Week 3 - WHERE?
CONNECT
What are you thankful for?
What challenge are you facing?
Have there been any answers to prayer?
Pray for each other.
Did anything stand out to you from last week’s follow-up Bible readings?
How did praying this prayer go for you last week?
GO with Jesus
Lord, how can I join You in mission to those around me?
How did your “I will …” statement from last week go?
How did your sharing goal from last week go?
How’s your memory work coming along?
John 15:5 (NIV)
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
DISCOVER
Let’s start with a review.
Our mission is to Join Jesus in making disciples of those around us by living a Prayer > Care > Share > Dare lifestyle.
JOIN JESUS
Jesus calls us to partner with Him in the mission of making disciples.
JESUS-JOINED
Only as we remain in Jesus can we bear the fruit of making disciples.
And now …
WHERE?
Look around you to see your ripe-for-harvest mission field.
Ask God to speak to you as you read His Word.
Background
The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other. This animosity went back centuries to when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was defeated by the Assyrians. Many of the Jews were taken into exile in Assyria, but some remained in the land. When other people groups filled the vacuum created by the exile, these Jews intermarried with these people groups, creating the “half-breed” Samaritans.
After the Southern Kingdom of Judah returned from their exile in Babylon, the Samaritan offered to help them rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jews flatly rejected the Samaritan’s offer, so the Samaritan’s built their own Temple on Mount Gerizim.
Because of this ethnic and religious animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans, Jews would usually go all the way around Samaria when traveling from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north (see map).
John 4:1-42 (NIV)
1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Have someone retell the passage in their own words. Just the highlights will do.
What stands out to you in this passage?
What does this passage say about God (The Father, His Son Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit)?
What does this passage say about people, including ourselves?
What does this passage say about the life God invites us to live?
Digging Deeper
John 4:4 (NIV)
Now [Jesus] had to go through Samaria.
Why did Jesus have to go through Samaria (John 4:4)? Was it to save time or something else?
John 4:35-36 (NLT)
35 You know the saying, “Four months between planting and harvest.” But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest. 36 The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike!
Why is waking up and looking around so important to …
Sharing Jesus’ sense of urgency for the harvest and
Seeing the people Jesus wants us to reach for Him?
How can reaching just one person for Jesus, create a domino effect that impacts many more?
Why is this Samaritan woman’s testimony so influential to her town?
Your Mission Field
Where is your mission field? In other words, who is Jesus calling you to reach for Him so they in turn can reach others for Jesus?
Here are some possible mission fields:
The most obvious is your circle of influence or natural network.
Where you live, learn, work and play. You don’t have to go somewhere else to be on mission with Jesus. Just look around you.
As you interact, connect, eat and do life with others see this as an opportunity to share Jesus’ love and life with them.
God may call you to look beyond your given circle of influence to see some other people, place or pain.
People - An ethnic group, sub-culture or age group
Place - A foreign country, part of your city or college campus
Pain - An addiction, a medical condition, a financial situation or an injustice
White Fields
Watch and react to this video—WHITE FIELDS by Alex and Hannah Absalom.
Circle of Influence Map
Who is Jesus asking you to reach?
Using the Circle of Influence Map below, who are 3 to 4 people that the Lord is calling you to focus on? Include people who need Jesus AND believers who need discipleship. Then see where all of this could lead. Fill in the possible people who could be influenced by your 3 to 4 people coming to faith and maturing in Christ. Get a vision for the mission!
Mission Assignment
This week, look around you and ask Jesus what and who He wants you to see.
Especially, keep your eye on the 3 or 4 people from your Circle of Influence Map.
Pray as the Lord leads you.
LIVE
What truth have you discovered from today’s Bible passage(s) and conversation?
What would stop you from believing and obeying this truth?
How will you live out this truth this coming week? Finish this statement: “I will ….”
Who else needs to hear this truth? How could you share it with them?
When will we meet again?
Who will facilitate that meeting?
Pray for God’s help as you seek to follow Jesus this coming week.
FOLLOW-UP BIBLE READINGS
Here are the Bible passages you are encouraged to read this coming week:
BUDDY SYSTEM
Connect with your buddy this week and ask each other these questions:
How are your readings going?
How’s your “I will …” statement coming along?
How’s your sharing goal coming along?
How can I pray for you?