Lemme say, welcome to all of our campuses. There you go. It's a broken world. And, uh, I'm gonna say, Hey, we're glad that you're connected today. Maybe you're online or you're one of our other campuses.

And I hope you took in that whole thing about the pottery, because I want you to know upfront today that everybody is broken somewhere. And, uh, Paul says, we have this treasure in earth and jars, jars of clay or clay pots, and the world just does that to us. I mean, there are things that happen to us that we don't have any control over. Uh, there are things that we do that we wish we hadn't done. And it's so easy to kinda come into church or to come with a group of people and try to hide that, because you're thinking, and I think this too, a lot of times if people really knew me and knew the hurt, if they really knew the brokenness, uh, they might not want me to be a part of their group.

Uh, they may judge me, uh, you know, something may happen where I feel all alone. You may leverage it against me. And you may be saying, well, where does that come from? If everybody is broken somewhere and that pottery is a picture of how things impact our life and break us and crack parts of us so that we're not whole, where's that come from? Well, it comes from Genesis chapter three, and when, when you see that Adam and Eve is in a perfect world, now think about this perfect world.

They're walking with God. They are husband and wife. They're one flesh. They have, they have no clothing on. And, and then in Genesis, and there's no shame.

There's total vulnerability. It's being known, totally being accepted. Totally. And then in Genesis chapter three, boom, they, they break the glass, they break the pottery on everything that God has planned and placed in the world. That is perfect.

And what they get from that is, is shame. I mean, here you go. You, you've got people that are walking with God. Then all of a sudden God is walking in, in the garden and he's calling out their name. And what are they doing?

They are hiding and they are blaming. And, and that's what shame does. A shame is a powerful thing. And it's taken me a lifetime to come to grips. And I'm still working through this of what shame does to us.

Shame is different from guilt. When you do something wrong and you feel bad about it, that's guilt. You know, you go, I don't need to do that anymore. Shame is really different. Shame is where you say, Hey, I'm bad.

I, I am broken and I am unworthy, and I am unlovable, and I've got to work really hard because if I don't work really hard, then man, nobody is going to accept me. And, and that's what shame looks like. Now, I tried to kinda play a picture in my mind the first time I experienced shame because, uh, I don't know about you, but man, I don't like thinking about painful things. And it's one of the reasons we hide shame and hurt and abuse and, and all the things that happen to us, abandonment. Uh, because it, it hurts to look at, it hurts to feel that.

And, and it just feels better to, to hide it and to cover it and, and to do more things and let it propel me to, to, to succeed and perform. Because if I can perform enough, then I'll be worthy. You'll keep filling that cup up. You'll keep putting some pieces back together before then something happens and that piece falls off again. Uh, when I was in kindergarten, I know you're like, man, you, you mean you, you, you remember those things from a hundred years ago?

Yeah. Um, you remember trauma. And I was six years old, and I remember, and my mom's probably watching this, and I feel so bad, but, but the first day of kindergarten, everybody brought out their stuff, you know, and laid their stuff out and, and man, they had these backpacks and they had these really cool lunchboxes. And, and I was okay until they got to the crayons because they, my friends, the people that I was about to get to know that I would go through all of my school days together, were bringing out boxes of crayons that had sharpeners. I dunno if you like, this was a hundred years ago.

That was a big deal. That'd be like a Mac computer. And, and, and I pulled out my crayons that they give you, like, at a Mexican restaurant so that you can make it through the mill with your kids. And, and I thought, man, well, what is wrong? Like, what?

Why do I have this? And, and there was nothing wrong with the crayons. It's just, it's the first time that I realized, man, there, there are different things here. It made me feel a certain way. You're going like, man, that is so lame.

I mean, there are people, you know, starving in Africa right now, and you're worried about that. Yeah, but I was six. I didn't know anybody that was starving. See? See, I was in the fourth grade and I had a teacher.

And, and let me just say, if you're a teacher, it is so important that you understand your words matter. And, and for some reason, I was sitting toward the back of the class. The teacher just did not like me. Now, which shocks me because, uh, you know, I'm such a likable person. I'm fun, I'm talkative.

I move around a lot. I can't keep my hands to myself. I mean, I am like an amazing guy. And she would just be so critical. And like, you're sitting back there like a knot on a log.

Can't you read? And I could read, but I couldn't see, and I didn't know. I didn't know that I had bad eyesight. And, and I didn't know that shaming people, shame people. And so you take in all of that and you begin to form an identity of who you are.

The psychologist called it, the looking glass self, where you begin to form your identity based on how you think other people think and feel about you. Now, let that sink in because that's what's happening. Where, where the people in your life, when you look in the mirror, you're not looking like, Hey, this is who I am. You're going, this is who I feel like I am based on what has been happening to me and been done to me. And some of you have come into these environments.

Are you listening to this message at another time? And, and you're looking in the mirror saying, I'm bad. I'm broken. I deserve these things to happen to me. And then you throw in, uh, you know, fake book.

I mean, you got fake book over there. You got insta, you, you got tick tacky. And then you're looking at that and you're like, man, look at them. I mean, look at that. I mean, like, I'm really terrible.

I'm really bad. I don't have this, I don't have that. I don't have this over here. And you're letting people who did not create you define your identity. And, and one of the things I wanna say to you today, and I gotta hurry, because now I'm realizing there's a lot more that I, I wanna say than I might have time to say, but I'm gonna get done on time, is the fact that your identity get this, this is a big one.

Your identity in Christ, this is why it's so important for you to know Jesus. Your identity is received and not achieved. Okay? Uhhuh. Yeah.

See, everywhere else you gotta achieve, you gotta perform. Listen, my mom said you would cry. I I hope your kids don't play sports, because if you didn't win, if you even tied, you cried yourself to sleep at night. You know why? I was only as good as my performance.

I didn't know that. I didn't know I was trying to work my way into being a good person or being liked, or, you know, or, so Jesus comes along and he puts things right. Jesus does something today. And if, if you don't like Jesus, you're just, you're just not right? Okay.

I almost said some other things. But if you don't understand how much Jesus loves you, in spite of everything that's been done to you or what you've done, then you just don't understand the Bible. Because today Jesus has an appointment. Get this, this is God. Okay?

In human form, he has an appointment with a person, and he goes, the, the, the, the worst possible route, the most dangerous route. It'd be like going, uh, to, to, to West Memphis and walking through nothing against Memphis. But you know, we're going down on Bourbon Street, you know, or behind Bourbon Street. And, and, and walking down you, they check you for a gun. If you don't have one, they give you one.

Yeah. And so he's gotta go down this. He says, I gotta go down this scary path. And he has a conversation with a woman. It's a woman.

See if you got all Christians, they just, they just you or they hate on women. No, Jesus, man, Jesus loved this woman. He, he talked with her more than he talked with anybody else in the Bible. The longest conversation recorded in the Bible is between Jesus and a woman who's been around, if you know what I mean. And, and he tells her the first one.

He goes, Hey, I want you to know this is before the disciples. He says, I want you to know that I am the Messiah. I take you a secret. I'm Messiah. And he uses the first I am in the book of John, wherein I am is in the Old Testament for that is the name of God.

I am what's my name. I am. And all this happens to this woman. And it begins to change her because she has come to this well, with, with, with a jar filled with shame. I I mean, if, if, if we were, if we had the jar she had, it is cracked, it is broken, it is leaking it, it is one, it's a jar that she's had all through all of her relationships, which are many.

And she's gotten accustomed to being used. She has found herself as a person. Like, this is what I deserve. This is the way I am. And then she meets Jesus.

John chapter four, I gotta read this, okay? It's gonna take some time, but I gotta read it. And if you've not seen the chosen, the, the, the first episode, like the first season, the last episode, it's got a, a storyline of this and you need to go see it. I wept last night, like Alicia wasn't there. And I wept out loud.

You know, I can't do that in front of Alicia, you know, because I'd be ashamed. Okay? So chapter four, verse four. Now Jesus said, I gotta go through Samaria, that that takes too long to tell you what that means. So he came to a town in Samaria called Crooked Skar, which which means drunken, it was a party town near the plot of ground where Jacob had given his to his son, Joseph.

And Jacob's well was there, and Jesus tired as he was from a 30 mile journey, sat down by the, well, it was about noon when a Samaritan woman came out to draw water. And Jesus said to her, why are you so like loose? You need to repent. Here's four spiritual laws. You need to read that and get back to me.

I'm sorry, it's not what it said. That's what we wanna say though. I'm sorry I had to throw that in there. 'Cause that like about seven minutes, you start like, you know, doing like this, and I have to grab you. So just know, count on your clock, seven minutes, I'm gonna grab you again.

And Jesus said, Hey, could you please ma'am, would you please give me a drink? That Sas had gone to Chick-fil-A Saturday. And the Samaritan woman said to him, you're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink for Jews don't associate with Samaritans?

And Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God, who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him for a drink and he would've given you living water. She said, sir, you have nothing to draw with. And the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did also the sons and his livestock?

And Jesus said, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, because nothing in this world is gonna satisfy you. But whoever drinks of the water I give to them will never thirst. Indeed the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And the woman said, sir, give me this water so I don't have to get thirsty and keep coming here to draw water. He said, well, go call your husband and come back.

Uh oh. You think Jesus ain't cool? You, you, you think Jesus ain't the baddest man who's ever lived? He goes, well, I ain't got a husband. She goes, he says, I know you ain't got a husband back, the one you've had five and the one you're with now, ain't your husband.

So what you said is quite true. Is that mean? Hold on, sir. The woman said, I can see you're a prophet. Our ancestors worship in this mountain, but you, Jews can, can claim that the place we must worship is in Jerusalem.

Woman, Jesus said, believe me, the time is coming when you will worship the Father. Neither in this mountain or in Jerusalem, use Samaritans worship. What you don't know, we worship. What we do know for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks.

He's never told anybody else that, that God is spirit. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth, the woman said, I know that you're a messiah. Call the Christ when he comes, uh, then he will explain to us everything Jesus said, I am He. Jesus said, I am the Messiah, girl. I am.

Verse 28. And 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. Could this be the Messiah? Now, I love this story because here is the lady, and, and, uh, I'll use that term loosely because, um, she had had a, a bunch of relationships. And see, you may be here and, and, and that's you, or you're listening.

And you didn't even come to church. Like if people knew like I'm a homewrecker, like, like, I'm not going to, like, if, if people saw me at church, they would run the other way. And that's why she's coming at noon to the, to the, well, it, it'd be like you going to Walmart at midnight, so you don't run into your exes from Texas. It it'd be like you and mean girls eating lunch in the bathroom because you didn't want to be around the ladies who are gonna be so mad at you because you've been messing around with their husbands. And so she comes to the well to get water.

And, and, and this jar represents so much about her, It represents what she fill her life with. And Jesus gonna kind of draw attention to this with regard to men, because she has gone to men to somehow make her feel whole about herself. If I just got the right man, then, then everything will be all right. And Jesus, ask her a question. Now I just think that's cool because he could have said, let me tell you something, you know, I am, I'm, I'm Jesus, I'm a savior.

You need to get psyched. You going, okay? He asked her a question. He's Kind, you said, wait a minute. You, you, you mean sinners.

You mean sinners can come to church and feel comfortable in church. Uh, they feel comfortable with Jesus. Uh oh. And he's weak. See?

See, people are impressed by your strength, but they're influenced by your weakness. He says, could you give me a drink? And, and this woman is so broken. This woman is so shamed that she gets cynical and she gets angry. Why are you asking me for a drink, Mr.

Man? You gonna be like every other man I've been with. Where, where you gonna try to tell me what to do? And then when I do it, you're gonna like hurt me and leave me and, and divorce me like every other man? I just like, I like, I get it.

Okay. She's shamed. She's got a shame bond. She, she is only, she only feels comfortable around people that are gonna take advantage of her. See, here's the thing about shame.

You can get shame bond. I get this where, where you grew up in a family and, uh, you were abused as a kid, and then you get married to what kind of person? An abuser. 'Cause you feel Like that's all you deserve. I mean, I deserve that, that that's the way I see people get married and they come out of really bad backgrounds and they don't realize that they're coming outta terrible backgrounds.

And somebody's got a big jar of this, and they get married, and all of a sudden the, the marriage gets good and they start making a little money and everything gets comfortable. And one of 'em, whoever's got a shame bond says, I gotta, I gotta collapse this because they're going to collapse on me. I need to do it first because I like chaos. I like shame, I like to be used. And they get a divorce.

I see it happen all the time. There, there's a scarcity mentality of people who are propelled by shame. I don't deserve this. I am no good. If I don't take advantage of you, I have no reason to be alive.

And then Jesus starts peeling back the layers. He says, go get your husband. I just think that's cool. Like, like if I met you the first time, you know, and I kinda knew something about you, but you didn't know I knew about you. And I said, Hey, uh, who you, who you like, who you sleeping with this weekend?

That'd be awkward. Awkward. And, and so what did she say? She goes, well, I don't have a husband. Yeah, you got that right?

You've had Joe, you've had Jack, you've had John, you've had Steve, you've had Ralph boy. Ralph was a doozy. And now you, you're all the way back around that this is a small town girl. You gonna run out of people. And Jesus is peeling back the layers.

And he says, Hey, hey, if, if, if you knew who I was, I would give you living water. And, and she says, Hey, you don't have a jar. You, you, you don't have a way to get this water. You, you, you, you, you, you can't do this. Like, like, like it's not possible.

See, Christianity is not just about you knowing more information about God. I keep saying this and nobody's listening. Christianity is not you getting more information about the Bible. It's you allowing God to give you more information about you, where you're broken, why you're struggling, what's going on in here that doesn't seem to fill you up. And she says, give me that water and see right at the church, this is what we do.

When you say, gimme that water, you know, I wanna know Jesus. I wanna be saved. You know what we do? We say, okay, let, let, let's, let's get 'em in Adventure 1 0 1, let's give 'em the house, church, and, and, and it's over. And listen, there's more to Christianity than you go into heaven and getting more information about God.

There's a lot more God wants to heal you of those things in your life that you've been blaming him for, of those thought things that happened to you when you were a little kid. He wants to heal you. And he does surgery on her. He's basically saying, why are, why are you doing this? What are the triggers that are, that are causing you to act this way?

And, and this could be with anything. This could be with alcohol, this could be with drugs, this could be with porn. This could be with performance. This could be with money. This could be with your looks.

This could be with working out where you go, Hey, I gotta have this to cover everything up because I want to be accepted. He goes, why are you doing that? And I, I have a theory that the reason a lot of people leave church is because when you get close to where they're hurting, it scares 'em. And they say, I'm not being fed. I'm not being fed.

It's a deflection from dealing with what's really broken in their heart. Because she says, Hey, I, well, I only tell you, I know, I, I know I've been with a lot of people, but I go to church over there. I go over there on that mountain. My uncle was a preacher. And, and, and, and Revelation, the book of Revelation.

Let's talk about the Book of Revelation. Because, because I know the book of Revelation is gonna tell us when the Messiah's coming back, he says, I am the Messiah. I am here. See, see, see people that are religious. This is why he goes all the way to Samaria to talk to this woman who's been with every man in town.

See, religion is a mask that you wear that tells you you're okay because you do certain things. That's not Christianity. Christianity is not just what you believe, it's what God is doing in you where the Bible reads you like an MRI, where God comes inside of you and begins to heal you so that you're not propelled by shame and performance and hurt and anger. See, see, the one reason I love Mardi Gras, and like, can I just, I'm not, look, if you're in Mardi Gras, I'm not like, it's fine. I wanna be king one day.

I just, I don't know how you do that. I wanna be king one day. You know, if you're king, like, could you pa you know, throw, throw me a crown. But Mardi Gras, it's where we really get to be who we are. If you are in Mardi Gras, 'cause you pull those tights up, you know of religion, you know, for some of you that's what you do.

It's the only time you, you, you can dress up and hide your face and you feel normal. Put that mask on. Woo. 'Cause that's what most people do with their lives. And this is the thing that just baffles me.

Jesus put her at ease. Can, can I tell you something that I'm trying to learn in, in, in these waning years is how to be in the presence of God and just relax. Just enjoy the moment. He, he says, I am the Messiah. He says, I am living water.

Here's the thing about water. If you've ever had water damage, you know this. If you ever had a flood or a pipe break, water always descends to the lowest area, the basement, those cracks in the crevice, the, uh, the closets. And, and that's what is happening with the living water in her. It's just kinda washing over her.

It's going through every single thing in her life. It's not just saving her soul, it's healing her shame. Amen. And she gets so comfortable with them. You, you know, when you're comfortable with people, you can be yourself.

You can let your guard down and, and, uh, and that's the way church ought to be. You ought to be comfortable with Jesus. You, you ought to be comfortable what he's trying to say to you because he wants to heal you. And so let me ask you, as we kind of begin to land the plane, can you name your shame? And you say, oh, I sure can, man, I sure I live with it every day.

I probably gonna go back to it because the only time I feel normal, it's kinda like a drug addict. I dunno if you know this about drug addicts been around a lot of drug addicts. And, um, a lot of 'em, my friends, a lot of 'em are dead. They only felt normal when they were using. Isn't that crazy?

See, people that live with shame and won't get healed, they only feel normal when their life is chaotic and there's hurt and abuse. And for the first time in this lady's life, she feels normal with Jesus. You say, well, how do you know that? Well, the Bible says that she was so enamored with Jesus and, and the conversation that they had and the surgery that he did, it says that she left her water jar and, and, and went back into town. And on the chosen, she's running hollered, Hey, come see the man who's told me everything I've ever did.

Hey, Joe, he told me about you. Joe's going, oh, how do you, oh, you, hey, hey, Jackie told me about you. What you about mom? Yeah. And she's holding.

Come see him. Come see me. And there's such a difference in her life. There's such a change in her face that the whole town gets saved. You didn't go to seminary.

She ain't been saved 30 seconds. And the disciples show up. This is why I love, see, this is why I love the Bible. The disciples show up with sax at Chick-fil-A you what you doing, talking to that woman. You not know what kind of woman that is.

Jesus said, I have food that you know, not of. I just, I I'm sorry, but I just, I love Jesus. Like he would rather talk to this woman than eat with those disciples. He said, look out the fills are white unto harvest, harvest. Pray that the Father will send more laborers to harvest it.

So I want you to do something. I want you to bow your heads at all of our campuses for just a moment. And I want you to get comfortable, like you get comfortable at the beach. Not not with the beverage necessarily, although if you wanna picture that in your head, it's okay. But I want you to kinda sit back in that chair, rock back in that chair just a little, and just for a moment, enjoy the fact that Jesus sees you And loves you.

Yeah. Kick back. Yeah, kick back. He, he sees you. He sees the darkest parts of you and, and the water, the living water is flowing all the way down to the bottom of that.

He's going, I got you. You can't outs send my grace. He said, I already know about that. And I I love you. I I wanna heal you.

I wanna work in you. You say, well, how does that happen? Well, you begin to turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. What are you trying to fill the jar with? That's not satisfying you?

Jesus says, remember, none of that is gonna feel you because you were made for and by Jesus. So this morning we're gonna have a little session in here where you, you're relaxing in the presence of a, of a God who loves you. He's not mad at you. Who, who had an appointment with you this morning to say to you, I've got water. I've got what you're really thirsting for you.

You can set aside your jar and you can come to me. But you gotta name it. You gotta name your shame. And then if you wanna come at all of our campuses, we're gonna do this great song together, uh, live at all of our campuses. And the fact is that God didn't just give you pieces of his heart.

He gives you his heart. And if you wanna come and just, just metaphorically lay your jar, jarred down, go to the cross and let it reflect who Jesus is to you. He's your savior. He's your friend. He took all of your shame.

He took all of your sin, past, present, and future. He loves you. I if you wanna go and take the Lord's supper and be reminded He loved you so much, he died for you. Let him love you. Father, I don't understand the Gospel because God, it is too great for me to wrap my mind around.

But Father, we do want to experience it today. So pour out your living water on us. Fill our hearts, displace the shame and the guilt, and the anger and the hurt. And Father, we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Take 60 seconds just to let this wash over you. Prepare your hearts to respond to his love.