Sunday, November 26, 2023 - How to Refresh the Thirst in Your Life - Pastor Paul Vallee

John 4:1-42 What may be shocking to some is the people that Jesus connected with and those he did not, as reflected in the first four books of the New Testament. Jesus reached out and cared for people struggling with sin issues in their lives. Jesus said that even the prostitutes were coming into the kingdom of God ahead of the moral people because they were responding to the message of repentance. "Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him." Matthew 21:31b-32 In John 4, we find the story of a woman who was an outcast in her community and how a meeting with Jesus changed her life and her entire community. She was the least likely to have the most significant impact of all the people in town, yet her witness about Jesus caused people to meet him. We pick up the story in John, chapter four, where we find Jesus talking to a woman struggling to find love and acceptance. There was a lot of pain and disappointment in her relationships. What appeared to be a serendipitous meeting turned into a life-changing moment. Jesus has a way of challenging the status quo and breaking into the places of pain in our lives. Regardless of the type of sin that entraps us, Jesus is ready to free us. We must ask ourselves, 'Are we willing to get involved?' Are we willing to be set free and become God's instruments in our broken, sin-filled world? The former president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Haddon Robinson, speaks directly about this issue. "There is a kind of math that originated in hell's counting rooms. This kind of math is always interested in reaching the masses but never gets down to a man or a woman. This kind of math always talks about winning the world for God but doesn't think much about winning a neighbourhood. That math makes it heroic to cross oceans and never cross streets." The needs of the masses often keep us overwhelmed and uninvolved. We need to re-discover that when we focus on the needs of the individual, God can direct us to a person we need to reach. They may even be the instrument God uses to impact a community.