Highlight Moments
- We're gonna be looking at Jesus versus culture.
- The reason he's writing this book is that we can know who the real Jesus is and have a relationship with the real Jesus.
- Culture is the way that we communicate with one another in ways that we understand.
- Jesus calls us to break social norms because that is what Jesus did.
- He goes to the outcasts.
Summary
The sermon focuses on Jesus's interactions in John chapter four, highlighting how He opposed the cultural norms of His time by engaging with outcasts. It emphasizes the importance of breaking social norms, reaching out to marginalized individuals, and approaching Jesus with humility and desperation.
Sermon Audio
Transcript
We pray that you'd continue to soften our hearts to hear what you have to say to us through your word today. In Jesus's name we pray, amen. Amen. Well, please give it up for Peyton. Thank you very much for leading us in that time of worship. Well guys, I'm really excited to be here. I hope you guys are excited to be here too. We're gonna be in John chapter four as we continue our weekend series through the book of John. Now we're gonna camp out entirely in John chapter four today so once you get there, just save your place there cause that's where we're gonna be for the whole day. We're gonna look at three different sections through John chapter four as we look at Jesus versus culture. We're gonna be looking at Jesus versus culture. How Jesus opposed the culture of his day and how he calls us to oppose the culture of our day. So that's John chapter four. If you guys are there, can we get a let's do this? I love the energy today, you guys. I'm excited to be here. You guys excited? Ryan's excited. I'm excited too, Ryan. All right guys, John chapter four. Now, what book are we in? Okay, I'm loving it. We can get a little bit more energy in there. What book are we in? Great job. We're in the book of John. Now we're gonna need some context to understand what's going on here. So if we're in the book of John, who is writing this book? John, okay, John's a pretty easy one for that. John is writing this book. Which John? Cause there's two Johns, which one? The apostle or the Baptist? The apostle is writing this book. And who is he writing this book about? He's writing it about Jesus. This book, the gospel of John is a gospel, meaning it's an account of Jesus's life. And does anyone know why John is writing this account of Jesus's life? Any guesses? No? Well, John says it in John 20, 31. He says, these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God. And that by believing, you may have life in his name. He says, the reason he's writing this book is that we can know who the real Jesus is and have a relationship with the real Jesus, which is great. I wanna have a relationship with the real Jesus. And I hope you guys do too. And John does too. And that's why he's writing this book. Now we need to go over three more things before we get started with our text. We're gonna be looking at culture. We're gonna be looking at what it means to be an outcast. And we are finally going to be looking at what it means to be humble. And so straight off the bat, we need to get some definitions up in here. So first thing, that's the last thing. The first one, culture. We're going to be seeing how Jesus opposes culture, but what is culture? Any guesses? Yeah, Trinity. Socializing. Yeah, that's right on it. Any other ideas about what culture is? You guys have any examples of culture? Yeah, Kyla. Okay. Okay, awesome. So culture is a way that we communicate our values and that we're able to communicate our values and that we're able to communicate with one another. So if I walk up to Stevie and I dab him up, how many guys have ever dabbed up your friends before? Yeah, okay, I have. When you do that with your friend, what are you communicating or what are you telling them? You don't know? You're saying, hi, are you doing it in a mean way or in a respectful way? Respectful. If I go and I dab up Stevie, it's saying, hey man, I appreciate you, I'm gonna dab you up. If I went up to one of the older gentlemen in this church, how would you expect or what is their culture for me going up and greeting them? What would I do? A firm handshake. That's how I communicate that I respect them and I say hello. That's part of their culture. In another culture, how do you think people could respectfully say hello? Any guesses? Yeah, bowing to them. You guys ever seen that maybe in like pop culture or anything where someone bows to another person? What are they communicating? They're communicating respect. They're saying hello in a respectful way. They're doing this through culture. Culture is the way that we communicate with one another in ways that we understand. That's what culture is and this is important because we're going to see in a bit how Jesus opposed the culture of his day. Now, culture itself is not evil, but often we can use culture for evil when people become inconvenient and we'll see how Jesus opposed that. Our second thing, what is an outcast? Yeah, Kaiva. Okay, big group. One person. Okay, there's a big group and there's one person they won't let in. Check out this paper. That's an outcast. You're casting it out. So if someone is an outcast, you're exactly right. It means there's a group of people and if one of those people is an outcast, they're being pushed out. This is important because Jesus is going to talk to an outcast in the story in John chapter four. And then finally, our last little bit of context is what does it mean to be humble? Any guesses? Yeah, Trinity. Okay, to appreciate one another. That's a way that we show humility. Yeah. To not think too highly of yourself. Any other guesses? Maybe from over here. Yeah, Abigail. Lowering yourself. Being humble in the Bible means having an accurate view of yourself. Does anyone know what an accurate view of yourself is according to the Bible? Kaiva. Okay. You admit it. Do you make lots of mistakes? So being humble means that you would admit those lots of mistakes. According to the Bible, a humble view of ourself, an accurate view of ourself, is that we are sinners who are desperately loved by Jesus, which means on one hand, we are broken. We make lots of mistakes like what you said, but we're also loved. And this is important because someone who is humble, knowing that they are broken but loved, knows that they need help. Knows that they need help. And who ultimately do we need to ask for help from? What is it, Ryan? Say it nice and loud. We need to ask for help from Jesus. You're on fire today, bro. I would give you a sticker if I had any. Thank you very much. Being humble means having an accurate view of ourself that we need help from Jesus. Now that's it for our context. We're gonna go over a few things in John chapter four. As we look at Jesus versus culture, we're gonna see these three things. That Jesus calls us to break social norms. He calls us to go to the outcasts and we'll see what kind of people those are for us. And then he finally says that if we're gonna break those social norms, we need to come to him in desperation. So check this out. We gotta jump right in. Point number one, we need to break social norms because that is what Jesus did. So you guys should all be in John chapter four. We're gonna start in verse seven and then we're gonna end in verse 10. So let's follow along as we read this out loud. This is a story you guys are hopefully familiar with. And if you went to camp, you're definitely familiar, but I'm gonna take a different angle on it. So let's check it out. Jesus calls us to break social norms. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. So what happens here? Pretty simply, Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman. Next up, we see that Jesus offers her life-giving water and then she eventually asks Jesus for this relief. But what's important here is that we see Jesus breaking the social norm. We see Jesus going against their culture. And by doing that, he's calling us to go against our culture. How is he doing that? Well, do you guys know what the Samaritans were related to the Jews? Any guesses? Abigail? They were half Jews and half what? Other. Half Gentiles, half Jews. Okay, and she was a woman. Now, I'm gonna tell you guys a prayer. Okay, this is a prayer from the time of Jesus. And I wanna check this out with you guys. So you don't have to read it aloud with me, but I'm gonna read it out loud. This prayer right here. Boom. Oh, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who has not made me a Gentile, a woman or a slave. Praise God. Does that look crazy or what? This was a real prayer from around the time of Jesus before the destruction of the second temple, which is before 70 AD, right around when Jesus was walking the earth. And guess what kind of people would be praying this prayer? The Pharisees. You're exactly right, Ryan. See, you're on fire today, man. The Pharisees. Does anyone know how Jesus interacted with the Pharisees? Not always very nicely. He opposed them. Why? Well, because they were praying things like this. The social norm of the day, the culture of the day, was to put down people who were Gentiles, which is what? It's non-Jews. To put down women. Can you raise your hand if you're a girl or a woman in here? Yeah, all you guys would have been put down back then and said, you guys are second-class citizens, which is totally messed up. And then the last thing, they would have put down slaves. But how does Jesus interact with a Samaritan woman? Any guesses? He goes to her and he talks to her. He goes to the outcasts. He broke the social norm of the day. But what are our social norms today? Back then, the Pharisees would pray, thank you, God, I'm not like that person over there. The Gentile woman, that Samaritan woman. Thank you, God, that I'm not like her. And we don't ever do that, right? You guys ever do that? Thank you, God, I'm not like them? You guys don't ever do this? Okay, so I was watching YouTube Shorts a few days ago. Hey, let out your groans now, okay? I watch YouTube Shorts all the time. Brain rot? Okay, you exposed me a little bit there. Yeah, it is brain rot, okay? But I was watching YouTube Shorts and I saw this really interesting story. There was this American boy talking to this German girl. They live in those two respective countries. And the German girl was talking to the American boy and she was like, it's so crazy that in America you can be racist towards non-white Americans. You guys think that's crazy? Do you think racism is crazy, Adrian? Yes, absolutely. And so the American boy tells the German girl, he's like, yeah, it's kind of like how the German people in Germany are racist towards Turkish people there. Okay, kind of a fair point. And the German girl responds and she says, oh no, that's different. The Turkish people here, they don't fit in. They don't belong. You see what's going on there? It's really easy to point out when the Pharisees or when someone else is saying, oh, thank God I'm not like that person. We look at this, thank you God, I'm not a Gentile woman or slave. And we say, yeah, obviously that's wrong. But just like with the German girl here, it's much harder for us to point out where we are doing that exact same thing. So I wanna look at some ways that we marginalize people or make people outcasts, because Jesus calls us to go to those people. So I want you guys to raise your hand if you know anyone who values one gender over the other. Just know anyone, I'm not talking about you. I'll be the first to raise my hand. I know people like that. Some of you guys don't know people who value one gender over the other. All you guys should raise your hand. I know middle school boys, all right? People wrongly value one gender over the other, but what does Jesus do with a Samaritan woman? He goes out of his way to go to her. What about this next one? Do you know any people who value one race over the others? Yeah? Do you guys think that's good or bad? Bad, because we know what Jesus does. Who does he go to? He goes to a Samaritan woman. What about this next one, class? Do you guys know what class means? It's not like fifth or sixth or seventh. Social classes, and how do you determine your social class? By how wealthy you are. So maybe someone who's poorer would look at someone who's richer and say, thank God, I'm not prideful like them. Or maybe someone who's richer would look down at someone poorer and say, thank God, I'm not down in the dirt like them. Thank you, God. Well, that's messed up. Jesus goes to all kinds of people. And then this last one is struggles. Do you guys have any idea what I mean here? No? Maybe, maybe depression. Looking at other people saying, oh, thank God I'm not depressed like them. Thank God I'm not mentally ill like them. You ever heard that before? I have. What about, thank God I'm not like that homeless person over there. You guys have heard that before? I have. Thank God I'm not like that drug addict over there. I've heard that before. Thank God I'm not like this homosexual person. I've definitely heard that before. It's really hard for us to point out in ourselves where we do the exact same thing that the Pharisees were doing. Where we say, thank you, God. You didn't make me like one of those people over there. I'm so thankful to be over here in the church where I don't have to deal with any of that. But what does Jesus do? Does he say, thank you, Father. You didn't make me like this Samaritan woman. She doesn't even know what she's talking about. Did he say that? No. What did he say? He goes to this woman and he offers her eternal life. And when we're talking about eternal life, that means an eternal relationship with Jesus. He doesn't just offer her something that's far away from him so those people can stay over there. He offers her close and eternal relationship with him. He breaks the social norm. Where the Pharisees would have said, yeah, that's a Samaritan woman over here. I don't wanna have anything to do with her, which is what they did. Instead, he breaks that down and goes to those people. And we who follow after Jesus are called to do that same thing. In fact, that's our very next point. We're called to go to the outcasts. So let's check it out in John chapter four again. We're gonna be in verses 35 through 41. John chapter four. I said 41, but that was a mistake. It's 38. Now, after he talks to the Samaritan woman, she gets saved. Praise God, that's awesome. Then she goes into the village and tells everyone about what Jesus did. And so Jesus is here talking to his disciples. And he says, don't you have a saying? It's still four months until harvest. I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life. So that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. And thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefit from their labor. Any idea what he's talking about here? No? Well, that's perfect. I knew I wouldn't have to teach you this. So kind of glad you guys don't. So check this out. What we see here is lots of people were ready to know who Jesus was. The Samaritan woman goes into the city and all the people start believing in Jesus because their hearts are ready to know him. And so Jesus sends out his disciples and tells them that they need to work together to bring people into the kingdom. And when Jesus went out, or not when Jesus went out, when those people started coming to Jesus, being brought back to him, they started believing in him, which is on our next slide where I have on. Boom, got it. I think I skipped a slide, I'm sorry. Check it out. He calls us to go to the outcasts. He describes all the people that he's looking at as a field ripe for harvest. So how many of you guys in here have ever played Minecraft before? Don't even lie. Okay, wow. Has anyone here not played Minecraft before? That's like, wowee, counting on one hand. That's crazy. No shame there, okay? Don't get brain rotted, okay? So check this out. We have a field right here and you guys who have played Minecraft will know what this is. What is this? Wheat. Now, when I play Minecraft, what do you have to start with to get wheat? Seeds. And then you got to wait some time and then it turns what color? Midway through, it turns green. And then when it's ready, what color does it turn? Yellow or tan. So, okay, is this ready to be punched to take wheat from it? Okay, what do you make out of that wheat? Bread. Okay, so it's got a good purpose. All right. When Jesus looks out over all these people, all these Samaritans who are about to come to him, he says, this is a field ripe for harvest. In other words, he's about to send his disciples out to bring all these people into the kingdom. He looks at a field like this and he says, guys, go out there and start taking in the wheat. Start bringing these people back to me. And he says to do it in a particular way. He tells the disciples that they are going to reap what they have not sown. Does anyone know what sowing is? Yeah, Jade. Okay, Abigail. Okay. How many of you guys know I have a garden? Oh, the sixth graders wouldn't know I have a garden because I haven't talked about it because right before your guys' move up, it all died. So my garden's dead because I didn't water it. But anyways, if I want to have a garden, what do I have to do first? Okay, I have to have soil and then I tear up the soil and what do I do? What do I put in it? Some seeds. That is what sowing is. When Jesus says here, you're going to reap what you have not sown. Some people, when they're bringing people into the kingdom, some people plant seeds in people's heart. And we do that by telling them about the gospel. Other people, they water those seeds. They encourage them, they love those people and they show them who Jesus is. But both of those people, the planter and the waterer, neither of them will actually see that person give their life to Jesus. And that's really hard. But Jesus tells them that his disciples are going to be reaping what they have not sown. In other words, people's lives around us are ready to be given to Jesus. And so we just need to go out, plant some seeds, water some others, but reap in the work of other people. In other words, we can bring those people into the kingdom, even though we haven't spent personally the years that it takes to get someone's heart to be ready to accept Jesus. And so we're called to plant seeds and water and then eventually gather that grain or gather that wheat, those people into the kingdom. And how do we do that? Well, there's a few things. We can plant seeds by telling other people about Jesus. How do we do that? Any guesses? Okay, Adrian, how do we tell people about Jesus? Evangelizing? Okay, like what? What's a track? Okay, it's a little piece of paper that has the gospel on it. You can hand those out to people. Okay, yeah, Trinity. Perfect, that's our next one. We can plant seeds by telling people about the gospel. And then we water those seeds by loving those people. What are practical ways we can love our friends and the people around us? Any guesses? You guys don't know how to love other people? You're about to get owned right now. Yeah, Abigail. Giving time up, totally. If you have time, you got a Nintendo Switch, inviting people over to play games. You can love those people practically. And then the final one here is a man turning into a superhero, which I put here to represent. You can show other people a transformed life from following Jesus. When we follow Jesus, our life is transformed. Our old way of doing things slowly changes into a new godly way of doing things. And we can water those seeds and bring people into the kingdom just by being ourselves in Jesus, by showing them what it looks like to practically follow him, by loving them, by telling them about Jesus. That's how we do what Jesus says, to go to the outcasts. He went to us who were outcasts from him so that we can now go to other people and show them that same love. And then our final thing, if we're gonna break the social norms, if we're gonna go to the outcasts, then we need to first come to Jesus in desperation. So we're gonna be in John 4, verses 46 through 50. Please follow along as we read this together. It says, once more he, Jesus, visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. "'Unless you people see signs and wonders,' Jesus told him, you'll never believe.' And the royal official said, "'Sir, come down before my child dies.' "'Go,' Jesus replied, your son will live.' The man took Jesus at his word and departed. What happens here? We're shown the example of someone who breaks out of social norms to come to Jesus in desperation. Those people around him were ready for Jesus. And one of those people was a royal official who went to Jesus begging for help. On the next slide, he went to Jesus begging for help. And then we see that Jesus answered him because he was humble. Let's check this out real quick. What person do we see going to Jesus in this story? Yeah, Kyla. A royal official. Okay, that's interesting. If you have a royal official, what do you probably have under you? Any guesses? Servants? Okay, if you have servants, which would be pretty cool, I guess. If you have servants and you have to go grab something from the grocery store, who are you gonna send? Yourself or your servant? Your servant, that's pretty easy. If you have servants and you are told you gotta clean the house, who's gonna be cleaning the house? The servants. If you have servants and you have to go to like a fun theme park, who's gonna be going? No, you're gonna be going, bro. The servants are gonna be keeping the house. So this royal official has an errand to go run. And that errand is to grab Jesus, this miracle healer. But who does he send? His servants or himself? Himself. You would have expected him to send his servants. His servants go and they say, Jesus, you must come with us. And if this guy's a royal official, then if he's telling someone they gotta do something, what do they have to do? They gotta do it. So this royal official, he could have said, yes, servants, you go out, you go grab Jesus and bring him back here and my son will be healed. But he doesn't do that. What does he do instead? He sends himself. Why? Because he was humble. We looked at the beginning of the study about what it means to be humble. And it's to have an accurate view of yourself. And what is that view? We need help. The reason that Jesus answered this man, he answered the royal official because the royal official, even though he held a high position, lowered himself under Jesus. He didn't send some assistants to go grab Jesus. He didn't demand that Jesus heals his son. What does the text say? It says that this royal official, who's probably never begged for anything in his life because other people have to do what he says, goes to Jesus himself, doesn't send an assistant and begs Jesus for this thing that he knows he desperately needs help with. He was humble. And what does the Bible say Jesus does when we are humble to him? Check this out. James chapter four talks about it. What does it look like when we are humble to God? It says, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. What did Jesus do here? He lifted up the royal official. He healed his son. He answered him. If the royal official had sent his servants and was all prideful, I don't have to go myself. Servants, you go demand that Jesus comes back here. What do you think Jesus would have done? Thankfully for the official's son, we don't have to find out. But what does verse six say? It says, God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble. If the royal official went to Jesus and was prideful about it, how do you think God would have responded in opposition to him? What I think is extremely interesting about this verse is that I would expect if I'm prideful that I would be opposing God, but that's not what the verse says at all. It says, if I'm prideful, if that royal official was prideful, if I'm saying I've got it all together, I've got everything figured out, I don't need any help from you, Jesus. Well, that sounds like I'm opposing Jesus, but that is not what the verse says. It does not say prideful people oppose God. What does it say? It says, God opposes the prideful people. God is the one who actively moves against those who are prideful. That's hard. If I'm prideful, if I'm going according to the social norms, God's going to oppose me. I'm so thankful that we didn't have to find out what it would have been like if that royal official went to Jesus in pride, because instead that royal official who could have, if Jesus was any normal person, could have sent a servant to demand that Jesus comes back to him and heals his son. And he's a royal official. He'd have to do it. Instead he goes to Jesus in humility. He breaks out because Jesus doesn't stand for that culture. Doesn't stand for a culture of people who allow themselves to be prideful because of some high position. He doesn't stand for a culture where people say, thank God, I'm not like that person over there. He doesn't stand for a culture of Christians who stay in the church and say, we're the good people and everyone outside are the bad people. Jesus stands for a culture of humility that says, all of us are the bad people. The only difference between people in the church and outside of the church is that we are covered by Jesus. And we need to invite more people into that covering. Jesus does not stand for a culture of pride. And I'm super excited that I get to have talked about this with you guys because culture is not an evil thing. It's the way that we communicate how to love one another, how to respect one another. But culture is evil when it causes us to say, we're the good people, we're the right people, causes us to be prideful and causes us to push out other people, to make them outsiders or outcasts or people who feel unloved by Jesus. That is not what Jesus stood for. And I'm excited to have gone over that with you guys. I think that's super interesting. I hope you guys find that really interesting too. And I hope that you guys will apply that as we look at outsiders who are literally outside the church and call them, invite them in to be here with us. So guys, let's pray. We're gonna invite up Peyton again to lead us in a song of worship. We can be so thankful to God that even though we were outsiders to him, that he invited us in and now we get to invite in all the other people who feel like outsiders as well. Let's pray guys. God, we thank you so much for this time. I thank you that you would choose to invite us in, even though we chose to be outsiders, we chose to be people who reject you. I thank you that you went out of your way. You sent your son, not just to go grab us, but to suffer and die for us, that we would see your love, that we would be able to be returned to you. And I pray that as we go out, we would not see ourselves as the good people and everyone outside are the bad people, but instead we would see ourselves as people who are broken, but loved, just like everyone else, God. I pray that we would invite other people under the covering that you give us. We thank you for that and pray that we would be able to praise you for that in this final song. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well guys, we're going to stand.
