Your Life Saving Station - Rick Scherr

Your Life Saving Station - Rick Scherr

Leadership from April 28, 2023

In this Lesson, Rick retells the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, emphasizing the importance of worshiping in spirit and truth. He encourages his listeners to focus on seeking and saving the lost, rather than building up their own ministries, and reminds them not to fall into the trap of sacred cows where they do things only because they've always done them without any proper rationale. Rick challenges his audience to be courageous in making the decision to represent and reflect the heart of Christ, no matter how many people are involved, and to pray for a greater desire to be focused like the heart of Christ, to see the harvest and to passionately seek out the front lines. In the end, Rick urges his listeners to recognize when their ministries are becoming more like social clubs and less like life-saving stations, and to come up with ways to prevent it from happening.

Clip shown is from The Chosen, watch the full clip here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ordhsDeAt60

You can download the Handout Here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/10CT5GVR-CUj5zuu_lLP8sV6MZ_s1uBBQ/view?usp=sharing

Transcript

All right, come back around. You're going to need a pen. Open your Bible to John Four. All right, John Four. Familiar story for all of you, but we're going to read it together.

So who wants to read John Four, one through 15? And then who wants to read the next part, 16 through 26? Great case, man. And then the last part, 27 through 42? One more person to read Johnny.

Thank you. All right, so let's follow along and we're going to familiarize ourselves more with a familiar story.

Now, John himself did not baptize his disciples, and he had to pass tomorrow to a town samaria called his car near the field. That jacob. Joseph Jacob's. Well, apparently, Jesus buried as he was journey to the city beside, the woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said, George, give me a drink.

Samaritan had been said to him, how is it that you ask for a drink from me?

Jesus answered, if you do get God, give me a drink.

Sir, you have nothing to draw water. Are you greater than our Father? Jacob gave us the will drink.

Everyone who drinks this water, drinks. The water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him becomes in spring of water.

Give you this water so thirsty around your years.

Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come. Woman, answer.

Woman said to them, Sir, I received it. Our Father's worship on his mouth. And you say that?

Jesus said to woman, believe me, the hour is coming from neither on his mouth but the hours coming. And after true worshipers, worship the Father God is spirit.

Woman said to him. I know, the Messiah said to her.

Just then, disciples came back and marveled that he was talking with a woman. But no one said, what do you seek? Or why are you talking? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me all that I heard did, can this be the Christ? They went out of town and were coming to me.

Meanwhile, disciples were urging them, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there are yet four months?

Then comes the harvest. Look, I tell you. Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest already. The one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here to say holds true one sows and another reaps.

I sent you to reap that for which you not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them.

He stayed there two days and many more believed because of His Word. They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves. We know that this is indeed the savior of the world. Jesus, thank you for your word. Pray that you would give us wisdom.

As we look at this story and the things that you say, your spirit would speak to us. Spirit, truth, speak to our hearts. So this story, maybe you've realized this, I don't know. Before this, there was the wedding where Jesus did the miracle. Jesus interacts with Nicodemus.

But this is the first convert. This is the first this is Jesus bringing the first person right to salvation through his truth and his teaching. And it's such a great story. It's why it's a classic story, obviously, that so many of us know or we heard or been a part of. But there are some things that are really important that speak to the heart of Christ that I think we need to really think about.

This is essentially, I've talked before from this, that this is the first young life, right? The woman becomes a Christian or she is excited about this message and she goes and gets all her friends and brings them back for two days of meetings, two days of club, right, where the message is preached to people who have no idea. And it's interesting because in The Chosen, peter gets really excited at the end of the scene because he's like, oh, are we starting now? Like, are we starting to tell people? Right?

He's getting really excited. And Jesus is basically like, yeah, this is it. Let's go. So I got some other things I want to share, but just so we can soak it in a little bit more. And because I'm deeply in love with the TV show, we're going to watch The Chosen clip.

It's only seven minutes, but Reed, our great tech man. Hey, just so you guys know, we're here at Grace, partly because of the texting, but also I'm worried about the size in our basements and things like that. So we're going to stay coming to Grace for a little while and for various reasons, but them being two of them. So Reed is going to play the Chosen video and we're going to soak up a little bit more of this story.

Would you give me a drink?

Did you hear me? That's bad? What you would you ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan and a woman? I'm sorry. I should have said please.

It's not safe for you to be alone out here. Nor you. Why haven't you come with others. Why so late in the day? Don't women come to the wells in the pool of the morning?

Yeah, well, none of them will be seen with me, so I have to come out loose in the heat. You have so kindly reminded me. Why won't they be seen with you? Long story.

I'd still like a drink of water, if you can spare it. He's in what a parched throat will do. Aren't I unclean to you? Or to be defiled by this vessel?

Maybe some of my people say that about your women, but I don't. Yeah? And what do you say?

I say if you knew who I am, you'd be asking me for a drink. Really? And I would give you living water. Would, except that you have nothing to draw water with, and this is a deep wealth. Besides, what do you need from me if you have your own supply of living water?

Long story. But Jewish water is better than Samaritan water. That's not what I said. Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob who dug this well? Your water is better than his.

I know Jacob. And everyone who drinks this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. Wouldn't that be nice? The water I give will become in a person a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Really? Yes, really. Prove it.

First, go and call your husband and come back. I will show you both. I don't have a husband. You are right. You've had five husbands.

And the man you're living with now is not your husband.

I see. You're a prophet. You're here to preach at me. Usually. The one good thing about coming here alone is I can escape being condemned.

I'm not here to condemn you. I've made mistakes. Too many. But it's men like you who have made it impossible for me to do anything about it. How our ancestors worshipped on this mountain.

But you Jews insist Jerusalem is the only place for true worship. They say that because the temple is there, exactly where we're not allowed. I'm here to break those barriers. And the time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

Where am I supposed to go when I need God? I've never received anything from God, but I couldn't thank Him, even if I did anywhere. God is spirit, and the time is coming and is now here that it won't matter where you worship, but only that you do it in spirit and truth, heart and mind. That is the kind of worshipper he's looking for. It won't matter where you're from or what you've done.

Do you believe what I'm telling you?

Until the Messiah comes and explains everything and sorts this mess out, including me, I don't trust in anyone. You're wrong when you say that you've never received anything from God.

This messiah you speak of? I am he. The first one was named Ramin.

You were a woman of purity, was excited to be married, but he wasn't a good man. He hurt you and it made you question marriage and even the practice of your faith. The second was farzad.

On your wedding night, his skin smelled like oranges. And to this day, every time you pass by the oranges in the market, you feel guilty for leaving him because he was the only truly godly man you have been with. But you felt unworthy. Why are you doing this?

I have not revealed myself to the public as the Messiah. You are the first. It would be good if you believed me.

You picked the wrong person. I came to Samaria just to meet you. Do you think it's an accident that I'm I'm here in the middle of the day?

I am rejected by others, I know, but not by the Messiah.

And you know these things because you are the Christ.

Come. I'm going to tell everyone. I was counting on it.

Spirit and truth. Spirit and truth. It won't be all about mountains or temples soon. Just the heart. You promise?

I promise. This man told me everything I've done. Oh, he must be the Christmas.

Hey, wait.

You what is? You forgot your man. You told me everything I ever did.

Rabbi, we got food. What would you like? I have food to eat that you do not know about. Who got you food?

So great clip. I love what the chosen does with story to the story that we see in the Scriptures. Here. I want to focus on what happens just after this for a second. It's at the top of your page.

He says they went out of the town and they were coming to him. This is the people that the woman preached to and they're coming. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. He said to them, I could eat. That you do not know about.

So the disciples said to one another like Andrew in that scene. Very fun. It's funny. Has anyone brought him something to eat? And Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me to accomplish his work.

Do not say there are four more months. And then comes the harvest. Look, I tell you. Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. This is such a great example, this story of what Christ has a heart for Christ in many places in the Scripture, right?

And I put Luke 1910 right there, it's simplest form the Scriptures lay out what Jesus has a heart for and what he came for. Son of man came to seek and to save the lost. He came to bring people to redeem and to bring us back home. To bring the lost back home. That is the heart of Christ.

That is his passion. It is throughout his whole life. And in this scene, the disciples don't even realize what's happening. And Jesus is literally like, dude, open your eyes. He even says, there's never a mistake with Jesus.

He uses that, this that he's doing is his food. Think of how vital food is to us, to a person. You can only live so long. Literally, we'll die without it. The child will not grow without food, right?

Food is so essential. And Jesus is using that as the illustration to say, bringing people back home, bringing the loss back home. It's food. That's how important it is. That's how vital it is.

It is the heart of Christ. And it's important because when at first and I think people want to, in a sense, sometimes water down the heart of Christ, I think Jesus has a heart for people. He has a heart for union or just for the lost. But it's not that, Jeffrey. It's that he needs to seek and to save the lost.

It is always about seeking and saving the person. It is always about redeeming the person, whether it's the paralytic and him saying, your problem is not paralyzed. Your problem is that you need to have your sins forgiven, whatever it might be. There are story after story like this where Jesus sees a different thing and says, what matters here is that this person is made whole again with Jesus, through Jesus, with God. That is the heart of Christ to seek and to save the lost.

And I hope that that is our heart and that we grab hold of that passion and that heart, the simplicity of that. It's not a young life thing. It's not a church thing, it's not a denomination thing. It is the heart of Christ. Your savior is to seek and save the lost.

And so we should grab hold of it like it's food, right? It should be our thing. So we're going to read a story. You guys can follow along with me.

Lighthouses and life saving stations along the East Coast. This is a true story, a true example from Chuck Swindolf. How many guys know Chuck Swindolf? Thanks, Johnny. Anybody else?

Yeah. Only someone old would know Chuck. He's old Dallas Seminary guy who wrote a lot of books in the 80s, but great author back in the day on a dangerous sea coast notorious for shipwrecks, there was a crude little life saving station. Actually, it was merely a hut with only one boat. But the few members kept a constant watch over the turbulent sea.

With little thought for themselves. They would go out day and night, tirelessly searching for those in danger as well as the lost. Many lives were saved by this brave band who faithfully worked as a team in and out of the life saving station. By and by, it became a famous place. Some of those who had been saved, as well as others along the sea coast wanted to become associated with this little station.

They were willing to give their time, energy and money in support of its objectives. New boats were purchased, new crews were trained. The station, once obscure, improved and virtually insignificant, began to grow. Some of its members were unhappy. The hut was so unattractive and poorly equipped, they felt a more comfortable place should be provided.

Emergency COTS were replaced with lovely furniture. Rough handmade equipment was discarded and sophisticated classy systems were installed. The hut, of course, had to be torn down to make room for all the additional equipment, furniture and systems. By the time of its completion, the life saving station had become a popular gathering place and its objectives had begun to shift. It was now used as a sort of clubhouse, an attractive building for public gatherings, saving lives, feeding the hungry, strengthening the fearful and calming the disturbed rarely occurred.

Members were interested in braving the sea on life saving missions, so they hired professional lifeboat crews to do this work. The original goal of the station wasn't altogether forgotten, however. Life saving motifs were prevailed, still prevailed, in the club's decorations. There was a liturgical lifeboat preserved in the room of sweet memories with soft, indirect lighting which helped hide the layer of dust upon the once used vessel. About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast and the boat crews brought in loads of cold, wet, packed round people.

They were dirty, some terribly sick and lonely. Others were different from the majority of the club members. The beautiful new club suddenly became messy and cluttered. A special committee saw to it that a shower house was immediately built outside, away from the club so victims of the shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside. And at the next meeting, there were strong words and angry feelings which resulted in a division amongst the members.

Most of the people wanted to stop the club's life saving activities and all involvements with shipwreck victims. As you'd expect, some still insisted on saving lives, that this was their primary objective, that their only reason for existence was ministering to anyone needing help, regardless of their club's beauty or size or decorations. They were voted down and told if they wanted to save lives of various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life saving station down the coast. And they did. As the years passed, the new station experienced the same old changes.

It evolved into another club and yet another life saving station was begun. History repeated itself. And if you visit the coast today, you'll find a large number of exclusive, impressive clubs along the shoreline, owned and operated by slip professionals who have all who have lost all involvement with the savings of lives. So the illustration, I hope, is obvious and I hope deserves some reflection. Each of you and your ministry dean is a life saving station.

It's what we do. We just looked at the heart of Christ. We just talked about how vital and how at the core of who we are seeking and saving lives. That's what you do, right? You and the three other or four other two other leaders on your team, you guys, that school, that's your home.

You are a life saving patient meant to go, seeking to save the loss, to rescue. I fear and I hope but I fear, I hope no but I fear that as we grow and as we have grown over the past decades, grown substantially, that at times we will be challenged because we're becoming more like social clubs and less like life saving stations.

We don't want that, right? That is not who we are or what we're called to do. So in your teams, I want you to answer those three questions. What is the biggest challenge for our life saving stations to not become social clubs? What pushes you and your ministry and your ministry, your life saving work?

What makes it become more a social club and less a life saving? Think in terms of these three questions, the students themselves, how do they press towards wanting that? Think of the idea of the program, the young life piece. The tool itself becomes the idol, right? And then what about you personally, you and your team?

What are the possible challenges that come about that might lead you that way? So go ahead and do that. You got ten minutes to fill out your paper, come up with a few things that work to answer those questions.

Okay? Start wrapping up. You don't need to move. We're going to pray in a second.

So I hope you guys had some good conversation.

These challenges down there below, they come by way of our enemies. He wanted to try to figure out what are these things, where they're coming from. The Bible identifies three enemies that we have. I've talked about that before, but the devil, the world, the flesh. And in some way those three are always working together in some form or fashion to do exactly this, to make your life saving station a social club, no longer a life saving station.

Through whatever means possible, whether it's comfort, dissension, distraction, division, whatever it might be. Moral failure may be all kinds of things, but there is an effort by evil, by our enemy, to make this happen. And I hope you guys can really buckle down in a sense, and as a team say, this is not who we are. We're not going to do this. We're not going to flip down these paths, right?

We're not going to flip down the path of letting the students I talk to you guys, your team leaders, all the time like I interact with. I know how common it is for your few campaigner students to literally tell you, yeah, we don't want anybody else to come. They just love their thing, right? They just love desire things, young ad thing and we're going to just stay together or we don't want those people they'll say that stuff out loud, right? That is the students going down that path.

We want this to be a social club. We want this to be more comfortable. We want this right? So it's easy to see that happen to students. Young life is a tool.

It's so right. We were talking about different things and how we see that when we young create these sacred cows, which a sacred cow is something that you do, but it's something that you do because you've always done it and you don't know why you do. Does that make sense? And so when someone says, oh, well, why do you run clubs that way? Or why do you do the music that way?

Or why do you do the skit that way? Or why do you do this? Or why do you do that? And you would say, I don't know. That's what my leader did.

I don't know. That's a sacred task. You're doing it right because of the program, right? It's the idea. And young I falls into this trap all the time, right?

Because we're so programmatic where you got students who want to be involved or leaders who want to be involved because they want to be up front or they want to do so. They see that as this thing. And then to us personally, how easily our flesh and the world around us draws us in, draws us into the comfort, into the idea that we're good with. Like we lose our passion to get to the next student because we're comfortable with the students we do have.

We need to really come up against that. And I hope that your team, whether you have 100 students showing up at club or whether you don't have club going on, that you desperately want to get to the next students. Not so that you can build a young life thing. That's the second problem, right? You're not trying to build that, but so that you can represent and reflect and tie into the heart of Christ to seek and to save the lost.

Seeking to save the lost. That's what we called to do. I hope that you guys are courageous about this and making your personal we're talking about what you can do as a person. You are personally making the decision, this is who I am. This is me and my calling, both as a Christian, I would argue, but in particular as part of this community, right?

No matter what, this is who we want to be. Whether there's 100 of us or whether there's five, we should not care. We are going to do this with as great amount of passion as we can. We've got to see be a part of seeking and saving the lost. That's what we do, right?

That's representing the heart of Christ. So I hope that the story of Jesus and the woman and the first lost to be seized and saved was encouraging and a reminder. And that I hope Jesus's words of the importance of it are encouraging reminders to you. And so for the last few minutes, I want you guys to pray and see just about this. Ask the Lord to work in your heart a greater desire to be focused like the heart of Christ so that you are asked the Lord to open your eyes so you can see the harvest, what's happening, right?

This amazing work, this amazing food that the Lord lives on that you're getting. So ask that in your prayer as a team. And we won't pray for long. So gather up, pray now. Come up and close us in a minute.

Jesus, thank you again for your presence. Thank you, Lord, in your spirit works in us as we look at your truth, so we look at the amazing, powerful words change us, that they show us, that they want me. Pray for our hearts that we would be encouraged, that our hearts would be sensing, recognizing a reminder of your heart, your beautiful, amazing, unbelievable, make you cry every time you look at your words. Truth in the eyes, part of your deed make whole again to bring us back rescue. Come seek setting the losses of which we are so thankful, Lord.

Pray, Father, that our hearts would reflect that reflect that passion, that we would spurn anything that's happening in our life saving station that would be leading us into mediocrity, that would be leading us away any temptations that are in front of our life saving station that we would turn away and passionately seek out the front lines. Thank you, Lord, for this privilege that we have.