1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,500 Welcome to the Lightly Salted Podcast. 2 00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:08,400 These are the readings and sermons of St. John's Lutheran Church of Park Rapids, Minnesota. 3 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:16,000 They are offered so that the Word of God would shape and strengthen you to be what He calls you to be, salt and light. 4 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,500 You can find us at stjohnspr.org. 5 00:00:19,500 --> 00:00:22,000 Now, on to the Word. 6 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:27,500 Our Old Testament reading for this amazing grace, the woman at the well, 7 00:00:27,500 --> 00:00:30,500 comes from the prophet Isaiah, the 35th chapter. 8 00:00:30,500 --> 00:00:36,500 Those words of promise and invitation that God extends through the prophet. 9 00:00:36,500 --> 00:00:45,500 Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat. 10 00:00:45,500 --> 00:00:49,500 Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 11 00:00:49,500 --> 00:00:57,500 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? 12 00:00:57,500 --> 00:01:03,500 Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. 13 00:01:03,500 --> 00:01:08,500 Incline your ear and come to me here that your soul may live. 14 00:01:08,500 --> 00:01:16,500 And I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 15 00:01:16,500 --> 00:01:19,500 This is the Word of the Lord. 16 00:01:19,500 --> 00:01:22,500 Thanks be to God. 17 00:01:23,500 --> 00:01:28,500 Our epistle reading is from the Revelation of St. John, the 7th chapter. 18 00:01:28,500 --> 00:01:32,500 John has a second vision of the glorious throne room. 19 00:01:32,500 --> 00:01:38,500 It's changed a little bit because now it's not just the throne of God, but now there's the lamb who's standing there, 20 00:01:38,500 --> 00:01:42,500 looking as though he had been slain, but is alive forever and ever. 21 00:01:42,500 --> 00:01:44,500 And then he sees something more. 22 00:01:44,500 --> 00:01:50,500 After this, I looked and behold, a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, 23 00:01:50,500 --> 00:01:56,500 from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, 24 00:01:56,500 --> 00:02:02,500 clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out in a loud voice. 25 00:02:02,500 --> 00:02:07,500 Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. 26 00:02:07,500 --> 00:02:13,500 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, 27 00:02:13,500 --> 00:02:17,500 and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, 28 00:02:17,500 --> 00:02:18,500 Amen. 29 00:02:18,500 --> 00:02:26,500 Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. 30 00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:28,500 Amen. 31 00:02:29,500 --> 00:02:32,500 Then one of the elders addressed me saying, 32 00:02:32,500 --> 00:02:37,500 Who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come? 33 00:02:37,500 --> 00:02:41,500 I said to him, Sir, you know. 34 00:02:41,500 --> 00:02:45,500 And he said to me, These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. 35 00:02:45,500 --> 00:02:49,500 They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. 36 00:02:49,500 --> 00:02:54,500 Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him in his temple day and night. 37 00:02:54,500 --> 00:02:58,500 And he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 38 00:02:58,500 --> 00:03:02,500 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. 39 00:03:02,500 --> 00:03:06,500 The sun shall not strike them nor any scorching heat. 40 00:03:06,500 --> 00:03:10,500 For the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd. 41 00:03:10,500 --> 00:03:14,500 And he will guide them to springs of living water. 42 00:03:14,500 --> 00:03:19,500 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. 43 00:03:19,500 --> 00:03:22,500 This too is the word of the Lord. 44 00:03:22,500 --> 00:03:25,500 Thanks be to God. 45 00:03:29,500 --> 00:03:34,500 Our Gospel is recorded for us in the Gospel of St. John, the fourth chapter. 46 00:03:34,500 --> 00:03:38,500 It's not going to be the verses that are listed in your service. 47 00:03:38,500 --> 00:03:43,500 Most of John chapter four is about Jesus encounter with the woman at the well. 48 00:03:43,500 --> 00:03:48,500 And you will hear most of almost the entire chapter in the sermon. 49 00:03:48,500 --> 00:03:53,500 So I thought that what I do is sort of that, you know, we'll start at the end 50 00:03:53,500 --> 00:04:00,500 and then we'll go back, you know, a couple hours before and lead into what we hear now. 51 00:04:00,500 --> 00:04:07,500 Many of the Samaritans from the town believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony. 52 00:04:07,500 --> 00:04:10,500 He told me everything I ever did. 53 00:04:10,500 --> 00:04:14,500 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. 54 00:04:14,500 --> 00:04:16,500 And he stayed two days. 55 00:04:16,500 --> 00:04:21,500 And because of his words, many more became believers. 56 00:04:21,500 --> 00:04:26,500 They said to the woman, we no longer believe just because of what you said. 57 00:04:26,500 --> 00:04:35,500 Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. 58 00:04:35,500 --> 00:04:38,500 This too is the word of our Lord. 59 00:04:38,500 --> 00:04:43,500 Thanks be to God. 60 00:04:43,500 --> 00:04:51,500 Grace to you in peace from God, our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 61 00:04:51,500 --> 00:04:56,500 Fear, doubt and shame. 62 00:04:56,500 --> 00:05:04,500 They are very powerful emotions that can isolate us and impact our activity and our behaviors. 63 00:05:04,500 --> 00:05:14,500 Freedom from fear and doubt and shame comes from the love, the grace and the forgiveness given to us by the work of Christ. 64 00:05:14,500 --> 00:05:22,500 Consider one particular encounter of that grace for one who was living in fear, in doubt and in shame. 65 00:05:22,500 --> 00:05:29,500 A Samaritan woman who had simply come to draw water from the well. 66 00:05:29,500 --> 00:05:37,500 Now most of the other women would have already come to the well earlier in the day in order to draw water. 67 00:05:37,500 --> 00:05:41,500 But she came at about noon. 68 00:05:41,500 --> 00:05:44,500 She was not expecting to meet anyone. 69 00:05:44,500 --> 00:05:49,500 In fact, she most likely was counting on that. 70 00:05:49,500 --> 00:05:54,500 And that might already be a clue to her shame. 71 00:05:54,500 --> 00:06:00,500 Imagine her awkward surprise to find that somebody is sitting there by the side of the well. 72 00:06:00,500 --> 00:06:04,500 And then to make matters worse, the one sitting there is a man. 73 00:06:04,500 --> 00:06:10,500 Now she doesn't know who this man is, nor does she know that he's tired from a long journey, 74 00:06:10,500 --> 00:06:16,500 nor does she know that his disciples are in town getting food. 75 00:06:16,500 --> 00:06:21,500 She just wasn't expecting an encounter of any kind. 76 00:06:21,500 --> 00:06:25,500 And then complicating this rather awkward situation, 77 00:06:25,500 --> 00:06:28,500 she recognizes that the man is Jewish. 78 00:06:28,500 --> 00:06:31,500 She's a Samaritan. 79 00:06:31,500 --> 00:06:37,500 And to put it bluntly, Jews and Samaritans didn't exactly get along. 80 00:06:37,500 --> 00:06:43,500 There were a lot of prejudices, a lot of divisions, a lot of hostilities. 81 00:06:43,500 --> 00:06:47,500 Not that we would know anything about that. 82 00:06:47,500 --> 00:06:56,500 Because we never encounter prejudices or divisions or hostilities in our own lives, do we? 83 00:06:56,500 --> 00:07:04,500 In fact, we don't encounter them all the time because we tend to avoid those situations. 84 00:07:04,500 --> 00:07:07,500 But what we're going to see is grace. 85 00:07:07,500 --> 00:07:13,500 Grace makes unexpected encounters. 86 00:07:13,500 --> 00:07:16,500 And as if it's not bad enough for this poor woman in this particular setting 87 00:07:16,500 --> 00:07:23,500 to be caught out at noon looking for water, encountering a Jewish male, a stranger, 88 00:07:23,500 --> 00:07:29,500 this man now has the audacity to speak to her and in fact he uses an imperative, 89 00:07:29,500 --> 00:07:32,500 you know, exclamation points at the end. 90 00:07:32,500 --> 00:07:38,500 Give me a drink, he says. 91 00:07:38,500 --> 00:07:42,500 What Jesus does here is a total breach of all social customs. 92 00:07:42,500 --> 00:07:48,500 He should not be seen with the Samaritan woman, let alone speaking with her. 93 00:07:48,500 --> 00:07:53,500 The awkward silence is now broken by an even more awkward request from this unknown man 94 00:07:53,500 --> 00:08:00,500 to a woman who simply wanted to be alone. 95 00:08:00,500 --> 00:08:06,500 But might as talking to her in this very unexpected and awkward moment also be the moment 96 00:08:06,500 --> 00:08:10,500 in which grace is coming to this woman? 97 00:08:10,500 --> 00:08:13,500 Maybe. 98 00:08:13,500 --> 00:08:16,500 She probably didn't see it that way, at least not at first. 99 00:08:16,500 --> 00:08:25,500 In fact, she makes a point of it, putting up barriers that have divided not only genders, but peoples. 100 00:08:25,500 --> 00:08:30,500 But also hiding some of her deeper frustrations and concerns. 101 00:08:30,500 --> 00:08:39,500 How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? 102 00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:44,500 She has a very quick comeback to Jesus and that might put him off a little bit 103 00:08:44,500 --> 00:08:48,500 or maybe get him to offer up an apology. 104 00:08:48,500 --> 00:08:53,500 But Jesus isn't put off and he's certainly not going to leave her alone. 105 00:08:53,500 --> 00:09:02,500 He knows that she already has so much of being alone, that loneliness going on in her life. 106 00:09:02,500 --> 00:09:06,500 And it's not that she's exactly alone in that either. 107 00:09:06,500 --> 00:09:11,500 Loneliness is also a pandemic in our society. 108 00:09:11,500 --> 00:09:16,500 Yet instead he dares to speak to her again to make this a grace moment. 109 00:09:16,500 --> 00:09:23,500 So he explains his intention of grace to her, if you knew the gift of God 110 00:09:23,500 --> 00:09:27,500 and who it was that is saying to you, give me a drink, 111 00:09:27,500 --> 00:09:32,500 you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. 112 00:09:32,500 --> 00:09:37,500 Sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. 113 00:09:37,500 --> 00:09:40,500 Where do you get that living water? 114 00:09:40,500 --> 00:09:43,500 Are you greater than our father Jacob? 115 00:09:43,500 --> 00:09:50,500 He gave us the well and drink from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. 116 00:09:50,500 --> 00:09:57,500 Sir, that's a nice and respectful way to address somebody we don't know 117 00:09:57,500 --> 00:10:01,500 and yet we're interacting with them whether we want to or not. 118 00:10:01,500 --> 00:10:07,500 And perhaps this first use of the word sir has pretty much that same connotation. 119 00:10:07,500 --> 00:10:13,500 It's respectful, but it's only so far. 120 00:10:13,500 --> 00:10:17,500 But now the woman does seem to be intrigued maybe. 121 00:10:17,500 --> 00:10:19,500 Jesus mentioned living water. 122 00:10:19,500 --> 00:10:21,500 Where does he get it she wonders? 123 00:10:21,500 --> 00:10:27,500 Where are the flowing streams of water so that she can go and find it for herself whenever she wants? 124 00:10:27,500 --> 00:10:32,500 She'd like to know so that she wouldn't feel so constrained to coming to the well day after day, 125 00:10:32,500 --> 00:10:39,500 always in hiding and instead find these flowing streams. 126 00:10:39,500 --> 00:10:43,500 But Jesus graces her life even further saying, 127 00:10:43,500 --> 00:10:47,500 everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. 128 00:10:47,500 --> 00:10:51,500 But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. 129 00:10:51,500 --> 00:10:56,500 The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. 130 00:10:56,500 --> 00:11:06,500 Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. 131 00:11:06,500 --> 00:11:09,500 And there it is again, sir. 132 00:11:09,500 --> 00:11:13,500 But maybe this time she's drawing a little closer and not so cold. 133 00:11:13,500 --> 00:11:22,500 Maybe she's a little more curious about this Jewish man in this odd talking about water that flows and gushes in his eternal. 134 00:11:22,500 --> 00:11:27,500 Maybe she's starting to let down her secret a little bit. 135 00:11:27,500 --> 00:11:38,500 What she does for sure betraying this moment is that she is tired of her mundane daily attempts to keep coming out to the well of Jacob. 136 00:11:38,500 --> 00:11:42,500 But now Jesus will call that out from her. 137 00:11:42,500 --> 00:11:45,500 That's secret. 138 00:11:45,500 --> 00:11:52,500 Not so as to embarrass her or to make her feel any more awkward than she already does, 139 00:11:52,500 --> 00:11:59,500 but to free her, to give her the courage to stand in truth. 140 00:11:59,500 --> 00:12:07,500 And so Jesus says to her, go, call your husband and come back. 141 00:12:07,500 --> 00:12:11,500 I have no husband. 142 00:12:11,500 --> 00:12:16,500 Keep in mind, Jesus pursues this conversation at this point with gentleness 143 00:12:16,500 --> 00:12:23,500 in order to free her from the darker truth that she does not wish to have exposed. 144 00:12:23,500 --> 00:12:27,500 So he makes his next statement to her with the spirit of affirming gentleness. 145 00:12:27,500 --> 00:12:31,500 You are right in saying, I have no husband. 146 00:12:31,500 --> 00:12:37,500 For you have had five husbands, and the one you are now with is not your husband. 147 00:12:37,500 --> 00:12:42,500 What you have said is true. 148 00:12:42,500 --> 00:12:46,500 This is a moment for her freedom. 149 00:12:46,500 --> 00:12:53,500 This is a moment for her freedom from shame and from fear, from hostility and from division. 150 00:12:53,500 --> 00:12:56,500 She doesn't need to be afraid of Jesus' presence. 151 00:12:56,500 --> 00:13:02,500 He knows all about her secret, but he still sees her with grace 152 00:13:02,500 --> 00:13:06,500 and wishes her to be free in that grace. 153 00:13:06,500 --> 00:13:09,500 Jesus accepts her as a woman, as a Samaritan, 154 00:13:09,500 --> 00:13:13,500 as one who has had a number of broken relationships and marriages 155 00:13:13,500 --> 00:13:15,500 and is now living with another man. 156 00:13:15,500 --> 00:13:25,500 And he doesn't look upon her with shame, but with grace. 157 00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:34,500 We have our own deep, buried, dark secrets, the quote-unquote skeletons in the closet. 158 00:13:34,500 --> 00:13:38,500 There are things we're afraid of, the truth disclosing. 159 00:13:38,500 --> 00:13:41,500 Afraid of the criticism, afraid of the judgment, 160 00:13:41,500 --> 00:13:49,500 afraid of being mocked, rejected or scorned by others, so we keep them hidden away. 161 00:13:49,500 --> 00:13:56,500 But even for us, Jesus does not look upon us with shame, but with his grace. 162 00:13:56,500 --> 00:14:03,500 And his grace, it is far superior to all judgments, real or imagined. 163 00:14:03,500 --> 00:14:07,500 In Christ we need not be afraid or ashamed. 164 00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:11,500 Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 165 00:14:11,500 --> 00:14:14,500 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, 166 00:14:14,500 --> 00:14:20,500 but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. 167 00:14:20,500 --> 00:14:24,500 Sir, we hear it again. 168 00:14:24,500 --> 00:14:27,500 But I would say we hear it with more passion and closeness. 169 00:14:27,500 --> 00:14:30,500 She's waking to who he might be, 170 00:14:30,500 --> 00:14:33,500 but also at the same time she throws up a challenge for him. 171 00:14:33,500 --> 00:14:40,500 How will you overcome the barriers of hostility and prejudice that have been in place for so long? 172 00:14:40,500 --> 00:14:45,500 How will you overcome the great divides that keep us apart from so many others? 173 00:14:45,500 --> 00:14:52,500 In gender, in race, in values, in politics, in being shunned, being isolated. 174 00:14:52,500 --> 00:14:55,500 The list could go on. 175 00:14:55,500 --> 00:15:03,500 Some we don't even want to discuss openly and candidly because of fear and shame. 176 00:15:03,500 --> 00:15:11,500 But for all of this, Jesus will point to where his journey is leading. 177 00:15:11,500 --> 00:15:17,500 His will be the hour that will bring the reconciliation between us. 178 00:15:17,500 --> 00:15:20,500 And that hour is his own cross, 179 00:15:20,500 --> 00:15:26,500 where all prejudices and hostilities between peoples are put to rest in his body 180 00:15:26,500 --> 00:15:29,500 and his blood shed for us. 181 00:15:29,500 --> 00:15:35,500 Where the path of violence and hostility gives way to the path of peace. 182 00:15:35,500 --> 00:15:41,500 And where the shame of all of our sin is overcome by healing and wholeness. 183 00:15:41,500 --> 00:15:49,500 His hour, his cross will indeed bring this grace to us all. 184 00:15:49,500 --> 00:15:51,500 So Jesus says to the woman, 185 00:15:51,500 --> 00:15:55,500 woman, believe me, the hour is coming and is now here. 186 00:15:55,500 --> 00:16:00,500 When the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. 187 00:16:00,500 --> 00:16:03,500 For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 188 00:16:03,500 --> 00:16:10,500 God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. 189 00:16:10,500 --> 00:16:14,500 Grace makes for unexpected encounters. 190 00:16:14,500 --> 00:16:19,500 And will continue to make unexpected encounters. 191 00:16:19,500 --> 00:16:24,500 It encounters all of us in our darkness and frees us to the truth 192 00:16:24,500 --> 00:16:29,500 that we really do not need to be living in fear or in alienation from peoples. 193 00:16:29,500 --> 00:16:33,500 That we do not need to be afraid of our own past or the truth of our sins. 194 00:16:33,500 --> 00:16:36,500 Instead, we have been given a new spirit. 195 00:16:36,500 --> 00:16:43,500 We have been brought into the deeper truth of God's grace filled work in Jesus himself. 196 00:16:43,500 --> 00:16:47,500 For the woman at the well, this truth now stands before her. 197 00:16:47,500 --> 00:16:54,500 And she's now just a heartbeat away from her own bold confession of faith. 198 00:16:54,500 --> 00:16:59,500 I know that Messiah, the one who is called Christ is coming. 199 00:16:59,500 --> 00:17:04,500 When he comes, he will tell us all things. 200 00:17:04,500 --> 00:17:07,500 And Jesus says to her, 201 00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:12,500 I who speak to you, am he. 202 00:17:12,500 --> 00:17:17,500 There. That's the climax of the story. 203 00:17:17,500 --> 00:17:22,500 And we sort of expect her to say, Lord, I believe just like the blind man did. 204 00:17:22,500 --> 00:17:27,500 But just then, at that moment, the disciples return. 205 00:17:27,500 --> 00:17:30,500 They see Jesus speaking to her. 206 00:17:30,500 --> 00:17:33,500 Perhaps they like us were just a little bit embarrassed, 207 00:17:33,500 --> 00:17:38,500 still caught up in the old ways of keeping up the walls and barriers and good appearances. 208 00:17:38,500 --> 00:17:42,500 Perhaps it even seemed to them a very awkward moment. 209 00:17:42,500 --> 00:17:49,500 But the Bible tells us none of them were willing to ask, why are you talking to her? 210 00:17:49,500 --> 00:17:55,500 But in that moment, the woman flees the scene. 211 00:17:55,500 --> 00:17:58,500 But she's not running in fear or shame. 212 00:17:58,500 --> 00:18:02,500 She leaves behind her water gyre of the very reason for her coming. 213 00:18:02,500 --> 00:18:07,500 And she is fleeing with the newness of the living waters as running through her veins. 214 00:18:07,500 --> 00:18:10,500 The gift of grace that she's received from Jesus. 215 00:18:10,500 --> 00:18:14,500 For her, it's sort of like Easter morning. 216 00:18:14,500 --> 00:18:22,500 So instead of looking at Jesus and saying, Lord, I believe she's going to run and tell others about her encounter with Jesus. 217 00:18:22,500 --> 00:18:31,500 And she will tell it with the boldness of a new woman with such truth and spirit that makes her shake with the sheer joy of it all. 218 00:18:31,500 --> 00:18:34,500 For she was once afraid and ashamed. 219 00:18:34,500 --> 00:18:37,500 And now is forgiven. 220 00:18:37,500 --> 00:18:43,500 What lies ahead now is a life of living in a newfound grace and freedom. 221 00:18:43,500 --> 00:18:47,500 Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. 222 00:18:47,500 --> 00:18:51,500 Surely he cannot be the Messiah, can he? 223 00:18:51,500 --> 00:18:55,500 The woman now witnesses to others. 224 00:18:55,500 --> 00:18:58,500 And now this is the first of many such grace encounters. 225 00:18:58,500 --> 00:19:05,500 Others will now come to Jesus and will not miss their own chance of encounter with him in his grace. 226 00:19:05,500 --> 00:19:13,500 And like the woman, they too will let go of all the truth of their old lives of fear and shame and sin. 227 00:19:13,500 --> 00:19:20,500 And embrace instead the boldness of Jesus living waters running through their veins. 228 00:19:20,500 --> 00:19:22,500 There are no more barriers to grace. 229 00:19:22,500 --> 00:19:26,500 Jesus the Christ has come. 230 00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:31,500 He told me everything I have ever done. 231 00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:35,500 So the others of Samaria come to be with Jesus. 232 00:19:35,500 --> 00:19:38,500 And there would be celebrations of grace. 233 00:19:38,500 --> 00:19:41,500 He would spend more time in their presence. 234 00:19:41,500 --> 00:19:49,500 And in the sharing and the gathering of his grace, they would also make their own bold testimonies. 235 00:19:49,500 --> 00:19:55,500 Saying to the woman with gratitude, but also with personal joy in the presence of Jesus. 236 00:19:55,500 --> 00:20:02,500 It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves. 237 00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:10,500 And we know that this is truly the Savior of the world. 238 00:20:10,500 --> 00:20:19,500 And when Jesus would rise from the dead, he would give a singular instruction to his disciples. 239 00:20:19,500 --> 00:20:23,500 That they were to take the message of his amazing grace. 240 00:20:23,500 --> 00:20:27,500 And they were not supposed to proclaim it only in Jerusalem. 241 00:20:27,500 --> 00:20:30,500 But they were supposed to proclaim it in all of Judea. 242 00:20:30,500 --> 00:20:34,500 And not only in Judea, but they were to proclaim it to all of Samaria. 243 00:20:34,500 --> 00:20:38,500 And not just Samaria, but take the message to the very ends of the earth. 244 00:20:38,500 --> 00:20:42,500 So that joy and freedom may abound for all. 245 00:20:42,500 --> 00:20:46,500 Because grace makes unexpected encounters. 246 00:20:46,500 --> 00:20:54,500 Grace breaks down the walls of angers and hostility, sin and death, fear and shame. 247 00:20:54,500 --> 00:21:04,500 And we have been given this gift of living waters of Jesus the Christ, who has overcome our own fear and shame. 248 00:21:04,500 --> 00:21:13,500 Now with the living waters of Christ in our own veins, we are free to go and to make some unexpected encounters of our own. 249 00:21:13,500 --> 00:21:19,500 So that through our own witness, we may also testify to the Savior of the world. 250 00:21:19,500 --> 00:21:25,500 So that others know that they also are free. 251 00:21:25,500 --> 00:21:50,500 Amen.