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#GenCamp24: Living a Gospel Centric Life | Terry Yeow · Generations Church

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Hey, there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that
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the word of God today will challenge, change and channel you into your God
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given destiny. Now let's get started. Now, I'm going to start off
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today by this question, what is the gospel? What is the gospel?
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I think it's important to ask this question at the very beginning because the title
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of my sermon today is living a Gospel centric life. If my title my
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sermon is living a Gospel centric life, I think it's important for us to
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firstly understand and establish what the gospel is. Correct. Now, in my
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opinion, it's not just my opinion. The gospel is simple, and the
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gospel consists of this three statement we lost it all, he paid it all,
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and we gain it all. That is, in its essence, the
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gospel. I remember having this conversation with one of my young adults. Okay,
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he's twenty one, and he was in a season in dumc where there
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was this movement called the hyper reform theology that was going very rampantly among the
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universities and among the colleges. If you're a university or college student, you
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will understand what I mean. And in the sitting down conversation with him.
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I asked him this question, what is the gospel? Because he was like,
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you know, Terry, we're not gospel center enough. You know,
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Terry, what we preach it is not gospel center enough. The songs that
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we sing, it's not gospel center enough. Out dressing is not gospel centered
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enough. Your hair is not gospel center enough. Yeah, no, everything's
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not gospel saying. I was just asking this simple question, what is the
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gospel? My friend? He looked at me, and when it's too complex
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to explain? Is it really? Is it truly that complex that you can't
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explain it to me? So I say, let me ask you this question.
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If I was a non Christian, if I was your friend and I
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wanted to come to Christ, and I asked you this question, can you
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explain to me what the gospel is? And I five minutes? What would
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you say? I will tell my friend that it's too complex, Come to
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service, come to discipleshap group, commit to one whole year of Bible study.
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I was like, okay, let me just share with you one thing
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that the Gospel is not complex. It is simple. It is straightforward,
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but doesn't mean that it has no value listen, we lost it all.
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We had lost it all. There is nothing that we do today that can
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earn us the grace that He's afforded us. Our destiny, our eternal destiny,
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was damnation because of the sin that's in our lives. There were many
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many accounts in the Old Testament where the Lord had instructed great and mighty men
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of God and his people right to say, look, if you want my
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presence to continue to be with you, you need to do these things to
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atone for the scenes. And that's why the sacrifices you know, were in
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place, the tabernacle and all those things. I'm not gonna get into that,
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right, but each and every single time men had failed, we had
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failed. So what was the ultimate price that had to be paid him sacrificing
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his only son. He paid it all. He did it, all,
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the work on that cross, the salvation that he brought, the veil that
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he tore, so that now the presence of God can dwell among us freely.
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But he didn't end there. As he resurrected. It was proof that
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he had defeated death, he had defeated the very destiny that we were all
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on past four He paid it all, and they at the end of the
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day we gained it all. That is the message of the Gospel. Now,
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friends, my full lock to all of us, is this with understanding
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this truth, with understanding this reality of what the Gospel is, this definition
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of what the Gospel is, my question to you is what is our response
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to this? It cannot just be us going oh wow, that felt good,
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Thank you Jesus, and we sit on our laurels. But what is
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our response to that truth? The Gospel redeems, the Gospel restores, and
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the Gospel commissions us. But how can we continue living and advancing that gospel?
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Is what I would like to challenge and talk to us about today.
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So if you have your bibles, please turn with me the John chapter four.
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Be reading from verse four. You can just read along with me silently
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in your heart, or you want to read out as you can. Problem
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John topped the four verse for now he had to go through Samaria. So
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he came to a town in Samaria called Sichar, near the plot of ground
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Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus,
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tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.
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It was about noon when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said
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to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into
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the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you are
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a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for
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a drink? For Jews to not associate with Samaritans, Jesus answered her Verse
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ten. Jesus answer her, if you knew the gift of God and who
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it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and
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he would have given you living water. Sir. The woman said, you
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have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you
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get this living water? Are you greeted? And our father Jacob, who
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gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons,
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and his life stalk. Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will
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be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.
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Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of
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water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir,
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give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming
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here to draw water. He told her, go call your husband and come
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back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her,
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you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you
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have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.
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What you have just said is quite true, sir. The woman said,
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I can see that you're a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,
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but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.
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Woman Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will
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worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship
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what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation
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is from the Jews. Yet the time is coming and has now come.
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In the true world, shippers will worship the Father in the spirit and in
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truth, for they had a kind of worshippers. The Father seeks God is
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spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman
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said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes,
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he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I the one speaking
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to you, I am he verse twenty seven. Just then his disciples returned
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and was surprised to find him talking with a woman, but no one asked
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what do you want or why are you talking with her? Then leaving her
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water Jah, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,
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come see a man who told me everything I ever did? Could this
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be the Messiah? They came out of town and made their way toward him.
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Let's skip to verse thirty nine. Many of the Samaritans from that town
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believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever
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did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay
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with them, and he stayed two days, and because of his words,
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many more became believe us. They say to the woman, we no longer
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believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves,
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and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. Understanding
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the Gospel and how it transforms my life and receiving the truth into my life
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are one thing, but having the deep desire to live a life advancing it
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is another. You see, there is a hole in our lives. It
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is so deep It is a longing that's so great that can only be quenched
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by one thing, and that is God himself. You see, we constantly
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long for more as human beings. I believe all of us are in this
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place right now. We're all humans. We all have this deep longing and
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we constantly long for more. It is deep within us. But maybe that
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deep longing isn't such a bad thing, but it is a necessary thing.
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Let me explain more. You see, we are designed within us is so
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that we may run back to the one who fills us. You see,
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what if that longing we try desperately to fill in our daily is actually our
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daily reminder to keep seeking God. So don't run away from the longing,
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but long after the one that can fill that void and fill that gap constantly
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and eternally. There are so many lessons that we can learn from John chapter
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four, and I would like to introduce us to forming points and forming lessons
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that we can draw from John chapter four. So are you guys ready?
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All right? So let's start with point number one. Is this Jesus met
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her and this is found in verses four to nine. As I just read
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just now, you see some things too kind of interesting that we can pick
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from these portions of scripture. She scheduled her day to avoid her deepest pains
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and shame, yet Jesus still met her. Let me explain this a little
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bit more. You see, she obviously frequented that well. Right, let
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me just point out and say that Samara was a desert town and at the
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heat of the day at noon, nobody would go to the well to draw
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water. It was hot, a little bit like what Ka and PJ is
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right now. I showered this morning, cold water, colder like I never
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showered, cold water, heater wasn't on sh you know, in the initial
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was a little bit like shocking. But I was like, oh, this
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is nice, this nice cold water the moment I see you off the water
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and started drying myself sweat. This is the reality of our nation. Samara
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was a desert and at the heat of noon, nobody goes to the well
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to fill up their water or to get water. So there can only be
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one explanation. She had scheduled. It was something that she did to avoid.
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See, perhaps she planned to escape meeting the villagers. She could have
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been an outcast because of her background, and you know, she's had four
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or five husbands, and she was. The man that she's seeing now is
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not her husband, so she's probably got a reputation right Yet, Jesus would
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meet her there. You see, Sometimes perhaps some of us feel the weight
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of our circumstance is overwhelming to the point where we think we have straight away
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too far. We think that we are too far from the Lord, that
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there's no way that he would meet us. But Jesus sat there, asking
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for a drink, asking and our cast for help. This indicates that in
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God's eyes, no one is too far gone. You've not done anything,
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anything at all that's too insane for the Lord to sit there. Meet you
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where you're at. He will be right there. The question is are you
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willing to engage him? So Jesus met her. The second point is this
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is found in verses nine to twelve. She stayed with Jesus. Now what
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do I mean by this? You may think to yourself, My goodness,
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so simple. You see, it would have been so easy for her to
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turn away in shame the moment Jesus revealed all that was going on in her
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life. Friends can side is real quick. Nobody likes to be confronted let's
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face it, that is the very thing that sometimes draws us away and stops
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us from coming to the Lord, because we do not want the stuff that's
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going on, the mess that's going on, the ruppish that's going on in
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our lives, to be confronted. She would have been so easily like her
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response to how Jesus had spoken to her. She could have responded in a
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way where she was like, you know what, I'm offended. How dare
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you? Who are you? Who are you to say these things about me?
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You don't understand what I've been through, You don't understand my upbringing,
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You don't understand the motives behind what I do? How dare you a stranger?
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Someone? You ask me for help? I give you water? How
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dare you? Nobody would have blamed her, and she would just turn around
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and left, gone back to what she was, I mean, gone back
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to her life, gone back to her circumstances. But you know what,
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the gospel is simple. But friends, I have good news for you.
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The gospel is also offensive. How can that be good news? Terry?
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Because you know what, we lost it all. We have to acknowledge that
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we are sinners and our trajectory is towards eternal damnation. Nobody likes to hear
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that, nobody likes to be confronted with our mess. But she stayed with
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him. Even after Jesus had confronted her and revealed all her wrongdoings and the
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circumstance that she was in that could be shameful, she stayed with him.
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See, there isn't anyone who is too broken to receive this living water.
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Friends, I wonder what would happen. I wonder what would happen if you
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just said for a while, if you just came a little closer to him,
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if you just pursued his presence just a little bit more. See what
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if you crack the surface open and you allowed the space for him to fill
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you. My main encouragement to you in this point number two is that when
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you stay, you can be filled. When you stay, you can be
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filled. So the next time you're confronted with what you're struggling with, the
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next time you're confronted with a circumstance that you've been running away from, instead
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of turning around and going back, why not just sit for a while and
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allow him to feel you. Third point, just from verse thirteen to fifteen,
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she received his filling. Now she stayed long enough to dig deeper,
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and she was open to change. Perhaps not most importantly, well, perhaps
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most importantly, Jesus stayed and showed her what she had been looking for all
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along, that void in her life that she was probably filling with all these
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relationships that she was having, perhaps Jesus in debt. As she dunk deeper
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and as she pursued him, she had found what she's actually been looking for
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all the while. See, Jesus offered. Jesus offered that living water to
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her. He always offers us where it be, salvation be it. Uh,
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you know the truth, He's always he's offered like offering us feeling.
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He always offers, and most importantly, he offers us a place to never
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thirst again. But when we receive it. You see, I've always heard
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like feedback of like so friends who struggle, right, and they're like,
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man, I've not encounter God. I've not encountered God. I don't know
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why the past Andy, I'm sure he has heard this before as well.
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You know, I've not encountered God. I don't think he's real. And
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you know what, he's never like offered anything to me. Friends can't say
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Jesus always offers. He always offers us a way out. It's whether we
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receive it or not. See, receiving is hard. It's not easy because
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I mentioned you know, we start off with the offense and then he's getting
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past that offense and sitting down and pursuing deeper. But receiving is hard,
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especially when we believe we are too far gone. See, perhaps you have
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had the faith to firstly receive that salvation, but perhaps you're struggling right now
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to have faith enough to advance it. But receiving is not a destination.
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It's not something that we pursue. Oh, I'm working towards receiving from the
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Lord. No, receiving is not a destination, but it is an action.
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It is something that we actively pursue. It is a daily choice that
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we never cease to do. It's only in the receiving when our thirst is
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quenched. And no, so graciously just now brought water for me because I
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was thirsty. I could not have quenched the thirsty if I did not take
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that action and received it. It's as simple as that friend, so she
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received his feeling. What is the posture of our hearts today as we enter
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into this service. I don't know most of you. I don't know how
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your year has been, certainly, but as you entered this this what is
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the posture of your heart? Are you ready to receive from him? My
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fourth and final point from verses twenty eight to forty two. And she desired
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to go and do See she immediately ran off to tell others. And I
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can't emphasize how important the words she immediately ran off and told others. See,
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he did not just fill her longing, but it gave her a new
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desire to use that energy to live out her new purpose. What is to
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tell the people of this story that she had just gone through? The story
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of the Woman at a World is a story about love, truth, redemption,
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and acceptance. You see, friends, she lost it all. She
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certainly had lost it all. Her pathway was towards damnation. He paid it
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all. He offered her redemption. He offered her this living water. And
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on the day she gained it all, she was redeemed, restored, and
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she was commissioned to go and tell this story, tell of this man.
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And if we read and you know, at the end of this passage of
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scripture, the entire town heard from Jesus themselves, and they were saved.
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But I believe in this. I believe, and I would like to invite
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all of us to respond. After we've heard this revelation, I would like
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to encourage us to respond as we worship him. How do we live a
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gospel centric life? Sit with Jesus and allow him to reveal to us our
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brokenness. Allow him to reveal to us our struggles. Allow him to reveal
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to us our hurt, our pain. Receive the living water. Allow him
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to restore your purpose, Allow him to restore your identity and your dignity,
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and finally, be bold in sharing all of this. When I was so
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when I accept the Christ, when I was seventeen, as I mentioned just
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now, I immediately started serving right. And my youth pastor at that time
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is this loud Indian guy called Michael Raj. Some of you may know him.
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He's got a mullet, Okay, like who has a mullet? Right,
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but he has until today and he's like close to seventy. He saw
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something in me and he gave me the opportunity to serve and to serve as
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a leader. So at the age of eighteen, I started serving in the
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youth ministry as a leader already, so I was involved with worship. He
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would send me for preaching classes and I'll be like, do I know,
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I know, I'll just preach to the small group the you know, eight
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of us stairs here. And he sent me on that trajectory. And from
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the age of eighteen I was serving. I was full on. I was
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passionate, man like. I loved it. I loved, you know,
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just serving God in church and just building that community, you know, among
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our youth group. Now God had blessed us incredibly. He started bringing more
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young people in. And because our young people were very passionate about God and
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about the youth group that we were at, but they started inviting their friends.
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It came to appointment. Our youth group grew and grew and grew and
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grew, and I was, you know, right at the midst of this
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growth. And so I was so excited, man, I was like,
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wow, pioneer of this youth group. And then while the exploding, well
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God, you are great. Around just before I received my food time calling
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an age l twenty five, right, I mentioned just now, So I
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was maybe twenty two twenty three, just graduated, I started working. I
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was one of the main leaders, one of the senior leaders, as we'll
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call it in the youth group, all right. And I will be preaching
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almost every single week, maybe two or three times a month. And you
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know, I was leading worship almost every week like some of you probably are
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doing as well, you know. And I was like doing things like communion.
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I was baptizing young people. Man, I was on fire. My
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mom hated Dylla. She still hated, but the Lord will speak to her
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one day. I'm very sure of that. I was doing all of that
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on fire man. On the outside, everyone was like, my goodness,
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this guy must like he wake up right there. He rolled to the spiritual
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realm and be with the Lord, so holy our you force. On Sunday
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morning at seven thirty am, somebody say, Amen, who in the world
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has you for a seventh y am? But read it. If we had
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two services seven thirty and eleven, and week in week out, I'll be
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there. I'll be on stage and I'll be like, encourage you, come
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on, pursue the Lord. The Lord's gonna break your bondages. Sin.
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There's no power over you. Come on. But the reality was I was
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addicted to pornography at the age of twenty two, in the height of my
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ministry, the influence that ahead of old people. I was addicted to that,
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and I kept it hidden because you know what, let's be I want
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to be really real with you in moments of ministry. As I'm leading the
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ministry, time a little bit like this right now, Okay, the Holy
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Spirit will be like, come on, come on, you know this is
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in your life. Come on, and I will shrug it away. I'll
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be like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't
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hear it because I've got a mission to do now. I need to get
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these people's bondages broken. God, you see God. So actually, Lord,
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I'm I'm you know, being very humble right now because I don't want
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to deal with my own thing for my I self others was my God,
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you always say stuff others first, right. I was making all these excuses,
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you know, to not to not be confronted with this week in week
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out. Are we doing this? Friends? And the shame was building,
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It was building, the guilt was building. Can I tell you there was
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one Sunday I stood on stage and it was the second service. The same
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thing happened, and I started crying because it became too much for me to
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deal with. Do you know what happened? There was a basis in our
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team. He's this fourteen year old boy that we've been training up and raising
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up during ministryt time. Okay, I was standing in front as a worship
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leader, and this boy, for some reason, felt the need to switch
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off his base, take out his space, put it down, come up
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to me from and whisper in my ear, Pass, Terry, I need
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the Lord wants me to say something to you. I was like what I
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thought, like what song he wants to do? Or like you need to
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go and pee or whatever? You know. I was like no, no,
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no, no no, and he's like, no, can I just
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talk to you for a second? And I was like sure, and I
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got you know the time Rose My wife was, you know, serving it
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full time as well, so she took over and I went backstage with him.
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I was like, yeah, what's going on? And he went PASSI,
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Terry, the Lord wants me to tell you, And I'm sorry,
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Terry. I wasn't passingly at the time. I'm sorry, Terry, I'm
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sorry, but I cannot shake this off. The Lord wants me to tell
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you to let go, to let to not run away. The Lord is
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saying, stop running away. There is no shame in his presence. Terry
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stopped running away. Okay. Then he ran off on stage. I broke
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down there, and then in the back of the stage, I was confronted
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with the sin that I was so entangled in, and I was too proud
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to sit a while, and I wanted to run away again at that point,
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friends, because it's not like, okay, the moment that ah,
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you know, Jesus, you know that I felt the same shame, guilt,
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you know, and try. It was all going on in here and
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here, and I was like, I have no time for this, and
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you go and do ministry time. But every single time I did it,
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it was like, would you just sit for a while, would you just
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stay for a while, Stop running away. And at the back of that
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stage, I sat down and I was just weeping away and I was like,
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God, I tried everything. I do not know how to get past
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this. I think I said there for a good thirty to forty minutes,
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just being ministered too. At the end of that, the Lord gave me
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spoke to me to say you need to tell Rose about this. Now.
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I wasn't dating Roles at that time. We were just friends. But because
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she was the full time bokirl, I was like, what tell her?
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But Lord, she's a girl. What would she think of me? It's
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like, no, and share this with her. So I shared it with
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her, and I shared it with my mentor. So I asked my mentor
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to be there as well, someone else accountable to about what the Lord was
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revealing in my heart. And you know, it took me a long time
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to share with them because you know why shame uma. So you know when
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if you read this specially a scripture, and like, the Lord's revealing this
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thing, so this woman, I can fully understand how hard it is to
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stay and sit for a while and dig deeper. But that's what I did.
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And they prayed for me, and they're like, okay, you know
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what, Terry, we are with you in this journey. Okay, because
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this sort of bondages, you don't just disappear overnight. And I was like,
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okay. Now I went back and the week went well. Every day
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I would be accountable to my mentor, I would call him. I'll say,
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you know, today I did feel like watching or I did feel like
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going deep into it. But I'm telling you now, and we will pray
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together and you know and all that. Now, Saturday came so one week
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almost one week right, and on Saturday night I felt the Lord say this,
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Terry, share this testimony, share your condition, share your situation right
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now to the youth. I was like, okay, when God six months
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time tomorrow? What no way? Lo God, No, don't you know
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I'm a worship leader. I've been preaching to that non stop. Come on,
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the Lord, bring up bondy. Just say thank you. I am
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God. No, God cannot. But you know what, friends, Sin
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wants to be hidden. That's how sin thrives. That's how bondages get deeper.
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That's how the void gets bigger. When we hide it. Well,
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when we bring it to light, it is one step towards overcoming it.
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So it took everything within me to go out on the stage and share with
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them what I'm struggling with right now. At that time, it took about
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six to seven months. But I'm free from that bondage. I don't feel
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like I need to get into that anymore. Now, why am I sharing
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this story with you? Friends? If you would just sit with Jesus for
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a little while, if you would just pursue his presence a little bit more,
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And would you if you would just receive this living water and not be
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offended with this confrontation, your life will change the way that you would get
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through this life till the Lord calls you home or till he comes again.
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It will change your perspective because there is no shame in his presence. There's
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only redemption, there's only salvation. There's this living water that he's offering you
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friends today. But perhaps the Lord is revealing something in your heart, and
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perhaps he's confronting you with something today that's within your heart, that's within your
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life that needs to be brought to light. Would you just sit with him
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for a while. Would you just stay with him for a while and dig
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a little deeper? Would you receive the living water and receive that healing?
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But to not just stop there, but to be bold in sharing about this.
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Thank you for listening to The Generation's Church podcast. We hope you have
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been blessed by the Word of God today. Remember to stay tuned by subscribing
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