Launch 2025 Night 4 | Manny Arango

For those of you who may know my story, my father was incarcerated for 18 years. My dad took me to a crack house for the first time when I was 5 years old. My mom was pregnant at the age of 12. And so it was nights in church that began to mark me. And so we share that in common.

And so can I be honest? There were a lot of nights where I missed my bedtime. Cause I was in the house of God. And my mama was a heathen.

Is that a politically correct term? Can we still say that? My mom was a heathen, but I never missed church. And, you know, it's funny. I meet Christian parents.

Uh. Oh. It's crazy how my heathen mama was more adamant about me being in church than some of these Christian parents I meet. Not here in Texas.

My mom was a heathen, but soccer was not more important than church. My mom was a heathen, but basketball practice was not more important than church. And at some point, you gotta. It can't be an accessory for you and a priority for the next generation. It's gotta be a priority for you.

And so we honor everybody who's in church tonight. Come on. It's good for families to be in church together. That's good. It's an awesome thing.

And, you know, I'm gonna preach for a couple hours, so it'll be all right. No, I'm just playing. I'm just playing. I'm just playing. I'm gonna preach short, okay?

We do want you to get home at a reasonable time so that your kids can go to sleep. Cause we can do it all, okay? We balance. Okay? Promise City Church is in the building.

Let's go, man. Love you so much, Pastor Derek and. All right, come on. Who's ready for the word? You guys ready?

You guys ready? I'm super, super excited. I'm gonna do something really new. And so a lot of times when I preach, I preach sermons that I've preached a lot. You know, that's actually a good thing to do because we don't want to be experimenting.

You know what I'm saying? But since I've been here before, are we cool if I kind of preach something that I haven't preached, like, 50 times? Are we cool if we kind of now? But if I'm gonna cook live, y' all better be, like, good at eating. Okay?

So I need you to be leaned in. I need you to be responsive. Cause I could do the scripted thing, or we could, like, get some fresh food. So, like, I think that would be fun. So let's do it.

I've got a book coming out in May. I've got a book coming out in May, and the title of the book is Crushing Chaos. Ooh, Crushing Chaos. Everybody say crushing chaos. And so tonight, I'm just gonna preach chapter five of Crushing Chaos.

I'm just gonna. Come on, let's go. I'm gonna preach chapter five of Crushing Chaos. I wrote a book entitled Crushing Chaos because as I've pastored people, I've realized that everyone's got chaos in their life. Oh, boy.

Everybody's got some chaos in their life. Some people, their chaos is in the form of anxiety. Anxiety. And although chaos is not sin or anxiety is not sin, it is a form of chaos. And if chaos goes unchecked, chaos will eventually rob you of the abundant life that God wants to give you.

And so sometimes in church, sin is. It's like we call everything sin. And that's not very helpful because there are some things that are not sin. Oh, man. But they will rob you of life and anxiety.

It's funny, as I pastored people for a long time, I know not y' all Texas people would come to the altar, you know, pastor, I need peace. And I remember Pastor J praying for people to get peace because they were dealing with the chaos of anxiety. I don't know if you've ever dealt with this frustration of praying for someone to get peace on a Wednesday, only to see them by Saturday, and they've run out of the peace that you prayed for them to have on Wednesday. And then they get to the next Wednesday and you start feeling like, chick fil a, I need you to eat free refills on the peace that we gave you last week. Week.

Anybody ever been in a frustrating cycle of I've received peace, and now I've run out of peace. And it's almost like the peace is put in pockets with holes in them. It's like, I'm leaking peace. Why can't I keep peace? Well, I began to realize that the reason that people could not keep peace is that God's solution for chaos is not peace.

Ooh, we cooking. God's solution for chaos is order.

Order. Which means if you are living life out of order, out of order, out of order, out of order. I cannot bippity boppity boo. Peace into your out of order life.

Order, order, order. Real easy, right? Order. Order is easy. Sex comes after marriage, Not before.

Order, order sequence. You put this after this. When you put it before, it brings chaos, which means you could come to the Altar all you want.

But if you still letting your boyfriend hit, Then you're actually not eligible for God's peace. Because God requires that you begin to get your life in order. And as long as you letting your boyfriend hit and y' all not married, guess what? The spirit of possessiveness is always gonna be on you. And you gonna have anxiety talking about, I just need to see his phone, who he texting.

And you gonna go with thoughts that are not from God because there's disorder in your life and I can't pray your chaos away. You are going to have to decide. I'm going to adopt God's order.

Order. Order. Everyone thinks they have an anxiety problem. You don't have an anxiety problem. You got a chaos problem.

And the more you deliberately disobey and buck against God's order, you are always gonna come to a pastor asking for prayer, asking for peace. I was at a church. I was at a church. I won't say what church. It was.

St. Louis, Missouri, though. I'm not gonna say the name of the church. I'm not gonna say the name of the church. I'm not gonna say the name of the church. I was at a church.

I was at a church. St. Louis, Missouri. It was a church of God church. You know what I'm saying? I'm not gonna say the name of the church.

It was a dope church. Dope church. I was at this church. Pastor Jay had an amazing experience, and they put one of the safety team members, one of the security team guys was with me the whole time that I was there. And, you know, a lot of churches that I go to, they give you a security protocol.

You follow me, if anything happens, I'll come on stage. Like a whole security protocol and Social Security. I just thought he was security, but I didn't know homeboy was also a deacon at the church. So I got done preaching and I was gonna go out to the lobby because I always love going out to the lobby. I love, you know, touching people and high fiving people and hugging people, taking selfies with people.

And so we're. I'm done preaching and Mr. Deacon security is leading me out to the lobby. And somebody stopped him. I'm not gonna say what church. Somebody stopped him and was like, deacon, Deacon Matt, Deacon Matt, can you pray for me?

And he stopped. We had time before we needed to get out to the lobby. He stopped and he said, what you need prayer for? And he said, brother Deacon, Deacon Matthew, I need prayer for my finances. And Deacon Matt was like, you know, he was like, okay, let me ask you a question.

Do you tithe?

And I'm just. I'm not from there.

I ain't got nothing to do with this conversation. I'm just an eavesdropper. You know what I'm saying? I'm just an innocent bystander. I'm just standing here.

I'm just trying to get to the lobby. But now I'm intrigued. I got my popcorn. You know that popcorn? Michael Jackson with a pop.

I'm like Homer backing into the grass.

So he said, do you tithe? This gentleman said, no, deacon. Security. Matt from St. Louis was like, then I can't pray for you because there's no prayer that I could pray that can undo the curse you've brought on your own life. Until you get your life in order, until you get your finances in order, this ain't Mag is the Holy Ghost.

We don't do magic here. We're not here to do a spell to. No, no, no, baby. If you have denied something by principle, you can't believe it by promise. At some point you are going to have to realize it's my job to get my relationships in order to get my finances in order to get my mind in order to get my soul in order.

Order, order, order, order, order. But here's the deal. We like chaos, and we don't like nobody telling us what to do.

And we think that if somebody's just anointed enough.

They wasn't anointed.

No. The issue is not the level of anointing of the preacher you heard preach or the altar call that you went to. The problem is the level of chaos that is in your life. And at some point, I cannot out preach what you've refused to disciple in your own life. At some point, you are going to have to decide, I want God's order.

I want his order in my life. His order means that I get his sequence in my life. His order means I get his rhythm in my life. Which means I work six days and I rest one day. That's God's rhythm.

When I get God's order, I get his hierarchy. Ooh, we don't like that word hierarchy. We like we should all be the same, but we notice. We cooking. Ooh, we cooking.

I mean, I just think that what we need to do at the refuge. You've been here for six days. Shut up. Go to the New Believers class. While I was a deacon at my old church.

This ain't your old church. Get some order here. We don't Know you here. We don't trust you yet here. Your last church's accolades don't just transfer.

I was the head intercessor at my last team, and Pastor, I just want to let you know. Well, thank you for the memo. Go to the new you class. Go to the growth track.

Order, order, order, order. We don't like order, though. I mean, I think I should not here. I've been at a couple churches. You know what I'm saying?

I got a prophetic word. Well, I don't know you. Has your pastor released you to give prophetic words to the guest speakers?

I shouldn't have to ask nobody. Oh, okay, cool. So you want to operate in chaos. Paul writes to the Corinthian church, and he's like, hey, y' all can be as Holy Ghost filled as you want to be. Let's speak in tongues.

Let's prophesy, let's do it. But if it doesn't happen in order, then we ain't with it. Because God is not the God of chaos. And he don't co sign on mess, and he do sloppy. God does order.

God does straight lines. God does militant. And hierarchy is not a human idea. It's God's idea. How I know?

Because even the angels are in a hierarchy, baby. Heaven is organized. Angels don't even do stuff out of order. At some point, you're gonna have to submit.

Order. Order. I used to. Pastor Derek, I used to say, you know, I pastored at a predominantly black church, and I realized that's just a lie. It was not predominantly.

It was dominantly. There was only black people. Okay. There was no white people at this church. Okay.

There's no Hispanic people, no Asian people, just black. It was just black people. Okay? And so.

And so there's certain. I used to, you know, I used to be like, oh, yeah, I'm at a predominantly black church, and one time the Holy Ghost, like, why you keep saying predominantly? That's a bold face lie. That church is only black, okay?

And so. And so, you know, being. Being. And honestly, what's sad is that what I'm about to say is becoming more and more true across all ethnic lines is the strategic removal of black fathers. That's no longer just a black problem.

Fatherlessness has become a national epidemic across all kinds of different groups of people. And so when there's no man in the house, young boys don't have an appreciation for hierarchy, so they don't have an appreciation for authority, okay? So they're raised in a system where there's no hierarchy. There's no head. There is no.

I'm the man of the house and you're going to do what I tell you to do whether you feel like it or not. And so since they don't have that, ooh. They said that they want a spiritual father, but really they want a spiritual mamas. And the moment you would correct them and, and challenge them, they don't want none of that because they don't really want order. They don't want church to become the braces today, crooked teeth.

They want church to be a Kleenex.

So I would sit all I had to realize, if I'm going to pastor, I can't make excuses for the people that I lead. I'm going to have to come up with creative solutions. So I sat all the single mamas down.

I have like 20 single mamas. We had single mama meeting. It is very good. And I'd be like, hey, all my single mamas. Your daughter's got anxiety because you out of order.

Cause anxiety is a chaos problem. And it don't matter what I do on a Wednesday night, it don't matter how many praise songs we sing. If you treat your daughter like she's your friend, If you tell a 14 year old about 40 year old problems, you are out of order. That girl don't need to know that the light bill can't get paid. That girl don't need to know who you dating.

That's not your friend, that's your daughter. And guess what? If you don't know how to establish order in your house, that's why you get to church. I'll be the pastor. I will lead you.

Let me. So all the single mamas, I was like, bring your kids report cards to me. I'll be a spiritual father in their life and I will help you restore order. Order, Order.

When you look at how God. Oh, I'm cooking. Oh, we cooking.

We live in a culture that wants the benefit of order but doesn't actually want to go through the process of actually assessing establishing the burden of order in our life. Order, order. It's funny because when you look at God in creation, God's response to the chaos of Genesis, chapter one, verse two. The Bible says that the starting point of creation is actually not nothingness, but the starting point of creation is chaos. Hebrew it's tohu va vohu.

The Bible says that the spirit of the Lord is hovering over the surface of the waters, that darkness is hovering over the surface of the deep. That this is not nothing. We Got darkness, we got the deep, we got waters. We got a whole lot of stuff in Genesis Chapter one, verse two. And God doesn't go, let there be peace.

God starts to begin to create boundaries.

Boundaries, Boundaries. Definition.

Because a situationship is chaos.

Definition. I mean, we don't need to define it. You know what I'm saying? Why would we define it? If we define it, we may ruin it.

That brother is lying to you, girl. At some point you gonna need to bring a definition to the relationship. God brings boundaries. God brings clarity. God brings purpose.

God brings order. The Hebrew word bara is only used three times in Genesis chapter one. That word means to create. God doesn't do a whole lot of creating, but he does a whole lot of ordering. He begins to order things.

He begins to say, dry land. You go there. Waters, you go there. Oh yeah, the sky. You're here.

He begins to position the creation so that it will be habitable for human life. Because humans don't flourish in chaos. Humans only flourish in order. So tonight, here we go. My message is very, very simple.

If you're taking notes. Here we go. Here's my sermon title tonight. Out of Order. Out of Order.

Does the media team just have the. The graphic for my book? Is there a graphic for my book? There should be a QR code on it. I'll give you the QR code later.

Don't worry about the QR code. That's the graphic for my book that comes out in May. They let me put a dragon on the COVID because in the ancient world, dragons represented chaos. I didn't get this doctorate for nothing, baby. I was going to write a nerdy book, okay?

And so I'll throw this graphic up again. Come on. We're gonna do chapter five. We're gonna do chapter five. Let's go.

What's funny is that I love to tell my testimony because I'm the first Arango to graduate from high school. First Arango to graduate from college. First Arango with a master's degree, a doctorate. I love to tell my testimony. And typically, anytime I tell my testimony, people give me a standing ovation.

Cause I've overcome all kinds of chaos in order to actually be functional and healthy and normal. Let's normalize. Normal. Hello. Anyway, don't cancel me, Gen Z.

And so what people typically don't know, though, is typically when I preach, I give the highlights. But tonight I kind of want to get detailed. And I don't just want to give you the highlights of I overcame all this stuff. But can we actually get down into the nitty gritty on how I overcame chaos and established some order. Come on, you rocking with me.

I can remember the day I got married. It was very, very clear to me at my wedding that there was one person who I thought would be very happy at my wedding, but she was not happy. She was salty. And that was my mama. Oh, my mama.

My mama was off in a corner pouting. Okay. My mama was visibly upset. Okay. My mama was so upset that.

Is that me beeping?

I think I'm. I don't think so.

My mama was so upset. I walked over to my mama in the middle of the wedding of the after party and was like, are you good? And she was like, yeah. And the way she said, yeah. I knew the real answer was, no, you not happy.

Okay. So then, upon further investigation, not only did I begin to debrief with my mama, but then I went, oh. And got a therapist. Not a podcast, a therapist, Not a pastor, a therapist. And I began to talk to my therapist, and my therapist began to make it very, very clear that the reason that my mama didn't really like the fact that I got married is because my mama could see the writing on the walls.

That the moment I got married, it meant that she was about to get in the backseat of my life. Here's what people typically don't know. When you're in a family of origin and there's someone who's an addict. So my father's an addict. Okay.

My father takes me to a crack house for the first time when I'm five. It ain't the last time. So my father is addicted. And what happens when there's an addict is the other two members of the family form an alliance. I got your back.

You got my back. And. Whoo. My mama began to place spousal level expectations on her son. So I got a job when I'm 15.

I'm paying bills at 15 years old, and now I get married, and my mama is like, uh, oh. If he just said vows to her, what's about to happen to me? So now I'm sitting there with my therapist, and my therapist makes it very, very clear that although I'm grateful to my mama, although I love my mama, if I allow the chaos of my mother's dysfunction to. If I let the river of her expectations flood so uncontrollably, she will begin to destroy the new chance at order that the Arango family has. That the most loving thing for me to do is to quarantine her.

Uh. Oh.

Because there's some of us that you can pray to break the generational curse all you want, but until you begin to put family members in a place we can't bippity boppity boo you into the new version of you. At some point, you gonna have to talk to your mama. I remember having. It was the hardest conversation I ever had. I was like, hey, there's a new sheriff in town.

Her name's Tia.

You're not the boss.

Boundaries. Don't call me after 9:59pm once it gets into the double digits. Married people doing what married people do. You don't know nothing about that. You and my daddy ain't been together for years.

But I'm not about to let your divorce.

I can't let your chaos ruin my order. I'm helping somebody's marriage right now because here's the secret. If you can't put your mama in check, you're still a boy.

That's good preaching, Pastor Manny. Dang.

Mike dropped.

Here we go. We cooking. We just warming up the pan right now. Here we go. Here's what I began to realize about my mama.

My mama wasn't just pregnant at 12. My mom got sexually abused at 12. So here's what the therapist began to help me to understand.

And there's somebody in the room. Here we go. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

You think that your kindness is actually helping people? Your kindness could be killing the very person that you're trying to be loving towards. And the enemy keeps guilt tripping you, making you believe that if you put boundaries in place, that person ain't never gonna come to God. And you don't know how they're ever gonna. No, no.

You are not their savior. And until you throw Jonah overboard, God can't send a whale to save Jonah. At some point, you gonna have to realize that not even Jesus got a messia. Why, you got a messiah complex? You can't save your mama.

Jesus can save your mama. Here we go. Let's get back to my notes. This is what happens when I preach stuff for the first time. We all over the place.

Here's what the therapist helped me to see. That there were five men in my mama's life that got her to the point where she was before I ever got into the picture.

My therapist taught me this. That in the soul of a young girl and the soul of a young man, the soul is asking two different questions. This is why it is imperative that we stand on scripture and say there's only two genders. There ain't A third. There ain't a mixture.

There ain't a spectrum. There's men and there's women. Period. The soul of every young girl is asking this question. At the age of four.

Here's the question that the soul of every young girl is asking. Am I lovable and who will love me? The question of the soul. Here's a question that every young man is asking. Not the same question.

Question of the soul. By the age of 4, 5 years old, here's what every young boy is wondering. Am I worthy? And how will I prove it? Which is why you keep trying to get that man love.

And he need respect. But that's a whole nother sermon. You don't want to rock with me? Okay, Come on. Come on.

Am I lovable? And who will love me? Okay. First person that was supposed to teach my mama that she was lovable and that he would love her was her father. She never met her biological father.

Number two, the man that sexually abused her and got her pregnant at the age of 12 was her brother's best friend. So her brother didn't protect her. And the man who sexually abused her, get this, my grandmama, her mother made her marry the man who raped her. So now he becomes her first husband. My older brother becomes man number four.

And for reasons that we cannot get into, my brother does not answer the question, are you lovable and will I love you? Man number five. My father, addicted to crack cocaine, incarcerated for 18 years. Her father, her first husband, her brother, my older brother, and finally my father, unable to answer the question, are you lovable and will I love you? So now she's at my wedding, and the only person, her last hope to answer the question, am I lovable?

Will you take care of me? Has now vowed his life to another woman. And my mama is not evil.

She's broken. Broken. And she does not need another person to coddle her. She needs someone to direct all of that pain towards the only person who can actually heal her. Nobody besides Jesus can make my mama's life complete, can make her life whole.

Me bending my knee to my mama's dysfunction is not about to help my mama.

So I'm man number six. Get this in. The avalanche of five failed men are crashing down on me. And with this perspective, we get to John, chapter four. Because Jesus rose up on a woman in Samaria who's had five failed relationships.

And we have done this woman so wrong in church. We have talked about this woman being a loose woman. We've talked about her being a whoremongering. Woman. When the reality is that in the first century, women couldn't initiate divorce.

Women weren't even allowed to initiate divorce. Which means that when Jesus rose up to the woman at the well, in John chapter four, he rolls up to a woman who's been let down five times, disappointed five times, rejected five times. And Jesus rolls into her life and declares, I can give you living water. Everybody has disappointed you. I'll never disappoint you.

Everyone has taken advantage of you. Everyone has withdrawn from your account and never deposited. And I am here to be a new kind of man in your life.

Oh, here we go. Can we keep cooking?

I want to bring you with me everywhere. Who said it's hot? Who was that? Oh, come on. I can.

Cam we start traveling with her? Come on. Here we go. I told you. There's two questions that the soul's asking.

Am I lovable? And who will love me and am I worthy? And how will I prove it? So Jesus starts talking to the woman, saying, give me a drink. Ain't Jesus triggering, Knowing all the drama about the woman?

Jesus could have rolled up like, hey, I know you thought you'd be up here by yourself, but I'm thirsty.

Could you help a brother out? You know, Jesus wants to purposely push your buttons. Cause Jesus knows this is why. Come on, millennials. Come on.

Here's a word we gotta get out of our vocabulary. Triggered. I'm triggered.

I was triggered. Maybe, just maybe, the Holy Spirit's trying to trigger you. Have you ever thought for a moment, the moment that maybe God's trying to trigger you, that he knows which buttons to push and that the enemy ain't the only one triggering you, but that there's a God that's going, no, no, no. I'm trying to trigger you towards faith. I'm trying to trigger you towards life.

I'm trying to trigger you towards hope. I'm trying to. I am trying to trigger you, cuz I got to get what's in you out so I can deal with the real you.

Cuz Jesus rose up. Give me a drink. The woman's response, you can tell the woman's aggravated. How dare you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink? This woman is ticked.

Another man with expectations and needs.

She is scorned. Okay? Jesus is like, hey, give me a drink. She's like, how dare you act like we cool? There's an ethnic tension.

There's a gender tension.

Jews didn't associate with Samaritans. Come on. Because in 586 and 722 BC. Y' all about to get dates. I didn't get this doctorate for nothing.

I'm playing with y'. All. 722 BC, the Assyrians came and they captured Samaria. And the way that they exiled people wasn't like the Babylonians. They didn't just bring you off to Babylon.

No, they scattered you all over the known world. And then they took people who were not Jewish and dumped them in Samaria. And the Jewish people have issues with Samaritans because the Jews, pure blood Jews, expected y' all are not supposed to intermarry when the king of Assyria dumps heathens into our land.

But dating heathens is tempting.

Something about them heathens, you know what I'm saying?

So instead of remaining ethnically pure, and this is not a racist problem, by the way, God is saying, don't intermarry, not because of the ethnicity, but because people of other nationalities worship other gods. And so if you're a Jew and you worship Yahweh, you can't raise kids in an environment where they mama worship baal, because that's chaos.

So after centuries of intermarrying, there's conflict between the Jews, who are ethnically pure, and Samaritans, who the Jews would call half bloods. They're not pure blood Jew. And Jesus got the nerve to roll up to the woman he knows she a Samaritan. And Jesus got the nerve to be like, give me a drink. Clearly, Jesus know that the woman has had a lot of dudes disappoint her.

Jesus, roll up, give me a drink. Jesus, just go.

Just pull the pin out. Toss the grenade.

And the woman is like, we ain't cool. Your people don't even talk to my people. And you a man. I don't like men.

I love this. Here we go. Jesus now says, if you knew, if you only knew. If you only knew that I had the power to order your life. If you only knew that I had the power to help erase traumatic memories and heal them for you.

If you only knew that I had the power to answer the question of your soul, that the reason you've been in all these relationships is because you've been wondering, am I lovable and are you going to love me? Am I lovable and are you going to love me? And Jesus says, if you knew, you would have actually put a demand on me and I would have supplied living water for you. Now here we go. Jesus tries to get the woman to focus on Living Water, but the woman don't want to focus on living water.

She wants to focus on the well that they're in front of. So when you begin to study the text, you'll begin to realize that the woman just keeps asking questions about the well. You got a bucket?

Our grandfather Jacob built this well. I mean, but like, if I drink the living water, I won't have to come back to this well no more. She keeps asking well questions. Now, here's what I have learned. That for Jews.

Here we go. Context. Living water and well water are two completely categorically different forms of water. Well water would have been considered dead water. Living water is any form of water that's moving.

So a river is moving. That's living water. This is why Jews would not baptize you in a lake, because a lake is dead water. Any body of water that is sitting still, collecting parasites, collecting germs, is dead water. So Jews would baptize you in living water, which means they would take you down to a river, because here's how they thought.

If I dip you in a lake, all I'm doing is getting your sin right where it is. And now you bathing in sin, and I'm going to pull you out. But if I baptize you in a river, then God's got the power to take your infirmity and move it downstream. Which is why God can say, as the east is as far as it is from the west, so your sins have been cast into the sea of forgetfulness. Because if I toss something in a river, ain't no way I'm ever gonna find it.

But if I toss it into a lake, I can get down to the bottom and get it. So the reason that Jesus says, I want to offer you a different category of water, the woman has context for what Jesus is saying. But the woman don't want to talk about living water. She doesn't want to talk about the well. But why does well don't work, though?

Living water? I won't bore you and bring you to Leviticus, but Leviticus, chapter 14, verse 5. If you want to go home and study this. Leviticus, chapter 14, verse 5. Whenever a priest is doing a sacrifice to get you ceremonially pure so that you can go into the the temple, they actually have to perform the sacrifice over running water.

Let me help you. There's no plumbing in Leviticus. Running water is river. It's living water. This is why Jews, if there was no river available, they would baptize you with rain water, because no one can make it rain but God.

Oh, God. So they wouldn't baptize you in any kind of water that represented man made activity. So well water is dead water. Living water would be, get this one, A natural spring.

Jews would consider natural springs to be living water because you can't make a spring do what it do. They would say a lake is dead water, springs are living water. They would say a river is living water, but a well is dead water. And you want to know what begins to happen.

If you've never gotten to the spring of living water, then you will put so much pressure on the wells in your life that no compliments from your husband are ever enough. Can I tell you what your marriage represents? Your marriage is a well. You want to know what's true about wells? Wells require work.

Your church is a well. Your pastor is a well.

Marriage is a wells. Your friendships are wells. But here's the problem. When we haven't gotten to the spring of living water, we begin to put spring level expectations on all the wells in our life. You want to know what I had to help my mama understand I'm not the spring of living water.

I'm a well. And you will break every well in your life until you have gotten content with God. And contentment only comes when God begins to answer the question of your soul. You are lovable and I love you. You are worthy and you don't have to prove it.

When God begins to answer the questions of every woman's soul and the question of every man's soul, then I can approach every well in my life. And the resource is always going to break if I don't get the source right. If I put a source level expectation on a resource, that thing just became an idol in my life. And God kills idols. That's why I did not let my mama idolize me.

I ain't trying to let God take me out. I got too much purpose on my life to allow someone to put me on a pedestal only to disappoint them.

Oh, we preaching.

Here we go. Let's keep moving. We about to close. Keys, come on. Where you at?

Keys.

Tickle them, tickle them. Keys. Come on. Everything sounds more spiritual when you play in keys.

All right, here we go. Here we go. This is why it's important for us to realize that Jesus got baptized in living water.

Jesus got baptized in living water. So Jesus is offering something that he has to give. Jesus is saying, we could continue to have a well level conversation or we could talk about living water, but we can't talk about both. You are Going to have to stop asking me well questions so that we can talk about living water questions. I'd love to give you living water revelation because here's what you'll find.

If I give you living water, you'll stop being disappointed about this well.

You will approach wells very different if we get the living water thing handled. But the woman wants to stay shallow, wants to stay surface. Here we go. Jesus gets baptized. I love this.

He gets baptized in the Jordan River. When he gets baptized, God talks. Heaven's open, Holy Ghost falls. And God says something very, very fascinating. This is my son, whom I love, in whom I'm well.

This is my who I, in whom I'm well. In the waters of baptism, Jesus gets the question that every woman is asking answered. And also simultaneously gets the question that every man's soul is asking answered because both men and women are in Christ. And as he gets baptized in the water, the main question that every man is asking am I worthy? How will I prove it?

God says, before you ever open a blinded eye, Jesus, before you take two fish and five loaves and multiply it, before you perform a miracle, I need you to know I'm pleased with you. Because you don't prove that you're worthy by your performance or by how much money you make or by the house you live in or the car you drive. And we got money. Men who believe age makes you mature. Age don't make you mature.

Hearing your father tell you that you don't need to prove nothing to nobody makes you mature. And until you hear your father tell you you, my son, not only do I love you, but I'm proud of you. You made in my image. You'll think that how beautiful the women are make you you. That don't make you you.

You'll think that the clothes make you you. That don't make you youu'll think that the house makes you. That don't make you. You'll think that the car and it's all just. You just keep putting the bucket in.

Maybe this will quench my thirst. And Jesus goes, you will break this well with all your insecurities until you hear me affirm that you are mine. And I'm pleased with you and I'm proud of you.

There are no amounts of compliments that my wife could give me after I preach that would make me feel good about the sermon. If I haven't heard God say, that was the word right there, son, that was it. And there's some of us. You are breaking every well in Your life.

Jesus is trying to get you to go, hey, I got living water for you. And you're like, if you just fix my husband. And God is like, you don't have a husband problem. The reason you on man number six right now is because you kept putting so much pressure on every man you ever been with. There is no man that can make you feel beautiful.

That's impossible. When you look in the mirror, if you don't love who you see, there is no man that can fix your low self esteem. God can fix your low self esteem. That is a living water problem. That ain't a well problem.

A new well is not about to taste better.

Jesus is in the waters of baptism. That's my son, who I love.

Only thing I could do is go, mama, if I try to prove that you're lovable and that I'm the sixth dude who's finally gonna love you, I'll kill me and you. This is chaos. This is chaos. This ain't worked. How long you gonna keep clinging to something that's not working?

This didn't work with my older brother. Didn't work with my father. This didn't work with your first husband. This don't work.

But I can introduce you. Here's the deal. My mama had church, but she had never had living water. Oh, God, there's so many people at church. But can I help you?

Church is just a well, well. And our job is to lead you to the source of living water. Say. But until you get right with God, until God says, I love you so much. You're made in my image.

You're beautifully and wonderfully made. I knit you together in your mother's womb. You remind me of me. When I look at you, I see me. I made you in my image.

I took care of you. I made that nose. I made them eyes. Oh, I fashioned you. Till God comes into your life and can't no preacher tell you that.

I can't tell you that. I can point.

I can tell you. Yeah, my father took me to a crack house when I was five. Yeah, I grew up dysfunctional. But as some. At one point, I got a taste of living water.

Oh, somewhere around 12, I got baptized. And I began to realize I wasn't the son of a crackhead. I was the son of a king. I began to realize I wasn't the son of a teenage mom. I was the son of heaven.

I was the son of God. At some point, I began to realize that God's hand was on my life, that I was Anointed. I was gifted.

Here we go. We land in a plane.

Am I preaching to anybody tonight?

Order. Order. In one conversation, he begins to reorder this woman's soul. Finally, she gets it. She's like, all right, then, give me the living water.

And he goes, all right, go get your husband. So sneaky. She's like, the dude I'm with right now, we're not married. And Jesus is like, yeah, I know. You've had five husbands.

Here we go. I love this.

All through Genesis, Jacob's wife Rachel is found at a well. Isaac's wife Rebecca is found at a well. You get to Exodus, Moses, wife Zipporah is found at a well. The church is half Jew, half Gentile, which is a Samaritan. So this woman represents the bride of Christ.

Jesus is not talking to no normal, regular random woman. Jesus rose up to a woman who represents a type and shadow of the bride of Christ. Jesus realized that all the patriarchs found their wife at a well. So Jesus was about to find his wife at a well. When you read Second Kings, chapter 17, you begin to realize that the king of Assyria didn't just dump random people into Samaria, he dumped five other nations into Samaritan Samaria.

And that the Samaritans were in a ridiculous relationship with the Greco Roman Empire, which represented man number six. And Jesus rose in as man number seven to complete the narrative. Jesus is not just talking to a random woman at a random well on a random day. He's talking to the bride of Christ. I wonder, is there anybody that realizes, even when I'm not faithful to him, he's faithful to me?

Hosea chapter two says that when the Messiah comes, he will come to redeem his bride called the church. Oh, God. Jesus is not just talking to some random woman. He's talking to you. He's talking to me.

This story is actually about how Jesus begins to fix the brokenness in your life and in my life. Oh. The text starts with these words. Jesus had to go through Samaria.

Had to go through Samaria. I'm not going to bore you and throw up a map, but can I tell you, he's traveling from Judea to Galilee. He doesn't have to go through Samaria. Most Jews actually avoided Samaria completely, but this man had to go through Samaria because he had an appointment with one woman. In John, chapter four gives us the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and any other human being.

Because he was talking to his bride. He was talking to you. He was talking to me. He was helping us to realize that if we put living water expectations on wells, we'll break every well in our life.

And we'll keep calling him like he a plumber. He ain't a plumber. He ain't here just to fix the wells. He's here to give you living water so that the well can function. Function properly.

Once you get living water, the well functions. End of the story. What does the woman do? She goes to the town. She's like, y' all got to see.

Y' all got to come out and talk to him. Because the only job of the church is just be a witness in the courtroom. I ain't the judge. I ain't the prosecutor. I'm the lawyer.

I'm just a witness. I'm here to tell you what I saw and how it impacted me. I don't need to win arguments. I don't need to judge nobody. I ain't a Pharisee.

I ain't a lawyer. I'm a witness. I was blind, but now I see. I was deaf, but now I hear. I was broken, but now I'm fixed.

I was full of chaos, but God ordered me. Oh, I was confused, but he brought clarity. All I can tell you is what I saw. I went out there to draw water. My life was a wreck, and I got living water.

The church's job is not to draw people to itself.

She doesn't go to the town like, okay, let me start my ministry. I can fix you. No, she goes out to the town like, come on, you gotta come see Jesus. You want to know our job? Just keep telling people, you gotta come see Jesus.

Oh, come on. You gotta meet this guy, this man. He's changed my life. He changed everything about me.