Why Are We Here, Where Are We Going, and Where Do You Fit In? (2020)

[Here is the article Pastor Viars referenced in today's message: In US., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace]

- I hope you and your family had a great Christmas season together…

- I’d like to thank the hundreds and hundreds of men and women from our church family who served in one or more of our Christmas ministries the past 30 days or so…

- one event that encapsulated it all for me was on the last night of the LN…

- I had been in GA at a leadership retreat for the Biblical Counseling Coalition that week…

- and as I was driving back, our staff was starting to send weather predictions for the weekend and Sunday evening wasn’t looking very good…

- so we determined that we would make a final decision about Sunday night by noon Saturday so we had time to properly communicate with everyone…

- and the consensus was that because of all the effort and expense that goes into setting up the LN, and the great results we were having…we would go ahead and try to have it Sunday evening and then get as many hands on deck to tear it down before the worst of the weather came through…

- well, that evening, the snow came earlier and heavier than some had predicted…and as our family was serving at the very end at scene 15 thanking our guests for coming and inviting them to come in the community center for hot chocolate and cookies – one woman said to me as she looked out at a lot of snow covered volunteers – you folks have a lot of dedicated servants here…

- and we would never take everyone’s safety and health for granted – and honestly if we had the decision to make over we would probably have gone the other way…

- but to the glory of God, what that woman said was true – there are a lot of dedicated servants of Jesus Christ in our church family – and the Christmas season demonstrates that once again…

- but now all of that’s in the rear-view mirror…the sets have been stored, and the News Years Spectaculars and Winter Break ministries are completed as well…

- so we have the great privilege of being in the Lord’s house on the very first Sunday of a new decade and asking ourselves…Why are We Here, Where are We Going, and How Do You Fit In?...

- I’ve thought about those questions a lot in the last several months…honestly, I’ve preached this sermon a thousand times in my head…and if I could just offer this summary from a personal perspective…there has never been a time in my ministry where there have been greater challenges to be part of a Bible believing church in this culture, and I/we have never been more excited about the opportunities for effective ministry that those challenges provide us…

- and that’s often the way life works…if you believe you have a good football team, you don’t want to play a patsy…you don’t want to pad the schedule with meaningless games…

- if you’re Ohio State, you want to play Clemson…[and feel free to insert whatever teams you believe should fit that analogy]…

- in 1 Corinthians parlance…it’s like Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 16:8–9 - But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost; for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

- in many ways those words are truer today for our church family than at any time in our nearly 55-year history…

- here’s another way to think about this – and I’m going to use an athletic illustration so for anyone new, I always have to throw in this caveat…I am certainly not an athlete and I never have been…but I do like do athletic-ish things…

- I also firmly believe the words “pastor” and “spandex” should never be used in the same sentence…

- but quite a few people from our church family ran the Purdue Half-Marathon in October which is great event that starts at the Ross Ade parking lot and across the rover through the streets of downtown Lafayette and then back across the rover through campus to the finish line…

- what’s good about the timing is that a few weeks later there is another event in Indianapolis…the Monumental in early November…so several us did the half and at least one person I know of from our church family just crushed the full marathon..

- but I was signed up for the half and woke up that morning and it was really cold…so you’re hopping around at the start line just praying the thing will start before you freeze solid…

- but then you get running and start to warm up and honestly it wasn’t that bad…

- till sometime around mile 9 or so for the half-marathoners where the course reverses direction and on this particular morning you were running right back into a very stiff, cold headwind…

- that totally changed the event for me…because now it was going to be much more challenging to maintain the same pace…and far less comfortable…and you had to dig a lot deeper and even slightly adjust your expectations for how and when you would finish…

- that’s the situation that Faith Church and every evangelical Bible-believing church faces today…and it affects the way we would answer the three questions we have before us in very profound ways…

- with that in mind, let me invite you to open your Bible to John chapter 4 – page ____ of the back section of the Bible under the chair in front of you…

- Let me try to illustrate what I mean by this stiff cultural headwind in several brief ways before we read and study this passage together…

- Here is a report from the Pew Research Center that was published on October 17, 2019. The title of the report says it all – “In US., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace”

- we could spend the rest of the morning discussing all the statistics this report contains…and I would encourage you if you’re interested in this sort of analysis to study it more fully on your own…

- but here are a couple of shocking findings…in one decade, the percentage of people in our country who describes themselves as Christian has declined 12%...in just 10 years…

- those who prefer to call themselves atheist, or agnostic, or “nothing in particular” has grown at that same rate…

- church attendance is down dramatically across denominational lines…

- the trends hold true regardless of what ethnic group you study…or where a person stands economically…

- perhaps not surprisingly…it’s even truer among adults who are younger in our country…

- and what should be especially noted is the rate at which this is occurring…

- from another perspective, we’re being told that between 100-200 churches are closing every week in our country…

- please consider some of the dear men and women who will be here in a few weeks for our annual BCTC – if some of them look like they’ve stumbled off the battlefield with terror in their eyes…that is how some if not many of them feel…

- another way to think about this is that when Barack Obama campaigned for his first term as president – he made it clear that he believed marriage should only be defined as a covenant between one man and one woman…and he was elected twice to our nation’s highest office…

- now we have presidential candidates who have said that if a church does not affirm and practice gay marriage…they should be penalized by losing their tax exemption…

- not whether gay marriage is right or wrong…but whether a group of people should be able to carry out their religious beliefs for themselves without government censure…

- that happened in 11 years…

- then there’s the Chik-Fil-A dust up at Purdue last fall…

- and the reason I’ve spoken about that isn’t because I’m all wound up about Chik-Fil-A per se, but it’s one of the latest examples of how our world…and our culture wants to conform God’s people to their mold…and to shame/silence any dissent…

- and we should be very glad for the administration at Purdue who took a strong stand on that issue…but the pressure on that company literally around the world is intense…

- and if you’ve followed that, you might say – well, but didn’t they eventually cave in too?...

- that depends on who you listen to…and ultimately it’s their money and they ought to be able to do what they want to with it…

- but my answer for whatever it’s worth would be – yes they did…but look how few pastors, and churches, and Christians were willing to stand up for them locally last fall…we shouldn’t expect a restaurant company to do what pastors and churches won’t do…

- but that is the point – if you are going to be, or align yourself with a Bible believing church…expect the stink eye…do you understand what I mean by that?...”a look expressing annoyance, resentment, or disapproval…”

- our world wants to conform you to its mold…culture seeks to shame and silence those who choose to believe and follow God’s Word…

- and the question before the house is – how many men and women in this culture have the courage to stand up to that headwind?...and keep running string and faithfully regardless of the pain and discomfort that comes with the race?...

- churches like ours and people like us essentially have 4 choices…

1. Fail to recognize what is occurring…to be caught flat-footed or unaware…

- stories are being told of churches that had a storied history not long ago but now are gone…are closed…because the trends took them by surprise and they were simply unprepared…

2. Abandon any beliefs our culture finds objectionable…that is what many people and churches have chosen to do…they are simply unwilling to pay the price of cultural rejection or disapproval…their careers or their acceptance among friends and families and neighbors and work associates are more important than their faith or their commitment to Christ

3. Hope no one finds out. Keep objectionable beliefs under wraps.

- last fall I mentioned a church that Irwin Lutzer, the long-time pastor at Moody Church in Chicago, wrote about…

- and it was a church down south that was less than 20 years old…very trendy…very successful…kind of the hip church in town…did a lot of community service, was even a strong supporter of the arts community in their city…

- and then the pastor was preaching through Genesis 1-3 and as he was talking about how God created human beings male and female…asked a series of questions including whether we it served children well to suggest they could choose their own gender…

- and their church and city erupted in controversy…reports suggest the entire town was split in two over what occurred…the arts community stated they would accept no more funds from them…overnight you go from being the hip church to receiving the stink eye because you dare believe what God’s Word says about a particular topic…

- and I don’t know a thing about that church – but I would ask this – why would that have been a surprise?...

- and again, I’m not judging them because I don’t know…but in general I would ask…wouldn’t it be far better to be very upfront about your belief in God and His Word and then trust Him with the results?...

- that’s the fourth option…to Celebrating God’s Truth…

- to have a clear understanding as a church family about what we believe and why we believe it…

- and to carefully and faithfully apply those truths to the way we choose to live in our personal lives, our families, our workplaces, our schools, and our neighborhoods…

- and to love the fire out of our neighbors as a natural extension of our faith…

- and then to trust our God for the results…even if the headwinds He has sovereignly allowed causes us to adjust our pace and our expectations…

- that’s our theme in 2020…

- this is the middle year of our current five year Seeing More Clearly Strategic Ministry Plan…

- this is a presidential election where truth-telling is not always at a premium…

- there are cultural and religious trends that are changing at a dizzying pace…

- what this word needs is groups of people who joyfully and faithfully celebrate God’s truth…

- let’s read this marvelous story of the woman at the well to find 3 reasons to celebrate God’s Truth.

- read John 4:1-42

- what a shocking passage of Scripture….if there was ever an example of how God’s ways are not man’s ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts…this is it for sure…

- and this is exactly the kind of thinking and living our culture desperately needs…

I. We Celebrate God’s Truth Because of the Satisfaction of the Message

- Jesus tells this Samaritan woman about a kind of water that can quench her thirst once and for all for all eternity…what could be more satisfying than that?...

- now let’s back up and walk through the passage…part of what’s amazing is that this is…

A. Available to anyone

- this event occurs very early in the public ministry of Jesus…

- and verse 4 reports… John 4:4 - And He had to pass through Samaria.

- the NKJV translates that as – and He needed to…

- well, why was that so scandalous?...

- the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans is a fascinating story…

- their animosity towards one another had been occurring for over 700 years…

- the Samaritans rejected the OT except for their version of the first five books, the Pentateuch…

- they had also established a rival place of worship on Mount Gerizim…

- we could spend the rest of the morning talking about all of this – but just to give us a feel for how significant their hatred was – a few chapters later when the Jewish leaders were trying to insult Jesus and shame Him publicly – they simply but powerfully said …John 8:48 - The Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

- that was just the beginning of what was so unusual about this interaction…not only would a Jewish person not normally have an interaction with a Samaritan…but nor would a male have this kind of conversation with a woman…

- and most importantly in this passage…a woman who had five different husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband…

- and yet the Gospel of Jesus Christ was being proclaimed to her…

- it’s just when the message of Christ’s birth was delivered first to the lowly shepherds…

- this is the first time in Scripture viewed chronologically where Jesus will clearly affirm his Messiahship…and he does it with an immoral Samaritan woman…

- that’s one of the reasons people like you and me celebrate God’s truth…our God is not a respecter of persons…that’s why Faith’s mission statement is…

- The mission of Faith Church is to glorify God by winning people to Jesus Christ and equipping them to be more faithful disciples.

- that answers the question – why are we here?...

- and this is why we are so thankful, that in the providence of God…we have three different campuses in three very different cultural settings…

- I have the privilege of traveling around to our different campuses each month and it’s hard to believe those three locations are in the same county…

- but having a church family with so much diversity ethnically, and economically, and chronologically, and on and on…is a wonderful picture of what God wants His family to look like…

- and it’s important to note – it took a lot of courage for our church family to launch out in the Northend with this particular 5-year plan after just having launched FW in the previous 5 year cycle…

- but I absolutely believe this – had we not pursued those projects when we did…

- because of the different political climate that exists in WL today, it would be next to impossible to develop that campus in the manner we did…

- and the conditions whereby we able to develop the NCC were once in a ministry life-time opportunities…

‑ we are on the lookout for the next woman at the well – and we want to celebrate God’s truth together…and that is a powerful apologetic to those who might want to look at the church of Jesus Christ with the stink eye…

- in a day of incredible ethnic tension and division…[and you better believe that will be exploited and exacerbated during an election cycle…]…the unity that God’s gives us as we celebrate God’s truth together can have a significant impact on those who are considering worshipping Jesus with us…

B. Quenches mankind’s greatest thirst.

- human beings were created with the capacity to know, and serve, and worship our God…

- sin ruins all of that and creates an insatiable thirst…

- no one knew that more than this woman who had tried the pleasures the world had to offer and found them to actually make the thirst worse…like a shipwrecked person floating in a life-boat in the hot sun surrounded by salt water…

- that’s why Jesus sat down by a well…that’s why He wanted His Messiahship announced at this particular place, at this particular time, to this particular person…

- he said -- John 4:14 - but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

- 3 passages of Scripture that can help us understand Christ’s meaning…

- Proverbs 13:14 - The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, to turn aside from the snares of death.

- John 7:37–39 - …“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

- John 14:26 - But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

- so, what is Jesus promising this woman?...

- I like the way John Piper said it – “When we come to Christ to drink, what we drink is truth—but not dead, powerless facts. The Spirit and the Word unite to slake our thirst and make us a fountain of life. (See 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 2:13.) The word of promise and the power of the Holy Spirit are the living water offered to the Samaritan harlot” (John Piper, sermon on John 4).

- now please tie this to some of the stats we discussed at the beginning…

- one of the upshots of a culture that is moving further and further away from God and His truth is increased thirst…the way of the transgressor is hard

- that’s why community-based outreach ministry is so important…and why having a biblical counseling ministry is so important…

- if you review the 2020 initiatives our church family adopted back at the end of 2017 for this particular year…you’ll see any of them are focused on those areas of ministry…

- and we’re so glad and thankful for the men and women who have sacrificed and served so that those ministries could be put in place and developed…

- people who defined faithfulness not in terms of weeks or months or years…but in terms of decades…something that many people in this culture know very little about…

- so we’re not going to abandon culture, or condemn culture, or separate ourselves from it…we’re going to do exactly what Jesus did…try to love, and serve, and interact with men and women who are thirsty and look for opportunities to share the great news of forgiveness and new available in Christ…we’re passionately inviting others to join the celebration…

- in order to do that well, we first have to know exactly what we believe…we plan to accomplish that in two very important ways this year…

1. On Sunday mornings, we are planning a verse by verse exposition of the book of Romans…we’ll take a break in the summer for a shorter topical series entitled Who Are You?...but the bulk of our time will be in Romans…

2. We’re also going to equipping many of our ABF’s and small groups to carefully study our church’s Statement of Faith….

- now, just a word about Romans…I’ve mentioned that to several people who have immediately cheered that news…

- my response is a kind – be careful what you wish for…because the book of Romans will put human beings in our place, and God in His…about as quickly as any other place in the Bible…

- and that will help our celebration of God’s truth this year to not be triumphalistic…

- in other words – we’re not suggesting that we are intrinsically better than someone else because of beliefs we conjured up on our own…if we believe God and His Word and finding our greatest joy and satisfaction in celebrating His truth…it is because we are the joyful and undeserving recipients of God’s sovereign grace.

II. We Celebrate God’s Truth Because of the Joy of the Process

- Jesus explains to this woman that she can be transformed into a person who is a joyful worshipper of the God of Truth…

- that would be another way to summarize what we hope happens in 2020…we want to passionately worship our God in Spirit and in truth every Lord’s day…and then live lives throughout the week that are deeply and purposely and practically worshipful…and then invite as many others as possible to join us in the celebration…

A. Initiated by repentance

- John 4:16 - He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”

- that’s called – getting after it…

- with one statement – Jesus revealed the core reason for her insatiable thirst…

- that is why the last thing the church of Jesus Christ ought to do in this culture is abandon our biblical beliefs…

- we ought to talk much about the reality of sin and the need for repentance…

- but you need whose sin and need for repentance we ought to talk about the most?...our own…

- so let’s say there are several guys who work together who are having lunch together and the topic of marriage comes up…

- and several guys talk about how much they can’t stand their wives…

- and a few others talk about how many failed marriages they’ve had…

- and someone else talks about how hot the woman who works in the office is and how he wishes his wife was like her…

- and someone else talks about gay marriage and how you ought to just be able to love who you love…

- and you know what – everyone at that table is thirsty…and probably not even sure why…

- here’s my question for you – what are you going to say at that moment?...

- please tell me you’re not going to miss it…please pass the mustard…how about those Colts…

- but you’re not the perfect Savior…there may be something better than just condemning the guys who hate their wives, or those whose marriages have failed, or the guy looking around or the proponent of gay marriage…

- how about something like – my wife and I have been married for a long time, and the relationship works because we have a Lord and Savior…

- so we find our ultimate joy and satisfaction in Him

- so we’re not trying to receive from a human being what that person could never supply…

- and when we fail – and we often do – we go quickly to Christ for forgives and then to one another…

- and when we don’t know what to do or which way to turn, we look to God’s Word for answers and directions – He’s our Lord so He’s the authority and guide in our marriage…

- do you know what you just did?...you celebrated God’s truth…

- John Piper made another interesting observation about this point of the story – “The quickest way to the heart is through a wound.”

- even if the world acts as if they don’t want to hear God’s truth about a particular subject…the last thing we should do is be shamed and silenced…to survive…and thrive…and accomplish our mission in these challenging times, we have to find ways to discuss the existence of sin and the need for repentance…but please look at where that leads…

B. Transformed into a joyful worshipper

- the way the woman at the well responds to Jesus’ next statement is fascinating and even a bit humorous…after she reports that she doesn’t have a husband…

- He says -- John 4:17–18 - …“You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”

- and then…John 4:19–20 - The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”

- you talk about trying to change the subject…but without knowing it, she changed it to the most important subject…

- the reason she was so thirsty was because she had been worshipping all the wrong things in all the wrong places…

- but if she would admit her sin, and place her faith and trust in the promised Messiah…her sin would be forgiven (all of it), and the Holy Spirit would take up residence in her heart and life…and she could become a person who worshipped God in both spirit and in truth…

- and that’s how we believe we should respond to the cultural headwinds we’re facing…

- what we said a moment ago bears repeating…we want to passionately worship our God in Spirit and in truth every Lord’s day…and then live lives throughout the week that are deeply and purposely and practically worshipful…and then invite as many others as possible to join us in the celebration…

- so what are some of the specific take-aways?...

1. Decide who you worship…friend, if you don’t know that you know that you are on your way to heaven, why not admit your thirst, and the source of your thirst, and come to Christ for the living water that is available in and through Him?...

- you live in a culture that is doing everything possible to keep you from God’s truth…

- why not choose to be counter-cultural…why not celebrate God’s truth instead?...

2. If you are a Christian, but you have not been baptized and officially joined our church or another Bible-believing church…decide now to take those steps of obedience to Christ…

- the plain truth is – you, nor we…can afford the “luxury” of people just sitting on the sidelines…

- grab your helmet and get in the game…truth worthy of celebration is also truth worthy of obedience…

3. Plan to be in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day as often as possible.

- another fascinating aspect of the Pew research is that even people who attend church “regularly” define that as attending about 1.5 Sundays per month…

- how could a person avoid the pressure to be conformed to the world’s mold with that little exposure to corporate worship?...

- Piper is right when he says that admiration is one of the heart’s deepest longings….

- and the God of heaven is the most admirable being…

- therefore God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

- that’s why we hope our church’s largest bills this year is roofing nails…

- where Sunday after Sunday we come to celebrate God’s truth…

- we arrive early…well rested…focused on the joy of worshipping our God…

- and when the song service begins…we can’t help but raising the roof off the building…

- and then the contractors have to come over every Monday morning to FE, FW, FN – and pick the roof up and nail it back on…

- hopefully I’ll start receiving e-mail from parents saying – PV, my teenager was up at 6am again on Sunday morning – saying we have to get over to the church-house right away – before all the good seats in front are gone…

- or reports each Lord’s day around 11:00 am that 911 is receiving more calls about sonic booms around town…and the dispatcher rolls her eyes and says – that’s just Faith worshipping again…celebrating God’s truth…

- another upshot is this appreciating each other more than evert before…

- you get tired of getting the stink eye from co-workers, and family members, and friends for aligning yourself with a church that believes God’s Word…

- and that means we ought to highly our church members who are willing to withstand that pressure…

- “thank you for being a faithful brother”…”thank you for being a faithful sister”…”I’m glad you’re part of our church family”…”We need each other”…

- if time allows – could discuss the inter-generational aspect of all of this…

III. We Celebrate God’s Truth Because of the Urgency of the Mission

- the woman left her water pot and headed back to tell everyone she knew…

- the disciples return from Kentucky Fried Chicken and they urge Jesus to eat something…to which He says…

- John 4:32 - But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

- and they totally miss the point – asking each other – did you bring Him something to eat?

A. Decide what your most important food is going to be this year.

- I hope you’ll say that finding ways to share the good news about living water will be among your highest priorities this year…

- here are a couple of practical take-aways:

1. Consider serving at the 11:00 hour at FCN

2. Consider taking an occasional shift at the NCC or one of our other community centers

3. Consider eating at the new D&R at the NCC on Sunday afternoons

B. Reflect on what is available at the harvest

- John 4:35–36 - Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

- [develop – this is the third year of SMC – will have an update at CFN on January 26]

C. If it can happen with the Samaritans, it can happen anywhere, with anyone.

- [develop – upcoming mission trips] …