Sermon: Securely Mine

(Click on title link to listen to MP3 audio of the sermon. The audio begins a few minutes into the introductory portion.)

I ended up getting out of bed at around 4 a.m. this morning to put together enough organization to all of the notes I had been preparing the past week.

The sermon looks into the story of the Samaritan woman at the well near Sychar. This is in John 4:1-43. The main issue I was having this week was that I had lots of ideas for great lectures I could present on this passage, but I was unable to put together a coherent sermon.

The difference between a lecture and a sermon? A lecture is primarily about information dissemination. A sermon is supposed to come from the speaker's heart and into the listener's heart. A sermon needs to be more than just information. It should, ideally, require and inspire some sort of decison or action (even if it's to continue in the same direction). A lecture requires nothing more than comprehension.

The primary message of the sermon comes from the last few verses of the story (vv. 39-42). It's where the people of Sychar come to believe in Jesus as the Savior, each for themselves. I know I find it really easy to think that I believe and trust in Jesus because something I hear or read make a lot of sense. But the question is this: Does it remain simply an intellectual satisfaction, or does it enter the heart and make a change in my life? For me, for this week, that is the question posed by this story. The story provides the answer that I ought to give.