October 4, 2026
Scattered On Purpose
- Matt Nickoson
Sermon Notes
Who do you believe is beyond God’s reach, but you desperately wish they weren’t?
Acts 7:58 NIV
(They) dragged (Stephen) out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Acts 8:1a NIV
And Saul approved of their killing him.
Acts 7:59-60 NIV
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Before you try to reach your “One,” you should begin by praying for them.
Acts 8:3 NIV
But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
Acts 8:1b-2 NIV
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.
Acts 1:8 NIV
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
John 4:4-6 NIV
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
John 4:7-8 NIV
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
Reach: to build a relationship and invest in your One.
John 4:9 NIV
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.)
John 4:10 NIV
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.”
John 4:11-12 NIV
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 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?”
John 4:13-14 NIV
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.”
John 4:15 NIV
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.”
John 4:16-17 NIV
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.”
John 4:18 NIV
“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.”
John 4:22-23 NIV
“You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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.”
John 4:25 NIV
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
John 4:26 NIV
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
At some point, you must “Share” the good news about Jesus with those you are reaching.
Romans 10:14-15 NIV
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Acts 8:4-7 NIV
Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.
Acts 8:8 NIV
So there was great joy in that city.