Amen. Well, listen guys, welcome and man, we're so glad you're with us today. We've been in a series that we've really just called quite simply welcome to the family. And so we've spent the last several weeks kind of reminding you about some things that we think are unique about our family. Uh, we've, we've, we've started with the Great Commission several weeks ago where we said, Hey, this is what we are called to as a church.

We're called to go and make disciples. And then we began to walk through for us what are our core values. Now it hit me this week Katie was talking about a conference that she went to, and she's a teacher and they brought in a group to come and meet with several of the other teachers. And one of the first questions that they were asked in this conference asked teachers. The, the lady asked them, Hey, tell me your why.

Why do you do what you do? And as I began to think about that, I really believe these last several weeks for you and for me have been us sharing with you our why. Here is why we do ministry the way we do it, because these are the core values that we run with. They're meant to protect us. They're meant to guide us.

They're meant to help us understand when to say yes and when to say no. And now we've made it to the fifth one and there's only five. So just kind of take a deep breath. Don't worry. Next week we're gonna start a brand new series.

We're gonna be in the book of Romans, be a really good series, but we've made it to the last one. You say, is there anything magical about having five? I don't know that I could remember any more than five. And so five just seems like a good number. Here's the fifth core value that we're holding onto as a church.

You ready? Number five is that we celebrate change. Now, some of you, you hear that and you're like, me and you love change. I mean, and some of you're already nodding your heads like, that's not me. I, I do, I, that's just me.

I'm drawn to change. I wanna go to a different restaurant. I wanna try a different meal. Like I just, man, I I love it. It's, it's exciting to me.

Others of you, uh, change is like a cuss word. You're more like my wife. And it's, you just would rather not change. Change is difficult. And so when you hear that you're at a place that values that even celebrates change, it can make you nervous and it needs an explanation and it needs us to walk through why change has been so important and why we would say change is something that we value.

Now, this summer, I had the chance, uh, like many of you, I, I had the chance to go to a different church. And for me, that doesn't happen very often. I'm here most every week and I love being here. I don't wanna be any other place. Most of you are the same way.

This is your church. And so you're here week after week. But it was a really a cool experience to go to a different church because it helped me see just how much change we have been through here. I mean, just pulling up to the building, right? I was reminded of the different change, like when you walk onto any of our campuses or any of our churches, they, they look different.

You don't find a steeple. Uh, there's not a baptism, uh, thing right behind me or a choir loft behind me, right? Uh, may, maybe for you the name is different. We're not first so-and-so of whatever community. We're a church of churches.

We've got lots of people that are watching on screens right now, and that's a change for people. Uh, when it comes to programming, we've been through a lot of change. Maybe you grew up in a church where you expected everything to be on a Sunday morning, and that's not the way it is here for teaching. Man, you've been through a lot of change with teaching. Uh, this particular church I've visited had one senior pastor that taught most every week.

Whereas here you've been through the change with us where we have a teaching team. Uh, one of the changes that's different, and I noticed as I listened to them, uh, that this particular church was just reaching one community, which was a great thing that God called them to that community. We feel like God's called us to South Mississippi where we're reaching lots of different, uh, ages. And there's a, there's a kind of a wide variety of schools that are in this room or in the different rooms that are watching today. It's a diverse body that God's called us to.

And that's a change. One of the things that was different was this particular church that they happen to call their preacher by Brother Soandso. Don't be calling me brother Craig. I just, I just wanna be Craig. Okay?

Yeah, you get that. But change is a part of what we've been through. And when you stop and think about all the different changes that we've been through, there is room for me to say thank you because these words don't go together. Church change South Mississippi. Thank you Enough said.

I mean, you know this, but yet when you walk onto any of our churches and you're watching online, you have done that, you have been willing to change. And man, that alone is something to pause and say, Hey, thank you. Because many of you, change is hard and change can make you really nervous, but yet you have been willing to change. That's the good news. Now let me give you the why, because all of that sounds really good, and I'm honest with you, I get excited about that.

Those things have been great, but that's not the change ultimately that we celebrate. The change that we celebrate is when we see people's hearts change and all the things I just listed, steeples and speakers and programming and buildings hold very little value compared to people's hearts. Okay? So I wanna show you why we celebrate change. Here we go.

Join me. We're gonna be in John chapter four. Uh, many of you're gonna know this story. This is the story of the woman at the well. And I'm gonna tell you who's gonna love this story.

If you have ever felt like you didn't fit in, if you have ever been disappointed by a man, this is your story. If you've ever felt isolated, if you've ever wondered, does anyone really see me? This is your story. So let's read it together. Here we go, John four.

Now the Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples. Now, Paul's right there because that's a pretty cool pattern. Like this morning, of course we didn't see Jesus baptized, but we saw one of his disciples baptize a new disciple. That's been a change that you've been willing to do. It's pretty cool.

When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and he went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria, so he came to a town in Samaria called Skar. Now, this was near the plot of the ground. Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the, well.

It was about the sixth hour when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into town to buy the food. Well, the Samaritan woman said to him, you are a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman. How could you ask me for a drink for Jews do not associate with Samaritan?

It's like, what are you thinking? Well, Jesus answered her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would've asked him for a drink and he would've given you living water. Sir, sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well's really deep. Uh, where can you get this living water?

I sent some sarcasm, man, you uh, verse 12, are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself? Asked, did his sons his flocks and his herd? Well, Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. That's a different kind of water.

The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I don't have to get thirsty and I don't have to keep coming to this. Well, to draw water. He told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband. She replied, this is beginning to get a little weird.

Jesus said to her, you're right when you say you have no husband, the fact is you have five husbands and the man you're now with is just your plus one. Alright? Okay. What you have just said is quite true, sir. The woman said, I can see that you are a prophet.

Now, couple of different kinds of change, three that I want you to see that we really celebrate as the church. Here's the very first one. The change we celebrate is when you begin to see Jesus differently. We really, really celebrate when you begin to have an encounter with Jesus that changes may be the way you first understood Jesus. Lemme lemme help you see, lemme help you kinda see that because I grew up seeing Jesus differently.

Here's the picture that comes to my mind growing up of Jesus. This was in our church. And so growing up when I thought about Jesus, this is what came to my mind. It's the same way at your school, like when you're at the lunch table and you hear people talk about church and about Jesus. They, they, this is what they picture.

Same way at your work, at your office. It's the same way with the person that you know that's really struggling. Yet when you mention Jesus, this is what comes to their mind. And I'm just gonna ask you, I mean, this is kind of an honest question, but can, can this picture help you in your time of need? Like, like, like when, when you're struggling, when, when you're depressed, when when, when you fail again with whatever the addiction might be, when you don't know what to do as a parent and you're, you're just frustrated when you are hurting, can this picture of Jesus give you comfort and strength and hope for me?

It doesn't. And to celebrate change is when you begin to see Jesus in a different way. So go back to this passage, go back to John four, and I want you to begin to see Jesus the way that he meets this woman. Now, first thing you need to understand is he went totally out of his way to meet this woman. He was on his way to the Gulf coast and he said, I'm gonna get to the Gulf Coast eventually, but first I'm gonna go up to Jones County and stop there.

Now if, if my wife's not great with direction, so she might not get that, but, but the but the concept is, I'm sorry, she's watching online today. The concept is that's not on the way. He went out of his way to meet her. He went to a whole different village because he had a divine appointment to come to this. Well, to meet this woman.

It wasn't on the way, but he had to be there. And when he got there, the, the Scripture tells us, the text tells us he was hot and he was hungry. You've got to understand that in south Mississippi, we have been hot, like really hot as a man. I'm just telling you, I get hangry. And there he is at the well with her.

He is not up here on a picture, in a cool building on the wall in a room that no one goes in. He's in the city center. He's at the, he's at the, he's at the frosty mug over there in Stone County. He, he, he's here. He's at the restaurant, knee to knee.

He's eye to eye with you. That's the Jesus that we celebrate is when you see him as a part of your life and you see your life intersecting with his man. I was at the soccer fields yesterday. We had a big tournament going on here and I met one of our families. I saw him and I had the chance to connect with him.

And man, we had this conversation about what was going on in their life and it broke me. I haven't stopped thinking about them since yesterday. And what I'm needing you to see is like if you're in that moment where you are walking through trauma as a family, he is with you at the soccer fields in the midst of that low moment. That's the kinda change that we celebrates When you begin to see Jesus differently. Listen to this text, Hebrews four 15 and 16, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are.

Yet he did not sin. Verse 16, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy so that we might find grace to help us in our time of need. That's the Jesus I want you to see. I've got a close friend of mine that's watching his mom walk through cancer and she lives in California. We had someone stay with us last last week that's now a single mom.

She's been married, she's now going back to school with her two kids so she can provide for them. The one word she gave to describe her life was lonely. That's her time of need, man. Am I helping you see that the thing we get excited about is when you see Jesus at the well with you in your time of need, that's an encounter, that's a real relationship. That's not up here on a wall holding a lamb in an empty building, but it's at the well with you in your specific time of need.

Now, the second change we celebrate is when you see Jesus the way that he sees you. I don't, I don't, I don't know how you think Jesus sees you, but that's really important and it's something I'm struggling with as a parent because I still wanna see my kids as little bitty kids and they're 15 and 12 now, but in my mind, they're still man, they're still small. And I, I have to remind myself, I almost have to pinch myself like they're not in that stage anymore. Like these, these are now, uh, young men and young women, and I have to remind myself of who they are. I have to catch up with where they are in life.

And, and I'm, I'm concerned that maybe you've, you've left and you have this thought in your mind of who Jesus is and how he sees you because of maybe something that's happened in your past. Do you see this in the woman at the Well, the only way she saw herself was through shame and through her moral failures. And I saw foreigner and I say female that should not have been talking to this Jewish man. And the enemy wants to keep her blinded to that. That is exactly how the enemy wants her to stay.

She could not see herself for who she was in Christ. She could not see past her sin to see her savior. All she saw was all the divide because of all her shame. And man, I celebrate when you begin to see you how God sees you, listen to this, listen to this. Watch how he pursues her.

He would not let it stop with just, Hey, I'm gonna offer you living water. She could have said, yes, I'd love living water. And he could have said, here's your living water, now I'm gone. But he kept going after her. He kept pursuing her because he knew there was a part of her that she wanted to share because it was weighing really heavy on her.

The reason she was by herself at the well alone in the middle of the day when no one else was there and she was holding onto that so tightly and watch how Jesus just keeps coming after her. He keeps coming after her because he knows I've gotta get this out of her because I wanna know her fully. I want her to find freedom. Watch how he pursues her. You ready?

John four 16. He then told her, he told her, go and call your husband and come back. You remember that part 17? I have no husband. She replies.

Then Jesus said to her, you're right when you say you have no husband, the fact is you've had five husbands and the man you're now with, he is not your husband. Let me remind you what have, what you have just said is quite true. Now, when you first read that, you're kinda like, Jesus, man, give her a break, bro. Like, why are you picking the scab on this poor woman? Give her a break.

But I think he knew. He knew, I've gotta get this out of her. I wanna be fully known. I want her to know me, and I wanna know all of her. That's a change.

We celebrate when you begin to be authentic, when you begin to walk down to these crosses and you begin to let go of some of the things that have been weighing on you so heavy. And Jesus says, I'm not gonna let her go till I get this out. And then her response is, classic 19, sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Well, our ancestors worship on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Psychologists call that deflection.

We call it like a hail Mary. Like let's change the subject, please. Honest moment. I'm much better at deflection than I am at really sharing my emotions. Uh, my wife has had to be so patient with me, it's just not easy for me.

Like in the same way the person I connect with is this woman like, you know, surface level, I'm fine. But you begin to take off a couple of the layers of the onion and kind of get down into my heart and my feelings and my emotions and deflection is my number one go-to. How's the weather? It's just hard. But what I want you to see is one of the, the changes that we celebrate is when all of a sudden this becomes a place where you're real, where you're transparent, where if you're struggling, you walk in and say, I'm struggling.

Where when you're broken, you come in and say, I need help. Where, when we say at the end of all of our experiences, you can come down here and have someone pray for you. You, you come down and have someone pray for you. Like, that's the church we want to be. And that's the relationship that Jesus kept going after.

And I don't know her details. Maybe she was promiscuous. Maybe she would've been passed around from man to man because she couldn't get pregnant. It's a different culture. Maybe all five men she'd been with had died and I'm nervous for the sixth.

I don't know. I just know Jesus would not stop until he got a breakthrough. He would not stop pursuing her. I want you to see this quote. This is from Bob Goff.

I love his stuff. He, he does a great devotional. But here, here's one of the things he said. Jesus didn't see people through a haze of condemnation. He saw people through a gaze of love.

How do you see people? Do you see how Jesus was pursuing her? Listen to his word. Listen, Romans five, eight, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In the midst of our sin, he still died. Colossians three, three, your old life is dead. Your new life, which is real life is with Christ. That's how he sees us in our new life. Second Corinthians 5 21, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become you ready?

The righteousness of God, I gotta help you see how he sees you. He sees you as a saint. He sees you as his son and his daughter. He sees you as the light of the world. He sees you through his righteousness.

He sees you as someone who struggled with sin and he didn't care. He still went to the cross for you. In the midst of your sin. You're just seeing your sin. That's all she saw.

And he's going, I have so much more for you. You are scrolling your life away, playing this cultural Christianity, and I want more for you. That's the change that we're saying we celebrate is when we see more. I, I just see Jesus being so frustrated in this conversation. It's like we get with our teenagers sometimes.

Like there's more like, don't settle for this. Don't settle for just showing up on a Sunday. Dive in and let God know you and share your heart with him. Man, come up out from some of that sin and shame. He's got more for you.

I think about Paul, I love the story of Paul, right? He used to be Saul, you know this, and man, Saul was known for one thing, stomping out Christianity, town to town, village to village, overseeing people being stoned. And what happened, God loved him so much that he knocks him off his horse so desperate to have a relationship with him. He blinds him until he can open up his eyes to a new truth that he is loved. One chapter before this one is the story of Nicodemus.

Nicodemus was prideful. He was the religious elite and Jesus meets him where he is and Jesus is upfront and honest with him and he's bold with him. Then the next chapter, John force, this woman at the well who is broken and he's gentle with her and he's kind to her and he sees her despite all the distractions. And here's what we're desperate for you to see the method, the method in each one of those examples. For one man, he knocked him off his horse for the next man, the righteous man, the self-righteous man, the prideful man.

He was brutally honest. The woman that was called up in sin and shame, he was gentle and kind. The method matters. None. The message is what is so important.

He used a different method with all three of these people, but he had the same message. I have something better. I have something more for you. When you think about change and you hear that we celebrate change and it makes you nervous. No, no, no.

Take a deep breath, we celebrate it because we're getting back to what God's called us to be, which is these radical disciples of Jesus. That's a change that's worth celebrating. There's a million different ways to do that. The only thing that matters is that we're talking about encounters with Jesus that leave us differently. If you're in a church right now and there's a steeple and there's pews, wonderful.

If you are making disciples that love Jesus and their life looks radically different, the method, it's gonna keep changing the message. So incredibly important, it's radical. And if we need to change so that people can hear the message of Jesus, then let's change and let's celebrate it. So important. The third change that we celebrate is when Jesus begins to change you.

Alright? You with me? We've changed how we see Jesus no longer. It's just a picture up on the wall. We've changed how Jesus sees us.

He doesn't see us through the lens of our sin and our shame. And then finally, the third change that we celebrate is when Jesus begins to change you going forward. Listen, listen to what she does. This is in John 4 28. Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and she said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Now think about this, this I'm imagining, uh, the people in the town didn't just follow her right off. Yeah. I mean, she's got quite a history with men. And now she's like, Hey, come see this man. But she kept on, she kept on and she said, no, there's something different.

My reaction is totally different. I'm no longer finally disappointed by another man. Come see this. This is different. My life is different.

I found some hope, I found some peace. What I'm, what I'm pushing you on is this idea of our cultural Christianity and how it just doesn't fit with this text. Like, show up on Sunday and go home, get caught up in routine and ritual and rules and religion. I I don't see any of that in this woman's reaction. I see freedom.

I see life. I see an excitement to go tell other people. And, and I think more often than not, there's a great term for what you've heard this, it's like practical atheism where, man, I just know if I were to ask this room, are you a Christian? You would say yes. But if I dove into your life and I said, just show me some evidence of fruit in your life like fruit, meaning like where you have grace and, and where you give grace freely, and how there's this unconditional love that you sense that you have received from him.

And man, you can breathe deeply knowing that God sees you through his righteousness. You would be like, oh, bro, I don't know about all that, but yes, I'm a Christian. That's practical atheism. See, in her life it looked different. It had been changed.

And that's where I'm pushing you because that's change. We wanna celebrate because her life didn't look the same. And I don't know if yours can look the same. If you've had an encounter at the well in your life, knee, a knee with Jesus, there should be something that's different. Lemme show you.

This is in Galatians. Now, if you've been doing our Bible reading plan, we just finished this book of the Bible, okay? So I'm a little behind, but I'm gonna catch up. It's okay. And it's Galatians one, six and seven.

And listen, the way he describes cultural Christianity, okay? Here's what he says about it. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting, the one who called you by grace of Christ, and you're now turning to a different Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ. I, that that's the verse that comes to my mind when I think about settling for less.

It, it's, it's a perverted Gospel. It's, it's really not the Gospel at all. I mean, the Gospel, Cal said it last week, he said, or a couple weeks ago, he said it, there should be a radical change where you're involved in community. I think when we follow Jesus, there's, there's a radical change. And I don't mean you're like, like Bible thumping weirdos.

I mean like a sense of peace. I I mean like grace. I I mean like you, you're receiving, I'm not even talking about giving all these things. I'm just talking about like you have received this unconditional love. I love what he says.

Jesus, it's just such a cool moment because I, I know you and you're going, well, yeah, I'll, I'll, I, I, if I'll do all these things, I bet Jesus will give me these things. Well, look at the text. She has done nothing. And he is giving all these free gifts. She hasn't paid an offering.

She hasn't even repented. She hasn't even acknowledged, she hasn't even been honest yet, Jesus is steady giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, pursuing, pursuing, pursuing, pursuing. And that's how he sees you. He's relentlessly coming after your heart. Man, when you accept that, that's the change we celebrate.

Now, here's the last thing, and then I'm done. I, I thought this was so cool. I missed this the first time I read it in John 4 26, right there at the end, when he's summoning everything up, uh, Jesus looks at this woman at the well, all the people he's encountered already in his life. And he drops this statement that that's, that's right on with Jesus in his ministry. He tells her, I am the I am.

Now that goes back to when God told Moses, I am the I am. And seven different times in Scripture we see it. But I just think it's cool that he didn't drop that with the religious elite. He didn't drop that line. Hey, listen, of all the things you're worried about, I am everything you need.

He didn't give it to his disciples. He saves that line to give to this woman, this threefold failure, foreigner, female moral failure. And for her, he says, I am the I am that you've been looking for. Man, I want you to hear that today so desperately that he is your answer and my challenge to you. This whole message, it's wrapped up asking you this, will you celebrate change with us in your life?

See, if she was here, like if, if she was at this stage closing this message up with me, the one question she would have for you from her perspective, she would say this, don't let who you were, decide who you'll be. That's what she would say to you. She would so desperately say, Jo Jojo, don't let who you were. Don't let who you were, bro. No, no, no, no, no.

Listen, don't let who you were. It's, it's, it's, it's messing with your mind. And that's the enemy. It's fogging up your vision. I see you through a gaze of love, not through a haze of condemnation.

Don't let who you were, get in the way of who I want you to be. Celebrate change one of three ways. The first way is we celebrate. When you begin to see him differently, it's personal. It's an encounter.

It's need to knee. It's the frosty mug. Come on, come on. We celebrate change when you begin to allow Jesus to define you, when you see him differently. And then we celebrate change, man, when your life looks different because of Jesus.

Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna, we're gonna worship. And uh, man, I love these last two songs that we've got. And I hope it's a moment for you to begin to change. One of the things you may want to change is how you respond.

This is new for us, where we think there's really a moment in each week when we come together that instead of just singing or walking through a motion like where we, we literally respond to what God's put on our heart. Maybe you wanna come down here and have communion. It's a moment to think back to, man, this is, this is all changed because what you did for me, God, I wanna celebrate this. You can lead yourself through community in each one of our campuses. Maybe you wanna come down to the cross and you wanna put on the cross one of the things that has kept you from changing tradition, my view of myself, my failure, but I'm putting it on the cross because man, I'm ready to experience change.

Maybe you wanna come down and let someone just pray with you, okay? I'm gonna pray for us and then we're gonna worship and we're gonna respond together. Let's pray. God, I thank you for the lens that you see me through. Uh, God, you see me as your beloved.

You see me as your son, God. You don't see me up on the stage. You don't see me through maybe some of the things that I feel like I should be proud of that have earned your love. You don't see me through, through the things that I feel like I need to hide from you because I'm ashamed of. But God, you see me through your grace, and I thank you for that because it's changed my life.

I thank you that you're no longer just a picture on what is now basically an empty building. But God, I see you need a knee with me. I see you holding me, God, I see you equipping me. I see you strong when I'm weak, God, I see you just overflowing in my life. And that's not every day, but I know that's true.

So God, thank you for redefining that relationship. God, I pray for, for my people. God, I pray they would know a Lord and Savior personally. God, I pray they could walk outta here with freedom. God, I pray that we could begin to have a D T R.

We could redefine this relationship and we would begin to experience you as a father who loves us and who changes us from the inside out. It's in your name we pray. Amen.