January 19 Jeff Williams Bursting Your Bubble, Part 2
Good morning! Let’s do our homework first. Let’s get that over with. I know you've been studying hard all week 1Peter 3:15. You're excited. I can just see it in your face. You’re excited to show me what you've learned. Let's go ahead and put that on the board and say it. A couple of words are missing. Say it out loud.
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect 1 Peter 3:15
So every week we're going to have a few more words go away, and then in the last week we're just going to put up the reference and that's it. You're going to have to just know it and say it. If we have any first time visitors that week they're going to be so impressed with you. They're going to go, "Wow, what a church! Just put up the reference and they know the verse."
I’ve shared with you in the past about my background and my home, growing up in Rockford, the son of a first generation Swedish immigrant. As would often happen when you were an immigrant, you would come over to America you'd get the lowest paying job. So he got a factory job making very little. When I was almost five, my dad passed away. That left my mom who had to drop out of school during the depression to help the family. She didn't have a job that paid very well. I grew up pretty far below the poverty line. Our family never owned a home; most of the time never drove a car. We had to rely on other agencies for food and clothing oft times. I grew up in a four-family flat and lived there basically my whole life until I went to school. It wasn't anything to look at, still isn't. It's still there and it was old when I was a little boy.
There's a woman there, my neighbor upstairs, who lived there before I was born and still lives there today. She's lived in that apartment for fifty-five years. She's now eighty-seven years old and her husband just passed away. I've known them all my life. I visited her this week and just went to talk with her, talking to her and crying with her and praying with her.
I left the apartment and went downstairs. I have not looked in our apartment (which is downstairs and across the way) in sixteen years. I bent down and I looked inside that window where so many years of my life were lived and was just hit with a flood of memories. I saw my bedroom. I envisioned myself as a little boy playing games in there. My mom and my sister., just a flood of memories coming back. As I looked around that space, which would look like nothing to you and no place certainly you'd want to be. By the way the apartment was empty. It's waiting for renters. I’m not being a peeping Tom. Nobody's in there. I'm looking in there and you know what came out of my mouth? It was one word: home. It's what I said. I didn't plan on saying that. I didn't know I was going to say that. I just looked inside for a while and just went, “Home.” I wasn't trying to make a sermon illustration. It was just how I felt.
What's home to you? What does that mean to you? To me, home is the place where you feel like you belong, the place where you feel loved. It's the place that you wish you were, or you'd like to return to if you're not there. It's a place that you're fond of and there are memories there. It's home. It's where you feel comfortable. It's where you felt unconditional love.
I thought, also, about a gentleman. I read about a Japanese war hero who just passed away this week. Did you read about Hiroo Onoda? He's a Japanese soldier who was dropped down in the western Philippines in 1944 and his mission was to spy on the Americans. So he would. His mission was: don't surrender and don't die. You're not like a kamikaze who's going to give his life up. Your job is to stay alive, gather intelligence, and help us win this war. Well, when the war was won and Japan surrendered, he didn't believe it. He thought it was all propaganda from the West. It was a big conspiracy theory. So he stayed in the jungle and fought. For 30 years Hiroo lived in the jungle and fought a war that nobody was fighting anymore. For thirty years he scavenged for food trying to survive, trying to avoid the enemy. He tried to be a faithful soldier. He even took some lives of some people who he thought were from the enemy. They would drop down leaflets into the jungle and when Hiroo would read them he would say they were a lie, it was propaganda, it was a conspiracy. He thought they were just tricks to tell him the war had ended when it really had not. So he would continue to hide. It wasn't until his commander in chief put on his military garb, flew to the Philippines, walked into the jungle until he found him and said, “Hiroo, the war is over. Surrender your sword with honor and come home.” And he did. When his commander-in-chief came in there and told him the war was over that's the only time he believed it. So he surrendered his sword and bowed in respect and came home to a hero's welcome. For 30 years he fought the war.
You know that really sums up the Gospel. The Gospel is this: the war is over, surrender, and come home. That's the Gospel. God is not mad at you. We know people who will run from God their whole lives. They avoid church like the plague, and you will hear them say, if you invite them to church, “I don't want to go because the roof's going to fall in. If God ever gets a hold of me he's going to teach me a thing or two because I know I’ve done some bad things. If God ever gets my tail I'm in big trouble.” So they try to avoid God. They are fighting a war that's not there. God is not their enemy. God is not there to put his wrath on them. His wrath went upon his Son. What God is offering is grace and forgiveness and restoration. They don't know that. They don't understand that so they continue to run and hide. But the mission of the Gospel is to share that good news that you're not God's enemy and you need to surrender and you need to come home. Home needs to be a different place for you. Home needs to be not here on this earth but where God is and where the people of God are. So those are our orders. That's a tall order.
Let's look and see how Jesus approached that. Let's take a look and see him interacting with the woman at the well in John chapter four. You want to talk about bursting bubbles that we saw on that video? Jesus is going to burst a lot of bubbles here in this passage, alright? A lot of comfort zone breaking here. I'm going to begin reading with verse four, and in a little while I’m going to engage you in the reading as well. You're going to have to come out of your comfort zone a little bit this morning.
It says,
4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
So it's noon. The day is getting hot. Jesus is thirsty. He sits down by the well. Now here is where I'd like you to join in. I'm going to be the narrator. Anything that's not dialog, I will read. Men, you get to be Jesus. You'll say the words of Jesus. Ladies, you will say the words of the woman at the well. Anything in parenthesis I will read, okay? You will read dialog; I will do the narration. Are you ready? Are you coming out of your comfort zone? Alright, let's go.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Okay, we're going to stop there for a second. We're going to read on through verse thirty eventually, but we'll stop right there. Here's what's going on in the story. Here are the barriers that are being broken down: racial, cultural, religious, and gender. First of all, Jesus is a Jew and she is a Samaritan. A Samaritan was a person who was half Jew half Gentile, so there were racial prejudices between the two. The Jews really looked down on the Samaritans as second class. They were a reminder of what you were not supposed to do. You were not supposed to intermarry, intermix, with the other tribes and countries. That was a violation, so they are a reminder. They [the Jews] had a hatred, a visceral hatred, for the Samaritans. If somebody hates you, usually your response is you don't like them so much either. So there was hostility and tension between the two races.
There was religious hostility. Judaism wanted to be really pure, but the Samaritans had a melting pot of religions, a synchronistic melting pot, an amalgamation of different faiths that they had adopted. So they [Jews] looked at them as religiously impure. For Jesus to start a dialog with somebody of this other race and religion was taboo. What's more, to do that as a male, you didn't talk to a woman who was by herself. You just didn't do that, especially if you were a rabbi. You would avoid that woman. You wouldn't even make eye contact, and she wasn’t even allowed to speak to you. But Jesus starts a dialog, very out of the box.
Jesus is certainly putting her outside her comfort zone, I guarantee you that. She knows what he's doing is very outside the box, and she's going to tell him that. She's not comfortable with this dialog. Then Jesus starts to get personal, doesn't he? He starts divulging things about her past that there's no way he could know. You've had five wives... wait a second now, that's a different story. [laughter] You've had five husbands, and the man you're living with now is not your husband. Now those are impressive numbers. To be on husband-to-be number six. Those are Zsa Zsa Gabor numbers. [laughter] Only old people laugh at that joke. So if you laugh, not naming names, Jody. But anyway, that's a lot of spouses! Especially back in the day, if you had that many spouses, man! I mean, she's probably coming to the water to drink alone because she's an outcast. You normally would come in the morning; you'd come as a group and get all your water for the day's chores. She comes at a strange hour. She comes by herself. That's probably not a coincidence.
As soon as Jesus starts to probe into personal matters, what does she do? Does she engage in that subject? “Well, you're right. I have had five husbands. Here's what happened…” No, what does she do? She changes the subject. She starts talking about the mountain. “You know this mountain, we worship over here. Where do you guys worship?” Just total avoidance of the question. That's not uncommon. People are used to talking about the weather, or have you seen this movie?, or have you gone out to eat at that new restaurant? But if you start talking about substantive matters, don't be surprised when the person changes the subject. Don't be surprised if they avoid that because they think you're getting a little too personal. Jesus is so skilled that he softly addresses her concern or question and then brings it right back around. Let's continue reading. Let's start with verse 23...
23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28Then, leaving her water jar,
...and that is significant. It seems like a detail, like, John, why did you tell us that? Who in the world cares that she left her water jar. How in the world is that important to the story? That's huge! That's the reason she was there, right? The reason she was there was to draw water. Now what has happened is that represents a shift in her thinking. She was consumed with self, with the here and now, with the stuff of earth, and all of a sudden that doesn't even matter. She is now consumed with the things of heaven, with new life, with the news of the Savior. So, the water jar? The task that she had to do? That doesn't matter anymore. Something more important is here. Leaving the water jar, that's significant.
the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Revival is going to take place in this town through her. We might find, as a church, that it's the person you bring to the Lord who's going to do more good for the Kingdom than you do, and that's okay.
So what’s interesting in this story, to me, is when she says, “He told me everything I've ever done,” and she's excited about it. Don't you find that a little odd? “He told me everything I've ever done. Come and hear. Come and meet him.” If I said to you this morning, you came into church, and I said, “Now I can't tell you how we did this, but we've managed to capture, on video, everything you've ever done, and we're going to show it to the church this morning.” You'd be like - zoom! You're gone, right? You might even leave town, I don't know. But that's not fun for you. That's not something you're like, “Oh good, let me get some popcorn. I want to see that!” Because everybody in this room has done things that we don't want to share with the public. Hey, I'm embarrassed by that or I'm ashamed of that or that wasn't too good, right? But she said, “Everything I've ever done. He knows all about who I am and he knows about my past,” and yet, when she shares it, she's joyful about it, excited about it.
Read between the lines. What was the message that Jesus was sharing with her? We get some of the dialog, but we don't get all of it. What was he sharing? You know what he's sharing? “The war's over. Surrender. Come home. God's not mad at you. I mean, I know you walk around in shame and in guilt and I know people ostracize you. I know they reject you. I know they judge you, but you know what? God's not mad at you. God loves you. God is going to give. I'm the Messiah and I'm here today.”
She's no head of state. She's no rich powerful person. There's nothing she could do for him, but Jesus had an appointment with her that day. What does that say about our worth and our value? “The war's over. You've been running and hiding. You've been trying to find intimacy in all these relationships and it hasn't worked. You go from man to man to man to man to man and you can't find what you're looking for so you keep looking, and you'll never find it. You know why? Because it's only found in God. So surrender. Your way's not working. Come home. Come into the Father's Kingdom. Find a Father who loves you. Find the love you've been looking for your whole life. Come home to God.”
That's the message of the Gospel. That's what Jesus was sharing with her. That's why she's so excited to tell her friends. If he had been judgmental towards her and condescending, would she go home and say to everybody enthusiastically and excitedly, “Come and meet a man who knows everything I ever did and treated me like dirt! Come and meet him, come and hear him!”? The place for the lecture would be right here where he says, “Right you are! The man you are living with is not your husband. You've had five husbands and the man you're living with now is not your husband.” Insert religious lecture right there. That's where you put it. But it's not there.
You know the biggest problem with Christianity? Christians. The biggest obstacle for people coming to Christ is not Christ. It's not what he said. It's not what he did. Most people have no clue what he really said and did. It's Christians. We think somebody has sin in their life it's our business to lecture them and preach at them and let them know why we are so much more superior than they are. That kind of an attitude, that kind of approach just drives a wedge, and people do not respond to that. But all the dirt is there. The dirty laundry is all out in the open and yet Jesus still loves her. You know what your job is if somebody tells you about their past, their difficulties, their lifestyle? You know what your job is? It's to listen. It’s not to preach. As they come to the Lord, the Holy Spirit and his Word will begin to work in their life and cleanse them. It's not your job, okay?
I was playing basketball at the Club recently and one of my buddies was having a hard time. He was getting fouled a lot, and he was calling foul and the game was really intense. I hadn't gone on my dunking spree yet, where I take over the game and start doing monster slam dunks. I hadn't done that. Actually, I've never done that, but anyway. It was back and forth really intense and there was, “Aw, I didn't foul you! Come on, I didn't touch you!” He stops and he gives a speech right there on the basketball court.
He says to the guy, “Can you get in my skin? Could you come inside of my body and feel what I feel? Do you feel the sensation in my right arm right now from where you fouled me? Can you feel what my right arm feels right now?” He pauses for effect. “If you can't get in my skin and you can't tell me what I feel then don't think you can call fouls for me.”
Claps. Speech, great speech.
But I agreed with him actually, because I've felt that way. When somebody fouled you and you call a foul and they say, “Well, I didn't foul you.” How do you know you didn't foul me? You don't know. You're not me. You can't get in my skin, exactly. When you encounter these seekers or these people who are non-believers and they live a lifestyle that you don't approve of and you know the Bible doesn't approve of, your job is not to judge them because you can't get in their skin. You don't know how they live. You don't know what their past, their background was, and you don't know how you would have lived had you grown up in their surroundings and had their parents or lack thereof. You might have been worse than they are. You have no idea. Your job is to listen to, support, and guide them. This whole idea of Christians acting in superiority, in a condescending manner, is so diametrically opposed to what Scripture says. It says you are to do so in gentleness and respect. One person has said that evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. You've got nothing to boast about, okay?
Jesus comes and he just says, “Look, I know you've had a difficult past, but God loves you. You don't need to hide from him. You don't need to run from him. You don't need to go from relationship to relationship. Surrender and come home.” It's the Gospel.
I think another powerful point in this story is that God will use you in the here and the now and the everyday circumstances and events of this life. It's great that we have a team in the Dominican Republic, but you don’t have to get on a plane and fly to a different country to be used by God. Your mission field is right as you leave this parking lot. God can use you in your workplace, in your neighborhood, in your school, your home. You see? If you'd be willing to pray a dangerous prayer and say, “God, use me. God, I'm willing to come out of my comfort zone. Please open doors of opportunity for me to share my faith.” If you'll pray that risky prayer, that out of the “bursting your bubble” prayer God will put you in those situations.
One of our members forwarded me a story about a young preacher in 1960 in Texas. It was going to be his first church, one of his first sermons. It was Easter time, so he really worked hard to get the theological masterpiece together. You know, lots a big words and impressive sermon to let them know they hired the right guy. The night before, he was taking somebody home from the congregation. He dropped them off and he got lost because he didn’t know the roads. Now remember, 1960. There's no GPS, okay? Places aren't open late at night like they are now. Gas stations weren't open 24 hours like they are now. No GPS, no cell phones, right? You can't call his wife, can't call anybody else. He's just driving around hoping he can figure it out.
He doesn't figure it out. He runs out of gas. So now, he's got to get out of his car and just start walking. He starts walking down this dusty dirt road out in the country in Texas. There’s nothing around there. He finally sees, in the distance, a glow. He describes it as a glow. He walks towards it, and it gets brighter and brighter. As he gets closer, he hears music coming out, loud music. He finally realizes, as he gets closer, that it’s a Texas roadhouse. I don’t mean the chain where you get steak. [laughter] What time is it? We could end right now. Cinnamon butter, boy, that's...woo! Before you get me distracted, I’ll get back to my story. That’s good stuff! It's hot. Oh man! It's Texas roadhouse, but it's the kind of roadhouse where they're in there drinking hard alcohol. There are gangs in there and people are drunk and doing the things you do at a Texas roadhouse. They’ve got a bad reputation, roadhouses do. So, here's this preacher, he doesn't fit the mode. He comes walking into this bar and everybody looks at him like, who are you and what do you want?
One of the guys says, “Hey, there's fresh meat. Maybe we can get some money off of this guy. Hey new guy, come over here and play some pool. You play pool?”
“Oh, me? I haven’t played since high school, but okay. Maybe God has me here for a reason, so okay.” The preacher starts playing a game of pool. He breaks, and he knocks a ball in. They're playing eight ball, so he gets to knock another one.
The preacher said it was like God was guiding his pool cue. He ran the table. He knocked in all of his balls, and then he knocked in the eight ball. They’re like, “Oh, you’re a shark, huh?” They’re laughing. “You came in here to take all our money, huh? You’re a shark.”
He says, “Nah, I’m no shark.”
“Well, who are you? What are you doing here? We've never seen you before.”
“Well, I’ll tell you who I am. I’m a preacher here in Texas. I’m brand new. I’m at the church over here. I got lost and I ran out of gas. I saw this light in the road and I thought maybe there'd be somebody here who could give me a ride. I've got to get back home. I've got to finish preparing for Easter.”
One of the guys listening says, “What's Easter?”
The guy next to him goes, “Everybody knows what Easter is.”
He says, “Well, I don’t. I’ve never been to church before,” and he says, “What's Easter preacher?”
Now the preacher's got an instant congregation. He’s got all these guys leaning on their pool cues half drunk or stoned. He’s looking at them, and he's got his congregation. He's like, “I don’t think I can use my sermon for tomorrow morning with this crowd.” So he changes it a little.
“Well, there was this dude named Jesus and he had a gang of twelve. He roamed the countryside doing good things, helping people. But the authorities didn't like him and they wanted to get him, so they convinced one of his gang to rat him out. He ratted him out for money. They took Jesus, and they beat him, and they put him on a cross, and they killed him. But God brought him back to life. God said that anybody who believed in his Son could have everlasting life. And that's the story of Easter. I’m giving you a real quick rundown here. He said a little bit more than that. That’s Easter.
“Huh, never heard that before. Well, thank you Shark. Let's get you home.”
So he hopped on the back of a motorcycle. They drove off and took him back, said goodbye. He didn’t know if he'd ever see the guys again. He shows up for church Sunday morning. The service was about to start and you hear the sound of rumbling motorcycles outside. Seven big burly guys in leather jackets come walking into the church.
Usher’s like, “Can I help you?”
The leader goes, “We're just here to hear the shark tell the story of Easter again.”
Sat down and listened. Hey, God will do that. God will break your bubble. He’ll put you in those “out of the comfort zone” situations. Next thing you know he's got a congregation full of bikers from the Texas roadhouse. Do you want to take that risk? Do you want to be used by God or do you want to stay in your bubble? Well, I kind of like my world the way it is. I don’t want anything to burst it.
I've got to stop and we'll continue on next week. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for this important story of the woman at the well and for giving us a model of how we can interact, even in everyday conversations, about everyday things like drawing water and how you're able to turn that conversation into a spiritual conversation. How you're able to take a person who wanted to avoid talking about what was uncomfortable and gently bring that back around. How you listened to her and how you did not judge her, but you offered her forgiveness. The message that the war was over, to surrender, that your way hasn't worked, and come home. To find unconditional love through your Gospel. That is what you've called us to say. That’s what you've called us to demonstrate. Help us to do that, I pray. In Jesus name, amen.
