Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Gospel tent meeting with Peter Ramsay and Joseph Baker.

[0:01] Now I want to read in the Gospel of John in chapter 4.

That is the fourth book of the New Testament, John chapter 4.

If there’s anyone here who hasn’t maybe heard of a gospel meeting or anything like that who’s here tonight, the word gospel simply means good news, and you can think of it like the Bible is a rather big book, Genesis to Revelation.

Really what we’re presenting here tonight is the core message of this book.

Is it from Genesis to Revelation? What is the core message? The core message is about who we are in the sight of God, what God has done for us, and the response expected from us. And that’s really a message of good news, it’s the message of the gospel. And it can be presented from, as you heard in the announcements, through different stories or verses. I want to look at it through a story, tonight that just fits in in my own mind with the weather going on outside. I want to talk about a woman who was thirsty in John chapter four.

So I’ll read from verse number one.

If you have a Bible, you can follow along or I’ll just read it to you.

[1:07] John four and verse one. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again into Galilee and he must needs go through Samaria.

Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour.

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. He saith unto her, Give me to drink.

For his disciples were gone away into the city to buy food.

Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?

For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

The woman said unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

And whence, then, hast thou that living water?

Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well and drank thereof himself, and his children and his cattle?

[2:30] Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again.

But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.

But the water that I shall give him shall be in him, a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

The woman said unto him, sir, give me this water.

[2:53] When nature and science get together, pretty sweet things can happen.

He whom thou now hast is not thy husband, and this thou sayest truly.

The woman said unto her, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when you neither shall worship in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem. Worship the Father.

Drop down, verse 24, God is spirit. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah, the Christ is coming, which is called the Christ.

When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus said unto her, I that speak unto thee and he.

[3:40] And upon this came his disciples, and here’s our word, and marvel that he talked with the woman.

Yet no man said, what seekest thou? Why talkest thou with her?

The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city and said to the man, come, be a man which told me all things that ever I did.

Is not this the Christ?

Then they went out of the city, came unto him.

A rather lengthy reading than what we’ve usually done so far in these meetings, but a very beautiful story.

And really, I would consider it a good spending of my time. If you were to leave tonight with just four things about Jesus that you’ve learned from this story, that I appreciated today as a believer.

First of all, Jesus, the Lord seeking, seeking.

Secondly, the Lord giving. He said to this woman, if you knew the gift of God, the Lord giving.

Thirdly, the Lord knowing.

[4:44] She said, I perceive you must be a prophet. The Lord knowing.

And lastly, the Lord satisfying.

Satisfied, because she leaves the water pot she came with and she leaves because she has been satisfied with something that she received at that well that was not found in the well, but actually was seated on the well.

And she leaves satisfied. And my brother Caleb and I didn’t talk, but that incurs me just in this, that there is really none but Christ that can satisfy, and he could satisfy you tonight.

So those four things about the Lord Jesus, seeking, giving, knowing, and satisfying.

And I hope all of us, those here who are Christians, will leave with that, but especially those of you who don’t know the Lord Jesus, if you leave with those four thoughts of him, that would be a well-spent meeting, in my opinion.

First of all then, the Lord be with you.

[5:35] I’ve really enjoyed this more and more as a Christian. I’ve just noticed how cold and how indifferent my own heart is as far as compassion to other people, but I get so used to seeing people in need, that it’s so easy to just keep driving by or to just ignore it and carry on with my life, and it just so touches me more and more actually as a Christian than ever before.

How interested the Lord is in an individual person. is just one single person.

Like there was a man and he was having a big revival. Like a lot of people were coming to meetings he was having, actually in Samaria, his name was Philip.

And God took him away from there and sent him out in the middle of the desert for one man.

One man, and he was riding in his chariot, but he was seeking, he didn’t understand parts of the Bible.

And God was so interested in that one man from Ethiopia that he sends this preacher to that one person.

The Lord Jesus, when he was here, he knew that there was a man up in a tree, a rich man actually, up in a tree.

And he knew that he was there and he passed purposely right under the tree for that man.

[6:46] There was another time where the Lord Jesus was journeying with a bunch of people around him.

It says the crowd was pressing in on him.

And there was a woman who reached out and just touched just a piece of his clothing.

And he stopped and called out just one woman. No one else really cared much about her.

And he singled her out and called her.

And another time he’s journeying through the city and there’s a blind man, a blind beggar, really a very common sight in that day.

And the blind beggar says, Lord, have mercy on me. That’s amazing, those words.

It says, Jesus stood still.

He stood still at the cry of a blind beggar because he’s interested in individuals.

And you know, if you’re here this evening, I want you to know that God is not just interested in the whole lot of us here, this whole group.

He’s not interested even in just a specific race or a specific country, but he’s interested in every single person here.

He knows everything about you, and He is speaking.

And it says there at the beginning of the story about Jesus, He must please go through Samaria.

He had to go through this city because He was interested in one woman that as we look at her story, really, she was very, she would qualify as a person who really shouldn’t be having much interest.

[8:02] She wasn’t like a prime candidate for heaven. She wasn’t religious.

She wasn’t good living.

She wasn’t part, in that day, of the right race.

Jesus is crossing boundaries, and He’s very provocative, really, in the whole structure of the Gospel of John of what’s happening here.

He’s going into a race that people would think is contaminated, Samaritan.

And then He’s going to a woman.

And then He’s going to a sinful woman, because Jesus is interested in every single individual.

And I just want you to know that God is here.

I also want you to know that if you’re here tonight hearing the gospel, I don’t know what you think about it.

Maybe you think, well, I’m here because it’s just kind of by random chance, my parents brought me or my friends, or well, out of kind of just to be nice, I agreed to come, whatever.

I want you to know that there’s no such thing as hearing the gospel by chance.

You are here because God is interested in your soul. And you’re hearing a message that God, more than any other human being wants you to hear, the gospel.

[9:11] As we go through the story, we learn that Jesus comes to a well at a time of day when most people wouldn’t have been going to the well. You’d understand this is before the days of water in your home and stuff, where people would have to go quite a ways journey to a well to get water for drinking. And it says that she came to there about the sixth hour. That means about 12 o’clock.

Now, this is in the Middle East. There was a time of day where people would go to the well, maybe earlier in the morning or later in the evening, because no one would go at noon.

Noon was the time where it would be the most blazing heat at a well. Noon was the time where, the scorching heat would be there and no one would want to gather at noon.

So Jesus is going strategically, purposefully, because there’s a woman in the city who every day comes out at noon. For this reason, she doesn’t want to be seen by the rest of the of the people in the city.

She has a lifestyle that makes her look, people look down at her.

They don’t wanna be associated with her. And we’re gonna find out a bit about what she’s done.

And so shamefully, in the heat of the day, she is going to come and Jesus knows she’s gonna come.

[10:25] So he’s seated on the well, waiting for her. Somebody once asked me, I didn’t even think of this.

They said, you know, with Jesus, our Lord Jesus, Him knowing all things. Why didn’t He time it so that He came right when she came?

Why did He time it where He actually had to wait on her? Does that not tell us something about the compassion and patience of Christ? Isn’t that what He does in gospel work? Does He not wait on sinners? Does He not wait patiently on people to respond and to learn and to come? It’s just the patience of Christ to come at a time where he’s weeding.

We learn as well as he came, something about the Lord Jesus, that he was truly a man.

It says here that he was weary with his journey.

He was tired. You know, Jesus Christ wasn’t some kind of insulated man who didn’t face some of the pressures we face.

We learned that he knew the pressures of poverty.

[11:25] There was death likely in his family as far as his earthly parents were concerned.

We learn in another place that he was hungry, and another place that he was thirsty. And here it says he was tired, he was weary. He was a real man. He was a real man without sin, but a real man.

And he’s coming for this woman, who very shamefully and to avoid the rest of the people in the city of Samaria, would have made that journey. I think sometimes as we go through to the story of the woman, we may perceive her as, we might read into it our Western culture here in the 21st century.

We might think of a woman that says she had five husbands and the one she was with was not her husband.

We might think of a woman who maybe has left her husband here and there five times.

Likely, I would suggest to you that that’s very unlikely that that’s the case.

[12:17] Simply because a woman in that day, her security was in her husband.

They didn’t have the whole women’s rights that we have today where they could work.

Very likely it was because her husband had left her.

They didn’t find any satisfaction in her. Not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, five times, and the next man thinks so little of her they won’t even marry her.

And here’s a woman quite, quite feeling very shameful, feeling very used and abused, coming to a well in the heat of the day, and there that values her so highly.

He’s there for her, the Lord Jesus.

As she comes there, he asks her for a drink of water.

[13:04] Now, it’s hard to understand really the racial issue back then, but I think, thinking of the racial issue that was here in our country a number of years ago, with, in the slavery times and in all the laws that were passed and segregation and certain water fountains for one color and certain water fountains for the other, that might help us understand a little bit of what it was like here, that here’s a woman and she’s being asked to give water from her water pot to this pure rabbi, this Jewish man, and she says as much herself, she says, how is it that you, as a Jew, ask water from me, who am a Samaritan?

Sure, the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

And the Lord Jesus takes the opportunity to tell her about why he had actually come.

Do you know why Jesus came?

[13:58] Do you think Jesus came to start a religion? Why do you think Jesus came into our world?

He says, I have come to give.

If you only knew the gift of God, and He it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water. This is why Jesus came.

Now it might not make sense to you, maybe you’ve never heard that.

Jesus came to give living water.

I’ve never heard that. I’ve never seen that in a Christmas movie or an Easter movie.

Yeah, but that’s what the Bible says.

You saw that in John chapter four. Jesus came from heaven to give people, like this woman, living water.

It says water that she would never have to thirst again.

We should be very interested in what this living water is.

Now, I want to just emphasize here at this point that whatever this is that Jesus has given, it is a gift.

[14:51] It is a gift. He says, if you only knew the gift from God. It’s not something that a person has to earn or even can earn. Not something you get to pray for or pay for or go to church for. It’s a gift from God, this living water. And so the Lord giving. And we do have a very giving God, but I’ll just move on to the next part. The Lord knowing. Now I have a question. I’m not going to call on you. I have a question. They’re sitting here talking about water. And the woman, now just, put yourself in the shoes of this woman. She has to come out for however many days at noon, high noon, in the Middle East, with the scorching sun right on that equator line, scorching. So just just avoid the rest of the crowd.

And Jesus just says this, I have water, I’ll never be thirsty again.

And she thinks, sir, give me this water. So, why? So I’ll never be thirsty again?

No, so I don’t have to come here and draw. Like I don’t wanna come here anymore.

Give me this water. So of course, she’s still thinking, that’s a good idea.

And Jesus is going to use this to talk to show her that he’s actually talking about spiritual water, spiritual refreshment, spiritual satisfaction that he came to give.

But my question is this, when they’re talking about water, how come Jesus changes the conversation to husbands?

[16:15] Doesn’t really seem to fit. They’re talking about water, and she says, give me this water.

And he says, go call your husband.

Why?

[16:28] You see, whatever this spiritual water is that a person can receive, this living water, in order to receive it, they must face some of the dark and hidden things of their past in the presence, not of a preacher or a church, but in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A person must face, this is what the Bible speaks of as repentance, they must face their sin in order to receive living water.

There cannot be forgiveness without repentance. It’s just the message of the gospel, of the Bible.

And so she faces, she has to face her sin. Now she does what all of us did, I think before any of us were saved, became Christians, we hid it.

[17:11] He says, go call your husbands. Oh, I don’t have a husband. She’s hiding.

She’s hiding her past. She’s hiding her sins. Have you ever tried to hide sins in your life?

There’s sins that we don’t mind talking about because we all share them, like lying or swearing, or maybe cheating on a test, but is there any skeleton in the closet?

I have a friend actually, and every time there’s a school shooting in the United States, he gets all worked up, because he goes back to the fourth grade When he bullied another kid.

And when they all talk about school bullying and what it can result in and he just gets all worked up then. Like what happened to that kid? What’s that kid gonna do? Why did I do that? And it’s not like a hundred cents that he’s worried about. It’s just that one. And it so grips him. And he, just wishes he’s and he just says, I wish there was some way to wipe it out of my memory. You Do you have a sin like that?

Is there anything in your mind that, if you had brain soap, you would wash it away?

[18:32] You know, the Lord, He knew all about it. We learn that even in the Psalms.

I think it’s in the 90th Psalm, that the Bible says that our secret sins are in the light of His countenance.

But there’s no such thing, really, as a secret sin.

You know, people today, they do different things on the internet.

And they do private browsing or clear search history.

There’s no such thing as doing that with God.

There’s no such thing as privately browsing with God or deleting our history with God.

Like, He knows it all anyway.

And that’s what he was teaching this woman. She said when he found out, you’ve had five husbands.

You’re right. You don’t have a husband right now. You’ve had five.

And the one you’re living with is not even your husband.

She says, Sir, I perceive that you’re a prophet.

I perceive, like you must have been, you’re a man of God. You’re in touch with somebody who has told you about my life.

How often, you know, in Gospel days, there’s people who walk in who know nothing about this. Like I’m from Michigan, my brother Peter’s from Prince Edward Island, and people came I turned to the door and I said, who told you about me?

[19:38] Who fills you in? That’s not very nice, you know. I am telling like no one’s told me anything.

It’s God who is speaking to a person. God is the one who’s doing the work, like I am totally ignorant of it all. Because God knows and he wants this woman in order to receive the water, he wants her to face her sin. And it’s the same thing with us, my friend here tonight. If you are going to receive water so you never thirst again, something that fills the void, something that success, success could never fill the void. You know, more money, a different relationship, a different job, all the things we look for. So a young man here if you’re waiting for the iPhone, what is it? 15? I don’t even know. You think that’s going to fill the void? You think when they have technology and you can actually have glasses that can read text messages or whatever else they’re going to do, you think that’s going to fill the void? No, there’s nothing in our world that can fill the You know why? We were made for God. You were made for God.

The Bible says this, you were made by him and for him. And there’s a void in the human heart. And if you were honest tonight, if you were honest and forgot all about the other people sitting beside you, and you just faced yourself before God.

[20:56] You would admit that there’s a void that nothing in this life has ever filled.

No matter how rich the successes may have been, or the pleasures, There’s something that can never be filled because we are made for God, and Jesus knows that.

It’s a void that has been caused by sin, sin that has separated us from our God.

Says the psalmist, I thirst for the living God. I thirst for Him.

I’m panting after Him, just like somebody whose throat is dry and thirsty.

So Jesus wants her to face this sin. She not only hides from that, but then she tries to change the subject.

It’s so interesting when you talk to people about their sins, like just specifically, not like, uh, tell me about your sins or confess them to me. There’s no reason for you to do that.

But when you start talking about a sin that you’ve done against God, it’s so interesting how quickly people change the subject.

[21:51] Like, uh, did you hear about the president’s wife who had her funeral today? Yeah, but we’re not talking about that. This woman did the same thing. She was faced with her son and she said, so, you know, you Jews believe this and we believe this, which is right, Jesus.

We have a religious debate, we Samaritans, and you Jews think it’s this mountain, and we think it’s this mountain. Right? She’s trying to change the subject. Let’s just talk religion. You know, let’s just talk Protestantism and Catholicism. Let’s just talk, you know, you know, communion or baptism.

Oh, people do that all the time. Just to avoid the subject, just to avoid the root.

But you see the Lord Jesus knew that.

So he goes down her walkway about the subject of worship.

And he says to her, you know, the Father, he does seek worshipers, but he seeks those who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

What he’s saying is he seeks those who will be sincere in truth.

He seeks those who will be genuine.

He seeks those who will be honest. In other words, woman, you’re not being honest right now.

You’re dodging the issue. You’re avoiding your sin.

So whichever mountain it is is irrelevant just for right now.

God is seeking those who will come to him in truth. Have you ever come to God in truth?

[23:12] I’m sure just faith, God, and truth, just exactly as you are, no mask, no extra, you know, performance on that. Well, I’ve done this and I’ve done that. No, this is who I am. Or do you cover it up?

To human nature, I should tell you to cover it up. That’s what they did in the Garden of Eden.

Right when they sinned, you know, the first thing our great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers did and grandmothers, they made clothes, aprons, and they covered it up. That’s our human nature. We We all did it.

And I would ask you tonight, don’t cover it up. Just face God in truth.

You know why? Because the God who is speaking to you is a God of grace.

And He is not here to judge and punish and throw you away, but to forgive and cleanse and to give living water.

And so as he dodges the issue and as he focuses her on the subject of truth, she comes back and she says, well, I know that the Messiah is coming. I know that the Christ is coming.

And I know that when He comes, it will all be right.

And I know that when he comes, it will all be right.

I don’t know if I have the ability to just get you into the scene.

Like, just think of it.

Here she is, and she’s looking forward to this mystical, wonderful person who’s coming.

And here’s this man sitting on the well over here beside her and he says to her, The person you’re looking for, you’re looking at.

[24:37] The person you’re looking for, you’re looking at. I am the Christ, he says. That’s who I am.

And that’s why I came to give this living water, that when a person faces their sins, and trust me, they can have a well of water where they’ll never be thirsty again. They can have real satisfaction.

And as I sit down, I just want to tell you how Jesus made that possible.

It wasn’t easy to give water to sinful people.

He had to go himself to a cross. And the one who made the waters and the seas, and the one who has control to send the rain, he said on that cross, I thirst.

[25:23] I thirst. You see, true thirst is not so much the parched tongue.

True thirst is the emptiness without God.

And that’s what Jesus experienced on the cross. He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

He went through that emptiness so that thirsty sinners like myself and like everyone of you here tonight, could never thirst again.

He said, I thirst, yet he made the rivers. He said, I thirst, yet he made the seas.

I thirst, said the King of all the ages. And in his thirst, he brought water to me.

If you were to trust the Lord Jesus Christ today, like this woman, it’s almost humorous.

Here she comes at our 12 o’clock noon to get water.

Did you leave the water pot?

She leaves it.

And she goes home and she tells everyone, come, come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Is not this the Christ? We pray that that’s how you would go home tonight, even as the meeting concludes.

[26:26] It would be wonderful if you got a drink of that living water tonight. I know we’re drinking the water out of the bottles and that meets a very physical need, but we’re talking about a spiritual thirst. And I think that lady went back to the town and she didn’t say, come see the church.

He said, come see a man that’s told me all things that ever I did, who met my deepest needs.

So just to clarify this for anyone that’s wondering, is this a church membership drive?

This absolutely is not a church membership drive.

We’re not asking no one to leave their church and join ours, there’s nothing about that.

We want to present a man to you. His name is Jesus Christ.

Many of us know Him personally as our Savior, and we love Him, and we have a relationship with Him.

John chapter 10, for one verse, and then I’m gonna read you a little story in Luke 15.

John chapter 10, where we’ve already been reading John 4, but John 10, here’s what Jesus said, verse 11.

He said, I am the good shepherd.

[27:45] The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Or the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Now that is a good shepherd. Most would say, well, I’ll go so far, I’ll put some effort into it.

But a good shepherd actually is willing to lay down his life for the sheep.

And that’s exactly what Jesus said, I am.

I’m the shepherd that you’ve been waiting for.

I’m the one who’s willing to lay down my life for lost sheep.

Now flip over to Luke’s Gospel, chapter 15, and Jesus tells another story.

It is about sheep.

Luke 15, verse 1.

[28:37] Then drew near unto him, unto Jesus, all the publicans, and those were sometimes the scoundrels of society, not that tax gatherers today would be cheaters, but back in the day, they seemed to have a bad reputation. And so they were called publicans and sinners to hear him.

And the religious elite, the Pharisees and the scribes who meticulously copied out the Word of God, letter by letter, so the religious elite and the scholars, they murmured, saying, this man, Jesus, receives sinners and eats with them.

I look at that verse and I say, thank God, he wasn’t a loot.

He actually received sinners and he can come down to their level and he eats with them.

And Jesus spoke this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep.

[29:38] If he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

He’s not going to give up.

And when he hath found it, he laith it on his shoulders. Plural.

Plural. What’s he doing? Oh, just another day, found another sheep. No! It says he’s rejoicing.

You see the imagery God is using, what he’s painting, what the Lord Jesus is saying?

Look at, when I save a lost sheep, I am thrilled. I’m rejoicing.

[30:21] Verse 6, and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.” You have it all over Facebook.

We’re having a get-together. I have found the lost sheep.

I’ll say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and nine just persons, good people, which need no repentance, think they need no, they have nothing to repent over. So that’s the story Jesus told.

You know, sheep and shepherds, probably you’re not that familiar with them in New Jersey, in a densely populated state, but there’s a lot of imagery in the Bible about sheep and shepherds.

And if you were to go over to the Middle East, even today, we were over there in a few years back and we saw Bedouin shepherds out in the fields with their flocks, with their sheep, and it’s still a big industry.

I looked it up today.

The revenue, not including wool exports, The revenue of the lamb and sheep meat market in the Middle East amounted to $7.8 billion in 2019.

[31:44] So it’s big business for the Middle East. Lamb and sheep meat.

Well, Jesus is meeting with people. I’m glad he wasn’t a lewk.

You know, sometimes religious people can be somewhat removed and distant from people, And you have to come in the right costumes, and you have to do your little bows and everything the right way.

But, oh, the Lord Jesus, He was just right there with them, and He was reaching out to them.

[32:17] Jesus says, give me one last sinner, and I will seek until I find him.

Matthew chapter 9, that is a beautiful verse there, it says, When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

So it’s not just once you read about the Lord Jesus being a shepherd, that was his heart.

I don’t know what you think of the heart of the Lord Jesus, or the heart of God.

You say he’s some mean, cruel despot ruling in the skies, striking out willy-nilly, unpredictable.

Don’t you think of God? Oh, read your Bible. Read the Bible. It’s entirely different.

Message conveyed from the Word of God about the heart of God. You’ve been hearing about it.

Compassion, how Jesus went out of His way to find that one woman who was so thirsty in more ways than one.

[33:22] Let me just put up a little picture here. I hope this doesn’t offend anybody.

There’s some young people here.

This is not a very flattering portrait of anyone in the meeting, in the service tonight,.

[33:41] So the Lord Jesus calls people, they’re like sheep.

You say, well, I hope I don’t let know you all look quite normal to the speakers at least.

The long nose. Just speaking about the long nose sheep, you know that I was looking the statistics up, on 2018 poll conducted by the American Academy of facial plastic and reconstructive surgeons.

55% of surgeons reported having patients who said they were seeking cosmetic procedures to improve their noses because of the way they appeared in selfies.

Too big of noses. And there was a 42% increase one year over another.

People wanting their noses made smaller because when they do the selfie, they look so big.

Well, we’re not concerned about anyone’s noses tonight, but the picture that we want to leave in your mind, at the close of this service is a lost sheep.

Are you lost? I can say I was lost, but Jesus found me.

[34:57] He saved me, he rescued me. And I would like you to ask that question yourself. Am I lost?

The plight of the lost sheep, know that the characteristics of sheep, they have a tendency to stray, they don’t have any ability to return, they wander further away, the grass is always greener on the other side, and they keep going and going and going. And someone has rightly said, sin will take you much further than you ever intended to go and keep you much longer than you ever intended to stay. I’ve worked with a lot of people who have chemical dependencies and addictions of many different sorts. They never intended, but sin got a hold of them and just put them in a certain direction and kept them longer than they ever intended to stay. The.

[35:51] Plight of a lost sheep. Maybe there’s someone here tonight and you’re saying, well, you, You know, this is sort of old time stuff you’re talking about.

Have you ever been to the city and seen some of the bright lights?

Like, how do you expect me to focus on these things? Isn’t this sort of ancient?

Oh, it’s right up to date. There are lost sheep. I’m sure there’s a lost sheep right in this tent.

People are dazzled by the night lights, mesmerized by all the options and the new options for fun, energized by the possibility, wow, I can climb this ladder and be famous.

There’s just, there are so many possibilities.

[36:37] Like a bubble. Do you ever think of yourself? I just go after bubbles all the time. They look so sparkling bright. And I reach for this one. It’s empty. It’s a wet spot in the hand.

Do you ever think of your life like that? Oh, this achievement. Well, then I’ll be able to reach a plateau and level off and just be restful and contented. And you’re not satisfied.

Here’s what the psalmist said, Psalm 58, sinners are estranged from the womb.

They go astray as soon as they are born. Doesn’t take long, does it?

For even little children to start wandering away and doing all their own things, and their parents have to correct them.

The last verse of the longest psalm in the Bible, the longest chapter, Psalm 119.

Here’s what the last verse says.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep.

There’s a beautiful verse, probably if I ask for a show of hands, if anyone trusted Christ reading this verse, they might, someone might put up their hands, a little nervous about their hands, but here’s what it says in Isaiah 53, verse six.

All, without exception, all we like sheep have gone astray.

[37:56] There’s not one person in this tent this evening from God’s perspective who hasn’t gone astray.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each one to our own way.

You’re not taking God’s way. We do what we want to do. They say, follow your heart, they say.

That’s not what the Bible teaches.

Follow the Lord!

[38:23] And that’s exactly what Isaiah 53 says. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

And then it ends this way. The Lord God laid on him, that’s Jesus, on the cross, the sin or the iniquity of us all, for lost, perishing sheep.

Well, the night of the lost sheep, I don’t know whether your life has ever seemed like a dark tunnel and things closing in around you, despair, there’s storms in life, howling winds in life.

Now you say, but I’m not a drug addict.

[39:07] I’m not an out of control gambler. I just occasionally indulge, but I’m not out of control.

So the whole concept for you, The whole basis of your message is for lost sheep.

Those that show up at a food bank, maybe. No, no, no.

For them too, they are lost. There are people in the audience tonight and you are lost too.

There are people in executive offices and they’re plagued by feelings.

Is there anything more to life than this?

What are they? They’re lost sheep. There are lost sheep, very skilfully, Kicking the ball down the field, scoring a goal.

[39:55] And they’re still experiencing emptiness. They’re lost. They’re lost. They’re lost.

Sheep under the bright lights of the big stage clutching their Oscar trophy at the Academy Awards night.

And when you reach the pinnacle, is that all there is to life?

They’re lost. They don’t have that relationship with God. They’re lost sheep in Christian families.

Lost sheep. So I’m not talking about those who are out wandering in the sidewalks of the city, people in this tent. The one lost sheep here tonight. You know that you’ve lost your way.

[40:47] They say, does anyone really care? That’s why we’re glad you’re here.

The Bible tells us there is one, a good shepherd who cares for you.

You’ve already been hearing about that, how he singles out individuals.

And he loves you and wants to show you compassion. He wants to save lost sheep, loneliness.

Just picture that little bit, the imagery the Lord Jesus used.

Lost, vulnerable, fragile, sheep out in the hills, just wandering up the hill, down the, valleys, crevice, precipice, hot in the thorns, tumbling down, maybe bleeding.

That’s the imagery the Lord Jesus uses.

Loneliness, helplessness, no ability to see themselves.

Do you think he values you, friend?

[41:51] He really values you. The preciousness of just one soul. You’re wondering does he care?

There’s someone missing tonight. Missing, lost, just one heart. You know what sheep do? They go baa. That’s where the infant’s in the back. Baa. Is there one human heart that’s sort of silently bleaking, lost. You’d never know if you look at your face. You look like you’re prosperous.

You look like you’re faring well. But you say, no, not my heart. Look, I’ve got story after story on our little website, whether it’s Brad Pitt or Michael Jordan who’s gone, Michael Jackson has gone Michael Jordan, the whole list, Tom Brady, and they’ve all experienced that certain emptiness no matter what they achieve. Quotes from their own mouths. Lost, that’s what they are. Lost, helpless, perishing, without strength. Does he notice just one missing when he notices you?

Absolutely. You see, but there’s so many others. He knows you. You know, you’re of.

[43:15] Infinite value to the Lord. Oh, you see, look at I, I don’t, I’m not a big, I don’t swear a lot, but today I don’t know what I was thinking, but I just jammed my finger in the corridor And I jumped up and down and I, Jesus, thank Christ!

Is that it?

Do you think he still loves you? He does. He does.

I was looking for a $50 bill today. I don’t know what your $50 bills look like in the United States.

I know what they look like in Canada, even though I’m colorblind and we have bright colors.

But you know what? That’s a $20 bill.

[44:03] If you saw that in the grass after the rain and it was all crumpled up like that and you say, and you don’t want that.

Yeah, it’s all muddy.

No good to me.

I see some of your questions. You say, absolutely not. If I saw that all crumpled up in a mud puddle, I would bend down and I would pick it up and my heart would be 12 and 20 dollars.

Man, I would be telling my friends, I would clean it up and I would get the mud off it.

[44:37] You know why? because it is inherent value. It’s worth $20, whether it’s money or whether it’s clean.

And you have an inherent value in God’s sight. Whether you’re down in the darkness of sins, you’re as valuable to him as the best living person is in his tent.

He doesn’t have a grading scale to that mud in that person.

You are made in the image of God.

Oh, how broken we are.

How little we can see of the image of God in our lives, but that’s what the Bible teaches.

You are inherently valuable to God, and that’s why He goes after lost sheep.

He loves the missing one.

There’s a verse, there are three words in the Bible that I love, and it’s God is love.

See the little sign, God is love, but it’s mentioned more than once.

And as you read your Bible.

[45:41] It can’t help but be in breath. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, a sacrificial giving.

That’s how much he loved. God so loves you that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Let me tell you this, good shepherd.

He goes after the lost one. You’ve been hearing about a woman who went to the well and that’s exactly where Jesus went to.

There’s another beautiful story. There are many stories in the Bible where Jesus reaches out to those who are lost.

But one stormy night, he went to a part of the Sea of Galilee that he had never traveled before.

He’d never gone to the other side.

The disciples must have wondered as they got into that little boat and sailed through the dark night.

And a big storm. Why ever is the master Jesus taking us to the other side? You know why?

You can read this story in Luke chapter eight. There was a man over there, tormented.

[46:51] There was no psychologist, no psychiatrist, no social worker, no counselor, no spiritual advisor could meet the man’s need.

And Jesus went through a dark stormy night because he had no but one man over there who needed to be rescued, a lost sheep.

He knows about you.

And there’s nothing that would thrill his heart more than to rescue you, to save you tonight.

He finds the missing one. That’s what he can do. He not only goes after the lost sheep, he finds it.

[47:27] Sometimes people go looking, but they can’t locate that which is lost.

The Lord Jesus can find it. Sometimes people go after one, they find the person they’re looking for, but they can’t rescue them. They don’t have the right equipment or technology.

The Lord Jesus not only has, as you’ve already heard tonight, this is not a coincidence.

I know in your book you said, I got to check this off. I’m going there tonight.

We’re glad you’re here, you really are.

[47:57] But you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s no coincidence that you have a Christian friend.

It’s no coincidence that your neighbor has invited you to this tent service, that your colleague is invited. That’s not a coincidence.

Behind the scenes, God is at work in your life, and he wants you to hear the message tonight, because you could be saved and rescued tonight.

So he finds the missing one, and he rescues the missing one.

He’s the only one who can rescue a lost, perishing, lost in our sins.

You know what Isaiah 59 says? The Lord’s hand is not short that it cannot save.

Be a tragedy, wouldn’t it?

If you could see someone lost there, but you just couldn’t reach.

Well, the imagery, the metaphors used in the Bible, the Lord’s hand is not too short, his arm not too short, that he can’t reach you.

He can reach you right where you are, but that, and he says, he’s not hearing in prayer that he can’t hear the bleatings of your heart.

He hears you.

[49:05] He knows what’s swirling around in your mind. He knows exactly where your mind is right now.

He knows all of that.

Oh, there are no deficiencies with the Lord. Thank God he is able to save.

You know, before Jesus was born, 750 years before He was born, it says, And to us, Isaiah wrote, and to us a child is born, and to us a son is given, and the government of the world will be upon His shoulder.

Singular. But did you notice the story?

When He rescues a lost sheep.

[49:43] When he saves a perishing sinner, so the image of it was, he puts that sheep up and it’s on his shoulders, oh, the security.

It’s not on one shoulder, maybe the government can rest on one shoulder.

But when it comes to a lost sheep that he went after and valued so much, oh, it’s secure, secure on both shoulders.

And there’s rejoicing in heaven.

I don’t know, there’s a lot of things that we can be proud about as a human family.

A lot of ingenuity, a lot of things that are created.

When Thomas Edison made the first modern incandescent light bulb, that was back a few years ago, 1879, I don’t know what the celebrations were back then, but I don’t think it caused much of a stir in heaven.

When the Wright brothers flew their first little airplane, you know, probably made the headlines.

It didn’t do much up there.

[50:44] And Henry Ford, first Model T, that was a big step forward. Apollo 11, 1969, that was quite something on the moon.

And then when we set up the, I wrote it down this afternoon, the James Webb Space Telescope last Christmas, December the 25th. That was quite a feat too of technology. But you know, the courts of heaven didn’t rejoice over any of that. Do you know what would make them sing tonight? You know what they would rejoice over? If someone came into this little tent service.

[51:23] Bothered about their sins, no fulfillment, a certain emptiness, searching for something to to satisfy and they repented of their sins.

[51:37] And he turned to Jesus Christ and he saved them. Jesus says there’s joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents.

Tonight as we close this little service, have you faced this question?

[52:02] I did. I was lost, I said it, and Jesus found me and I’m eternally secure in Him.

Are you lost tonight?

I can assure you on the authority of the word of God, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and He came to seek and to save those who are lost.

And if you’re that lost sheep tonight, we point you to a loving Savior who is also the good shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep.

You can have every sin forgiven, Every trace of guilt removed from your own heart, things that can never be removed from the records of the law of the courts of the land, can be erased in God’s eternal records.

And you can have peace and fulfillment and joy and you can be 100% sure you will be in heaven linked to Him forever.

Appeal to you this evening, look to Christ and trust him as your Savior. Shall we pray?

Filed under: Gospel Series, baker-joseph, ramsay-peter