Exposing the Sin. Displaying the Savior.

[0:00] I'm reading John chapter 4, beginning in verse 1 and going to verse 19.

[0:13] 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.

[0:32] 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.

[0:44] It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

[0:56] 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.

[1:08] 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.

[1:19] 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?

[1:31] 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.

[1:44] 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.

[1:56] 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. Jesus said to her, go, call your husband and come here.

[2:11] The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband for you have had five husbands and the one you have is not your husband.

[2:26] What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated?

[2:44] One thing I've noticed being a pastor is how afraid people are of being in the church building at nighttime when the lights are off. And if you've been in that position, you know how terrifying it can be to be in the house of God with the lights off and being alone in that situation.

[3:10] In a way, I think that it's right that we should have a sense of fear whenever we enter into this place. Not just when the lights are off and it's at nighttime.

[3:23] Not a fear of God in a way that we feel uncomfortable completely with him, right? But a healthy fear of God and of who he really is.

[3:39] You'll often hear people maybe say to you, well, if I could only see God, I would believe. To which the Bible answers in reply, be careful what you wish for.

[3:53] And so I want to start by looking at some experiences from Scripture of those who have seen God. In Exodus chapter 20, verse 9, and then in chapter 33, verse 20, If you remember, the people plead with Moses to serve as their mediator between them and God because they express fear that in seeing God they would die.

[4:20] And then later on in Exodus 33, verse 20, after Moses dares to ask to see God's glory, God responds to him by saying that he will allow his goodness to pass before Moses, allowing Moses to see him from the back.

[4:37] Because God says to him, Afterwards, when Moses comes down from the mountain after he has experienced this situation, this seeing God from the backside, If you remember, he comes down with the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments that God had given to the people.

[5:03] And if you remember, the Bible says that his face was shining, shining, having seen what he had saw. And it says that the people, and seeing Moses in this situation, that Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, And behold, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.

[5:26] In Judges 33, verse 22, a theophany or Christophany takes place. This is a visible appearance of the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ, occurring back in Judges 13.

[5:41] There it says that an angel of the Lord, which is referring to Jesus Christ, Visites Manoah and his wife with news that they would have a son whom they were to name Samson, Who would keep the Nazarite vow.

[5:55] And in chapter 13, verse 22, Manoah fearfully says to his wife, We shall surely die, for we have seen God.

[6:07] Others examples, Job 42, verses 5 through 6. Job says, I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you, therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.

[6:24] See if you can catch a theme going through here. Isaiah 6, 1 through 5. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

[6:36] Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings. With two, he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet. With two, he flew. And one called to another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

[6:50] The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me.

[7:02] Cursed am I. For I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

[7:13] In Luke chapter 5, verses 4 through 8, speaking of Peter's conversion, it says, And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out, and he's speaking as Jesus, Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

[7:29] And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word I will let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.

[7:40] They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink. Now listen to this. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a man.

[7:57] I am a sinful man, O Lord. In Revelations 1, 17, John sees a vision of the resurrected and glorified Christ who's coming with this revelation for him to record.

[8:12] And it says that when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, Fear not, for I am the first and the last. And then Revelations 1, 7 describes something that we will all see and be a part of.

[8:27] Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. And all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so.

[8:38] Amen. So you see, no matter the person, the place, or the time, when God reveals himself to people, two things happen. First, they realize how holy God is.

[8:55] And then second, as a part of that, in light of seeing God's holiness, they feel and know and understand just how truly depraved they themselves are.

[9:06] They see God's worth, and at the same time, they see their unworthiness. They see that their sin has been fully exposed in his presence, and they are desperate in those situations to have it covered up.

[9:22] John the Baptist describes Jesus, if you remember, as being the perfect witness of God the Father. That Jesus has come from above, and that he utters the words of God.

[9:34] That he is, in fact, the God-man. That he has been sent to redeem his people from their sins by giving his life as a ransom for many. In John 3.

[9:45] And now in John 4, verses 1 through 15, which we've read, we've seen how Jesus, who is the perfect witness, gives or provides us with a perfect example of how we are to share the gospel.

[10:01] Thus far, we've seen four principles that we must remember as we seek to carry out the Great Commission. If you remember, that like Jesus, we don't use our weariness or our tiredness as an excuse to keep us from sharing the gospel.

[10:18] That also, we must take the initiative in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. That when we do so, that God's mercy, we need to understand, is not dependent upon man's morality.

[10:30] We're not waiting for people to clean themselves up before we can share the good news with them. No! We go to every person, no matter where they are at, and we share the good news of Jesus Christ with them.

[10:42] And then, as we do that, we tell them and show them that God's promises are unparalleled by anything else that this world could ever offer them.

[10:53] So far, the Samaritan woman that Jesus has encountered is intrigued by this strange Jewish rabbi who was willing to break established cultural norms to engage her in conversation.

[11:10] He's offered her living water, which symbolizes the salvation that we receive from God. Like water, salvation is life-giving.

[11:20] It cleanses us from our sins, showering us with God's mercy and God's love and His forgiveness, which flows from God to the believer continually.

[11:33] Yet the woman has failed, at least to this point, to see her need for any of this. And she's failed to see Jesus as being the Savior, the only Savior, who can provide her with this eternal, everlasting salvation.

[11:54] But that begins to change here in verse 16. As now Jesus brings this woman face to face with the reality of sin.

[12:10] As she begins to realize it as well that now she sees for herself that she is face to face with God Himself.

[12:27] Christianity presents a two-fold revelation. There is the revelation of God, primarily in Jesus Christ, His Son, and then there is the revelation of ourselves.

[12:40] Thus no one has ever seen God unless at the same time they have seen their own sinfulness. So here's the main point for this morning's message.

[12:52] Evangelism truly begins with bringing people to the truth about their depraved condition and inviting them to trust in Christ.

[13:06] In evangelism, we expose sin and we display the Savior. In Matthew 2, 17, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

[13:24] I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. And so He has. And so He sends those of us whom He has made well to go likewise and to do the very same thing.

[13:39] 2 Corinthians 5, 18-20 says, All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

[13:51] That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us, His people, His disciples, His followers, the message of reconciliation.

[14:03] Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making His appeal through us. And so we implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

[14:16] And so as followers of Jesus Christ, this is what we are to be about doing. disciples who are passionate about making disciples. And so here in verses 16-19, Jesus gives us two additional principles that we must employ in our evangelism as we seek to go, make disciples.

[14:39] Who will make more disciples? In verses 6-18, we see that the next principle is that sin must be exposed. Must be exposed.

[14:51] Up to verse 15, much has been said about both the Samaritan woman and Christ. But to this point, the woman has not seen truly her need for Him as Savior.

[15:06] She's not truly been struck by anything that He's said to her. She seems interested in Him. She's certainly surprised by Him that He, a man and a Jew, would take the time to speak to her that men didn't speak to women in this context, in this time period.

[15:29] And so she's curious about Him. He's strange. She's also curious, I think, about what He has had to say to her to this point, about this living water that He has extended to her as a gift.

[15:41] that He said that if she received it, it would be welling up inside of her to eternal life. But even still, she seems to receive this statement half-heartedly.

[15:53] Even seeming to respond somewhat sarcastically to this offer that He is extending to her. So there's been this sort of verbal back and forth in verses 1 through 15.

[16:11] The woman is amused with Jesus. She's amused by His statements. But as she presumably goes back to her task of filling her water jar, which she had originally came to do, Jesus suddenly makes a statement that it would have jolted her to her core.

[16:42] To this point, she presumes that all Jesus knows of her is information that anyone who would pay attention to another person could know based upon the information that they've gathered through what is externally seen.

[16:59] She's a Samaritan woman, which, considering their location being in Samaria, along with there perhaps being some other kind of physical indicators that she's a Samaritan, those were obvious to anyone who would have met her.

[17:18] But then Jesus asked her a question, and that question would have served like a slap in the face of this woman.

[17:30] That question He asked her is in verse 16. Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband, and come here. Now, the thing that we've got to understand is that Jesus' question was not unkind.

[17:50] Everything He said to this woman was said from a position of kindness that He was extending to her, from a position of love that He was extending to her.

[18:02] And Jesus was kind enough and He was loving enough to speak the truth, which meant bringing this woman face to face with an issue that she wished to keep hidden, to uncover a guilt that she wished to keep covered up.

[18:22] This was a kindness. Only He knew how long this woman had walked miles past the other water sources that she could have gone to in the heat of the day in order to avoid being seen by other women whom she knew in order to hide herself from their unapproving looks, to hide herself from their hateful comments, to hide herself from feeling isolated.

[18:51] You know, I find it interesting that oftentimes when people are made to feel isolated by a group, then they take it upon themselves to further that isolation from that group.

[19:07] They think, well, I don't fit in here, so they take it upon themselves purposefully to be everything that they can be that is completely opposite of that group that they felt shunned by.

[19:24] And in doing so, they're saying in a way, you rejected me, well, guess what? I reject you too. People choose oftentimes in those situations to intensely hate those whom they feel have rejected them.

[19:48] I imagine that this woman was experiencing a lot of guilt and also a lot of hatred. And she was suppressing as best she could these feelings that she had welling up inside of her.

[20:04] The coping mechanism of isolation that she created wasn't really helping her, though, because being God, Jesus saw straight into her heart.

[20:17] He saw straight into her mind. He saw straight into her soul. He knew this woman through and through.

[20:31] We may be able to hide our sins and failings from other people. We can move away. We can distance ourselves from the situation. We can detach ourselves from those who know something of our past.

[20:46] Even we can try to force bad memories into the darkest recesses of our subconscious. But let me tell you that nothing is hidden from God.

[20:59] And because He is kind, He will uncover those things that we wish to keep covered up. but He doesn't do so in order to mock us or to torment us but to heal us.

[21:20] The Samaritan woman probably feeling a flood of emotions having come on all of a sudden as a result of Jesus' question answers Him in verse 17 by saying simply I have no husband.

[21:37] And with that it seems that she is content to end the conversation right then and right there. To grab her water and to hurry back home as soon as possible.

[21:50] But again Jesus who is the great physician Jesus who is the healer of broken hearts Jesus who is the mender of tattered minds and Jesus who is the redeemer of lost souls presses on with His work.

[22:07] And He continues by saying to her you are right in saying I have no husband for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband what you have said is true.

[22:19] The woman seems to have been living a lie but Jesus now brings her to a confession of the truth.

[22:29] God you know I was wondering this week as I was studying for this passage what kind of advice the Samaritan woman would receive from our culture today.

[22:45] What would they tell her? How would they try to fix what was broken inside of her? If she walked through the doors of a secular therapist now I totally believe in Christian counseling I think it's great and a wonderful thing I participate in that when necessary but I wonder what kind of advice would she receive from them or from the world?

[23:10] In our politically correct culture where power is given to those who are deemed to be the victim she'd probably not be approached by a secular therapist or counselor in the same manner in which Jesus approached her 2,000 years ago at the well first of all she'd probably be told that sin isn't a real thing that there is no such thing as sin that sin is an antiquated term used by religious people perhaps she'd be told that it was the fault of her past husbands they didn't truly appreciate you they didn't really love you like they should have perhaps they attempt to dig into her past and find the source of blame in somebody else blaming it perhaps on the absence of an abusive parent or blaming it on some kind of genetic abnormality perhaps they'd even encourage her to seek revenge or they'd tell her that this was a sickness that medication could suppress or numb maybe even they'd put the blame on the current president and encourage her to find a safe place where she could hide and feel safe from the world she'd probably be encouraged to seek out and to live her truth well you marry people and you have husbands that's your thing just keep going on but Jesus didn't take any of these approaches with her but I've found that many churches seek to help hurting people unfortunately by adapting more of the world's ways and attempting to bring healingness to broken people than to

[25:14] Jesus ways we don't attempt to help people cope with sin like Jesus we attempt to expose it by speaking truth in kindness from a heart that's motivated for love for the person whom we are speaking to that the sinner will come to the realization that Christ is to be trusted that he is the only one who can truly redeem us giving us a new heart giving us a mind like his and hope for eternal salvation that only Jesus can truly heal our brokenness at this point all the woman's pretentious pretensions vanished completely and although she'll again try twice more to change the subject in verse 20 and verse 25 she knew that all of her thoughts and all of her actions were exposed before this man whom she was speaking to who was able to tell her all that she had ever done that would be quite uncomfortable wouldn't it be amen that's not one we want to say amen to is it

[26:28] I remember being a bit of a rebellious teenager and I did a pretty good job of hiding things from my mother and father that I didn't want them to know about but I had one here this morning by God's sovereignty who was very observant and almost like some of those mothers have a lot of you mothers have like a sixth sense you know when trouble is brewing or has already been brewn and she found out a lot but she didn't find out everything and the statue of limitations is up mom and I turned out okay but you know how uncomfortable it can be in the presence of a mother or father growing up who seemed to just know everything but they couldn't know everything but God does he knows everything everything he saw right into this woman's heart and so do you realize this morning that he can also see right into yours right now and like the

[27:43] Samaritan woman whom he met at the well 2000 years ago and who lives in eternity today with him in paradise for you and me he says I know I know and then like he did for her he says to you and to me come to me you come to me and I will give you living water you come to me and I will give you eternal life you come to me and I will save you and that salvation will be within you like a well of living water that wells up and is running continually now and forever whether your sin mirrors that of the Samaritan woman or Moses who was a murderer or King David who was an adulterer and a murderer or Peter who cowered and denied Christ he knows the disobedience and the rebellious nature that lurks within each and every one of us the

[28:50] Bible says in Hebrews 4 13 and no creature is hidden from his sight but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account you see he sees all he knows all and so will you still try to hide or will you acknowledge will you confess your sins will you repent of them before him this is what we must do when we share the gospel these are the probing types of questions that we must ask because Jesus did it and because if you want to be like Jesus you must do the same exposing sin that they would see their need for Christ and take that step towards salvation so the first step is bringing them face to face with the reality of their sin and the substitute whom has been sent to extinguish it on the cross now here's the thing

[30:04] Jesus had something going for him that we do not have he was omniscient and we are not he knew all about this woman we don't have that same knowledge but we do know that people sin and that doesn't make them a sinner they sin because they're born sinners sin is the greatest issue that any person has to face much greater than that of the coronavirus or the threat of another world war much greater than any of those things is sin it's an issue that plagues every person everywhere and it's the greatest issue that our and every other generation has had to face because of the rebellious actions taken against a God who is holy and that therefore incures his wrath listen to what the Bible has to say about the sinful condition

[31:04] Galatians 3 22 but the scripture has shut up all men under sin in 1 Kings chapter 8 a passage which contains King Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple Solomon said there is no one who does not sin in verse 46 David wrote in Psalm 14 1 they are corrupt their deeds are vile there is no one who does good Psalm 143 verse 2 says no one living is righteous before you Isaiah observed in chapter 53 verse 6 no one is living who is righteous before you.

[31:41] We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. In the New Testament, in the first letter of John, we are admonished in verses eight and 10.

[31:55] If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

[32:07] At the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said in Matthew 5, 48, be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect. And the question then we should ask is, how good are we being or how good are we at doing life perfectly?

[32:24] Not good. Jesus Christ sees into the heart, he sees into the mind and when he looks within you, what does he see there? Does he see all that you have done and are doing unconfessed and demanding his judgment?

[32:43] And then must he say to you, as it says in Romans 3, 10 through 12, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

[32:54] All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Or, can he look at you as one who is indeed a sinner, but whose sin has been judged in his own body, shed through his own blood, carried out in his own death, and who, having trusted in him, now stands before him, clothed in God's righteousness.

[33:28] This is the gospel. Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory, but, Romans 8, 1, there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

[33:46] So, as we share the gospel, we must understand, in order for the gospel to be received as good news, that, first of all, sin must be exposed.

[33:57] But our evangelism doesn't end there. If it ends there, we've missed the good part about the good news. And so we see, the next principle, is that an invitation must be given.

[34:19] Often the first reaction to the realization of our sinful condition is despair. You might wonder, if I'm truly so sinful, and God knows and sees all that I've ever done and said or thought, how could he ever love somebody?

[34:36] like me? How could he ever want anything to do with anyone like me? You know, I've read this story many times, John 4, the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, but there is something in Jesus' question that I hadn't truly seen until studying this verse this past week.

[34:57] Jesus had searched out and found this woman whose sins had made her an outcast. As we've seen, he's brought her face to face with the reality of her sinfulness, exposing the truth that she's been married five times.

[35:15] And he's done that by asking her a question. Go call your husband. As we've already established all this, he knows the whole story of this woman's life.

[35:33] But once he's established her sinfulness, he offers her an invitation that I think we often miss in verse 16. He says to her, go and call your husband, knowing she's been married five times, she's living with a man who's not her husband.

[35:49] He says, go to her, or go to your husband, but then notice what he says after that. Knowing all this that he knows, when you do that, come back here.

[36:01] You come back to me. That was a word for her heart.

[36:12] She'd had a word of conviction. That was a word for her heart. That was a word of comfort. Jesus had brought her face to face with the reality of her sinful condition, and he invited her to bring her sin to him.

[36:29] And let me tell you that he invites you to do the same thing today. And he encourages each of us to follow him in extending this same invitation to unbelievers, exposing sin, but inviting them to bring it to Christ.

[36:54] So what happens when you bring your sin to Christ? Six things. At least six things. First of all, he condemns it.

[37:10] Jesus puts a curse on the curse. He marks its forehead in a way in John 8, 3. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

[37:26] And for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh. So in no uncertain terms, what this means is that he has killed your sin.

[37:39] He's condemned it. How has he done that? Well, secondly, he carries it. Like the true and better scapegoat, Jesus becomes our sin bearer.

[37:51] 1 Peter 2, 24. 1 Peter 2, 24. Says he himself bore our sins. Our sins. Our literal sins. Everything we've said and done and thought.

[38:03] He bore that sin in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you've been healed.

[38:13] He carries it. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. For our sake, he, God the Father, made him, God the Son, to be sin, who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

[38:26] He condemns it. He carries it. 3 Corinthians 5, 21. Third, we see that a result of his carrying it, he cancels it. He closes out the account.

[38:38] Even better, he opens up a new one for you where you're always in the black, where you don't ever have to worry about overdrawing your account.

[38:52] And he's credited to you, filled up with his perfect righteousness. Colossians 2, 13-14. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of the flesh, God made alive together with him having forgiven us of all our trespasses by canceling, canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

[39:16] This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. So that leads us into the next thing that Jesus has done with our sin. What has he done? He crucifies it. He condemns it.

[39:28] He carries it. He cancels it. He crucifies it. 1 Peter 3, 18. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.

[39:49] And so you see that at the cross Jesus died by taking our sins with him. Though he arose, our sin stayed dead.

[40:02] Fifth, he casts it away. Jesus takes the corpse and he chucks it forever into the void.

[40:16] Micah 7, 19. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast our sins into the depth of the sea.

[40:33] Psalm 103, 12. So as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

[40:44] He condemns it. He carries it. He cancels it. He crucifies it. He casts it away. And then lastly, in this list at least, he chooses to unremember it.

[40:58] He chooses to unremember it. And for a sinner like me, that makes me happy. Jesus is omniscient. He is not forgetful, but he wills to unremember our sins.

[41:16] Hebrews 8, 12. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

[41:26] This is how Jesus forgives sins. He condemns it. He carries it. He cancels it. He kills it.

[41:37] He casts it. And he cleanses and forgets it. All we have to do is confess it. So my invitation to you this morning, is that you?

[41:52] Do you feel like the Samaritan woman? Do you realize that God sees into your heart, into your mind, into your soul? Do you realize that you're a sinner in need of salvation, in need of forgiveness?

[42:06] Do you realize that your sin puts you in a place to receive God's wrath because you have broken His holy word, His holy commandments?

[42:19] That all sin is ultimately against Him? And what has God done for you? Well, He loved you so much that He sent Jesus to carry your sin, to crucify your sin, to give you eternal life if you would just come to Him and confess and believe in faith that Jesus Christ is your Lord and your Savior.

[42:45] Thank you.