The Well Is Deep (John 4:1-15 Jeff Kliewer)

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Sermon Notes: notes.cornerstonesj.org The Well Is Deep

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glorify your name. You see, our God is the creator of all. Our God is the one who formed us.
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Our God is the one who is sovereign over all. Even nations are under the sovereignty of God.
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Even nations that think they have the right, the power, the position to make things happen according to their will.
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Our God is sovereign. Did you catch what that verse said?
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It's easy to read that verse and say all peoples will come before and worship you, but this verse actually says all nations shall come before you and worship you.
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We do know that in this age, we do know that Satan has a latitude to do what he is doing under God's sovereignty, but we also know that there is a time coming for seven years where things are going to get very, very tough, and after that we know that God is actually going to reign here on earth for a thousand years.
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All humanity, all nations, God is sovereign. You know, there is no option to think that nations are the answer.
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We should acknowledge him. And in all things, God gets the glory. We are coming together this morning in worship and praise to hear the word of truth proclaimed, and it's
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God who gets the glory. I have some announcements. First one is I want to encourage and remind everybody the various opportunities we have for fellowship and for discipleship and growing in him.
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Sunday evenings at six is our prayer meeting. Mondays there is a men's apologetics class.
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There's a women's, is the precepts on Monday? Women's on Monday. There's a women's class on Tuesday.
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Tuesdays and Thursdays there are small groups. They're all going on. And then on Tuesday at noon, for those of you who are available on Tuesday at noon, we are teaching the book of Ephesians.
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That also then goes online, so that if you're not able to be here, you, did
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I say Tuesday? It's Tuesday at noon. Thank you. Wednesday at noon.
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Come on back as we teach. And if you can't make that, Pastor Jeff's, Pastor Graham has the link to that lesson.
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We just began our next starting point class. We're doing it during the first service.
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We had 11 people there this morning. God is amazing. If you are interested in the starting point, couldn't make the first one, not a problem.
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See either Pastor Jeff and I, there is actually a video link to a first lesson that you can watch.
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We're going to have two more the next two Sundays during first service. Encourage you towards that.
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I have a thing I'm going to read here for Jill. The women's ministry has been providing a whole lot of opportunities.
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Title, Forgiveness and the Sovereignty of God Workshop. There's a great title.
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It's to understand God's sovereignty and to understand what it means for forgiveness.
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So here's what it is. It's on Saturday, this coming Saturday at 10 o 'clock till two.
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Description. Forgiveness is a central theme around which our faith revolves.
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Many of us bear wounds from those who have wronged us and we may not even want to forgive.
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Where was God in those difficult, agonizing and traumatic events of life? Does he know? Does he care?
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If God is truly sovereign, then what does that mean for my past and for every tomorrow?
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Let's look together in God's word and learn how to live life as one who forgives and one who rests in the sovereignty of our glorious Lord.
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Lunch will be provided. Amazing times to get together.
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October 2nd, next Sunday. I want to remind you that the service will shift to 1045 starting next
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Sunday. We'll have our normal nine o 'clock and then 1045. Following that second service, we are going to be heading over to 23
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Phillips Road, and we're going to have a time of prayer and dedication. Let's not minimize this.
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There was no way, humanly speaking, that we get these 27 acres on Phillips Road except the sovereignty of God.
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There's no way that we would have been able to even deserve this or whatever. Did you know that the gentleman who owned that had bought that specifically to build his homestead on that property?
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But God worked in his heart and gave us the opportunity to actually procure the land.
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This is his land. We want to go out there. We're anticipating in the near future working on building a building large enough for our entire congregation to sit in one service, have plenty of classrooms for other activities.
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We're going to go out there and acknowledge the sovereignty of God. We're going to surrender ownership of this land where it really is to God, and we're going to dedicate it for his work.
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So after second service, we will shift up the road about three miles, and we will have a dedication service and then come right back here for some food.
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Dad's Deli is going to be catering a lunch for us, and if you would be willing to stay, what are we going to do with our new building?
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I've had some people already give me, I really want this in our new building. We're going to have a team that's going to be putting together a package that will go to the architects of what we want.
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We need to hear from you, and so we're going to do a good old -fashioned whiteboard brainstorming session.
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Anybody that has, there are no bad ideas, there are just ideas, because if somebody says,
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I want the gaga pit out front, we may not do that, but it can open somebody else's thoughts to something else that we may want to do.
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We really, really want your input and support in that. Let's turn to prayer.
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Lord God, we profess that all nations, you have made all nations, and all nations that you have made shall come and worship before you,
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O Lord, and shall glorify your name. And so, dear God, we come to you accepting your sovereignty in awe of your love, surrendering all worship and honor to you, dear
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Lord. We know that there is a time where you will restore all of creation under your hand.
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Now, Lord God, you call us to go and to make disciples. We pray,
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Lord, that we would be seeking you personally, seeking you for those opportunities that you would direct us.
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We pray, Lord, that we would be taking the time necessary to be in your word, to be in prayer, to prepare ourselves for those opportunities that you give us.
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And then, Lord, we would have our eyes open seeing those opportunities that you give us. There is a dark lost world.
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You tell us to go into all of the world. We know, Lord, that you promise that we will receive the
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Holy Spirit, that with that spirit we will have the power to be your witnesses. And Lord, as we do these things, we put on your armor knowing that Satan would not be happy with this.
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So protect us, Lord. We intentionally put on your armor. Lord, as we consider this opportunity that's before us and that we'll be praying again next week for this new building,
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Father, keep our hearts focused on your church and not on this church.
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Keep our eyes focused on your blessings and recognizing when you do bless us, surrendering it back to you.
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Keep our eyes, Lord, on your kingdom because this is your kingdom. Father, we do pray for those that are in need, whether they're physically in need, whether they are still in a bereavement.
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Specifically, Lord, we continue to lift Kathy Appleton to you in her recovery. Now, Lord, as we take the opportunity to worship in song and to hear the word we pray,
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Pastor Jeff, we'll be anointed with your words. Our hearts would be open. We pray these things in amen.
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And we're going to sing some psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Before I do, I just want to share a couple of verses.
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It's Genesis 1, 26 and 27 and 31. And then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
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So God created man in his own image. In the image of man, he created him. Male and female, he created them.
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Verse 31. And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
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Just stand and we sing.
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Just join with all creation. Psalm 19 says the heavens declare your glory and the sky declares the handiwork of you,
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O God. So God, we just come before you and sing. O praise
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Him, O praise Him, O praise
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Him, O praise
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Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise Him, O praise
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Him, O Praise, Praise, Praice the
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Father, Praise the Son, And Praise the
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Spirit, Three in One. Oh, praise
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Him. Oh, praise Him. Hallelujah.
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His blood. Rejoice in His great love.
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Oh, praise Him. Hallelujah. Christ has defeated every sin.
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Cast all your burdens now on Him. Oh, praise
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Him. Oh, praise Him. Hallelujah.
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Hallelujah. He shall return in power to reign.
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We'll join to sing. Oh, praise Him. Hallelujah.
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Who shall fall on bended knee? All creatures of our
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God and King. Oh, praise Him. Oh, praise
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Him. Hallelujah. Come, my every blessing.
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Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. Streams of mercy never cease.
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Call for songs of loudest praise.
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Teach me some melodious sonnet. Sung by flaming tongues above.
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Praise the mount I'm fixed upon. Mount of Thy redeeming love.
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Here I raise my Ebenezer.
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Hither by Thy help to come. And I hope by Thy good pleasure.
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Safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger.
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Wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger.
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Interpose His precious blood. Oh, to grace how great a debtor.
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Daily I'm constrained to be. Let Thy goodness like a fetter.
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Find my wandering heart to lead. Prone to wander,
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Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.
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Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.
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Oh, that day when free from sinning. Shall I see
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Thy lovely face. Full of radiant, blood -washed linen.
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How I'll sing Thy wondrous grace. Come, my
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Lord, no longer tarry. Bring Thy promises to pass.
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For I know Thy power will keep me. Till I'm home with Thee at last.
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My Jesus, I, I know of sin.
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Jesus, gracious Redeemer.
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My Savior, my Jesus. Has purchased my glory.
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Jesus is now. Mentions of glory.
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I'll sing with the glitter.
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Jesus is now. Now let's all be seated.
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Before I begin, I wanted to give honor where honor is due.
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And this week it is to the Mount Laurel Fire Department. And Officer Burnett, we had a small fire at our house on Thursday.
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I smelled smoke coming into the house and I couldn't find the source of it. The fire department got there within minutes.
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Just amazing how quickly they responded. You know, firemen, they go to where the danger is.
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Instead of running away from it. And we want to give honor to that. So let's just give a hand clap to the fire department.
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Praise God for that. And in His providence, seek and you will find. They found an outlet on the outside of the house that had caught.
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And just without even being plugged in, it just went. And by God's grace, they were able to take care of that.
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So we thank the Lord for that. Let's pray. So Father, I want to thank you, Lord, for your providence in our life.
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And your guardian angels, how you watch over those who fear you. You surround your children and keep us and guard us in all of our ways.
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Thank you, Lord. You are a good God and we are not even aware of how many times you have rescued us and protected us with your guardian angels.
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So this morning, we want to say thank you for that. And Lord, we pray that you would open our eyes to see your hand in our lives.
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To recognize your providence in the things that unfold. And Lord, this morning, as we gather in this place, we come to the fountain of living water.
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And we ask, Lord, that you would send your Holy Spirit to fill us afresh.
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Fill us with your Spirit. Let us drink deeply from that well. In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen. By God's grace, last year we were able to plant another church.
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We had in our midst a church planter who had been training for that for years. He was also our youth pastor at the time,
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Ben Honeyford. And so he was sent out to a different part of Mount Laurel to start The Rock.
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Now The Rock, that name, The Rock, has much significance. Just as Cornerstone has significance in the
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New Testament, Jesus Christ is pictured as The Rock, the foundation stone of the church.
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We're also told in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 4, that Christ is that rock in the wilderness from which the water poured out.
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That gave living water to the Israelites. That they would drink and not die. So The Rock is symbolic in that way.
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Well, what do we do with living water? If we have The Rock, Christ Jesus, in our midst, what do we do with that living water?
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We share it. We desire to give that living water to everybody that we know.
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And Ben was doing that online. By the way, Ben is very gifted in online advertising and reaching people using the internet.
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It's a great tool, and he does a great job with that. One thing I noticed a couple weeks ago,
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Ben Honeyford posted an invitation offering the living water of the gospel. And somebody online put one of those mocking laughter faces.
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You ever seen that? Where they use laughter to mock you? So I clicked on his profile to say, you know, who would do that?
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Why are you going to mock an invitation to a church event? And sure enough, it was an atheist with much anti -God rhetoric.
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But here's what I noticed just a couple of posts down on this man's profile. He said, people tell me if I go to bed earlier,
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I'll wake up and feel better about myself. Joke's on you. No matter when
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I go to bed, I wake up and I feel terrible about myself. It was an interesting insight into his life.
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And I'll tell you, the soul absent God will ultimately end up in that dry, hopeless, terrible feeling place.
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Without the living water that comes from Jesus Christ alone, the soul will wither up and die.
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In fact, that soul is already dead and is searching for substitute sources of water that can only satisfy a little bit and for a short time.
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But before long, that God -sized hole in the heart will become apparent to a person.
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And the only final result of this is sadness and ultimately death and eternal separation.
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And yet we have the living water. Wouldn't you like to know where a person can go to find living water?
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And I don't just mean water that satisfies your thirst when you're thirsty.
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I grew up in Florida, so I know what it's like to play basketball all afternoon and you get so thirsty, you're so into the game and you're sweating so much that by the end of the game, you are so dehydrated that you can barely move.
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And what you do is you go to the side of the house and you turn on the hose. Anybody else do this?
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I used to do this all the time and just drink right out of the hose and just flood your body with water trying to survive the
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Florida sun. That's what it's like to be parched. But what is living water?
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And where can you go to get a kind of water that doesn't just quench your thirst but gives you this deep, deep sense of joy and purpose and an overflowing sense of meaning in life?
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That living water comes from Jesus Christ alone. I'm going to take you to the well as we go to the scripture.
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But first, let's go to Jacob's well. Who knows where Jacob's well is located?
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It's located, you guys know, you don't have to speak out loud. It's a rhetorical question. Jacob's well is located between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal in Israel.
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In the northern tribes, there were two mountains. Mount Gerizim was the mountain of blessing and Mount Ebal was the mountain of cursing.
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And in Deuteronomy 28 and 29, we learn that there are blessings associated with obedience.
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That's Mount Gerizim. And there are curses for disobedience. And what they would do is they would read the law from each side, from both sides of the mountain.
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The curses from Mount Ebal and the blessings from Mount Gerizim.
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Down in the valley, you could hear both and you're being warned of the one and promised life with the other.
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Down in the valley was a place called Shechem, Sychar, different locations there, but all in the valley beneath the mountain.
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Jacob settled there. Jacob, of course, had 12 sons and you remember the story how
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Joseph was sold into slavery. Well, they had settled there and Jacob dug a well.
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Digging into limestone, 128 feet deep, he dug a well because in that arid place there wasn't much water.
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But Jacob's well provided for his sons and his daughters, for his family.
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Jacob's well. Let's take a look at what that well looks like today.
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We'll watch a one -minute clip of an archaeologist and a pastor who visit the site of Jacob's well.
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And it set the mood for the main reason I wanted to come to Nablus, to see Jacob's well and relive the story of Jesus and the
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Samaritan woman. Here's the well.
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Amazing. Look at that. That's beautiful.
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So let me count down many seconds. OK, go. Four seconds.
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Four seconds. 120 feet deep. 120 feet deep well. I mean, just the whole thing right here just looks so ancient, you know?
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Yeah, it's awesome. If you put your hand here, you can see the mark of the rose. Oh, right.
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Right, right. So the ropes have caused grooves. I mean, could this be as old as the time of Christ?
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Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. This stone could be as old as the time of Jacob. I'm amazed at a bunch of stuff.
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Jacob's well still exists today in the same location where Jacob dug it, obviously.
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So the well is 128 feet deep. That's pretty deep, right?
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And what's amazing is it's still producing water. You can lower a bucket. Well, almost nobody gets a chance to go in there.
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The Samaritan area is kind of dominated by Muslims now, and they don't allow much Christian tourism there.
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But if you do get the chance to go like that archaeologist, you could put a bucket down there and pull up fresh, sweet water from that well.
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Wouldn't it be great if each of us this morning could drink from a well that is deeper than that well by far, and a water that is so much sweeter that it can satisfy your soul like nothing else in this world can?
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Let's turn. John chapter 4, the woman at the well. Jesus is that fountain, and the water is the
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Holy Spirit. Let's read about this. We'll read John 4, 1 to 15.
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The big idea this morning is that there is living water for anyone.
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Anybody here this morning or listening online, no matter your ethnicity, your gender, the amount of sinful behavior that you have engaged in in the course of your life, there is living water offered to you this morning from the true
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Jacob's well, Israel's true well, which is Christ himself, God in the flesh. John 4, 1 to 15.
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Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples, he left
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Judea and departed again for Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria.
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So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son
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Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.
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It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water.
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Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
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The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?
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For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you,
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Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
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The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.
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Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob?
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He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.
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Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
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But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
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The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.
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The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.
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Amen. The Lord blessed the reading of his word, and now the preaching, the expositing of what we have here in the text.
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So the first thing to notice from verses 1 to 6 is that it was a divine appointment that Jesus would meet the woman at the well.
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It was sovereignly planned by the Father, and that is why we have in verse 4 that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.
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What do you mean he had to pass through Samaria? Was there a gun to his back?
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Was somebody forcing him to go that way? In point of fact, Israelites generally would not go through Samaria.
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They would tend to cross the Jordan River to the east, head north, and cross back over when they got past Samaria in order to get to Galilee.
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Or they would take the coastal route by the Mediterranean Sea and head up north that way.
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But they would not pass through Samaria. Why not? Well, the
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Samaritans were considered unclean by the Jewish people. They were a sort of half -breed of Jew.
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In the year 722 BC, the Assyrian army swept down upon the northern tribes and conquered them.
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Having conquered them, they deported a lot of the people, and they left a remnant. But then, this is what the
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Assyrians would do. They took other people groups and sent them into Israel to intermarry with the remnant to so dilute the ethnicity of the people.
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Does that make sense? And the point of doing that was so that it would be less likely that a people group would rebel against Assyria.
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But they also wanted people in the land to produce the crops and to provide tax revenue.
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So they would send a different people group to intermarry. Well, this is who the Samaritans are.
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They are those who intermarried with pagans, non -Jewish people,
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Gentiles, who did not worship Yahweh. And so their worship also had been diluted, and they were now kind of a mixture of Jew and Gentile.
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And therefore, the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. It would be odd for the Jews to pass through Samaria.
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And yet, what does verse 4 say? He had to.
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And this, of course, is the divine appointment of God. There was an appointment for Jesus with a woman at a well.
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And that's the first thing to notice. It was a divine appointment. The theological word for this is providence.
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It was within God's determined plan that Jesus had to go this way.
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A divine appointment for a certain woman at the well. Now, we're going to learn something in the next section that applies to all of us.
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No matter who you are, no matter your gender, no matter what you've done, the living water that Jesus offered to the woman at the well is also offered to you.
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There are no man -made barriers that disqualify you from this offer.
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So let's look at this. In verses 7 to 9, we're told a woman from Samaria came to draw water.
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That's no coincidence that she would be heading at high noon to the well to meet
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Jesus at that particular point in time. There was a divine appointment with this woman.
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Now, what about Jesus in that divine appointment? He has traveled, at this point, 20 miles from where he was baptizing through Samaria to this particular city.
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Now, this was not just a casual walk through the neighborhood. This is an undulating landscape.
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It is up and down. It's rocky. It's hard to get a good foothold. And so it's treacherous and difficult.
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For six hours, he has trekked to get to this place.
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Anybody here ever run a marathon before? 26 miles? I did that like 20 years ago.
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Now I would never be able to make it. But I'll tell you, and it took me about six hours too, which isn't a good time.
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Six hours of walking through that kind of terrain to make it to the well.
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The Bible tells us, look at verse 5. He came to a town of Samaria called
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Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, look at our word, wearied by the journey, was sitting beside the well.
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The ESV, I think, misses a small point here in the translation. The King James and some others say, thus sat down.
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Meaning that even his sitting displayed how weary he was. The word weary here in the
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Greek refers to being completely exhausted. And even the way he sat down displayed that.
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In other words, he kind of flopped onto the side of the well. He flopped down.
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He was exhausted. And so he says, give me a drink. But listen, what does that tell us about Jesus?
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He's fully human. He gets weary as we do.
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Maybe as an athlete, there's been times when your coach has been pushing you so hard, you don't feel like you can take another step, but you force yourself to do it.
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You know what it feels like to be weary. That's physical exhaustion. But what about that weariness of soul?
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Where you've taken a hit after a hit after a hit. And the circumstances of your life just start to pound you into the ground.
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A loss that's devastating. Or trouble at work that frustrates you day in and day out, and it piles up and it wears you down.
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This is the picture. Jesus is a high priest to us, partly because he can sympathize with us in our weakness.
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Jesus was exhausted. He was weary. And yet he sits down at the well and converses with the woman.
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So you see Jesus in his humanity. And then in verse 7 to 9, notice the woman comes to draw water.
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And she's surprised that he speaks to her. Now, why would she be surprised that he speaks to her?
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It says in verse 9, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
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As we've talked about, the Jewish people wouldn't hang out with the Samaritans. They feel religiously superior and ethnically, because the
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Samaritans are kind of only half Jews. They look down on them and they would not have a conversation.
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But more than that, look at verse 9. So if the ethnicity is strike one, what's strike two for this poor girl?
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That she's a woman. Verse 9 says, the Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a
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Jew, ask me for a drink, a woman of Samaria?
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You see, the Jewish rabbi, the teacher, would sit and answer questions and talk with the men, but the women were kept separate.
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There was a distance between a woman and the teaching, the offer of living water.
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So strike one, she's a Samaritan. Strike two, she's a woman. Good thing she doesn't have strike three, right?
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Actually, you know the story. Just jump ahead to verse 16 for a minute. Strike three, she's immoral.
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Her performance in life, her behavior has been grossly immoral. It says, verse 16, go,
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Jesus now, remember, we saw his humanity. Now look at his deity. In his humanity, he's exhausted, but because he's
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God, he knows things he couldn't otherwise know. Verse 16, it says, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here.
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The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying
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I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.
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What you have said is true. Strike three, an immoral lifestyle.
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Now in verses seven to nine, we notice three strikes against this woman, especially as you look ahead.
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There's no one who's righteous, so no one could come to God and converse with him.
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Worse still, there's an ethnic problem here, and there is a gender issue. Three strikes.
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But what's so striking about this passage is what? That Jesus, in fact, addresses her and says, give me a drink.
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And she's amazed by this, but what we are being taught as we read this passage is that Jesus tears down every man -made barrier to salvation.
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And you look at the culture in which we live, and everybody is fussing about the issue of race, about whose ancestors did what to whom, and if they're not complaining about race, what are they complaining about?
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Gender. Gender equity. And what rights a person has, and what's fair and what's unfair.
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And there's a religious spirit, in a bad way, which compares one person's righteousness with another, looking down on people based on the things they've done in their life.
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The beauty of this passage, and the message of the gospel, is that the water
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Jesus is about to offer in verse 10 is absolutely free.
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It is offered to all without reference to ethnicity or gender or performance.
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Amazingly, the most wicked sinner in this room could be me, the chief of sinners.
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Could be you. If we look and compare one to another, all of us are guilty.
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We might feel a little more superior than one, or inferior to another. But no matter what you've done, what performance you've registered thus far,
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Christ is offering living water to you today. And you know what
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I think about these... Have you ever... Did you see... What was it called? This is why
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I shouldn't just ad -lib. There was a movement back in the 2000s called Promise Keepers.
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And it was great in bringing men together to worship. But when I was there, I felt a little awkward because they said,
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Hey guys, everybody go find somebody with dark skin. And surround that person and lay hands on them and confess your racial prejudice.
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And I thought to myself, that's really weird. I mean, I'm on a college basketball team.
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My team is mixed in race and we all are just brothers on the basketball court. What is this about?
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And here's what I realized. The church and Promise Keepers in that aspect of it, and now today in this movement called racial reconciliation, is adopting a worldly paradigm because they don't understand what
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Christ has already accomplished on the cross. You see, in the book of Ephesians, we're told that Christ tore down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile.
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And any ethnicity, one versus the other. In Galatians 3, we're told there is no longer
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Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. And that doesn't erase the binary.
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It means that coming to Christ is available to all. In Colossians 3 .11,
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it says there's no longer barbarian or Scythian. But Christ is all and we are in Christ and He is in us.
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And so here's how I approach the issue of race and of gender and of performance.
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If someone comes into Cornerstone Church and they claim the same
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Christ that I claim, I welcome them as a brother or a sister in the
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Lord without reference to anything of the past. That's the
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Christian perspective. That Christ Himself did the work of reconciling us to Him and one another in His body on the tree.
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So we don't need a racial reconciliation ministry to once and again confess the sins of ancestors and to revisit these things a thousand times over but rather to look at each one as a blood -bought brother and sister in Christ who is complete in Him and we are one in Him.
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And so we look at one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is what
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I see in verses 7 -9. Our Savior tears down these walls.
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He Himself has done it. So women, you are welcome to come to the
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Lord the same way that men can. And the greatest sinner in the room, a lot of people tell me, yeah,
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I'd come to your church when I invite them to church but it would burn down if I walked in. Have you ever heard that joke?
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People say that all the time. They think that they're too wicked to come.
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But let's move on in the text. Verse 10, this offer is for her and if it's for her, then it's for you.
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Verse 10, Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift, church, how much do you contribute to a gift?
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Nothing. A gift by definition is free. A gift, the gift of salvation is not something given to the righteous but to sinners, the ones who need doctors and medics.
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He says it is a gift. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked
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Him and He would have given you living water.
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A couple of things are significant there. One is that it's a free gift. Living water is a free gift.
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Not something that you earn but something that Christ offers because of grace.
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But notice also who Jesus is. You see that in verse 10.
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If you knew the gift, first of all, and who it is, who is
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Jesus? I have a mentor in the faith in a sense.
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His name is James White. He is an online apologist and he debates
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Muslims. I've watched many of his debates. This guy has been an encouragement to me as he brings the truth of the word of God against the lies of the enemy.
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Muslims will often say, Jesus never claims to be God. He never claims to be
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God, so why do you worship Him? Obviously, Jesus does claim to be
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God. John 8, 58. Before Abraham was born, I am. I am is
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God's name from the book of Exodus. Who shall I say sent me? Tell him I am sent me.
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Jesus is clearly claiming to be the Yahweh, the God of Israel.
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Time and again, He makes these claims but consider the I am statements of Christ. To claim
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I am the bread of life. Who would say such a thing? To claim to be the bread that can satisfy the soul.
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I am the resurrection and the life. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I am the light of the world.
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These claims are obviously a claim to deity. But what about in this verse?
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He says, I would give you living water. This claim is a direct reference to Old Testament scriptures where Yahweh himself, where God claims to be the one who offers living water.
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Turn back real quickly to Jeremiah chapter 2 verses 11 to 19.
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Sword drill. See how quickly you can get there. Those using iPads and iPhones are like,
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I was there a minute ago. Jeremiah 2 verses 11 to 19.
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Has a nation changed its gods even though they are no gods. But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
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Be appalled oh heavens at this. Be shocked, be utterly desolate declares the Lord. Listen, for my people have committed two evils.
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They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water.
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Did you see it? Yahweh, God claimed to be the fountain of living waters. What did they trade him for?
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They hewed out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns that can hold no water.
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Is Israel a slave? Is he a home born servant? Why then has he become a prey?
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The lions have roared against him. They have roared loudly. They have made his land a waste.
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His cities are in ruins without inhabitant. Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tafanis have shaved the crown of your head.
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Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God when he led you in the way?
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And now what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the
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Nile? Or what do you gain by going to Assyria to drink the waters of the
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Euphrates? Your evil will chastise you and your apostasy will reprove you.
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Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God. The fear of me is not in you, declares the
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Lord God of hosts. So what is Jeremiah claiming at this point?
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He's claiming that God, the God of Israel, is the fountain of living water.
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But Israel very often leaves the fountain of living water to run to Egypt to drink from the
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Nile or run to Assyria to drink from the Euphrates River. This water that they seek is a broken cistern.
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It doesn't hold water. The fountain of living water is
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God himself. And this leads us into the last point.
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If this be the case that Jesus offers living water, why does your soul often feel dry?
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Why does your soul at times feel like an arid desert if what we read is true?
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Let's read it, verses 11 to 15. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep.
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Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob?
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He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.
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Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
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But, verse 14, Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
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The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
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And then in verse 15 she'll ask for that. If this is true, who is the living water?
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Don't say Jesus. Jesus is the fountain. Jesus is the well.
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Turn with me to John chapter 7, verse 38. Here Jesus mentions the living water again at a feast.
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He stands up in the middle of the festival and yells out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
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He's the fountain. He's the well. Verse 38, Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said,
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What is he referring to? Well, that would be Jeremiah chapter 2, 11 and 19. Or Isaiah 12, verse 3.
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Again and again, the promise of Yahweh is that God would offer living water to his people.
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Living water. As the scripture says, he said, But who is the water? Look at verse 39.
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Well, first in 38, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the
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Spirit. You see that? Whom those who believed in him were to receive.
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For as yet, the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
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Under the old covenant, the Spirit had a different ministry coming upon people. But after the glorification of the
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Son, the Holy Spirit takes on a more personal and enduring ministry in the heart of a person.
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Here's what happens. In believing the Gospel, the
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Holy Spirit himself comes and lives within, indwells the heart and life of the new believer.
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And do you know that prior to that moment where the Spirit comes, your spirit is actually dead.
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You're dead in trespasses and sins. You're spiritually dead. You don't actually have a relationship with God.
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So the person who's praying to Buddha, praying the way Muhammad taught them to pray, going through old boring
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Joe Smith, they take some other route and they think they're relating to God, but in truth their spirit is dead.
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Go back to John chapter 4 verse 15, verse 14.
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Jesus says, whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
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At the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living
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God comes to live inside of the believer, enlivening your spirit, uniting with your spirit and so he is with you forever.
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When this verse says that I will give him, the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, what does that indicate about losing the
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Holy Spirit? You can never lose the Spirit. David in the Old Covenant said,
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Psalm 51, take not thy spirit from me. He was afraid of losing the Spirit. But here in this passage we're told you will never be thirsty again.
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Church, let me testify. I've been saved for about 34 years. There have been times when
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I have wandered off into sin and felt dry and arid in my relationship with God.
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But I can testify that for 34 years of believing in Christ, I have never been thirsty again.
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And what do I mean by that? That means I never wanted a different well and different water.
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I never in my dry place thought let me run off to Muhammad's God or Joseph Smith's God or Buddha or the
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Bhagavad Gita. I have always known, and church you need to know this, where the living water is.
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The only well is the body of Jesus Christ. When he was broken on the cross, the spear pierced his side, the centurion stood beneath, and water and blood flowed from his side and washed that man like a fountain.
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And that fountain, Christ himself, is the well to which I have run for 34 years.
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And guess what? No matter what I've done, I've never found that well to run dry. Never! And there's somebody here this morning that your spiritual life has gotten dry.
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Your spiritual life has gotten dry. Where's the living water? Here's the secret to understanding it.
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It is that third precious member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. He has come to live inside of you when you believe, but there is such a thing as grieving the
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Spirit of God. There is quenching the Spirit. When we persist in patterns and habits of sin, we grieve and quench the
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Spirit. And so we don't experience that water to the soul. It could be an attitude or a duty that's left undone.
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And so the Spirit being grieved, you don't feel the living water.
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He's there. He hasn't left you. You need only return to Jesus, to the well, and kneel before him and confess your sin.
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And now we see verse 15, the woman got it. She simply said,
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Sir, give me this water. Give me this water. Isn't that simple?
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The water's free. And all she had to do was say, give it to me. Ask and you will receive.
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Seek and you will find. Knock, the door will be open to you. And so there's a big difference between one
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Christian and another. There's one who starts each day by kneeling before his
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Lord and he prays, Lord, give me water today.
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I need you. And he opens the Word and meditates on the Word. And he is like a tree.
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I was flipping through the channels a couple days ago and I came across the Weather Channel showing this program called
01:02:06
Weird Earth. Anybody seen it? Strange phenomenon. Well, when I happened to click on this particular program, there was a tree.
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And this tree was hollow in the middle. But it was alive and flourishing.
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And out of this tree was pouring forth a fountain of water.
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And it was the strangest thing you've ever seen. You can Google it and look at YouTube videos of it.
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It's been doing this for 26 years. The locals watch it when it happens. And it can go for days that way.
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Well, the scientists have figured out what's going on. When the water table is saturated and the waters continue to flow, there's a spring of water that shoots up and it happens that the tree is hollow and it creates a spring right out of the tree.
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That's a great picture of what a Christian life should be like. Not this dead, dry, arid, mulberry tree.
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We're going to close now in Psalm 84 verses 5 to 7 with this comparison.
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In the deserts, the arid places of Israel, there are mulberry trees.
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And it looks like they're weeping because the sap comes out of them and that's just what mulberry trees do.
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They grow in the desert in a place of mourning called
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Baca. The word Baca in Hebrew means mourning or weeping. So picture these weeping trees in the desert.
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And before I read it, compare that to the tree that is a fountain that just spurts forth water.
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Psalm chapter 1. You guys remember that, right? The first Psalm. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the way of sinners or stand among the mockers or sit in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the
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Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season.
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Whatever he does, prospers. Not so the wicked. They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
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Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment or sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish.
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Psalm 1. The tree is planted by water and it draws that water in.
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He's meditating on the word. He's praying. He's seeking. And as he does that, he's got living water and he's prospering.
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That's that tree. Now look at Psalm 84. Verses 5 to 7. Maybe you felt like the arid tree, the mulberry tree, weeping in the desert.
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Here's the good news for you this morning. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
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As they go through the valley of Baca, that's mourning of weeping, they make it a place of springs.
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The early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength.
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Each one appears before God in Zion. Church, we're headed to Zion.
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Yes, you will go through Baca. You will go through these periods of dryness and wilderness. But even there, when you seek the
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Lord, God can create a stream in the desert. Highways in the wilderness.
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A river of life. This is the inheritance of the Christian. Strength to strength.
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If this living water is the Holy Spirit, He is an infinitely deep God. You can't plumb the depths of Him.
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How far have you gone in your relationship with God? You've only swam a few feet beneath the surface of the water.
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Go to the well. Go to Christ. This needs to happen tonight. You need to kneel before Him and confess the sins that have been grieving the
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Holy Spirit. And say, I want to live this kind of life. The tree that gushes water.
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The living water that's my inheritance. I want to live like that with joy. And I want it to be such that everybody knows it.
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As we come back to this passage in weeks to come, this woman, having tasted the living water, tells the entire town of Samaria.
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She's gushing water. Gushing praise. That living water, that's how we ought to live.
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That's our inheritance. That's the strength to strength that we are promised. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for this passage.
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And Lord, as I preached it, I know I've read so much more that could be said.
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The well is deep. Deeper than we can plumb.
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The living water is for us. And so Lord, we pray right now that you would forgive us of our sins for the times we've quenched the spirit.
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And we pray that you would renew in us a right spirit. We pray that you would cause your living water to bubble up to eternal life and overflow.
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Our cup runneth over. Fill us with your Holy Spirit. Jesus, we kneel before the well.
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We come to you, the fountain of living water. Oh Lord, we turn from our idols.
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Those are broken cisterns. The lust of the flesh. The pride of life.
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The desire of the eyes. Broken cisterns that hold no water.
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Lord, we're sorry for running after these idols. They promise us life, but they leave us dry.
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They leave us empty. So this morning, we're coming back to you, Jesus. Back to the fountain of living water.
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Back to the deep, deep well. We ask, Lord, that you would fill us afresh.
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Fill us anew with your precious Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name.
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Amen. Stand for one last song. The splendor of the
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King and clothed in majesty let all the earth rejoice.
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He wraps himself in light and darkness tries to hide and trembles at his walls.
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Great is our God. Sing with me, how great is our
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God. All will see how great, how great is our
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God. Age to age he stands.
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Time is in his hands. Beginning and the end,
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God and Father, Spirit, Son.
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Sing with me, how great is our God. All will see how great, how great is our
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God. He's the name above all names.
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Worthy of all praise. All will see how great is our
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God. He's the name above all names.
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Worthy of all praise. All will see how great is our
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God. How great our
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God. Sing with me, how all will see how great
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To the one listening online or here today that you've never come to Jesus, the offer is for you.
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You don't have to jump through any hoops and it doesn't matter what you've done in the past. All are welcome to come and drink from the water of life.
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And to us who have drunk before, today is the day to renew that, to come again and drink afresh.
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It says here in Revelation 22, 16, and 17. We close with this.
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I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.
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The Spirit and the bride say, come. And let the one who hears say, come.
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And let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.