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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brody-thibodeau/how-to-share-the-gospel/
Let's read together. First of all, in John's Gospel, please, chapter four. John's Gospel, chapter four. I'm going to read a little bit here, beginning at verse number three. John's Gospel, chapter four, in verse three, says, He, that is the Lord Jesus, left Judea and departed again into Galilee, and he must needs go through Samaria.
Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. Now, Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour.
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water, and Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away onto the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?
For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him, a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband.
Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst thou truly. Now for the sake of time, we'll go to verse number 25.
The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. Verse number 28 says,.
And the woman left her water pot and went her way into the city and said to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Now, verse number 41. And many more believed because of his own word and said unto the woman, Now we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.
Now the book of Acts, please. The book of Acts chapter 24, Acts 24 in verse 24. And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.
And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled and answered, Go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul that he might lose him.
Wherefore, he sent for him the oftener and communed with him. But after two years, Portia's Festus came into Felix room and Felix, willing to show the Jews of pleasure, left Paul bound. That's all we'll read.
And that clock is working. What I want to do is I want to share with you something that I've been exercised about over the last little while, something that I've shared with the saints and Marian already.
And perhaps they've forgotten what I've told them already. So it's OK if you're here today. What I have in my mind is using these two passages to show us how to share the gospel, whether it be one on one in a personal way or whether it be preaching the gospel.
I think what we're going to learn as we look at these two passages are very important principles when it comes to sharing our faith. We're going to find out from the Lord Jesus how he approached this woman.
We're going to begin at the beginning and look at his desire and look at his motivation towards sharing the gospel with this woman to watch his steps as he goes through Samaria, to see him as he desires to bring blessing to her and to all of the people who lived in that area.
We're going to look at how he handles her. And what he tells her in Acts 24, we're going to look at a man who saw many souls saved and assemblies planted, a man who with wisdom is now brought before this person, Felix, to tell him about the faith in Christ.
Now, I want you to think about that as we as we move to that passage that Felix wants to know about the faith in Christ. And Paul is going to approach a man who is curious about the gospel and wants to know about Christ.
And we're going to learn principles that Paul uses when presenting the message from God. So you see it very simply. I didn't want to preach on this today. I wanted to share with you all my thoughts about Joseph in the Old Testament.
I don't think I have them organized, arranged or presentable yet. And I feel the Lord has placed this on my heart. But I have been enjoying Joseph as a picture of our Lord Jesus. I know in Blue River we shared about Joseph more on the devotional side and on the practical side of the life of Joseph.
And brethren and sisters, we can appreciate that as we see the Lord Jesus in Joseph in the Old Testament. This week, I've been taken up mostly with the dispensational aspect of the story of Joseph and his brethren.
But now we are brought to John's gospel, which I believe is the gospel of our heavenly Joseph. For you find in chapter one that he came to his own and his own received him not. Of course, that's Joseph, isn't it?
In chapter 37 of Genesis, when his father sends him to seek the welfare of his brethren. And he says, here am I. And he goes seeking their welfare. And they wanted nothing to do with him. They rejected him.
And in fact, they sold him into Egypt. We realize that. And in John's gospel, you see it, the father and the son relationship. And if the coat of many colors marks out Joseph as the first born, then we are brought to John chapter one, where we find that the Lord Jesus is spoken of as the one of whom they beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth.
So you see it right from the beginning, the heavenly Joseph. We find in chapter four that we are presented here with two more Joseph references, and we read them both. It says near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph.
If you read closely, the last verse, I believe in Genesis 48 is where Joseph or Jacob tells Joseph about that portion of land, the portion that he gives him above his brethren, the portion that he took from Shechem from the Amorite with the bowl.
And that brings us now to chapter four, because this is that portion of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. You'll also find in chapter four of John that these men, after they come out of the city, they said, we have seen them and we have heard them ourselves.
And we believe that this is the Christ, the son or the savior of the world. And if you go back to Genesis, when a Pharaoh took Joseph and he exalted him and he gave him that name, that new name, the Zaphnathphania, which could mean the revealer of secrets, but it probably means the savior of the world.
And since I think it means that it's probably right. Now you're listening. See, some of you are falling asleep already this morning. So you see our heavenly Joseph. Oh, you have to go to chapter 49 though, don't you?
Of Genesis, because you see in chapter 49, when Jacob begins to reveal to his sons, what shall happen to them in the latter days, he says, Reuben is the firstborn and he's strength and he's might, but unstable as water, he will not excel.
And then he talks about Simeon and Levi, how instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. The idea there is that they were heard, heard men and you come to Judah and Judah. So when his brethren shall praise and the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a law giver from between his feet until Shiloh come and onto him, shall the gathering of the peoples be.
And he comes to Joseph. You remember it? Joseph is a fruitful bow, even a fruitful bow by a well whose branches run over the wall. And now the blessing is going to flow, not just in the Jews, not just in Judea now, but a fruitful bow bringing abundant blessing over the walls of Judaism into Samaria and eventually into the John's gospel, the gospel of our heavenly Joseph.
It's beautiful. Let's see how our heavenly Joseph handles this woman. It says he must needs go through Samaria. Now we have to be careful. I'm not going to go into it, but this is not a geographic necessity.
It may be if you look at the map, but technically they would go up and around. In fact, the word does not imply something on the outside that is acting on him to cause him to move. It is actually something that is inward that is compelling him to go through Samaria.
You read it closely and you study the words and you find that there was an inward compulsion to go through Samaria on his way to Galilee. And I am convinced that that which was on the inside of our heavenly Joseph was a love and a care and a desire to see that woman blessed.
I understand from his words when he speaks to his disciples that he also wanted to do the will of his father. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. And I have no doubt that in prayer that morning he had on his mind this place and he had on his mind this woman and a desire to see her blessed.
And I think sharing our faith and spreading the gospel begins with this desire to see others blessed. Sometimes I can tell when a brother is trying to share the gospel because he likes to win arguments.
You can tell those guys too, can't you? They are not really desiring that their neighbor will be saved. They are desiring that their neighbor will lose the argument. And then they're happy. Let's remember and we'll move into it in Acts as well.
Something happened to you that changed your life forever. You met a man unlike any other man who gave you a blessing that really is an endless blessing. And we want other people to have what we have. I'm not trying to condemn you for your lack of effort.
I'm trying to challenge you on your motivation. It's a desire to see others blessed. It says he comes to this well. Not far from this well would have been the bones of Joseph. The bones of Joseph and Jacob's well and this woman comes.
And as we move quickly through it, we find that he opens the conversation by saying, give me to drink. Give me to drink. And the woman says, how is it that thou being a Jew askest drink of me, which I'm a woman of Samaria for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
And she is bringing something to our attention that we should be aware of. Typically, a Jew in these days would want nothing to do with these Samarian or Samaritan people. In fact, it was known that if a Jew decided to associate with a Samaritan, it was usually because he wanted to get something from them.
He wanted to use them for an advantage. I'm not trying to be hard on the Jew. I'm just saying what I've learned from studying it. And I want to really draw a If the only time your neighbor sees you is when you invite them to gospel meeting, don't expect to win them for Christ.
If they don't know you as a neighbor, they don't know you as a helper. They don't know you as someone that they can relate to in real life. And they only know you if you want them to go to your church because that's what they see.
Don't expect to be able to share the gospel with them. Make an effort to relate to your neighbors. Make an effort to be a good neighbor so that they can't point the finger and say, the only time that guy wants me is when those preachers come around.
But we move on and we see it. We see that he now begins to describe for her the blessing. If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that said to thee, give me to drink that was the vast of him and he would have given thee living water.
Now there's two things we're going to learn from this. The first one is what the gospel preacher always struggles with. And it's this. How can I describe how wonderful it is to be saved to an audience of people who know nothing about it?
Have you ever struggled with that? I have no trouble finding verses in the Bible typically. I have no trouble being able to cobble together a gospel message and try and present it. But when it comes to actually being able to express how wonderful it is to have a heavenly father that I can speak to, to have a God in heaven who desires to commune with me, to know that my sins are forgiven, to have everlasting life, to know for sure that I'll be in heaven and for the ages and the ages to come to have unfolded to me the tremendous blessings that I have been blessed with in Christ Jesus, to know that I have been taken from the under the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his dear son, to know that I currently am seated in the heavenly places in Christ, to know that when I worship, I don't go into an earthly sanctuary, but I go into a heavenly sanctuary, into the very presence of God, to know that I have an advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous, to know and to be able to communicate that I have a high priest touch with the feelings of my infirmities.
How can you relate all of those things when you are preaching the gospel? I'll tell you it's a wonderful thing to be saved. I hope you're feeling it. I don't like to talk about feelings, but we don't have any feelings and I have to check you for a pulse.
My brethren, we have something that is marvelous, isn't it? If there's someone here who's not saved, we just tell you very plainly, it's the best thing that could ever happen to you. But here he is and he tells her this.
There's another principle we learned from it though, okay? And it's this, she is not getting the spiritual aspect of the conversation. When you're sharing the gospel in a one-on-one type of situation, it takes some discernment.
You need to get the feedback. You need to listen to what they say because she says, that was nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Now they're talking about two totally different things. You cannot continue with the conversation if you're not on the same page.
So you have to be a little bit discerning. There are many people you will speak to in your community and maybe even in your family and friends who will say that they are saved, okay? What does that mean to them?
One little lady, she still lives there in the back road near Tatamagush. She came to one of our gospel meetings last year. But the first year when James and I were there visiting around, she sat down and she showed us her plaques on the wall.
Now she's about 86 years old and she says, this is from back in the Annapolis Valley when I used to do the plowing matches and I was the best plower in all Nova Scotia. She went over all of those things that she had done.
It was very interesting to listen to her. So I asked her, I said, Cora, are you saved? Now you've been to a couple of our gospel meetings. Are you saved? Well, I don't know. Well, have you ever had a time in your life when you were saved?
She said, yes, so yes. She said back in 1990 when I had to have open heart surgery and they put me on the table and I prayed to God that he would bring me through it and he did. The end. I'll tell you, the Lord preserved her through that.
And the Lord was good to her. But I had to look at that dear little older lady and say, Cora, that's not what it means to be saved. But we have to listen to them if we're going to find out if we're on the same page, right?
He's talking about spiritual blessings and eternal. She is talking about water from a hole in the ground. You watch it closely. I've got time to say this. You watch it closely because in verse number six, it talks about Jacob's well.
And it's a well. But the idea is that is a well that is fed by a spring or a fountain. And God sees it as something that is living and something that is vibrant. And this woman talks about the well being deep.
And she uses a different word. It's really the word for a cistern. In other words, it was the word for a hole in the ground. And the Lord Jesus was talking about something that is vibrant and living. And she is talking about something that's associated with this earth, just a hole in the ground with no blessing and nothing eternal.
And when we preach the gospel, let's remember, we are not preaching a self-help program, nor are we preaching a God helps improve your life program. We are preaching the forgiveness of sins and eternal life in light of a never ending eternity.
That's why when I preach the gospel, I seek to draw the attention of sinners from what we see and what we hear to an eternity that is just as real and that is going to be their destiny. The gospel is about eternity.
So turn their gaze toward eternity. So he says, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
I'm just imagining here this woman, the sun going down, listening to this man and she starts to lean forward. She's starting to want what he has to offer. I would love to have this. I would love to have this.
And as she's listening to him, she can't help but say, sir, give me this water. Give it to me. I want what you have to give. It's wonderful when a sinner says that, isn't it? So now what do you do? You've told her about the blessing.
You've told her it's not to do with the physical. It has to do with the spiritual and the eternal. But it's a wonderful thing to have this blessing. And she says, give it to me. I would love to have it.
And you turn immediately to John 3 and 16 and you go over the verse and you tell her, this is how you can have it. Or you go immediately to Romans 5 and 6 and you say, this is how you can have it because he died.
Or you go to Isaiah 53 and you tell her why he was wounded. You know, that's what I would do sometimes too. But this passage rebukes me. You know why? Because the man who knows the inside from the outside knows this.
She's never going to get the blessing unless she repents. And she's never going to repent unless I tell her about her sin. The gospel work is sharing a message. The saving souls work, we were chatting before meeting here, is done by the spirit of God.
The spirit of God uses the word of God in the convicting of sin. The convicting of sin brings about a response of repentance. That response of repentance and faith toward God is when a person gets saved.
So here's the deal, right? We see it. If there's no repentance, there's no salvation. And if we don't preach sin, they won't know what to repent from. So he says, go, call thy husband. I was in a place, didn't want me to preach that.
The Lord Jesus put his finger on it. See what we would like to do. And this is what I would like to do too. I'll tell you the things I like to do most. I like to drink coffee. I like to chat with people.
I like to look at old trucks. And if someone were to say, what would you like to do today? I would say, let's have a chat over coffee and go look at an old truck. Preaching the gospel is not vacation time.
And it takes some patience and it takes some effort. And the biggest thing is being able to just wait while the spirit of God does the work. And he puts his finger on the and now she has to make a decision, doesn't she?
She can decide and say, look, I hate this kind of preaching. Everywhere I go, someone's trying to tell me about God and trying to tell me about my sin and my responsibility. I just don't want it. I'm going to go.
She had that right. Now, the wrong thing would be to grab her by the arm and say, no, no, no, stay. You cannot coerce a sinner against their will to trust the savior. And God doesn't do it. But thank God she did face her sin.
And when she faced her sin, now she did bring in the religion card. She played it. She said, our father's worshiped in this mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
And the Lord Jesus did not ridicule her for it, but he gave her truth from the scriptures. He gave her the word of God to prove that her religion was not going to be the means whereby she could get this blessing.
And when she got past that, having repented, he says, I that speak onto the and he. And she wasn't saved until repentance and faith. Now, if there's something that we can all remember from John chapter four is that nobody is saved until repentance and faith.
It doesn't happen. Acts 24. Acts chapter 24, we find here. Well, he's a tremendously gifted preacher and he's smart. He had intellect. He could learn and he could, uh, he could speak words of wisdom, but according to first Corinthians, I would say the whole first four or five chapters of first Corinthians, he's saying, it's not in the wisdom of men's words.
It is in the preaching of the cross that the gospel has power. So it does not take a man of education and a man of intellect. It takes a man who knows the Bible and is able to present Christ crucified, buried, risen again from the dead, the responsibility of sinners to God for sin and a God who provided on the cross of Calvary so that sinners could be forgiven.
This man wasn't only smart though. He was wise. He was wise. And many of the principles in John four are repeated by the preacher who is going to have a little message. Now there wasn't just Felix here, but he was going to have a little message in the gospel in front of these people that were gathered.
And he's given opportunity and he comes and they say, Hey, Felix wants to hear about this faith in Christ. And Paul goes, now we stop again. What would you tell him about this faith in Christ? Would you begin in Bethlehem?
Tell him what you appreciate about the virgin birth and how it fulfilled the old Testament prophecies in Micah and in, and in Isaiah and go on about how, how beautiful it is. I think is wonderful. I think it's beautiful for a Christian to enjoy that.
Would you go right to Calvary? Would you go to the cross and tell him of God's love? Some of us might do that. Now don't think I don't preach the love of God. I do, but Paul knows he has a responsibility here.
It's not going to be 25 minutes of telling you what I enjoy because that's not gospel preaching. Brethren, if I was only telling you what I enjoy, I don't think anyone would be saved, but he has to be faithful to the man.
And before he can get him to Calvary, he preaches righteousness. We know righteousness is really the preaching of God's character, of God's holy standard, of God's justice, of the righteousness of the God to whom you are responsible.
So he's here in the presence of Felix and he tells him about a God who is in heaven. Now this preaching begins to have an effect on the hearer. It does because preaching the righteousness of God leads into the preaching of temperance.
So now in light of a God who is holy and just and whom you have to meet, let's take a look at your life and how you measure up because Felix was a man who was a notorious sinner and he began to preach about self-control and the fact that Felix had none.
And that was proof, not that just that he sinned, but that in his very heart, he's a sinner. So you see he's preaching it, preaching righteousness and the ruin of man, not just what he was doing at the time, but what he was on the inside that produced those actions.
And then he preached of judgment that was coming and he was very faithful to this man as he would on, as he would tell just any other one. He preached about whereof he is appointed a day in the, which he will judge the world.
God will judge the world by that man, Jesus Christ, whom he has ordained, whereof he has given assurance unto all men in that he has raised him from the dead. He's preaching Felix. God is holy and you have to meet him.
Felix, you're a sinner and you're not ready. Felix, if you die as you are in your sins, you'll be lost forever. And eternal punishment is a real thing. Please don't come to me at lunchtime and say that the people in your assembly preach sin and hell too much in your gospel meetings.
I have no time for that. And I have kids, but here's what it comes down to. I want my kids to have something that's real. And because I want them to have something that's real, I am willing to put them under the sound of the real message of the gospel.
Because when I was saved, I heard the real message of the gospel. I heard repentance. I heard sin. I heard judgment and God used it to convict me. And I repented and trusted the savior. And that's what we want, isn't it, brother?
I'm not trying to be hard on you, but I am being faithful to you. If we stop preaching this, you will still have a gospel hall, but you will not have an assembly. It'll be full of people who were never truly converted because they never repented.
You see, you're coming here and preaching hard things. Remember, I wanted to preach Joseph. Brethren, we need to see the assembly strengthened and preserved. This is the kind of teaching from the Bible that will do it.
Okay? So now, I think the gospel preacher, I don't know if you spent much time with gospel preachers, but I think at this moment, he's chomping at the bit. He's like, okay, now I'm going to preach the cross and the resurrection.
Now I'm going to do it. Because look, the man, he's responding to the preaching. He's being convicted by the Holy Spirit and I'm going to preach it. And just, Felix says, oh, go thy way for this time.
When I have a more convenient season, I will call for thee. Did Paul fail in his witness to Felix? You have to ask yourself that. I think he succeeded because he told him the word of God and Felix decided he didn't want it.
See, that's not Paul's fault. And you will find all kinds of people, and I told the I said, when you bring a new friend to gospel meeting and I meet them and I know they're there for the first time, I will indeed tailor a message to give them information about the gospel.
I'm not trying to be hard and I'm not trying to be unreasonable, and I don't think that's compromise, but they will never be saved if they never hear what the Bible says. And we love, we love it when a sinner gets saved, don't we?
So let's learn the lesson. We learn it from our Lord Jesus and the compulsion, the drive and desire to see her saved. He presented her with her sin and upon repentance, she was saved. And Felix, Paul wanted him to have what Paul had gotten on the Damascus road.
And he presented him with sin, judgment, and Felix decided it wasn't for him. Let us be faithful to our God, to the word and to the people to whom we preach.