Today, our final message in our Goals 2013 series is called “Share the Truth.” God’s goal for every believer is to grow this New Year in sharing the truth that God has brought into your life. Why is that so important? Sharing the truth is important because, if you’re a believer here this morning, someone, somewhere shared God’s truth with you. And you believed it. God wants us to pass on that truth to others, it’s one of the most exciting parts of life with God. The truth of God changes lives for eternity, there’s nothing more significant than that.
A student at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, where I went to school, finally became a Christian after a long period of searching. When he was asked what the turning point for him was, he told this story. He said that as an undergrad, he became sick with the flu and missed school for 10 days. During the time he was sick, a classmate in his organic chemistry class, collected all his lectures and assignments and helped him catch back up when he came back. The student who had been sick was so amazed that someone would take that much time to help him out, he wanted to know why he did it. His friend let him know that he was a Christian. Before long the student began attending church with his friend and soon became a believer. This Christian student had shared the truth of God’s love both through actions and words. Both are necessary. Our actions must back up our words and our words must explain our actions.
This last week a St Louis pastor named Alois Bell wrote on her receipt at a local Applebee’s, “I give God 10%, why do you get 18%?” The waitress posted a copy of the receipt on the internet which went viral. The pastor called Applebee’s back and the waitress for fired. As you can imagine, the actions of this pastor were not well received and didn’t reflect the words of Christ that she taught.
Matthew 5:16 (NIV) In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Our society and culture puts pressure on us to hide our lights, but Jesus tells us to let our lights shine. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to look at an example from Jesus’ life in which He shared the truth of God to a woman who was living a life far from God. As we study this story, we’re going to discover some principals that you may never have thought of before. These principles from God’s Word will guide us as we seek to grow in sharing the truth in 2013.
The story begins with Jesus traveling through the region of Samaria. The trip was long and Jesus grew tired and sat down at a well. From Jesus, we learn that the first step in sharing the truth is to …