Unlimited Grace

Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan shares a lesson from John chapter 4. Dr. Chapell highlights how Jesus meets people where they are at and offers living water to those seeking fulfillment in the things of this world.

You can find this lesson and many others when you visit UnlimitedGrace.com. And while you're there, look for this wonderful resource from Dr. Chapell: Holiness by Grace. In this book, Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, "The Mirror in the Well."

Bryan Chapell: These words were too close for comfort. If baseball legend Mickey Mantle had not asked that these words be sung at his funeral, we would have thought them too candid to be appropriate. These are the words that Mickey Mantle requested to be sung at his own funeral.

"Yesterday when I was young, the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue. I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day and only now I see how the years ran away. I used my magic age as if it were a wand and I never saw the waste and the emptiness beyond. The game of life I played with arrogance and pride and every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died."

"Yesterday when I was young, so many drinking songs were waiting to be sung, so many wayward pleasures lay in store for me, and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see. I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out, and now the time has come to pay for yesterday when I was young."

He requested those words at his own funeral, and in some measure, we all understand as one avenue after another of life's experience promised him happiness and satisfaction, and when he grabbed for it, he came up empty. Think of the opportunities: fame and fortune and great physical ability. He turned to family and to faith and to affairs and to the bottle, each in turn offering some satisfaction, some fulfillment, and each in turn ending up leaving him empty.

And so there at the end of his life, even after he'd spent those days in the hospital bed battling the cancer and in the TV interviews still saying to young people, "Do not make me your role model, do not follow my example," he was nonetheless wanting to say to people, "My path was the empty one."

How would you speak to him? I mean, if you had been called in the time that he could listen to say something about fulfillment that was not in the wells of this world, but in something else that Christ offers, how would you speak to him? I recognize the struggle, maybe you do too, because as we, as a session, the leadership of this church, have worked so much in recent months to think about how do we take this gospel that we so cherish and has so blessed our lives and send it outward to become outward-facing, not just inward-focused? How do we do that?

Just in reading lots of things, I came across a book recently by a man whose name is Comer, and he simply quoted another pastor of a large church who said these words: "We in our church know how to do ministry, but not mission." And when I read those words, I first felt empathy. That's a lot like us. We minister so well to one another and to the things that we hold dear, but how do we reach beyond the familiar? Familiar people and familiar patterns, how do we do that?

I first felt empathy, kind of like, "That's us too, we know how to do ministry and not necessarily mission," and then I felt guilt because I recognized it wasn't just us, it's me. I know how to do ministry better than mission, too. And then finally, I felt hope. If here was a pastor willing to acknowledge as much and say, "But we want to know more so we can make a difference and learn to do mission," if he's willing to put that in print and confess it, then maybe there's hope for us too.

That we can seek to learn from the scriptures how not only to do ministry, but mission. And of course, the one to teach us is the Lord Jesus, as he is here reaching across all kinds of boundaries for the sake of the mercy that he wants to extend. If we were going to express the gospel in the pattern that he has established, what would we do?

It seems to me the first step that's obvious is that we would move toward others. I know it sounds simple. It's actually not my words. There's a senior citizen of our congregation here who told me a few weeks ago about an experience of being in the church and a person came in who wasn't a regular and by his appearance and his body art in some ways was saying, "I'm not accustomed to this setting." And the senior wonderful saint here said, "I just kind of watched people part and move away."

And so he said, "All I did was move toward him. I just moved toward him." And I recognized in the goodness of that heart and direction so much of Jesus is doing in this very place. You may recognize in verse 9 that Jesus is willing to cross all kinds of social barriers just to move toward this woman. Remember, he asks her for a drink in verse 7, and she in some ways tells him why that is so odd in verse 9.

The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" The barriers are obvious. She's a Samaritan, which means in that era, in that time, she's of the wrong region, she's of the wrong religion, she's of the wrong race, she is of the wrong gender according to a Jewish perspective at that time. There are all kinds of barriers that mean that Jesus should not talk to her.

Listen, if she even touches the cup out of which he is going to drink, she will pollute it according to Jewish custom and he should not drink from it. I'm trying to think how we would express what it means that Jesus is just saying, "Would you give me a drink?" Because to us, it sounds a little abrupt, a little like "You serve me," and we don't recognize what a gracious expression of movement it is toward her where he should be going the other way and staying apart and saying, "You're just scum to me." Instead, he's saying, "Can I drink from your hand?"

If you weren't thinking Samaritan, if you were thinking leper, someone whose extremities were falling away and there was the oozing of wounds about their body and they were covered in claws that stank, and would you say to such a person, "Would you give me a drink?" Or would you say, "Get away from me"?

The mere fact that he asks is a statement of willingness to cross the boundaries and encouragement to her. I think of it in terms of my wife, Kathy, who you know loves playing the flute and has done that for many years, but I think of one of those early moments in her life that she talks about that so inspired her and gave her the desire to move forward.

She was in a little country elementary school, a fifth-grader, kind of just learning to play the flute, and got a visit, the school did, that day from a flute player who was a flute master in the St. Louis Symphony. And at some point through the day, he just sat next to her and said, "Would you play for me?"

She doesn't know enough. She's a child. He's an adult. He's the master, she's not. She doesn't know how to play well, and yet the simple willingness to listen to her was an expression of care that became an inspiration and a path of life. Her, "You care enough about me to move toward me and to take value in what I offer."

It sounds so simple, and yet it is so important that a step in sharing the gospel is just to move toward people. In order to do that and have it be meaningful, the next thing that Jesus obviously does in that willingness to move toward is he identifies the thirst that's in this woman's life. I mean, obviously, the physical thirst is apparent; she's going to a well. But you and I now know things about her life that then only Jesus would have known.

And that is she has tried many times through relationships with men to find satisfaction. And now, she's living with a man not her husband and trying to find satisfaction in that as well. And all Jesus uses the conversation to do is to kind of identify the thirstiness in her life. The conversation as he has led it thus far is just saying, "I'm willing to offer you living water so that you won't get thirsty."

Subtext: you won't have to keep coming here daily in embarrassment to face everybody who knows that you're a loner coming at noon because you don't want to face other people. I'm willing to offer you something that is eternal, some end into your shame, some end into your thirst, it seems, for relationships. And just to make sure the point is made, when she says, "Oh, I want some of that water," he says, "Go call your husband."

I want you to go find the bottle, the thing that you think has been bringing you satisfaction and compare it to what I'm offering you. It's, I know a maybe bad analogy, but it's just Jesus saying, "I'm looking for the empty bottles in the trash can. Where have you been trying to find satisfaction for your thirst and it just keeps coming up empty?" And what Jesus does by moving closer to this woman is he just begins to say, "Where are you thirsty? Where is what you've tried not satisfying yet?"

Now, I expect us to all kind of object a little bit. "Well, yeah, great for Jesus, but after all, I don't have Jesus' X-ray eyes. I can't say, 'Now let me see, you've had five husbands.' I don't have that ability. How am I supposed to see into other people the way that Jesus does?" Well, look in the mirror. She has a thirst. She is looking for things in this world to bring her satisfaction. And that's not just a Mickey Mantle and that's not just a woman at the well. All around us are people—we are those people at times—who have said, "My satisfaction is going to come from the things of this world," and yet having tried it, we come up empty.

Guest (Male): God instructs us in His Word to be holy as He is holy. How can God expect us to be as holy as He is? Such a standard seems either to ignore our frailty or to impose certain failure. That is, until we understand how God views us.

In this challenging yet heartwarming book, Holiness by Grace, Dr. Bryan Chapell illustrates the principles of grace, the practices of faith, and the motives of love in living a life of holiness. Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy.

Holiness by Grace draws straight from the heart of God as Pastor Bryan's encouraging words will help you understand that your holiness is not so much a matter of what you achieve as it is the grace that God provides, a grace so rich as to make the pursuit of His holiness your soul's deepest delight.

You can request your copy of Holiness by Grace when you go online to UnlimitedGrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. And now, more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: I saw a report earlier this week of what lots of young people are doing, particularly this day in our culture. On YouTube right at this moment, there are 500,000 videos of young women, primarily between the ages of 9 and 14, which have only one question attached: "Am I pretty?" Looking for the affirmation of strangers to tell them, "Am I okay?"

And just think, if they got the affirmation, do you think they would really be okay? In a culture where relationships are so fractured that we recognize our marriages are coming apart and even when the marriages stay intact, so often there's not the adoration and affection that we wish were there. Our nation's pursuit of divorce to find someone else, of gay marriage to find a whole another way of finding relationships that satisfy, of young people growing up in fatherless homes and therefore looking for relationship after relationship in multiplicity of someone who makes my life meaningful, all of it is just people saying, "I'm thirsty."

And as much as these things are crisis and cries for help, they are cracks for the gospel. Is there thirst in you somewhere? I thought of the best and worst example at the same time of these young women who are looking for affirmation. One was one girl who posted a video, and this was the question: "Am I pretty, or beautiful, or ugly, or nothing? Am I nothing?"

Somebody tell me that I have some worth, somebody tell me that I have some dignity, somebody appreciate me in some way. I'm just desperate to satisfy this thirst in me. And of course, it's not just young people. The famous statement of G.K. Chesterton, who said every man who knocks on a brothel is actually looking for God, is actually affirming that what somebody has tried is this relationship and that relationship and this physical relationship and that, and still looking. "I'm still thirsty."

And of course, we recognize that thirst isn't going to be satisfied in this world. And what Jesus is teaching us through the encounter with this woman is moving toward somebody is moving past barriers, but at the same time, it's looking for how people are still thirsty and be willing to identify it. And having identified this thirst that people have, then something else begins to happen. There is care before there is convincing.

Listen, she's had five husbands and the man she's with now is not her husband. And Jesus in speaking to her, knowing it, knowing it's already true, says, "If you knew who was offering you the gift of God," which by the way is what he identifies himself to be, "you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. He would have given you the end to your shame, the end of your thirst." Now, you must recognize she's not straightened up yet. This expression of care is for somebody who's still a mess.

And of course, in a little bit, he's going to say, "And the water that I would give you would become in you a well of water welling up into eternal life. I'm even offering you a relationship with God." And if you will, the shocking aspect of this account is the fact that it's never said if she leaves the live-in or ever makes things right by getting married. I mean, it just doesn't say in the account.

What we recognize is without life being entirely straightened up, Jesus is saying, "I'm willing to offer care before I know that you've been convinced of the rightness of what I'm saying." That's tough because our tendency is to say, "I will enfold you, I'll care for you, you can become a part of the love of this community if you become like us." But here is love being extended before conformity has come along. There's care before there's been convincing occurring.

Now, if that sounds like it's just kind of some soft statement of the immediate, you just have to first examine your own life. And listen, lots of us here, we have friends, we have family, we have loved ones who are not walking with the Lord or are walking the other direction. And if I were just to ask you honestly, who do you hope comes into their lives right now? Who do you hope comes into their lives?

Do you want the verse-quoter, or do you want the heart-connector? The person who has the right answers and the right verse and identifies all the problems, or do you want the person who's willing to say, "I know all your problems, I know all your differences. Would you give me a drink? Would you just connect with me?"

And I'm willing to care for you before you've become convinced of the rightness of my position. And my guess is while we want people to have the right truth and the right verses, we pray desperately for somebody to come into those dear ones' lives who connects with their hearts, who's willing to care for them before they've become convinced.

If that sounds like it's too soft and it sounds like it's not historic, you must recognize that as our choir kind of celebrated the Reformation forefathers that we had, this was one of the great revelations of the American expression of the great Reformation. As the English Reformation was moving into this nation, two of the great proponents of it around the time of the Revolutionary War were John Wesley and George Whitefield.

Wesley, as the name sounds, was Wesleyan or Methodist in approach. Whitefield was more reformed and Presbyterian in his approach. And they had different approaches, as it were, to the way that they even conducted their revival campaigns. Wesley, the Wesleyan, insisted before he would preach in a region that the churches of that region would establish what were known as Redemption Fellowships.

We would call them small groups. That as people were being awakened to the gospel by his preaching, before they might have been convinced, before they might have had everything straightened out, that there would be small groups, Redemption Fellowships within the body of the church to begin to receive and care for those people who were walking along on the path to faith.

Whitefield, the great reformed and Presbyterian preacher, at the end of his life was asked about John Wesley. The two were friends though they were on different paths. And Whitefield said it this way. He said, "My brother John, before he preached, insisted on the fellowship groups, and as a result, he saw great fruit to his labors."

He said, "I did not insist upon such groups, and as a consequence, those who were awakened to the gospel by virtue of my ministry are held to the church with ropes of sand." Did he say the right things? Of course. Were there wonderful movements of the spirit? Yes, there were. But when it came to life-changing experience, those who learned to care before total convincing occurred were those who bound hearts to the church long-term.

Now, having said that, it has to be care before convincing does not mean that there's not something that we stand for and need to make plain. Even as Jesus is moving toward this woman in all these ways, as he's crossing barriers, as he's showing care before she's become convinced of anything, at the same time, when the moment is right, he is willing to stand firm.

You recognize that, don't you? Even as he is moving toward a relationship relationally, there are certain things that he's willing to stand firm upon. Among those things are the nature of sin, the nature of salvation, and who he is. Jesus says to her, "Listen, you worship what you do not know. Your worship on that mountain is wrong because salvation is from the Jews."

There has been a plan of God from Adam to Abraham to David to the lineage of David that results in Jesus. And Jesus says that is the path of salvation. Salvation is through the Jews. There are not many roads, there are not many Messiahs. It's not just your faith is as good as their faith, your religion is as good as their religion. He says something as politically incorrect as saying, "There is no other name given among men under heaven by which you must be saved than mine."

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by His unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.