THE SAMARITAN WOMAN: Faith Worth Sharing

John 4:10-18, 28-30

Georgeann teaches

Your life-changing encounter with Christ should be shared with others.

We freely share with others the milestones and life-changing events  in our lives.  People publicize engagement and wedding notices.  New parents post lots of pictures online of their newborn child.  We do the same with graduations, new jobs, adoptions, and retirements.  One event is more life-changing than all the others:  a relationship with Christ.  Regardless of our past or our failures, we CAN know Christ and that is worth sharing with others.
During the first year of Jesus' ministry, his popularity began to grow and he left Judea to avoid confrontations with the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist.  Jesus and his disciples traveled toward Galilee on a journey that took them through Samaria.  They came to Jacob's well.  Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman and for the first time in his public ministry, he announced he was the Messiah.

Jesus waited at the well while his disciples went into town to buy food.  Jesus began his conversation with the Samaritan woman by asking for a simple courtesy, a drink of water.  She noted that the racial prejudice between Samaritans and Jews and perhaps noted with irony that one race that despised another should ask for courtesy.  Jesus helped this woman by focusing on her deeper need and revealed to her personal shortcomings and she knew that something extraordinary was transpiring.  She immediately went into town and told all her friends and they all went to see this extraordinary man.

Consider these actions when learning about sharing our faith:

1. Go where lost people are.
2. Create interest by what you are saying.
3. Meet lost people at their immediate point of need.
4. Ignore barriers in talking with them.
5. Use a different approach if the first one doesn't work well.
6. Refuse to be side-tracked in religious arguments.
7. Keep your focus on who Jesus is and what he has done.
8. Encourage new believers to share their faith with others.
9. Disciple new believers by spending time with them.
10. Look for more lost people.