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(silence) [MUSIC] ♪ Come by here ♪ ♪ Come by here, my Lord, come by here ♪

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♪ Come by here, my Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Come by here, my Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ I've been waiting such a long time ♪

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♪ Waiting for some peace of mind ♪ ♪ And here I am, Lord, my heart and my soul ♪ ♪ Praying you will take control ♪ ♪ Come by here, good Lord, come by here ♪

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♪ Come by here, good Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Come by here, good Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ I've been waiting such a long time ♪

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♪ Waiting for some peace of mind ♪ ♪ And here I am Lord, my heart and my soul ♪ ♪ Praying you will take control ♪ ♪ Come by here good Lord, come by here ♪

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♪ Come by here good Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Come by here good Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Oh Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Come by here good Lord, come by here ♪

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♪ Come by here good Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Come by here good Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Oh Lord, come by here ♪ ♪ Come by to hear ♪

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- Amen. - Good morning to you all. I'd like to ask you first to turn your attention to the fourth chapter of the book of John.

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John four. The 28th and the 29th verses where we find these words. The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city and saith to the men, come see a man which told me all things that ever I did is not this, the Christ.

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Then they went out of the city and came unto him." with me this morning as we examine this text. This is my story. This is my story. I brought a copy of the sports section of the Austin American Statesman. Had a story I wanted to to share with you.

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Who is William Green? Who is William Green, indeed, is a question soon to be answered by sports lovers and major league recruiters throughout the conference.

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Following the Ebenezer Eagles' stunning defeat, 96-94, over the Abyssinian Angels, and double overtime Sunday night, a rookie draft recruit from Bryan Green

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scored a game high of 24 points in regulation overtime with a sizzling trio of half-court three points, which left the Abyssinian team dazed. With two minutes left to play,

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Sister Mary Kennedy, playing guard for Ebenezer, fouled out at the last minute. She forwarded the ball to Green with two minutes left to play. Behind by six points,

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Lois Griffin, the Ebenezer forward, passed to Sister Orvis Anderson, who went up for a jump shot, tying the score at 94-all.

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Then Reverend Rodney Swisher rebounded and passed the ball back to Green. The shot clock began to tick off the final seconds of the game. Ten, nine, eight, the Coliseum grew quiet. Everyone knew that this was the first time Ebenezer had ever made the National Finals

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and everything depended now on the skills of this one unknown preacher, Reverend Green. The clock swept on. Six, five, four. Just then Swisher passed the ball

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to Green, who got it on the outside of the half court. He let go with the jumper. The ball went up, up, up, and through the hoop. Two points, putting Ebenezer ahead by two points,

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96 to 94, edging out Abyssinia and clinching the national championship. The crowd went crazy. They shouted, "Green, green, he's so mean, fill the air."

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Now I wonder, have you ever had any crazy daydreams like that? Crazy, I mean, you know, green, green, he's so mean. Daydreams where we are the star of the story.

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I came to tell you this morning, you can be. Have you ever wanted to be on a team where you were the star player and you shot the winning play or scored the winning touchdown that clinched the game? You can be.

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Would you like to have your own network television show where people tune in to see what you have to say and what it is that you think and base their decisions based on what you said and do? You can.

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this story is not true, but verse 28 and 30 of the book of John suggests that we, like the woman at the well, you, me, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Griffin, Orvis Alston, Rodney Swisher, all of us are a part of a great story, more exciting than who won the playoffs, more important than who shot who and more necessary than what the weather

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forecasts for tomorrow. It is the story of our personal relationship to Jesus Christ and what he means to us. In other words, this is my story.

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The first lesson of Christianity, you see, is to realize that our stories are inextricably tied to his story. Jesus has a job for each and every one of us.

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You see, he has no newspapers. He has no Wall Street Journal. He has no Austin American Statesman. And I used to believe, my brothers and sisters,

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seriously, that all that he needed was in this book, in this Bible. That as long as people had the Bible, that's enough. I knew that he came, and that he bled, and that he died,

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and that he rose again. And I was able to tell them that. I could tell them that Jesus loves you and that Jesus saves. And I knew all of the stories.

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I knew how to tell them what his story was. But then one day, my religion came face to face with reality. For after the Christmas holidays, I discovered that one of my classmates,

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one of the members of the black student organization at our school, had lost his father during the holidays. And as the new semester started, we missed him at meetings. We missed him in class.

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His grades began to suffer. And finally, someone told me of the tragedy that had occurred during the break. And so as I went to talk to him, he

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started to tell me about his father's death and how at the beginning of the semester he had discovered that he had cancer. And it seems as if his father had lived just long enough

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for him to get back home, to see him one last time. And so two days after he returned home, he had lived to see his father die a very agonizing death of cancer.

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And it had left him confused and afraid. And obviously, it had affected his performance in school and had affected his whole outlook on life. And as I sat there in his dorm room,

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I said all those things that you normally say to people who are going through death. You tell them to read the Psalms, that there's solace in the Psalms.

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And you tell them, the Lord gave, the Lord taketh away. You know the things we tell people. I told them about his story. But I discovered something upsetting,

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something very frightening. Just telling him his story didn't work. He was still upset. He was still distraught.

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And as I talked to him, I felt God moving on my heart. You see, it's not enough just to tell people about his story. We must sometimes tell them our story. You see, reading the Bible is one thing,

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but living it is another. James tells us that we must be doers of the word and not hearers of the word only. And so I liken that to studying the driver's ed manual

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and scoring 100 on the test, but as soon as you pull out of the DPS office, you run over two or three children in the street because you don't look where you're going. It's one thing to be able to read it.

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It's another thing to be able to practice it. And so as I thought about that, I felt the spirit of God moving on me to tell him something about my life.

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But there's something that moves to tell you to keep it to yourself. But as I talked to him and just talked about the scriptures, I thought about that old song of the church which says,

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"A charge to keep I have. A God to glorify who gave his son my soul to save and fit it for the sky." Still I was not convinced, but the words

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rang through in my heart. A charge. That means a commitment, a responsibility. And I thought to myself, well now, won't I say what I feel?

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And then I thought about the next part, a God to glorify. And I said to myself, well, you know, he doesn't know me that well. We are only associates.

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We're just friends. And then the next verse came, who gave his son my soul to save and fit it for the sky. And painful as it was for me to drudge up

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old memories, old past hurts and regrets, I began to tell him about my own father's death from cancer. I began to tell him how, after living and working for 64 years, he had died two months short of his 65th birthday.

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I told him how our financial situation had flip-flopped. I told him how I had moved 1,000 miles away from home, leaving my mother by herself. I told her of the anger and all of the unanswered questions

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that I had as a young man, not understanding the will of God and how it was working in my life. But I told him that I had learned that if you put your trust in God, that he is able,

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that he is more than the whole world against you. I told him that even to this day, I don't understand all the answers, but I believe that we'll understand it better by and by.

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And as I started to tell him about my own personal experiences, I realized then that the meaning of the scriptures took on a new meaning to him, took on a new meaning to me. You see, my brothers and sisters, we have a job to do. We must tell our story.

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But I find that it's very difficult to be personal with strangers, and it's almost impossible to be personal with our friends. Isn't it funny how as spotlight seekers, if we do some great act, if we survive something

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significant in our lives, we want everybody to know the story. We want our name to be front and center. And if our name would not be in the newspaper article,

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we would call them up and tell them that we want them to print a retraction. We want them to spell our name right. Get the Es right.

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Get the Is dotted. We want everybody to know exactly who you're talking about. And in fact, we'd like to have an 8 by 10 glossy picture

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to accompany the story. But when it comes to our relationship with Christ and where he has brought us from, why is it we assume a facade of cool and prosperity?

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It's as if we have never been down. It's as if we've never been wrong. It's as if we've never been broke. It's as if we've never been hungry.

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It's as if we've never committed sin. It's as if we've never been hurt. It's as if we've never known what tomorrow would bring. When it comes to Christ, we want to say, no, Lord.

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But I have found that the words no and the words Lord have no place together. Like the woman at the well, when we meet Christ, our will must be lost in his will.

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Our relationship to him is such that it inspires us through him to overcome ourselves. Who I am and where I am, where I came from, where I've been, what I have done, and what I'm going to do

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is no longer important. Now it is whose I am, where I'm going, who I know, and where he's leading me to. These questions become paramount for the Christian

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who decides to follow him. You see, verse 28 says that the woman at the well threw down her water pot, and she went to the city to tell about the story of the man that she had met.

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The significance of putting down the water pot is they tell me that once it got filled with water, that water was heavy, and that women carried the water on top of their heads as they walked.

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So if she had picked up the water pot and carried it into town, it would have slowed her down. So the significance to us of that is we need to drop everything that keeps us

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from running forward with the good news of what Christ has done to us. We must drop everything that is a hindrance that keeps us from telling our story.

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What is my story? God has done something special in each of our lives. Every story is unique. Your story is your story, and my story is my story.

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And no one can tell our story but us. You see, I'm convinced that when she came and told the people, we know the story of the woman at the well. We knew that she had had these husbands.

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We knew the changes that she had gone through. People even looked down on her. We are inclined to believe from the scriptural references. And so I believe that when she came and started

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to tell them about her life, people already knew it. The difference was that not what she was saying, but how she was saying it. You see, when Christ overshadows your life,

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everything becomes new again. And people can tell the newness through the way you tell your story. I'm reminded of a story of a jail chaplain who

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was called in to speak to a prisoner who had just been brought in. And as he came in, he realized that he was a friend of the family.

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And as he talked to the man laying there on the bed, he told him what a disgrace he was, how what a wonderful wife he had. And he was known to have abused his family.

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He told him how pitiful it was for him to be in such a situation. And he talked to that man for over 20 or 30 minutes there in that dark jail cell, and left out,

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and prayed that perhaps something that he had said would sink in. But over and over, the man was brought back until finally he got drunk and was killed.

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The priest was upset because he felt as if his testimony and his efforts had been in vain. Until one day a man appeared at his church and gave him a check and told him that he had remembered

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when he had told him how important it was for a man to live right and to live up to his responsibilities. He told him how that there was a time when he used to get drunk

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and beat his wife, how he would get drunk and curse his children, how even he had gotten so low that to buy-- or to get the money to buy his liquor, he had sold the furniture that his mother had left him that

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meant so much to him. But that's just how low he was. And he says, I just came by this morning to give you this gift as a token of my appreciation

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and to thank you for saying those words to me. And the preacher stopped for a minute and scratched his head. And he said, I've never seen you before a day in my life. And the man says, yes, but you remember Fred, don't you?

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He says, yes, I remember Fred. He's dead now. And he says, well, I was underneath the bed that night when you talked to Fred.

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And I heard the words that you said. and they took root in my heart. And he says, I don't know about the miracles in the Bible. My children ask me, did I believe

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that Jesus was really able to change water into wine? But I'm a livid witness to tell you that in my house, he has changed liquor into furniture. And that's a good enough miracle for me.

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And so what I want to tell you is that there's power in your story. So verse 30 says that not only did she go and tell her story, but people listened to what she had to say and they came back.

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And verse 31 says that they believed because of what she had said. And so what that means is that when we come to a realization to ourselves and to what Christ has done for us, and we start telling our stories, people will listen because they can see the Christ living through us.

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Not only was I able to get Jeff, my friend, to come to church with us, but we made appointments that all of the officers in our club would go to church at least every other month together. The Word of God, if we would lift him up, he says that he would draw all men unto him. He gives us this story, but he does not force us to tell anyone.

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It is our choice to lift up this blood-stained banner. And so this morning I come to tell you that yes, Jesus has a job for you this morning. If you want to be the star of your own talk show host, you can do it. You can outshine Oprah.

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You can outdo Phil Donahue. If you want to shoot that winning shot and push your team to victory, you can do it. My question to you this morning is, are you interested in the job? If you so, I came with a job application this morning.

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There are three questions that you have to answer for yourself. The first one is, number one, do you know him? Number two, have you tried him? Number three is, is he all right?

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If you can say yes to any three of those questions, I came to tell you that you're hired this morning. You're already on the job. Jesus has a job for you.

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You see, we really are on a team. I'm playing forward and Sister Kennedy is playing guard and Sister Griffin is taking up the slack and Sister Austin is over on the sides cheerleading us on, but we need everybody's help in this game because your story is different from our story and what

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you have to say will affect somebody else differently. So if you've got a story to do, I ask you to come on this morning and tell your story. You see, he wants the Austin American Statesman, but he doesn't want that kind of Austin. He wants that Orvis Austin Statesman. He wants the William Green Gazette. He wants the Mary Lee Kennedy Chronicle. He wants the

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Renfro Examiner. It's an easy job this morning. One story you have to tell, one headline that the Son of God became the Son of Man, so that the sons of men might become the sons of God. That's an easy job. One story, every headline the same. Extra, extra, read all about it. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine, heir of salvation,

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Purchase of God, born of his spirit, I'm washed in his blood. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story.

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Let's all say amen. We extend the invitation now for those who would make his story your story. For his story must become my story. And as we extend the invitation, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine will be sung.

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We invite you to come unite with the people of God here at Ebenezer accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior uniting with the family of God [MUSIC - "Blessed Assurance"] (SINGING) Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.

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O Lord, the fountains of glory divine, ♪ Heir of salvation ♪ ♪ Purchase of God ♪ ♪ Born of the Spirit ♪

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♪ Washed in His blood ♪ ♪ This is my story ♪ This is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story.

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This is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, perfect delight, visions of right. ♪ Capture, thou burst on my sight ♪ ♪ Angels descending ♪

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♪ Ring from above ♪ ♪ Echoes of mercy ♪ ♪ Whispers of love ♪ ♪ This is my story ♪

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♪ This is my song ♪ ♪ Praising my Savior ♪ ♪ All day long ♪ ♪ This is my story ♪

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This is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. As we sing that last stanza-- [BLANK_AUDIO]