How To Float Your Boat

Now where we are is Jesus is just talked to the woman at the well and She is so excited that she's running around telling everyone about who Jesus is Just then his disciples came back and they marveled that he was talking with a woman But no one said what do you seek or why are you talking to her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people come see a man who told me all that I ever did Can this be the Christ? They went out of town and we're coming to him Meanwhile the disciples were urging him saying rabbi eat But he said to them I have food eat that you do not know about so the disciples said to one another you know has he gone? Has anyone brought him something to eat and Jesus said to them my food is to do the will of him who sent me into accomplishes work Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest look? I tell you lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and the Reaper May were joys together for here the saying holds true one so's and another reaps I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor others have labored and you have entered into that labor and Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony He told and this is the testimony. He told me all that I ever did So in the Samaritans came to him they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days and many more believe because of his word And they said to the woman it is no longer because of what you said that we believe for we have heard for ourselves And we know that this is indeed the savior of the world Let's unspray one more time and ask God to reveal his word to us and teach us something this morning father, we We thank you that you delight to To reveal yourself that you're a God who communicates You're a God who Delights to bring joy to your children in that revelation and so father We thank you that you have instruction for us because you're a loving father And we're children who don't have it all together. We're broken and needy We don't think right But father We pray that you would be with us this morning. We pray to see Jesus and him only I pray that you would forgive The one who preaches or sins or many we do pray to see Jesus and him only And we ask this in Christ name amen So so we're going to talk about this morning is how to float your boat I got this is not a self-help but Jesus is always a self-help isn't he But it doesn't sound like a self-help title and some of you are old enough to know that term When someone says what floats your boat some of the young people have probably never heard that term what floats your boat But have you ever been asked that question or have you ever said that to someone what floats your boat? Some of you have Some of you run from people that ask that question because it's just so odd and outdated It's like saying woe nelly or something like that. I mean who says that anymore But to ask the question who float what what floats your boat is another way of saying what drives you What motivates you what makes you happy? What brings you contentment? What brings you joy? What satisfies you and the question is does does money float your boat? Is it success that floats your boat? Is it your children and how well they perform and their success or their failure? Um Is it how you look is it the approval of others that you that you clamor for and that floats your boat and makes you feel good your 401k Where you went to school where you go to church where you live? You know your resume what clubs or affiliations you may be a part of you know We can look to these things and say well, you know what floats your boat what gives you satisfaction joy and peace I especially like this phrase because I think it's a good diagnostic question because a lot of times we don't ask the questions We don't we don't think you know what we put our feet on the floor. I'm living for you know I'm living for someone's approval today or I'm I'm living for success today Or I'm living today for people to tell me I look good or that I speak well You know that's not What we how we would actually phrase this, but this is what our heart longs for many many times And I think it's a good diagnostic question to ask what floats your boat because it helps us I think to identify those things in life that we're pursuing in order to find lasting joy and peace and satisfaction and the reality is is that we habitually turn to Um and pursue temporal things to find our lasting peace and joy It's just the reality of who we are and the Bible calls them idols Don't be ashamed and think it's outdated you've got them I've got them you've got more than one you've got a lot of them And these are the things that we look to to find peace and satisfaction and joy And we can say we trust Jesus and love him But we have and he is our savior, but we have functional saviors that we're resting upon and relying upon day by day There's so many things But the problem is the reality is that these temporal things Don't bring lasting joy and peace and satisfaction It's like an economic term the law of diminishing marginal returns the more you pursue a thing the less satisfaction you find And and that's that's the reality and so many times what we're doing is we're running around trying to find our satisfaction and so many other things Um if you think about it today Our houses are bigger than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago Our cars are bigger We're bigger and we're less satisfied Isn't that right? That's absolutely right and and many times it seems like We're our boat doesn't float it seems like we've got all these things and yet we don't have lasting peace or satisfaction and joy It's kind of like you know that great sage and philosopher Jimmy Buffett when he sang He said I feel like I'm stranded on a sand bar I feel like I'm stuck in my tracks like a street car and so many times we can When we pursue these temporal pleasures that the Bible calls idols We wonder where the joy is and it feels like we're you know We're on a sand bar waiting for the high tide to come in and to uh, you know so that we can move on But it seems sometimes doesn't it like we're just kind of going through the motions especially as Christians Well In our text Jesus has just revealed himself to the Samaritan woman And at the well and she has turned in faith trusting Jesus as her Savior and now she's running throughout the town She is so excited and overjoyed that she is telling everyone about who Jesus is and what she has just discovered Jesus as the Messiah Jesus as the long-awaited Savior of the world and the disciples We want to draw a contrast here because the woman is Is so focused on Jesus and who he is and the disciples by contrast Are not interested in anything spiritual But they're interested in food in physical appetite and I think John draws this distinction for us And I used to think when I first became a Christian that you know We were to look at the disciples as the antithesis of who we are But more and more as have grown in in my faith I see that I'm just like the disciples and so are you the reality is They were focused on the physical temporal things this woman has just overjoyed and she's running through town And the disciples are still focused on on the physical satisfaction on food They're talking about food and Jesus takes this opportunity as he always does To take people deeper to go beyond the surface issues to take them deeper to the heart of the spiritual matters Of of really where he wants to drive all of us And so they've just come back the disciples from getting food supplies and they urged Jesus saying rabbi eat And Jesus says My food The thing that floats my boat in other words he says my food the thing that floats my boat And brings me the greatest satisfaction is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work Now as I tell my folks every Sunday the gospel of John is written for the purpose of showing that Jesus is the Messiah And that when we turn to him Continually entrust in faith that he brings life It's a really simple gospel It's a lot of low-hanging fruit. I mean, it's really easy because they're their historical narratives And they're really easy to kind of understand if you look at them But Jesus is the Messiah if we trust him and continue and turn to him then we can have life and we can have it Abundantly and so we've looked at that over and over again and and what I want to tell you this morning is what John wants Us to see from this text is how we can have life joy and lasting satisfaction If we participate with God and when he's doing and that looks like Sharing our faith with other people and telling him about Jesus And I can see all your muscles tightening up. You're like oh gosh I got it It isn't that one of the most frightening things to think about having to tell someone to to share the gospel Because we've got so many things I think in our minds about people that come to us You know, I visited a church my grandmother attended in Mobile. Well that Sunday afternoon I thought they were Jehovah's Witnesses. They were Baptists What's the difference? I don't know. No, I'm just kidding I became a Christian because my Baptist grandmother prayed for me So if you're ex-baptist, I'm not insulting you. I'm just just Just telling you the Baptist came to my grandmother's house And you know, they wanted to share the gospel with me and I told him I said I'm a Christian and You know, I'm even a pastor. Well, they wanted all the more to make sure that I was a Christian But um, he doesn't that frighten you to think well, I've got to share my faith or Um, what do I say to people? But I will tell you that when you participate with what God is doing Turning from the trust in in accumulation And I'm telling you I'm right there with you. I'm not pointing my finger at you except I'm pointing my foot I'm looking at myself too We don't have lasting peace. We don't have lasting satisfaction. Enjoy when we're just pursuing our own goals and our own desires And what I want us to look at first this morning is we can have And we can experience abundant joy by participating with God in his work We can have abundant and experience abundant joy by participating with God in his work What we see here again is going back to the Samaritan woman She's experiencing this great joy. She's experiencing great excitement and hearing who Jesus is and that he has said that worship is through him It's not through any other way That you know she said well, you know my people tell me that we're supposed to worship here And then the Jews say you worship here, but Jesus says you know, I'm the object of worship and you come to me You will find lasting peace and satisfaction. You remember she um, he was at the well And she said he said to her give me a drink and she said why are you asking me this? And then he said well if you knew who I was you would ask me to give you something to drink and it would be a drink that would satisfy you And you'd never have to come to this well again And so this woman has heard this she's come to faith in Christ She's she's seeing now that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah She's been shown grace as well because Jesus knows who she is knows what she's done. Remember she had been with a number of men She had a number of husbands and the one that she's with now isn't her husband And Jesus revealed that to her which she she knew, but then he he gave her grace and she tasted grace not the law But she she saw the sin, but then she saw the grace and received pardon forgiveness This was unlike anything she had ever heard because the Pharisees the religious teachers never taught that And she was ostracized and she was an outcast So now she's got this abundant joy It tasting grace for the first time and she is so excited and she is running all throughout the town You know the guilt that she had experienced and the guilt that she felt was removed And she could now worship the Father in spirit and in truth through Jesus and the completion of that joy Is the speaking of Jesus to other people that's what she's running around town Listen to verses 28 through 30 so the woman left her water jar And went away into town and said to the people come see a man who told me all that I ever did Can this be the Christ and they went out of town and were coming to him she drops her water jar In the in the in the narratives in scripture everything is left in print for a purpose It is descriptive and it's powerful. She dropped her water jar She stopped what she was doing she stopped in her tracks and she started running all throughout the town saying This is the one. This is the one. This is the one that can satisfy you This is the one who can bring you peace and bring you joy

And when you share the joy that you have doesn't that make the joy complete Um whenever I buy Kelly a gift my wife Kelly is sitting back here whenever I buy her a gift I can't wait until the time that I'm supposed to give it to her I have to give it to her right away. I remember the last time while I bought her some other things But the only thing I can remember right now is I got her this good dive at chocolate from Barnes and Noble And it was 50% off but I took the sticker off so she didn't know um I preached this a couple weeks ago so she heard it then but you know I wanted to think you know I spent wow he spent nine dollars on it. No um But I had that gift I put it in my arm while I was gonna give it to her I think it was around a birthday. Well, I gave it to her that day I was just I was on pins and needles just you know, oh, I just want to give her this And think about I don't know how many of you when you were in grade school. They had show-and-tells Did they have show-and-tell raise your hand? Did they have show-and-tell? I'm from Florida So I guess we wasted our time with silly things in the city. They don't do show-and-tell What you did in elementary school is you got the thing that you love the most Well, one of those things and you'd bring it to school and you're so excited pull it out of your backpack or whatever And then you show it to your friends and you tell about it and it made your joy complete because you you brought it to other people One of the guys that That worked with us at Lania if he was our construction foreman and we went to the Jimmy Buffett concert in golf shores Which was a free concert and then he he went two weeks later in Virginia Beach And he knows how much I love Jimmy Buffett and so he called me from the concert to taunt me He was in Virginia Beach. It was his last concert of the season his tour and He said he said yes, where I am. I said I know where you are But he wanted he wasn't just taunting me. He wanted to make the joy complete And this is what happens. This is we can experience great and abundant joy We tell others about The joy that we found in Jesus the forgiveness the pardon the freedom from guilt that we Find in Christ It's an amazing thing but if we keep it to ourselves and we share are we excited to share other things? We're excited excited to share when when let's say We get our spouses are pregnant and we want to tell everybody it makes the joy Complete the woman left her water jar and went and told the people and she was so excited She stopped what she was doing to tell other people but again by contrast the disciples are doing nothing but talking about food And this is in verse 27 and then verses 31 through 32 Just then the disciples came back they marveled that he was talking to a woman But no one said what do you seek or why are you talking with her? And meanwhile the disciples were urging him saying rabbi eat But he said to them I have food eat that you do not know about I'm gonna say I think some of the application for us today is if we've been in the church for a long time We have forgotten what grace tastes like we're like the disciples We're we get focused on the physical things You know and and sometimes it's like I will I will check the box and go to church and then I go home And then I do my other things look I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip on you. I'm trying to remove a guilt trip I'm trying to tell you where to find the water I'm trying to tell you when high tide is gonna come up and and float your boat and and how you can experience great joy and lasting peace And it's it's by just telling other people and it's a simple thing That's that that's the next thing I want to look at That participation Intelling other people and sharing our faith with other people. It's very very simple But I understand how frightening that sounds to you right now and how dismissive that can be To think well that's that's for professional people That's for people who've been disseminary that's for and that's for the youth pastor He's supposed to come with me. I can't tell you how many times when I have been in churches and people said pastor I need you to come with me to share the gospel with my next door neighbor They really need to hear it and I thought I've done a bad job because They're not equipped to do this themselves, but It really is very very simple and I want to look at three quick things and then we're done The first thing is that success is guaranteed in evangelism Success is guaranteed Jesus used the metaphor from agriculture. He said do you not say there are yet four months then comes the harvest look I tell you lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest The rain is not going to destroy the crops The crops are ready to be picked Success is guaranteed throughout the gospel of John Jesus is saying and you'll say this in the next chapter All that the father gives me will come to me And all we have to do is just tell people Just tell people the story And that success is guaranteed you're not the one I tell you what it gives me great comfort knowing that Jesus is the one who draws people to himself that he's the one who opens hearts It takes the pressure off of everything And you can rest and relax and you the thing is is you don't have to give everyone everything up front You can pepper you can kind of seize in your conversations um With with scriptural truth and wisdom about who Jesus is and and when somebody's when somebody's talking about The problems that they have in their marriage and in their home and throughout their life You know You can you don't have to come in and say well let me just tell you and just you know You don't have to quote word for word But you can come alongside you can listen And maybe that's not the time at that point to say something where maybe it is But I tell you what I found is if you pray for opportunities god always opens the doors There was one fellow who uh who actually comes and worships at Lanette now and he became a Christian just this last year But he had been with us for a couple of years He had come to back to Lanette to thank us or to find the college students or University of Tennessee college students had come there were 150 of them that were painting houses and They had painted his house And so he came to thank them and he's talking in the parking lot to me about his life and his wife had left him And she'd racked up credit card bills and the seat from the casinos and all these other things his house had been Completely underwater in basing Lewis. It was near the beach Um and he didn't have a good relationship with his children I mean this is all of this stuff if you know after the storm a lot of people all the stuff kind of came up And people just wanted to talk Well, I was listening to him and then I was praying so god just give me the words to say Well, I tell you what he asked me point blank. How does god and how did Jesus fit into all this And I just I wanted to drop on the ground and just this amazing that never happens is that's an easy that's an easy door Um, but I tell you what He still had some really whacked out views Um, and he would come to Lanette and he came to Lanette for a couple of years He would lighten avinas for different things. I didn't correct him for that He um, you know, he would he would talk about things at sea that he had done and I tell you the stories about sailors are all true Um, the true about me too. I mean hey, they're true about us all um But the reality is is that he came to faith in Christ and I didn't have to I didn't have to share the the four spiritual laws or sit through a little pamphlet with him But it was over time of having a relationship and and just being a friend and he he wasn't a project But he was a person and um success is guaranteed That's what that's what we believe from scripture that god is going to call all those who are his Um, the second thing that I think makes evangelism and and participating with what god's doing in the world much easier Is is if you realize that you're not alone in this task listen to the text in verse 37 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life So that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together for here the saying holds true one sows and other reaps I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor others have labored and you have entered into their labor You're not the only one that's doing this and you may not be the only Christian that this person has ever run into um Francis shaffer who's a great theologian um and philosopher he uh he used to call this uh pre evangelism pre evangelism um and i i experienced it in my own life Maybe you did too before you came to faith in christ i became a christian in a fraternity house at florida state university um Because there was a guy who shared the gospel with me but prior to that I had been a lifeguard at a water park in orlando and i remember sitting at the end of the wave deck in the shallow end Talking to this one guy who he said he was a christian. I didn't know what a christian was I mean, I just knew i wasn't um. I thought i was a pretty good person But he would talk about jesus and one of the reasons i thought he was authentic was because he never augaled the girls like the rest of us You know and and he was authentic but what he did was he just talked with us and he didn't try to pressure us into anything um And the reality is i realized then now that my grandmother had been praying for me and i had encounters with other christians as well Realized that you're not alone. You're not the only one who god is going to use if say if he's going to call someone to faith in christ You're you're just one in a succession and maybe your job is to uh is to plant seeds Maybe your job is to to harvest and maybe somebody comes to faith in christ You know by you speaking to them. I do not know But um you're not alone and that takes the pressure off too You know like jesus said here he said you know one so's another reaps I think i think the damage that has been done to the evangelical churches that we always think that we're supposed to reap We always think that man i get to get this person to bow their knee at this point right now and that may be You know maybe that's what god has but look there's some that are supposed to sew and then some that are supposed to reap It's a very simple thing god guarantees the success of evangelism because he's the one that's going to do it He just calls us to co-labor with him Realize that you're not alone and i'll tell you as a personal example I spent a lot of time at coffee shops Many of you who know me know that at barns and noble or at starbucks And when they built the barns and noble over in golfport back in i think it was 98 or 99 You know i was there every day Well i got i became a regular and there are regulars there And i got to know a lot of people and um Talk about sewing there there were two This one gal val is a british lady. She used to teach aerobics around here and um i would talk to her and sometimes she would be caustic She would ask me because she knows him a pastor and she wanted to talk But she also had some other ideas in her mind about you know buddhism islam wise christianity True and others aren't so tell me well Over the years She would call me too when her husband would beat her um he would physically beat her an abuser Um and and she had my number and we would talk through some of these things and i just loved her I spoke with her I didn't judge her but i just i just loved on her Well i saw her a couple of months ago she actually ran she i think she's gonna knock me down And and she she started crying She said uh she says i've become a christian This has probably been five or more years and i don't see her all the time But that this time she came up crying and she said i never will forget she says i was trying to push your buttons Um when you when you were talking with me and she says but i'll never forget the thing you said you asked I asked you what's the difference between buddhah Um ahamad and jesus and i said those others are in the grave jesus is resurrected And she says i never forgot that I didn't put a pressure on her but i spoke with her in love They're sowing and there's reaping that was sowing somebody else came along Later and and i guarantee you that god put other people in her life throughout her life um But in my life there was a guy that god used to Let's say reap To where i became to faith in christ and it was in the sigma guy fraternity house at florida state And this one guy kelett tomis he's a pca pastor in atlanta now We were told as pledges you know that we had to get signatures from all the brothers But they told us in our pledge class you don't have to get kelett's signature You have to get everybody's signature but you don't worry about kelett Because he'll tell you about jesus You don't have to talk to him they said that Well i mean god invented humor and he has the best sense of humor So when i lived in the house as a pledge i moved in Guess who lived across the hall for me kelett And i went into my room one night and god had been doing this pre evangelism in my life and Sturring up a desire to know and to Philosophy really helped me rather than hindered But i come to him and i said he was going to his room i was going to mine I said look i hear your christian like to talk to you sometime about that He said how about now And we sat in his room and he did go through a gospel track But that gospel track told me what i had no idea who god was that god was holy That jesus Came to rescue me from sin that i'm a sinner and deserving his judgment But then i can have forgiveness and pardon in new life through jesus i had never heard that before i grew up and you know kind of a mainstream church And It was an amazing thing but see he reaped at that point They're sowing and there's reefing look participating with what god is doing and and sharing the joy that we've experienced It's um it's it's not a difficult thing There's success that's guaranteed Realized that you're not alone and then finally the third thing and i think this blows everything up Tell your story Listen to this in verse 29 this is this was the testimony that the Samaritan woman gave to the people in the village She said to the people come see a man who told me all that i ever did can this be the christ And then in verse 39 many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony Which was he told me all that i ever did so when the Samaritans came to him They asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days and many more believed because of his word And they said to the woman it is no longer because of what you said that we believe But we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world All you have to do is tell your story Do you have a story to tell? I can't tell your story If you don't know your story and can't tell your story then then you got some other problems going on too And and we can talk about that later. There's medicine for that too but You're supposed to laugh Tell your story Tell your story Tell who God is what he's done It's very very simple you don't have to run over people With with a contrived formula God has made you unique He's given you a unique story to tell and you can just you know This is this is what I love about my friend Steve Brown There's a professor of mine and he's He's written a lot of books and he's just he's so funny He says we're just beggars who have found bread and we're telling others other beggars where to find the bread We're beggars who have found the bread and we're telling other beggars where to find the bread You don't have to know a lot You know your story you know who Jesus is but I will tell you it I anticipated your fears of the thought of having to tell anyone But I will tell you that if you just take a few steps pray and ask God for the opportunity You can experience abundant joy. Jesus said my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish what he's intended I want to read you a quote from my uh my other friend C.S. Lewis He's he's kind of my mentor from afar Everything mostly everything he writes is just profound but Lewis said this He God seems to do things He seems to do nothing of himself which he can possibly delegate to his creatures He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what he would do perfectly And in the twinkling of an eye Creation seems to be delegation through and through I suppose this is because he is a giver delegation creation seems to be delegation through and through I suppose this is because he's a giver You're gonna blunder You're gonna say the wrong things You can't mess this up Because God is gonna drop people to himself, but he uses idiots like you and me He uses people who don't have it all together whose lives are imperfect who who are still struggling with sin To to share the place where beggars who have found the bread and we're telling other beggars where to find it That's the message It's not that look at me my life is put together you are not put together Once you take the mask off and just talk to people And share them I think my favorite quote is from this guy anonymous and I'd love to meet him It's the only normal people are the ones you don't know well The only normal people are the ones you don't know well open up Talk to the people that are around you You're sitting next to broken people you look in a mirror you're messed up as and as Steve Brown says you're Cheer up you're a lot worse than you think you are But God uses messed up people for his purposes and I think you know see as Lewis says I suppose it's because he's a giver I think it's also because as Paul said Power comes in weakness Power comes in weakness and I will tell you what change comes with trust And change comes with trust you saying you know, I'm still struggling with the same kind of things I've got all these fears and anxieties in my it does feel like my boat won't float It's like I'm on a sand bar Stuck in my tracks like a street car while I will tell you what change comes through trust And that means taking the steps and going out into those areas that feel uncomfortable they are uncomfortable But take the step and trust God will change you and he'll bring you great and abundant joy just like the woman at the well God wants to wake us up he wants to wake his church up and he wants he wants your joy more than you do And if you believe that believe that he uses this as that as that means as well. Let's let's pray Father, we we thank you We're amazed that you use us We're amazed that that you rescued us But we thank you that you have rescued us through Jesus and that you've given us a story to tell Father let us never forget never let us Settle for thinking that we're put together Because everyone else is broken but father if we can just tell other people where we've found a source of joy Just let it be natural and comfortable But give us opportunities. I pray for everyone here. Father this church would be a beacon in the lighthouse On the coast a place where where people could gather To find comfort and peace and joy Make this place that place and we thank you that you have accomplished all these things through your son For it's in his name we pray amen