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[silence] [Music] I am a living testimony Should have been dead and gone

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Lord, you let me live on I am a living testimony I thank the Lord I'm still alive. I am a living testimony.

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I should have been dead and gone. Lord, you let me live on. I am a living testimony. I thank the Lord I'm still alive.

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I've seen miracles after miracles perform in my life. ♪ You had mercy on me ♪ ♪ I didn't even deserve to be alive ♪ ♪ When I faced dangers I couldn't see ♪

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♪ You kept your angels and camped around me ♪ ♪ And I thank the Lord I'm still alive ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ I am a living testimony.

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I should have been dead and gone. The Lord has left me at home. I am a living testimony. ♪ I thank the Lord I'm still alive ♪

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♪ I have many friends and loved ones ♪ ♪ Gone wrong before me ♪ ♪ You know it causes my heart to bleed ♪ ♪ When I realized it could have been me ♪

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♪ I know I'm not worthy ♪ But you just keep on keeping me. That's why I want to thank the Lord I'm still alive. Oh, I am a living testimony.

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I should have been dead and gone. ♪ But Lord, He left me at once ♪ ♪ I am ♪ ♪ A living testimony ♪

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♪ I thank the Lord I'm still alive ♪ ♪ I could've been dead ♪ ♪ Sleeping in my grave ♪ But the Lord told Odette to get back, get back and behave.

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You know I'm not worthy, but he just keeps on keeping me. That's why I want to thank the Lord I'm still alive. ♪ Oh, I am a living testimony ♪ ♪ I should have been dead and gone ♪

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♪ But the Lord is back to live on ♪ ♪ I am a living testimony ♪ ♪ I thank the Lord I'm still alive ♪ ♪ I thank the Lord I'm still alive ♪

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- We're gonna say amen again, amen. If this word recorded in the gospel according to Saint John with everlasting life. This is the word of God around which the morning message is woven. title, "The Samaritan Woman at Jacob's Wail."

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It was on a hot summer day. Jesus was traveling the dusty road from Judea to Galilee. He was weary from the journey and bothered by the scorching heat of the sun. So he sat down beside a well at noonday near the village of Syker in Samaria.

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The Master was in a strange place. It was Jesus' custom to visit strange places. He had the habit of going where other religious leaders did not go and doing what they did not do.

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Jesus stops at Jacob's well for rest, relaxation, and renewal. Samaria was forbidden territory. It was a strange place. It was a place Jews were not expected to go.

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Samaria was forbidden territory. It was a place where racial integration produced a diluted faith after the division of the kingdom. There was the North Kingdom or the Northern Kingdom in Israel and the Southern Kingdom

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I mean Judah. 10 of the tribes were in the Northern Kingdom. And when the Northern Kingdom later fell, it was the Assyrians that were the conquerors.

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And so the Assyrians mixed with the Jews that were there. And this mixed group became known as the Samaritans. They had their own Bible, their own version of what God said. They had their own place of worship.

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And there was enmity in the relationship of Jews and Samaritans. In fact, Jews would go far out of their way, so to speak. They could take the long way rather than to go through Samaria. So the fact that Jesus makes the decision to go through Samaria is significant.

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He wants us to encounter difficult situations in human relations in order to be agents of his will and of his way. So I said, it is at noonday that he comes to this well, Jacob's well. So as he comes to the well, he comes to a place that is known as a meeting place. One young person asked an older person who was considered to be very wise, "Where was

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God? How could one see God?" And the answer was to go and look in a well. And when that person looked in the well,

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that person saw a reflection of herself. And so, well, symbolically speaking, may be mirrors in which we see ourselves. Because we are made in the image of God.

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So here he is at the well, good meeting place. Here, the well where strangers meet. The well, familiar place where friends congregate. So it is at eventide that villagers gathered

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to meet and to greet each other at the well. Moses meets the seven daughters of Jethro at a well in Midian. And they come there to draw water.

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Abraham sends Abimelech to find a wife for Isaac. Isaac and Abimelech meets Rebecca at a well. So a well is a place to meet strangers. Jesus stops at a well at noonday.

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A well is a reservoir, a spring, a natural source of water. It's not necessary to worry about water when you have access to a well. The water is present, however, but someone must dig a well to find the water that is there.

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I remember as a little boy when we wanted to have a pump in our yard and my father and another man had a little twig and they were moving around and according to the quibble of that twig they would determine whether there was water there. I remember the man said, "Right here, right here."

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And they dug there and found water. And after some time we had a pump there and I had to go to that pump and draw water. But even before that when I was with my grandmother I had to go to the well. And you usually carried something with you.

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You carry a bucket or something to bring back the water that you receive from the well. So this well has experience of Jesus has a message for us today that when we assemble here today from Sunday to Sunday to worship God is like coming to the well. the well and you should bring your buckets. Now all the folk used to put it

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this way, "Lord we come before you as empty or a full fountain." So Jesus is at the well. The well is sort of a hidden fountain. So when we dig a well, we uncover a gush of water hidden in the earth, and when penetrated, it provides refreshment and renewal.

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Jesus stops at noonday by Jacob's well. Oh, many years before Jacob had dug this well, it is said to be a hundred feet deep. And people are still going to that well after all these years. People are still going to Jacob's well.

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And that's the way it is with the well that we represent here this morning. thousands of years people still come to the well. They come to the well to receive water, refreshing water. So soon after Jesus sits down beside the well, there comes a Samaritan woman to draw water. I said Samaria is a strange land. Jews sought to avoid it. Orthodox Jews

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went around Samaria. It's a strange place. It's foreign territory. And so this woman comes at noonday to draw water in this strange place. Strange place, strange time, because people didn't usually gather at the well at noonday.

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They usually gathered in the evening. But this woman comes at noonday, and she's a strange woman. She has a strange air about her.

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And she had a way of walking that caused men to look the second time. She was a strange woman. She knew how to make her clothes

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fit the contours of her body. She had a body language that spoke in a loud and forceful manner. She knew how to arrange her hair,

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how to use her makeup in such a manner that she attracted men. Wherever she went, she left in her train a seductive aroma of perfume.

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She was known for her physical attraction. She knew how to handle men. She was a strange woman. She had a habit of getting what she wanted

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when she wanted it. And so this woman comes to draw water from the well, Jacob's well, at noonday. She came at the time when other women

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were not expected to be there. Other women felt threatened by her, so she wanted to be alone. Her reputation, among other women,

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caused her to isolate herself. So this woman from Samaria comes to draw water. She brought her a bucket. hers was a good purpose, she had good intentions,

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she had a meaningful mission, but she had a bucket that I like to point out, I like to say is, her bucket was probably leaking. She'd been coming to that well a long time,

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had many experiences, but I think it's symbolic what really happens in the Christian experience of many people in the church. Many people, you know, they've been in the church a long time, been coming to the well a long time, drawing water and bringing their buckets, but their buckets are

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leaking. They come to Sunday school every Sunday, they attend prayer meeting regularly, and they have all of that water, and they pour it in their buckets, but their buckets were leaking. And this is no doubt what happens with this woman. She'd been married a number of times. She could get me, but she couldn't keep them because

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the bucket was leaking. So there's nothing wrong with the Christian faith. Only so many people who claim it put it in buckets that are leaking. That's the problem. So you know some people go to the well to get water but bucket leaks and they keep going and they and it keeps leaking as one old sister that was praying and she was telling the Lord to fill her

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bucket and one deacon said no Lord don't do it because her bucket leaks so it's It's important that we not only hear the word, but that we do the word. She must have had a bucket that leaks

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because of the reputation that she had, the fact that she feels isolated, or she isolates herself. And this is typical.

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We have so many leaders who are exposed to the ways of doing, but their bucket leaks. So Jesus exercises divine initiative. He speaks first. You know, sometimes we don't do that.

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So did you speak to so-and-so? No, they didn't speak to me You know, we wait for them to do the speaking. Yeah. Now Jesus didn't wait for this lady to speak He Takes the initiative

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Shalom That's the Jewish greeting. We'd say hello he He speaks to this lady now. Here's here. This lady is out here

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First of all, it's strange that she's out there at noonday, but she's there because she wants to avoid any encounter with the other women of the community. They have her, but they're uncomfortable around her. The admiring glances that their husbands may give when she's around and all of that. So they don't like her.

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But here Jesus initiates an encounter with this lady by speaking to her. Shalom. Well, a woman is not supposed to be speaking

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to a man in public. That's the custom. She, and a Jew is not supposed to be speaking to a Samaritan.

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That's another thing. So Jesus ignores the conventional practice and goes across cultural lines. He rises above the superficialities of race and speaks to this woman and she immediately picks up

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on it, you say, "Why is it that you, being a Jew, would speak to me, a Samaritan?" Jesus ignores that. That's a lesson we can learn. You know, sometimes some people go, "There'll be a person here, and there'll be over there,"

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you know, and they'll go all the way around over here to get over here rather than past this person here because they don't want to speak so and so. But Jesus transcends whatever difficulties may be there whatever tensions are there Jesus transcends and speaks to this lady so much so that she marvels that he speaks

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to her. So with Jesus, race, religion, status, class, none of these things matter with Jesus. And then Jesus goes a step further. So often when we have lines that are drawn to separate We try to get as far away as possible, but Jesus is getting closer. He said, "Give me a drink of water." Here the Lord of all life is asking this woman to do a favor for him. "Give me a drink of water."

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And this, of course, makes the woman even all the more concerned that he would ask, "Sit," that you would ask her, "Here he is, the Lord of all life, here he is, the water of life, asking this Samaritan woman to give him a drink of water." And she raises questions about that. She tries to go off in another way, change the conversation

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about places of worship. She doesn't want to face the issue. So many people don't want to face the issues of life so many people don't want to face reality how is it that you ask me Jesus said if you really knew if you really knew you would be asking me for water in other words Jesus has the gift that she needs the gift of water the

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the gift of cleansing in her life because her life is all messed up. What she needs is not only water, but she needs purifying, the purifying spirit of the divines in her life. She needs water.

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And this encounter of water is interrupted by worship. Where do you, where do you, where should we worship? Where, where ought we to worship? You Jews worship at Mount Gerizim and Samaritans worship at Mount Ebal.

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should we worship? We get caught up in that now. Is the God of Mohammed the God of Jesus? This is the question now people are raising. Or is there some other God that we need to consider. We get in debates about worship, but she later asked Jesus to give me this water because he said I have water that if you drink of

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it you will never thirst. This water at Jacob's well, if you drink of it, you'll need more and more and more and more but I have some water that if you drink of this water you will never thirst again and so this this woman who tried at first to be coy and evasive is brought to the point she first tries to play

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games with Jesus but in the end she faces reality and in the end she asks, "Lord, give me this water." Oh, what a wonderful request it is that she makes, "Give me this water." For Jesus, this is the water that everybody needs to be rightly related to him. Jacob's well provides natural water but he provides that spiritual water that we

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need to change our lives so that there is another kind of water we we were concerned about whether the water is is clean whether or not it's polluted and all of that as we deal with the water systems of our city and of our nation But Jesus has another kind of water. It's the kind of water for which the penitent soul cries, "Lord, give me this water."

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And in other words, she doesn't see any buckets, and she mentions the fact that he doesn't have any bucket, the kind of bucket that she would be looking for is not the kind of bucket that's involved in the water that Jesus gives. It's the kind of relationship, that inner relationship that we have with God that changes our lives, a kind

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of relationship that changes the destiny of the person who is the believer. Jesus has another kind of water and so this woman accepts that water she could she came there and you know what she left her bucket something happened inside her life that caused her to leave that bucket and she ran back to tell others

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in Samaria come see a man that has told me all about myself come see a man who has changed my life. She became a missionary in Samaria and here Jesus starts out, he comes to Samaria, a place where people who were Orthodox Jews didn't want to go through, he goes through it and this woman goes and tells

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the people about Jesus and they want him to stay they want him to stay there you read into the story they want him to stay there it's something about this water that when we drink of it it has it has such a radical change in our lives that we want to stay. Places that we try to avoid, we are satisfied to stay there.

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And so they want to stay. And so this woman is able to give testimony in Samaria of the miracle that occurs in her encounter with Jesus. So this woman leaves and rejoices. She stepped across tradition. She's spoken to a person of another race. She's spoken and encountered a person of another sect. In other words, so many things have

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changed in her life that she'll never, never be the same because she has met Jesus. Come see a man who told me all I ever did. Come see a man who steps across tradition. Come see a man who loves a vile sinner.

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Come see a man who fulfills all my expectations. Come see a man who saved my soul. So, I know something about it, and I think that there are others here today

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know something about this water, this water that Jesus gives, this water that changes your life, this water that refreshes your soul, this water that gives you the kind of spiritual renewal that every human being needs. Come see a man and I I remember I I heard I heard I heard the voice of Jesus say come unto

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me and rest lay down thy weary one lay down thy head upon my breast and so I I came, I came, I came, I came to Jesus as I was weary, worn, and sad. I found in Him a resting place and He has made me glad. I heard the voice of Jesus say, "Behold I freely give the living thirsty ones stoop down and drink and live. So I came and I drank. I drank of

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that water, that life-flowing stream and my thirst was quenched. My soul revived and now I live in him thanks be to God that this water this water is available everybody and that he provides for us you know it's sort of portable you can carry it with you it's a well that you don't have to go to some stationary

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place you have to go where Jacobs well was located has been there so long It's a well that you can carry with you. It's portable. Wherever you are, it's there. If you're in the valley, it's down there in the valley. If you're on the mountaintop, it's there. Wherever you are, that well is there.

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So as we sing, we extend the invitation for you to come. Receive the one who provides you with this living water from a fountain that never runs dry, that goes with you wherever you are.

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[music] ♪ Jesus take the lamb to be the bread ♪ ♪ He laid down my weary world ♪ ♪ He laid down my head upon the cross ♪

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♪ O God, my help ♪ ♪ I came to Jesus ♪ ♪ As I was weary ♪ ♪ And worn and sad ♪

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I found in him a resting place, and he hath made me well. I heard the voice of Jesus say, behold, I'm free indeed. ♪ The living water ♪ ♪ Where she was ♪

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♪ To count and read ♪ ♪ And hear ♪ ♪ I came to Jesus ♪ ♪ And I prayed ♪

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♪ Of that life-giving King ♪ ♪ My heart was brimmed ♪ ♪ My soul revived ♪ ♪ And now I live in Him ♪

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♪ I am the one my people say ♪ ♪ I am this ♪ ♪ Long-lost child ♪ ♪ Look unto me ♪

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♪ Look unto me, my poor child ♪ ♪ And all my living God ♪ [music] I do believe that man does love

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He is a star, a star And in the time of night and dawn, You can be made a new. Let us pray.

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Lord God, our Father, we thank you that you are the water that we need. So we pray that you will wash us with that water, cleanse our minds, cleanse our hearts,

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wash us and make us clean, that we may be prepared to commune at the table that you have prepared for your children. We pray, though, God, that you would refresh our spirits

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as we commune at this table and give us the strength to face the challenges that are before us, that every one of us would be laborers together with you, Looking forward to that day when you have arranged a family reunion for your people.

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We ask in Jesus' name, amen. [Singing] that we may be prepared to commune at the table that you have prepared for your children.

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We pray, though, God, that you would refresh our spirits as we commune at this table and give us the strength to face the challenges that are before us,

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that every one of us would be laborers together with you looking forward to that day when you have arranged a family reunion for your people.

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We ask in Jesus' name, Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]