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Skip Heitzig: Would you turn in your Bibles, please, to the Gospel of John, chapter 4? This is our last message in this little series that we call "Help." We call it "Help" because we all find there are certain areas in our Christian pilgrimage, our walk with the Lord, our motion toward heaven, that we just kind of get hung up on, and we need help in. We have isolated eight subjects and we have gone through them. This last one, I'm calling "Help! I Don't Know How to Share My Faith." I could even say, "Help! I'm Scared Sharing My Faith."

Let me begin with a story, if that's okay. Once upon a time, on a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat. But the few devoted members kept constant watch over the sea. With no thought for themselves, they went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many who were saved and others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station, and they gave their time and their money to support the work.

New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew. Some of the members were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They thought a more comfortable place could be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in a larger building. Now, the life-saving station became a popular gathering, and they decorated it beautifully. In fact, they used it sort of like a club.

Fewer members were now interested in going out to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do the work. The life-saving motif still prevailed in the club's decoration, and there was even a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held. About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and they were sick, and some of them had darkened skin.

The beautiful new club was in chaos. The property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where the victims could be cleaned up before coming inside. At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon life-saving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station.

But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station up the coast. So, they did. As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another life-saving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

Somebody once wisely said that a church that does not evangelize will eventually fossilize. It's true that many Christian organizations, mission organizations, church denominations, and individual independent churches begin well. They start in revival, but they end up dead. It was Dwight L. Moody, an evangelist himself and pastor of the Moody Church in the beginning, who said that the church reminded him of firemen straightening pictures on the walls of a burning house. The house is burning down. What are you doing straightening the pictures for? Get to saving lives instead of straightening the pictures.

But, and I know you've heard all this, it's scary to share your faith. For some people, when you bring up this topic, it's like, "Yeah, I'm not called to that," or "I won't know the answers that the unbelievers ask," or "I'm just not good at this. I might be rejected. I hate rejection." So, they give up. But let me just say that if you ever do get around to personally sharing your faith, there is no greater thrill than to have a conversation that leads to a conversion; to have a dialogue with somebody that eventually ends in a decision for Jesus Christ. There's no greater thrill on this earth than to watch that happen.

Fortunately, we have a role model, a scriptural role model for how to do it. It's given to us by Jesus Christ himself. He speaks to a woman of Samaria in the very famous story in John chapter 4. This woman is not predisposed to hearing or liking the gospel. She certainly didn't grow up in a Christian home. She was skeptical, jaded by life, and let down by society, especially men. But our Lord has a conversation. The conversation leads, if you follow the whole storyline, to a conversion—hers. Then she goes back to the town after believing that this Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah and tells everybody, and many of the people of that city also believe.

So, what I'd like to do in John chapter 4 is give you three necessary ingredients, just three: you need the right attitude, the right approach, and the right appeal. The right attitude, the right approach, and the right appeal. First is the right attitude. Attitude is the number one ingredient. What do I mean by having the right attitude? You have to care that those people are lost and walking toward a Christless eternity. That has to matter to you. People can tell if you care. They can also tell if you don't care. Even a dog can tell if you care.

The attitude of being concerned for the soul that you are dealing with day by day is the first ingredient, having the right attitude. I was speaking to somebody this week and she said that she went to a doctor, and the doctor seemed very aloof, like he didn't really care. He may have been smart, but she didn't feel comforted by his lack of concern. Technically, you can be a good doctor without love. You can be a good lawyer without love. You can be a great engineer without love. But you cannot be a good Christian without love. Doing our task of sharing our faith has to begin with the right attitude.

With that in mind, let's begin in John chapter 4 and look at two verses beginning in verse 3 where it says, "He," that is Christ, "left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But he needed to go through Samaria." That's an odd placing of a verse. "He needed to go through Samaria." The reason that is odd is the Jews felt nobody really needed to go through Samaria. They shunned the Samaritans. They avoided the Samaritans. They even went out of their way to not go through Samaria. There were several routes north to south. You could go directly through Samaria, but most Jews did not because they wanted to avoid Samaria.

The fact that it says "he needed to go through Samaria" is a statement about his love, about his attitude, about his concern. As I said, the Jews didn't hang out with the Samaritans. They didn't do lunch. They were not Facebook friends. They wanted nothing to do with them. In fact, down in verse 9, this woman says as much: "The woman of Samaria said to him, 'How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?' For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans."

The reason the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans is because the Samaritans were like defectors. They left Judaism for a hybrid kind of a faith that was a temple in Samaria. Now, the Jews, I'm talking about the orthodox religious Jews of the time, they didn't like Gentiles to begin with. The rabbis had several sayings about Gentiles. One of them is that God created Gentiles as kindling for the fires of hell. That was one of their sayings. Another rabbinical saying was, "There is joy in heaven when one sinner is obliterated from off the earth."

But when it came to the Samaritans, they even had more of an antipathy toward them. A famous Jewish prayer from 2,000 years ago said, "Lord, do not remember the Samaritans in the resurrection."

Guest (Male): You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Every day, the generosity of friends like you helps make clear, practical Bible teaching available to families who are searching for hope, healing, and God's truth. And this month, we want to thank you with a powerful resource focused on restoring God's design for family. When you give, you'll receive *Reconnecting with Family*, Pastor Skip's new book drawn from more than 30 years of biblical teaching and pastoral wisdom. It speaks honestly to the real challenges families face: financial stress, emotional distance, discouragement, and temptation, while pointing you back to God's timeless plan for healthy, God-honoring relationships. We'll send *Reconnecting with Family* as our thanks when you give $50 or more to support the ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com/offer. Now, let's return to today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig.

Skip Heitzig: Now here's Jesus, and it says "he needed to go through Samaria." It's like, "I gotta go there. I gotta go there. There's a woman who is hurting that I need to meet." So, this is a statement about his love and about his attitude. He is practicing what he preached. Remember the story he said? The good shepherd leaves the ninety-nine and searches for the one lost sheep and brings that sheep back to the fold. That's the love of Christ. "Jesus loves the little children," the song goes. "All the little children of the world." But he also loves all the adults, teenagers, college students, and all the Samaritans of the world.

So, he goes there because he needed to go through Samaria. This is the first step. If you're ever going to share your faith, it begins with concern. So, we need to ask God to cultivate within us, if it's not there already, to cultivate within us a love for lost people. I know sometimes it's hard to be around them. You don't like what they think and how they talk and their decisions, but ask God to cultivate a love for lost people, to see them in their true condition.

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9, Jesus sees the crowds that are coming toward him, and it says, "When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd." He saw them in their true condition, and because he did, it evoked a compassion. That's a beautiful word, the Greek word *splagchnizomai*. It actually means you feel something in the intestines. A literal translation of "he felt compassion" is "he had bowels or intestines of yearning for them." He felt something for them in the pit of his stomach. He loved them. He had compassion.

It's that same compassion when he approaches Jerusalem toward the end of his three-and-a-half-year ministry and he looks over the city, begins to weep over it, saying, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you as a mother hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing." So, yes, you can memorize the "Four Spiritual Laws" tract. You can memorize portions of scripture. You can have your little spiel down of what you want to say, and that's always good—clever arguments. But if you don't care, then you won't share. Sharing begins with caring. If you're going to share your faith, you need to care for the lost because compassion is the birthplace of evangelism. It's where it is born.

So, here's just a little footnote to that before I give you the second one. Do a little inventory right now in your own heart. Is there any people group, any racial group that you have problems with, prejudice against? If you're not sure, or if you would immediately say, "Oh, no, not me. I'm perfect in that regard," ask somebody who knows you really well. Just try this: "Hey, honestly, do you see something in my life that would indicate that I am showing animosity or anger or prejudice toward any kind of a group, just like the Jews against these Samaritans?"

And then ask God to give you an attitude of transforming love to replace it. You know, Peter in the New Testament, the apostle Peter admitted that he had a problem with non-Jewish people. Did you know that? When the Lord told him to go to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, he comes into the house and he's like, really nervous. He said to Cornelius, "You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company or go into one of another nation." It's like, "I do not feel comfortable right here, dude." But then he says, "But God has shown me that I should not call common or unclean what God has cleansed."

One person said the love of God is like the Amazon River flowing down to water one daisy. This world needs to be flooded with the love of God, and it's only going to come through us, his children. So, number one, have the right attitude.

Number two: approach. Have the right approach. Now, let's continue the story. So, he needed to go through Samaria. Verse 5: "He came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now, Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of 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. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, 'How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?' For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans."

As soon as they see each other, Jesus enters into a dialogue with this woman, a normal conversation. He comes off as somebody who needs a drink of water. So, he says, "Give me a drink." Now, he's going to wait for an opportunity to go deeper. He says, "Give me a drink." She's astonished. She says, "Why would you do that? Why would you ask?"

See, it was not only not customary for a Jew to hang out with a Gentile or a Samaritan, typically; it was not protocol for Jewish men to speak to women in public. I know that sounds so strange to our ears, but Jewish men, who were very devout Jewish men, especially rabbis, would never talk to a woman in public, not even his wife or adult daughter. In fact, there was a group of Pharisees known as the "bruised and bleeding Pharisees." They were called that because whenever they would walk on the streets publicly and they would see a woman coming toward them, they would shut their eyes while they were walking to avoid seeing a woman and being tempted with bad thoughts. But if you keep your eyes closed when you're walking, you're going to run into walls and houses and fences—hence the name "bruised and bleeding Pharisee." But some got that crazy about it.

So, he asks for a drink. She's puzzled that he asks for a drink. But then the text even gives us a little bit of a hint about something. It says in verse 6, "It was about the sixth hour." The sixth hour is a time signature to let us know this happened at 12:00 noon, which was not normal. It is not the normal time for women to go to the local well to get water to bring it home. The normal time for women to go to the well is early in the morning or later in the evening. Nobody goes at 12:00 noon, which indicates to me she wanted to be left alone. She didn't want to be with the crowds of women because when the women would go and meet at the well, they would typically socialize, share stories, get the news, etc. It indicates that she's probably trying to avoid people. She doesn't want to encounter anybody because she knows she has earned the "social outcast" label.

We go on in the story and find out that she has had in her past five different husbands and she's living with somebody who's not her husband. They all know that in town. So, she has been bullied. She has been insulted. She wants to be alone. That's perfect for Jesus. He wants her to be alone. He wants to have this conversation. So, this is a great approach: just have a normal conversation, enter into a normal conversation. And then, as you're just organically speaking about whatever you're speaking about, look for opportunities. Look for little words or indications. Be tactful. Ask questions. Don't go in hot going, "Are you saved?"

"How about tell me your name first?" "No, are you saved? Do you know you're going to hell?" Probably won't get very far with that approach. So, he has the right approach. He enters into a dialogue. He has the right attitude, he has the right approach. He's very engaging.

Third: have the right appeal. The right appeal. What would make an unbeliever move from the position of being an unbeliever to even considering faith in Christ? There has to be some kind of appeal. Do you know—I know this is not a newsflash for a lot of you, but for some of you it might be—lost people do not know they are lost people. You say, "Are you saved?" "Saved from what? I'm doing great. What are you talking about?" They don't understand their lostness until they are found. When they are found, they're going to look back and go, "Man, was I lost."

It's like a guy who grew up on TV dinners and Hamburger Helper his whole life, and somebody tries to tell him, "Have you ever tried steak and lobster?" "What's that?" Then he has a bite, and his cuisine will change forever. His whole outlook will change forever. Billy Graham once said the most devastating effect of sin is that we are blinded to it. So, there has to be some appeal that would cause a person who is blind, who is not understanding their need, to move toward a decision of faith. You need the right attitude, the right approach, and the right appeal.

Let me explain the third: the right appeal. Appeal to their curiosity. Appeal to their curiosity. Watch what Jesus does in verse 10. "Jesus answered and said to her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him, and he would give you living water.'" This is what advertisers call a hook, or salespeople call a hook: saying something to stimulate curiosity to get them to want to hear more of what you have to say. Jesus' statement here is a bit mysterious, and that's designed to be that to make her want to hear more. It produces curiosity. "If you knew who was talking to you, you'd ask him, he'd give you living water." And she'd be thinking, "I wonder what he means by that? I have no idea what he means by that, but I'd like to hear more about that." So, he gives just enough information as a hook to draw in her curiosity.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember: your generosity helps share God's Word with families around the world, offering truth, hope, and encouragement where it's needed most. And this month, we'd love to thank you for your gift of $50 or more by sending you *Reconnecting with Family*, Pastor Skip's new book focused on restoring God's design for family and relationships. It's filled with biblical insight and practical encouragement to help families grow stronger, even in challenging seasons. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig.