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[ Silence ] [Music] ♪ Out of the highways and valleys of power ♪ ♪ Many are weary and sad ♪

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♪ Carry thou sunshine where darkness is bright ♪ ♪ Making thou sorrowing glad ♪ ♪ Take thee a blessing ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪

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♪ Out of the dark ♪ ♪ May Jesus shine ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪ ♪ O Savior, I pray ♪

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♪ May be a blessing to someone today ♪ ♪ Tell the sweet story of Christ and his love ♪ ♪ Tell of his power to forgive ♪ ♪ God has to trust him if only you could ♪

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♪ Till every moment you live ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪ ♪ Out of my life ♪

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♪ May Jesus shine ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪ ♪ O Savior, I pray ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪

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♪ To someone today ♪ ♪ Village was given to you in your year ♪ ♪ Love is the master of you ♪ ♪ Be true, love, and listen for indeed ♪

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♪ Unto your mission be true ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪ ♪ Love of the Lord ♪

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♪ May Jesus shine ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪ ♪ Oh, say does my prayer ♪ ♪ Make me a blessing ♪

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♪ To someone today ♪ - Amen. [Pause] Many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Jesus by the saying of the woman who testified,

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He told me all I ever did. So when the Samaritans were coming to him, they besought him that he would tarry with them. And he abode with them two days.

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Now after two days he departed thence and went into Galilee. Saint John the fourth chapter verses 39 through 40 and verse 43. The subject, staying in Samaria,

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staying in Samaria. Arabs and Jews are challenged to live together harmoniously in Palestine in order for the peace process to become reality. This appears for them to be a rather difficult task.

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Peaceful coexistence is threatened constantly by terrorist activities and suicide bombers. Martin Luther King Jr. said concerning America's racial dilemma, "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools."

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Living in Samaria is a learning experience. It's learning how to stay in strange places. It's learning how to survive in the midst of antagonistic or hostile conditions.

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It's learning how to endure life-threatening circumstances. staying in Samaria is embracing the unfamiliar. Luke reports in his gospel that a Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus because his face was not

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His face was set toward Jerusalem. James and John, two of his disciples, said to Jesus, "Master, command fire to fall from heaven "and burn up the city."

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And Jesus rebuked them. He said to them, "Now you shouldn't think like that. That's not the way to deal with Samaria. You see the average Jew did not even pass through Samaria.

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You know, there are some places we like to get in and get out of as quickly as possible. We pass through them with lightning like speed. But Jesus makes the decision not to go around Samaria.

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On the highway, he makes the decision not to take what is called the bypass route. But he takes what is known as the business route. Goes directly to the heart of Samaria.

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Now, not only does he take the direct route, but he pauses in Samaria. He takes what we call a rest stop beside a well. And not only does he use it as a rest stop on his journey,

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But then we read that he remains there in Samaria for two days. That's a long way from not even going to Samaria to deciding to go through Samaria

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and then resting in Samaria, and then staying in Samaria. two days. Now followers of Jesus, if we would follow Jesus as our example we must pass through Samaria. We must learn how to deal with obstacles and hindrances, we must learn how to deal with hostility, we must learn how to deal

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with unpleasant circumstances, we must learn how to confront social estrangement. Now this is the way of the cross. Paul did some of his best work in Ephesus and he says I have decided to remain in Ephesus and there are many adversaries. I've decided to stay there even though there's a great deal of

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hostility to all that I'm doing but I have decided to remain and Jesus stayed in Samaria for two days. Now the record reveals that Adoniram Jetson was the first Baptist missionary from this country to Burma. And he stayed there for many years

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before he had his first convert. But Burma became one of the most fruitful mission fields because Adler and Iren Jetson was able to stay, he knew how to stay in that strange land.

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Now my brothers and sisters, staying in Samaria goes against the grain. We are tempted to get away from people who do not like us as quickly as we can.

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We try to avoid them. And when we confront them, we break the speed limit getting away from them.

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We have no time for them. We do not want to give them the time of day. Samaria is on the map. The best way to go home

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is through Samaria. Pause there but do more than that, stay there for a while. The Samaritan woman Jesus meets at the well has a redemptive experience because Jesus came that way. She hurriedly went into the city so much so that she leaves her water pot. She runs about in the city going from place to place,

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person to person, telling the good news of divine forgiveness, the good news of God's amazing grace. Samaritans came to see Jesus. They experienced his liberating power. They beg him, notice that, they beg him to stay and Jesus remains there with them two days. Now that's radical action, staying in

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Samaria, a place Jews do not include usually on their itinerary, but to go there and stay to remain two days. So don't run, don't run from the difficult and unpleasant experiences of this life. Don't avoid that which would hinder or impede your progress, probably is there on the map to enrich your character, to

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make you a better person, to provide an experience that will enable you to understand the Christian faith, to be prepared, or to learn how to stay in Samaria. When I was in seminary I was a member of a quartet. I sang bass in a quartet. All of us were from the South, African-Americans, and from time to time

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we were invited to sing in white churches in Ohio. And this particular time we went to a community. We were the only blacks in that particular community and we had our concert, we sang, we were invited to stay in homes. We were spending the night there so we were invited to stay in homes. John Morris,

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who was my roommate, and I were assigned to this particular home. After the concert we went that was Samaria we would have stayed in that house I've never stayed in the house of Anglo before all night I don't think he had either that was Samaria the wife prepared for us a snack after the

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concert we sat at the table and we were talking with the man of the house and the wife was upstairs preparing the bed and I began to talk to him about his work he said he was a farmer I said well how many acres do you have he told me and and what do you raise and what do you do here and he began to tell me he

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He said, "I tell you," and he used the N word. He said, "I tell you, I have worked like a nigger "on this place." And we were deep in Samaria then.

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We were deep in Samaria. John looked at me and I looked at John and we knew not what to do. He immediately discovered what he had said.

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He said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. "I'm so sorry, but this is just a word "that I've picked up, I shouldn't have done it, "but I've picked up out here in the culture."

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And he explained, and we talked, and we were looking forward to going upstairs, going to bed. But that was a Samaria experience.

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After we talked a while, John and I went up and we got in the bed and we talked a long time about what had happened. But that was Samaria.

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It was Samaria for that man. It was Samaria for us. We were in Samaria. And you can't run away from Samaria.

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It's gonna find you. And the question is, how will you deal with Samaria? Will you be able to adjust and to confront the situations that you find there

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in a way that your life will be enriched staying in Samaria? Now when this woman of Samaria meets Jesus, her life is changed.

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Jesus goes there, her life is changed, she was redeemed, she went home and told the man she had been shacking up with. Said to him, "Now we can't live like this anymore.

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I met Jesus and he has encountered my life. We can't live like this anymore. We must change our way of living. She not only told this man that she'd been living with but she told others what had happened in her life and they told others and they told others and these people that were told came to Jesus and

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when they encountered Jesus for themselves they begged him to stay with then and he stayed two days. You know Jesus has a way of growing on us. The more we are around him the more we want to be around him. Jesus grows on us and And the more we meditate on him, the more he becomes a part of our lives. He comes

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to us in Samaria, in strange unfamiliar places. He comes to us under hostile conditions. He comes to us under unpleasant circumstances. That's the meaning of the cross. He comes to us in Samaria and thanks be to God he comes. No one can hinder him. The disciples cannot persuade him not to go through Samaria.

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He says to them, "I must go through Samaria." Herod's soldiers cannot prevent him from coming. He comes to us. Jesus faces a strong tradition among Orthodox Jews. The Sadducees would say don't go there, but Jesus does not follow the Orthodox tradition. He comes to Samaria and he remains there and there is joy in

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Samaria because Jesus comes and if we would follow him we must go through Samaria. We must pause there and it's the pause that refreshes, it's the pause that changes our lives. We must learn how to stay there. Jesus goes to Samaria, the family is liberated, human relations are lifted to a higher level. So Samaria is

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is any strange condition. Some of us are going through Samaria right now. Samaria may be some sickness, Samaria may be some illness, and Samaria may be some particular experience that irritates us and aggravates us. But you must learn somehow how to deal with Samaria but Jesus stays there two days and by

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staying there two days countless lives are enriched and somehow he sets an example for us today who live some 2,000 years later how to deal with Samaria and we as a people have had our Samaria we've had our Samaria our Samaria of slavery in this country we had to learn how to deal with servitude that was our

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Samaria as a people and then after after slavery came what we call the reconstruction period and we had the the Klu Klux Klan raging during that period and many people who tried to harvest crops and build homes had them burned and destroyed but they learned how to live in Samaria. That were those who left

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that were those who left the South said I can't put up with this but then there were those who stayed those who stayed. I remember in Waco some years ago there was a lynching where the people came and took the man from the courthouse they They took him from the steps of the courthouse and they hanged him and they drug him through

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the city and they took his teeth and they sold them for 25 cents and 50 cents as souvenirs and many people left the country or left the city and went out to other sections of the country and Dr. Lucas says that he was thinking about building a new church there at that time and he asked one of the ministers about building a church

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and he said well I wouldn't build a church if I were you he said because people are leaving this town and he said this was his remark his reply he said I'm not building this church for people who leaving I'm building the church for the people who are staying. So somehow God has some special blessings for those

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who learn how to stay in Samaria. Well if you learn how to stay in unfamiliar places, if you learn how to deal with disappointment and learn how to deal with hostility then you have learned how to stay in Samaria and you see Jesus says of his disciples you shall be witnesses unto me beginning in Jerusalem

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and Judea and Samaria and the utmost part of the world got to learn how to stay He stayed there two days. We have a movement on in our convention, and this movement has to do with those who are willing to wait.

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True love waits, that's the title of it. True love waits. A few weeks ago, many young people took pledges that they would not engage in sex before marriage,

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and this true love waits. We had a Sunday school lesson here a few weeks ago about this particular issue of sex relations and the Christian faith.

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One young lady talking to another said, well, the teacher really doesn't understand. The teacher really doesn't understand. They got to get with it.

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You know, they don't really understand. Well, Samaria is still on the map. It's on the map for young people. It's on the map for older people.

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It's on the map for everybody. And somehow we've got to learn like Jesus. It sets the example for us how to stay in Samaria for two days.

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That we had to learn as a people. Back in 1895, Booker Washington delivered his famous address at the Atlantic Exposition and he said to people of color, "Let down your buckets where you are."

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In other words, what he was saying, "Learn how to deal with all of these adversities, "with all of these unpleasant circumstances "in the Southland, stay right there,

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"learn how to deal with Samaria." And that's what we have done as a people. It's no accident that people in the South own more property and have been more progressive than people of color,

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for the most part, in other sections. It's because people here have learned how to stay in Samaria. For two days, he stays there.

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Then, then, after two days, he leaves. two days. You know what day he left on? The third day. The third day. That's the message right there. He left on the third day. Stay in Samaria, brothers and sisters.

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But Jesus leaves on the third day. He came, he served, he was crucified on the cross, he was buried, he stayed there for two days, that was a sad day, he got up and he walked the earth again and he said all power in heaven and in earth is in my hand. This is the one who has passed not only through Samaria but who has

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stayed in Samaria who gets up on the third day. Oh many of us here who've had our Samarias and we've been in Samaria for a day we still have some more time in Samaria the time will come it may be some sickness but certainly the time will come for death itself when we must go through that Samaria but we have the

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assurance of the master that he will be with us. Yeah! Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Then we shall get up. We shall arise and we shall be like him. That's good news. Don't worry about Samaria, embrace Samaria, confront

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Samaria, live in Samaria, remain in Samaria for two days. On the third day, be sure we get up to be with those who live together in a world without him. So let's remain close to Jesus wherever he leads let's go wherever it is through the villages and Judea through Samaria as he goes home now to Galilee on our way

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home let us be prepared to remain in Samaria to stay there knowing that God may do his most marvelous work through this experience that we encounter close to thee, close to thee. Thou my everlasting potion, friend, more than life to me all along this pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with you.

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The door of the church is open. We extend the privilege of the church for those who would accept Jesus Christ as Lord of your life, we invite you to come. It's an open door he sets before us.

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You may come by letter, by Christian experience, or professional faith, we invite you to come. ♪ I am ♪ ♪ The lasting portion ♪

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♪ Born and raised ♪ ♪ How I'd like to be ♪ ♪ How I long my pilgrim journey ♪ ♪ Savior that ye want to be ♪

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♪ Close to thee, close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee, close to thee ♪ [MUSIC] ♪ Be warm with him ♪

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♪ That for his own burning pleasure ♪ ♪ Not for fame and virtue here ♪ ♪ That he will at all that's suffered ♪ ♪ Holy man, be warm with him ♪

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[ Music ] ♪ To thee, oh to thee ♪ ♪ Happy rid and hard and suffer ♪ ♪ Only yet be one with thee ♪

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♪ Lead me through the vale of shadows ♪ ♪ Where he o'er the triple sea ♪ ♪ In the gates of life eternal ♪ ♪ May I enter, my Lord, with thee ♪

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♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪ ♪ Close to thee ♪

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♪ In the name of life eternal ♪ ♪ May I yet ♪ ♪ Come home ♪ ♪ Firmly ♪

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- Those persons who stood earlier celebrating birthdays this week, will you go now to... [ Silence ]