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Episode 34: Forgiving Yourself · Women At The Well: REJOICE

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Grand Rising.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Women at the Well Rejoice.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is great to arise this morning knowing God has graciously given us another day.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: We are not present by coincidence, but because of God's gracious gifts of mercy and grace.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: For that alone, we ought to tell God thank you.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sisters, I'm Rose, your host here at the well, and I'm so glad you have joined me this morning.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wished you could take back something you said?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you spoke too quickly, reacted out of anger, or made a decision that you later regretted.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think many of us can relate to that.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking too soon, speaking before we heard the whole story.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we carry regrets from relationships we know we're not ordained by and not God's best for us.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we connected with the wrong crowd, made choices we aren't proud of, or went through a season of life that left us carrying guilt and shame.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes, even after we've asked God to forgive us, we continue to push and punish ourselves for what God has already forgiven.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sisters, any of us can make mistakes.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Any of us can take a wrong turn.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: But our mistakes do not have to become our identity.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, we must accept this powerful truth.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: God forgives us.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: If we have sincerely confessed our sins and received God's forgiveness, we cannot continue sentencing ourselves for something Jesus has already paid for.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So today, as we continue our August Forgiveness Series, we're going to talk about something that can be very difficult.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Forgiving yourself.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to learn how to release the guilt, put down the shame, receive God's grace, and begin moving forward.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, sisters, grab your coffee, your tea, or your lemon water, and come sit with me at the well.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sisters, today we're learning to forgive ourselves.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, we thank you for one more day.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you because you are a forgiving God.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you because you are creator of everything.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your mercy, your grace.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you because you are a transforming God.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You make us anew.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: You rebuild us.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you because you love us.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you because our past no longer hangs over our head.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We are being set free.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you, Lord.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you God all by yourself.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We praise you.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we give you all the glory.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to forgive ourselves today, Father.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Alright.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into the word.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know we all make mistakes.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know life is a trial of ups and downs.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some mistakes we move past quickly, but then some mistakes seem to grip us and hold us.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Keep us from living up to God given.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: They keep us from living up to our God-given potential.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to look at John chapter 4, verses 1 through 42.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to meet the Samaritan woman.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: This woman has carried shame from her past and likely believes she would never escape it.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: After meeting Jesus, I say that again.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: After meeting Jesus, she left her water jar, embraced her new identity, and became one of the first evangelists in her city.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: She marvels releasing shame and accepting God's forgiveness.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's read her story.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be reading from the NIV.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: John chapter 4.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Although, in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now he had to go through Samaria.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he came to a town in Samaria called Sikar.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was about noon.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: When the Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: His disciples had gone into town to buy food.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: How can you ask me for a drink?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that ask you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sir, the woman said, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Where can you get this living water?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: He told her, Go, call your husband and come back.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have no husband, she replied.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: The fact is, you have had five husbands.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the man you have now is not your husband.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: What you have just said is quite true.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our ancestors worship on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in is in Jerusalem.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: One, Jesus replied, believe me.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: A time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: You Samaritans worship what you do not know.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yet a time is coming, and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: When he comes, he will explain everything to us.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you, I am he.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: But no one asked, What do you want or why are you talking to her?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Could this be the Messiah?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: They came out of the town and made their way towards him.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But he said to them, I have found food to eat that you know nothing about.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then his disciples said to each other, Could someone have brought him some food?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you have a saying, it's still four months until harvest?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: They are ripe for harvest.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Even now, the one who reaps, draws a wage, and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps, is true.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Others have done the hard work, you have reaped the benefits of their labor.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: He told me everything I ever did.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And because of his word, many more became believers.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus knew the woman's past, and yet he still loved her and wanted the best for her.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Her past may have carried shame, but when she encountered Jesus, her shame did not have the final word.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: His grace did.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sisters, I tell you, your shame does not define your identity.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Your mistakes do not determine your future.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: When God has a purpose and a plan for your life, there is nothing that you've done that can stop God's plan.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: In 2 Corinthians 5.17, it tells us, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: The old has gone, the new is here.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful promise.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you have done, whatever you have said, whatever mistakes from your past still holds you in the grip of guilt and shame, give it to Jesus.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to keep carrying something that he is willing to forgive.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sisters, let it go.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Receive his grace, accept his forgiveness, allow him to transform you into the woman he is calling you to be.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your past is part of your story, but it is not your identity.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, you are a new creation.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So be set free and walk forward in freedom.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today with grateful hearts, thanking you for your mercy, your grace, and your unfailing love.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, some of us had carried the weight of our past for far too long.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have replayed our mistakes, remembering our failures, and allowed gift, guilt, and shame to follow us into places where you were trying to lead us.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: But today, Father, we choose to believe what your word says about us.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have forgiven us.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: You have redeemed us.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And through Jesus Christ, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Father, help us to stop punishing ourselves for what you have already forgiven.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, when those memories of our past try to remind us of who we used to be, remind us of who we are now.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Women who have been forgiven, restored, and made new through Christ.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, give us the courage to forgive ourselves.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Help us learn from our mistakes without living in them.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let our past become a testimony of your grace rather than a prison of shame.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, for the sister listening today who is thinking, but you don't know what I've done, whispering to her heart that you know and you still love her.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Remind her that no failure is greater than your grace.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So God, today we lay down our guilt.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: We lay down the shame.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: We lay down the regret, and we pick up your grace, your mercy, your peace, and your freedom.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Father, that you have given this to us through Jesus Christ.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive us.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now teach us to walk like women who know they are forgiven.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: We receive your grace.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: We release the shame.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Father God, we choose to walk forward in freedom.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: In the precious name of Jesus, we pray.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can release everything.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sisters, it has come time to leave the will.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that you have been encouraged, strengthened, and uplifted by today's message.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: As you go about your day, please remember this.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our God is a God of mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: He loves us.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: He sees us.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he is continually transforming us.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: You are forgiven.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to remind them by yesterday's mistake.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: You understand.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: God forgive us.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive yourself.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what for us in the freezer has given you.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm going to have to be the most.