancer and in the TV interviews, still saying to young people, "Do not make me your role model. Do not follow my example."
He was nonetheless wanting to say to people, "My path
was the empty one."
How would you speak to him? I mean if you had been called in the time that he could listen to say something about fulfillment that was not in the wells of this world, but in something else that Christ offers, how would you speak to him?
I recognize the struggle, maybe you do too, because as we as a session, the leadership of this church have worked so much in recent months to think about how do we take this gospel that we so cherish and have so blessed our lives and send it outward to become outward facing, not just inward focused. How do we do that? Just in reading lots of things, I came across a book recently by a man whose name is Comer, and he simply quoted another pastor of a large church who said these words,
"We in our church know how to do ministry,
but not mission."
And when I read those words, I first felt empathy.
That's a lot like us. We minister so well to one another and to the things that we have hold dear, but how do we reach beyond the familiar people and familiar people? How do we do that? I first felt empathy, kind of like that's us too. We know how to do ministry and not necessarily mission, and then I felt guilt because I recognize it wasn't just us, it's me.
I know how to do ministry better than mission too.
And then finally I felt hope.
If here was a pastor willing to acknowledge as much and say,
"But we want to know more so we can make a difference and learn to do mission," if he's willing to put that in print and confess it, then
then maybe there's hope for us too.
That we can seek to learn from the scriptures how not only to do ministry, but mission. And of course the one to teach us is the Lord Jesus as he is here reaching across all kinds of boundaries for the sake of the mercy that he wants to extend. If we were going to express the gospel in the pattern that he is establishing, what would we do? It seems to me the first step that's obvious is that we would move toward others.
I know it sounds simple. It's actually not my words. There's a senior
citizen of our congregation here who told me a few weeks ago about an experience of being in the church and a a person came in who wasn't a regular and by by his appearance and his body art in some ways was saying I'm not accustomed to this setting and the senior wonderful saint here said I just kind of watch people part and move away. And so he said all I did was
move toward him.
I just moved toward him.
And I recognized in the goodness of that heart and direction so much of Jesus is doing in this very place.
You may recognize in verse 9 that Jesus is willing to cross all kinds of social barriers just to move toward this woman. Remember he asked her for a drink in verse 7 and she in some ways tells him why that is so odd in verse 9. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew,
asked for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?"
The barriers are obvious. She's a Samaritan, which means in that era in that time she's of the wrong region.
She's of the wrong religion. She is of the wrong race. She is of the wrong gender according to a Jewish perspective at that time. There are all kinds of barriers that mean that Jesus should not talk to her. Listen, if she even touches the cup out of which he is going to drink, she will pollute it according to Jewish custom and he should not drink from it. I'm trying to think how we would express what it means that Jesus is just saying, "Would you give me a drink?" Because to us it sounds a little abrupt, a little like, "You serve me," and we don't recognize what a gracious expression of movement it is toward her where he should be going the other way and staying apart and saying, "You're just scummed to me." Instead he's saying, "Can I drink from your hand?"
If you weren't thinking Samaritan, if you were thinking leper,
someone whose
extremities were falling away,
and there was the oozing of wounds about their body and they were covered in claws that stank, and would you say to such a person, "Would you give me a drink?"
Or would you say, "Get away from me."
The mere fact that he asks
is a statement of willingness to cross the boundaries and encouragement to her.
I think of it in terms of my wife, Kathy, who you know loves playing the flute and has done that for many years, but I think of one of those early moments in her life that she talks about that so inspired her and gave her the desire to move forward. She was in a little country, elementary school, a fifth grader, kind of just learning to play the flute, and got a visit,
the school did that day, from a flute player who was a flute master in the St. Louis Symphony.
And at some point through the day, he just sat next to her and said,
"Would you play for me?"
She doesn't know enough. She's a child. He's an adult. He's the master. She's not. She doesn't know how to play well, and yet the simple willingness to listen to her was an expression of care that became an inspiration and a path of life. Or, "You care enough about me to move toward me and to take value in what I offer."
It sounds so simple, and yet it is so important that a step in sharing the gospel is just to move toward people.
In order to do that and have it be meaningful, the next thing that Jesus obviously does in that, in that willingness to move toward
is He identifies the thirst that's in this woman's life. I mean, obviously the physical thirst is apparent. She's going to a well. But you and I now know things about her life that then only Jesus would have known.
And that is, she has tried many times through relationships with men to find satisfaction. And now, she's living with a man, not her husband, and trying to find satisfaction in that as well. And all Jesus uses the conversation to do is to kind of identify the thirstiness in her life. The conversation as He has led it thus far is just saying, "I'm willing to offer you living water."
So that you won't get thirsty, subtext, you won't have to keep coming here daily in embarrassment to face everybody who knows that you're a loner coming at noon because you don't want to face other people.
I'm willing to offer you something that is eternal, some into your shame, some into your thirst, it seems, for relationships. And just to make sure the point is made when she says, "Oh, I want some of that water."
He says, "Go call your husband."
I want you to go find the bottle, the thing that you think has been bringing you satisfaction, and compare it to what I'm offering you. It's, I know it may be a bad analogy, but it's just Jesus saying, "I'm looking for the empty bottles in the trash can."
Where have you been trying to find satisfaction for your thirst and it just keeps coming up empty? And what Jesus does by moving closer to this woman is He just begins to say, "Where are you thirsty? Where's what you've tried not satisfying yet?" Now, expect us to all kind of object a little bit, "Well, yeah, great for Jesus." But after all, I don't have Jesus' x-ray eyes. You know, I can't say, "Now, let me see. You've had five husbands and then, you know, we can, I don't have that ability.
How am I supposed to see into other people the way that Jesus does?"
Well, look in the mirror.
She has a thirst. She is looking for things in this world to bring her satisfaction. And that's not just a Mickey mantle, and that's not just a woman at the well. All around us are people. We are those people at times who have said, "My satisfaction is going to come from the things of this world." And yet, having tried it, we come up empty.
I saw a report earlier this week of
what lots of young people are doing, particularly this day in our culture. On YouTube, right at this moment, there are 500,000 videos of young women, primarily between the ages of 9 and 14, which have only one question attached.
"Am I pretty?"
Looking for the affirmation of strangers to tell them, "Am I okay?" Am I okay?
And just think, if they got the affirmation, do you think they would really be okay?
In a culture of relationships are so fractured that that we recognize our marriages are coming apart. And even when the marriages stay intact so often, there's not the adoration and affection that we wish were there. Our nation's pursuit of divorce to find someone else, of gay marriage to find a whole nother way of finding relationships that satisfy, of young people growing up in fatherless homes and therefore looking for relationship after relationship and multiplicity of someone who makes my life meaningful, all of it is just people saying, "I'm thirsty."
And as much as these things are crisis and Christ for help, they are cracks for the gospel.
Is there thirst in you somewhere?
I thought of the,
how do I say it, the best and worst example at the same time of of these young women who are looking for affirmation? One was one girl who posted a video and this was the question, "Am I pretty
or beautiful
or ugly
or nothing?"
Am I nothing?
Somebody tell me that I have some worth, somebody tell me that I have some dignity, somebody appreciate me in some way. I'm just desperate to satisfy this thirst in me. And of course, it's not just young people. The famous statement of G.K. Chesterton who said, "Every man who knocks on a brothel is actually looking for God," is actually affirming that what somebody has tried is this relationship and that relationship and this physical relationship and that and still looking. I'm still thirsty.
And of course, we recognize that thirst isn't going to be satisfied in this world and what Jesus is teaching us through the encounter of this woman is moving towards somebody, is moving past barriers, but at the same time it's it's looking for how people are still thirsty and be willing to identify it.
And having identified this this thirst that people have, then something else begins to happen.
There is care
before there is convincing.
Listen, she's had five husbands and the man she's with now is not her husband. And Jesus in speaking to her, knowing it, knowing it's already true, says, "If you knew who was offering you the gift of God," which by the way is what he identifies himself to be, you would have asked him and he would have given you
living water. He would have given you the end to your shame, the end of your thirst. Now you must recognize she's not straightened up yet. This expression of care is for somebody who's still a mess. And of course in a little bit he's going to say, "And the water that I would give you would become in you a well of water, welling up into eternal life. I'm even offering you a relationship with God." And if you will, the shocking
aspect of this accounts is the fact that it's never said if she leaves the live-in or ever makes things right by getting married. I mean, it just doesn't say in the account. What we recognize is without life being entirely straightened up, Jesus is saying, "I'm willing to offer care
before I know that you've been convinced of the rightness of what I'm saying."
That's tough.
Because our tendency is to say, "I will unfold you. I'll care for you." You can become a part of the love of this community if you become like us.
But here is love being extended before conformity has come along. There's care before there's been convincing occurring.
Now if that sounds like it's just kind of some soft statement of the immediate,
you just have to first examine your own life. And listen, lots of us here, we have friends, we have family, we have loved ones who are not walking with the Lord or walking the other direction. And if I were just to ask you honestly, who do you hope comes into their lives right now?
Who do you hope comes into their lives? Do you want the verse quota?
Or do you want the heart connector?
The person who has the right answers and the right verse and identifies all the or do you want the person who's willing to say,
"I know all your problems. I know all your differences. Would you give me a drink? Would you just, would you just connect with me?" And I'm willing to care for you before you become convinced of the rightness of my position. And my guess is, while we want people to have the right truth and the right verses, we pray desperately for somebody to come into those dear one's lives who connects with their hearts, who's willing to care for them before they become convinced.
If that sounds like it's too soft and it sounds like it's not historic, you must recognize that as our choir kind of celebrated the Reformation forefathers that we had, this was one of the great revelations of the American expression of the Great Reformation. As the English Reformation was moving into this nation, two of the great proponents of it around the time of the Revolutionary War were John Wesley and George Whitfield.
Wesley, as the name sounds, was Wesley and her Methodist in approach. Whitfield was more reformed and presbyterian in his approach. And they had different approaches, as it were, to the way that they even conducted their revival campaigns.
Wesley, the Wesleyan,
insisted before he would preach in a region that the churches of that region would establish what were known as redemption fellowships. We would call them small groups.
That as people were being awakened to the gospel by his preaching, before they might have been converted, before they might have had everything straightened out, that there would be small groups, redemption fellowships within the body of the church to begin to receive and care for those people who were walking along on the path to faith.
Whitfield,
the great reformed and presbyterian preacher, at the end of his life was asked about John Wesley. The two were friends, though they were on different paths. And Whitfield said it this way. He said, "My brother John, before he preached, insisted on the fellowship groups."
And as a result, he saw great fruit to his labors.
He said, "I did not insist upon such groups, and as a consequence, those who were awakened to the gospel by virtue of my ministry are held to the church.
With ropes of sand."
Did he say the right things? Of course. Were there wonderful movements of the spirit? Yes, there were. But when it came to life-changing experience, those who learned to care before total convincing occurred. Were those who bound hearts to the church long-term.
Now having said that it has to be care before convincing does not mean that there's not something that we stand for and need to make just playing.
Even as Jesus is moving toward this woman in all these ways, as he's crossing barriers, as he's showing care before she's become convinced of anything, at the same time when the moment is ripe, he is willing to stand firm.
You recognize that, don't you? Even as he is moving toward a relationally, there are certain things that he's willing to stand firm upon.
Among those things are the nature of sin, the nature of salvation,
and who he is.
If you would take into account the the nature of sin, you recognize that Jesus has not tap danced here. He has not minced words. When he says to the woman after she confesses in verse 17, "I have no husband," he says in the same verse, "You are right in saying, "I have no husband."
For you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true." What did he make playing?
She knows the consequence. She knows that by having all these husbands and now living with a man who is not her husband, that she is in that society well identified as a sinner.
And he simply does not avoid that. When the time is ripe, when the conversation, I can't tell you not always when that is, but what I do recognize is Jesus is willing to say, "You're wrong. This is sin."
At the same time, he identifies salvation clearly, particularly its source. I want to spend a little time here and recognize the the amazing thing that happens in terms of its relevance to our age.
The woman having had her sin identified in 19 says, "Sir, I can perceive you're a prophet."
After all, you know what's going on in my life.
And then verse 20,
"Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." Now, what is that?
Here is this
whatever of modern culture in ancient terms.
She's saying, "Well, okay, maybe I've done something wrong." But after all, some people say we ought to worship there, some people say we ought to worship there. I mean, who knows what's right?
Jesus says to her, "Listen,
you worship what you do not know. Your worshiping on that mountain is wrong because salvation is from the Jews.
There has been a plan of God from Adam to Abraham to David to the lineage of David that results in Jesus. And Jesus says, "That is the path of salvation." Salvation is through the Jews. There are not many roads. There are not many messiahs. It's not just your faith is as good as their faith. Your religion is as good as their religion. He says something as politically incorrect as saying,
"There is no other name given among men under heaven by which you must be saved than mine."
And that reality of how do I say this, seeming intolerance is just going to be received as bigotry in her age as much as it is in our age, right? I mean, if you say Jesus is the only way, people will say to you, "What a very unloving and unkind thing to say." And you know what? They are exactly right.
Unless what I just said is true.
If he is the only way, if he is the messiah, if he is the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world for the world,
then to point people to anything other than Jesus is
faulty,
unfair, unkind, and ungracious.
To say he's the one as he is the one is the most gracious thing to do. And what Jesus is willing to say is not only just that the path is the path from the Jews, but that he is the fulfillment of that path. He is the messiah.
Is that difficult to say today? I mean, recognize when this woman is saying, "Well, you know, maybe it's that religion, maybe it's that religion, you know." Well, who knows? Does that sound like any era you know?
I want you to recognize something wonderful that's happening as a part of this church's ministry this day. There's kind of a gap over here on this side today. Do you know why? Because a lot of campus outreach young people are in St. Louis today. And they are in St. Louis, 350.
Many of them not convinced yet of the things that I'm saying or that we wish they were taught. And Mike Jackson, our campus outreach minister, is speaking to 350 young people of the truths of the gospel. And he is saying clearly,
there are not many ways. Jesus is the Sabbath. You have been thirsty. You have been seeking other things and not finding it. There is an answer to your thirst. And the reality of that is it's the young people of this church and of this world who, if they are faithful to Jesus Christ, will face much greater opposition than most of us have faced in older generations. It's truly they are the warriors, the saints, the valiant ones of the next generation who are willing to say against the the ear that says it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're good and some god who are actually saying, "No! Salvation is from the Jews and Jesus is the Messiah."
That's true courage. And it's standing firm about the things that are truly gracious to people because they are true.
If you're just going to say those things,
standing firm,
sin is real and salvation is of the Jews and Jesus is the Messiah. You have to understand you're going to face rejection. Why would anybody risk that?
Because of what Jesus says.
Verse 23, "The hours coming in is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and
truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him." God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Jesus is testifying to the work of the Holy Spirit. That those who are truly captured by God, whose hearts are united to Him, aren't just united by some physical ritual, this mountain or that mountain, this church or that church. It's the physicality is not the point He's saying.
Nor are they people who are simply captured by words and propositions.
You have your truth, you have your truth.
No, He's saying those who are united to God are those who are united in spirit and truth. That there is an operation that is supernatural by which the spirit that is within us is united to the Holy Spirit of God by His work, working by and with the Word, Spirit and truth. But nonetheless, the work of the Holy Spirit begins to happen. And reason we would say what is true standing firm is because we believe what Jesus believed. He trusted in the Spirit.
To do what was beyond human truth, to do what was beyond human effort and endeavor, to actually believe that the Spirit was at work.
If you don't, I must tell you any witnessing for God is very lonely.
I think of it an experience of some years ago. I was I was pastoring a church in another part of the state and at that point a man at some
week invited me to come to his house for dinner. Great. What would you like me to bring? Well, just bring your Bible, he said. Because my son is here on leave from the Navy and I want you to save him.
Well, I kind of thought that might be a little beyond me. I mean,
you know, I mean, I don't have those words. You know, I don't personally have, you know, the truth, the convincing argument, you know, whatever it is that supposedly just changed the heart of somebody. But what do I have?
I have faith in the Holy Spirit.
And I recognize that the Holy Spirit with wisdom beyond ours, knowing the hearts and the circumstances, the lives and the context and the cries and the crises of all of our lives, knows the moment that is ripe to awaken in a heart a reception to the word of truth. And I recognize that if I'm willing to stand firm and speak what is true, I am not alone. That the Holy Spirit is the helper, is the one who is there to take words and make them penetrate hearts in the way that my argument, my logic, whatever it is, doesn't do. And that's the great wonder that if we are moving toward people and saying what is true, that hearts can open to the gospel in ways that we can hardly fathom.
A few weeks ago in this church, there was a couple that visited and they wrote me later.
And you'll love this. This was great.
The man wrote it and he said, "My wife and I truly enjoyed our visit at Grace last Sunday.
I can't remember the last time we visited a church where the congregation was so genuinely friendly."
Hey, he's talking about this church. [laughter]
"From the time we entered the sanctuary, we were made to feel as if we were long-time members. A gentleman came up to us prior to your greeting, talking to me and introduced himself. Complined my family, offered us a gift from the Grace Praise Team.
Probably the thing that impressed us the most was the elderly lady that sat in front of us. She was wonderful. She introduced herself, her husband, talked with our daughter, her husband and our son, as if she'd known us forever."
Now, I want you to recognize what happened was it was just the most ordinary of moving towards somebody. Some of you would recognize about this couple not everything right in their life.
But as somebody simply moved toward and offered a heart for the gospel, the gospel was understood to be present in a way that moved forward with power. We're not alone. If I think of people in my life, if you think of people in your life, and I'm going to ask that you do that even right now, you begin to think of people that you're scared to talk to because they know you too well. They know your faults. They know your flaws. They know how you don't always live up to the gospel you yourself affirm. You think, "How can I possibly be a witness?" Well, to move toward and stand firm for truth does not mean you've reached perfection.
It means that you are willing to say, "I believe in the work of the Spirit that's greater than me." And that's why I'm moving forward and saying what's true. The evidence of that kind of work of the Spirit is what happens through this woman's testimony. Do you remember? As Jesus was talking to her in verse 26 saying, "I who speak to you am he that Messiah." The disciples come back and they're kind of confused about why he's talking to the Samaritan woman. So verse 28, "So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people,
"What? Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" They went out of the town and were coming to him. And verse 39 picks up a little bit more. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. I want you to think about it. I mean, this is really amazing. I mean, she's at the well and she hears from Jesus and she goes back to her town and in that little journey she gets a seminary degree and an education that teaches her all the theology she ever...
Is that what happened? That didn't happen. I mean, there's a number of shocking things that are going on all at once. I mean, one is simply this. We don't pick it up because we're not in that culture. It simply says, "She left her water jar at the well." Now these were large water jars and they are the connection to life for the people of that culture. It's drinking water. It's purification water. It's cleaning water. It's all that the family needs to survive day to day to leave this at the well. I'm trying to think what you compared. It's kind of like a law you're saying, "I left my laptop at the library." Or a woman saying, "I left my purse at the grocery store." Or somebody who's traveling saying, "I left my passport at the ticket counter." I have done that, by the way. You know, suddenly you're panicked. I mean, this is the very thing I need to survive. I've got to have this. And yet she is so shocked that the evidence of it is she leaves her water jar and goes, "What's the shock?" The first shock is that Jesus knows the worst about her and is there for her. Let me tell you about somebody who knows everything I ever did but claims he's the Christ. If he knows everything I ever did, that's a miracle in itself. And if he's here for us with me, that's a miracle too. And it's so shocking to her. And you get the sense that she's just kind of bathing in the wonder of this. Now if that's the case, if you kind of bathe in the wonder of the gospel, what happens next? Well, you know what happens. You know, you rinse and then you repeat, right? You rinse and the wonder of, "He knows the worst about anybody that's here for me." And then what do you do? You repeat it. You tell somebody else. And that's what she does. She goes to the town and says, "Let me tell you about this man who knows everything I ever did. And could it be the Christ who's here for me?" And even the wondering question is another shock revealed in that her having established that the Messiah is here for her then says, "It's true."
And the next miracle is they listen to her. They listen to her. And they come to the town. Now ultimately you must recognize that Jesus follows the pattern too of repeating. They say to this same Jesus, "Would you stay with us a while?" And the Jewish rabbi stays in the Samaritan town for two days. He's still overcoming barriers. He's still caring before convincing. And the fact that he's willing to repeat and her repeat what's happening means that the gospel is multiplying.
Let me tell you about somebody who's helped me. I didn't deserve it, but he came for me.
Folks, we can do this. This is a matter of just identifying what would tend to push us the other way and saying, "I'm going to move toward instead." And having moved toward, stand firm to say, "You're thirsty with the paths that you've gone down. There's another path. It's the path with Jesus. And he's the Savior. And he can by his grace offer an end to your sin and shame and your thirst for satisfaction in these wells that have already come up empty."
And if there's question about the validity of that, then the last thing you can do is say,
"I know it because this is what he did for me." I think of the power of Jesus instructing people, just say what happened to you. It doesn't have to be a great theology lesson. You don't have to have all the verses memorized. Do you remember in Mark 5, there is that demon-possessed man
who lives naked among the tombstones and is so filled with demonic power that everybody's afraid of him. They can't even constrain him with chains. He just breaks them. He's the most disreputable, not credible person you could imagine. But when Jesus has healed him, has brought mercy into his life, what does Jesus say to this man? These simple, simple words.
"Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you."
Isn't that great? You don't have it all straightened out. You don't have to have your life all fixed. Will you just go home and tell people there what God has done for you through Jesus? You know, the people who actually study it, the most classic study on this was done by two researchers, when in Charles Arne, father-son. And they looked at churches across this country and simply asked people the question, "Why are you here?" 90% plus of the people said, "Because a friend or family member told me about Jesus." It wasn't the preacher. It wasn't the radio program. It wasn't a wonderful tract. It wasn't a great theological because a friend or family member told me. Even more recent study has been done in the northeast, the urban northeast, particularly in Connecticut, where only 4% of the people there claim to be Bible-believing Christians. I mean, it's virtually a non-Christian culture that we can imagine in any other part of the world. And yet, where 4% are Bible-believing Christians, 75% even of them in churches. When asked, "Why are you here," say, "a friend or family member told me about Jesus?" It's true power in that. If a friend is saying, "Listen, I don't have all the answers. I don't have my life straightened up, but I can tell you this. He was gracious to me, and I'm not thirsty anymore the way I used to be."
If we can say that, the Holy Spirit can use it and the gospel can progress. You know, Mickey Mantle asked for one more song to be sung at his funeral.
Some of you recognize the name Bobby Richardson. Bobby Richardson was a second baseman played for the Yankees during the time of Mickey Mantle. And Mickey Mantle often referred to Richardson not always in the most pleasant terms, sometimes derided him as a man of faith who seemed too straight-laced. But in one of Mickey Mantle's books, he talked about actually respecting Bobby Richardson, a man who would stand for his faith even in a culture that sometimes made it very difficult. And at the funeral, the one who did the eulogy for Mickey Mantle
was Bobby Richardson. And Bobby Richardson told the account of there was Mickey Mantle, cancer-ridden, in his hospital bed, every avenue that he had pursued, it left him thirsty, and the person that he called at that stage in his life was Bobby Richardson.
Tell me what you believe. And then finally, when the reporters ask Mickey Mantle, "What do you believe?" Do you know what Mickey Mantle said?
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That is what I believe." And the last song that Mickey Mantle asked to be sung at his funeral, through his friend Bobby Richardson, who kept moving toward him through all the jokes and all the jest and all the anger and all the distance, he just kept moving toward him with care before convincing,
was the one who asked people to sing Mickey Mantle's last request. What was it?
"Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see." You can say that. You can say that. We can do this. Move towards somebody. Think who they are right now. Who do you need to move toward? You can move toward them. Say what you need to say.
Tell them Jesus showed his grace to you.