Free in the Midst of the Bound

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If you would, for our section this morning, we'll be looking in the Gospel of John.
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So if you want to turn to the fourth chapter of John, and we will read a passage of scripture shortly.
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John, chapter 4.
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Before we go to God's word, let's just again, and again, and again, and again, we can never pray enough.
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If you think we can pray enough, then we need to talk, because we can never pray enough.
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So let us just ask God's blessing again on his word.
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Father, now we do come before you.
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We pray, Lord, that you would do a mighty work, that you, Holy Spirit, even as been prayed by Brother Mike, that you would be the teacher, the comforter, the instructor, the one who guides us, and that you would take your word and do what only you can do with it and make it real to our hearts and our lives.
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To the end, that we might grow in grace and grow in the knowledge of the Son of God, who so loved us that he gave himself for us.
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So be with us in this time.
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May we be changed into the glory of Jesus.
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In his name, amen.
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So I said to you, we're going to read a good portion of John chapter 4, although I'm not going to take it verse by verse or word by word.
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Not my intent this morning, although that would be truly profitable to do.
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But before we do read the scriptures, I want to make a couple of remarks.
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I would hope you would agree with me.
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Is it hot in here? Because everybody's fanning.
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Brother, can you see if that air conditioner is on? Because I've got a feeling, if you have grapes to drop in my mouth, sir? OK.
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If you were to read all the gospel accounts, and again, I hope you would agree with me.
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If you would read all the gospel accounts, you will find that the writers of each of the gospels, and that being Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that each of the writers have a certain and distinct way in which they present the Savior.
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Where many of Matthew picks up on is that Jesus is this great son of David, and that he's sent by God to be that servant and to be that king over that nation Israel that God had.
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Continues to go over some of the same accounts that Matthew does.
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Mark seems to take, at least in one way, this view of the Lord Jesus Christ as this great servant who comes and demonstrates the miraculous power of God.
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And so as you read the gospel of Mark, you will see that many of the miracles that Jesus does and his great healing power.
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And again, these are not exclusive, but I'm trying to get us to think how the gospels, even though they seem similar, there is distinctions to be made.
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And those distinctions are important as they're impressed by the spirit of God on the writers.
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If you read the gospel of Luke, and you go through and you read through the narrative, you will see that Jesus is presented to us in one way as that great, compassionate man who comes.
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And not only does he come to the Jewish nation, but he comes to reach out to the Gentiles.
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And again, that is something that is taken up in his accounts of similar things as in Matthew and Mark.
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And then, of course, there's the gospel of John.
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And John being the one that perhaps is the most different than the other three in that John's presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ is predominantly in the sense of him being the divine person, the eternal son of God, the one who came as God incarnate.
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And so there are many other ways in which you could divide up the thinking of the writers of the gospels.
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Some people will say, well, why is there four gospels? Can't they just say it once and that be enough? And somebody who says that is truly someone who does not read it.
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Again, if you read it, you will see that each of these writers are impressed by the spirit of God to present the Lord Jesus Christ in a very distinct way.
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And some of it is repetitive, but sometimes there is a great distinction to be made.
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What I also want to point out before we read the scripture and get into our thoughts, the main thoughts this morning, is that in all the gospels, even though they do take these different, if you will, lines of Jesus as the great son, the reality of how Jesus moves freely among all the different groups and peoples that he meets is clear.
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In other words, all the gospel accounts present Jesus as one who comes without being hindered from the work that he came to accomplish.
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And that in that, he is, and as I titled this message, free among the bound, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who is truly free among all others and that all others are bound.
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And as Jesus comes in that freeness, he sets people free.
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And that is a glorious truth, my friends.
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And I hope to develop that.
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He was free in that he had a particular work to finish.
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And in that work that he was to finish, nothing of this world could hinder him from accomplishing that.
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That truly, in every possible way, the Lord Jesus Christ was the freest man who ever walked upon the earth.
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And I hope to show you, as we look at some thoughts from John chapter 4 and give you some different things to think about in the background, that you will see it.
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And it's important.
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And I believe it's important that you and I would realize, thank God for that.
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But this is not our eternal home.
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We are just passing through this world.
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We are going the way of all the earth.
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And we ought to follow his example as best and as much as we possibly can.
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That if we see ourselves in this world, that you and I would see ourselves as those that are not hindered.
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Again, before we read, I also would ask you to remember this, as we read through and consider this morning.
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And that is this, friends.
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There's nothing new under the sun.
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There is really nothing new when it comes to man that is new.
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That the characters might change.
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But the characteristics of the characters does not change.
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We can make all the advances we want in science, and we do make great advances.
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We can make great advances in technology.
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We can make great advances in medicine.
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But here's the reality.
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The issues of the heart are strikingly the same from the very beginning.
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Man has not internally changed since the fall.
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And if you do not understand that, if you do not believe that, then I say to you, then you need to think of what took place, even as Brother Keith has been bringing up in the day that they disobey God.
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Now, I've tried to set the message up this way for a very particular reason, and that is I want to try to draw out, with some thoughts from the Samaritan woman, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the, if you will, the other people who can consider in this, how Jesus was so free in a world that was so bound.
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And that you and I should see that, glorify him for it, enjoy it, understand how he has set us free, and then, in turn, live in a way to free others.
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That, again, is why I say to you, it's not a verse-by-verse walk through this chapter.
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It's a very long section, so I'm going to ask you to sit.
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And I want to read now John 4.
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So if I stumble with my reading, please bear with me as we read through the scriptures.
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OK, John chapter 4, verses 1 through 27.
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Therefore, the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples.
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He left Judea and departed again to Galilee, but he needed to go through Samaria.
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For he came to the city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph.
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Now Jacob's well was there.
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Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, said, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
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Jesus answered and said unto her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, 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 with, and the well is deep.
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Where then did you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered and said unto her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.
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Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.
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And the woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.
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Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here.
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And the woman answered and said, I have no husband.
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And Jesus said unto her, you have well said, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband.
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In that you spoke truly.
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The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
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Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.
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Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the father.
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You worship what you do not know.
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We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews.
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But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for the father is seeking such to worship him.
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God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.
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The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming who is called Christ.
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And when he comes, he will tell us all things.
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Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.
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A day later, the disciples came, and they marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no one said, what do you seek, or why are you talking with her? And we will stop it there.
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So I said to you, I desire that we would take a look at this passage to try to continue the story of how Jesus comes as the one who is truly free.
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And in his coming, he comes to release those that are truly bound, and that this woman of Samaria is one of those who is truly bound, and that even as we shall see as we move along, even his disciples are bound, and they cannot see the freeness of the work of the Son of God as he comes.
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Let me ask you to consider for a moment some background for this passage we read.
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And not only that, but in the whole of the Gospels, if you will, there are many groups that are given to us that Jesus interacts with during his ministry.
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There are many different groups, many different classes of people that Jesus, if you will, comes into contact.
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And as he works through these different groups, he is continually sinless.
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He's continually wise.
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And he is continually seeking to release people that are bound in one way or another, all of them being bound ultimately by sin, that there are many, many different groups.
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And even as Jesus moves through towards Samaria, you will see that there are many different groups.
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And there's nothing in this world that can hinder the Lord Jesus Christ from accomplishing the work that the Father gave him.
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And praise God for that.
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Praise God that Jesus was not bound.
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Praise God that he was the God-man.
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I want you to think about a couple of the characters or the characteristics of the characters that would surround a scene like this, or any of the gospel scenes for that matter.
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And so let me just mention a few to you.
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First of all, there's the disciples, right? Jesus's disciples, the ones whom he called, Peter and Andrew and John and James and Philip and Bartholomew and Nathanael and Matthew, that Jesus has this small group of men that he has personally chosen.
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He has told them to follow them, and they do.
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And they are his closest, if you will, his closest friends while he's among us, and they go wherever he goes.
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And so we have that small band that surrounds the Lord Jesus Christ.
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But let me ask you to also consider this, that as they surround Christ, there is also John's disciples.
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You remember John the Baptist when he came and he began to preach repentance, that John actually had a following, that there were those that followed John, and they even would say, we're disciples of John.
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And although they had some understanding, as you read through the gospels, you will see that in many ways, they still did not understand the freeness and the fullness of the work and the person of Christ when he came.
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And so they struggled.
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They were bound by certain things that they did not rightfully understand.
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So you have Jesus' disciples, you have John's disciples, and they have partial understanding.
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And then I want to remind you that then we have this whole thing with the Jews.
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And the Jews break out into many, many different groups.
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Well, we got the Pharisees, we got the Sadducees, we got the lawyers, we got the priests, we got the scribes.
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And even within them, they are completely diverse from each other, even to the point where the Pharisees take this position, and they hold mainly to traditions.
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And I guess in my mind, they're more of the liberal group.
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And then you got the Sadducees, and they're more of the conservative group, but they don't even believe in the resurrection, and they're bound by their own thinking.
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And you got the lawyers running around, and the scribes, and the priests.
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So you begin to see all these different groups that Jesus, as he comes and ministers to, he needs to work through all these different groups.
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And again, I will say it over and over again during this time, that Jesus moves freely while all others abound.
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And in that freeness, he sets people free.
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And then if you remember, there's the Romans.
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Remember who they are, right? They're the ruling power, tyrannical rulers who are seeking to crush and overcome the world and rule the world, putting everybody else down and seeking to bind others in order to exalt themselves.
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So you have to deal with them.
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And then there's Herod.
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You remember Herod? There was Herod the Great and other Herods that followed him.
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Remember, he's the puppet king, if you will.
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He's the one that's been set up by Rome to placate the Jews.
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And he has this kingship, but it's all under the Roman hands.
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And even in that, remember Herod, who's the one who went to massacre all the males under two years old.
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So you have those, that group.
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And then you have the Samaritans.
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We'll deal a little bit more as we go forward with them.
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But I also want to remind you, then you have the Herodians.
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And guess who the Herodians were? I guess you could figure it out.
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They're the people who follow Herod in the back pocket.
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What I wanted to do was to paint this picture so as we go through this passage to draw up those thoughts, you would see, again, that you and I live in a day that is much similar to the day in which Jesus came.
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You know, every generation, every generation has a tendency to think that the things that they go through are things that no one else has ever gone through, right? Every generation thinks that what comes upon them, the is not true.
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Now, Jesus came in the fullness of time.
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Jesus came at the time when God pleased to bring him forth.
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But my friends, there's nothing new under the sun.
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And what goes on, what went on in the days of Jesus still goes on today.
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Matter of fact, you can go back before then.
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You can go into the Old Testament.
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You can read through the whole Old Testament.
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And guess what? If you were to close your eyes and listen to someone read the Old Testament, except for the names, which, brother Mike, you did a great job with the names, besides the names, you know what you would find in the Old Testament? You would think you were listening to the news.
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You would think you were reading a periodical.
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No, there's murders.
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There's rapes.
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There's treason.
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There's alliances.
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There's political affiliations.
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There's all kinds of things.
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See, people have never changed.
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People have been bound since the fall.
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And it works its way out in people's lives.
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And so when Jesus comes and he lives in true freeness to set those that are bound free, you and I can learn how to live in our day.
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See, it's not only what Jesus said that we need to study.
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It's what Jesus did, or what Jesus did not do, that you and I need to follow.
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We need to follow his example in every way possible.
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And as we see Jesus move sinlessly through these groups, it's important for us to ask ourselves, if we are born of the spirit of God, do you look more like Jesus today than you did yesterday? Are you freer in the gospel truth today than you were before? Are you able to minister freely to those that are bound more today than you were before? And if you're not, perhaps you need to see the example of Jesus, because regardless of the outward pressures that faced the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of the groups that he dealt with, this sinless Savior moved freely through them all.
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And as we'll see in just a few minutes, as he meets this Samaritan woman, she's bound.
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He is free.
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He sets her free, seeks to set her free.
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And that is what is needed today.
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That is what is truly needed today.
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So a couple of thoughts from the passage then.
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The first one is in verse 4.
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Just to remind us again, it says he needed to go through Samaria.
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And that's interesting in and of itself.
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He needed to go through Samaria.
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And if you were to look at a map, he's going from Judea to Galilee.
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He's going from Judea is in the south, Galilee is in the north, and guess what? Samaria is pretty much smack in the middle.
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Matter of fact, it's probably a 60 to 70 mile trip that Jesus is taking when it says he needed to go through Samaria because he left Judea and departed again to Galilee in verse 3.
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It's over a two day trip.
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This is not he didn't get in his SUV or a big red Ford and get there in an hour.
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No, this was a journey.
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And Jesus had to walk and go through from Judea to Galilee and Samaria would have pretty much been in the middle.
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It would have been a great place for him to stop.
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But I also would like to mention, I think it's worth mentioning, important to mention, it's not just that he needed to go through Samaria was in a good geographic place for him to stop.
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In my mind, in my area, because it was a good place to stop.
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But that he needed, he needed to meet this woman at the well.
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He needed to meet this woman who was bound.
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He was sent by the father for what reason? He came to seek and to save those that were lost to the will of the father with no concern about any of these other things that people were bound by.
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He didn't have to worry about whether the Romans would come against him.
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He didn't have to worry about the Herodians or the Sadducees.
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He didn't.
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He came in every way submitted to the will of the father.
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He was free among those that were truly bound.
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That he was that one who in every way, that great scripture that says, he did always the things that pleased the father.
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Not sometimes, not most of the times, he did always the things that pleased the father.
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And you know, brothers and sisters and friends, we travel through many different paths.
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And you and I encounter many different situations.
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And we need to be more and more like the son of God.
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We need to be more and more like the one who always held out the gospel of life.
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He always had to minister freedom among those that were bound by one thing or another, or even multiple things.
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Look at verse 8, then.
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Look what it says about this woman.
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He comes to this woman of Samaria.
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And Jesus said to him, for his disciples had gone away to buy food.
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And the woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
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So what do we have here? Well, guess what? Samaria was inhabited by the Samaritans.
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Samaria is inhabited by the Samaritans.
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And the Samaritans really are, they're half-breed.
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I don't know how else to say it.
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Well, they're like half-Jew, half-Greek.
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They arose out of the Assyrian captivity.
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When the northern part of Israel was taken captive, this group was raised up.
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And they were neither Jew nor Gentile.
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So in a sense, they were half-breeds, at least in the minds of many.
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And so that's why she says to him, how is it that you, Jesus, you're going to talk to me, a Samaritan? The Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
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And these Samaritans, they have their own manner of worship.
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And we'll see it as we continue on with her thoughts towards Jacob's wealth.
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They have their own manner of worship.
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They have their own customs.
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They have their own culture.
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I've read that they even had their own temples.
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They had their own traditions.
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And yet, here's Jesus, and he comes.
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And he says to her, give me a drink.
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He's not bound, as so many others are.
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They were not welcomed, the Samaritans, by either group.
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And I wanted to say it this way, friends.
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And I'm not trying to be political this morning.
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It's not my intent.
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But I'm trying to make sense, in part, of what's going on in our world today as it relates to what went on in the world then.
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And that there is, number one, nothing new under the sun.
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And number two, that we should follow Jesus' example and not be bound up in the things that bind people today.
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And so I wanted to say it this way.
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Racism, prejudice is not something new.
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The United States did not create racism or prejudice.
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It has existed since the beginning.
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And you want to know where it really started to develop? The Tower of Babel.
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When God confounded them, and spread them, and sent them out through all the earth.
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And all of a sudden, there was this tribe, and that group.
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And guess what? There's always been those that despise others, even as Cain despised Abel.
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And so as we see this, and as this woman says this to Jesus, this is nothing new.
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But Jesus will not be trapped by it.
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He's not distracted by it.
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He's not displaced by it in any way.
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Matter of fact, he moves freely in the midst of all this prejudice, and racism, and bigotry, and hypocrisy.
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And he still brings the word of life.
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And the reason why he moved so freely, my friends, was number one, he was the sinless servant.
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But also because he came to complete the work that the Father had given him.
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And listen, Jesus understood that men were lost, that men were bound, that men needed to be set free.
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And because he knew that, nothing would hinder him from accomplishing that.
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Not bigotry, not racism, not hypocrisy, not jealousy, not seditions, not this group, nor that group.
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He came to set men free.
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You know, because the gospel knows no hypocrisy or racism.
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It knows no prejudice.
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You see, part of the issue, I believe, that we have to face is that we do not understand that men are truly bound.
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We do not fully understand that men need to be set free.
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And so we get all bogged down in all this, I don't know what else to call it, so I'll call it junk.
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Because that's what it is.
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This group and that group, and they said this, and they did that, and on and on and on.
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And Jesus meets this woman from Samaria, and she's puzzled by how freely he is with his desire to not only speak with her, but to set her free.
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Let me put it to you this way, and then I'll move on.
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We can divide people any way we want, friends.
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You put them in whatever box you like, and the truth will always boil down to they are either saved or they are lost.
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You could dress them up in any little outfit you like, and at the end of it all, it'll still boil down to the fact that they are bound in sin and need to be set free.
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That's all there is.
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Saved and lost.
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And we have really struggled with such a distinction like that.
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We want to put people in groups, and then this way we can pit one group against another group, and then we can say, well, I'm not in that group.
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I'm this group.
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Now, friends, either you're saved or you're lost.
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Either you're free or you're bound.
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It doesn't matter what political affiliation you have.
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I think some people actually think that.
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Some people think every Democrat is bound on his way to hell, and other people think every Republican is going to split hell wide open.
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It doesn't matter whether you perceive people as being good or bad or rich or poor or black or white or striped or polka-dotted.
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I don't care.
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It doesn't matter.
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They're either bound or they're free, and nothing's going to hinder Jesus.
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He's not concerned whether this woman is from Samaria.
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He's concerned that this woman needs eternal life, because that's what he says to her.
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If you and I are more conscious of this, I wonder if our lives would be different.
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Look at verse 11, what it says.
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The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
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Where, then, did you get that living water? Where does she find Jesus? Jesus is sitting by Jacob's well.
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He's sitting by the well, and it just happens to be the sacred place or one of the sacred places for the Samaritans.
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This was no ordinary well.
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This was the well that was passed down from Jacob in the middle of the Samaritans to these half-breeds, this group that was neither Jew nor Gentile.
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And so as Jesus comes and he sits near this well, he's sitting in a place that makes her uncomfortable.
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It doesn't make Jesus uncomfortable.
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See, that's one of the great parts about being free.
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Do you know when you're free, nothing happens to you? The reason why we become uncomfortable is because we're bound by so many things we ought never to be bound.
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Complete the work that the Father gave.
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He came to minister rather than to be ministered to.
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So here he is, he's sitting near this well.
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It's the Samaritan place of idolatry.
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What does Jesus do? When she says to him, this is the well that we have from Jacob, not that Jesus didn't already know it, but nevertheless, what does he do? Does he vandalize it? Does he seek to destroy it? Does he burn it down? Does he spray paint it? There's nothing of the sort.
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He uses it to speak about life.
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He uses it to set her, who is bound by it, free.
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You see how different Jesus was? See what a glorious Savior we have to come and to deal with all these different groups of people and concerns.
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And he's not concerned how this would be received.
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He's not concerned that someone's going to say, oh, I saw Jesus talking to a Samaritan.
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He's not concerned about that at all.
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Isn't it great, friends, that the gospel is not subject to political correctness? Let's talk about that.
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We live in a day when we want to cancel everything.
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You can't cancel Jesus.
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You just can't do it.
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He's not bound by political correctness.
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He's not going to be boxed in by any of these things.
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He does nothing of the sort.
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Instead of speaking words to harm her, he uses it to teach her of the futility of the faith that she holds.
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He uses it, as I say, in a gospel word.
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He uses it in a way to bring it to the point of seeking to desire what he has.
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That's one of the things that we ought to do, friends.
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People ought to desire to be like us.
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They ought to see in us something that is free and full and grace and mercy and in joy and happiness, and they ought to want it.
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Too often we are so busy being part of this group, and all they see is that.
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So we're not much different than anybody else.
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Look at verse 27, as I said to you.
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Look what the disciples do in verse 27.
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And, again, I'm not dealing with all the conversation that Jesus has with this married woman, but look at this point.
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It says in verse 27, His disciples came, and they marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no man said, What do you seek, or why are you talking with her? The disciples are bound, aren't they? As much as they are the chosen ones, as much as they have seen the miraculous hands of Jesus and Jesus' healings and Jesus raising those that are downcast up again and casting out demons and the heavens open, and for all that, the disciples, Jesus, you know, Jesus, are you sure about this, Jesus? They're unable to understand the freeness and the fullness of their own master.
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Why? Because they still have preconceived notions.
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They're still full of blinders because of their prejudices.
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You know, friends, one of the greatest, one of the hardest things for you and I to cast off is prejudice.
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And I'm not just talking about prejudice between black and white.
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I'm talking about prejudice where we make prejudgments, where we are not free to speak freely, where we hedge our words and we hedge what we will do and what we won't do because of a particular affiliation on the other side.
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And it ought not to be.
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And so they have problems.
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They can't understand it.
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And I wanted to make this point.
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I believe it relates somewhat to it.
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I wanted to make this point about the churches today.
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And I wanted to say it this way.
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It is amazing to me that the evangelical churches of today are more often considered as a voting bloc than as the worshipers of God.
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That the evangelical churches of today not only are considered more as a voting bloc than the worshipers of God, but that the churches themselves consider themselves more important as a voting bloc than as the people of God.
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Maybe you don't agree with me.
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I think that's true.
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And I think that the churches are being manipulated both from without and within.
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And if the churches were to stand up and speak of the word of life and live as the true worshipers of God, they wouldn't be courted by anybody.
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Or they would be courted by those who receive life themselves.
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Let me go back to verse 10.
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Consider this.
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Jesus' response when she said to him, How is it that you, verse 9, being a Jew, ask a drink of me? Jesus' response in verse 10, Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living.
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What a glorious truth that is.
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What a glorious Savior we have.
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Let me ask you to think this.
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When she says that to him, when she says to Jesus, Well, how is it that you being a Jew speak to me, a woman who is a Samaritan, a half-breed, not accepted by Jew, not accepted by Gentile, that Jesus leads her into the gospel of life.
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That he does not begin to argue with her how she's not like him.
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And you might not think that I should say this, but I'm going to say it anyway.
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He doesn't start shouting, Jewish lives matter.
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He talks to her about life.
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Tells her he'll give her water that will spring up into everlasting life.
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He doesn't insult her.
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He doesn't tell her she doesn't join his group.
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He'll harm her.
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He speaks of the truth of the saving and resurrecting power of the word of life that he will give her living water, which is everlasting life.
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You see, friends, we who are free, we who have the water of everlasting life, we ought to be free to give it to everyone, regardless of where they are in the spectrum of the things of this world.
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And you know what's really difficult about this? Many of the prejudices and hindrances that bind us are secret within our own hearts and minds.
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And no one really ever sees them, because you know why? We're all good actors.
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And yet inside we harbor things that bind us and cause us not to move as Jesus.
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You see, Jesus was pure within, sinless within.
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And that's why he dealt sinlessly without, because he was sinless within.
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He speaks of the truth of life.
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And you know what's interesting? Look at verse 11 and 12.
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She doesn't get it, does she? He tells her about giving her living water, and the woman said to him, verse 11, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
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How are you going to get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock? She doesn't get it, does she? She's still bound up.
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You see, as I said to you, everyone in this world, apart from being free in Christ, is bound.
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She thinks her history is the answer.
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She thinks that the things that go into her background and her ancestors, she thinks those are the things that matter.
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And they don't.
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And Jesus speaks to her, and he seeks to set her free from all of that.
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She's bound and captive, and Jesus is free.
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And so as you look at it, and it goes back in verse 13, he then says to her, Jesus said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.
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You see, Jesus never moved away from that, did he? He never moved away from the gospel.
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It didn't matter.
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He could be in the middle of the Pharisees.
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He could be in the middle of the scribes.
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He could be with the disciples.
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He could be with John's disciples.
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He could be with the Samaritan woman.
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He could be with the Herodians and the Zealots.
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He sees Matthew, and you think he's concerned that Matthew's attacked? Matthew, get up and follow me! You see, friends, that's the message that Jesus came in, and he proclaimed it so freely and so fully.
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He speaks to her of her own emptiness and the futility of what she is clinging to.
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Listen to what Isaiah says.
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He says, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.
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You who have no money, come, buy and eat.
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You, come, buy wine and milk without money, without price.
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Why do you spend money for what is not bread? And your wages for what is not satisfied? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good.
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Let your soul delight itself in abundance.
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Incline your ear and come to me.
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Herein your soul shall live.
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My friends, it's amazing to me.
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We watch the news at night, and we see riots here and riots there, and people destroying this and people destroying that.
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And then we listen to those who cover it, and they say, well, the reason for it is that they don't have this, and they don't have that, and they want this, and we need to change the laws, and we need to educate, and we need to do this and that.
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No, we need to bring them the gospel! You set a man free, and he won't burn a building.
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Answers to all the issues of life can only be found in Jesus.
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He's the only one that can set us free.
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If we only truly believed it, there is an emptiness to all that the world seeks to give.
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And, my friends, I would believe that you would agree with me.
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The answers to the issues of life will never be found by the things of this life.
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Right? It won't happen.
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Governments, organizations, activist groups, laws, none of that will ever solve the problem of man, because the problem of man is that he's a sinner, and he needs to be set free, and the only one that can set him free is the Son of God! Simple, right? The gospel's a simple message.
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We make it complicated because we've got all these things in our luggage.
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The world...
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I thought about it this way.
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I thought about how all that goes on in this world, it's just like trying to grab the wind.
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You ever try to grab the wind? Seriously.
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Why don't you try it next time? Next time it's a windy day.
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Why don't you go out, open your hand, close your hand and catch the wind, okay? It's impossible! You can't catch the wind.
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Why? You can't do it.
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Why? Because you can't do it.
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It's the same thing.
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No one can set someone free from the bondage and the tyranny and the outworking of sin except the sinless Son of God, the Savior.
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People, all people of all backgrounds, isn't that great? I was thinking about it this morning.
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Honestly was.
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I was just praying about it this morning, gathering together, and I was thinking about how in that day, listen, in that day, there won't be, forgive me if I offend anybody, I don't mean to offend anybody, there won't be like the German saints over here and the Russian saints and then the black saints will be in this corner and the white saints.
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My friends, it'll be from every nation and tribe.
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It'll be one language.
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Right? We'll all be free, free indeed.
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We'll all worship in spirit and truth.
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For those are the ones that the Father desires to worship.
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Our message in hope of salvation is the most powerful and freeing message that could ever be spoken.
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That's why I say to you the social gospel that's being preached today is so detrimental to the cause of Christ.
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To hide under the banner of a gospel church and to preach nothing but reform and movements and changes and organizations instead of preaching of salvation from sin.
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And I don't care if they hear me, the Al Sharptons and those others that preach this social, and even some of the other ones that preach the prosperity gospel and the social aspects of that.
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My friends, they're false prophets.
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And there's no need to dress it up and say, well, you know, they got a different slant.
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No, they don't.
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This is the truth, and the truth sets people free.
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The world will never solve the world's problems.
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And here's the other thing.
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The world will never legislate life.
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Can't do it.
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Not eternal life, not true life.
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We can legislate all the laws we want.
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We can change all the things we want, but we're never going to legislate eternal life.
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We're not going to vote it in.
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We're not going to protest it in.
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You're going to protest eternal life in? Can't do it.
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Only Christ can do it.
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Only the Spirit of God can do it.
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And we ought to be the ambassadors for it.
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We ought to tell people.
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Now, I'm not trying to say if you're in the middle of an ugly situation that necessarily you're just going to start quoting Scripture.
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If you need to run, run.
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But if you can preach the gospel, preach the gospel.
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Tell them Jesus came to set all men free, that the cross has no prejudice.
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This is the message that Jesus always spoke.
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This is how he deals with the woman of Samaria.
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This is the truth that you and I need in our life, the message of the freeness of the Savior among the bound.
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Jesus was never trapped by anything except his desire to please the Father in all things.
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So as we close, I wanted to ask us to think about a couple things just quickly.
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First is we ought to follow him as his people.
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My friends, your example certainly is not me.
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And much to your dismay, perhaps, it's not Brother Keith.
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Much as I love that man and I think he sets forth a God example, it's not this one nor that one.
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It's the one who brings that.
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That's the one.
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That's the one we need to follow.
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It's Jesus.
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It's the king of kings.
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It's the Lord of lords.
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He's the one that every knee shall bow to.
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He's the one that every tongue shall confess to.
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So we ought to follow him.
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How are we doing? How are you doing is following Jesus.
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Do you look more like Jesus today than you did before? As the years roll on in your faith, do you become less and less full of prejudice and boundaries and hindrances or more? Oh, I don't do this and I don't do that, and I would never take my children to this place or that place, or I would never go into a bar.
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I'm not asking you all that.
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That's very cool.
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I'm asking you if you look more like Jesus today, if you follow his example more.
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Let me ask you, are you still getting bogged down with all these different groups and affiliations, and you take this side or that side? And you know what happens when we do that, by the way? It's easier to attack other people when you begin to put yourself in a certain group.
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In other words, and I just say, if you're a Democrat, every Republican stinks.
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And if you're a Republican, well, I'm Democrats.
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They ought to go live on an island somewhere anyway.
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It's easier to have prejudice creep up within our own souls when we have these preconceived ideas or we are bound by these affiliations.
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We can't get all bogged down in it.
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We ought to speak of the wonder-working power of God through Jesus.
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I truly hope in some small way this morning, friends, that we will be provoked by the Spirit of God to do that, that he will cause us to consider our time and place.
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Listen, friends, we are here today by God's decree.
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We live in 2020 in northeast Florida by sovereign decree.
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We're not here by mistake.
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And every one of us has a world that has been uniquely created for us by this sovereign God, and we ought to move freely in that world, regardless of all the other bound things and people, and bring the freeness and fullness of the gospel.
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Pretty straightforward, right? In other words, let me put it to you this way, and then I'll close.
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I want to read a scripture as I close, but let me say this to you.
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We need to have a worldview.
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We need to have the worldview that Jesus had.
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We need to have the worldview that Jesus had.
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And you want to know what the worldview Jesus had very compactly is? The world is lost.
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He came to save.
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He set sinners free.
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And when a man is set free, he enjoys God forever.
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Basically, that's it.
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That should be our worldview.
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Not whether I'm on this side of the fence or on that side of the fence, or I will do this, but I won't.
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You want to know why, friends, I say all these things? Because as sure as anything, what I'm about to read to you in closing is absolutely true.
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What I read to you right now in closing from Peter, if you ignore it, if you only believe it somewhat, or if you write out, do not believe it at all, I say to you, you do it to your own harm.
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Listen to what Peter says to help us to get a mindset that this world needs to be set free because this world will not last.
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Peter says this.
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The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, and both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
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Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, and by the way, it's not climate change.
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It's the sovereign king of kings that will dissolve this world.
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All these things will be dissolved.
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What manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.
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Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
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May God bless us.
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May we truly not only be thankful for being set free from the eternal punishment that awaits those that reject the Savior, but may we be eternally thankful that even in this life, we can walk freely in the midst of people who abound, and we have the message of life.
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May God bless us and help us.
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We will have Brother Mike come, as we do every week, and lead us in the Lord's table.
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You going to sing first? Come on, man.