The focus of this series, Walking with Jesus, is to look at the life of Jesus as presented in the Gospels. We're slowly and simply examining the life of the Lord, from His first movements to His last and it will be as though we were walking alongside Him.

Pastor Don started us off with Jesus INCARNATED on Earth.
Ryan shared with us how Jesus PREPARED for Ministry.
Nick covered how Jesus was COMMISSIONED by the Father.
Jeff looked at how Jesus was TEMPTED in the Wilderness.
Aaron presented about how Jesus was RECOGNIZED as the Lamb of God.
Gary explained how Jesus CALLED His First Disciples.
Pastor Joel brought a unique perspective to how Jesus TURNED water into wine but also turned the disciples faith and their idea of ministry.
Nick shared a simple verse that conveys how Jesus JOURNEYED to Capernaum.
Jeff looked at how Jesus CLEANSED the Temple and the difference between conviction and preference.
Pastor Joel presented how Jesus was APPROACHED by Nicodemus.
Today, Pastor Don is back with us to show how Jesus MINISTERED to the Samaritan Woman.

We don't always get to know everything we may want to know about Jesus' life, but the Bible does reveal what God wants us to know about His Son, our Sin, His Salvation, and our Service.
Ephesians 2:10
Understanding this is critical to living with Godly purpose, passion, and priorities that honor the Lord and help people.

South Africa - Apartheid means "separateness"
Practiced legally mandated racial segregation from 1948 to the mid 1990's. Even today, the majority of people in the country struggle with prejudice, suppression, and discrimination.
History documents this type of human behavior since the creation of mankind. The root cause is sin and pride.
Other words that capture this same thought are bias, prejudice, partiality, and favoritism.

Today we'll look at John chapter 4 and the encounter of Jesus with a Samaritan Woman.
First we need to look at the context of the story...
Jesus is gathering people to follow Him. He wanted to prepare them for a life of ministry. But before that could happen, the Lord has to do some changing in their lives. They couldn't represent God if they were bigots, racists, or holier-than-thous.
Just like us, the Jewish followers have grown up in a world filled with prejudice and bias. Along the way they've developed their own set of "I'm better than yous" and created their own methods of dealing with people.
We are all human and humans struggle with prejudice because we are all sinners.

After Jesus was approached by Nicodemus, He is traveling through the Judean countryside, making converts and training His disciples. They are moving north along the Jordan River toward Galilee.
John 4:4-42

This was uncommon for Jews to do as Samaritans were part Jew and part Gentile, and greatly disliked by both parties. Verse 4 indicates that there was a divine compulsion (a spiritual purpose) but doing this would have put the disciples on edge.
There are a lot of topics that could be covered when looking at this story but today we're going to tackle one that is often overlooked...prejudice. Essentially this entails how we view and treat others within our family, peer group, broader culture, and the church.
This mattered to Jesus so He immersed His followers into the ugly reality of humanity. If Jesus didn't challenge them in this, they would never grow and never accomplish His mission for their lives.
The same is true for many Churched People. We probably wont' walk across the room, open the door, and pull up a chair to build relationships with people if we feel or think we are better than them. And we won't share the story of salvation with people if we feel or think they don't need or deserve it.
Jesus gave His followers a chance to prove their love for God by modeling how to engage and share God's love with people.
Within this story of the Samaritan Woman, there are some good practices that can help us to overcome the varied degree of prejudice that we've picked up in life. Just like the disciples, we can't be effective in disciple making unless we recognize this trait in our lives and care about people the way He did.

Here are a few positive actions that will help us to grow as disciple makers:

Action #1 EXAMINE your heart. Ask where prejudice has a foothold.
John 4:9
Psalm 139:23-24

Action #2 BEGIN to see people through God's eyes, and not just your own.
John 4:27

Action #3 REORDER your life around God's priorities and passions.
John 4:39-41

This week:

Read and pray over John 4:4-42 until you can answer three questions:
a) What did God say? (The meaning of the passage in your own words)
b) What is God saying to you? (Specifically, what is God telling you to do?)
c) What will you say about this passage to someone? (Think of one person)