I Am (Part 1) - I Am

hi Matt Chandler here pastor of the village Church just want to thank you for streaming this sermon on your device I wanted to just before we get going here just lay before you a deep conviction we have that this video sermon that we've prayed really stirs up your affections for Jesus and shapes you and mold you into the image of the son would just be supplemental to your relationship with the Lord and in no way would replace the church you should be plugged into or the pastor that God has put over your life to Shepherd and care for your soul and so please enjoy the next hour or so of this message we have prayed that God would use it in a profound way in your life blessings I am the bread of life whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in Me shall not lurched I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of Life I am the door if anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture I am The Good Shepherd the Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me I am The True Vine and my father is the vine dresser every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more food I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me though he die shall he live and everyone who believes in Me shall never die well how are we doing well excellent and and amped up this morning I like that if you have your Bibles go ahead and grab them John chapter four is we're gonna camp out if you're with us today don't have a Bible with you there should be a hardback black one somewhere around you if you don't own one that's our gift to you woke up early this morning and I went to roots to grab a cup of coffee before I came up here to pray with the staff and the barista who's a member of our church said hey the first half of your message was awesome last night what kind of compliment is that the first half was really good that was a little weak near the end but the first half was really good so I asked I mean I've got the personality type I'm gonna ask like what that means and she said no no I just had to leave early so I was like oh okay so all we know at this point is the first half of this is really good so it may or may not the back end could be terrible no promises now um while you're turning to John chapter 4 I want to talk to you about James Smith James Smith graduated from Waltrip High School in 1967 from there he went to Sam Houston State University go Bearcats got his degree and then had a long wildly successful career married to his wife Sheri for over 30 years has two grown children who are also married he has a son named Jeremy and a daughter named Tiffany he is a bit of a social conservative so if you want to think about politics he's going to be on the conservative side of things he is staunchly pro-life and is not a fan of the current administration he has a John Deere tractor and he's proud that for a man his age that he still knows his own lawn he's got a great sense of humor but the real kind of crown jewel of his life are his seven grandchildren and so the Bible says that children are inheritance from the Lord but I'm telling you as a parent it seems that grandchildren are an inheritance of the Lord because they certainly have have an easier gig than the one I'm walking right now and she got to earn that to get to that inheritance right and so he loves those grandbabies if they're playing a sport he and sherry are there if he um he has oftentimes and I love that he does this he took his oldest granddaughter up to New York and they did high tea together and so when you hear me say hi T don't think of what you do in your Keurig uh this is kind of real swanky kind of high tea experience with his granddaughter he is all in on those grandbabies he has a dog named Oliver golden doodle right uh that golden doodle weighs thirty-six pounds and has recently been neutered cuz he was a little crazy so they thought if we neuter Oliver maybe he'll calm down a bit now um he real quick confession no idea who James Smith is on Wednesday night I was with my wife and this will give you insight into our relationship and I said what do you think the most common name in the United States for a man is so she said to me Siri what's the most common name for a man in the United States Siri came back very quickly thank you very much Apple and said James Smith so on Thursday morning I woke up I had breakfast with a young man named Otis he's doing stunning ministry down in South Dallas and I came to my office to study um I got on my computer went to my wife's Facebook page with her permission don't give me that look I don't have one and I searched James Smith and then I scrolled through the last list of James Smith it was an incredible list until I found a James Smith who had no mutual friends with my wife and then I picked him and for 10 minutes perused his Facebook page and that's who I just introduced you to now how weird is it if he's a podcaster right like how awesome is that if he's a podcaster and this week he's going for his run and he puts his headphones he's like wait a minute my name is James I have a dog named Oliver wait I have it wait he's talking about me so Jim if you're listening to this I love you I think I'm not sure I just 10 minutes on your Facebook page now social psychologists are going to say that I don't know Jim I know about Jim they're gonna tease out this idea of knowing and knowing about and they're gonna use the terms impersonal knowledge and personal knowledge so but my Bibles over here maybe it's better if I just come over here and say doesn't matter if you're a believer a Christian not a Chris doesn't matter social psychology says there is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone and and social psychologists would say I know about James Smith Jim but I don't know him and so social psychologists would argue this way that impersonal knowledge could be that you're an acquaintance that you're able to smoothly enter into conversation with them and that you would recognize them all of that would be categorized like psychologically as impersonal knowledge it means this that I could see Jim I would recognize him and I know enough about his life to begin engaging him in a rather smooth conversation I mean literally I if I saw it like Jim how are you man you sherry with you how's sherry doing so you've been retired for like three years now how's that gone are you enjoying retirement are you not enjoying retirement how was high tea with that grandbaby how cool was that oliver still Wilding out or did it calm him down so I'm like wait I could just enter it now he's probably gonna be a little freaked out but I could recognize him I know enough to have conversation with him and social psychologists would just say you don't know him you just know about him so since I just described the bulk of all of our relationships what does it mean to actually know someone so again not we're not in the Bible yet we're gonna get there according to psychology personal knowledge is to know someone is to know information that is particularly intimate or private and so I can unpack all these kind of external details about Jim's life but to actually know him I would need to sit across from him and him to begin to unpack for me unseen things so to make just a just an easy illustration if I had the opportunity to sit across from James Smith and he began to tell me with tears in his eyes his hopes for his grandbabies his concerns for his children the fears that he currently walks and the joys that he's currently walking in something that Facebook would never tell me and cursory conversation whenever the type of information that must be earned by lovingly being in someone's life for a period of time then I could begin to say yeah I know Jim and I don't know him because I know his dog's name and know that he likes to travel and and know how he likes his steak and what he thinks about sherry but rather I've seen aspects of his heart that are hidden from the general population now the reason I'm in trilling with this is because I have a keen awareness of where ministry is taking place for me and for us in the Bible Belt and and I have I have wrestled a long time because I never thought I'd be in Dallas I was going back to the Bay Area and and was going to Pastor out in the Bay Area and and so one of the things that's really unique about where ministry is playing out here in Dallas is that we still live in a rather overt Christian culture and although there is growing hostility and we're viewed as growingly abnormal by and large most people think they're Christians here I mean by large my neighbors the people I run into it's a really strange thing to come across just a hardened ardent atheist I mean you can I'm not saying you're not there heck maybe you're even here today see I started out with psychology so we could talk like that's rare like people just think they're Christians in the Bible Belt and I have a growing concern that most of us have a more impersonal relationship with Jesus than we do a personal relationship with Jesus and so back in June I was on sabbatical I was just reading through the Gospels and I was reading not to just see all that Jesus has done but rather I just wanted to look at who Jesus was because I think our confidence in what Jesus has accomplished for us is directly tied rooted in with who we understand him to be and if our knowledge of who he is not what he does grows then so our confidence in what he says he has accomplished will grow also so so that it's a very safe saying to say that by beholding Jesus by looking upon him not just checking off facts about what he's done but really seeing Jesus for who he is we might be transformed more and more into his image that the things our soul is really hungry for actually take place not when we have a checklist of things that we know he's done but rather we see him for who he is the Apostle Paul who hated Jesus and then served him unto death said this in 2nd Corinthians 3:18 and we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord so we're beholding the glory of Christ are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another for this comes from the Lord who is the spirit so the Apostle Paul is arguing by beholding Jesus were transformed from one degree of glory to the next now that text in and of itself is tremendously rich first I love that text because it means there's no silver bullets were transformed one degree of glory to the next right you know you're not transform like this you're transformed and and every Christian here could do a hearty Amen to this it's a slower process than we like amen it's just slower than I would like I mean I'm like are you kidding me 20-something years and this is still an issue Lord can we maybe pick up the bass here and he's like I was asking you the same question right so my hope over the next eight weeks is this it's a simple one I just want to help us look at Jesus so this isn't gonna be that kind of series where we're gonna go here eight ways this will help your marriage four ways to remove that it's not that it's not that those things are unimportant it's that those things get put in their rightful place when you see and savor Jesus and so that's the ingame that's the whole point I want us to talk about what does it mean that Jesus is the bread of life he's not saying I've accomplished things that are like bread that's not what he's doing he's saying I am the bread of life I am the light of the world I am the resurrection and I like what does it mean when he says this is who I am not just what I've done but who I am and so that's my hope but but I thought we would do this first um the Bible talks a lot about scene but not being able to see and hearing but not being able to hear and and what's happened when the Bible talks about that he's talking about this dynamic where there's a there's a type of familiarity that that makes us miss out on the depths and beauty of what's right in front of us right and so it's very quick because of our church background or or for other maybe other hurdles for us to go yeah yeah yeah and so what I want us to do is I want us to just stop for a second because I don't think you can really see and savor Jesus if there's not a commitment to slow down a little and so I want to give us a second just to stop and I want you to pray for you I want you to pray that the Holy Spirit of God would give you eyes to see and ears to hear so this isn't the time to pray for your friend or your crazy brother who just happened to show up this morning or that lost guy at work or no no you pray for you you asked that the Holy Spirit of God would show and help you see and sense the reality of Jesus Christ in a way that goes beyond where you currently sit and so I want to give you a second to do that you pray for you you ask the Holy Spirit of God to minister to you and then we'll dive into John chapter 4 holy spirit we just ask that in your mercy you might give us eyes to see and sense and savor Jesus and that as we consider that he is the Messiah that he is the Christ that he is the savior of the world today that you would jostle our hearts and our heads that you wouldn't let us run out of our hearts up into our heads or out of our heads and down into our hearts but that you would engage us in a holistic way where we're transformed yet another degree help us now some of us are very weary of ourselves so will you minister to us today Holy Spirit of God it's for your beautiful name I pray amen okay we're gonna read John chapter four we're gonna read something like 40 verses together and you're gonna do great here's what I would like you to do as we read the Bible there's a couple of ways to read it we'll talk more about that a little bit later in this sermon but we can read the we can read the Bible like a newspaper right we can read it and kind of get the facts maybe write a little note in our journal that's factual and true or we can get inside the text and read it like we used to read when we were kids before we got all crusty you know I'm talking about like when when my kids read that they're immersing themselves in in what's happened it's like a movie in their brain right and and so what we want to do is we read this narrative which I believe is one of the more powerful in the New Testament is we want to we want to be able to feel the Sun we want to be able to smell what it smelled like that day we want to put ourselves in the text like one of the ways I do it in my own personal reading is is I'm thinking hey if I'm if I'm shooting this scene in a movie what does it look like and where would would she be sitting where would Jesus be sitting what would this interaction be like how did you really get this out of kind of our newspaper factual type of reading and get myself into the text in such a way that I might really sense what's going on and and so let's look at this John chapter 4 starting in verse 1 here's what it says now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he 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 verse 4 is an interesting verse and he had to pass through Samaria if you write in your Bibles it would be a good idea to underline that we'll come back to it so he came down to a town or 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 and then interesting said it's like most people don't think of Jesus getting tired on a journey and yet there it is and Jesus wearied as he was from his journey sat by the well and it was about the sixth hour so the middle of the afternoon a woman from Samaria came to draw water and Jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food and the Samaritan woman said to him how is it that you a Jew ask for a drink from me a woman of Samaria now why would she ask that question I'm glad you asked the Bible answers 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 and 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 live stock 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 again the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life verse 15 the woman said to him Sir give me this water so that I will not be thirsty and have to come here to draw water verse 16 pivotal in our text today and jesus said to her go call your husband and come here and the woman answered him I have no husband and Jesus said her you are right saying I have no husband for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband what you have said is true verse 19 and the woman said to him sir I perceive that you are a prophet our fathers worshiped on this mountain but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship jesus said to her woman believe me the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father you worship what you do not know we worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father is seeking such people to worship Him God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth and the woman said to him I know that the Messiah is coming he who is called the Christ and when he comes he will tell us all things jesus said to her I who speak to you a.m. he just then the disciples came back and 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 with her water jar and went away into town and said it to the people come and see a man who told me all that I ever did can this be the Christ and they went out of the town and were coming to see Jesus now skip verses 31 through 38 it's not that they're not important it's not that they're not inerrant and the very words of God is just for where we're going today we want to skip down to verses 39 benchley will preach through the Gospel of John we'll hit these but just not this morning many Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony he told me all that I ever did so when the Samaritans came to him they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days and many more believed because of his word they said to the woman it is no longer because of what you said that we believe for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this indeed is the savior of the world now there there's so much in this text that you could do a series on this story alone it's a stunning reality and there's all sorts of things mixed in it that are ethic and yet really the whole thrust the whole point of this passage of Scripture is found in verse 26 and verse 42 and so the thrust of this narrative is that Jesus is the Messiah that Jesus is the savior of the world and so everything else that happens in this text happens because Jesus is the savior of the world so there's all sorts of oddities cultural oddities in this text let me list out a couple of them the first is that sentence I had you underline at the beginning if you write in your Bible or highlight on your iPad that Jesus had to go through Samaria now it is true that to get from Jerusalem to Galilee where he was going he was gonna have to cross through some aspect of Samaria but because the Jews despised Samaritan so deeply there were two ways you could cut straight through Samaria and that would take you through seikar or you could go all the way around it and Jews always went all the way around it they despised the Samaritans even the Bible just told us Jews had no dealings with Samaritans if you put that in in in common 2015 language then take out bigot tree and how much evil is in that sense where I have no dealings with the blacks I mean can you imagine how crazy would that be and yet that's what's happened like they would avoid at all cost and yet Jesus says I have to go this way and he goes right back up and then why why does he go straight north rather than around we're all of his country I mean if you're not thinking about his disciples how confusing is this gonna be are his disciples ready for this I mean he's taking him right into the cultural awkwardness of their day without any apologies without any explanations he just heads north why because he's got an appointment with who with this woman why because he's the savior of a world now let's talk about this woman for a bit she's at the well on the wrong time of the day if you by the grace of God have been able to go on so our short-term trips or you've come around the world to this day women will still get up very early in the morning and as a communal exercise that will head to the well together and so my wife and I've been to Southern Sudan a couple of times down every morning they get up they grab their buckets and their barrels and anything else that can hold water and the women together right as I mean I heard um head down and they do what women do here right they're talking about their husbands they're talking about their kids they're just not wearing yoga pants all right and so they get their hey if you don't work out at least look like you do right and so they then get to the well and they're talking about life they're talking about husbands and then they get back before the heat of the day now this woman has not gone with the other woman she has come by herself at the hottest part of the day and of is avoiding that communal experience now why will we find out why right she's had five husbands and the man she's with now is not her husband now in our day that just sounds like a wild four years of college in her day that could get her killed so what's happened here we don't know maybe those five brothers died maybe maybe that's why the new guys not marrying there's like no black widow ain't going out like that and he's not marrying her because there's five dead dudes and from or maybe she's wildly promiscuous out we don't know other than it's a mark of shame for her and and because that shame has permeated her life it has affected her ability to walk in community and she now spends her energy and vitality hiding and so in the middle of the day and the heat when she knows no one else will be there she heads to the well ah except the savior of the worlds there right why is Jesus engaging this woman because he's the savior of the world and then I love I love this if you maybe some of this will sound hard to you I hope it doesn't I hope it makes sense and it clicks and that's part of the reason we were praying earlier um she's got some hurdles around believing that this guy is the savior of the she's got some significant hurdles um and and I love the fact that Jesus does not tiptoe around her sin like when she finally in desperation says give me this water so I don't have to come to this well anymore do you hear what's going on I'm weary of what life has done weary of hiding I'm weary of coming out here in the middle of the day I'm weary of this give me this water what does Jesus say go get your husband and that sound a little bit cruel like here she is give me this please go get your husband he he touches the most tender most shame filled guilt-ridden part of her I don't have a husband I know what you've said is true you've had five and the guy you're with now he's not your husband now why would Jesus do that it it seems cruel I mean if you're trying to win converts it's probably on the way to go we just agree just give her the living water yo all right I don't Oh I'll a sudden you're trying to Drudge up this really painful heart level gut level stuff it's the kind of stuff that we bury in our subconscious and don't want to deal with right and and yet here's Jesus you want the living water go go get your husband I don't have whoa what's happening Jesus is going after this space that only he can he'll see she's coming out to the well in the middle of the day which means she's avoiding either the very real or perceived judgment of the other women she has come out in the middle of the day to avoid being wounded by the stares and whispers of others she feels dirty she feels ashamed she's hiding and she's been wildly successful at avoiding that judgment and not at least seeing the whispers of others and yet she's not been healed she's actually been enslaved now to her guilt and shame and sin and Jesus being the Saviour of the world being rich in love engages that spot to pull it out to heal so if you think about it if you think about those places that we go and hide are one of the primary hurdles to knowing Jesus personally we we hide these places in our heart as though Jesus doesn't know them we have these hurdles ourselves we struggle ourselves to because I think you can have an impersonal relationship with Christ and be a Christian what affects your intimacy with Jesus is the fact that you've got some very real struggles that you won't voiced him as though he doesn't already know like that's what's so crazy about this text Jesus knows when he says go get your husband he's not taking off guard he knows what he's doing he's going after the spot that she doesn't want anyone to touch because it's too tender and yet it's in the touch of Christ that it's healed all right it's in the touch of Christ that it's healed it's that he's willing to lean in to the most delicate wound she has and woo her out of it and she does what we all do you're now at the level of the heart which is wildly uncomfortable for us which is why most of our relationships are impersonal so now I just have to believe my experience twenty-something years in ministry is it at this point worse not in tears all right you don't touch that level of woundedness without snot and tears and fear starting to grip and so what does she do she runs into her mind right go get your husband don't have a husband you're out you have five the guy you're with now isn't your husband her response to that I perceive that you are a prophet and then watch what she does I'm telling you this is an indictment on us well what what does she do she then goes okay that this is too uncomfortable we're dealing with my heart I don't like this I feel weird when it is too painful to deal with so did you say that we were to worship on that mountain but we say we're to worship on this one what are you gonna do oh I just like cuz we do it all the time like ah feelings so I was reading Calvin's Institute's and he said rights like I don't know I'm not staying down here this is weird I'm freaked out I feel not transparent but boner Abul you know those two things aren't the same most of us don't have a problem in being transparent because that's kind of cool authentic but boner ability that's something altogether different and nobody likes that it feels weird so she runs into her mind so which mountain is it and then I love Jesus just answers neither that mountain nor that mountain the true worshipers will worship Him in spirit and truth and that day is today and then again she she's like it's such a great part of the text right where she says well you know the Messiah is coming and when he gets here he'll he'll answer all this for us so Jesus kind of looks at the chessboard I'm him checkmate I'm him and then I love that that Jesus being the savior of the world is not nervous or afraid by the cultural awkwardness that ensues I don't know if you were with me when we were reading the text but the disciples show up and here's this woman I mean just puffy I'd still snot all over the place you can just tell that something weird is really going on and nobody says anything I mean literally they show up and that the Bible tells us that nobody says anything like the disciples don't go hey is everything all right what's going on do you need anything Jesus why why would you talk to a Samaritan woman like it's so awkward that nobody even addresses it and then our Samaritan woman who's been so overwhelmed with guilt and shame based on some very real sins and some very real things that she's given herself over to is no longer nervous and ashamed but she runs into town and boldly says according to the Bible come and see the man now what's her past do you think there might be some eye rolls when she shows up in town hey come and see the man you think there might be some whispers say she kills him then what another dude right and yet she's become emboldened by the grace and mercy of Christ come and see the man who told me all that I have and they came out and they heard and the Bible tells us that they believed upon the name of Jesus first because of her testimony and then because they saw him and talked to him themselves all of these kind of beautiful kind of little niches in this story are happening because Jesus is the savior of the world now two two ways to read this text we can read it in personally or we can read it personally and so here's what I mean by that um we can read this text like we would read a newspaper and I think far too many of us are guilty of that I think it's why the Bible gets boring to us right we we got our journal open and we've learned we gotta have a quiet time that's what we call it sounds like punishment go have a quiet time with the Lord okay gosh I'm sorry it's get in the corner and think about that um and and so we can read it in personally we can open up our journals open up our Bibles when we start to write facts that are true based on this text so we can read John four and we can take our pin lid it's got like um something on it you know like Psalm 23 or something like that and we can write in our journal that Jesus meets people where they are in their messes we can write that out struggle about maybe taking a picture of our Bible their coffee on Instagram and tweeting that as a line hashtag Amen just fight off that no no no it's about me in the Lord and go on and and write our next sentence people really love and want to worship Jesus fight the urge again gosh there's my iPad right there he's so easy to click a great shot people think I'm so godlike no dylon Jesus introduces freedom into cultural dynamics these are all true statements embedded in the text that Jesus makes people bold that Jesus removes and relieves people's guilt and shame and that testimonies are powerful things we could write all of that in our journal we closed it and we could put it on and we could go about our day that's reading the Bible in a way that's impersonal it's factual it's true but it lacks the courage of walking and vulnerability with a personal Lord and Savior so let me talk to you about how I think we should read the Bible personally um let me start by just saying this okay so if you can't follow me here you probably won't be able to follow me for the rest of the sermon and maybe this is why just the first half of its good we are all the woman at the well every one of us so Jesus shows up at the well and says to the woman go get your husband she knew I mean it's it's the most tender place in her soul for me he showed up not at a well but after a football practice and I didn't have five previous husbands but I was a liar and I was a cheat and I spent a lot of energy trying to take advantage of high school girls with low self-esteem and I broke the law and I was a drunkard and I gave myself over to debauch it debauchery and sinfulness I I just did what everyone else was doing and I did a pretty good job of it if you can imagine my energy not redeemed and so I just given myself oh and by the grace of God here's my well moment by the grace of God it wasn't working I knew it wasn't like I could feel that that this isn't getting me what I thought it was going to get me now that's by the grace of God so I my oldest will turn 13 next Saturday so we're officially in to the teenage years I'm looking forward to it's gonna be awesome paired like get ready Lowe's Tina I am ready for those teenage years let's go I scare I know it's gonna be confusing but I ain't scared and so in that listen I it's by the grace of God that at 15 I'm going this doesn't work not even become a Christian for another two and a half three years but I knew this isn't when does this end where does this stop I have tasted what the world has it's lying to me and so I became acutely aware I'm a liar I don't just lie I'm a liar I cheat I break the law I am NOT a good person and I'm I've got all that the world says that I need to be full and happy and I am bankrupt and angry and that was my well and so when I read John chapter four I want to remember that Jesus asked me some very specific questions about my heart and I didn't have the answers when I hear her say give me this water I want to remember when my heart knew there was something more but I didn't know how to get it I want to remember back to the over a year that I just went to church with Jeff and I would hear about Jesus and I would hear about what he could do but I just couldn't see it I just couldn't grasp it because I had my own URLs I had my own doubts of whether or not he was good I had endured some things that I could not reconcile with the loving God there's been some things that had happened to me some things that had happened to people I love in my closest family unit that I could not make sense that if the God of the universe was loving and good that that could be reconciled with my experience I had some significant hurdles but my heart was yearning knew there was something I felt stuck and frustrated in myself I look back now no that was all the grace of God but when I when I read her say where can I get this water I want to remember I I was there I was there stuck in my heart level intellectual running mess and I wanted out I want to remember that moment of yearning it's reading the Bible in a personal way that Jesus came and found me because he's the savior of the world I want to remember how he infused boldness into me and so my older sister was in our last service and we got to chuckle a little bit I mean I literally was partying with the crew in June Christ grabbed ahold of my heart in July school we're in an I heart Jesus shirt you want to talk about just Wigan people out thought I'd joined a cult didn't know was going on all the ferocity by which I chased the party scene and girls are now chased Jesus and and it really wigged people out and that boldness was put into me by Christ cuz I didn't care what it cost me and and so um eighteen year old boys care what it costs them and man I was a dork Anna Morin for one of the first times in my life was no longer part of that kind of cool subset in fact I met new Christian friends and they were not like I had questions I don't know how to answers like so what do we do on Fridays now what do you guys do cuz I wasn't at that place where I could be a part of that old scene without falling back into it so what do you guys do and I still don't have the answer to that for a high school kid right we just hang out we're just matters you know and and so then I just remember what Jesus did in me and so when I see her run back into town I want to remember there was this time I ran into town and and good lord I haven't been able to stop running into town ever said like I haven't recovered I have not gone back to normal I've been set for the rest of eternity is abnormal by the savior of the world that's awesome it's awesome yeah I want you to be abnormal too I want you to be abnormal too because to know him personally is to make us a bit weird to those around us like even our sexual ethic makes us freaks in our day and age um People magazine did a blurb on a Christian artist named Colton Dixon who just got married and it was just a blurb about how he and his wife had saved themselves until they were married and about the Covenant and then you should have read the comments uh I mean he the the predominant theme of people who read that little blurb was that what a weird sexually repressed freak this Gaius I mean even that ethic alone makes us odd weirdos the fact that our lives are shaped by this personal Savior it makes us freaks listen to me we will not be the cool kids look at me and that's okay because God's never really powerfully used the cool kids like it seems like he's really into the opposite of that why because he really shows off his glory when he uses weak vessels so I meant I just heartily agree if I'm what the skeptic and I think I think religions for the weak I'm like you're absolutely right I just totally agree with you I think we're we probably disagree is that you don't see yourself as weak but I would totally agree that the weak hearted weak-minded we that they use religion as a crutch what I'm trying to say to you lovingly brothers your legs are broke I got a crutch for you come on in right so we read the text in this personal way because it makes us vulnerable in front of a guy who already knows everything about us like you've got no secrets from Jesus and that's okay because he's the savior of the world so so the last little point here that I want to really draw out before we pray and and sing and then we'll come back and do a little communion is like what if Jesus has a three-year ministry what in the world is he doing at a well and Samaria talking to one woman now any business guys in the room is there a more inefficient model for saving the world than this got a massive crowd waiting for you just north I don't know let's stop and talk to a single woman who's a perpetual adulterer more than likely and let's spend time healing that deepest and then let's hang out with their loser friends for a couple of days like what's going on here well the only way to make sense of this is that Jesus is the savior of the world let's pray just briefly where were you and Jesus found you maybe you've come in this place today and then you're not a Christian you you you wouldn't have an impersonal or were you that you'd have no kind of relationship where maybe today is that day that Jesus meets you at the well what are your hurdles to move past being an acquaintance and into a personal relationship being really honest you have animosity towards God you feel as though he has betrayed you has he been unfair or cruel can you just not reconcile some things do you have an intellectual problem father we just confess that we don't just want to know facts about Jesus although those are good we want to know him we thank you that that's the offer here that the offer here is not to know about but to deeply know so we pray that in looking at Jesus today as the savior of the world you might shape us move us another degree towards looking like him help us it's for your beautiful name I pray amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 70,962

Rating: 4.820477 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, I Am, 2016

Id: qpeDbF3E2AM

Length: 46min 18sec (2778 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2016