Four Takeaways from Jacobs Well - John 4:1-43

1:42And the question becomes to me: what are we to take away from here? I mean, I hope this passage has come alive to you. We have spent quite a few hours in this text, and I have spent far more in my personal study. And this text really came alive to me. And I hope you have been forever changed for the better as a result of our time for being here at Jacob's well. I have. In fact, that's the goal of studying God's Word, isn't it? That we would come to the text, that we would see the Christ in the text, that God would speak to our souls, that we would be changed, and that as a result of spending any kind of time in God's Word, we leave forever changed.

2:40And I hope you've been forever changed. But the question is: what takeaways are we to have? If I were to just summarize a few key truths to make sure we took away some eternal truths that should forever change us, what would they be? Well, that's what I want to do. Do this morning. I want to speak to you about four key truths that I want us to take away from Jesus' time at the well with this woman. And I want us to take away these four truths so that these truths will forever shape our lives and forever shape our ministry here at Emmanuel Baptist Church, that we will have been blessed and edified and strengthened because of our time in the Word. So, what are the four takeaways? I mean, there are many takeaways. In fact, I could spend another seven lessons going through some of the profound, deep, rich truths that are in this passage. I mean, this passage is truly rich.

3:53I only pray that I've been somewhat responsible in communicating them because I feel like there's so many left on the table. So, how do I reduce it to just four? Well, I want to speak to you this morning about four of the truths that really impacted me personally, and certainly truths that are fitting for us today and for us as a church. So, I want to four takeaways. Four takeaways. First takeaway from Jacob's well is the baptism. Of a human soul, the value of a human soul. I don't want you to spend the kind of time that we have spent in John chapter 4 without coming away with an appreciation for the value of the human soul, of every human soul. In fact, I think it's clear that as a result of seeing Christ's love for this woman in this passage, I do not think that we could ever leave here and despise any person, no matter who they are or what they've done, if we have been taught in any manner by this passage.

5:14The value of this woman's soul is seen in Jesus' insistence in going through Samaria. If you'll look at John chapter or 4, verses 4, we'll be bouncing around here. But in verse 4, Scripture tells us he had to pass through Samaria. There was a divine necessity that drove him to go through Samaria. It wasn't just expedient travel. In fact, as we looked on the map, it doesn't even make sense for him to go back that way.

5:44But it was for the gospel's sake. Something expedient for the gospel's sake. Living water had to be given to a thirsty goal. I'm sorry, to a thirsty soul. We see the whole trial. Mayun God involved in this endeavor. So the value of this woman, this woman, let this forever mark us. And look at this, look at the second, the value of this woman's soul is seen in his readiness to receive her. Can't go through this episode without understanding Jesus' willingness and readiness to receive this Samaritan, immoral woman.

6:32And this whole episode is just an illustration of the amazing lengths of the condescension that God is willing to go to to receive a person. The woman, we spent some time on this, was of a despised class. She was everything that the honorable Nicodemus wasn't. In fact, pious Jews considered Samaritan women as perpetually unclean. And I could actually reach you a codified section of the Mishnah that would probably make your blood boil. But it basically says, in effect, that the daughters of the Samaritans are perpetually unclean from their cradle. That was how despised she was. And then this was an immoral one. So everything she touched, everything would have been unclean. Well, when Jesus asked her for a drink in verse 10, he bridged so many gaps. He bridged the ethnic gap. He bridged the gender gap. And he even bridged the moral gap to display his readiness to receive this woman.

7:54He came down to her level. Why? Because he loved her. In fact, one of the always a blessing, and you've seen this image before: a great big old man stooping down to talk to a little child. You ever seen that two-year-old wanting to talk, you know, looking up at you like this? And this big man coming down, stooping down to speak to a child. Well, that's the picture of Christ. This is Christ stooping down to listen, to engage a soul. Listen, don't miss this truth. To him, to Christ, this woman had great value, great value. The world certainly did not place a great deal of value on her life, but Jesus sure did.

8:51Listen. Listen, if we can ever understand the value of a human soul, it will. Change us. It will mark us. You know, every soul in this room will outlast every kingdom of the earth. Do you know the souls that we pick up in all of our outreach activities are going to surpass all of the kingdoms of the earth? There is a permanency. There is a value that I don't think we can ever get our minds around.

9:43But Christ valued human life. He didn't come to redeem a system of government. He came to redeem humanity. Never forget that. The kingdoms of the earth are like scaffolding. They're going to be gone one day. Listen, I don't know where you are today. And it doesn't matter what your ethnic background is, what your gender, or what you think your gender is, or your moral background. It doesn't matter. Jesus places a great value on you. Make sure you understand that.

10:30Great value. Great value. So make sure when you leave here, when we leave this passage, that you're left forever with the impression of the value of a human soul. And let that mark this church. In fact, if you hang around with us very much time, you'll learn we spend a lot of money on people who cannot, or even if they could, would not give it back to us or contribute. But we do so because we value human life. Why do we value human life?

11:10Because Christ did and does. And we are to reflect Him. Let this change you. Let this woman, let Christ's love for this woman impact your life. Second takeaway: the necessity of living water. The necessity of living water. The value of the human soul is logically followed by the necessity of living water. Without living water, the human soul is lost forever. What is living water? What is living water? We looked at it carefully when we were walking through it, and certainly there are many different ideas as to what Jesus meant by living water. Living water.

12:02But a lot of the understanding of what living water is usually centers around that it's something, it's a gift. And I certainly agree with that. It is certainly a gift. And I certainly agree with this quote that I will read to you by one commentator. Living water is the gift of grace, mercy, and peace which shall be in the heart of him who receives it. It will be an overflowing source of comfort and satisfaction and spiritual refreshment. It will continue to flow up not only through this life, but into the life eternal.

12:46And whoever receives this gift of living water has a fountain opened up in his soul of spiritual satisfaction that shall not be dried up in this lifetime or the life to come. I certainly agree. That is a great expression of what living water does. But it doesn't answer the question of what living water is. What is living water? Well, it's very clear that living water in this analogy is something that comes up into the human soul, the broken cistern. Jacob's well is a spring-fed water. Well, something coming into the soul of man, something that comes in, renews, refreshes, giving life. In fact, the way Jesus describes living water in this passage is it's very clear that it contains the very properties of life itself.

13:53And it's not pixie dust. It's not a force. What is it then? What also has in itself the very essence of life? Well, we've already been introduced, right? What, or maybe I should say, who is living water? John 1:1, we already know the only one already described in this gospel as containing the property of life is the word. John 1:1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In him, in the word, was life.

14:49And the life was the light of men. I believe we reach an inescapable conclusion that the very essence of living water is the very spirit. Of Christ himself, the very Holy Spirit of God. It is not the spirit of fallen man that is going to find delight and satisfaction in the Father's will. No, it is the spirit of his only beloved Son. And this is what being born of the Spirit in chapter 3 is all about. You have to be born again.

15:28You have to be cleansed and renewed by the Spirit. This is also consistent with the whole imagery of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, baptism in the Holy Spirit, which John the Baptist speaks about in chapter 1. He is the true baptizer. Three images, being born of the Spirit, being baptized in the Spirit, and having living water come into your soul, all speak of the same reality. God's Spirit in the soul of man. That's what refreshes. That's what cleanses. That's what satisfies.

16:12In fact, it is the very promise of the new covenant. In Ezekiel 36, 27, I will put my Spirit within you. And he's speaking to the nation of Israel. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave your father. Forefathers, so you will be my people, and I will be your God. What is necessary to bring about Israel's long-term stability in the land is a very new spirit. In fact, now keep in mind the significance of where Jacob's well is geographically, right? Right in between the mountains of what? Mount Gerizim, mountain of blessings, and the mountain of curses, Mount Ebal, right in the middle is Jacob's well.

17:00It's necessary. Why is it necessary? Why is living water necessary? Well, it's necessary to cleanse from sin, it's necessary to remove the guilt of sin, it's necessary to bring life, it's necessary for the soul of humanity to be, of humanity to be satisfied in God Himself. Christ was totally satisfied in the Father. Totally. You see, we were made to bear the image of God. His Spirit in us is absolutely necessary for God to accomplish His purpose for man.

17:45And the one thing you and I are going to have to learn in this life is that we're not God. We are not God. In fact, humanity, that's the lesson that the image-bearer of God is going to have to learn. We are not God. And boy, look around the earth. We're not God. We can't figure it out. We're not God, but we are made in God's image. We are to reflect God. God is a spirit. We're not God, but we were made to reflect God so that others can see God.

18:26How do you see a spirit? Well, that's what man was made for, to be the image bearer of God. And the one thing that's absolutely necessary for you and I to bear the image of God is God's Spirit, so that in every situation, no matter what it would be, that we would reflect, that we have a relationship with God, and what comes out of us is the response of God himself, and that others would see God.

18:56Yet we are not God. So in the whole marriage union of the Lamb that Matt just read about in Revelation 21 and 22, what happens at that final wedding is this permanent welding of the Spirit of God to the souls of his people. A glorified humanity permanently and perfectly radiating the image of God. And at that point, you can see the triune God saying within himself, see, we did it. We made man in our image. And it was exactly on time.

19:51So what is it? Why is it necessary? Third, I want to mention the abundance of living water. I want you to see this. I want you to understand what it is, why it is necessary, and the abundance of it. Look at chapter 4 and verse 10. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, Give me drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Now, three observations from this verse. Number one, Christ has living water to give people. Number two, if people would only ask, Christ would give immediately. And number three, people do not ask because they are ignorant. They do not have because they do not ask. They do not ask because they're blind to their condition. Listen, Jesus is far more ready to hear than people are to pray. He is far more ready to bless than people are to ask. He is far more ready to show mercy and Grace on the most unworthy and worst of people if they will only cry to him.

21:09He will never draw back from his promise. Ask and you will receive. You know, it is the remember Ben Carson, the medical doctor, and wrote a whole story about his life, gifted hands. It was his glory that he could do something that no other physician could do. But let me tell you about another physician. It is to his glory to take the complete, broken, the complete, ruined by sin, and infuse in them a life that is glorious.

21:49Take the ugly and make it beautiful. That's the glory of the doctor, the great doctor. Listen, I don't know who you are today, or where you are maybe with your relationship with God, but ask him to give you what he wants to give. Even if you don't understand. Listen, this woman in this text really did not even understand. This much she did understand. She said, I want what you have because I trust just in my short time with you that you are good, you are trustworthy, and I want what you have to give.

22:34Living water is all around, all around. He is ready to give. He is ready to receive. If people do not have, it's because they do not ask. And that is the condition. That is the reason people will die unpardoned. It won't be on God's unwillingness. It will be on man's unwillingness to ask. Living water all around, thirsty souls all around. Get this image, will you? Our job is to connect them. Come to the water. Come and drink.

23:16We need to move on. First takeaway, I want you to see the value of a human soul. And remember that. Second, the necessity of living water. Third, the importance of biblical truth. And I'm going to share some things here that are not going to be popular. Obviously, this whole important, this whole idea of biblical truth is contrary to our culture today. But there may be even some today that may take up offense at what I'm about to say. But please hear me. My goal is not to be belligerent. My goal is not to be unkind or to offend.

23:58My goal is, and Has always been to declare the whole truth of God and to relate it in such a way as that you get it, that you can apply it for the well-being of your souls and for the well-being of those you will come in contact with. But this importance of biblical truth really comes more out of a lesson of church history, really, than straight out of the text. But after studying this text for the hours that I have, I have hardly ever come across a passage of scripture that has been more tortured in church history.

24:43And I want to share some thoughts. You know, sometimes church tradition gives us a very different picture of Christ, gives us a very different Christ. Not always, but sometimes it does. So, kids, I'm going to question you here, okay? Okay, I want kids answering this, okay? This should be pretty straightforward. If I came up to you and I said, okay, here are the takeaways. Here are what I want. Here are the main lessons from this passage, okay? This is the first one. I'm going to ask you what you think about this first one. We should refer to the woman as the all-glorious one in this passage. You think that's right?

25:30No? No. I see some other no, no. Okay, okay. Nobody above 10 answer this, okay? Who is the all-glorious one in this passage? God, yes, and specifically God the Son, right? Yes, thank you. Okay, that was an easy one, all right? Let's go to, let's ratchet it up. We should understand that the woman is the giver of living water. No, no, I mean, you don't think the woman, I mean, after all, she went into town and she, didn't she give living water?

26:11I see a lot of, I see some, no, no, no. Who's the giver of living water? Jesus, right? Jesus, right? Pretty straightforward. I mean, I know these are easy, okay? Number three, we should pray to the woman to help save our souls. Yeah, I mean, there's this. What would you say about me if this was what I taught you? What? Now, anybody can pipe in. What? Pipe it off with your head. Off with my head, yeah. Wow. Yes? This is pretty far off the mark, right?

26:57In fact, wouldn't you call me pretty much more? Adversarial to your soul, more adversarial to God, if this was truly what I tried to endorse and impress upon you. Let me give you a shocking statistic. Well over 1.5 billion so-called Christians are in systems that believe such is true, that will encourage and advocate this. Mainly Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxy traditions. And I'm going to ask you, how did they get there? And I want to show you how they got there. And what they did is they exchanged biblical truth for Christian tradition.

27:53And it totally changed how they view this woman at the well. Let me just walk you through this. In the middle centuries, and I'm talking between the 4th and 14th centuries, this would be hundreds of years after the events of the events in John chapter 4. Byzantine writers started to develop the story of the Samaritan woman beginning with John chapter 4. And they filled in the rest of the details. Details, especially sensationalizing her preaching ability and her persecution under Nero. And in many of the sermons that came out of this period, she is called an apostle. She is often compared to the male disciples and far out surpassing them.

28:52She was given the name Photini, which means the enlightened one, or the glorious one, the enlightened one. And to give you an idea of the sensationalism that came about during these centuries, which, by the way, that are elevated to, in practice, to scriptural truth, I want to read you a portion of a modern devotional book about her life that relates some of this history. And if you want, I can give you references and that very used widely today. But I'm just going to read you an excerpt of it to give you a feel for what took place and how this occurs. Well, the soldiers were ordered to bring her, that is Fotini, to the emperor, that is, Nero. But Photini anticipated them. And before they could arrest her, that is the soldiers, Fotini, with her son Joseph and her Christian friends, went to Nero. When the emperor saw them, he asked why they had come. Photini answered, We have come to teach you to believe in Christ. The emperor then demanded to know whether they had all agreed to die for the Nazarene. Fontini spoke for them, Yes, for the love of him we rejoice, and in his name we'll gladly die. Hearing their defiant words, Nero ordered their hands beaten with iron rods for three hours. At the end of each hour, another persecutor took up the beating. The saints, however, felt no pain. Nothing happened to their hands. So he beats them up pretty bad, and nothing happens. So Nero gets upset and he decides, okay, I'm going to take them on by promising them great wealth, kind of bribing them to recant.

30:46And this really didn't happen, so he orders his daughter with her slave girls to go in and to speak to the women. And he thought that that's going to persuade them to deny God. But what happened is Photini catechized Nero's daughter and her hundred slave girls and baptized them all. And she even changed the name of Nero's daughter. When the emperor heard that his own daughter had been converted to Christianity, he condemned Photini and all her companions to death by fire. For seven days the furnace burned, but when the door of the furnace was opened, it was seen that the fire had not harmed the saints.

31:31Reminiscent of Daniel. But more time, right? Next, the emperor tried to destroy the saints with poison. Photini offered to be the first to drink it. O king, she said, I will drink the poison first, so that you might see the power of my Christ in God. All the saints then drank the poison after her. None suffered any ill effects from it. In vain, Nero subjected Photini, her sisters, sons, and friends to every known torture. The saints survived unscathed to taunt and ridicule their persecutor. Does this sound like Christ at all? Taunting? Does this sound like Paul at all? There's a very different ring to these writings, isn't there?

32:22For three years, they were held in Roman prison. Many Romans came to prison, were converted, and baptized. Finally, the enraged tyrant had all the saints except Photini beheaded. Now, for some reason, the axe worked. So, note to tyrants, right? Forget the rods, forget the fire, forget the poison, go straight to the axe, because somehow that one works. But Photini was grieved that she was alone and she had not received the crown of martyrdom. Night and day, she prayed for the release from this life. One night, God appeared to her, made the sign of the cross over her head three times, and the vision filled her with joy. Many days later, She hemmed and blessed God and gave her soul into God's hands.

33:07So that's a later account. Pretty sensational, right? But the danger of elevating such stories to scriptural level is what happens. Who wants to read John 4 anymore? Right? I mean, wow, that was pretty sensational. So, what happened is the sensational and the extra-biblical replaced the simple and the biblical. And as a result, today, over 1.5 billion people are in a system of Christianity that endorses and encourages the following prayer. So, her name is Fotini. The Russian Orthodox changed it to Svetlana.

33:55Here's the prayer or hymn, dismissal hymn. Illuminated by the Holy Spirit, all glorious one, from Christ the Savior, you drank the water of salvation. With open hand, you give it to those who thirst. Great martyr Fotini, equal to the apostles, pray to Christ for the salvation of our souls. There's a picture of her. The result of it is that she totally eclipses the Christ. And the plain lessons that we are to draw from this text. Now, Fotini or Svetlana has no resemblance to the woman we meet in chapter 4. She is a fabrication.

34:48In fact, I would put it like this: if I were to teach you these doctrines after teaching you John chapter 4, and to keep you from living water by having you direct your prayers or see the source elsewhere, I would be an adversary to your soul. I would be an adversary to the work of Christ. The very name Satan is adversary. So, what you have here in very large systems is nothing more than institutionalized satanic counsel.

35:28Biblical truth is important. But there is a beauty. There is a beauty in biblical truth. There is a simplicity. Listen, after John chapter 4, even the kids in this room understood, understood that Christ is the glorious one. Christ is the one who gives living water, right? And he is the one to be asked, not her. Listen, the Holy Spirit, and this is what's so beautiful about Scripture. We have the prophetic word, we have the prophetic record. What God wants you to know about the life of the Samaritan woman is written here. What he wants you to know about, what he wants you to know from a prophetic standpoint, is all here. She asked, she received, and she told others. That's the lesson to take away. And even a child can get it, right?

36:40And it's beautiful. Because how many of us can identify with this woman? Right? How many of us need to see a Christ who's ready to receive us? How many of us are inclined to ask him for what he has to give if we see the Christ of Scripture? And when the Christ of Scripture is blocked out, people don't go. They don't ask. And so they do not receive. Listen, one of our chief goals as a church is to bring people face to face with the Christ of Scriptures. Right? That's how we know Him. That's how we're transformed by Him. We are to labor in all of our ministries.

37:30To bring people face to face with the Christ of Scripture. This is why I labor long hours, and I do. I put a lot of hours into the scriptures and studying them so that you will come face to face with the Christ of Scripture because He is the one that's going to do the transforming. And if I keep Him from you, shame on me. I need to move on. Sorry. Four takeaways: the value of a human soul. Second, the necessity of living water. Third, the importance of biblical truth. Second, the model for evangelism. And boy, I could spend a course right here. This is the master evangelist. We do well to imitate, to study how the master evangelist does it, because he does it right here. We have an upfront, step-by-step guide to how to evangelize from the master himself. And I want you to see six steps that I believe should guide our evangelism efforts. Six steps. And I call it the TAPS model, and I will intend to go quickly. But first of all, we'll talk about the acronym. I tried to make it memorable. And so I got the C's going and I got the TAPS. You can think of TAPS, you know. Know the death to play taps. Why do you play taps? Usually when somebody dies, right? So we can picture this as play taps, the going down of the old man.

39:13Okay. Well, you'll see what I'm getting at, right? First of all, first of all, Jesus' model of evangelism is tactful conversation. Tactful conversation. Look at verse 4, 7. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. He was sitting by the well. The woman came to draw. And I want you to see what he didn't do. First of all, he doesn't wait for her to speak to him. And if we cannot expect that unbelievers and lost people are going to come to us to speak to us, we must first be able to converse with them before we can tell them about the good news of Christ. So we're going to have to learn tactful conversation. We can't talk to them about God if we don't talk to them at all. And they're not going to come, don't expect them to come to us. Tactful conversation. So he doesn't wait for her to speak to him. He doesn't begin by condemning her sins. He obviously knew about them. So don't think that sinners are just sitting around waiting for someone to come up and condemn their lifestyle. That's not going to go all that well. Jesus doesn't do that here.

40:25In fact, they probably already know it. She already knew it. Third thing he doesn't do is he does not assert his own superiority. And this, he knew his special relationship with God. And the humility that Jesus displays here should not be missed by us. He was humble. There wasn't this air of superiority. First, he was this Jew willing to talk to her. Then he was a prophet. He didn't come down hard on her sin. Then he was the Messiah. And then he's the Savior of the world. So it wasn't, he came to them humbly, and we should go into a lot more detail about that, but he begins with tactful conversation. Look at what he did do. Look at what he did do. He opened the conversation by asking a favor, a favor. He began by asking her. It was a simple request, but it opened up a spiritual conversation, didn't it? It threw a bridge across that ethnic barrier, across that moral barrier, across the gender barrier. And he sits there and he says, let's talk about water for a while. And so the conversation began. Tactful conversation. Second thing, he awakened her curiosity. Look at verse 10. Jesus answered her 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. Notice three subjects he awakens her conscience on. Number one, what is the gift of God? Number two, who is speaking to you? Number three, what is this living water? So now here's this woman. We need to keep going, right? Because I have some questions that need to be answered.

42:21Third thing he does. Oh, let me, while we're here, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I was out in San Marcos doing a wedding. So many of you were there. And one of the things that happened, we were staying at a hotel and put my kids out in the swimming pool. We had this great vantage point from a hotel window, and I could look down there and see my kids. And then what happened was this guy, this man, comes over there and starts talking to my kids. And at least from my vantage point, that's what it looked like. He is kind of dressed in clothes. And so I'm kind of like, okay, Nancy, I'm going to go down there. Looks like some creep is talking to my kids. And so I'm going to go down there and just see what's going on. Well, I get down there, and I meet this young boy. He's not a man. He just looked like it from a distance. He was alone. There was a firemen's conference going on. And he was very much engaged. Or he was left alone. His father was a fire chief. He spoke. Very highly of his dad. And so, you know, what might have been a very good segue? I could have come to him and said, Let me talk to you about the ultimate fireman. Let me talk about a fire of God's wrath that, I mean, no one could put out except, well, I didn't think of it at the time, but if I had been studying this, I might have. But we do get there. I do get there with him. But we'll pick that up in a little bit. But tactful conversation, awaken curiosity is what Jesus. Then he promises contentment.

44:05John 4:13, Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become a well of water springing up to eternal life. Listen, Christ promises contentment, and we should never be ashamed to assert that. Come, try him, look, understand him. He offers total satisfaction, and you're not going to find that anywhere else in anything in this world, whether it's possessions, wealth, popularity, positions, whatever it is. There is no heart satisfaction in this world. And we do not need to shrink back from Jesus' own promise. So, in verse 14, 15, the woman says, Sir, give me this water.

45:06Give me this water. She responds to this promise of contentment. Next, sense conviction. You're going to first begin with a tactful conversation, awaken their curiosity, promise the commitment, and then sense conviction. You notice in verse 16, Jesus says, Go call your husband and come here. And the woman said, I have no husband. And what Jesus does is he puts his finger right on her sin. You see, if there is no conviction of sin, there will be no thirst for what Christ has to offer. And until a sinner sees himself as God sees him, he will continue in his own condition. So by all means, we are to communicate the absolute need to turn from sin.

46:01A person is never going to accept gospel medicine until he feels his disease. He will never see any beauty in Christ as a Savior if he doesn't understand his lost and hopeless situation. So if you do not sense a conviction of sin, you can't move on in your evangelistic effort. Can't move on. They will not and cannot come to the cross without conviction of sin. You know, that young man, as we're sitting there talking for a while at the pool, at some point I pull out the old evangelism explosion question. I mean, if you were to die tonight, sometimes it can be a little jolting, but it always gets the job done, it seems like. But I asked him, I said, if you were to die tonight and stand before God, and he was to ask you, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say? This young man just kind of, I have no idea what I would say.

47:11Started talking about a sin. Is there sin in your life? Is there things? Can you name anything? He goes, I spend a lot of time playing video games that I shouldn't play. I spent a lot of time watching things that I shouldn't watch. He knew deeply. I don't know what to do. So then, number five, expose the coverings. Friends, I'm going to go a little bit late today, but I'll get you out before noon. Please, please stay with me.

47:43Expose the coverings. One of the first places an awakened conscience is going to do is run for cover. Okay, expect it. They will justify, they will sow fig leaves, right? They'll justify, they'll excuse, and certainly we can see. This is in the woman's effort here. In verse 20, she changes the subject to worship. So, how do we deal with worship? You see, sometimes it's easier to talk about the externals of religion, good deeds, or the peculiarities of different philosophical systems than to acknowledge one's spiritual bankruptcy.

48:23And that's what people will do: run for cover. So, I asked this young boy, I said, Okay, what are you going to do? So, he said, I said, So, how do you deal with this situation that you're in before a holy God? What's your answer going to be? He said, and I'm not kidding, he said, once I put some money in a jar at a cash register to help one of those little needy people. I said, Oh, you think that's going to stand up?

48:56I go to church sometimes. You think that's going to stand up? And he said, like, no, no. So, then we reviewed some more of his sins. And that takes us to the sixth step: declare Christ. Once you have engaged in tactful conversation, once you have awakened curiosity, once you have promised contentment that only the gospel can give, once you sense a real Holy Spirit-type conviction. Once you've exposed any fig leaf coverings, declare Christ. Declare Christ. Verse 26, the woman said, Jesus said to the woman, I who speak to you am he.

49:46First of all, he's just a Jew who was willing to talk to her. Second, he was a prophet who knew her sin and still spoke kindly to her. Third, he was Israel's Messiah. And fourth, in this passage, he's the Savior of the world. You see the progression of. And when Jesus shows himself, you know what he's doing? He's giving himself. And that is why our goal is to bring people face to face with the Christ of Scripture. Because as they see him, he gives himself to them. Well, this opened up a conversation with the boy. I said, do you know John 3, 16? Kind of. Sort of. Yeah, yeah, I know that one. I know that one. And we talked about it a little bit. Never despise any efforts to sow the word of God into a person's life.

50:33We talked a little bit, and I said, Do you know what John 3, 14 and 3, 15 is all about? He says, no, it's about a serpent being lifted up. And whoever looks upon that serpent in the wilderness, whoever looks to Christ on a cross, like the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, that death sentence is removed, and the condition of unbelief is changed. We talked through. That. And at some point, the light went on.

51:04I see it. I understand. So, my takeaway, we're not done yet. The taps model. You can think of the taps. See the T-A-P-S? Or you can think of the TAPS, put the ED on it, like I tapsed you on the shoulder, you know. So when you can call your new evangelistic efforts on campus, I'm going tapsteam today, you know? But there's a pretty straightforward, honest, exegetical description of what happened in Christ's ministry. But there is one more element. I'm going to be brief on this. The woman. We still have another model here, and that is the woman.

51:58And what can we learn from her? And I'm going to be very brief. What can we learn from her? Two things. We can learn the heart behind evangelism and our duty in evangelism. See, we're not Christ. We can't reveal ourselves in the same way. The woman is on the complete other side of the spectrum of Christ, and yet she is very, very effective. In fact, there's a very humbling and important lesson for all of us. It's not always the most theologically astute that God uses to bring others to faith.

52:30But what she does show us is the right heart for evangelism. This woman had met Christ truly, and she simply wanted others to meet Christ. Her heart was genuinely satisfied and genuinely wanted others to know him. That was the heart behind her evangelistic effort and should drive ours. Second, we see in her the duty of evangelism. All the woman could do was testify to the truth that Jesus had revealed to her, a truth that her heart had embraced, and then invite others to come and look upon the same truth. Come.

53:13Verse 30, 29, come and see. You must know we cannot believe for other people. We cannot make other people believe. People have to believe on their own. All we can do is present the Christ of Scripture. Say, come, look upon him. Martin Luther said this, and I think this is very appropriate. Every man must do two things alone. Every man must do two things alone. He must do his own believing, and he must do his own dying. Nobody can believe for you, and nobody can die for you.

53:58Except in a theological life. Sense with Christ, of course. Well, as we leave Jacob's well, our message is: come and see this man. Come and see this man who walked upon the water. Come see this man who died and rose again. Come see this man who promises satisfaction for your souls. Come, look upon him. And as we leave Jacob's well, I hope that you will take these four truths away. The value of a human soul, the necessity of living water, the importance of biblical truth, and the model for evangelism. Let's pray.

54:48Heavenly Father, indeed we give you thanks. Thank you for these truths. Be with us now as we go. In Jesus' name. Amen.