Across the Street, Around the World (Archived)

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthfortheworld.org if you have a Bible I invite you to turn to the Gospel of John and to chapter four and as you turn there I say thank you for the kind welcome back to Westminster here it's a privilege to come I went to the dining room so that I could stand and gaze on John Murray's picture and matron Stowe and stone houses as well we stand on the soldiers on the shoulders of those who were soldiers in the gospel army and how thankful we are for those men who held the line in their day now I'm going to read just part of John chapter 4 and you can follow along I'll guide you now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples he left Judea and departed again for Galilee and he had to pass through Samaria so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph Jacob's Well was there so Jesus wearied as he was from his journey was sitting beside the well it was about the sixth hour there came a woman of Samaria to draw water jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food the Samaritan woman said to him how is it that you a Jew ask for a drink from me a woman of Samaria for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans jesus answered her if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water the woman said to him sir you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep where do you get that living water are you greater than our Father Jacob he gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock jesus said to her everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever and the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life the woman said to him Sir give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water while we pick it up with verse 27 the 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 the town and said to the people come see a man who told me all that I ever did can this be the Christ so they went out of the town and were coming to him meanwhile the disciples were urging him saying rabbi eat but he said to them I have food to eat that you do not know about so the disciples said to one another as anyone brought him something to eat jesus said to them my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work do you not say there are yet four months then comes the harvest look I tell you lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that sore and Reaper may rejoice together for hear the saying holds true one sows and another reaps I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor others have labored and you have entered into their labor we'll stop there I'll leave you to read the balance as your homework after all you're supposed to have homework father as we turn to the Bible what we know not teach us what we have not give us what we are not make us for your son's sake amen John in the book of Revelation gives us this immense picture and this huge vision in Revelation chapter 7 of a company that no one can number that has been assembled from every tribe and nation and people and language Under the Sun and when we stand as it were before that portrait painted for us there in revelation 7 we're aware of at least two things first of all that God has ordained men and women to salvation otherwise there would be no company assembled and number two that he has ordained the means whereby men and women come to salvation and that the storyline of the Bible is the history of God putting together a people that are his very own from every place and background and context men and women whose lives have been touched and changed by the gospel so in other words when we think in that term when we think in terms of the vastness of it all it is as a result of the gospel going out into all the world to the Jew first and then also to the Gentile and it is absolutely imperative that we have that in our minds and as we come to this particular passage to realize just how important it is as we've been hearing earlier this morning that men and women are confronted with the claims of Christ and are invited to turn to Christ Marie in his collected writings says it is on the crest of the wave of divine sovereignty that the unrestricted summons comes to the labouring and to the heavy laden this is Jesus own witness and it provides the direction in which our thinking on this subject must precede any inhibition or reserve in presenting the overtures of grace should no more character our Proclamation then it characterized the Lord's own witness Jesus mark tells us stands forward after the announcement of John the Baptist to declare the time is fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe the good news we're then told that the evening came and they brought to him those who were sick with all kinds of diseases and He healed them many who were oppressed by demons were set free then mark tells us that in the early hours of the following morning Jesus was away and by himself in communion with his father in prayer sought out by his followers who announced to him that the whole place is ablaze with what has happened the previous evening essentially the inferences Jesus this whole mission thing is off to a terrific start and what happened last night has built the foundation for what looks to be like a significant long stay opportunity in this context and if you know your Bible as I hope you do you'll remember that Jesus says let us go to the other villages let us go somewhere else in order that I might preach there also for that is why I came out in order that I might declare the very things that the father has given me to say for as he says elsewhere the words that I speak are not my own but they are the words that the father has given me to proclaim words which were then passed on to his followers now John wonderfully in his gospel in chapter 3 and then in chapter 4 provides for as these two encounters with Jesus first of all an encounter with a man who was a religious professional who had come out of a background that is not unfamiliar to some of us and he was a religious man who desperately needed to know Jesus he then in Chapter four records for us a lady who's at the other end of the spectrum she's female obviously she's Samaritan and she is a moral outcast and in doing this he provides for as an opportunity to understand not only the the Ministry of Christ but also in many ways his methodology Billy Graham said that the way to reach the masses is to reach them one at a time and it is in this context that his followers who another brightest Bunch are more concerned about sandwiches than they are about salvation it's not unkind to say that the record tells us that they left him there in order that they might go and get food that is a good thing to do when they came back they were still on about food and their surprise in verse 27 that he was even talking with a woman is equal to the surprise of the woman herself as recorded in verse 9 that he a Jew would speak to her a Samaritan and that he a man would speak to her a woman now it is because of this consternation on the part of the disciples that Jesus is going to give to them a necessary exhortation and that exhortation straightforwardly is look I tell you lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest you're missing something here fellas and I need you to lift your gaze from your own preoccupations from your own necessary considerations you mentioned food I have food to eat that you know not off we can talk about that later but for now what I need you to do is take a look at the opportunity that is before you now that exhortation I suggest to you is a necessary exhortation in every generation in every generation to lift up your eyes and to look on the fields if you have been in pastoral ministry if you're going into pastoral ministry if you're serving in any context at all you will realize that within relatively short time it is possible for all of your evangelistic fervor for all of your lifeboat mission station mentality to be dissipated to be depleted to the point that your local congregation becomes more like a marina in which people sail their own pleasure pleasure crafts around in playing their own music listening to their own tunes and talking to each other they never thought they would get that way they never planned to be that but they have become that it is stagnant it is no longer vibrant it is no longer possessed of the dynamism that thrust the Apostles onto the streets of Jerusalem with the story that this Jesus Christ is alive and we want to introduce you to him now they're preoccupied with all kinds of things the equivalent of the disciples sandwiches now read church history and what you discover you discover that the men and women that have impacted the church have been men and women full of the love of God full of the love of God for those who need to know that love we read Whitfield and the great evangelical Willie awakenings and we think of it in macro terms but if you read Whitfield's journals what you find you find that this great and effective preacher had a heart that Post sated with a longing to see unbelieving people becoming the committed followers of Jesus Christ he was not roaming this part of the nation in order that he may propound a theology he was not roaming around jumping off his horse to go through the Ordo salutis he was actually proclaiming Jesus Christ and in his journal from North Carolina Christmas 1739 his entry reads as follows or how it will rejoice me to hear that some poor soul this day has been born again then it would be a Christmas day indeed this is not just somebody with a with a big mouth and a big Bible and a big congregation this is a man whose heart is engaged with God you see when we teach the Bible evangelistically when we teach the Bible the Dagda when we teach the real purpose in it is not that we would be able to convey information so that people would be more knowledgeable about the passage and then give them a few practical points that they can try and take home with them in the afternoon and talk about that's not the primary point the primary point in teaching the Bible is that we might have a life shaping encounter with God that our life's would be absolutely transformed by the very truth that we ourselves are proclaiming and not least of all when we think of a challenge that is before us in the world now I have a treat for you this morning in that I have been able to ask the lady herself to come and address us you say you've gone crazy no not really but instead of going back through this dialogue again - he said she said I'm will you allow me to become the woman for just a moment all right you have to stretch your imagination I understand and I'm not doing this as a ploy I'm doing this in order to advance the ball of the field it started out as a routine trip for me I do it every day I come to this well every day it's always hard I'm always alone it's always sticky it's always a mess by the time I get back I never see anybody at least usually this one caught me off guard a stranger with a simple enough request but even the request itself was bizarre because I'm a woman he's a man he's a Jew and I'm a Samaritan we don't really talk to one another he actually aroused my curiosity by suggesting that I was actually one that was in need and that he was the one who could supply the need which seemed completely upside-down to me because I noted that he had no way of getting down into the well he had no mechanism with which to draw up water didn't make sense I actually said to him are you greater than our Father Jacob who built this well what an irony that is are you greater than our Father Jacob why he didn't get into it he just let that question go by but this is what he said everyone who drinks the water from this well will be thirsty again but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never thirst again I said sign me up for that because I hate coming here like this every single day I didn't get what he was on about but you know when you sense that something is being said beyond what is being said you know when you have that notion that there's more to the matter than you're actually grasping that's exactly what happened to me that's how I felt that I was right because out of the blue he says to me go and call your husband go and call my husband I thought to myself which one does he want me to go and call but he didn't try and ring any of the details out he didn't try and dig into my dirty messy past and fight it became clear that he knew it all so much so that I said to him you must be a prophet and I started into a question about where you want to go if you're seeking God where do you go if you're making a sacrifice for sin and he actually said to me well this actually you've got it upside down it's not about where you go to meet God it is that God is the one who is seeking you well this was really getting out of my control and so I thought I could just bring it to a close and I said to him well why don't we just wait until the Messiah comes because when we know when the Messiah comes he you know he'll explain all of this and then without so much but in an eye he said that's me the one speaking to you I am the Messiah speaking to me why did this boy the Messiah speak to me doesn't he know what a mess I am doesn't he know that I'm a no-name lady in a small little town doesn't he know that the light that my life to this point has been a broken series of failed beginnings that my life has been marked by looking for love in all the wrong places that the reason I'm here all by myself and not with a cluster of women as it would be normal in the early part of the day or when the evening shadows have fallen the reason that I'm here in the middle of the day by myself is because of who I am and because of what I am doesn't he know that well of course he knows it but just then his friends came back I never had any chance to chat with them but apparently they said they had something to do with Burger King or McDonald's or whatever it was they were completely preoccupied with something to do with sandwiches and so I thought well this is my chance to get out of here and so I I just I find I even left my water pot I was so so amazingly overwhelmed by it all that I just went running back that's essentially how it would have been right that's the encounter John then tells us of the impact of the impact the impact that was made by one solitary life by one lady who didn't know everything but she did know something and what she knew is that in some dimension this encounter with this man was revolutionary her life would never be the same again remember John starred as in Kristen mission to the modern world where he says nothing seals the lips or ties the tongue like the poverty of our own spiritual experience we say nothing because we have nothing to say she had something to say I have met the master won't you come and meet him too that's her story she did not have an answer to all of their questions she had no better answer than the man who had been born blind remember well what is the problem here what are you doing here look I don't know I know this I used to be blind but now I can see and some of us have done nothing really in personal evangelism because we're waiting to read the great book you know the final story of whatever it is the ten keys to doing it you don't need it you just need to know Jesus you just need to love Jesus and you just need to love people and you just need to let them talk and then you just need to give them an opportunity to hear the good news that you have to tell listen s is fine talking about China and I'm good for China and for Africa and for everywhere but I'm a missionary in Cleveland if you want to come somewhere tough you come with me all right okay you want to come and find out how it goes down here we go you want to know whether there's a difference between the coats and Christianity between genuine biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism that holds people into their grasp the opportunity is there the impact is there and she goes back into the town and she she is she says to the people and I can imagine how this must have gone over but she's goes back into the village of the town and she's shouting out come and see a man come and see a man the people are going are you kidding me that she's could do it all people she shouldn't be shouting come and see a man and the the cynics are saying to one another must be number seven she's gone as she's on to number seven she's had five husbands she got a live-in lover and are we going to see another one come and see a man now this is entirely different Oh No there is there is no man like this man this is the son of man this is the savior of the world come and see him that's what we're saying to people we liked we'd like to introduce you to Jesus have you ever read the Bible would you like to read the Bible have you ever read the gods would you do you know anything at all we're just gonna look and see and the progression and the text which when you do your homework you'll get this is obvious verse 29 come and see a man who told me all that I ever did can this be the Christ is this the Messiah verse 30 they went out of the town and we're coming to him verse 39 many believed in him because of the woman's testimony he told me all that I ever did verse 40 and so they urged him to stay with them and he stayed for two days verse 41 and many more believed because of his word and they said that a woman is no longer because of what you have said that we believe for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world isn't isn't that a great that's that's going to be the greatest satisfaction in engaging with an unreached people group that you go and you speak to them and tell them of Jesus and eventually they say you know what we finally got this for ourselves you can go somewhere else now we'll take it from here remember the wonderful story of being at Urbana in 1984 and there was a lady spoke that I'm not sure who she was but she was an OMF missionary and she told of going I think it was to Thailand she and another lady and they were there on their own in a place where there had been no missionaries and they began to teach the Bible they began to explain to people who Jesus is and a cup of them had come to faith in Jesus Christ and a little cluster has grown and as they were teaching through the Bible and they got into the pastoral epistles where Paul made it very very clear about male headship in the church one of the men said well then you can teach anymore I must be the teacher because the Bible says that you shouldn't be teaching I should be teaching and she said you finally got it and passed the reins to eldership that was as God intended and they were able then to take their place within the context they needed to be there when there was no one else but as soon as the truth dawned they had seen they had understood they had believed and the great finale of it is in verse 42 and they said to the woman we know that this is indeed the savior of the world we know he's the savior of the world do you believe that Jesus is the savior of the world the only savior of the world do you believe that there is salvation in no other name given under heaven among men through which salvation comes that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life that he did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved that whoever believes in Him is not condemned but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in God's one and only Son well the encounter is really clear and the impact is straightforward what a wonder it must have been in those two days to have Jesus stay and teach them I'm assuming it would be akin to what happened as it's recorded in Luke chapter 24 Jesus takes them back through the Bible shows them for example to where has turned to me and be saved all you ends of the earth for I am God and there is no other walks them through the whole storyline EJ Young says monotheism monotheism and true conversion and the universality of the gospel message always go together monotheism true conversion and the universality of the gospel message always go together now my friends this morning the reason we seek to ponder this is because this is actually the message that we are then entrusted with taking across the street and around the world this is the message that Jesus is the only Savior because Jesus is the only one who is qualified to save and when we say these things we need to learn to say them not only with clarity but also with kindness so for example my Jewish friends of whom I have a goodly number in Cleveland believe that Jesus is not the Messiah we believe that Jesus is we cannot both be right that Hindus believe that incarnation has happened thousands upon thousands of times and still continues to happen as believers we affirm that the Incarnation was a unique unrepeatable event whereby God invaded time in the person of the son we cannot both be right his lamb says by virtue of its symbols but the scales of a sinful man need to be tipped by that same sinful man in his own favor if he's ever to be accepted finally by God we say that we could never tip the scales in our favor but that one has come and done for us what we cannot do to provide for us what we do not deserve and those two concepts are diametrically opposed to one another I have less in front of me than I have behind me timewise I'm thirty two years into this ministry on the east side of Cleveland as best I know my heart I'm not jaded I'm still enthusiastic in fact given the opportunity I would like to start all over again I'm jealous for you younger men and women with all before you I'd love to have a second go at it but I'm concerned for you I'm concerned that some of you are now going to fail but you're gonna succeed are the wrong things you're gonna invest your life in the wrong way you're gonna use your loss your fish whatever it is and at the end of your day look back and say that was a bad investment the encounter is clear the impact is obvious and the lesson and I just pointed out to you the lesson that is given to the disciples is as I started a very necessary lesson they said to one another as anyone brought him something to eat John is wonderful at these little ironies isn't he in his gospel he does it all the time and it's so what is so super I have food to eat that you do not know well where did he get that I just told you you do not know what are you asking for what a what a group incidentally I mean who would I know Jesus chose them but they're no good there's no there's no one of them any good I mean frankly the the Ministry of Jesus was a flop as far as the disciples are concerned until post Pentecost and even post Pentecost are not exactly on their game then as I'm gonna show you just as I close and so he says to the disciples listen fellows you're the you're the ones who routinely say there's four months and then comes the harvest what's he sensually saying to them is this by my coming I have ushered in the harvest by my coming everything has changed and paradoxically sowing and reaping are going to coincide you attempted to say while we see the need we see the opportunity but of course it's not the time Jesus says it's always the time the time is ripe for the harvest look I tell you lift up your eyes lift up your eyes it's like the sinuses that ye gates lift up your heads on high for he the King of glory enters in the constant call of the Scriptures lift your eyes up off yourself lift your eyes up of your own preoccupations your own solid sorry little pathetic dreams and schemes lift your eyes up people will not die for these trivialities lift up your eyes have a look and of course all the commentators say that this is probably because you could see the headdresses of the people coming you know out from the city as they've begun to leave or maybe it is and maybe it isn't if it helps you believe it if it doesn't it doesn't really matter but lift up your eyes and you'll see do you walk around with your eyes closed I hope now you'll bang into lampposts but do you walk around with your other with the eyes of your heart open did you see do you see these young mothers in the grocery store do you see that person as you walk past them do you see the tattooed girl in Apple as someone for whom Christ died or Just's wearing a red t-shirt and taking too long to answer your question I confess it's so easy for that to happen do we really need Lennon or McCartney to teach us about compassion all look at all the lonely people where do they all come from look at all these lonely people where do they all belong chapter three Nick Dimas is father McKenzie right in the words of a sermon the no one could hear chapter 4 is a woman in Norwegian Wood she told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh I told her I didn't she crept and crept off and slept in the bath this is the real world these are the people this is our area of opportunity lift up your eyes people are looking for love looking for freedom looking for forgiveness looking for significance looking for meaning looking for kindness looking for clarity we live in a world that has completely lost its story in the introduction to a book by benedict xvi that is the pope and mentioned it here just before we get to 2017 but anyway in the introduction to the book by george v eagle this is what he says we live in a world that has lost its story a world in which the progress promised by the human isms of the past three centuries is now gravely threatened by understandings of the human person that reduce our humanity to a conjurus of cosmic chemical accidents a humanity with no intentional origin no noble destiny and thus no path to take through history essentially I don't know who I am I don't know where I came from I don't know where I'm going and I've had five husbands and I'm living with a guy and of all the things you could have said to me you said go call your husband how did you notice say that because he was putting his finger on the issue in her life that was represented of her need he wasn't simply going to say oh that's fine you know I'm Jesus and go home and have a lovely afternoon no no no he was saying to her come on now face up to things do you have the same thing with a man let down through the roof his friends get up and bring him and drop him down what a hullabaloo that is and when he finally is in position Jesus looks at him and says son your sins are forgiven anticlimax that was huh your sins are forgiven if you what you're talking about my sins are forgiven like we and the fellas looking through the river gone what a waste of time this was we came here for his legs Jesus and you want to forgive his sins of course because the man's real need was the forgiveness of his sins don't waste your time going somewhere to do what everyone else in the world can do don't use your voice to proclaim another message save this message this is the message and in the nature of things it is usual for reaping to take place after the sowing in the spiritual realm says Jesus it is usual that one reaps where another has sown that's why I said to you what I said you thought I didn't have an introduction I was just trying to think of something to say that I went in the dining room you know like oh thank you for sharing that no I did it purposefully why because one plans and another waters and only God can make things grow we reap on the strength of what others have so we are the beneficiaries of their investment they gave their minds their lives their intellect for the sake of the gospel and we are here today because of that investment would we do anything less missionary hymns are passe when is the last time you sang a missionary him exactly nobody knows what to do with them because it's all been sideswiped as colonialism the British Empire the American zeal spoiling these poor people with this dreadful way of giving them navy blue jackets and so on there's no doubt we did some of that but the passion was clear facing a task unfinished that drives us to our knees and need that undiminished rebukes our slothful ease we who proclaim to know him renew for his throne the solemn pledge we owe him to go and make him known we take the torch that flaming fell from the hands of those who gave their lifes proclaiming that Jesus died and rose and ours is the same ambition the same glad message ours and it is to him and to him alone that we yield our pars John chapter 4 lift up your eyes all the way through Good Friday Good Friday they're not sitting around on Good Friday saying hey only a couple of days till Easter Sunday they're not so they're not uh they're not planning a sunrise service now those characters no no the ladies make a stab at it but the men are nowhere to be seen I told you they're a bad bunch and and and Jesus has told them it's very important that I go away I send the Holy Spirit he will finally unstop your ears and open your eyes and so it is that that's exactly what is about to take place they've had the resurrection appearances and now before Jesus ascension they gather together as as it's recorded for us at the end of looking at the beginning of Acts Jesus is caught up out of their sight and there are these angelic visitors and what did they say to them why do you stand looking up their Kurian like we can't get a break at all John chapter 4 why do you look up now we're looking up why are you looking up you've got to be looking in the right place at the right time you look in the wrong place because what did they ask Lord are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel the preoccupation was already wrong understandable but wrong they were thinking nationally they were thinking territorially he hadn't drawn it yet soon as the Spirit of God falls upon that's what Jesus says he said that's not this is not a time for this kind of stuff he says what you need is this that what I've promised you will happen and then you take my message to the ends of the earth you just wait for the promise of the father and then get on your way and get it done well that's the story in every generation let me quote Marie and one final thought I like to quote John Morris not just because I'm here I quote him all the time I we Scots have to stick together there aren't many of us this is Marie again this is for those of you who are note takers as his page is a collation of page 59 in page 91 of his collected writings vol 1 the passion for missions is quenched when we lose sight of the grandeur of the Evangel it is a fact that many persuaded as they write they are of the particularism of the plan of salvation and of its various corollaries and we would include ourselves I take it in that group they have found it difficult to proclaim the fool free and unrestricted overture of gospel grace they have labored under inhibitions arising from fear that in doing so they would impinge upon the sovereignty of God and His saving purposes and operations in other words were frightened that if we make this appeal to clear some of the non elect are actually going to get converted that's what he say and we don't want that on our you know on our watch you know no no no the result is that though formally accenting to the free offer they lack freedom in the presentation of its appeal and if it's demand can I say again as an older person to younger people a word of caution a word of warning in the new young reform circles that I meet everywhere I go and in which I rejoice I am deeply concerned that there is an absence of a sort of posing longing that under the sound of the opening up of the scriptures of self men and women like this woman like the religious man and three would be brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ as a boy in Scotland we had Sunday School in the morning hours there was a little man used to come I called George Stewart he was old when I was small I was like the Ancient of Days by the time I was in my teens and the he taught us songs and one of the songs went like this Lord send me here am I send me I want to be greatly used of thee across the street or across the sea here am I Oh Lord send me it's a long time since I learned that song I was probably seven or eight years old I've never really been able to sing but I can almost hear myself sing in it and I believed when I sang it I meant it we never know what that will mean or where it will take us if someone has said you know if you sing that song and mean it you're gonna spend 32 years of your life in Cleveland Ohio I said I don't think so but what do we know we know that there's no ideal place to serve God except the place he sets you down they said the place he sets you down well I leave you to your homework one final thought do you think this lady in John four showed up in Jerusalem on the day the Sun turned black did she stand and wonder when the man on the middle cross cried out at the last I it is finished did she say I get it now he knew all the things I had ever done because his blood has covered everyone Oh Lord such grace to qualify me as your own I need to hurry away from here and tell others this amazing news across the street around the world father for your word we thank you we pray that it may find a resting place in each of our hearts that what is of yourself may be brought home to us that anything that is untrue or unkind unhelpful may be banished from our recollection so as a fresh we pray with the Holy Spirit with a renewed love for Christ and a renewed longing to see people embraced by the immensity of his sacrifice we commend ourselves afresh to you in Christ's name this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

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Keywords: Alistair Begg, Christian Thinking, Jesus Christ, Sin, Gospel

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Length: 45min 30sec (2730 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2018