Sermon Tone Analysis

One of the great challenges of living the Christian life is to understand God's call and God's language…God's view of the world.

Jesus spoke one time that there were two roads.

One was broad, and it was easy to travel down; many people traveled that way.

Then He said, "But the road I want you to go on is a narrow road.

It's not as convenient.

The way is more difficult, and not many people travel that way."

Really, that metaphor serves us well even as we come to our text today because the Lord does call on us to go down the road less traveled…the road that is really not even seen by the world.

You can call it a worldview.

There is a worldview that even many Christians adopt that is given to them by secular media, by television, and so forth.

It's a view of the world that if you adopt that view, missions will make no sense at all.

Evangelism has no place in it.

It will be no part of your life.

In fact, to see how much secular culture shapes and molds you, just ask yourself how great your burden is for missions…how great your burden is for that lost coworker.

How really great is your burden for that enemy of yours to be saved and find Christ?

It will help you see whether you're going down the broad road or the road less traveled…whether you've adopted the world's view or the view Jesus wants us to have.

The only way to have a burden for evangelism…for lost souls…a burden for missions…is to be more influenced by Jesus than by the culture.

To see the world the way Jesus sees it is to travel the road that's less traveled.

That's the road I want you to find and to go down, and the one I want us to talk about.

Jesus is spending so much of His ministry hoping to get people to see the world differently.

If you value things based on the world, then of course you'll go the broad way.

But if you can begin to see there is an intrinsic value in that less-traveled road, then perhaps you'll choose to go that way.

Let me show you how Jesus has been trying to do this even in the studies we've had.

Over in John, chapter 2…in the fifteenth verse of John 2…Jesus takes a whip of cords, and He drives the moneychangers out of the temple along with their oxen and sheep and has those who were selling doves to take them and to get them out of the way.

Of course, they're very upset about that in John, chapter 2. They wanted to know, "What sign do You give to show You have the authority to do this?"

Notice John 2, verse 19, /"Jesus answered and said to them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.'"/

Now Jesus says, "Look at this temple that's around you, where you're selling your pigeons and your doves and your sheep."

He says, "You need to look at this differently.

It's going to be destroyed.

There is coming a day when there's going to be a new temple.

I'm going to be that temple.

You're going to come to Me as the temple and worship Me."

But because the moneychangers…because the Jews on that day…saw with the world's view, then they come up with the question that says, "You know, it took 46 years to build this temple, and You say You're going to build it in three days?"

They're stuck with a narrow, fixed view of the physical world and cannot understand the road Jesus is trying to show them.

That's what happens today.

They do not see the world the way Jesus did.

That's why a lot of people today don't get things like missions.

They just don't get it.

The reality is they live in such a narrow, small world.

In the very next chapter, in John, chapter 3, a man named Nicodemus comes into the scene.

He comes to see Jesus at night.

He wants to know, "What must I do to get into the kingdom of God?" Jesus blows his mind in John, chapter 3, and verse 3.

He says, "Unless you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God."

You have to think differently if you want to understand and follow the things of God.

Nicodemus can't see that.

He is on that broad path.

He has a worldview.

So he responds in verse 4 of John 3, and says, /"How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"/

In other words, he is limited by the physical world, by the worldview that is around him.

He can't understand at all what Jesus is talking about, and so too with so many people today.

That's why evangelism and reaching out to your neighbor doesn't make sense to people today.

That's why they shrug their shoulders at it.

They say, "What's the big deal?"

because they're judging things by the physical world, by the world's view, by that broad path.

They just don't understand the world Jesus is trying to show them.

The Jews there on the temple mount didn't understand it.

Nicodemus didn't understand it.

Then I'll take you to the very next chapter…John, chapter 4…which is where we're going to find ourselves today to a Samaritan woman at a well.

Jesus is there waiting for her, and she comes to Him.

Jesus blows her mind by making a remarkable statement to her in John, chapter 4, in verse 10, and says, /"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 have given you living water."/

He asks for a drink.

She says, "Are you talking to me?"

He says, "If you knew who was talking to you, you would ask Him, and He would give you living water."

But guess what?

Her mind is stuck in this physical world just like yours is…just like so many people's are.

So her response to Him is, /"Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

Where then do You get that living water?"/

She is thinking physical water.

She is thinking an earthen well.

Jesus is trying to get her to see a world she cannot see with her physical senses.

He is trying to get her to understand.

He is trying to get Nicodemus to understand.

He is trying to get the Jews at the temple to understand there is a world, there is a reality, out there that is beyond your normal senses.

She doesn't understand it…at least not at first.

She will actually come to understand it and become a witness for Him.

So it is that some today at first they don't get evangelism.

They don't understand the burden to reach the lost.

They don't get missions because they don't see the world the way Jesus does.

They see it physically.

They see a temple made of bricks and a birth that comes from blood and water and pain, and water that comes out of an earthen well.

They see that physically.

What they don't see is a Man who is a temple, a birth by the Spirit, and water that satisfies forever because they're looking down the wrong path.

I want all of us to understand that before the call of God on our life can make sense…before we will accept it…before we will understand its importance, we're going to have to see the path Jesus has for us.

We're going to have to have the view of the world Christ has.

That's what Jesus wants all of these examples to understand, and so too with our text today.

Go to John, chapter 4.

He has spoken to the Samaritan woman.

She has gone off into the town of Sychar.

When we come to verse 31, in the meantime…in this interlude of time…the disciples return.

You remember when Jesus first went to Jacob's well, He sent His disciples into Sychar to buy some lunch.

So they all went there to get the lunch, and now they've all come back.

When we get to verse 31, it says, /"In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, 'Rabbi, eat.'"/

In other words, "It's past lunch time.

You've been here a half hour out here in the sun.

We have You some food.

I know You're tired; it's been a long journey thus far.

You need to eat."

Well, if you're looking through physical senses, that's true.

But Jesus now wants to teach the disciples there is another world view.

There is another path they've not considered.