Prayer
Because the primary goal of our time together is to establish relationships and learn how to walk with one another in all that God has called us to be and do, we’d like to begin by praying for one another. So, does anyone have anything you’d like us to pray for or anything to share regarding how you’ve seen God moving in your life that we can celebrate together?
Opening Question
How did you do in the winter storm this past weekend?
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 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. 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 benefits of their labor.”– John 4:27-38
A Particular Meal
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”– John 4:21-26
When you read the account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, what stands out to you the most about how they speak to one another?
Do you generally find it easy or challenging to share your faith with others?
Who first shared the gospel with you?
A Particular Message
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
– John 4:28-30
In the sermon, we heard that the message we are meant to bring to people could be summed up as: Come meet someone who loves you, and it’s definitely not for what you do, but just for who you are?
Have you ever equated your worthiness of God’s love with your moral performance or ability to maintain some kind of external law?
What practices or perspectives help you embody the unmerited grace of God more fully?
Who do you know that needs to hear the message of a God who knows them and loves them as they are? How can you share that truth with them?
A Particular Motivation
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
– John 4:13-14
In the sermon, we were encouraged to view church’s mission with an agrarian understanding of attending to the harvest, that we are called to care for and preserve people, make sure they have a hope and a future now and an eternal future and eternal hope.
When you imagine a harvest in Jesus’s time, what images and ideas come to mind?
What does Jesus’s insistence that he came to give people eternal life reveal about God’s deepest desire for humanity?
What are some specific ways we can share our faith with others in a way that communicates God’s desire to care for them and welcome them into his presence eternally?
Closing Thought
Spend your final moments together asking God to strengthen your faith by sharing it with others in a meaningful way.