SPEAKER_02: When the Spirit of God begins to fill the temple, chains begin to fall off.
SPEAKER_02: You ever heard of the phrase chain smoking?
SPEAKER_02: It'll keep you bound, it'll keep you shameful.
SPEAKER_02: You ever try to be around somebody try to cover up the cigarette smoke?
SPEAKER_02: They just smelt like smoky cologne.
SPEAKER_02: Experience.
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking, I used to be a smoker.
SPEAKER_02: When God begins to cut, we allow Him to be the Lord of our lives, we begin to give up things that we used to hold on to.
SPEAKER_02: Every part of us becomes subject to the Almighty God.
SPEAKER_02: And when that begins to happen, there's things inside of us, there's things about us that begin to shift and change, and we begin to lay them at the altar of God because we don't want anything to do with who we used to be.
SPEAKER_02: You may be here today and say, Well, I'm never gonna tell him I smoke.
SPEAKER_02: If only give it to him.
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you firsthand, smoking was probably one of the hardest things for me to stop doing.
SPEAKER_02: It was a social thing, it was a stress reliever.
SPEAKER_02: Then I didn't get my smoke breaks anymore.
SPEAKER_02: Then I had to do a full day's work.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02: My fingertips weren't yellow anymore.
SPEAKER_02: There was a literal physical transformation on my body when I gave up something that I held so dear to me.
SPEAKER_02: God wants you in this church to be a testimony of his freedom.
SPEAKER_02: This is the problem with church folk.
SPEAKER_02: We talk freedom, but we don't live in it.
SPEAKER_02: We love to say things that sound good and we quote biblical things.
SPEAKER_02: Don't judge, God's the only judge.
SPEAKER_02: That should scare you to death.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody said the other day, well, why did God punish Adam and Eve so severe?
SPEAKER_02: All they did was eat a fruit.
SPEAKER_02: It was something he said not to do, and they did it anyways.
SPEAKER_02: And he told them, If you taste, you will surely die.
SPEAKER_02: But yet they were allowed to live longer.
SPEAKER_02: They were blessed.
SPEAKER_02: Obedience leads us to sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to be obedient to God, you must let everything that has grown its roots deep into your spirit, your soul, your physical person, and let it go.
SPEAKER_02: And say, God, whatever it is that I have in my life, this is why I preach and teach and scream all the time, self-examination, because we must be healthy Christians.
SPEAKER_02: It's like when you get on an airplane, if you've ever flown before, they say, put on your mask first and then help others.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because you'll try to help others and you'll never get the oxygen you need to live.
SPEAKER_02: We do this constantly in the Christian world.
SPEAKER_02: We want to help everybody out.
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell everybody how to do their thing.
SPEAKER_02: And oh well, the scripture says this when you ain't living it yourself.
SPEAKER_02: Woo! That was my pre-message.
SPEAKER_02: This excites me.
SPEAKER_02: And if you've ever been set free of this, it should excite you.
SPEAKER_02: God is doing things in this church.
SPEAKER_02: God is doing miracles before our very eyes.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't think it's a miracle of laying down something that has a hold on you, you ain't never been gotten a hold of.
SPEAKER_02: What we're gonna be talking about today, I'm gonna challenge you at the end of this service.
SPEAKER_02: If you got something to lay at the feet of Jesus, you need to get it out now and get it in your hand, and it may be your wallet.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I started there.
SPEAKER_02: It may be your phone.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you, you might have to pick your spouse up and go put him at the altar.
SPEAKER_02: We'll just do it mentally, we won't do it physically, right?
SPEAKER_02: Second Corinthians chapter 6, verse 14, it says this don't team up with those who are unbelievers.
SPEAKER_02: One of the biggest tricks of the enemy right now is trying to convince the church that to show God's love, we have to be unified with the sinner.
SPEAKER_02: And that is not true, that's not biblical, and that's not accurate.
SPEAKER_02: We are to love them, but we are to not join them in their escapades.
SPEAKER_02: Don't team up with those who are unbelievers.
SPEAKER_02: How can righteousness partner with wicked wickedness?
SPEAKER_02: How can light live with darkness?
SPEAKER_02: It's impossible.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we thank you so much for your presence here today.
SPEAKER_02: I thank you, God, before we even got into the word, your word has been doing its work.
SPEAKER_02: I thank you, Lord, for the worship.
SPEAKER_02: I pray that those who are stepping forward today and laying things at your feet, that God, you give them strength to say no to the enemy when he tries to come and tempt them.
SPEAKER_02: Give them courage.
SPEAKER_02: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Y'all gonna be leaving church and shaking the pastor's hand and be like, I smell like cigarettes now.
SPEAKER_02: So last Sunday, this is the last Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Anybody been through our growth track yet?
SPEAKER_02: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_02: Been through the growth track?
SPEAKER_02: You know what the growth track is?
SPEAKER_02: If you don't know what the growth track is, the growth track is for us as pastors.
SPEAKER_02: So Sister Jesse and I, we open up our home.
SPEAKER_02: We allow you to come in, sit down, get to know us outside of the church because we want to get to know you.
SPEAKER_02: We think it's a vital part.
SPEAKER_02: We can't do it all the time.
SPEAKER_02: It's literally impossible, even for a church smaller like this, for a pastor and his wife to get to sit down with everybody and to be able to talk every Sunday with everybody.
SPEAKER_02: It is mathematically impossible.
SPEAKER_02: So I thought of a way to be able to actually do this was to get you, if you want to know more about our church, if you want to become members of our church.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not about numbers, but I'm about spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_02: And so I want you to be able to know if you're going to say that this is my church, I want you to know what we believe and what we stand for.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to know what our core values are.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to know what our core beliefs are, and you need to know what we think when it comes to the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_02: And if that right there sparks some questions, the sign-up sheet is out there.
SPEAKER_02: Because you need to go through it.
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing greater than the church that is in full unity together.
SPEAKER_02: And so this is what it will do.
SPEAKER_02: It will get us in the same book, same chapter, same page, same line.
SPEAKER_02: So, last time, it's out there on that table, and anything that we have going on, it will be out the table.
SPEAKER_02: If there's ever a sign-up sheet for anything, there's a table in the corner, and that is our table out there.
SPEAKER_02: Just so you know, if you're new here, that you can find out any information you need to know.
SPEAKER_02: And if it's not out there and you have questions, we will get it for you.
SPEAKER_02: So today we begin a new series.
SPEAKER_02: It is February 5th.
SPEAKER_02: Shut up, Siri.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not talking to you.
SPEAKER_02: February 5th.
SPEAKER_02: Always listening.
SPEAKER_02: If only I could be like Siri.
SPEAKER_02: Right, baby?
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02: If I could listen.
SPEAKER_02: If I could always be listening.
SPEAKER_02: So anybody excited about a new series?
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember what we just talked about?
SPEAKER_02: Anybody?
SPEAKER_02: Shut up.
SPEAKER_02: That's the only word y'all are words y'all remember, but hey, it's stuck, right?
SPEAKER_02: We have to take the authority.
SPEAKER_02: What Brother Vernon was saying earlier about the authority that we have available in God and through the Spirit that his son came down and died on the cross so that we could be set free and so that we can be made righteous before an almighty and righteous God.
SPEAKER_02: Because we cannot work ourselves into righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: You could throw all the stuff you want at the feet of God, but that does not make you right.
SPEAKER_02: That does not make you righteous before God.
SPEAKER_02: Only the blood of Jesus can make you righteous.
SPEAKER_02: It is the filter in which God looks through so that He can see you and what He has called you to be.
SPEAKER_02: So today we're going to start a new series.
SPEAKER_02: And I hope you've been preparing your hearts.
SPEAKER_02: We've got done a couple weeks ago on the 21st, 21-day fast, which we are going to do around the summertime area one more time.
SPEAKER_02: Figure it's a good midterm for us to start fasting and praying again.
SPEAKER_02: I hope that you have got a divine revelation from God during the fast.
SPEAKER_02: And I hope that you have not just done 21 days and stopped there.
SPEAKER_02: What do I mean?
SPEAKER_02: Every week I pick one day and I fast.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why am I doing that?
SPEAKER_02: I've been studying a lot, and actually, my wife has uh preceded me with this that I didn't even know she was doing it.
SPEAKER_02: She started talking to me about it, and then God is starting leading me in the ways of spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_02: We have a bunch of untrained weak Christians like the disciples were, that if a demon was to make itself known in the presence of you, you would pee a little.
SPEAKER_02: Because you have no presence in your life, you have no authority in your life.
SPEAKER_02: We walk through in our Christian walk, and we we want to have the blessings of God, but we don't want to act accordingly to receive them.
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to prepare ourselves and make ourselves available to where we hear and we see what God wants us to do.
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna talk.
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we're in February, so we're gonna talk about love.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, some of y'all, so we're gonna talk about two types of people in a minute, and y'all just made yourself known right there.
SPEAKER_02: So the series is called Let's Get Involved.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna break down a little bit of what the weeks to come are going to be.
SPEAKER_02: Week one, which is today, we're gonna talk kind of through the phases of a relationship.
SPEAKER_02: So if you've ever been married before, you know that there is a dating phase.
SPEAKER_02: You're getting to know each other, you're seeing what you like, what you don't like.
SPEAKER_02: My wife, before we got married, she went on one date and knew she was it was a no.
SPEAKER_02: She's like, I don't need a second.
SPEAKER_02: No, sir, go on.
SPEAKER_02: She didn't play games, she had a list.
SPEAKER_02: Now I don't know why she went on second, third, fourth, and fifth with me, because she told me no after the first, second, maybe even the third, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02: But this is why, this is how I know the power of prayer and fasting because God roped her in.
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing when you get serious about something that means something to you, you'll begin to sacrifice things for God.
SPEAKER_02: And it's usually not in the place of until we get to a place of need and heartache and loneliness and lacking that we really start to begin to pray and fast.
SPEAKER_02: But actually, Jesus told us to preemptively get our minds and hearts right by prayer and fasting, so that when something happens in the church, and listen to me, when God's people start getting serious in the church house, demons show up to watch it burn.
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't understand what's going on, that's fine.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not asking for you to understand it.
SPEAKER_02: What I'm asking you is to read the word of God and see what it says.
SPEAKER_02: All you have to do is do a little Google search.
SPEAKER_02: What does the Bible say about demons?
SPEAKER_02: And you will see that throughout Jesus' ministry, that is what he did.
SPEAKER_02: He cast out the demons and he set the captives free.
SPEAKER_02: Now I know that can seem a little scary, but it is not a scary thing when you know the authority you have living inside of you is greater than the authority that will come against you.
SPEAKER_02: So if you think throughout these phases, well, I'm not dating.
SPEAKER_02: Well, first of all, if you're married, you should still be dating.
SPEAKER_02: If you wanted to stay healthy, if you want the abundance to stay wealthy in your marriage, you gotta keep dating them.
SPEAKER_02: You gotta keep trying.
SPEAKER_02: Don't quit trying just because you got them and you hooked them.
SPEAKER_02: You reeled them in, you got them home, you skin them.
SPEAKER_02: There it is.
SPEAKER_02: That was one meal.
SPEAKER_02: That was good.
SPEAKER_02: All right, good.
SPEAKER_02: Tell me that's not how we act in relationships.
SPEAKER_02: We get what we want and then we go on to the next.
SPEAKER_02: Week one.
SPEAKER_02: The dating phase.
SPEAKER_02: So if you are dating, some of this will apply to you.
SPEAKER_02: And if you are not dating, if you are just in a relationship, and I don't mean an intimate relationship, I mean a relationship with anybody that you are friends with.
SPEAKER_02: These will apply to you.
SPEAKER_02: Now, not only will it help you strengthen and understand yourself, how many of you know that if you want to get mentally, physically, and spiritually and emotionally better, you have to know thyself.
SPEAKER_02: You can blame everybody else around you as long as you want and talk about all they're doing this, they're doing that, they're coming against me, they're going like this, that, but yet you have the same issue and different spheres of people.
SPEAKER_02: It's you, darling.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go on.
SPEAKER_02: But if you want to be able to build better relationships, if you want to be able to have someday a marriage, you have to be able to work on yourself.
SPEAKER_02: And you have to understand as much as I love my wife, and as much as she loves me, we do not complete each other.
SPEAKER_02: I am not 50, she is not 50.
SPEAKER_02: We are both a hundred people.
SPEAKER_02: God did a work on us to get us a hundred percent so that I can give her a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02: We think people coming along will help us and get us to where we want to go.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a magic pill that you take and it makes you magically lose weight.
SPEAKER_02: This is a person, and the junk they have in the beginning is the junk that will be magnified later in the end.
SPEAKER_02: So you have to be able to allow God to work on you in every season so that you will be ready for that one to come, so that you can have better relationships.
SPEAKER_02: And if you aren't aware, we serve a relationship-centered God.
SPEAKER_02: He longs in the very beginning with Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_02: He came down in the cool of the day and he just walked with them and he talked with them.
SPEAKER_02: You know, some of us we use the Bible as a cop-out.
SPEAKER_02: Let me explain.
SPEAKER_02: In the Old Testament, the Bible was not yet written for them to hear from God.
SPEAKER_02: They actually had to put everything aside and truly sacrifice so they can actually hear him.
SPEAKER_02: Because what you're doing is reading what God said to somebody else.
SPEAKER_02: And yes, it can speak to you, it is alive, it is active, it is still true today, but some of us cop out and we don't turn our ear to God.
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to sacrifice anything to actually hear the voice of God because God has a word for every single child.
SPEAKER_02: Week two, the covenant phase.
SPEAKER_02: He is a relational God, he desires to speak your language, but he also desires for you to try to speak his.
SPEAKER_02: He is a covenant God, God of covenant.
SPEAKER_02: This is a large reason why we have so much spiritual issues in the church house today that then begin to display themselves emotionally, physically, and mentally.
SPEAKER_02: We constantly claim a covenant with God, yet are drawn daily to our idols that we worship.
SPEAKER_02: We'll be pointing out these types of idols and how to address them in week two.
SPEAKER_02: Week three, everybody who's ever been married, you have been in a honeymoon phase.
SPEAKER_02: Some of y'all are y'all don't want to speak up on that.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what honeymoon he's talking about.
SPEAKER_02: But this is where you first get in relationship.
SPEAKER_02: So, what I'm doing is I'm taking things that all of us know and I'm comparing it to God.
SPEAKER_02: It's cool how God shows us in relationships how we can be in our relationships with each other.
SPEAKER_02: So God wants us to be in covenant with each other.
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's so important to when you start going to a church and you say it's your church, you actually go to it.
SPEAKER_02: I love that you're watching online, but you're doing a disservice to yourself if you never show up.
SPEAKER_02: See you next week.
SPEAKER_02: But this is where if you've ever lived a life of sin, you know this season very well.
SPEAKER_02: You come to God and whoa, everything's good.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's go get some Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go to church.
SPEAKER_02: I want to go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
SPEAKER_02: It's good.
SPEAKER_02: God's done something for you, He sets you free.
SPEAKER_02: You're on fire, and nobody can quench that fire.
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, man, I want to read the word.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what's going on, but the word is just drawing me today.
SPEAKER_02: Oh Lord, speak to me, and you get all good.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a honeymoon phase.
SPEAKER_02: Or, oh, nothing is wrong with her.
SPEAKER_02: She's perfect.
SPEAKER_02: And I still say that.
SPEAKER_02: But she can do no wrong, coming from a man's perspective.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, her hair is perfect all the time.
SPEAKER_02: She wakes up and she just goes, ah, she flies out of the bed.
SPEAKER_02: And as she's flying across the room, makeup, hair, and all the stuff just happens, and she's in her clothes, and she's just like, I'm going to work, sweetheart, love you.
SPEAKER_02: And it's like everything she does, it's like she's on rollerblades just going like across the room.
SPEAKER_02: And it's like I wake up and she's like, Oh, here's your breakfast.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, How did you have time?
SPEAKER_02: She's like, I don't know, I just love you.
SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden, like I take off my clothes at the end of the day and I go put them in the laundry and I turn around and the very clothes I just took off are now on the bed folded clean.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, how did you do that?
SPEAKER_02: She's like, I don't know, I just love you.
SPEAKER_02: You go to put the kids in bed and they're they're already abed and they're they're showering and they're asleep, and you're like, what happened?
SPEAKER_02: You're like, I just love you.
SPEAKER_02: It's the honeymoon phase.
SPEAKER_02: You don't see nothing for how it really is.
SPEAKER_02: You are embellishing and how amazing it is.
SPEAKER_02: And we do this on our Christian walk.
SPEAKER_02: God does something for us, He transforms our lives.
SPEAKER_02: We are never to be the same again.
SPEAKER_02: He breaks bondage and sets the captives free.
SPEAKER_02: And that's our spiritual honeymoon phase.
SPEAKER_02: And then on week four, reality starts to kick in.
SPEAKER_02: All of a sudden, you're coming down off the high.
SPEAKER_02: Because really, when you first get saved, yes, you want to go out and preach.
SPEAKER_02: You want to get on the streets, you want to tell everybody about Jesus and what he's done for you.
SPEAKER_02: But then about four weeks later, about six months later, in between, everybody's different.
SPEAKER_02: All of a sudden, you don't really praise like you did when you first got saved.
SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe I'll just stay in my seat this Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, maybe, you know, we don't have to go this time.
SPEAKER_02: We can watch it online.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, y'all ain't liking me today.
SPEAKER_02: But do we not use the excuses after that spiritual high is over?
SPEAKER_02: After we start coming down and we realize that, oh, that just felt good for the moment, but now I gotta really do some work.
SPEAKER_02: The honeymoon phase is over because you've had such an emotional and spiritual high that was amazing and good, but now you start to come down and a little bit of reality sets in, and you almost feel like something is wrong.
SPEAKER_02: You almost feel like, well, that was okay, it's not feeling like it did.
SPEAKER_02: Am I not?
SPEAKER_02: Some of you may worry too much.
SPEAKER_02: You may say, Oh, it doesn't feel like it did at the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: Am I doing something wrong?
SPEAKER_02: Am I am I am I sinning?
SPEAKER_02: Am I doing you know, you start freaking out, or the other one's like, Well, that wasn't worth it.
SPEAKER_02: That was over quick.
SPEAKER_02: Like you're coming down off of a high, you start to freak out a little bit about your spiritual person.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is prime real estate.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_02: This is prime real estate for the enemy to move in and try to shame you again.
SPEAKER_02: Because if he can start reminding you and make you feel a little bit like, oh, maybe you are living the way you were, or maybe you are still that person.
SPEAKER_02: We know this who the sun sets free is free.
SPEAKER_02: And if you've been set free, the devil will try to tell you that you have not been, but you know that you know that you know.
SPEAKER_02: This is why, in this stage of your relationship with God, you need to begin to surround yourself with people who are like minded that we Will continue to lift you up.
SPEAKER_02: This is why people end up falling away so quickly, is because in the emotional high, in the spiritual high of turning your life around and everything is good, then you start witnessing to your old friends, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_02: That is awesome.
SPEAKER_02: That is great.
SPEAKER_02: But you have to witness to them and then come back and start being matured.
SPEAKER_02: Because if not, you'll keep putting yourself out there to them and they will they you think you're drawing them, but eventually they'll begin to draw you.
SPEAKER_02: And so then all of a sudden, you have this weird come down of spiritual high, and then at the same time, your old friends are reaching out to you, and then all of a sudden you end up right back where you started, and it's just a vicious cycle over and over and over again of relationship nonsense that you're causing.
SPEAKER_02: There's a few more that we're gonna talk through.
SPEAKER_02: I haven't decided how many weeks it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_02: So we'll just stop there and we'll get on today's topic.
SPEAKER_02: The dating phase.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're if we're entering into February, let me know.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't know, I'm gonna help you.
SPEAKER_02: It is Valentine's Day coming up.
SPEAKER_02: Fellas, get on it, make your purchases now.
SPEAKER_02: Amazon prom, they get overwhelmed and they end up being not two days anymore.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we're in February, I'm gonna get it in May.
SPEAKER_02: I'm so impatient now.
SPEAKER_02: They got you spooled, and then they're like, oh, a bad ice storm, we can't get stuff to you.
SPEAKER_02: Go through the weather, bro.
SPEAKER_02: So they're like I said a minute ago, there's two kinds of people when you come into February.
SPEAKER_02: There are the ones talking about love who are on the side of love.
SPEAKER_02: They are all in it or they are looking for it.
SPEAKER_02: Where's my single people at?
SPEAKER_02: Where are you at?
SPEAKER_02: Lift your hand up.
SPEAKER_02: That's what you're working with.
SPEAKER_02: You're either you're either on the side of you love, love, and oh, I'm gonna get married.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I wanna be with somebody.
SPEAKER_02: I want this, I want that.
SPEAKER_02: I've got a list, I've got a whole bag of goodies they're gonna get when they get me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking for a blessing, but they don't know what a blessing I am going to be to them today.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna wear my best shoes, I'm gonna put on my best hairs.
SPEAKER_02: I don't wear one, but I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_02: You go out, you get looking good.
SPEAKER_02: You paint yourself up pretty.
SPEAKER_02: You wear your best clothes, you especially on that first date.
SPEAKER_02: Especially on that first date.
SPEAKER_02: My poor wife, and we went on a first date.
SPEAKER_02: I just had leftover clothes from like high school.
SPEAKER_02: But to give me credit, I did iron the shirt.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was missing a button.
SPEAKER_02: I think it was on the collar, on the thing, the cuff, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_02: What do you do?
SPEAKER_02: You roll your sleeves up, and then you have the other side of the coin where you talk about love, and they're like, shut up, nobody cares, go on somewhere.
SPEAKER_02: Love is stupid, and so are you.
SPEAKER_02: I know I got some of those in the house because I saw your faces when I said the L-word.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, it's like a weird.
SPEAKER_02: It was I wish I had a camera up here looking at y'all.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the funny thing is, both of these types of people are equally in each group.
SPEAKER_02: Single or taken.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna play a little video.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna play a little video.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to watch this.
SPEAKER_01: If they get in love, they they grow, baby.
SPEAKER_01: When people fall in love, they hold hands.
SPEAKER_01: When people are in love, they give each other flowers.
SPEAKER_01: It takes a lot of money to be in love, especially fruits.
SPEAKER_01: They can break me love flocks at times.
SPEAKER_01: I hate it.
SPEAKER_01: It's touching me that much unless it's a double double case.
SPEAKER_00: They wake you up very early when you're sleeping and not until they are such a weird stuff.
SPEAKER_01: He put the love in our heart.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and he lived in the sky.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't it cool?
SPEAKER_02: Hey, baby, come here for a second, we uh speaking of the O word.
SPEAKER_02: So Friday was my wonderful wife's birthday.
SPEAKER_02: Was it 21 or 29?
SPEAKER_02: Which one is it?
SPEAKER_02: 29.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that'll work.
SPEAKER_02: So the church got together and they wanted to give you something for your birthday and just to show you that they love you.
SPEAKER_02: So give her a hand.
SPEAKER_02: And if y'all don't find me next week, uh I'm buried somewhere in the backyard.
SPEAKER_02: So, as you can see, there are different opinions about love.
SPEAKER_02: Some of them said, when you're in love, you hold hands.
SPEAKER_02: Some of some little kids said he'd been in love so many times he hates it.
SPEAKER_02: And being in love apparently is expensive, especially if you're ugly.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the kid said.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't say it.
SPEAKER_02: I'm calling the kid.
SPEAKER_02: That's what he said.
SPEAKER_02: So, hey, I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_02: I understand that fact very well.
SPEAKER_02: It is expensive, y'all.
SPEAKER_02: It is expensive.
SPEAKER_02: So, what we often do, like these kids were doing, we do this as adults all the time.
SPEAKER_02: We put our worldly definitions on a heavenly concept.
SPEAKER_02: I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_02: We put our worldly definitions on a heavenly concept.
SPEAKER_02: This means that we throughout our lives, we look at what we see others doing regarding love, how others receive, how others perceive love, and then we apply it in our own relationships as if it is true.
SPEAKER_02: So, what this does is create a false foundation in our hearts and in our expectations and in all of our relationships of what love actually is.
SPEAKER_02: There's a reason that I can joke around and bring my wife up on stage and do things that are really dangerous like that.
SPEAKER_02: Because our love is not surfaced, there's an actual foundation, and God led me to her.
SPEAKER_02: So when things come and I do stupid things, I have grace.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: A little bit of grace, a little bit of grace.
SPEAKER_02: And her fingers are small, so it was even smaller than you were actually thinking.
SPEAKER_02: Got a little bit of grace.
SPEAKER_02: So then we experience this.
SPEAKER_02: We go through this relationship cycle.
SPEAKER_02: We have hurt, we have pain, we have trauma, and in relationships, we will write them off and say we are done when from the beginning we didn't give true love that only comes from the Father a proper place and soil to grow in.
SPEAKER_02: So now we have an endless cycle of bad relationships.
SPEAKER_02: Something that you all should look up, trauma bonds.
SPEAKER_02: You get hurt, you think it's the way life is, or maybe you were raised in a chaotic home.
SPEAKER_02: That's why I love that song earlier.
SPEAKER_02: Sickness, you have no place here.
SPEAKER_02: Chaos, you have no place here.
SPEAKER_02: Darkness, you have no place here.
SPEAKER_02: We have to have the authority in our lives that when darkness tries to creep in, and it will, because we live in a fallen world where principalities and darkness are ruling this world right now, we have to be understanding of what the Bible says we have the authority to speak out against.
SPEAKER_02: And when you bear the name of God and you have the salvation of Jesus and you have the power of the Holy Ghost, you can speak against anything that comes against you and it has to flee.
SPEAKER_02: Including bad relationships, trauma bonds you have allowed yourself to become attached to, that you won't cut the cord to every time they're sowing poisonous seeds into your heart, and you allow it to continue over and over and over.
SPEAKER_02: And through time, you wonder why you end up partaking from your garden bad poisonous fruit.
SPEAKER_02: It's because of the root system and the seed you've allowed to be planted in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: And then we have false identities tied to other people, things, and objects that we say is love.
SPEAKER_02: If you love me, y'all, they have commercialized Valentine's Day to get everybody to do on one day what I do for my wife throughout the gear.
SPEAKER_02: Come on, somebody.
SPEAKER_02: Threw that one in there.
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02: They commercialize it so much that we think that love means purchasing something for somebody else to get their gratitude so that then you can do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_02: When you mess up, what do you do?
SPEAKER_02: You buy that girl flowers or a flower that she likes.
SPEAKER_02: Even if she kills it.
SPEAKER_02: Just kidding.
SPEAKER_02: I'm digging the hole deeper.
SPEAKER_02: So we have false identities and we tie it to people in our lives that have no business actually being a part of our life.
SPEAKER_02: That have no business, like we've said the last few weeks, we talked about voices that people we allow speaking to our lives should not have any area or any reason to be in our lives that we allow them to be there because we are bound to them.
SPEAKER_02: You have people in abusive relationships that you feel like you would be doing something wrong if you leave, or you feel like if you stay, you can fix them, or they they they they buy you something, they say they're going to make it better, they're going to change, and then it never changes, or it changes for a while, and then you're right back.
SPEAKER_02: It's because you're only doing surface work to spiritual issues.
SPEAKER_02: Physical things will not make trauma go away.
SPEAKER_02: It may make you feel better for a moment.
SPEAKER_02: Flowers are good, but they die.
SPEAKER_02: Jewelry is great, but it will tarnish.
SPEAKER_02: A promise is all well and good, but they become broken.
SPEAKER_02: If you do not allow the Spirit of God to do a work deep in the relationship, and you don't allow your identity to be tied to someone else's.
SPEAKER_02: This is why we have people that fall apart in marriages, is because they got married and they started to make their identity surrounding the person they are married with.
SPEAKER_02: My wife is my best friend, but my identity is not in her.
SPEAKER_02: You could tell we're not the same person, but we love and adore each other so much.
SPEAKER_02: But here's what we're going to teach on next week about covenant.
SPEAKER_02: Just a little foreshadowing.
SPEAKER_02: Is when Abraham received what promise that God finally had with him in the covenant, it was through a son.
SPEAKER_02: Even after he tried to do it himself, he messed it up, he went his own way, and then he had to come back because he wasn't doing it right.
SPEAKER_02: He was not allowing God's timing to be done, he was allowing his own timing and what he wanted to be done when he wanted to see it done.
SPEAKER_02: And if you've ever done that, you know it does not work.
SPEAKER_02: It will bite you.
SPEAKER_02: And then God gave him the promise, and in a specific time, he carried that promise.
SPEAKER_02: Then God told him, Now that you have your promise, give it back to me.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us are trying to fix spiritual issues with carnal knowledge, and it does not fix the spiritual issue.
SPEAKER_02: Some people are in here today, and you have not been truly delivered of what's been haunting you.
SPEAKER_02: There are things that you don't even let anybody, maybe even your spouse or your friends, see that the demonic oppressions over your life, and you sit there and suffer in silence.
SPEAKER_02: God desires for you to be free.
SPEAKER_02: A false sense of self-worth.
SPEAKER_02: Now it becomes defined according to others instead of the father.
SPEAKER_02: And this is why.
SPEAKER_02: This is why love.
SPEAKER_02: They're trying to muddy it up and flip it around to where it has something to do with sexuality, and that is not love.
SPEAKER_02: It has nothing to do with sexual attraction, but it can be confused with love.
SPEAKER_02: When we get older, we change.
SPEAKER_02: And so we try to collide these two, and they're not the same.
SPEAKER_02: These two can enjoy each other, but they're not mutually exclusive.
SPEAKER_02: Because eventually this will slow down, and you are left with what was there under the surface all along.
SPEAKER_02: This is why it is so destructive and it is damaging to anything you do sexually outside of marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Because it will destroy the blessing and future covenant that God wants to have in your marriage, in your relationships, because He has designed this specifically under the blessing of God to be enjoyed.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone ever thought you've been in love before?
SPEAKER_02: And then you found out I might have been, I might have missed that one a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, when I when I got my first car, 15 years old, had a 92 Thunderbird.
SPEAKER_02: I thought about getting a picture, but nobody wants to see that.
SPEAKER_02: It was a 92 Thunderbird, it was a boat.
SPEAKER_02: Man, it drove smooth, had a V8 engine in it.
SPEAKER_02: I wore those tires out so quick.
SPEAKER_02: My dad was like, What's wrong with your tires?
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, dad.
SPEAKER_02: Had a sunroof in there.
SPEAKER_02: I drove.
SPEAKER_02: I I practiced, you know, when you go through driving school at 15, they tend they teach you two and ten.
SPEAKER_02: I taught myself noon.
SPEAKER_02: And I taught myself noon o'clock because this left hand was gonna be over here while someday this right hand was gonna be holding another hand.
SPEAKER_02: I had plans.
SPEAKER_02: You tell my wife, anytime we get in the car, her hand's in mine.
SPEAKER_02: I grab her hand.
SPEAKER_02: If she ain't paying attention, I'll grab it.
SPEAKER_02: If she's got her phone in the hand, in that hand, I'll shake it out and grab her hand.
SPEAKER_02: I love that connection.
SPEAKER_02: But there was times when I thought that I was in love.
SPEAKER_02: And in that, sometimes we act on that, we think it's love, but it's just attraction.
SPEAKER_02: Just attraction.
SPEAKER_02: Just because something that is pleasing does not mean it's pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_02: And just because you see something good does not mean that is what God desires for you to have.
SPEAKER_02: Just because you see something good does not mean it is God.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us see something that is pleasing and good, and we're like, oh, well, that's gotta be a blessing from the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And then we get a hold of it and it's miserable the rest of our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Because we didn't care what God had to say about it, we thought it was good, so it had to be God, and that's not always the case.
SPEAKER_02: Does not mean it is what God desires for your life, and so I call this the dating phase, but this will apply to any type of relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes, for you to remain healthy and survive, you must cut off some of the poisonous branches.
SPEAKER_02: There must be a pruning process from the gardener, the Holy Spirit coming through and getting rid of some things.
SPEAKER_02: First Corinthians chapter 15 and 33, and it says this do not be misled.
SPEAKER_02: Bad company corrupts good character.
SPEAKER_02: There's a saying that if you want me to show you who you will be in five years, show me your friends.
SPEAKER_02: We are called to witness and preach the gospel after a spiritual maturity has taken place in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Now, you go through the disciples, Jesus trained them, he taught them, he sent them out, brought them back with the reports and everything.
SPEAKER_02: But they did not do their full ministry and was out on their own until after they were filled with the Spirit and left the upper room.
SPEAKER_02: You can't go out there against a power you don't understand with the power you ain't got.
SPEAKER_02: Do not be misled.
SPEAKER_02: I can't.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't write that one down.
SPEAKER_02: That was just you can't go out there with a power you don't understand with the power you ain't got.
SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
SPEAKER_02: Did I say that right?
SPEAKER_02: We'll watch it back because I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02: If you've ever been paying attention, we've been talking about every single week to get rid of the bad and replace it with the good.
SPEAKER_02: Replacing everything in your life, every single decision, every single moment where you can have clarity in the spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Not in your not in your head, in your flesh of how you feel.
SPEAKER_02: Don't let your feelings manipulate your faith.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to understand that his desire is to be close to you, to be your mentor, your friend, your protector.
SPEAKER_02: And when you become close with God, you begin to realize that the things like just happened today, you begin to lay the things that you held so dear that held, you think you're holding them, but they are actually holding you.
SPEAKER_02: You lay them at the feet of Jesus and you don't pick them back up.
SPEAKER_02: And if you want to step on them, do it.
SPEAKER_02: That you are so in love with God, this is what he desires, that you are so in love with God that even your thoughts align with his.
SPEAKER_02: A few weeks ago, we talked from the scripture of capture every thought and make it subject to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Everything in your life, every word out of your mouth needs to fall subject to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Everything that you are so in love with him, you don't want anything the world has to offer.
SPEAKER_02: You know, when I was a younger Christian, I was on fire, I was things were good, and I started thinking, you know, well, I'm missing out on all the stuff that I can't have anymore.
SPEAKER_02: The same is when you were in a marriage.
SPEAKER_02: If you view your marriage that way, you will end up stepping out of the confines of marriage covenant.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that you're missing something, it's that what you've got is better than anything else out there.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that you're missing out on other things, it's that the thing God is doing in you through you is better than anything the world can offer.
SPEAKER_02: And all that we are is submissive to God.
SPEAKER_02: Everything that I am in the confines of my marriage is submissive to my wife.
SPEAKER_02: She has every single login information on social media and email.
SPEAKER_02: She has access to places that none of you will never know exist.
SPEAKER_02: Because I give that, I'm submissive to her in that way.
SPEAKER_02: Because I don't want the devil to try to trap me in places that I am weak.
SPEAKER_02: If you think just because you come to God, you have no more relationship issues and everything's gonna be good, woe is you because you're gonna have a great awakening one day.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus promised, He promised you will have troubles, you will be persecuted.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I know we live in the great country of the United States of America, and we don't live in a third-world country like China where they have to have underground churches.
SPEAKER_02: But when was the last time that you were actually persecuted for you standing up for your faith because you knew what the truth was, in spite of what the culture said?
SPEAKER_02: You do not have to be hateful to be truthful.
SPEAKER_02: You can show love and shine the light, it's going to make people uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_02: When you shine light on the devil, he squirms.
SPEAKER_02: God wants every desire.
SPEAKER_02: Of yours to be his.
SPEAKER_02: He wants your will to align with his will.
SPEAKER_02: We get this in many scriptures in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_02: We talk about getting together and praying and aligning your will with God, and He will answer you.
SPEAKER_02: You have to understand the will of God.
SPEAKER_02: How you do that?
SPEAKER_02: You have a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_02: You read His Word, you know what He says about Himself.
SPEAKER_02: When you begin to understand the Creator, you begin to really understand the creation.
SPEAKER_02: You can't really know yourself clearly until you know God clearly.
SPEAKER_02: And I want you to, if you're taking notes, write this down.
SPEAKER_02: The foundation of a godly relationship is not happiness, it is unity.
SPEAKER_02: What did we say a few weeks ago about happiness?
SPEAKER_02: It's a false synthetic of what true joy is.
SPEAKER_02: Happiness goes like this.
SPEAKER_02: But unity stays together in spite of what things look like, in spite of how things are working out, in spite of the season you're in, you stay together, you are unified.
SPEAKER_02: In Amos chapter 3, verse 3.
SPEAKER_02: Can two people walk together without agreeing on the same direction?
SPEAKER_02: It's unity.
SPEAKER_02: God values relationship, God values unity.
SPEAKER_02: What God seeks to unite, the devil schemes to divide.
SPEAKER_02: What God wants to unite in this church, you can bet your bottom dollar the devil's going to try to get in the middle of us, and he's going to try to divide what God is trying to unify.
SPEAKER_02: He'll try to get us mad at each other.
SPEAKER_02: He'll try to get you to find something wrong with the pastor or his wife.
SPEAKER_02: He'll try to get you to find something in the worship team or on the booth or whatever, the kids' program, anything that you can find and complain about, the devil will try to present it to you where it's appetizing.
SPEAKER_02: And if you partake of this fruit, that day you will surely die.
SPEAKER_02: Because your spirit person will begin to go in a direction you do not want to walk down.
SPEAKER_02: To where you become critical of the mission, critical of the vision, critical of your fellow people in the house of God.
SPEAKER_02: And then you have division.
SPEAKER_02: And God is not a God of division, He is a God of unity.
SPEAKER_02: Ask yourself every relationship that you have in your life, have you allowed God to be the center of it?
SPEAKER_02: If God is the center of it, it will change the way you speak with each other, it'll change the way you react and interact with each other.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna say this, and I want you to understand this.
SPEAKER_02: I do not mean only relationships that you enjoy.
SPEAKER_02: I got real quiet on that one.
SPEAKER_02: Even the people you don't enjoy talking to, you still have to have a God-centered relationship with them.
SPEAKER_02: Now that's tough.
SPEAKER_02: Because you don't want to deal with people that you don't want to deal with, they're annoying, they're unpleasant.
SPEAKER_02: But if you put God in the middle of it, you will begin to have a compassion towards them like Jesus had towards the sinners.
SPEAKER_02: And is that not the point?
SPEAKER_02: Is that not that should that not be our desire to be what Jesus was?
SPEAKER_02: Even on the cross, he took one more into heaven with him.
SPEAKER_02: Even in the agony of his death, he still desired to save at least one more before he went.
SPEAKER_02: Should that not be our desire as people who say we bear the name of Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Should that not be the vision of our households, of our church, to before we go to take one more with us?
SPEAKER_02: You can't do that if you're not offering anything.
SPEAKER_02: If you're poisoning the people around you, you need a spiritual cleansing.
SPEAKER_02: Every relationship needs to be Jesus centered.
SPEAKER_02: This may be a marriage or a parenting relationship, a coworker relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Put Jesus back in the center of it all.
SPEAKER_02: God honors, He loves, and He desires for His children to be in good relationship with each other.
SPEAKER_02: In spite of our differences, being different from each other does not mean we cannot work together.
SPEAKER_02: Actually, we sometimes see it as a flaw, but it can be a benefit because you'll see something that I will never see.
SPEAKER_02: You'll think of something that I never would have thought of because you're on the other side of it.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I think we view church as this long, skinny table and there's a head.
SPEAKER_02: But I believe God wants a round table where everybody sits and faces each other and we communicate with each other.
SPEAKER_02: To where we all are sitting in the same place, just in a different spot.
SPEAKER_02: Unity does not mean we are the same, but it does mean we are together.