And That's Your Business

Introduction

Women’s history month was birthed out of the celebration of International Women’s Day in 1911, a day that was grossly depreciated until the 1960’s in which a woman inspired by the likes of Malcolm X adopted the moniker Laura X organized a women’s march on March 8, 1969. This led to President Jimmy Carter in 1980 declaring the week of March 8th women’s history week. In 1987, after being petitioned by the National Women's History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as Women's History Month. Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women's History Month. Since 1988, U.S. presidents have issued annual proclamations designating the month of March as Women's History Month on occasion.

Tabitha Brown, one of my favorite people on social media typically used this tagline in her videos. “And That’s Your Business” is the tagline. In many of our homes, we have a phrase that many of you have stated or heard, “what goes on in this house, stays in this house”. That phrase has inhibited a number of people even well into adulthood to perpetuate this mantra and refuse to talk about various traumas that have dibilatated them from moving past some atrocities that they faced at the hands of family.

Regardless how secret you try to operate in your home there is a Jesus that knows everything. We may be able to hide various things from other humans but understand that God knows everything we struggle with, every mistake we have made, every tear we have shed and every lie we have ever told.

As we enter this section of scripture in context we are given a front row seat to an interaction with Jesus and a Samaritan woman. We are given insight to her life, a Samaritan woman, a woman whom had been married five times, and currently shacking up with a man that was not her husband. I want us to think about what it would be like if Jesus exposed all of our dirt in person. What would our response be? Would we shrink into isolation for fear of embarassment or would we utilize our imperfection to be a testimony to help someone else who is going through something!

The Bible Is A Book of Empowerment

A lot of the problems we face with empowering women in our churches today stems from our mistake of starting in the wrong place.

We started in a place of silence when the bible says we all have a duty to share the gospel.

It is an oppresive tactic to use scripture to belittle or demonize someone because of their past. We all have a past, imagine if Jesus conditioned her deliverance based on her past.

Philippians 3:13-14 “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Understand that people may marvel at my deliverance but know that as long as God has delivered me, the opinions of others no longer matters.

John 4:27 “And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?””

People marvel but won’t say anything.

People might complain in secret but won’t speak up.

People may not understand my deliverance but thank God that He does not deliver us based on the understanding of others.

People will always have something to say, they conversed amongst themselves, they questioned Jesus, they questioned why He would talk to a woman like this. Understand that someone is always going to have something to say.

This was deeper than confusion, the word marvel means to be very amazed, be in a state of wonder.

When people know what you have been through sometimes it is hard to wrap their head around how Jesus would pick you to be delivered let alone be a messenger for Him.

The disciples could not wrap their head around why Jesus would be speaking to a woman let alone a Samaritan woman.

Jesus has always been on the side of the oppressed. Regardless of what congress says women have value in the kingdom. Many triumphs in biblical history are because God empowered a woman to be the victor.

I believe it was Tupac Shakur that once stated

“And since we all came from a woman

Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman

I wonder why we take from our women

Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?

I think it's time to kill for our women

Time to heal our women, be real to our women

And if we don't we'll have a race of babies

That will hate the ladies that make the babies”

This is not the only time a woman bears witness to the risen Lord, here we have a Samaritan woman bearing testimony to Jesus as the Messiah! Even Mary Magdalene bears witness to the risen Christ!

Deliverance Will Make You Leave Everything Behind

She bears witness about Jesus even though she has a past! She’s so filled with deliverance that she leaves her waterpot! The sole reason she came to the well was for water but she left empowered because Christ delivered her.

“The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city and said to men,”

Deliverance will make you leave everything and journey toward testifying about Jesus.

She went into the city and talked to the men, about the Man that can save every human on earth.

Understand the specificity of her directive. She said COME, not just come anywhere but come to a specific place for a specific purpose.

Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 4:19 “Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.””

Transparency Wins

Come see a Man who told me all things that I ever did!

Understand your testimony is only as powerful as your transparency. We don’t have time and life is too short for us to fake the funk about who we really are!

We all have sins, we all have a story, but understand that your past has power when you tap into the deliverance of God.

You may not have showed up today trying to be a blessing to someone else but understand that your story might be the motivation someone needs to say yes to Jesus.

Jesus already knows everything we have ever done why not use it to bless someone else. Testimonies help people understand that they are not alone in their journey! Instead of isolating people by ostracizing them, listen to them, encourage them, have empathy for them! In the brokenness of our past the only thing that makes us whole is our faith in Jesus.

The Outcome of Testimony

John 4:39 “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.””

Many people believed in Jesus because of the confidence that this woman had in Jesus. Jesus saw her! Jesus saw her in her sin and encouraged her to be better! Today Jesus is encouraging us to be better.

This called for racial barriers and gender barriers to be broken. Jesus a jewish male was urged to stay with Samaritan people because of His ability to see a woman for who she was rather than through her gender or enthnicity.

Today isn’t about race, gender or past. Today is about salvation, today is about forgiveness, today is about Jesus seeing us for who we are in the midst of our sin and encouraging us to be better and say yes to the Salvation of the Lord!